Another interruption in the series, I loaned the book to a dear brother and I forgot which chapter comes next to do my piece on!
Now as a caveat and so people don’t look at the title and walk away thinking Cal is jut one more bamboozler, giving HIS opinion instead of consulting Scripture, I’ll say this. I am using Scripture to the truest of its word, I believe what I believe not because I think my reasons are true, but because it seems apparent in Scripture and that the Words of the Christ, Jesus, are true. In fact, Jesus is Truth! Though we’re all subjected to different lenses, I do my best to not let any sort of philosophy drag me off to what the text seems to be saying. However, whenever we endeavor to understand Scripture, we must read it Christocentrically, we must live Christocentrically, we must pray Christocentrically, we must fellowship Christocentrically, we must eat, sleep and breath Christocentrically!
So here we go:
The most fundamental statement on what Sin leads to is Death. This is what Paul talks about in Romans 6:23 “For the wages of Sin is Death, but the Gift of God is Eternal Life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” I think this foundational idea is the first step in any thinking about it. And we must also reckon that Death is not just a judgment upon Sin in the abstract. Cancer doesn’t kill because we all say it does, or because some medical authority has pronounced it so. Cancer kills because ‘the wages of Cancer is death.’ Cancer will kill regardless of what anyone else thinks. David talks about this in his laments, referring to Sin, when not confessed, as making his bones brittle and that when he is pregnant with sin, he shall give birth to Death (Psalm 31, Psalm 7). James also talks about conceiving wicked desires, that when given form become sin, and that sin shall give birth to Death (James 1:14-15).
Let us also make another point that many accidentally overlook. We only exist because God sustains reality. We do not exist independently of ourselves, God did not just make us and sits in Heaven (or any such Pagan nonsense). He must actively hold us by the Word of His Mouth (Col. 1:16-17). We do not inherently have immortal souls that can not be destroyed.* So Hell can not just be a quarantine zone because God accidentally gave us something that even He could not destroy. This simply cannot be correct.
One more point, we must recognize Hell is a foreign word to the Scriptures. It is a Anglo-German word that denotes a place “unseen.” From it we get English words like “helmet” or “hall.” It is a place covered. The Scriptures do talk about two places translated the same: Hades (a Greco version of Sheol, the place of the dead) and Gehenna. Now Hades was just a way to speak of the Grave. That is, this is where all men end up, dead. It need not be flooded with mythological language or ideas, it simply means being dead. If we’re conscious or not, perhaps in some form or another. However that’s all it means.
Gehenna on the other hand was a colloquial reference to the valley outside of Jerusalem where trash and dead bodies (usually of criminals or undesirable) were burned. It was a place of shame and of judgment on the people of Israel. Under one of her kings, many children were sacrificed to Molech in order to obtain a blessing for the country’s endeavors. When Jesus speaks of this place, it is a symbol of the Judgment, both the Eschaton and the coming judgments on the religious establishment seen via the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The Eschaton is when the current, old age will end, and the dead are raised. The breaking in of the New Age happened when the Messiah fulfilled Israel, the creation of the Church, and we preach the message of Salvation by His death and Resurrection until the old world ends and the world-to-come begins in full. Both are in process, the new and pure coming in and corrupted and old fading away.
So after all that, we must focus on Christ alone. The Truth is, Scripture presents facts that there will be Judgment, an Outer Darkness, a Lake of Fire. Gehenna is the real deal, it is the final passing away of the old order of things. Yet God wants all to come to Salvation, which is only through Christ Jesus, Our Lord. Only He heals us, repairs us, pardons us, and regenerates us. Only He Reigns in the World to Come, only Messiah.
As for those who are not Christ’s, those who denied Him and lived in corruption in death, in the selfish desires of the unregenerate broken image, there is only death. It is the payment made, it is the destruction of the wicked.
Call me Annihilationist, I don’t accept the labels. If God has judged them, that they have refused a part in the New World and have no life in them (Life only being possible in the Spirit) then they shall depart with the rest of the Old Order, towards oblivion. But the absurd notion that it is fitting to allow sustaining in agony, perhaps it is a fit punishment, but the New World has no need for a constant ringing of the Old. It is done away with! The Second Death is the end of all the evils that infest mankind. Greed, lust, ambition, cruelty, rage, sickness and yes, even death, shall be done away with. Yet it is only in Christ is there life, it is not some accounting maneuver by the Father. It is not Christ merely standing in the way of the Father’s vindictive anger. The Father and Son and Spirit are One. There will only be the Holy, the Kingdom, in the World to Come.
So I utterly reject the tormented visions of Dante, as fire torturing. A constant presence of the Old. This is unbiblical and has pagan notions of Tartarus for the Greeks and Romans, the Lake of the Dead for the Egyptians and the domain of Hele (or Hell) for the Norse. The Old shall pass away, only Christ will remain. And if you say Christ is there torturing the damned, reminding them of their loss. Well, re-read the New Testament and tell me if you see Jesus as the vindictive creature that would conjure.
Also, I reject universalism. I used to support this but it takes the focus off of Christ. He alone must be present in the Life of those who Believe. And if one posits time in the mean and brings up ‘aion,’ well I’ve done some reading. Aion indeed does mean an uncertain time pertaining to an age (or world). But the World to Come has no end. It is not a battleground, as those who’ve rejected Life are plagued with loss until they come to repentance. The Scriptures don’t paint that picture.
However, as Christians we never know whose heart regenerates and what problems we suffer through. We never know the inner workings of the Heart. Who’s to say that in the grave, one has no chance? Christ preached to the dead in prison, from the times of Noah, this has a lot of open ended mystery to all that it entails. Who knows if at the very last moment before death, Christ approaches the unbeliever and calls Him to repent and believe. Faith is more than an intellectual hoop wrangling, though doctrine is important (though orthodoxy is not just head knowledge, for knowing the Truth sets you Free and gives you eyes to walk the Way). Could the impossible happen and all be Saved? Or will some be lost and pass away? We can not know, these things are not privy to us. But we have great Hope in a Savior, who was crucified for our sakes, who Resurrected to give us Life and it more abundantly. While the Old Order persists, though it is perishing, until finally destroyed, we as the Church invite all to come inside and partake of the King’s Banquet. We produce a River of Life flowing from us, the Kingdom of God, a priestly nation of co-heirs, all serving the True Lord, the True Master, the True King who is the Slain Lamb, Worthy To Receive Power!
Sin is deadly and horrifying enough without the threat of demons stoking a fire for eternity. And Grace is more powerful and precious than a wave of a scepter granting a pardon, making a mockery of the Cross and Resurrection. Again, I shall echo the words of Paul: “For the wages of Sin is Death but the Gift of God is Eternal Life through Jesus Christ our Lord”
Amen, Come Lord Jesus.
*Now I will definitely say that Scripture has no warrant of a soul/mind or spirit that is indestructible that belongs to man. However I suppose one could argue that it is in possession of such a trait but such trait can be removed, that God could actually destroy such a thing. I would argue that there is no such property, and Man is but a dreamer in death, but that’s for another discussion.
