Answers

David addressed this question in one of his psalms: “I have seen the wicked in great power and spreading himself like a native green tree” (Psalm 37:35). He also observed: “For I was envious of the boastful, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no pangs in their death, but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men, nor are they plagued like other men…. When I thought how to understand this, it was too painful for me–until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I understood their end. Surely You set them in slippery places; You cast them down to destruction” (Psalm 73:3-5, 16-18).

The only thing I can add to what David said is that God permits a period when the wicked have the chance to repent. God’s patience is meant to lead them to repentance (see Romans 2:5-7). But instead, they often presume on God and say, “He does not know what we are doing. We are getting away with it.” And this seems to be true, for a time. But they will spend eternity in hell. Eternity is so long, and life is so short!

It is often true, too, that their own evil catches up with them. There is a statement in the common parlance, “What goes around comes around.” If you deal out evil to people, it will come back to you.

Can you imagine anything more horrible than the latter years of a Mafia don, waiting for someone to do to him what he has done to someone else: Always in fear for his life, always in torment that someone will hurt him, just as he has hurt other people? Not having anyone to trust or count on; not knowing when the assassin’s bullet is going to come?

This is true of so many of the wicked. They will usually be punished on earth while they live, even if it is not obvious to the rest of us. It may be nervous problems, or disease, or a child who disgraces them, or a wife who torments them. Rest assured, no one gets away with evil. Judgment always comes. Only the timing is uncertain.

This is a term that is not in the Bible but that some religious groups use to refer to the time when a child becomes accountable to God for his actions. That time comes whenever he or she is old enough to understand the difference between right and wrong and good and evil.

It may be at a very early age. Some children who are four or five years old are old enough to know Jesus Christ and be saved, because they are old enough to know the difference between right and wrong. We have to be careful with little children. We should not cause them to build up an unnatural sense of guilt and make them feel guilty for things that are not really sin at all. If we teach them the major moral rules, that God Himself has set forth, then they will learn properly and naturally.

Children do reach an age where they are old enough to be held responsible for what they do. When that time comes, they will be judged by the same standards as everyone else.

God does not send people to hell because they never heard of Christ. He sends people to hell because they have sinned. The judgment for sin will be in relationship to how much they knew. To phrase it another way, it is action in light of privilege. A person living in England has maximum spiritual privilege. Therefore the spiritual standard for England would be the gospel of Jesus and everything in the Old and New Testaments. But someone who grew up in an uncivilized jungle might be held to account for the fact that something in his conscience told him there is a Creator worthy of his worship.

The Bible says his conscience will either accuse him or excuse him on the day of Jesus Christ (see Romans 2:14-16). God is not going to condemn people if their own consciences excuse them. Regretfully, every human being has sinned against his or her own conscience.

God does not judge people for failure to believe in Jesus, but because they are sinners. The problem is that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). For those who have received Jesus Christ as Saviour, there will be forgiveness and mercy.

When Jesus was hanging on the cross between two thieves, one of the thieves railed at Him and made fun of Him. The other thief admitted they deserved to be punished, but said Jesus had done nothing wrong. Then he turned to Jesus and said, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” Jesus said to him, “Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:39-43). So paradise must be where Jesus is, because the thief was going to be there with him. It also must be a place that those who have faith in the Lord will enter immediately upon death.

Paradise is a place of bliss and happiness. But it would seem to be an intermediate place, as opposed to the final establishment of a new heaven and a new earth which we have referred to elsewhere (see II Peter 3:10-13, Revelation 21:1-7).

In certain instances heaven refers to the place where God rules. Heaven also refers to the final place where the spirits of the righteous dead will spend eternity after they have been joined with their resurrection bodies. Also, heaven can mean the space above the earth.

The wicked dead, as in the story of the rich man and Lazarus, go immediately to a place called Hades (see Luke 16:20-25). They are waiting for a final judgment when they will be cast into the lake of fire with the devil and his angels (see Revelation 20:11-15). So in a sense there is an intermediate heaven and an intermediate hell.

The concept of purgatory is not biblical. Purgatory is supposed to be a transition period of indefinite duration intended for the perfecting of those people who die in Christ. It is taught that they experience suffering to pay for the sins they committed in this life until they are ready to enter into heaven. The Bible does not teach that. The apostle Paul said, “I am hard pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you” (Philippians 1:23-24).

Paul knew only of two states of being. Either he was going to stay on earth, or he was going to be with Jesus. The concept of purgatory seems to have been unknown to the apostles and does not seem to have any biblical basis at all. The Bible teaches that there are levels of heaven, but there is no mention of a place of purging and torment that would bring us up to a point of being acceptable to God after death (see II Corinthians 12:2).