I find much beauty in the teachings of Jesus, and I think there are some good arguments in favor of Christianity. But I find it impossible to believe in a religion that condemns all people to hell—including many moral, good, kind, and sensitive people, not to mention countless millions of religious Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists—simply because they don’t believe in Jesus. I can’t follow a religion whose God tortures people in flames forever for not believing in someone they never even heard of.

To be honest with you, I don’t follow that religion either, nor would I be able to put my trust in a God like that. Only one thing really matters: Is there a place called hell, and is there a judgment after death? If so, what is hell like, and who deserves to go there? What about you? Do you deserve heaven or hell? Also, we can argue endlessly about the afterlife, something which neither of us has experienced firsthand.

But does your view of sin, judgment, and God agree with the current state of the world, a world filled with suffering and tragedy, and does it line up with the historical experience of our people? What followers of Jesus believe is this: All of us have sinned and broken God’s commandments, resulting in untold tragedy for the human race.

In his mercy, God sent his Son, the Messiah, into the world to take our place and pay for our sins. He is our hope and our salvation. If we reject him, we remain lost in this world and we will be lost in the world to come. As to the exact nature of the sufferings of hell, Scripture does not speak with scientific precision, but the Tanakh, the New Testament, and even the Rabbinic literature give us some frightful descriptions. As for those who never heard about Jesus, God will be their judge, not you and not me.

Have you read this volume through in its entirety? Then you know that we have provided reasonable, logically argued, biblically based answers to some of the weightiest Jewish objections to belief in Jesus. You have seen that the New Testament teaching on the nature of God and the divinity of the Messiah is in harmony with the Hebrew Scriptures; that blood sacrifices, joined with repentance, were the heart and soul of the Torah’s system of atonement; and that Yeshua, in keeping with a lofty Jewish concept, brought atonement to the world through his death.

Perhaps you have lowered your defenses and are honestly willing to consider the claims for the messiahship of Jesus. Still, there is one thing bothering you, and that is the picture of millions of good, religious people burning forever in hell just because they didn’t know about Jesus.

Let me encourage you simply to consider what we know for a fact: This world is filled with sin, and as a result, it is filled with suffering. This is not the way God created things. All the sickness in the world, all the pain, the war, the hatred, the cruelty, the fear—all of it is due to sin. If the human race had not sinned at the beginning of time and if we had not continued to sin in every generation, none of this would be here.

The world would literally be a perfect paradise. Yet we have forsaken God and worshiped and served other gods and other things in his place, and we have paid a terrible price for our disobedience and folly. So if this is the effect of sin in this world, what will its effect be on the world to come? Or to phrase the question differently, What are the eternal consequences of rejecting God?

Think of wicked, ungodly sinners who hurt and destroyed many innocent people but who seem to live full, healthy lives themselves. They somehow manage to avoid the penalties of human courts and even God’s court during their earthly years. When do they get punished? Or what about people who knew God but then scorned and rejected him, suffering very few visible consequences in their lives? When do they face judgment? Can you agree with me that there will be at least some people who will deserve punishment in the world to come and that God will be a righteous and fair judge? If so, then the words of Yeshua should make sense to you. “For a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear [God’s] voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned” (John 5:28–29).

“But,” you say, “according to Christian beliefs, many good people will be condemned to hell! How do you square that with Jesus’ words?”

Actually, you may have a skewed idea of what Christianity really is. (I would encourage you to look again at 3.27, immediately above, as well as vol. 1, 2.4–2.9.) Perhaps it would be better for you to think of the Messianic Jewish faith of the New Testament, the faith that was sent on a worldwide mission almost two thousand years ago to bring the good news about the one true God and his Messiah to every nation and people. It is a faith offering salvation and forgiveness to everyone, regardless of what sins they have committed, regardless of how they have lived, regardless of what their background has been. As Jesus said to his eleven Jewish emissaries (called “apostles”), “This is what is written: The [Messiah] will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:46–48). “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:15).

This is the ultimate religion of mercy, the supreme expression of the love of God, the loftiest example of compassion that the world has ever seen. This is how the New Testament (possibly in Yeshua’s own words) explains it:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.

John 3:16–21⁴⁵²

You see, without the mercy of God, none of us is good enough to merit eternal life or to enter his kingdom. The best of us fall short (see above, 3.20). And to be perfectly honest, most of us have not sought his mercy on our own. This world has occupied most of our attention. The worries of life, the love of material things, the lusts of the flesh, the sins of covetousness and greed, our endless pursuit of pleasure and fame, the desire for earthly security, the craving of knowledge—the list is virtually endless—all these things have squeezed God out of most of our lives. As Jews (or Gentiles) we have hardly put the most important things first, and we have failed miserably to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and strength—the first and greatest commandment according to the Hebrew Scriptures, the ancient rabbis, and the New Testament. And throughout the world, people have created other gods in his place, gods of wood and stone, gods who engage in violence and immorality, gods of terror and fear, gods that in no way represent the one true God. For the most part, even when we have sought him, we have done it our way, causing more harm than good.

But in God’s infinite love, he sought us. He sent the Messiah—the only one who ever lived without sin, the one who was a man just like us, but the one who was also more than man, expressing the very image of God in the flesh, the spotless, innocent Lamb, the Messiah—to die for our sins. Yeshua paid it all, carrying on his shoulders the accumulated guilt of the entire human race and shedding his blood to make us holy. What love! What unexpected mercy! What an expression of the heavenly Father’s heart, broken with pain over a sinning, dying world. And it is this great love that constrains the Messiah’s followers to go throughout the world—often at the cost of their own lives—to tell everyone the wonderful news about Jesus. They proclaim a message of amnesty and pardon through Yeshua’s atoning death. They proclaim a message of reconciliation. As Saul of Tarsus (known as the apostle Paul) expressed it:

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through [Messiah] and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in [Messiah], not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore [Messiah’s] ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on [Messiah’s] behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin [or a sin offering] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:18–21

The gospel message is simple: Be reconciled to God. Come into a right relationship with your creator. He has reached out to you through his Son. It is Yeshua the Messiah who does what even the best and most beautiful of our Jewish traditions cannot do. It is Jesus the Savior of the world who does what no other religion can do. He purchases our pardon, secures our right standing with God, and provides us with a new heart. That’s why those of us who know him feel so compelled to share these wonderful truths whenever we can. That’s why we are willing to sacrifice almost anything to let the world know just what God has done. That’s why we pray and fast for our friends and loved ones to come to know the Lord. (Perhaps you are reading this book right now because someone has been praying for you. Perhaps God is actively working in your life to draw you to himself. If you sense that he is speaking to you, you would do well to listen to his voice. Don’t refuse his voice of love. Don’t scorn his offer of forgiveness, his offer to wipe your slate clean and give you a new start, free and clear.)

Rather than allow your mind to be confused with endless speculation, consider these simple facts: The Hebrew Scriptures, the Rabbinic writings, and the New Testament all warn us of coming judgment, sometimes speaking of its eternal duration (see above, 3.27). Whatever this place of judgment (called hell) holds in store, you don’t want to go there. Through Jesus the Messiah, your sins can be forgiven and your heart cleansed, and you can now live a brand-new life in obedience to God. You don’t have to perish. You don’t have to be judged guilty on that day. And rather then wondering about the fate of those who never heard about Jesus (we addressed this subject at length in vol. 1, 1.10), consider once again these words that Yeshua spoke to his emissaries: “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:15–16).

It is the responsibility of his followers to take the message to everyone; it is the responsibility of those who hear to repent and believe. You, therefore, are not responsible for those who have never heard, and neither you nor I are their judges. What you are responsible for is responding to the message for yourself: Will you accept God’s love expressed to you through Messiah’s death on your behalf, or will you take your chances and try to merit heaven on your own?

We know that most people in this world are not living godly, holy lives. Therefore, the warning of Jesus makes a great deal of sense: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matt. 7:13–14). Which gate lies ahead of you? Which road are you on? The road to destruction is broad and wide; the road to life is narrow. Which way are you going? If you were called to stand before God in judgment this very hour (as I write this very sentence, Yom Kippur—the Day of Atonement—is at hand), how would you fare? If the righteous, all-seeing Judge began to weigh your deeds in the balance, examining your motives, calling you to account for both sins of omission as well as sins of commission, how would you stand? God has a perfect memory, and he sees through all our flimsy excuses.

But there is good news. (Yes, the message of the New Testament really is good news.) The Messiah took our place in judgment, in keeping with a traditional Jewish concept expressed in the Zohar: “The children of the world are members of one another, and when the Holy One desires to give healing to the world, He smites one just man amongst them, and for his sake heals all the rest” (see above, 3.15). You can be healed. You can be delivered from the guilt and dominance of sin. You can become a new creation in the Messiah. That’s the power and beauty of the new covenant, as God said through Jeremiah: “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Jer. 31:34; see also Heb. 8:12; 10:17). Why carry your sins all the way to the judgment seat of almighty God, risking his wrath and punishment? Today you can stand before his mercy seat. Yeshua, our merciful and faithful High Priest, has made atonement for us. Read these words, written to Jewish believers in Jesus twenty centuries ago, with an open and prayerful heart:

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Hebrews 4:14–16

If you are convinced that Yeshua is, in fact, our promised Messiah, and if you understand that he calls you to surrender your life to the will of our heavenly Father, I encourage you to stop right now and call out to God from a sincere and honest heart. You might want to pray a prayer similar to this: “God, I recognize that I have sinned in your sight, deserving your righteous judgment. I make no excuses for my sins. I consider myself guilty as charged. But I believe that Yeshua the Messiah died in my place and rose from the dead, purchasing my complete forgiveness. And so, almighty God, I ask you to wash me clean, to forgive me and receive me, to give me a brand-new heart, and to make me your child. Be my Father and my God. I repent of my sins, and I put my faith in your Son, receiving him today as my Lord. Lead me and guide me through this life, and then accept me into your eternal kingdom. Amen.”

If you prayed that prayer in sincerity, know that God himself heard you, and it is he who has promised that everyone who calls on his name will be saved (Joel 2:32[3:4]; Rom. 10:13). You have taken the first step toward living a brand-new life. It is to you that Jesus says, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32). I would encourage you to tell someone you know who truly believes in our Messiah (perhaps the person who gave you this book) that you too have come to faith and that you are committed to living for God and following his Word.⁴⁵³

If you are not yet ready to call out to God for forgiveness, if you are still wrestling with doubts and questions or still battling with the call to repent of your sins, I encourage you to continue seeking him for guidance, to continue praying and studying, and to come to grips with the ugliness of sin. God has promised that those who seek him with all their hearts will find him (Deut. 4:29; Jer. 29:13). And God doesn’t lie. It is my fervent hope that you will find no good reason to reject Jesus and every good reason to receive him as your Messiah and master and friend. As Moses said to our people many years ago, “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him” (Deut. 30:19–20). I echo his voice and urge you as well: Choose life!

The final book of the Bible ends with a glorious picture of the heavenly city, the new Jerusalem, a place of rest, of peace, of joy, a place where we serve and enjoy God forever:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Revelation 21:1–4

That city will be my eternal home. I pray it will be your home too, regardless of what it may cost you in this world, regardless of the opposition you may face along the way. Inheriting eternal life will be worth it all.

How do you enter the Holy City of God? Yeshua himself is the way.

⁴⁵² It is not clear from the immediate context in John whether these are Jesus’ words or the words of the narrator; see the standard commentaries for discussion. In any case, what is written here is God’s Word, utterly reliable and completely true.

⁴⁵³ If you are a brand-new, Jewish believer in Yeshua and somehow think that you are one of the few Jews in the world who believes in him, don’t be discouraged. There are tens of thousands of Jewish believers in Jesus around the world! And there are some congregations in which several hundred Messianic Jews worship together. You are not alone! Even if you are an ultra-Orthodox Jew, know that there are others like you who believe that Yeshua is the way. I know some of them myself. Whoever you are, if you have just asked the Messiah to come into your life, we would love to hear from you. Write us, call us, fax us, or e-mail us. We will send you some free materials to help you in your new life.

Brown, M. L. (2000). Answering Jewish objections to Jesus, Volume 2: Theological objections (256). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books.

I find much beauty in the teachings of Jesus, and I think there are some good arguments in favor of Christianity. But I find it impossible to believe in a religion that condemns all people to hell—including many moral, good, kind, and sensitive people, not to mention countless millions of religious Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists—simply because they don’t believe in Jesus. I can’t follow a religion whose God tortures people in flames forever for not believing in someone they never even heard of.