This Is Not That: Hell
The Doors Are Always Open
You’ve probably seen that painting of Jesus standing outside a little cottage, holding a lantern, knocking gently on a wooden door. Every Sunday school kid learns there’s no handle on the outside—you have to open it from within.
Cute, right?
Until you play it out.
“Open the door,” He says.
“Why?”
“So I can save you.”
“Save me from what?”
“From what I’m going to do to you if you don’t open the door.”
If that’s the story, Jesus isn’t the Savior—He’s an eager arsonist with a bucket of water.
That’s how upside-down our view of God has become. We’ve turned the best news the world has ever heard into a threat. We’ve made grace sound like a contract and God like someone we need to be rescued from.
But Jesus didn’t come to save us from God. He came to show us who God actually is.
The God Who’s Already Here
When one of His friends said, “Just show us the Father,” Jesus replied, “If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father” (John 14:9). That line changes everything. It means God has never been anyone other than what we see in Jesus—merciful, unhurried, and fully present.
He’s not angry, absent, or waiting to see how you perform. He’s already here, already for you, already holding everything together (Colossians 1:15–17).
David said it this way: “If I make my bed in the depths, You are there” (Psalm 139:8).
Everything that exists—every molecule, angel, person, and power—exists in Him. Paul wrote, “For in Him all things were created… all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16–17).
In other words, nothing has its own independent life apart from Jesus. So whoever Satan is, and wherever hell is, they have no life of their own. They can only exist within the sustaining reality of Christ—and that means they are already being undone by the same love that holds them together.
Hell isn’t a rival kingdom running on its own power; it’s a temporary delusion inside the larger reality of Jesus, the One in whom “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
The Broad and Narrow Road
Jesus once said, “Broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it, but narrow is the road that leads to life, and few find it” (Matthew 7:13–14).
We’ve often taken that as a warning to “get right,” but Jesus wasn’t threatening anyone—He was describing reality.
The broad road is the easy path of control and self-reliance—the myth of independence, the life of managing outcomes. It’s the road most people travel because it looks safe and normal. But it leads to exhaustion, anxiety, and despair—a present hell for many.
The narrow road, on the other hand, is the rare path of trust—a way of life that doesn’t make sense to a world addicted to control. It’s the peace that “surpasses understanding” (Philippians 4:7).
Few find it not because it’s hidden, but because trust feels terrifying when you’ve been trained to protect yourself.
And the good news? Jesus isn’t standing on the narrow road waiting for us to get there. He’s the Shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to chase the one wandering down the broad road (Luke 15:4–7).
He’s searching every ditch until He finds us, scoops us up, and carries us home.
So His words about the broad and narrow road aren’t warnings to “get your act together”—they’re a picture of the world’s obsession with control, and a God chasing His lost kids down every road that burns.
The Fire That Burns to Heal
When Jesus talked about “hell,” He didn’t use the word “hell.” He used Gehenna—a real valley outside Jerusalem where trash, dead animals, and even the bodies of criminals were burned. It was the city dump. It smoked constantly. It stank. It was filth and flame.
So when He said, “It’s better to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into Gehenna” (Matthew 5:29), He wasn’t describing a divine torture chamber. He was warning people about what happens when you cling to pride—you end up living in the garbage fire of your own making.
Which means Jesus wasn’t threatening people with God’s wrath. He was inviting them out of self-destruction.
Hell, in Jesus’ words, wasn’t about punishment later—it was about destruction now. It’s the loneliness of self-protection and the fire of love resisted.
But even that fire doesn’t have the last word. Scripture says, “Our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). That doesn’t mean He’s out to burn us up; it means His love is so pure that it consumes everything false until only what’s real remains.
Fire doesn’t destroy gold—it refines it (Malachi 3:2–3). God’s fire burns away illusions, pride, and fear that can’t survive the truth.
In Matthew 25:46, Jesus said some would enter “eternal punishment” while others enter “eternal life.” At first glance, that sounds like two destinations. But the Greek tells a different story.
The word translated “punishment” is kolasis, a horticultural term for pruning trees so they could grow back healthy. It means correction, not condemnation—discipline, not destruction.
The word translated “eternal” is aiōnios, which doesn’t mean “never-ending” but “belonging to the age of God.”
So “eternal punishment” literally means the pruning of the age—the refining work of divine love wherever it finds resistance. It’s the same fire, experienced differently: mercy to the humble, exposure to the proud.
God’s justice doesn’t mean payback; it means setting things right. The fire of judgment isn’t God getting even—it’s God getting us evened out with truth. Every wrong still faces the light, every wound still meets the Healer (Romans 2:4; John 3:19–21).
Free will doesn’t mean the power to resist truth forever. Real freedom is seeing clearly—and once we see Love as it truly is, resistance collapses into worship (John 8:32). Even if that’s not until later, when “every knee will bow, and every tongue confess” (Philippians 2:10–11).
Jesus also used vivid images—darkness, fire, worms—to describe what happens when grace collides with stubborn pride (Matthew 8:12; Mark 9:48). Those aren’t GPS coordinates; they’re metaphors for inner reality. They show how unbearable truth feels to a heart still clinging to lies.
In short: judgment is love doing what love does—making things whole again.
The God Who Holds It All Together
Jesus told a story about a rich man who ignored a poor man named Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31). When the rich man dies, he finds himself “in torment,” begging for water. At first, it sounds like punishment—but he’s still acting like he’s above Lazarus. “Send Lazarus to bring me water.”
He still doesn’t see him as an equal.
So what burns him isn’t God’s anger—it’s the exposure of his own pride. He’s thirsty for the mercy he refused to give. The “chasm” between them isn’t a wall God built—it’s the mindset the man still clings to. That’s the torment of hell: holding onto control in a kingdom built on grace.
Yet even there, his thirst tells the truth. He still wants what only love can give. And that longing is the ember that won’t go out—because even hell’s fire exists inside the One who “holds all things together” (Colossians 1:17).
That’s why Peter could preach that Jesus will remain in heaven “until the time comes for God to restore everything” (Acts 3:21). Paul said the same thing: “As in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive… and God will be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:22–28).
If death is the last enemy to be destroyed, then eternal destruction can’t be the ending. The cross didn’t make salvation possible; it made reconciliation inevitable. Because the story doesn’t end with separation—it ends with restoration.
The Door That’s Never Been Locked
Maybe that old painting isn’t wrong—it’s just backwards. Jesus isn’t standing outside our door, waiting to be let in. We’re the ones standing outside His, wondering if we’re still welcome.
But heaven’s doors have never been locked. They’ve been standing open this whole time (Isaiah 60:11; Revelation 21:25).
Through those open doors comes the laughter of a Father still throwing parties for lost kids who finally come home (Luke 15:20–24)—a Father whose fire burns not to punish but to purify. Not to consume people, but to consume everything that keeps people from love.
He knocks—not to gain permission, but to wake us up. And through the crack in the door, you can almost hear Him smile:
“Open up. I’m not here to save you from Me. I’m here to save you from the lie that ever thought you needed saving from Me.”
A Final Word (Honest Disclaimer)
There’s a lot of debate and research on this topic—about what hell is and how long it lasts. This chapter isn’t a fix-all or the final word.
It’s a look at what Scripture actually says—and what Jesus Himself reveals—so you can begin to discover what youbelieve about it.
But if Jesus is the truth about God, and God is the consuming fire of love, then maybe hell isn’t the end of the story. Maybe it’s the beginning of our awakening.
Because the “doors of heaven are always open” (Rev 21:25). And the only thing burning forever is grace itself—refusing to quit until every last shadow is gone, and all that’s left is you, alive and free in the fire of God’s love.