"Where is heaven?"
"Where do non-Christians go when they die?"
I'm going to take these two questions together, and try and think about life after death. Traditionally, people think that Christian belief is that there are two places to go when you die: you either go to hell, and get prodded by devils with pitchforks, or you go to heaven and sit on a cloud for compulsory harp lessons.
I'm not sure anybody really believes either of these two caricatures any more, which owe more to writings like Dante's Inferno than the Bible.
So what does the Bible say? Not a great deal, if the truth be told. The last book of the Bible, Revelation, describes heaven the most, but it is hard to penetrate through the very symbolic language and work out what is a realistic picture. For instance, John, the writer says this at one point: "Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” and there was no longer any sea."
The translators put "new heaven and new earth" in quotes, as a kind of clue that this was not a literal description, but what about the phrase, "there as no longer any sea." No buckets and spades in heaven? If you're big into surfing, are you going to be disappointed? Again, this is much more likely to be symbolic than actual. In Jewish thinking, the sea represented chaos, the primeval mess out of which God established the order of creation. God is always holding back the sea, restraining the chaos that threatens to overwhelm our lives, so that we can enjoy some peace.
But one day, John says, there ain't gonna be any sea. Chaos won't be a threat any more, always nearly sweeping us away. It will be finally and completely defeated. God's order will have triumphed.
But identifying where heaven is, cannot be done. John the gospel writer talks about us having "eternal life" if we come to Jesus. A new quality of life that begins now and goes on for ever. For him, heaven isn't so much a place as a state of being. It's the state of being right with God. Nothing to fear, ever again.
So if heaven is the state of being OK with God, then hell is the state of being not OK with him. Hell might not actually be so bad, if you're not interested in God. Sometimes people say that the doors to hell only have handles on the inside. God can't get in - he can't open the door from the outside, but people inside can get out, and go and be with God any time they like. they are only in there by choice.
If God is indeed loving and merciful, then I can't see that he wants to insist on us having a relationship with him if we don't want to. If we want to live without him, we're welcome to do so, and he will let us go. All the negative imagery that's sprung up around this ultimate choice is pretty unhelpful, although people might find, when their eyes are finally opened and they say things as they really are, that eternity without God is a pretty lonely and miserable existence.
Think sadly you are dumming down the horrors of hell.
ReplyDeleteSurely an honest reader of the gospels would conclude from the words of Jesus eg of there being wailing and gnashing of teeth, his many warnings to flee from the wrath to come etc, that clearly hell is real and to be feared greatly.
I can fully understand why some try to cast aside these horrendous descriptions of hell as being way off the mark, as you have done in the above blog, as they then of course do raise enormous difficulties to our way of thinking of accepting and presenting this God who is also described as a God of Love. But inadvertently by taking that approach you actually do a complete disservice to God and falsely represent him.
We must never forget he says of himself my ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts, so in trying to be kind we end up losing sight of the true reality of God's character. It is therefore a mistake to ever try to fully understand him and we should definitely not waive aside things just because we might not like them or they seem to fly in the face of everything we have come to think of as being fair (eg the doctrine of election and predestination)
The bible forewarns us that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God and that the fear (yes it actually does mean fear - not just eg respect) of God is the beginning of wisdom. So it is only when we accept (and yes this is often against our own better judgement and however much we may wish it not to be true)that God has created hell, that it is a place of horrendous suffering, that, for those who are there, there is no escape and that it lasts for eternity, that we begin to see God for what he is in reality, and not what we might want him to be.
Emotionally and intellectually we could of our own accord never cope with such a horrenous doctrine, but as with all things in the Christin life, of ourselves we can do nothing, and so if we are to walk closely with him on life's path we must ask for his grace to accept that which he says and learn, as the simple yet profound words of the hymn put it "to trust and obey, for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey"
Hi Andrew - thanks for your comment. I agree with a lot of what you say, but I'm not convinced when you say that God created hell. I can't think of anywhere in the Bible that says so (perhaps you can prove me wrong!) and I prefer to think of hell as the consequences of our choices.
ReplyDeleteI certainly think that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, and, as C.S. Lewis made Mrs Beaver say, "If there's anyone who can stand before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly." Do you know the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? I think Lewis is right on the money there.
Or as Jesus himself said, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell."
I'm in awe of God. I'm somewhat afraid of him. But I'm not afraid of hell. I believe and trust that, thanks to Jesus, I'll never have to go there.
Yes have read the Lion etc book.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm sure we would both agree that were it not for the protection afforded by the Lord Jesus to those who put their trust in him, hell would be something we'd rightly fear.
The relatively little suffering I've endured in this life has been bad enough, but to think of a suffering from which there is no escape and to which there is no end is just so horrendous that it does not even bear thinking about such is its awfulness. It is why Jesus went to such pains to warn people about it.
But I do believe 100% that the doctrine of eternal punishment in a place called hell is exactly what the bible teaches us and I also agree, as you say, it exists as a natural consequence of rebellion against God and his ways.
But in regard to its origin and whether it was created by God I'd offer Matthew 25:41 "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" as almost certainly suggesting to it having been been created by God?