"In our culture, divine judgement 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 on individual people's lives, and the
doctrine of HELL.
In Christianity, Keller continues, God is in fact both a God
of love and a God of justice. Many believe that a loving God cannot be a
judging God, sometimes filled with wrath and anger. "If He is loving
and perfect, he should forgive and accept everyone. He should not
get angry at us."
However, 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 them ruining themselves
with unwise actions and relationships of their own doing ---- 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 a time alive on earth,
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 our punishment. 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 the punishable bad behavior.
Importantly, the Biblical picture according to Keller, is
that the bad behavior being punished is our willful separation from
the presence of God, the source of all joy, love, wisdom, and good things of
any sort. This is his definition of sin. Since we were
originally created for God's immediate presence, only before his face will we
thrive, flourish, and achieve our greatest potential. Keller believes
that if we were to lose God's presence totally, that would be HELL ---- the loss
of our capacity for giving or receiving love and joy.
A traditional image of HELL, Keller tells us, is that of
fire. 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 to 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. The general process of never
conquering self-centeredness and accepting God as our master, is less
obvious but similar.
First, there is some kind of dependency (but not dependency
on 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 increasing isolation, 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 because they want to be away
from God. So, they do not want somebody ruling over them, 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 are
temptations which will direct us to HELL, unless we nip them in the bud.
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These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult
Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal
spiritual growth this year at CPC.
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