At the Foot of the Cross: What Are We Running Toward?

This whole thing started during a sermon with the phrase “the foot of the cross.”

I wish I could tell you my immediate response was some profound theological reflection.

It wasn't.

I wondered what the literal foot of a cross would look like. So I drew one.

And once you've drawn a cross with a human foot growing out of the bottom, the obvious next question is:

What shoes would a cross wear?

Sandals seemed reasonable. Sneakers definitely had possibilities.

This was getting out of hand quickly. 😂

But as I kept listening and taking notes, the ridiculous picture started connecting with something much less ridiculous. We were talking about following Jesus, judgment, different Christian understandings of hell, and ultimately the character of the God we're following.

That's when my cross needed more shoes.

Because following requires movement. A journey requires feet. And somewhere along the way, my silly doodle left me sitting with a surprisingly serious question:

What do we actually know about hell, and how does it fit with what Scripture shows us about the heart of God?

👣 At the Foot of the Cross

Before getting to the shoes, there's something worth exploring about the fear side of this question.

If you've encountered Christianity mostly as “Believe in Jesus so you don't go to hell,” the word hell may seem pretty straightforward.

Except the biblical language isn't quite that simple.

Different Hebrew and Greek words appear in passages that English translations have sometimes associated with "hell," and they don't all mean exactly the same thing.

Sheol: the place of the dead

Sheol is a Hebrew word found throughout the Old Testament.

Depending on the passage and translation, you'll see it rendered with language such as the grave, the pit, death, or the realm of the dead. It isn't simply the equivalent of our popular image of fiery eternal punishment.

That becomes pretty interesting when you look at who talks about going there. Jacob, for example, fears that grief over losing Benjamin would bring his gray hair down to Sheol in Genesis 42:38. Job talks about Sheol in Job 3 while longing for relief in death. The Psalms repeatedly use Sheol while talking about death and the grave.

So when we encounter Sheol, we shouldn't automatically picture the fiery hell many of us were taught to imagine. That's not how Sheol itself is described in these Old Testament passages.

And that distinction matters. If I'm trying to understand what the Bible says about hell, I don't want to accidentally bring my definition to the text before I've even asked what the biblical word means.

Hades: a Greek word for the realm of the dead

Then we get to the New Testament and encounter Hades.

Hades is Greek, and it was commonly used to translate the Hebrew Sheol when the Old Testament was translated into Greek. That connection is one reason the two terms are often associated with the realm of the dead.

Again, that doesn't answer every question about what happens after death. But it does remind me that when I see the word hell in English, it's worth asking what word is actually underneath it.

Gehenna: now things get fiery

Then there's Gehenna.

The name is connected to the Valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem, a real place with a truly awful history in the Old Testament.

Passages such as Jeremiah 7:31-32 describe people building high places there and sacrificing their children, something God explicitly says He did not command. The passage then describes God's judgment connected with that place.

By the New Testament, Jesus uses Gehenna as powerful imagery when warning about divine judgment.

You may also have heard the popular explanation that Gehenna was Jerusalem's burning garbage dump, although that historical detail is debated.

Either way, definitely not a place anyone would be booking their next Airbnb. 😂

And all of this leaves us with something considerably more complicated than I once realized.

Sheol. Hades. Gehenna. Outer darkness. Destruction. Fire. Death. The lake of fire.

We have a collection of biblical words and images that Christians have been trying to understand together for a very long time.

And sometimes English simply gives us:

Hell.

That's a lot of theology packed into one four-letter word.

🔥 So What Happens After Judgment?

Christians don't all put these passages together in exactly the same way.

Three views we discussed were:

Eternal conscious torment: Those who finally reject God experience conscious punishment without end.

Conditional immortality: Eternal life is a gift from God rather than something every person inherently possesses forever. Final judgment therefore ultimately results in the destruction of those who reject God.

Ultimate reconciliation: God's judgment is real, but ultimately restorative, eventually resulting in reconciliation with God.

Supporters of each view interpret some of the same passages differently, including passages about fire, destruction, punishment, and eternity.

So which one is right?

I don't know.

Christians who love Jesus and take Scripture seriously have reached different conclusions about how these passages fit together, so I definitely won't be scribbling a winner into my doodled sermon notes. 😂

What I can keep asking is:

What does Scripture show me about the heart of God, and what do I see Jesus actually doing?

That doesn't magically answer every question about hell, but it tells me something pretty important about the God I'm trusting while I ask them.

You don't have to pretend a difficult passage isn't difficult. You don't have to be afraid of asking what a word means. And you don't have to have every theological question tied into a pretty little bow before you can follow Jesus.

🥾 JOURNEY WITH GOD

This is where my cross gets hiking boots.

Following Jesus is a journey. Sometimes you understand what you're reading. Sometimes you end up with seventeen tabs open trying to figure out what Gehenna means. Sometimes you discover Christians have been arguing about your question for approximately forever.

You keep walking, asking, coming back to Scripture, and getting to know the One you're following.

👟 RUN FROM FEAR OR RUN TOWARD JESUS

This brings me back to the question underneath this whole post:

Why am I following Jesus?

When I look at Scripture, I keep finding reminders that God's heart is not simply about catching people doing something wrong.

Second Peter 3:9 describes God as patient, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

First Timothy 2:3-6 describes God as wanting all people to be saved and describes Jesus as giving Himself as a ransom for all.

And then there's John 3:16. You may know that one even if you've never owned a Bible:

“For God so loved the world...”

But don't stop at verse 16.

John 3:17 says God didn't send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.

And when I look at Jesus' life, something else stands out to me. Some of His strongest confrontations weren't aimed at confused people asking questions or people who hadn't gotten their theology perfectly organized.

Again and again, Jesus confronted religious leaders when their rules, hypocrisy, traditions, or actions became obstacles between people and God.

In Mark 7, He challenges religious traditions that have been elevated in ways that undermine God's commands. In Matthew 23, He condemns religious leaders who “tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people's shoulders” and who “shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces.” And when Jesus clears the temple, His anger is directed at what has happened in a place intended for worship and prayer.

None of that tells me exactly what hell looks like.

But it tells me quite a bit about Jesus.

It makes me wonder whether we've sometimes made fear the centerpiece of a Gospel that was supposed to point people toward Him.

Maybe the goal isn't to scare people toward Jesus. Maybe it's to remove the things unnecessarily standing in their way so they can actually see Him.

That gives me a very different starting point than:

RUN OR GOD'S GONNA GET YOU.

What happens if I stop seeing Jesus primarily as my escape route from something terrifying and start looking at the Person I'm actually running toward?

🌳 A Strange Little Detail in Eden

That question even changes how I look at a familiar story.

After Adam and Eve eat from the tree God told them not to eat from, Genesis 3:22-24 tells us something interesting: God prevents them from eating from the tree of life and living forever.

I've usually thought about their removal from Eden through the lens of punishment. But there's another question worth sitting with:

What would it mean for human beings to live forever in that broken condition? Could preventing that also contain mercy?

I'm not offering that question as the Official Poop and Pray Interpretation of Genesis™. I'm sitting with it.

Sometimes that's what studying Scripture looks like.

👠 WALK IN JOY

Yes. The cross is wearing heels now.

We've come too far to turn back. 😂

But there's something underneath this ridiculous sticker too.

Nehemiah 8:10 contains that beautiful line:

“The joy of the LORD is your strength.”

Following God doesn't mean pretending difficult things aren't difficult. This entire post just wandered through death, judgment, and humanity's separation from God.

But fear doesn't have to be the only thing with enough power to move our feet.

There can be joy in following too. There can be curiosity. There can be love.

There can even be ridiculous doodles in the margins of sermon notes.

🩴 FOLLOW JESUS

Eventually, four words ended up standing out in my notes:

LOVE. MERCY. GRACE. JUSTICE.

Those words don't erase the difficult questions about judgment. Justice is right there on the list.

But they do remind me that when I'm trying to understand a difficult passage, I'm not just studying an abstract doctrine.

I'm learning about the character of God.

And that brings me right back to my original, extremely questionable foot.

A foot goes somewhere. Sneakers can run. Hiking boots can handle a journey. Heels can apparently walk in joy.

And sandals?

Well, sandals just seemed mandatory for a Jesus-themed sticker sheet. 😂

Maybe following Jesus isn't primarily about becoming terrified enough of what's behind you to run faster. Maybe it's about continuing to discover the One in front of you and finding more and more reasons to take another step toward Him.

Even when you still have questions.

Especially when you still have questions.

And apparently, sometimes while wearing fabulous shoes. 👠

👣 Want Your Own Faith-Filled Footwear?

Naturally, I couldn't spend this much time thinking about shoes for a cross and not turn them into stickers.

So I made a free “Faith Has Feet” printable sticker collection, with sneakers, sandals, hiking boots, rain boots, heels, cowboy boots, and Scripture to go with each one!

🎁 Be sure to enter your email to get immediate access to the Foot of the Cross Stickers! 👇

Also, check the “sign up for news and updates” box to get your explosive 💥💩 Welcome Email Series - overflowing with FREEBIES, and always served with a dump of humor! 😅

💬 Now I'm Curious About Your Feet 😂

Okay, that heading sounded considerably less weird in my head.

But seriously, what helps you keep moving toward Jesus when you have questions you can't neatly answer? Has learning more about God's character changed the way you think about fear, faith, or following Him?

I'd genuinely love to hear what you're wrestling with or discovering, so drop your thoughts in the comments below.

And if you'd rather answer the considerably less theological version:

Which shoes are you putting on your cross today? 👟🥾👠🩴