Recently I read a passage in Max Lucado’s 3:16: The Numbers of Hope—where Lucado actually says that he wished there were no hell.
Yes, the reality of an eternal hell is tough for me too. But noted pastor-theologian John Piper takes a different approach to the subject of hell, in his Brothers, We Are Not Professionals:
I know for myself that in order to be a true shepherd and not a hireling, in order to grieve over the straying lambs, and in order to summon with tears the wild goats, I must believe in my heart certain terrible and wonderful things. If I am to love with the meek, humble, tender, self-effacing heart of Christ, I must feel the awful and glorious truths of Scripture. Specifically:
- I must feel the truth of hell—that it exists and is terrible and horrible byond imaginings forever and ever.
- I must feel the truth that once I was as close to hell as I am to the chair I am sitting on—even closer.
- I must feel the truth that God’s wrath was on my head (John 3:16); His face was against me (Ps. 34:16); He hated me in my sins (Ps. 5:5); His curse and fury were my portion (Gal. 3:10).
- I must feel in my heart that all the righteousness in the universe was on the side of God and against me. (pp. 114-15)
Or perhaps there’s another side to this place called hell: the place and description of hell were never meant to be taken literally, and therefore the problem is with our interpretation?
I wish there were no hell.
Related post:
- Joel’s post on the Church Fathers who seemingly embraced universalism.
You are not the only one, T.C.
Joel, I have that Zondervan “Four Views on Hell” and thinking about reading deeper.
Crawling into the 1st century mind of Jesus and his listeners is the key.
But where do we start? Literal or Metaphorical? Eternal or Annihilation?
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We Start with our Fear and move to our Hope.
I really don’t know what to make of your answer: whether it’s a solution or complication of the matter?
To say what Joel said in a different way:
The Law commands and makes us know
What duties to our God we owe;
But ’tis the Gospel must reveal
Where lies our strength to do His will.
The Law discovers guilt and sin
And shows how vile our hearts have been;
The Gospel only can express
Forgiving love and cleansing grace.
What curses doth the Law denounce
Against the man that fails but once!
But in the Gospel Christ appears,
Pard’ning the guilt of num’rous years.
My soul, no more attempt to draw
Thy life and comfort from the Law.
Fly to the hope the Gospel gives;
The man that trusts the promise lives.
(Issac Watts, taken from No. 289, The Lutheran Hymnal, Concordia Publishing House: St. Louis, 1941.)
Yes.
…
Where do you start where you will first cause people to cast aspersions upon you?
That would be to embrace annihilationism. Ha!
I wonder if the metaphysical question, as Piper uses it, is all that important. The reality broken lives in the classic “here and now” is overwhelming enough for me. Consider the gang rape in Richmond last week, witnessed by twenty or more do-nothing souls. That’s a hell I don’t have to speculate about.
With all that said, our ability to contemplate an eternity of that kind nihilistic inhumanity says something we really ought to pay attention to. Thank you Jesus, for a salvation that is full and free!
Kyle,
Remember a few years ago, Pentecostal minister Carlton Pearson took a similar view of “hell” and was virtually excommunicated by mainstream evangelicalism. He was dubbed a heretic.
At bedside, before I get into bed, I say the following prayer (snippets which follow):
“O Master that lovest mankind will not this couch be my grave…Behold the grave lieth before; behold death standeth before. Thy judgment O lord I fear and the unending torments, yet I cease not from doing evil. Continually I anger Thee, thy Most Pure Mother, all the heavenly powers and my holy guardian…If thou showest mercy to the pure it is nothing marvelous.. but upon me a sinner manifest thy love toward all mankind and let not my evil nature overcome thy grace and kindness that cannot be told. ”
This prayer and the tradition (Eastern Orthodox) it embodied sees the boundless mercy of God as being the sine quo non of salvation but which is to be matched by our universal (and personal) culpability for sin, which is remedied our by God-empowered repentence and divine mercy. Thus, the truly human response is humility, the acknowledgment that “it’s me, it’s me, it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer” It’s not the “Other,” the “sinners” in out midst. We’re all in the same boat. It’s the same theology and praxis embodied in the prayer of the Publican. If this is what Piper is pointing to, I’m in agreement; but if it’s a sterile exericse of rumination on abstract doctrine, it means nothing.
Thus, the truly human response is humility, the acknowledgment that “it’s me, it’s me, it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer” It’s not the “Other,” the “sinners” in out midst. We’re all in the same boat. It’s the same theology and praxis embodied in the prayer of the Publican.
Yes, Piper has that in mind too.
If this is what Piper is pointing to, I’m in agreement; but if it’s a sterile exericse of rumination on abstract doctrine, it means nothing.
But would not call “hell,” a sterile exercise of rumination on abstract doctrine,” as seen from the above quote.
TC,
Don’t excommunicate me so soon! I’m not denying the existence of hell. The point that Scott makes so well is that the abstraction loses all ability to motivate. We tend to major on ideas-in-abstraction and loose touch with reality. Especially, the reality of hell.
We’re living in a time when pain is self-medicated and anxiety is a sympton of some mental pathology, not a spiritual condition. I’m afraid it takes a relatively high level of spiritual formation to make the connection that Scott makes with his classical reflection.
Kyle,
Perhaps Scott is referring to what you just described.
But hell as an “abstract doctrine”? There seems to be more going on with him comment.;-)
I used to be eternity but now I’m wondering more about annihilation based on what some Scripture says. How important is this matter? Seriously question.
Jeff
Jeff, What Scripture do you have in mind? That’s a good place for us to start fleshing things out.
God does not desire the death of a sinner, but rather that the sinner turns from wickedness and lives.
If God desires sending even one sinner to Hell, then any verse talking about God’s mercy is a lie. There are no exceptions in Scripture, even though theologians seem to have found some.
If God saves a sinner, even though that sinner has rejected God, then it is not a relationship of love. Our relationship to God is as deterministic as anything B. F. Skinner could have thought of.
There is only once choice left: every individual makes that a personal choice. God desires salvation, but does not require or prohibit it.
There is nothing we can do for salvation, even making a decision for Christ. After all, Christ has already made a decision for us. (Isn’t just like humans to think we can save ourselves by making a decision when God has already made a decision for us?) We can only reject so great a salvation.
It is well above my pay grade to know when and if that happens.
Bob,
Help me out here: I get the impression of universalism. Am I correct?
Not from me, you won’t. If we are not free to reject the love of God, then it is not a relationship of God.
Consider your relationship to God as a light switch. The usual way to describe this relationship is to say the switch starts in the “off” position, and we must accept Jesus to turn it to the “on” position. This causes way too many problems.
1. Today we don’t like the idea of babies in Limbo. Yet, Limbo is the only place for person who is not responsible and dies with turning the switch “on.”
2. In spite of describing salvation as a free gift from God (as if there are any other types of gifts), we tell people they must do something to receive it (say the Sinner’s Prayer, or some such variation). This sounds like the e-mails I get from people saying they will reward me, but first I have to give them my bank account number.
What if Jesus’ death turned the light switch “on” for us? That doesn’t mean we can’t turn the switch “off” (unless you believe in “once saved, always saved”). All we have to do is stop turning the switch “off” when God turns it “on.”
I once heard a great sermon by April Stanley, an Anglican priest in British Columbia. (This was when she was at St. Paul’s in the west end of Vancouver.) She began this sermon in Advent by describing all the graffiti that called for us to “repent.” She countered that the graffiti should be saying “wake up!”
We need to wake up to God’s goodness.
T.C., I hope for universalism, and see in Scripture that same hope, but I am not ready to abandon the doctrines of hell.
Often times, I think that Calvinism makes perfect sense if universalism is true.
Joel,
Your comment did go to blogging “limbo.”
I’m not too sure about universalism. I just did a review of E.P. Sanders Paul, and Sanders portrays Paul as a universalist on account of Romans 11:32.
How is Calvinism a perfect match for universalism?
If God predestines some for eternal life, and some for punishment, how does that mesh with a merciful God?
Universalism.
Of course, I am not a Calvinist either.
Need to correct a sentence:
Not from me, you won’t. If we are not free to reject the love of God, then it is not a relationship of love (or Love, for that matter).
1. Today we don’t like the idea of babies in Limbo. Yet, Limbo is the only place for person who is not responsible and dies with[out] turning the switch “on.”
You’re assuming that babies have sins that they must give an account for. I hold to no such view.
2. In spite of describing salvation as a free gift from God (as if there are any other types of gifts), we tell people they must do something to receive it (say the Sinner’s Prayer, or some such variation)
St. Paul says that we must believe (Eph. 2:8). That’s something we must do.
What if Jesus’ death turned the light switch “on” for us? That doesn’t mean we can’t turn the switch “off” (unless you believe in “once saved, always saved”). All we have to do is stop turning the switch “off” when God turns it “on.”
What is wrong with God keeping the saved saved?
We need to wake up to God’s goodness.
But how? By our own bootstraps? What shallow soteriology!
Babies don’t have sin? I guess I know what side of the argument you come down on for “original sin.” I’m not sure. I just know I’ve seen children who intentionally misbehave long before any age of accountability sets in.
When Paul says we must believe, how does that come about. If it is something that I do of my own accord, it is Law. If it is something given to me by God, it is Gospel. We are not saved by following the Law, but by the grace of the Gospel. (Sorry if I sound too much like a Lutheran at this point, but this is something they got right.)
What is wrong with “once saved, always saved”? It removes our will from the relationship, which means it is no longer a relationship of love. You must have the choice to leave, like the Prodigal Son.
We wake up by the action of the Spirit in our lives, in all its many ways revealed. How is that shallow?
punishment, how does that mesh with a merciful God?
Universalism.
Of course, I am not a Calvinist either.
Joel,
I wouldn’t bore you with the technical terms for what you outlined in the Calvinism camp.
Universalism says that in the end everyone will be saved. Imagine Hitler in glory!
Babies don’t have sin? I guess I know what side of the argument you come down on for “original sin.” I’m not sure. I just know I’ve seen children who intentionally misbehave long before any age of accountability sets in.
Bob,
I’m not denying a bent toward sin. I believe this is what Paul means by the Greek sarx, “flesh.” I have young kids, and I don’t have to teach them to do wrong. In fact, it’s the opposite.
But neither do I believe that they’re in any danger of God’s judgment or them going to some limbo. By the way, were they to go limbo, How are they extracted from there?
When Paul says we must believe, how does that come about. If it is something that I do of my own accord, it is Law. If it is something given to me by God, it is Gospel. We are not saved by following the Law, but by the grace of the Gospel. (Sorry if I sound too much like a Lutheran at this point, but this is something they got right.)
Eph. 2:8 is too plain for us to complicate it.
What is wrong with “once saved, always saved”? It removes our will from the relationship, which means it is no longer a relationship of love. You must have the choice to leave, like the Prodigal Son.
It ask “once saved, always saved” and so on questions of Luke 15, is fraught with exegetical danger from the get go. The Prodigal is not about whether someone may lose his salvation or not. We need another text for that.
We wake up by the action of the Spirit in our lives, in all its many ways revealed. How is that shallow?
Forgive me for not seeing the work of the Spirit in your original quote above.
It is a pass-fail system. Technically, Hitler’s fate isn’t different from my fate.
I think it would be glorious to know that God, in mercy, could and would save Hitler. It gives me hope.
Then why the ethical injunctions of the gospel as we await his return?
Yes, the mercy and grace of God are all we have. But on what basis would an unrepentant Hitler be in glory?
How does any of us know that Hitler is unrepentant?
Those who are hired at the 11th hour receive the same reward as those hired at the 1st hour. This means there is the possibility of salvation for Hitler. That is as much as we know.
I don’t see how there could be a Limbo. Yet it is a natural, logical development if you have us unsaved until we accept Jesus. I happen to believe that the grace that saved a lost creation enough has all of us starting from the “saved” (we are in the Garden) position, requiring our action (eating the forbidden fruit) to remove us from Paradise.
It’s not just Ephesians 2.8, but all of Ephesians 2 (especially 1-10) that has convinced me that it is not our acceptance of Jesus that saves us. It is all God’s work through the death of Jesus that saves us; our only choice is to neglect so great a salvation.
This is what leads to the Prodigal Son and how it applies on one level. The son was a member of his father’s household, but chose to take his inheritance and go it alone. He chose to neglect his sonship, saying his father was dead. The father let the son go, but was more than ready to welcome him back (complete with a type of sacrifice, the killing of the fatted calf). Don’t be too sure this doesn’t apply, even though this passage usually isn’t used for this purpose.
When it comes to waking up to God’s action, maybe my time on Twitter is teaching me to be too terse? Sorry I didn’t explain enough.
Bob,
Yes, we really don’t know what happened to Hitler in the very end (It’s fruitless for either one of us to go on speculating).
I don’t see how there could be a Limbo. Yet it is a natural, logical development if you have us unsaved until we accept Jesus. I happen to believe that the grace that saved a lost creation enough has all of us starting from the “saved” (we are in the Garden) position, requiring our action (eating the forbidden fruit) to remove us from Paradise.
Logical deductions are tricky. Plain reading of Scripture for me, but of course certain implications are to be had, but with such, we have to be extremely careful.
I’m afraid I’m not convinced of your “logical development.” This, however, is not to deny what Scripture plainly teach in a text like Romans 8:18ff, regarding the redemption of creation and the people of God.
It’s not just Ephesians 2.8, but all of Ephesians 2 (especially 1-10) that has convinced me that it is not our acceptance of Jesus that saves us. It is all God’s work through the death of Jesus that saves us; our only choice is to neglect so great a salvation.
If Eph. 1:1-10 lays out the divine initiative, then v.13 and 2:8 the human response.
Don’t be too sure this doesn’t apply, even though this passage usually isn’t used for this purpose.
Neither should you be too sure that it does apply at one level.
When it comes to waking up to God’s action, maybe my time on Twitter is teaching me to be too terse? Sorry I didn’t explain enough.
You’re required to say more on my blog.
But neither do I believe that they’re in any danger of God’s judgment or them going to some limbo.
TC,
Could you flesh this statement out a little? I’m curious of your view of children in relation to God.
Meto,
Let’s take it up in a post.
TC, I don’t want to be caught in the position for arguing for universalism, but some of the early writers saw that after a time of punishment, everyone would be saved. (I posted a few of those quotes today).
Joel, neither do I want to make the fathers my authority on the matter.
Did you post the accompanying biblical texts they argued from? I’ll check.
When did the Fathers use biblical texts?
Of course, it is mainly to show that this conversation that we are having has been had, and will be have, many times over, by sincere believers.
I don’t think we can conserve on a purely new subject. You’re right.
But each generation has a way of rehashing the old stuff. Sometimes, these dialogues are needed, since old notions are refashioned.
Baggy pants are back.
When did the Fathers used Biblical texts?
http://www.worship.ca/docs/l_stjohn.html
My sarcasm has gotten the best of me! The Fathers, for me, provide more insight than anything today.
I didn’t think you really thought that, but it was fun to link to the Paschal Sermon in response.
This calls for mercy – the very thing we’re discussing.