Who will go to hell?

But, further, the Lord says to Nicodemus, — "God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believes on him is not condemned; but he that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3:17-18). Now nothing can be plainer than this. The man who has not truly and really believed in the Son of God, who has not, in other words, been "born again," and turned to God through faith in Jesus, is "already condemned." He is not on trial, and the state of his soul an open question. The trial is over. The judge has spoken. The verdict is given. The unbeliever is "condemned already." The only thing future, is the execution of the sentence, — death; and "after this the judgment," — the lake of fire for ever, "the second death."

There is no middle class. Scripture makes that plain. Listen: "He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already." And again: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:18, 36). You are a believer or an unbeliever; you are free from condemnation or condemned already; you have everlasting life or the wrath of God abides upon you. Which is it? Some say, "I'm on the fence." That cannot be, because there is no fence. A valley lay between the Israelites and the uncircumcised. And a distance that no line can measure God has put between His people and the world.

The passage makes it clear that there can be no judgment for the believer in Christ; otherwise it would deny the efficacy of the work of Christ when lifted up on the Cross. It makes it equally clear that the one who rejects Christ is condemned already. The blessing or the judgment turns upon the attitude of men to Christ, and not simply on the evil they have done.

The books are opened, for in these are recorded all the works of all who stand there. No believer will be among them, for all believers who ever die will have been raised in the first resurrection. The book of life also is opened to confirm that the names of all who stand there are not written in it. They are all judged according to their works. This being the case, there is no possibility of their escaping the Lake of Fire. They have depended on their works to save them, but those works can only condemn them. Their works will not all have been the same, and the judgment will be perfectly just. Luke 12:47-48 shows that some will receive many stripes in the way of punishment, others fewer. The degree of guilt will determine the degree of punishment, but the place and duration of punishment is the same for every unbeliever. They were before under condemnation, having not believed in the Son of God (John 3:18). Now sentence is carried out.

Remember that the very fact of God having sent a Saviour is a proof that you and I are lost. But people will not have this; they do not like to hear it. If a preacher talks of judgment to come, or of sinners going to hell, they will not listen to it. "Surely we are all facing for heaven," people say. No, no. Do not deceive yourself. If you are not redeemed, if you are not under the shelter of the blood of Christ, God's Lamb, your face is not heavenward, but toward the lake of fire. You will have to meet the judgment of God yourself, unless you get under the shelter of the blood of Him who bore that judgment as your substitute.

If I look, too, on the terribly dark side which Luke 16 speaks to us of, it is all the same. What took the rich man to hell? His sin. Look at the category, in Revelation 21, of those who find themselves in the lake of fire for eternity. "The fearful, the unbelieving, abominable murderers," etc., etc. What brought each one there? His sin. All rank, all difference is gone then. Sin consigns the unbelieving sinner to hell, and blood brings the believing soul to glory; all else is set aside.

How significant this fact in this day of widespread profession! General assent is given to the call. Bad and good have outwardly heard it, and have assumed the Christian profession; but, even of these, few have accepted the wedding garment—the title to the feast—few are morally fit, pardoned, justified, having Christ for their righteousness. For such there can be but outer darkness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth. Reader, have you the wedding garment?

Talents were handed out by the man travelling to a far country, so that in his prolonged absence his servants might trade with the same, and that on his return he might receive his own with usury. To one servant was given five talents, to another, two, to a third, one. See the earnestness and zeal of the two, who had respectively five talents and two talents. Year in and year out they traded industriously in view of their Lord’s return. How sadly different was the conduct of the one to whom the one talent had been entrusted. See him digging in his garden, behold him burying the precious talent out of sight. What cared he for his lord! What value did he put on the one talent entrusted to him! Surely this is not symbolical of a true believer, but of a mere professor. And what was his end? One that will never be the experience of a true believer—outer darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth.

"And before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats." It is a careful and divine discrimination — not a mere act of vengeance which deals with masses, in which all might be overwhelmed in common ruin. He separates them one from another. At the great white throne, where the dead stand to be judged, there is no need of separating them there. But here there is a mingled company. Such a mixture is never found in heaven or hell, but only on the earth. Thus every clause gives proof that our Lord speaks of a judgment of the living on the earth. He separates them "as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats." It follows that the persons meant by "the sheep" and "the goats" are respectively the righteous and the ungodly among the nations then living on the earth, when our Lord comes to judge in His quality of Son of Man. It is not now what we have seen in Matthew 24, where He shines suddenly like lightning. Here it is the calm, but most solemn judgment, with everlasting results, according to the discrimination which the Lord makes between individuals. When the judgment of the dead takes place before the great white throne, the heavens and earth are fled away; so that the Lord must have come before then, or there would be no earth as it is now to come to, as we all confess He shall come.

But there is a very solemn back-ground to the blessed entrance into the kingdom: "Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" (ver. 41). Observe, He does not say, Cursed of My Father, answering to "Blessed of My Father." God hates putting away. So when the awful moment comes for the curse to be pronounced on these wicked Gentiles, it is "Depart from Me, ye cursed." I believe it is the deepest sorrow to God, and throws all the onus of destruction on those whose own sin it was, who rejected His love and holiness and glory in rejecting His Son. "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." In the other case the kingdom was said to be "prepared for you:" not so when speaking about the curse. Hell was not prepared for poor guilty man. He deserves it; but it was prepared for the devil and his angels. Where the souls rejected the testimony, he does pronounce them cursed. He is the King, the judge. But whether it be the great white throne, or this earthly throne, it is "everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." There was no hope of deliverance for these fallen angels — no redemption for them. They wilfully and without a tempter departed from God. Man was tempted by an enemy; and God feels for guilty man, drawn away by a mightier, if not more guilty, rebel than himself. How solemn to think that it was prepared for others, and that men share it with these rebellious spirits? It was not in the heart of God to make a hell for miserable man: it was prepared for the devil and his angels. But there were those who preferred the devil to God; and to such He says, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." The same test is applied to them as to the godly before — the treatment of the King and of His messengers, or rather of Him in them.