Hell And The God Of Love

We're continuing a discussion of the existence of the human soul after death. 

Back in October, 2008 Dr. Ken R Vincent delivered a lecture delivered to the Psi Beta Psychology Honor Society at Houston Community College on The Dark Side of Spiritually Transformative Experiences. The lecture was later published in 2009 in the liberal magazine Universalist Herald as an article titled "Religious Experience Research Reveals Universalist Principles."  In his college lecture Dr. Vincent quoted two people who had negative near-death experiences of hell. 

• “I was in hell…I cried up to God, and it was by the power of God and the mercy of God that I was permitted to come back.” (Rommer, 2000, p. 42)
• “God, I’m not ready, please help me…I remember when I screamed (this), an arm shot out of the sky and grabbed my hand at the last second.  I was falling off the end of the funnel, the lights flashing; and the heat was really something.” (Greyson & Bush, 1992, p. 100)

I won't comment on the validity of these reports. However, I do want to emphasize that even such a far-left leaning journal as the Universalist Herald finds it important to acknowledge the existence of hell. However—and this is critical—they do not believe nor teach that hell is permanent. In his article Dr. Vincent suggests that

“Hell may last as long a sinful humanity lasts, but that does not mean that any individual will remain in it all that time. The time of purging can only continue until purification is reached. And a God driven to employ endless hell would be a God turned fiend himself, defeated in his original purpose…. but God will never desert the soul.”

Is the Biblical teaching of hell indeed a teaching about a fiendish God who loves only selectively? Here are Jesus' comments about hell as reported by Matthew's Gospel:

• But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable to the hell of fire. ... If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. - Mat 5:22, 29-30 ESV
• And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. - Mat 10:28 ESV
• And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. - Mat 16:18 ESV
• And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire. - Mat 18:9 ESV
• Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. ... You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? - Mat 23:15, 33 ESV

Is this indeed the same Lord who said, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" - Matt 11:28 ESV? And again, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" - John 3:16 ESV?

How does one reconcile a loving God in Christ with the concept of souls going to hell after the body has died, only to be resurrected and confined body and soul to hell forever?

And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' ... "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ... Then he will answer them, saying, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." - Mat 25:30, 41, 45-46 ESV

The Greek for eternal does indeed say that the darkness, fire and punishment will never cease. The huge question that troubles many is how to reconcile this Word of God with His revealing of Himself in Christ as the God of love who bears our burdens and carries our sorrows (Isa. 53:3-4). The brief answer lies in the fact that we have been endowed with the power to choose. While every sin is by its very nature damnable, in the final analysis it is the sin of refusing to accept God's mercy in Christ that condemns.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. ... Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. - John 3:17-18, 36 ESV

As someone has said, you can only get into hell over the crucified body of Christ. But there is much, much more that needs to be said about this. That discussion will have to wait for later postings.

Go Now And Sin No More

"Jesus was left alone with the woman the woman standing before him." So we come to the conclusion of the story John told.

Jesus stood up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more." - Jhn 8:10-11 ESV

Some say this story was never in John's Gospel. Some say it always was in one form or another. In any event it teaches us something very strange and wondrous about Jesus.

How could he not condemn her? Had she not trampled upon the very plan of God established when Adam was introduced to Eve? Is not the union of a man and woman for life? Is there ever any reason why adultery could be condoned? Had not Jesus himself taught that adultery begins in the very act of gazing upon a woman with lustful desire (Matt. 5:28)? The answers are obvious.

And yet Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you." Did he mean to say she had not committed adultery? Oh no. She had been caught red handed, in the very act—or at least so went the story (John 8:4). What then did he say? That he, like the other men, was not without sin and so not fit to pass judgment? Surely not, for Jesus was without sin, holy, blameless and pure (Heb. 7:26-27). What gave him the right to say to this woman that her sins were forgiven, that God no longer held her guilty?

Here is John's answer, the answer to which all sinners must cling:

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. - 1Jo 2:1-2 ESV

This strange word propitiation (hilasmos in Greek) has a deep and profound meaning. It hearkens back to the great Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. The root for the word Kippur is kafar, a Hebrew word that comes from a word meaning "ranson." To ransom means to atone by offering a substitute. In the Old Covenant the blood of the sacrificial animals was required in exchange for the blood or lives of the worshippers who had broken covenant with the LORD by their sins and so deserved death. This was clarified particularly on the Day of Atonement when the High Priest, on behalf of all Israel, laid both of his hands upon the scapegoat and confessed all their transgressions, all their sins and all their iniquities before the LORD (Lev. 16:15-22). The same was true for the sacrifice of all the many animals killed during the days of the Old Covenant (Lev. 1:4-5).

Christ came as the final sinless sacrifice, the Lamb of God (John 1:29,36), to be sacrificed for the sins of all mankind from Adam to the end of this age. All the sacrifices before that were but parables or symbols pointing forward to the coming of this Lamb (Heb. 9:9). He himself was the High Priest who offered this sacrifice. Thus he became the mediator of a new covenant, because his death, his blood, is the Kippur, the all-atoning sacrifice, the propitiation, offered as the one, final substitute for all men.

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. - Heb 9:11-15 ESV

Because Jesus was the Lamb of God, because he was to make atonement for this woman's sins upon the altar of Calvary, because he was the High Priest who was to offer the all-atoning sacrifice, he could say to her, "Neither do I condemn you!"

Cleansed and purified, he then gave her the power to change her life. With his Word and his mercy planted firmly in her heart, he could also say, "Go and from now on sin no more." In this Good News all sinners now find refuge and the power to change their lives.