It was a hot August night the first time Nolan asked the question. We had just left his grandfather’s funeral, and the scent of lilies still clung to our clothes. He was twelve and trying hard not to cry, his voice barely louder than the crickets. “Mom… is Hell real?”
I paused, torn between the instinct to protect his innocence and the need to tell him the truth. Somehow I knew my answer would either grow trust or build a wall.
“It is,” I said quietly. “But it’s not what most people think.”
Jesus doesn’t avoid hard subjects. He walks right up to them, looks them in the eye, and speaks with compassion and fire. He spoke more about Hell than anyone else in the Bible—not to cause fear, but because He came to save us from it.
“Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul,” He warned. “Rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28)
That word Jesus uses—Gehenna—was no mystery to the crowd. It referred to a valley outside Jerusalem where fires burned day and night, a place of stench and ruin, historically linked with child sacrifices and unclean things. It wasn’t a metaphor. It was a picture of something real…and terrible.
Later, in Mark 9, Jesus uses stark language again: “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off… it is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out...where ‘the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.’” (Mark 9:43-48)
That’s not poetic exaggeration. That’s a Savior fighting to wake us up.
Jesus didn’t speak about Hell with flippancy or to entertain. He spoke about it like a doctor describing cancer—not to torment, but to heal. To make us aware that there is a disease in the soul that only grace can cure. And when John, the beloved disciple, glimpses the end of all things, he writes of a lake of fire—"the second death” (Revelation 20:14-15)—where any name not found in the Book of Life is thrown.
That’s heavy. It’s meant to be.
But here’s the heart of it: Jesus talked about Hell vividly because He came to rescue us from it completely.
He doesn’t mention Hell to shame us. He mentions it to remind us that there’s a way out. A Savior who enters the fire so we don’t have to. A cross planted firmly between us and death.
Maybe you’ve felt it too—that tug in your spirit, the question in the night: Could this be real? Could I be separated from Him forever?
Hell is real. But it’s not what defines you.
What defines you is the God who walked dusty roads with blistered feet and wide-open arms. The God who, even knowing what Hell was, still hung on a cross to keep you from it. He suffered abandonment so you could know belonging. He bore wrath so you could stand in grace.
And if your name is written in His book, there's no fire that can touch you.
I think about Nolan sometimes, his hand gripping mine on that humid night, the stars shining stubbornly through the haze. He’d asked the hard question—but not because he didn’t believe. He asked because he wanted to know if it mattered.
It does.
Because the God who talks about Hell is the same God who left Heaven to save you from it.
It was a hot August night the first time Nolan asked the question. We had just left his grandfather’s funeral, and the scent of lilies still clung to our clothes. He was twelve and trying hard not to cry, his voice barely louder than the crickets. “Mom… is Hell real?”
I paused, torn between the instinct to protect his innocence and the need to tell him the truth. Somehow I knew my answer would either grow trust or build a wall.
“It is,” I said quietly. “But it’s not what most people think.”
Jesus doesn’t avoid hard subjects. He walks right up to them, looks them in the eye, and speaks with compassion and fire. He spoke more about Hell than anyone else in the Bible—not to cause fear, but because He came to save us from it.
“Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul,” He warned. “Rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28)
That word Jesus uses—Gehenna—was no mystery to the crowd. It referred to a valley outside Jerusalem where fires burned day and night, a place of stench and ruin, historically linked with child sacrifices and unclean things. It wasn’t a metaphor. It was a picture of something real…and terrible.
Later, in Mark 9, Jesus uses stark language again: “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off… it is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out...where ‘the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.’” (Mark 9:43-48)
That’s not poetic exaggeration. That’s a Savior fighting to wake us up.
Jesus didn’t speak about Hell with flippancy or to entertain. He spoke about it like a doctor describing cancer—not to torment, but to heal. To make us aware that there is a disease in the soul that only grace can cure. And when John, the beloved disciple, glimpses the end of all things, he writes of a lake of fire—"the second death” (Revelation 20:14-15)—where any name not found in the Book of Life is thrown.
That’s heavy. It’s meant to be.
But here’s the heart of it: Jesus talked about Hell vividly because He came to rescue us from it completely.
He doesn’t mention Hell to shame us. He mentions it to remind us that there’s a way out. A Savior who enters the fire so we don’t have to. A cross planted firmly between us and death.
Maybe you’ve felt it too—that tug in your spirit, the question in the night: Could this be real? Could I be separated from Him forever?
Hell is real. But it’s not what defines you.
What defines you is the God who walked dusty roads with blistered feet and wide-open arms. The God who, even knowing what Hell was, still hung on a cross to keep you from it. He suffered abandonment so you could know belonging. He bore wrath so you could stand in grace.
And if your name is written in His book, there's no fire that can touch you.
I think about Nolan sometimes, his hand gripping mine on that humid night, the stars shining stubbornly through the haze. He’d asked the hard question—but not because he didn’t believe. He asked because he wanted to know if it mattered.
It does.
Because the God who talks about Hell is the same God who left Heaven to save you from it.
