"In our culture, divine judgment is one of
Christianity's most offensive doctrines." So says Timothy Keller,
pastor of the Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, a church with 6,000
regular attendees at five services each Sunday. As a minister and
preacher, he says, he often finds himself speaking on Biblical texts that teach
the wrath of God, the final judgment, and the doctrine of HELL.
In Christianity, Keller continues, God is both a God of love
and of justice. Many believe that a loving God can't be a judging God
filled with wrath and anger. "If he is loving and perfect, he should
forgive and accept everyone. He shouldn't get angry."
Keller then points out that all loving persons are
sometimes filled with wrath, not just despite but because of
their love. If you love a person, he says, and you see someone ruining
them with unwise actions and relationships ---- even done by the loved person
themselves ---- you get angry.
"Ah," says Keller, "God fighting evil and
injustice in the world is one thing, but sending people to HELL is quite
another. The Bible speaks of eternal punishment, but sending people to
HELL as popularly envisioned is much more extreme.
I remember that as a college freshman I was required to take
a Humanities course with a challenging reading list. One of the
requirements was to read Dante's Inferno and discuss in class the
symbolism and fearful consequences of possibly going to HELL when we die.
The instructor came prepared, with a selection of reproduction pictures of a
flaming landscape rendered by famous Renaissance painters. His portfolio
showed in excruciating detail each of the layers of HELL, as Dante visualized
them, and to this day I can recall these dreadful scenes.
Keller's analysis continues: "Modern people
inevitably think HELL works like this ---- God gives us time, but if we haven't
made the right choices by the end of our lives, he casts our souls into HELL
for all eternity. As the poor souls fall through space, they cry out for
mercy, but God says "Too late! You had your chance! Now you
will suffer!" But, says Keller, this caricature misunderstands the very
nature of evil.
The Biblical picture, according to Keller, is that sin is
our separation from the presence of God, which is the source of all joy and
indeed of all love, wisdom, and good things of any sort. Since we were
originally created for God's immediate presence, only before his face will we
thrive, flourish, and achieve our greatest potential. If we were to lose
his presence totally, that would be HELL ---- the loss of our capacity
for giving or receiving love or joy.
A traditional image of HELL, Keller tells us, is that of
fire. Fire disintegrates. Even in this life we can see the kind of
soul disintegration that self-centeredness creates. We know selfishness and
self-absorption leads to bitterness, envy, anxiety, paranoid thoughts, and the
mental denials and distortions that accompany them.
Now ask the question: What if when we die we don't
end, but spiritually our life extends on into eternity?" HELL, then,
is the trajectory of a soul, living a self-absorbed, self-centered life, going
on and on forever.
Keller concludes that HELL is simply one's freely chosen
identity to be separated from God on a trajectory that goes on for a billion or
more years. We see small examples of this process in addictions to drugs,
alcohol, gambling and pornography.
First, there is some kind of dependency (but not to God),
says Keller, and as time goes on one needs more and more of the addictive
substance to get an equal kick, which leads to less and less satisfaction.
Second, there is isolation increasingly, by one's blame of
others and circumstances, in order to justify one's own behavior. When we
build our lives on anything but God, says Keller, that thing ---- though
perhaps a "good" thing in a sense (for example, wealth) ---- becomes
an enslaving addiction, something we must have to be happy. Keller
believes that this personal dependency can go on forever, with increasing
isolation, denial, delusion and self-absorption.
People go to Heaven, Keller says, because they love God and
want to submit to him. People go to HELL be cause they want to be away from
God, because they do not want somebody telling them how to live their
lives. They want to be their own savior, their own Lord. They want
to live their lives their own way. That's HELL. Keller believes
that HELL is eternal, but it is not inevitable. God gives you what you
want. He says that Heaven and HELL essentially are our freely chosen
identities, going on forever. And, says Keller, you stay wanting
it; you cannot suddenly change your mind.
So, Keller leaves us with this thought: It is not a
question of God "sending" us to HELL. In each of us there is
something growing, which will be HELL unless we nip it in the bud.
______________________________________________________________________
These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult
Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal
growth this year at CPC.
______________________________________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment