Does One Have to Believe in Hell to Be a Christian?

Does one have to believe in hell to be a Christian?

I know for myself there was a time in my Christian walk when I desperately wanted to believe that hell didn't exist. My faith in Christ left me sure of my own salvation but I was concerned about the fate of others - as well we should be. What concerned me also was that I didn't want to believe in a God who would use the punishment of hell as a reasonable consequence of our sin.

That was also one of two main reasons a young man named Lester gave me for rejecting the Christian faith he grew up in. Most people I talk to find it difficult to believe that they might end up in hell. They trivialize their own sin and God’s holiness to the point that they doubt whether they are so bad that they personally would ever deserve such a punishment, though they have no problem believing that others might end up there. Lester, however, takes it a step further and says that no one should be eternally punished for their sins, and that a loving God would not judge and punish sin like that.

However, Lester gave a second main reason for his rejection of Christian belief – that a person shouldn’t just be able to “pray a prayer” and be saved automatically. God’s grace can’t be that free. They should have to prove their faith through repentance and good deeds somehow in order to be saved.

I find these two reasons for rejecting the faith of his upbringing to be both in conflict and in agreement with one another in different ways. First, they are in conflict because on the one hand is the idea that God is too harsh with the punishment of hell, yet on the other hand God would be too soft by letting guilty people off the hook, only to keep on sinning. The middle approach Lester prefers is to say that God doesn’t punish sin, but that if a person does continue to sin then they would be reincarnated in another life where they would hopefully be more worthy of salvation.

Yet the two main problems Lester has with the Christian faith also have something in common. Lester rejects both because to him they seem too extreme. Like the famous “this porridge is to hot” or “this one is too cold, but tis one is just right” dilemma in Goldilocks and the Three Bears, both views assume that Goldilocks is in charge. But who is Lester, and who are we to determine that God’s punishment is too harsh, or that His grace given too freely?

Instead of committing the sin of idolatry and creating an image of God that we are more comfortable with, shouldn’t we let God reveal Himself to us through scripture, no matter how extreme it might seem and no matter how uncomfortable it makes us feel? If we are truly open to the truth revealed throughout the Bible and especially through the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels, we will find both extremes – both God’s wrath in the punishment of sin AND God’s grace in the granting of forgiveness through repentance and faith in Jesus.

So, do we have to believe in hell to be a Christian? Romans 5:8 tells us that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The emphasis in scripture is usually on the Savior, not on what we have been saved from, but this particular passage gives us all we really need to know in the very next verse: “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!”

In Jesus, we are saved from “God’s wrath”, which we may not understand completely but would all agree it must be avoided at all costs, for elsewhere we read “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:31)

I’m not so sure we have to agree on the specifics - such as whether it is eternal punishment or eternal destruction – but what I do know is that knowing of the judgment and punishment I deserve as a guilty sinner makes the forgiveness and grace I experience through a faith relationship with Jesus all the more amazing.