Going to Hell for All the Right Reasons

Now this statement in the Apostles’ Creed is difficult for us to latch onto because we’ve been influenced and informed from the arena of arts: from the writings of Dante and John Milton, and from the painting of Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment. We’ve been informed and shaped by them. So what does prison really mean?

In the Gorée Island of West Africa, where the slave dungeons were, there is a door that is named "The Door of No Return." Slaves were taken through that door. What’s ironic is that there is no door there. But once they got beyond that door, and were put in the slave ships, their families were separated; and they would never see each other again nor come back to Africa again. Is this what this prison is? The Door of No Return?

Jean-Paul Sartre wrote a play titled "No Exit," where he talks about hell. Is that really what this prison is?

Could God’s hell be His love for human beings? When you love someone, you want that person to share everything you have. God wanted people to share everything with Him in the coming of Jesus Christ; however, Jesus came to His own, but His own received Him not (John 1:11). Couldn’t God have made it easier on Himself? Couldn’t God have just written a tax-deductible charity check for every human being on the face of the earth? This would have been an eternal euphemism, which would not have done us any good.

Instead of God transferring funds to us, He transferred Himself. As a result of taking on flesh, God felt what we felt and did not spare His Son from death. That’s God’s hell. It breaks the heart of God when people reject the person and work of Jesus Christ. Christ’s hell, if there is such a thing, is the absence of His Father. "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34).

Even Socrates, when he was dying, had friends around him. Before he died, he had a final philosophical discussion before drinking deadly hemlock. Jesus wasn’t alone in death. He was crucified between two thieves. His mother, John and the Roman officers were there. The weeping women and the crowd were there. But where was God? Peter is writing to encourage a little congregation in Asia Minor in the midst of their persecution. We must keep this in mind as we consider this text: "He went to preach to the spirits in prison."

In A.D. 64, Nero caused a fire in Rome. In October of that same year, after blaming Christians, he took Christians, and at night burned their bodies to light up his palace. Peter is encouraging Christians to be firm in the midst of their discouragement and persecution. Why? Because of Christ! Not only His suffering, not only His death, not only His resurrection, not only His ascension, but also for the fact that He went to the prison and preached to the spirits there. In going to preach to the spirits, He was making this announcement: "I have won, I’m victorious, and I sit on the right hand of the Father in the place of power, and make intercession for you."