Is Hitler in Hell?

Aug 6, 2009 Blog
Posted by Shane Hatton

Good Question?

So i was watching a snippet from a video on YouTube this afternoon by Erwin McManus on Hell. It was fascinating and frustrating to read through the comments people had made about the video and the topic of hell. As i was reading through the comments i came across a line from a person that caught my eye in amongst a bunch of other stuff. Now i know this person may not have meant it this way, but the way it came across was very confronting for me. The person was commenting about how God isn’t just for sending people to Hell etc (not going down that track at the moment), then they made a comment “not even Hitler deserves Hell”. From what i was reading, my initial response was that ‘the person who was writing this is just assuming that Hitler is in Hell’. The truth is, for many people, this statement doesn’t sound out of place at all. I mean, imagine the worst person you can think of? Could you imagine them in Heaven after what they have done?

This post isn’t about Hell itself, but rather that statement. See there are two major pitfalls that we can fall into when we start to assume whether somebody is in Heaven or Hell. I have been asked a number of times by people close to a person who has died whether or not that person is in Heaven or Hell. Here are the pitfalls:

1. When we assume a person is in Heaven or Hell, we make ourselves God- 37“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven- Luke 6:37 (NIV)

It is God who judges, not us. We have no place to say whether or not a person is in Heaven or Hell. When we elevate ourselves to the position of God- we become judge, and when we become judge, we too will be judged. That is a scary place to be in. Often when we fall into this pitfall because we base out judgements on what we have seen or heard, and again that is a scary place to be in because while “man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” 1 Sam 16:7 (NIV).

2. When we assume a person is in Heaven or Hell, we question God’s mercy- There is no one righteous, not even one- Romans 3:10 (NIV)

The second pitfall we can be ensnared by is to limit God’s mercy. The truth is, there is nobody righteous but God. When we begin to limit who it is that God is able to forgive, we begin to put sin in categories. Usually those categories are based on where we are at. ‘Well anybody who is worse than me, isn’t as righteous as me’. Sin is Sin- a murderer is no less deserving of God’s grace than a liar. That person sitting in your church who has recently got out of jail or struggling with an addiction, is no less deserving to be coming into the presence of God as a child of the King than the rich business person on the other side or even the pastor!

My prayer is that i would never be a person who assumes that God’s grace and mercy is not enough to cover every person. The truth of it all is that none of us are deserving of his love and that is why Romans 5:8 is so remarkable “8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”. How amazing that God’s grace is enough even for a guy like me.

Apologies for people reading this who thought i was going to tell you whether Hitler is in Hell. That is not for me to say!

SH