Christian apologist Wesley Huff recently appeared on the Flagrant podcast, a popular comedy podcast, where he was able to proclaim Jesus Christ. Huff was a wonderful ambassador for the Christian faith. Huff got asked some pretty tough questions about how it can be fair for God to condemn unbelievers to Hell. He responded with both empathy and biblical conviction: Christ is the only way to be saved.
Unsurprisingly, this firm defense of historic Christian doctrine was met with strong objections from some Latter-day Saints. In a recent response video, Jacob Hansen of Thoughtful Faith argued that Huff’s portrayal of hell, divine justice, and substitutionary atonement makes God seem cruel and unworthy of worship. According to Hansen, the Christian God, as presented by Huff, is unjust and unloving—whereas Mormonism, he claims, offers a more equitable picture of God, one that includes postmortem chances to repent and accept truth.
I understand Hansen’s objection. I felt the same way once. The Christian view of hell was a huge stumbling block for me, and the Latter-day Saint teaching of second chances after death was one of the things that initially attracted me to Mormonism. But the problem is this: it simply isn’t biblical.
That very same week, my church preached from Luke 16:19–31—the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. As I listened, I couldn’t help but notice the striking resemblance between Hansen’s moral objections and the rich man’s desperate plea. And while this parable doesn’t offer a comprehensive doctrine of hell, it clearly challenges the assumptions behind Hansen’s argument and aligns with the rest of Scripture (see Hebrews 9:27; Revelation 20:11–15; 2 Thessalonians 1:8–9).
In the parable, a rich man who lived in luxury dies and finds himself in torment. Looking across a great chasm, he sees Lazarus—a poor beggar he had ignored in life—now comforted in Abraham’s presence. The rich man begs for relief, but Abraham denies him, reminding him that he had already received good things in life while Lazarus suffered. Then the rich man pleads for someone to be sent to warn his brothers so they won’t suffer the same fate. “If someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!” he insists. But Abraham replies, “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.” If they do not listen to the Word of God, not even a resurrection will convince them.
This short parable exposes at least five serious misunderstandings in Jacob’s reasoning
- Hell is final and there are no second chances after death
LDS theology assumes that many, if not most, people will accept the gospel after this life in spirit prison. But Jesus paints a very different picture: the gulf between the rich man and Lazarus a “great chasm” is fixed and unbridgeable. The permanent separation is stark: “those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.” (Luke 16:26). There is no suggestion that the rich man can be redeemed, nor that his brothers will be warned from beyond the grave. The parable drives home a sobering reality: this life is the time to repent and believe. There are no other opportunities to repent.
2. Hell is a place of suffering, not reformation
The rich man is in torment, not training. He pleads for mercy and his plea is denied. There’s no hint of transformation, growth, or purification—only agony and regret. Hell is portrayed as a place of conscious punishment, not a preparatory stage. This runs counter to the Latter-day Saint framework in which “hell” is more like a holding place or learning environment. But Jesus speaks of hell as a final and fearsome reality.
3. More revelation is not the solution
Hansen argues that people must receive further opportunities and further revelation in order to be judged fairly. This is very similar to the rich man’s appeal that his brothers should be warned. The Rich Man’s hope is that more revelation — more signs, more direct warnings — will convince his family to avoid judgment
But Jesus contradicts this by putting the blame on their rejection of the revelation already given. To the plea that, they don’t have enough information, Abraham Responds “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.” The problem isn’t ignorance but rebellion. It isn’t a lack of data but unbelief. Miracles don’t change hearts hardened to God’s Word. The answer isn’t more revelation, it’s repentance in response to what God has already made known
4. God’s Word is sufficient—not just to inform, but to hold accountable.
To the rich’s man’s plea that his brother’s would repent if they better understood the eternal consequences, Father Abraham responds with these chilling words: “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” Abraham’s answer is rooted in the conviction that what God has revealed is sufficient to warn and convict us.
In Romans 1, Paul says that all people are “without excuse” because God has made His truth plain, both through creation and through conscience. For the Jewish brothers in the parable—those with “Moses and the Prophets”—the accountability is even higher.
The truth is that we are all in rebellion against God unless and until he breaths new life into us and transforms our hearts. More revelation and even more miracles will not soften a dead heart; it only ads to the weight of our guilt.
5. We don’t get to question God’s judgment
Abraham’s response in this parable seems incredibly severe. The rich man isn’t even asking for heaven, just someone to go warn his family. It feels like a reasonable, even compassionate request. But Abraham denies it without hesitation or apology.
That can be deeply unsettling to modern ears. Why wouldn’t God allow just one more chance? I have to admit that it is a hard passage and a hard saying.
But this is precisely the point: we don’t get to redefine justice on our terms. From our perspective, God’s judgment often seems harsh especially when we imagine ourselves or our loved ones on the receiving end. Speaking from personal experience, it can be agonizing to imagine loved ones suffering eternal punishment. But our limited, fallen sense of fairness is not the measure of divine justice
That’s because we don’t adequately understand the God’s justice and holiness. Scripture testifies that God is holy, righteous, and just in all His ways—even when His ways unsettle us. God does not answer to us, and thank goodness for that. .
Hansen’s critique rests on a dangerous assumption: that if God’s judgment doesn’t meet our moral intuitions, it must be unjust. But the parable turns that logic on its head. The rich man appeals to what seems fair to him—but he is told, in effect, that his sense of justice is irrelevant because God has spoken.
God does not apologize for His justice, nor does He soften it to win our approval. Jesus taught and warned about hell more than any other biblical figure. He didn’t do this because He lacked compassion, but because He better than anyone who has ever lived understood both the full weight of sin and the full glory of God.
Jesus’s listeners may have found this story shocking as well. The Pharisees expected comfort and reward because of their covenant lineage that they traced to Abraham. But Jesus is giving them and us a stark warning. None of us are guaranteed heaven if we do not repent and turn to Jesus Christ. And God owes no one further warning. The warnings have already come in God’s word.
Jesus told this parable not merely to inform, but to warn. The sobering message of Luke 16 is that there will be no second chances after death, no further revelations to tip the scales, no appeals to fairness that will stand before the judgment seat of God.
But that sobering warning comes with some very good news. “”For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). The good news of the Gospel is that Christ has already borne the judgment we deserve. Don’t be like the rich man who realized too late the seriousness of his condition. Repent and come to Christ and be saved.