Download Questioning Faith (Part 3): Hell

02/06/2013
St John's in the City, Evening Service
Hell
Sam Bennett
Opening Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC6UrMTC73A
In the book of Romans we read:
Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present
nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love
of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In 1st John, we read:
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.
Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever
does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God
showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the
world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved
God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for
our sins.
God is love. Whoever lives in love, lives in God, and God in them.
God's love is an overwhelming force in this world. The idea that love
comes from God, and that love is Godly, is a crucial part of the Christian
faith. It is essential to consider God's all-encompassing love when
looking at any aspect of questioning faith, searching for answers.
Discussions concerning Hell are no exception - God's love is an integral
part of what we understand as 'Hell'.
The first question that we will be considering tonight is "What is Hell?"
We saw one vision of Hell in the video played earlier, but let me ask you
- what are some images of Hell you have come across?
The Bible paints a gruesome and vivid picture of Hell. In revelation, we
read of a 'Lake of Fire', and in Matthew Hell is described as a 'blazing
furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth". These bold
and terrifying images can be understood as metaphors to help us
understand what Hell - the most dreadful fate of man - is. Insisting that
these images are simply metaphors could be seen as a naive attempt to
relieve the uneasiness, or discomfort that we feel when confronted with
such intense verses, but this is not the case. To find out why, let's explore
what the verses are describing.
Eternal torment, being cut off from your people, suffering and toil?
These are surely some of the darkest scenarios we can imagine. The
Gospels sometimes even refer to Hell as 'darkness'. A famous quote
relates the understanding of God's love to the understanding of
darkness. "Darkness is not darkness, rather, the absence of light". The
dark, terrifying references to Hell describe an existence away from God's
light - his love, influence, and guidance. The opposite of Hell is being
saturated in God's light, participating in his love, and being guided by
his will. The Bible speaks frequently of God's love for his creation - his
world, his people. Every week in church we hear God's call for us to be
with him, and worship him. In the liturgy of our church each week we
respond with thanks and praise. This is what we were created to do - to
respond to God's resounding love with worship and hope. Imagine,
then, the crushing pain and misery we would experience if we were
separated from this love, from relationship with God. Separation from
God is Hell. Imagine a world where there is no hope - where destruction
and fear is the norm, and one can never escape. This is Hell. Verses in
the Bible use gory, violent, frightening images to convey the agony that
complete and utter separation from God must be. Hell is experienced
any time one is not in relationship with God. When we talk about Hell
on Earth, or hellish situations, these aren't merely figures of speech these expressions describe the experience of separation from God, the
experience of Hell. When God's light is not given the chance to shine,
hope fails. Light turns to dark. Perfect creation is ruined with fire and
brimstone when God's influence is not accepted.
What sort of God do we believe in, then, that would express
unconditional love, and then allow Hell to exist? Does this not make him
full of love for some people, and hate for others? Shouldn't a loving God
always be lenient, and never angry? Let us consider the fact even the
most loving people get angry from time to time, and that anger is not the
opposite of love. If you see someone you love being destroyed, even by
themselves, a justified response is righteous anger. An example of this is
a parent stepping in and getting justifiably angry at their child if they
find out they have been bullying other kids. If this behaviour went
unjudged, the child would have a blurred vision of how they should
treat their peers. God's wrath (or, to phrase it slightly less negatively,
God's Justice,) does not contradict his love for creation. His anger, in
fact, is an expression of love, an expression of the ache he feels when we
hurt ourselves or others, an expression of the pain he experiences when
we cut him out of our lives.
Many people find the idea of being 'judged' at the end of life terrifying.
The idea of a 'judging God' conjures up images of a vengeful old deity exacting violent justice for the atonement of sins. However, God's
judgement exists for the good of God's children. Theologian Miroslav
Volf writes that "If God were not angry at injustice and deception, and
did not make a final end to violence - that God would not be worthy of
worship . . . The only means of prohibiting all recourse to violence by
ourselves is to insist that violence is legitimate only when it comes from
God." Volf goes on to explain that the human impulse for justice is
overwhelming, and that it is only the promise of God's complete, perfect
justice, that allows us to control our vengeful impulses, and manage
forgiveness. Not only does the promise of God's judgement save us from
the human impulse to exact our own distorted justice (in the form of
revenge and vengeance), but his judgement also makes us accountable
for our actions. Without the promise of consequences, we would have
no reason to check our own behaviour, leading ultimately to a more
brutal and violent society.
God's judgement, God's anger, and even Hell itself, are not punishment
for the wrongdoings of people, but rather, a dramatic and incredible
display of God's love for us. God does not desire for anyone to
experience Hell - As we've already discussed, God's desire is to be
reconciled with all of creation, to be in full, loving relationship with us.
It is through God's overwhelming love for us that he allows us to choose
to reject him. C.S Lewis famously wrote that Hell is "The greatest
monument to human freedom". We are given the freedom to choose to
live life in God's light, or to reject God, separating ourselves from him,
experiencing Hell. Hell is a choice that we are given. That's not to say
that if we choose to live in relationship with, and be guided by God, that
we won't experience pain and hardship. However, Hell exists when one
chooses to go through these times of suffering without the hope and
guidance of God.
This explanation sounds too easy - if you had the choice of going
through suffering with or without hope, of course you would choose
'with hope'. In reality, however, the choice is rarely this clear. Hell exists
in many forms, often disguising itself. Think of a drug user becoming
more and more addicted to the substance he abuses. Initially the high
was low cost, something pleasurable and seemingly inconsequential.
Over time however, the substance becomes less pleasurable and begins
to act as relief from the pain and withdrawal it has caused. As addiction
takes hold, the addict loses his ability to seek help from external sources,
and relies more and more on that which hurts him most. Sin and Hell
can be understood in this way. Seemingly inconsequential choices we
may make in our day to day lives may build up, becoming habits of sin,
or ungodliness. As C.S Lewis describes, "Hell begins with a grumbling
mood, always complaining, always blaming others." The warning then,
is clear. We should take time, often, to observe habits forming in our
lives, to ensure we are not making choices that lead us away from God.
In order to choose the option of facing life's struggles "with hope," we
need to be constantly checking our decisions, looking for evidence of
God's light.
In Luke we read the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man. In this story,
Jesus describes how Lazarus, a poor beggar, spent his entire life at the
gates of a rich man's house, constantly being denied any compassion or
aid. After death, Lazarus is elevated to heaven, and lives in relationship
with God, while the 'rich man' watches from hell, below. In the story, the
rich man calls out for Lazarus to come and wash his feet, to relieve him
from the burning of Hell, but his request is denied.
Many readers of this parable have understood it to say that Hell is an
eternal punishment. They read that the rich man is abandoned in Hell,
and although he cries out, he will not be saved by God. However, this
parable is actually an illustration of the very opposite. The rich man,
instead of calling out to be rescued from Hell, instead of calling out for
redemption, demands that Lazarus comes and serves him, as he would
have done during their lives. It is his blindness to the true order of
things that traps him in isolation. The rich man can not let go of the life
that he led on earth - note that his identity has been completely
consumed by his love of the riches that he enjoyed during his lifetime. In
this story, we see an illustration of how, even after death, the choices
that the Rich Man makes, separate him from God. Had he been able to
see Lazarus as more than a servant, and had he been able to give up the
wealth that he once experienced, the Rich Man would have had a new
identity, and would have been restored to relationship with God. This
parable suggests that 'choosing Hell' can happen at any point, before
and after death, and that the opposite is also true - being 'in hell' is not
an infinite state, decided in our few years of life on earth, but is a state
that we can go through, and still return to right relationship with God.
With this in mind, we must ask ourselves a final question - how should
we talk to our friends about hell? If we believed, as many do, that hell is
a final and terrible punishment for the wrongdoings and non-repentance
of people, then surely we should be out on the street-corners right now,
handing out flyers and crying out about impending doom. And if we
believe that hell is something we can experience before and after death,
and that we can escape it at any point through the redeeming love of
God, then do we even need to talk about it at all? The answer is yes. Hell
is a crucial and shaping part of our faith, that needs to be discussed, and
questioned and understood. Many people see hell as a threat, but the
important difference that we can make, when talking to people about
hell, is to explain that hell is not a threat. In contrast, God's love is a
promise - when we reject God, when we refuse to accept his help, (even
when we don't know we're doing it,) He will always be waiting, and
hoping and working to bring you back into a loving and safe
relationship with him. God's love has more power than any threat or
fear. As it is written in Romans:
Despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who
loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s
love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for
today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can
separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth
below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the
love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen