Going to Hell for All the Right Reasons

The Apostles’ Creed presents a systematic unfolding of what we ought to believe. Even the great reformer Martin Luther expressed his perspective on hell as a physical place. He said, "I think very little of the idea that there is a special place that is consigned for the damned dead to be put in prior to the final judgment."

Paul announces, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for correction, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God [and woman of God] might be perfect, thoroughly furnished, in all good works" (2 Tim. 3:16,17). Since the text in 1 Peter 3:19 says, "He went and preached to the spirits in prison," there must be something profitable from this inspired text. And so what is it?

We read the author, Simon Peter, and it’s as if we are reading his mail because Peter was not initially writing to us. Let’s read his mail. In verse 14, he acknowledges that we are going to suffer. He is not a proponent of prosperity theology. In verse 14, he admonishes us, "Don’t be paralyzed by fear. Don’t fear fear." In verse 15 we are challenged "to always be ready to give an answer for the reason of the hope that lies in you."

Verse 16 infers that, "You are going to be the kind of people who will lead the kind of life as a Christian that those who persecute you, put you in the Roman Coliseum and allow lions to dismember your body, when they see how you lie before them praising God and praying for the forgiveness of those who were persecuting them, they will be embarrassed and put to shame." In verse 17 he argues that, "You ought to be the kind of individual that is eager to do good, because it’s better to suffer for doing good and for serving God than to suffer for doing evil."

And then we are brought to verse 18 where Peter emphatically states, "Christ once and for all died." One time. It would no longer be necessary for mercy to make a yearly installment payment to justice at the annual great day of the atonement sacrifice. On that Friday when Jesus died once and for all, the curtain in the temple was rent from top to bottom, and God was sending a message. The message was: "I am tearing up the mortgage note once and for all."

Elvina M. Hall picked up the pen of illumination and dipped it in the ink of inspiration when she wrote, "Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow." He died one time, and that was enough.