How to Think Through Our Objections to Hell

January 29, 2024 Pastor Chris Oswald

Thesis Our struggle with the justice of hell reveals not a problem with God's character but our own lack of insight into divine holiness and human sinfulness — a deficit that requires epistemic humility rather than moral judgment of God.

Series

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Type

Topical

Tone

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Method

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What's in this sermon

The shape of the argument

19 units across exposition, application, illustration, theological claim, and conclusion. The pastor's argument is built from these moving parts.

Pastoral correction · unit #8

"Oswald applies the principle eschatologically: if our confident understanding is routinely overturned by new information in this life, how much more will it be overturned when we stand before God? The appropriate pastoral response to struggling with hell is to lean not on one's own understanding — to actively distrust one's moral intuitions in light of known cognitive limits."

Doctrinal loci· 7 surfaced

Theology Proper · 8 Eschatology · 6 Anthropology · 5 Hamartiology · 4 Ethics / Moral Theology · 3 Bibliology · 1 Christology · 1

Bible citations· 7

2 Timothy 1:10 | Proverbs 3:5 | Isaiah 55:9 | 1 John 4:8

Illustrations· 1

historical example · unit #1 — Oswald offers an extended analogy from first-century political vocabulary to demonstrate how new information radically disrupts confident prior understanding. The illustration establishes the pattern: what we thought was a complete picture was actually constructed from incomplete data, and hidden evidence reveals our previous certainty was premature.

Theological claims· 5

The revelation of hell in Scripture assumes a depth of insight into divine holiness and human sinfulness that most of us do not have. unit #3
Only when we are face to face with Jesus Christ will we really understand the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man, and then hell will seem perfectly and completely just. unit #5
When struggling with the problem of evil or hell, we should doubt ourselves rather than God, since God reveals that we lack the cognitive hardware to understand many divine realities. unit #9
Oswald introduces the second pastoral strategy via aeronautical analogy: just as planes have engineering-imposed altitude ceilings, human minds have cognitive ceilings. The analogy establishes that limits are not moral failures but design features — we are engineered for a particular operational range. unit #10
God is love — not accountable to love; whatever we think we know about love either came from God's nature or from a false god. unit #14

Quotations· 5

"The revelation of hell in Scripture assumes a depth of insight into divine holiness and human demonic sinfulness that most of us do not have." — J.I. Packer (unit #3)

"The revelation of hell in Scripture assumes a depth of insight into divine holiness and human demonic sinfulness that most of us do not have." — J.I. Packer (unit #4)

"As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways above your ways." — God (via Isaiah 55:9) (unit #9)

"As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways above your ways." — God (via Isaiah 55:9) (unit #12)

"That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works." — Old lady in insurance commercial (unit #13)

Read it

Full transcript

14,412 characters 19 units ~16 min reading time Listen instead →

0 · Oswald frames the sermon as a follow-up to Sunday's message on 2 Timothy 1:10 and Jesus abolishing death

Hey there. Welcome to the Providence Podcast. My name is Chris Oswald, senior pastor at Providence Community Church. Welcome, welcome, welcome. So glad that you're here. Today we're going to follow up on a particular piece of the sermon preached yesterday, the subject being second Timothy, chapter one, verse ten, in which we are told that Jesus abolish death. Now, it was necessary in that sermon, in order to illustrate the glories of that reality, to talk a little bit about hell. And I typically find after preaching a sermon on hell, whether folks come to me or not, that this is a source of struggle for, well, I would say probably most Christians at one time or another, the very idea of hell, the very idea of the justness of hell is a struggle for, I would say, most Christians from time to time. And so I thought we'd talk about that today.

1 · Oswald offers an extended analogy from first-century political vocabulary to demonstrate how new information radically disrupts confident prior understanding

I want to start by referring to something else in the sermon that may seem not to have anything to do with this subject, but we'll get there. I mentioned yesterday that even in writing that Jesus was Savior, Paul was committing an explicitly political act, certainly more so when he would talk about Jesus as Lord. Now, the popular idea of separation of church and state has molded our understanding and made us think that good Christians don't dabble in politics, and they're certainly not overtly confrontational with politicians. And we think that primarily because of the particular country that we live in, the tradition of separation of church and state, the very idea, although I think it a faulty one, of so called secular society, we have our minds molded by all these ideas. And so we read the New Testament in that light and assume that, well, we never see Paul explicitly sort of challenge the emperor. And so that must not be a good idea. That must not be what Christians do. But then you get this added archaeological and historical data and you realize that actually pretty much most of the words used to refer to Jesus in the New Testament were used first. First to describe Caesar Augustus. And you begin to realize that, wait a minute, this. The government at the time was an explicitly religious government. And even the word gospel that we use today was used again, first to refer to the coming of Caesar Augustus, the euangelion, the gospel, the good news, the good tidings that was referred first and foremost to Caesar Augustus. And so you begin to realize that your whole conception of a apolitical New Testament just didn't ever exist. It was a false construct that you created with the data that you had. Even the word parresia, which in the New Testament often refers to the return of Jesus, was a word that was used in the Greek world, in the Roman world, to refer to the presence of the emperor in a city, his arrival in a city. And so the point being, you thought you understood the role of politics in Christianity. And then all of this evidence that you didn't know about comes into being and you realize that your previous understanding has been totally disrupted by this new data.

2 · Oswald pivots from the political vocabulary illustration to the doctrine of hell, making explicit the analogy's function: just as hidden historical data revealed that confident understanding of NT politics was premature, hidden theological data (insight into God's holiness and human sinfulness) explains our struggle with hell's justice

It's something like you realize what you thought was a full baked opinion turned out to be a half baked opinion. And the only way that you come to that understanding is when new information reveals that your previous understanding was wrong. Now I bring that up because yesterday we talked about hell. And again, I would say that at some point or another, most Christians really do struggle with the reality of hell. I know I certainly have, specifically with the justness of hell. And again, I just wanted to address that issue and I brought up the political thing because I wanted to show you an example of how people thought they had one understanding fairly clear, only to arrive at a new understanding when new data presents itself.

3 · Oswald introduces Packer's diagnostic claim: the biblical revelation of hell presupposes theological insight into God's holiness and human sinfulness that most Christians lack

And that has to do with one of the quotes I read from JI Packer that might have passed by rather quickly, as it was only one sentence in his discussion of Hell. He says the revelation of hell in Scripture assumes a depth of insight into divine holiness and human demonic sinfulness that most of us do not have.

4 · Oswald unpacks Packer's claim by repetition and expansion

The revelation of hell in Scripture assumes a depth of insight into divine holiness and human and demonic sinfulness that most of us do not have. What he's saying is that to understand hell, we need a depth of insight into the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man to really get it, to think that it's right. We need a depth of insight into the holiness of God and sinfulness of man. A depth of insight most of us do not have. We need more information than we currently have. If we're struggling with hell, we're struggling with the reality of hell.

5 · Oswald makes an eschatological claim: incremental growth in understanding God's holiness is possible but insufficient

Now, it's possible to grow in your understanding of the holiness of God, and it's possible as a result of growing in your understanding of the holiness of God to begin to further grasp the horrors of the sinfulness of man. But in reality, even if you gained a little insight year after year into these subjects, you'd still only be scratching the surface. The truth is that only when we are face to face with Jesus Christ will we really understand the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man. And when we get that insight, well, hell will seem perfectly and completely just.

6 · Oswald applies the epistemological diagnosis: until the eschaton, believers must actively employ their awareness of ignorance as a hermeneutical tool

But until then, we kind of have to. There's a sense in which we kind of have to use our knowledge of our ignorance to fill in the gap. There are things we just don't have, insights we just don't have. And when we get those insights, when we're standing face to face with the Lord, when we get those insights, we'll understand. But until then, we really need to use our ignorance to fill in some of those gaps. And when we object to some doctrine or to some difficult idea that is clearly proclaimed in Scripture, what are we going to do? Well, I would suggest one of the things to do is to understand that we're doing the best we can with the information we have, but we don't have all the information.

7 · Oswald steps outside the formal argument to acknowledge the extemporaneous nature of the podcast format and to restate his point more colloquially

So that would be one thing I would say, and I would maybe want to say that slightly differently, But I'm saying this in real time on the podcast. But the basic idea is that we've all been in situations where we are sure we understand a situation and then new data presents itself and our previous understanding looks kind of childish.

8 · Oswald applies the principle eschatologically: if our confident understanding is routinely overturned by new information in this life, how much more will it be overturned when we stand before God? The appropriate pastoral response to struggling with hell is to lean not on one's own understanding — to actively distrust one's moral intuitions in light of known cognitive limits

Well, friends, don't you think that that's going to happen to us a great deal when we stand before the Lord? So when I struggle with hell and the justness of it using my human senses, what am I going to do about that? Well, one of the things I do is to lean not on my understanding, to understand that in many respects, I simply don't have the depth of insight I need into the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man.

9 · Oswald synthesizes the first pastoral strategy: God graciously reveals our cognitive limits

So that's one thing I would share with someone that's struggling either with the doctrine of hell or just the idea of the problem of evil. I would just encourage you to remember that there have been plenty of times you've been sure about something only to be proven wrong later because you didn't know what you didn't know. And in the case of the divine, one of the great services God does to us is he does let us know. Hey, there's a lot you don't know and a lot I can't tell you because you simply lack the hardware to understand it. And so in those moments, I think if we're going to doubt anyone, we ought to doubt ourselves.

10 · Oswald introduces the second pastoral strategy via aeronautical analogy: just as planes have engineering-imposed altitude ceilings, human minds have cognitive ceilings

The second thing I would say is something I've said before on this podcast, and that's just this idea that I've referred to in a previous podcast of a plane having a ceiling and a floor. I think we know about this a little bit if we're Top Gun fans, that you fly below the deck and it's this idea that, sure, the plane can Go below, say a thousand feet. But it's really not safe to do that. Not to do that very long. Very few people understand that. There's also a ceiling. Every plane is engineered to hit a certain altitude and then really simply by the basis of its own aerodynamics, can't go any further than that or much further than that. It simply can't climb. The air's too thin. It just can't get up any higher.

11 · Oswald applies the aeronautical analogy to theodicy: attempting to fully comprehend divine justice may exceed the cognitive ceiling humans are engineered for

Well, that's a good thing to remember when we're trying to solve these divine and cosmic problems like the reality of hell. It's a good thing to remember that you might just not be engineered at this stage in your humanity to fly up to the altitude necessary to see what God sees. I would remind folks that, you know, there really is sort of a safe flying limit for the human mind. And I would encourage you to, you know, not because I'm trying to hide anything or not because there's some kind of divine conspiracy, but simply because we are created with a particular hardware setup by God. We have the best brains of all the creatures in the world, but we don't have an unlimited brain. We don't have an all powerful brain. We really can't think of everything that we need to think of.

12 · Oswald acknowledges the repetition between his first two pastoral strategies (both emphasize cognitive limits) and transitions to the third strategy by citing Isaiah 55:9 as divine warrant for the argument

And so I would just encourage folks to think through. Well, if I'm struggling with something, I guess I'm kind of making the same point twice, just in a different direction. I would just remind them of what God says. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways above your ways.

13 · Oswald introduces the third pastoral strategy by exposing the Euthyphro dilemma lurking behind moral objections to hell

There's a third thing I would share, and it has to do with something that goes all the way back to Plato called the Euthyphro dilemma. And I think this is a very instructive and underlooked idea when helping someone deal with what you might refer to as the problem of evil. There's a way that the human mind tends to think about God. And I'll summarize it this way. Is God good because he measures up? Because he measures up to some universal standard outside of himself? Are we in a situation where there's us, there's God and then there's a third thing, a list of morals like love and justice, etc. Are we in a system where God judges us by how well we measure up to this third thing and we judge God by how well he measures up to this third thing? Is there a third thing? Is there a third cosmic tablet of morality by which God judges us and we are free to judge God? Well, when I am Judging God for not being loving. That's what I'm doing. I'm assuming there's a third force in the universe, a list of virtues that, that not only rules over my behavior, not only rules over and measures my behavior, but rules over and measures God's behavior. But if that's the way the reality really is, then we should skip worshiping God and we should just go straight to this third thing and we should worship it and conform ourselves to it. And friends, this is really what we're doing. When we struggle with the problem of evil or the problem of hell, we're surreptitiously, perhaps even unawares, to our own consciousness, creating a God in the image of our own morality and then demanding that the great Yahweh, the great I am, join us in worshiping this third thing. It's like God, I conform to this third standard of morality, and you must as well. This is what love is, this is what justice is, this is. And so on. I know that because somehow I just know that. And God, you have to also conform to this standard. But that's of course not how reality works. There's some of my favorite commercials or insurance commercials, and I remember some old lady insurance commercial. I just love the saying. I've thought about this so much. And in counseling and in pastoring, one old lady always says to the other, that's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.

14 · Oswald makes the positive ontological claim: God is not measured against an external standard of love or justice — God is the standard

The truth is that to the extent that we have an understanding of right and wrong or love and hate or justice and injustice, to the extent that we even have a proper understanding of those things, those are simply coming from the very nature of God. God isn't responsible for measuring up to some external standard of love. God is love. And whatever we think we know about love either came from God or it came from a false God. Can I say that again? Whatever we think we know about love is either from the nature of God or from some false God that we picked up along the way.

15 · Oswald synthesizes the three pastoral strategies while maintaining pastoral empathy

So anyway, there's three things I would think about. If you're struggling with this, it's certainly extremely understandable from a human perspective why you would. It's probably not really understandable from the divine perspective. What I mean by that is that it feels almost inevitable as a human being to struggle with this problem. But I bet you even in this, we will see one day how that was, really, was really a function of our smallness, function of our creatureliness, that we struggled with this at all. But I'm coming to you if you're struggling with this from a place of understanding, because I certainly have. I think that that's a product of my creatureliness and my sinfulness, my tendency to create false gods, you know, lots of stuff, my lack of information, my lack of insight into divine holiness and human sinfulness. But I sure can empathize with you on this. I sure can understand why, if you are struggling with this, that you are.

16 · Oswald recapitulates the three pastoral strategies in compressed form: (1) acknowledge informational limits, (2) recognize cognitive ceilings, (3) reject moral frameworks external to God's nature

But I would tell you that it seems to me that there are at least three things to consider that would be a humble, sort of more likely to be right approach to handling this. The first one, there's probably just a bunch of information I don't have. Number two, this whole idea of a safe cruising altitude. I can only think my way out of so many things. I can only climb so high with my thoughts. As a human being, I have the best brain in creation, but it's not the ultimate brain. I still have many cognitive limits, perceptual limits to understanding things. And third, this idea, just as a reminder that when we're judging God for not living up to some standard, what we've really done there is create another God and ask Yahweh to bow down to Him. We don't measure God against our own morality. We certainly don't measure God against the world's morality. Whatever moral code comes to us from some other place than God, it's false. Instead, we confess that God is morality not simply because he's deemed that this or that is right or this or that is wrong, but because he is love, he is justice, he is mercy, and so on and so forth.

17 · Oswald steps outside the formal argument to address tone and pastoral posture

So I hope that's helpful to you. I hope this doesn't come off. Sometimes I get into, you know, kind of apologetics mode, and I don't want to sound firmer than I feel in this podcast. I don't mean to belittle you if you're struggling with this, but I do want to remind you of how. How little you are.

18 · Standard podcast closing

All right. Peace, my friends. Be well. Have a wonderful week.

Where this fits

Recent preaching context

The three sermons immediately preceding this one in the preaching schedule.

Jan 14, 2024

Comfort is Not a Compass

True Christian love does not use comfort as a compass but calls those we love to follow Christ wherever He leads, even into suffering.

Jan 16, 2024

Fan It Into Flame

The Christian life requires both receiving the finished work of Christ and actively multiplying what God has given us through effort and spiritual ambition, trusting that pursuing God's glory is always the path to our own ultimate joy.

Jan 28, 2024

He Abolished Death

Jesus Christ has abolished death, transforming it from the King of Terrors into a doorway to eternal life for all who trust in him.

January 29 · This sermon

How to Think Through Our Objections to Hell

Our struggle with the justice of hell reveals not a problem with God's character but our own lack of insight into divine holiness and human sinfulness — a deficit that requires epistemic humility rather than moral judgment of God.

Take it further

Discuss · apply · pray

Small groups

6 discussion questions

Chris described our objections to the doctrine of hell as arising from 'incomplete information' about God's holiness and human sinfulness. W…

Daily readings

5-day reading plan

This week we meditate on how our finite minds encounter the infinite God's justice, learning to trust His character when our understanding falters.

Prayer

Prayer for Humility Before God's Holiness

Father, we adore You for Your transcendent holiness and the depths of Your understanding that surpass our own. We confess that we often stum…

Family table

When We Don't Understand God

This prompt invites your family to talk about what it feels like when something God says in the Bible seems hard or unfair to us. The goal i…

Couples

When We Doubt God's Justice

What aspect of God's character — His holiness, His justice, His love — did this sermon help you see more clearly, and what lingering questio…

Memorize

Isaiah 55:9

This verse crystallizes the sermon's central claim: our objections to hell arise from cognitive limitation, not from God's injustice. Isaiah's declaration that God's thoughts are as far above ours as the heavens tower above the earth grounds the pastoral exhortation to doubt ourselves rather than God when we struggle with hard doctrines.

Small-group discussion

6 questions for your group this week

Chris described our objections to the doctrine of hell as arising from 'incomplete information' about God's holiness and human sinfulness. What specific aspects of God's character or the nature of sin do you sense you lack deep insight into, and how might that gap shape your theological doubts?

→ Can you think of a time when you later understood something you'd previously objected to—either in Scripture or life—once your perspective shifted?
The sermon emphasized that we have 'cognitive ceilings' as finite creatures. How does this claim sit with you—does it feel like a comfort or a frustration—and what does it suggest about the posture we should take when we encounter biblical doctrines we find difficult?

Isaiah 55:9
Chris pointed to our fallen condition: we naturally doubt God's justice rather than doubting ourselves. Where do you see this pattern playing out in your own wrestling with hard doctrines, and what would it mean practically to 'lean not on your own understanding' in those moments?

Proverbs 3:5
The sermon argued that only when we stand face to face with Jesus Christ will we truly comprehend God's holiness and human sinfulness, and then hell will appear 'perfectly and completely just.' What does that promise tell us about the relationship between intimacy with Christ and our capacity to trust God's character?

→ How might this future clarity change the way you relate to your present doubts?
Chris emphasized that 'God is love—not accountable to love.' Unpack what that distinction means and why it matters for how we think about God's justice toward sin.

1 John 4:8
Given that we lack the insight to fully grasp why hell is just, what does the gospel of Christ—His substitutionary death in our place—tell us about how much God values us and how seriously He takes our rebellion against Him?

2 Timothy 1:10

→ How should the finished work of Christ reshape our posture toward the doctrine of hell, even when we don't fully understand it?

Draft · pending review

Daily readings · Monday–Friday

5-day reading plan

This week we meditate on how our finite minds encounter the infinite God's justice, learning to trust His character when our understanding falters.

Monday Isaiah 55:9

Isaiah declares that God's thoughts are as high above our thoughts as the heavens are above the earth—a measure of incomprehensible distance. This foundational claim humbles us: we are not questioning God from a position of equal sight, but from the vantage point of creatures whose minds were made finite. When we stumble over the doctrine of hell, we are not discovering a flaw in God's character; we are bumping against the ceiling of our own created understanding.

Tuesday 1 John 4:8

Scripture's radical claim is not that love is God's highest attribute, forcing Him to answer to a standard outside Himself, but that God *is* love—love originates in Him and flows from His eternal nature. This means that when we object to hell as unloving, we are unknowingly measuring God's love against a standard that may itself be corrupted or incomplete. We must allow God's love, revealed in His justice and holiness, to redefine what love truly is rather than the reverse.

Wednesday Proverbs 3:5

Solomon calls us to trust in the Lord with all our heart and *not* lean on our own understanding—a word especially vital when we face doctrines that disturb us. The call here is not to abandon reason but to subordinate our incomplete reasoning to God's complete revelation. Our resistance to hell reveals not God's injustice but our poverty of sight regarding both the infinite holiness that sin violates and the infinite weight of rebellion against an all-glorious God.

Thursday 2 Timothy 1:10

Paul anchors our hope not in resolving all questions now but in the future unveiling of Christ, who alone fully embodies and reveals the Father's glory. In that eschatological moment, when we see Jesus as He is, the veil will lift from both God's holiness and the true nature of our rebellion. What confuses us now—the justice of eternal consequence—will become luminously clear when we behold the One against whom all sin is ultimately committed and the God whose holiness demands satisfaction.

Friday Isaiah 55:9

As we close the week, we return to the vast distance between God's thoughts and ours—not with despair but with relief. Our inability to reconcile hell with our intuitions about justice is not evidence that God has failed us; it is evidence that we are finite creatures encountering infinite reality. The gospel invites us to a glad humility: to trust that God's revelation is sure even where our comprehension falters, and to find peace in His faithfulness rather than in our own understanding.

Draft · pending review

Pray together this week

Prayer for Humility Before God's Holiness

Father, we adore You for Your transcendent holiness and the depths of Your understanding that surpass our own. We confess that we often stumble when we encounter the hard truths of Your Word, particularly the reality of hell. In our pride, we assume our instincts about justice and mercy must correct Your revelation, forgetting that we lack the cognitive hardware to perceive what You see so clearly—the infinite weight of Your holiness and the depths of human sinfulness (Proverbs 3:5). We do not see as You see, and our objections spring from that blindness, not from Your error.

We rejoice that in Jesus Christ, You have revealed the full measure of Your character—Your love demonstrated through His substitutionary death, and Your justice executed in His judgment. The gospel assures us that whatever we truly understand about love flows from Your nature, for God is love (1 John 4:8). Grant us the grace to trust that one day, when we stand face to face with Christ, the seeming contradictions will dissolve in perfect clarity, and the justice of hell will appear completely righteous (Isaiah 55:9).

Empower us this week to lean not on our own understanding but to doubt ourselves rather than doubt You when the Scriptures teach what our hearts resist. Give us humility to recognize that our objections arise from our limitation, not from any flaw in Your Word. Make us a people who rest in the finished work of Christ, who trust Your revelation over our reason, and who await the day when all things will be made clear. To You alone be the glory.

Draft · pending review

Sunday-evening family table

When We Don't Understand God

For the parent

This prompt invites your family to talk about what it feels like when something God says in the Bible seems hard or unfair to us. The goal is to help children (and yourselves) practice trusting God even when we don't have all the answers — a habit that will serve them their whole lives.

Pastor Chris talked about how sometimes what God tells us in the Bible seems wrong or unfair to us — like when He talks about hell. But he said that's actually a sign that we don't understand God as well as we think we do, not that God is wrong. Can you think of a time when you believed someone you trust even though you didn't understand why they were asking you to do something? What made you trust them anyway?

works for ages 7+ — younger kids may need parents to help them think of an example from their own experience

Draft · pending review

Couples · three questions over coffee

When We Doubt God's Justice

What aspect of God's character — His holiness, His justice, His love — did this sermon help you see more clearly, and what lingering questions do you still carry?
Where do we as a couple tend to doubt God's wisdom or goodness, and how might we encourage one another to trust Him even when we don't fully understand?
What is one area where you sense the Holy Spirit calling you to lean less on your own understanding and more on Christ — and how can I pray that into your life this week?

Draft · pending review

Memory verse this week

Isaiah 55:9

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Why this verse: This verse crystallizes the sermon's central claim: our objections to hell arise from cognitive limitation, not from God's injustice. Isaiah's declaration that God's thoughts are as far above ours as the heavens tower above the earth grounds the pastoral exhortation to doubt ourselves rather than God when we struggle with hard doctrines.

Draft · pending review

Where this was preached

About the church

Providence Community Church

Lenexa, KS
Sundays · 10:00 AM
About us · What we believe

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# Providence Community Church

A church preaching expository sermons through the books of the Bible.

## Sermons
- [Comfort is Not a Compass (2024-01-14)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2024/01/comfort-is-not-a-compass)
- [Fan It Into Flame (2024-01-16)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2024/01/fan-it-into-flame)
- [He Abolished Death (2024-01-28)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2024/01/he-abolished-death)
- [How to Think Through Our Objections to Hell (2024-01-29)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2024/01/how-to-think-through-our-objections-to-hell)

## About
- [About the church](/about)
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