Archive for category Things We Shouldn’t Discuss
Made to Be Stewards of Creation
Posted by Erik in Things We Shouldn't Discuss on July 6, 2011
These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (Genesis 2:5-8)
There are two accounts of creation in Genesis.
The first, which appears in chapter 1, emphasizes man as the culmination of creation. God makes divisions – light from darkness, atmosphere from ocean, land from sea – in the first three days and then fills these expanses in the next – the sun, moon and stars as lights; the birds to fill the sky and fish to fill the oceans; and animals to fill the land. He creates plant life with the land, on the third day, and then creates man as the culmination of the living things on land on the sixth.
In the second account, in chapter 2, the land is empty. It is not that it is devoid of any plant life, but rather “the plant of the field” and “every herb of the field” is not growing. These are the types of plants that require man’s attention. Particularly, it is noted that God did not let the plants grow because 1) he had not yet caused rain and 2) there was no man to tend the plants. God then plants these in a garden in the east of Eden and creates man in the garden to tend them.
And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. (Genesis 2:15)
A lot of arguments could be made about the sequencing of these creation accounts, and there are some valid discussions to be made about it, but the sequencing serves a greater purpose – to illustrate the relationship of man to the earth.
Anyone who is foolish enough to say that man does not have a responsibility to care for the ecology of the earth has not read Genesis. It could not be any more plain. God withheld growth from the plants until there was a man to care for them.
Mankind is inextricably connected to other life on this planet. When mankind fell (Genesis 3), all of creation fell with us (Romans 8:22). We don’t like to be connected because we like to be superior. This is the very sin that Satan tempted us with back in the garden. (Genesis 3:5)
We are not creation’s superiors but rather its stewards. Jesus had some harsh things to say about bad stewards who abuse their stewardship.
A certain man planted a vineyard, and let it forth to husbandmen, and went into a far country for a long time. And at the season he sent a servant to the husbandmen, that they should give him of the fruit of the vineyard: but the husbandmen beat him, and sent him away empty. And again he sent another servant: and they beat him also, and entreated him shamefully, and sent him away empty. And again he sent a third: and they wounded him also, and cast him out.
Then said the lord of the vineyard, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son: it may be they will reverence him when they see him. But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the heir: come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours. So they cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him. What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them? He shall come and destroy these husbandmen, and shall give the vineyard to others. (Luke 20:9-16)
We don’t need to be environment wackos to take care of the planet God has entrusted to us. We would however have to be nuts to ignore the instructions of the Lord of this vineyard.
Do not fear the ‘tech’
Posted by Erik in computers, Definitions, General, History, Media, Movies and TV, software, television, Things We Shouldn't Discuss on June 27, 2011
Thanks be to God, we have here neither free schools nor printing presses, and I hope we will not have any for a hundred years, for education has sent into the world doubt, heresy and sectarianism, and the printing press has propagated, in addition to all these evils, attacks against governments! -Sir William Berkeley (1605-1677), Governor of Virginia
Technology takes time to get use to. There is a bit of a delay between the implementation of something that has tremendous potential and the realization of that potential. Then, there is another delay between the realization of that potential and the integration of it.
Think of how drastically the moveable type printing press changed the world. The Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment were direct results of the printing press. This change did not happen overnight, and even as the change was happening, there were a lot of people abusing and misusing the new technology.
The same can be said for virtually all technology that changes how we live: the automobile, the jet liner, the telephone, the personal computer, the internet, the mobile device. These technologies are still in their infancy.
When Sir William Berkeley condemned the printing press, it had not yet spurred on the Age of Revolution. It was a century before the American Revolution. Many of the most subversive books of our culture had not yet been written. The printing press had not even begun to open the doors for heresy and sectarianism.
But along with the dangers came the tremendous benefits. The printed book gave millions access to information that had been hidden from them. Knowledge, wisdom, and information flowed freely in a way that we take for granted today, and which is dwarfed by the speed in which we share information now.
People condemned the telephone as dangerous to the family unit. The Internet was immoral and dangerous (parts of it still are!). Translating the Bible into ‘vulgar languages’ was condemned by clergy and monarchs alike. Every invention that has changed the world has been condemned at some point.
Technology itself is not evil. They are tools, and tools are only as good or evil as the hands that wield them. What can be used for evil can also be use for good.
Some Random Thoughts on Violence, Aikido and Capital Punishment
Posted by Erik in General, Personal, Things We Shouldn't Discuss on May 16, 2011
Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. (Genesis 4:8, ESV)
After the killing of Osama bin Laden a couple of weeks ago, I spent quite a bit of time thinking about the violent nature of our world. I won’t pretend that I am not relieved that bin Laden is no longer among the living. He was a murdering psychopath – by his own admission. He openly claimed credit for terror attacks for years. I have no doubt that justice required that he die (Genesis 9:6).
My issue was not so much that Osama bin Laden was killed but that such violence is required in our world. My baptist forebearers were almost universally pacifists. Men like Jan Hus went to their deaths rather than fight the corruption of the government and religious authorities of their day. They did not believe Christians should ever advocate violence.
My own view of the issue is not quite pacifist. For a long time, I tried to figure out where exactly I fell on the scale between War Hawk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Hawk) and Dove. Then, my wife and I started studying Aikido – a martial art that revolves around the idea of harmony and peace. Rather than meeting others’ violence with violence, the Aikidoka (practitioner of Aikido) redirects the attackers violence. They use the aggressors own attack against them, with as little effort as possible. If you have never seen an Aikido master at work, it is worth googling.
What attracted me to the Aikido philosophy was that it seeks to redirect and dissipate violence. Unlike other martial arts which are designed to basically hit harder than the person who hit you, Aikido truly seeks peace.
This philosophy fits in the Christian worldview than any other view I can think of. Rather than Thomas Aquinas’ theory of “just war” or the retributive views I hear many advocate (abusing the “eye for an eye” passages of the TORAH while ignoring the “live by the sword, die by the sword” message of Jesus), the Aikido way finds balance.
We can act justly without adding to the violence of the world. We can turn the violence of others against them without seeking revenge. It can be done.
The thought that always comes to mind is Gandalf’s words to Frodo in Fellowship of the Ring:
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”
Rather than seeing justice as an expression of revenge or a way to “make things even”, we need to rethink justice as the redirection of the violence – turning their own violence upon the violent. I think that is what God had in mind when he commanded capital punishment in Genesis 9. It was not that we hold the lives of other men in our hands but rather that they hold their own lives in their hands.
Beer Bottles and Righteousness?
Posted by Erik in Doesn't Fit in a Category, Things We Shouldn't Discuss, Under Pressure on May 9, 2011
It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9-11, ESV)
In yesterday’s message at Bedford Road, we looked particularly at the two words translated as “pure and blameless” and illustrated them with the idea of a fruit bowl being clean. (If you were there, you know how I contaminated the bowl).
In case you’re wondering:
- Pure is a translation of the Greek word εἰλικρινής (i-lik-ree-NAS) which literally means “judged by the sun”. It is the kind of clean you have when you hold a glass up to the sun and there are not spots or marks.
- Blameless translates ἀπρόσκοπος, literally “not stumbling” or “not bumpy”. It can be used to refer to a clean road, but also to the idea of something being smooth to the touch.
Paul puts up some very exacting standards for the containers of God’s “fruit of righteousness”. When we aspire to this standard, God’s grace covers our imperfections and he pours his fruit of righteousness into us, so it can be served to those around us.
In the message, I mashed up some facts about the failure of the Schlitz brewery with a different situation that occurred in the 90′s with Anheuser-Busch products in Europe. I’ve provided clarification on the message page. That bit of a mash-up notwithstanding, beer bottles are a perfect example of a container that needs to be pure and blameless.
Don’t Be Skunky!
In this case, however, the bottle needs to block the UV light from the sun to prevent skunking. Beer exposed to sunlight will over time break down and smell quite literally like skunk. While some beers like Miller High Life are processed to prevent skunking in clear bottles, most quality beers are served in dark brown glass for a reason. When UV radiation strikes beer, it breaks down chemicals called isohumulones and components of the isohumulones create bonds with sulfur molecules – producing the skunk like smell.
Prevent Gushing!
Bottles are held to an exacting standard for this. Likewise, a beer bottle that is scuffed or marked up inside will cause gushing when opened. The scuffs serve as nucleation sites and generate excessive carbon dioxide bubbles. In Canada, beer bottles are often recycled but these bottles often have internal scuffs from the cleaning process – which produces gushing. (The makers of Guinness have used this process to their advantage by creating “the widget”, which is a small plastic sphere that serves as a nucleation site for the nitrogen and carbon dioxide diffused in their canned and bottled products because they do not nucleate sufficiently in a bottle.)
Three things most Christians do not know about the Qur’an
Posted by Erik in Islam, Things We Shouldn't Discuss on April 8, 2011
I am currently reading Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s 1935 English translation of the Qur’an which is considered the “Authorized” English translation. To the Muslim, any translation of the Qur’an falls short because Muslims believe that the Qur’an is inspired only in Arabic. Any translation is a poor reflection of it, but since I cannot read Arabic, it is the best I can do.
When we look at Islam, Christians have a tendency to view it as basically the same as Christianity in its worldview. We tend to think that the Qur’an fills the same place in Islam as the Bible does in Christianity (or is supposed to fill). In reality, the Muslim view of the role of their Scriptures is quite a bit different from what we assume it is.
Here are three things most Christians do not know about how Muslims view the Qur’an.
1. It is the manifestation of Allah.
Christianity reveres the Bible as inspired writings, but they are a reflection of the Living Word of God – Jesus Christ. In Islam, the Qur’an is the Living Word of God.
To the Muslim, Jesus (in Arabic Isa) is the last prophet before Muhammad and the promised Messiah of Israel. He was sent by Allah to provide a new revelation – the Gospel (Arabic Injil), but Jesus is not the Word of God. He is important, but He is not the Son of God as Christians understand it. (Incidentally, no Muslim would ever slander Jesus. He is second only to Muhammad in their veneration of the prophets.)
In Islam, the role that Jesus fills in Christianity is filled by the Qur’an. It is not simply Scripture. It is truly Allah’s presence on earth. It is hard for us to understand, but Islam does not believe Muhammad wrote the Qur’an. They believe Allah spoke the Qur’an through Muhammad as the final revelation to mankind.
In Islam, the Qur’an is quite literally the Word of God. Allah spoke it directly, and Muhammad simply heard it. The Qur’an is independent of human influence or interpretation.
2. It is very dependent on the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Testament.
The Qur’an was not intended to stand independent of previous revelation. Virtually every Surah (the rough equivalent of a chapter) contains at least one allusion to the Bible. It is the final revelation of Allah, but not the only one.
Islam holds that Allah has revealed himself to mankind through many prophets. These prophets were used by Allah to write His words to mankind:
- Suhuf Ibrahim (the scrolls of Abraham)
- Tawrat (the Torah of Moses)
- Zabur (the Psalms of David)
- Injil (the Gospel of Jesus)
The Qur’an relies on these books and assumes familiarity with them (even if Muslims recognize that Suhuf Ibrahim is lost to mankind), but also acknowledges that they have been corrupted by mankind. The Qur’an is Allah’s correction of these books but it maintains a continuity with them. To that end, the Muslims have no problem with the Gospels correcting the Torah because that is the role of revelation through a prophet. Each subsequent prophet has had to correct the errors that have crept into the previous revelation.
3. It is not the only authority of Islam.
Both Shi’a and Sunni Islam are governed by not only the Qur’an but also the Hadith, which is the sayings of the Prophet Muhammed; and Sharia, the application of the Qur’an and Hadith to practical situations.
Shi’a and Sunni Islam differ on which Hadith are authoritative and have different approaches to Sharia, but all Muslims recognize that Hadith and Sharia are amplifications and applications of the Qur’an. Without them, they cannot truly understand the divine revelation of the Qur’an because the words of Allah transcend human reason.
It is a mistake to simply quote the Qur’an and use it to disprove something in Islam. Muslims do not hold to a priesthood of all believers. The Qur’an is the revelation to all of mankind, and individuals do not have the right to interpret it themselves. Such an idea is foreign to them. The Prophet interpreted the Qur’an in the Hadith. None of us have the right to question his interpretation. The Sharia applies the interpretation.
Conclusion
This is why attempts to understand Islam can very easily become misunderstandings. Islam views the Qur’an in a completely different light than we Christians view the Bible. Setting aside the 1,400 years of misunderstanding and opposition that Christians and Muslims alike have created, Christianity and Islam are still incredibly different.
In a climate of heightened tensions because of terrorism and wars in the Middle East, it is very easy to make snap judgments based on our own perspectives without genuinely considering the voice of our neighbors (and make no mistake, Muslims are in Jesus’ category of neighbors).
I don’t claim to be an expert on Islam or the Qur’an, but I believe that the way of Jesus is not the way of hatred and fear. That is why I do not read books about Islam by people who obviously are on a crusade to destroy. The way of Jesus is not the way of assault and war. It is the way of long-suffering and grace. It is not the path of “get them before they get us” which I hear so often from the mouths of Christians.
Personally, I find the Qur’an fascinating. I do not accept it as Scripture because I am a Christian; but I don’t want to judge it based on my rejection. I want to do my best to understand how the faithful read it.
Recommendations
For the Muslim that might read this, I hope I have done justice to your sacred book and have not offended you. You are my neighbor, and I love you even though we disagree.
For anyone interested in learning more about Islam and how the Muslims and Christians have interacted over the years, I strongly recommend a lecture series from The Modern Scholar entitled “Islam and the West” by Sayyed Hossein Naer.
For those who wish to spout hatred and ignorant bigotry, please save your breath. The world has more than enough evil in it, and I don’t need any more here.
Stay tuned. Soon I will be writing on misunderstanding about Jihad in Islam.
“To Be With God”
Posted by Erik in Church, Definitions, Doesn't Fit in a Category, Personal, Prayers, Things We Shouldn't Discuss on March 25, 2011
Heaven.
That place where you go when you die. First, you stroll through the pearly gates and meet St. Peter, then you get a crown and a mansion and can eat all you want. There’s a temple and lots of holy people around, angels singing from the clouds. You get a harp. It’s great.
Of course, that image is entirely wrong. Oh, some of it is in the Scriptures, but the way we perceive it and the way it will truly be are two different things.
First of all, there is not a single reference in the Scriptures to good people getting to “go to heaven.” Go ahead, look for it.
Let’s get some cold hard facts down before we go forward. For the sake of argument, let’s take the truth of the Scriptures as a given and recognize the following:
- There will be a resurrection of the dead. Jesus believed it. Paul believed it. There’s no missing it.
- There is a difference between those who are found “in Christ” and those who are not. (We can argue about what that means another time.)
Resurrection is a Change of Life
Now that we’ve laid those things out there, let’s consider the fate of those “in Christ.”
Although all will be resurrected, those in Christ will not suffer “the second death” described by John. This is inherent in their unity with Christ. These people – described variously as the faithful, the righteous, and a number of other descriptors – will continue in life.
“I am the resurrection and the life.” (Jesus)
The life that they will continue however will be a transformed one. According to the Apostle Paul:
…Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep [die], but we shall all be changed— in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” (1 Corinthians 15:50-54)
The resurrection of the righteous will be to “the kingdom of God” – something that is incorruptible and does not die. Paul is at great pains to point this out. We will not be resurrected just to repeat this life. We will be resurrected to a different kind of life. He does not view death as an end, but rather as a transformation.
He also seems to connect our death to the “last trumpet.” This might have been because Paul believed the resurrection would happen in his lifetime. Every generation of Christians has. Paul believed he lived in the last days of this age because he did. We do as well.
Where Do We Experience This Change of Life?
The medieval church divided the afterlife into four realms:
- Hell – the place where the unbaptized pagan and heretic goes to be tormented forever
- Limbo – a theologically necessary place for the unbaptized children of believers
- Purgatory – the cleansing place where believers have their sin purified
- Heaven – the presence of God, reserved for the cleansed, or sanctified – hence the term saint
It is important to note that their reasons for this division were of theological necessity. Very early on in the development of institutional Christianity (after the 4th century CE), baptism into the church was considered the beginning of salvation. Baptism cleanses one from original sin (the sin we inherit from Adam) and initiates you into the Kingdom. This is why liturgical churches still baptize infants.
Obviously, during our lives we commit our own sins. We are not cleansed of the tendency toward sin, just the original sin. Therefore, since God cannot have sin in his presence, we will have to have that sin cleansed from us before we can join him in heaven.
It is easy to see how this four-tiered system developed. Later, a medieval poet named Dante Aligheri perfected the idea and developed levels within these realms. Although the most famous part of his Divine Comedy is “Inferno”, there are two other parts as well – “Purgatorio” and “Paradiso”.
When one reads the Scriptures with an open eye, it becomes quickly evident that God is not in the business of taking us somewhere else. According to Paul, we are changed instantly. We don’t go somewhere to wait for the end times. We go there instantly.
I am not going to claim how this works, but I don’t think that right now all the righteous people are up in heaven watching us and cheering us on. This idea of everyone watching us originates in a very poor interpretation of Hebrews 12:1. It would appear that there is something going on. The Revelation speaks of a marriage supper and an awful lot of singing and shouting. But my point is that whatever is going on/will go on in wherever Paul meant when he said “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:7), it is not some kind of eternal state of bliss with clouds and harps.
The Restoration of Eden
Here’s what John, the writer of the Revelation, seemed to believe would happen at the end. His vision of our eternal place was a global restoration of Eden. In one single magnificent image (Revelation 21), he pulls everything from the Hebrew Scriptures together. The heavens and earth will be destroyed and remade. God’s mountain will descend from earth, and the New Jerusalem of Ezekiel’s visions will stand on its top. God Himself will dwell among us once again.
To be honest, I don’t think anyone can be absolute on the details. Our fanciful imagery doesn’t do justice to the image of the prophets, who saw roads and altars and people working fields in this new heaven and new earth. This eternal destiny isn’t just a big party. It seems to be a restoration of what Eden was supposed to be.
- In Genesis 2, Adam is called to care for the garden. He is supposed to tend it. Because of sin, that got twisted into making bread “by the sweat of his brow” in Genesis 4.
- In Genesis 2, the beasts of the field seem to all get along with each other and man. There is a natural rhythm. By the time of Noah in Genesis 9, animals are afraid of humans. Sin has turned creation against man.
- In Genesis 1-3, God walks in the garden. He comes down for chats with Adam and Eve. I don’t need to quote Scripture to tell you that doesn’t happen anymore.
All of the Edenic things will be restored. The world is upside down today. God, through Jesus, is putting it right. John saw the final steps of that putting right. We glimpse what it will be like, and those hints of eternity keep us moving forward.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)
God is not destroying and rebuilding. Yes, there is destruction of that which cannot be redeemed and transformed in creation. But he is at work restoring what our sin stole from us. The eternal destiny of man is not somewhere else but where we were intended to be in the first place – in his presence. And his presence truly is paradise.
What Do We Call It?
Referring to this eternal destiny as “heaven” is so common today, that I use the terminology myself. But I am careful to explain to people that it doesn’t mean what they think it means.
Remember when I started this with saying the Bible doesn’t say people “go to heaven”? That is because there is a lot mythology tied to that phrase. It is true. But in the Bible, Jesus does use the word “heaven”. He uses it as a synonym for God over and over again. If you read the Synoptic gospels, you will see that the gospel writers used “Kingdom of Heaven” and “Kingdom of God” interchangeably whenever quoting Jesus or talking about his mission.
It is not wrong to refer to our eternal destiny as “heaven” as long as we know that means the presence of God. (The Jehovah’s Witnesses love to point out that people don’t go to heaven when they die. You can throw them off their game by showing the parallels of Kingdom of Heaven and Kingdom of God and point out that heaven is wherever God is.)
My preference is to refer to our eternal destiny as “in the presence of God.” Because Jesus gives us new life through his atonement for sin, then we can enter into synergy with God’s Spirit. We experience, as I mentioned, hints of the eternal and the change from this life to the next should be a relatively seamless one as we journey with Christ.
After all, the same John who wrote the Revelation also wrote:
The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. (1 John 3:1-3)
We are being transformed through Christ’s resurrection to be like him. This is not a transformation we can necessarily detect or hold over the heads of others in the manner of the Pharisees. Rather, it is a mysterious transformation that occurs as the Spirit of God draws us to Jesus.
Heaven is not here on earth. We don’t create it. We don’t carry it with us. But at the same time, it is being formed in us because Jesus is at work. The church that is moving with Jesus should be transformed by His Spirit.
There is plenty imagery to aspire to. Think of Enoch in Genesis 5:
All the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. (Genesis 5:23-24)
We pass from this life to the next in union with Christ. There is just one life that passes through resurrection. We should not so much be looking forward to “getting away” from this world but to continuing our journey with God.
That’s my opinion, anyway.
Some Parting Thoughts
A friend once asked me why I would want to go to heaven, knowing that all the judgmental bigots that exist in Christianity were also planning on being there. He would rather die uncertain than be certain he would be with the Christians he had known in life. That’s rough – but unfortunately, it is a true assessment of what calls itself the church here on earth.
Sadly, there is very little of heaven at work in most organizations and groups that call themselves churches today. Because they have bought into the medieval ideas, either they reject the whole afterlife (liberalism) or they become obsessed with death (most of evangelicalism, if we’re honest with ourselves). Perhaps if we realize that we are journeying toward the coming Age rather than either trying to be it now or longing for it as a “payday some day”, we would become hints of heaven ourselves.
I can think of no better way to end this post than with Jesus’ own prayer:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
(Matthew 5:9-13)
Following Up on Rob Bell’s Love Wins
Posted by Erik in Definitions, Theology, Things We Shouldn't Discuss on March 22, 2011
Yesterday, I posted an entry about Rob Bell and his latest book, Love Wins. in it, I noted that I think Rob’s theology is a bit loopy and that his definition of hell is different from my own. Today, I want to take my thoughts a bit further and point out where Rob misses the point of many of the Scriptures he uses in his book.
Let me say this about Rob, in defense of my review of his book. I think Rob has confused the eternal destiny of the unrighteous with what I call the hints of hell in our present life. His book describes quite accurately the hints – or perhaps echoes – of hell in our lives. He sees the suffering and misery and violence and injustice of our world and cries, “Isn’t that proof of a hell?”
And I would agree. The hints of hell in our world are proof that unrighteousness exists, and I think they are signs that hell is real. What happens with Rob is that he is trying so hard to connect with people on a relevant level that he focuses on the hints but misses the reality. At moments he glimpses it, crying out, “Hell is MORE REAL!” than the hints we see, but then he backs away.
I think Rob is in earnest, and I’m not one to throw him to the wolves and that is why I wrote what I wrote yesterday. I won’t back away from my thoughts because they were my honest impressions.
I do believe that Rob addresses some Scriptures in the Latter Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel primarily) that most evangelical or even broader forms of Christianity fail to address. These passages which discuss a restoration on a global scale are often ignored in most Christian theologies of the end times (called eschatology) because they are complicated and difficult. We like the idea of a nice simply, “I go to heaven when I die” theology, but that is not what the Bible teaches.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Today, I want to start with a brief statement about eternal destinies in general, and clear up some mistakes I think Rob made. Then, I want to deal specifically with the eternal destiny of the unrighteous. I will address the destiny of the righteous in a later post.
Why Heaven and Hell are Inaccurate Descriptions of Eternal Destiny
In our congregation’s statement of faith, we have the following statement on the end of all things:
We believe that Jesus will keep his promise to return to earth as our Lord, King and Judge. We believe in the bodily resurrection of the saved and the lost, and the final judgment of all people to either eternal joy in the presence of God or to eternal punishment in the Lake of Fire.
Notice anything missing?
There is no mention of heaven or hell. Do you know why? Because the Scriptures make it plain that heaven and hell are not the eternal destiny of the righteous and unrighteous, respectively. Rather, the righteous will enjoy fellowship with God in the New Jerusalem, a mountain set in the new heaven and new earth, while the unrighteous will be cast into the Lake of Fire with death, hell, the false prophet and all that is Antichrist. (Revelation 20-21)
The Hebrew Scriptures and sheol
So, where do the dead go in the meantime? Let’s look first at the Hebrew Scriptures and what they say.
There are various terms used in Scripture for the intermediate states – where people go when they die until the events described in Revelation 20-21.
- In the Torah, when a patriarch died, he was said to be “gathered to his people”. (Genesis 25:18, 35:29, 49:33, Numbers 20:24, Deuteronomy 32:50)
- Likewise, in the Former Prophets, we read of the kings of both Israel and Judah dying, and the motif is “and he slept with his fathers”. (1 Kings 2:10, 11:43, 14:20, 2 Kings 8:24, 14:22, 20:21, 2 Chronicles 9:31, 12:16, 14:1, 21:1. It is used 36 times.)
- The Hebrew authors use the term sheol, which means simply “the place where the dead go” with a certain ubiquity that can be frustrating because we really don’t know much about what the word is supposed to evoke. As a result, it gets translated a lot of different ways. All together, the word appears thirty some times in the Hebrew Scriptures. Here are just a couple examples:
“For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase,
and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. (Deuteronomy 32:22)
“When the waves of death compassed me, The floods of ungodly men made me afraid; The sorrows of hell compassed me about; The snares of death prevented me; In my distress I called upon the LORD, And cried to my God:” (2 Samuel 22:5-7)
Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do?
Deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, And broader than the sea. (Job 11:7-9)
What is interesting is that the Hebrews did not seem to distinguish a place of the dead for the righteous and for the unrighteous. Sheol is described as a place of torture though, and it doesn’t make sense that the righteous went to a place of torture. There are also these references to joining those who died before you, which further complicates things.
In Christian traditions, this is usually explained using Jesus’ narrative of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:14-31). Many traditions say that before Christ died on the cross, the dead all went to sheol but the righteous were in a place called “Abraham’s Bosom” and there was a divide between them. Then, when Jesus died, he went to hell and “led captivity captive” (Ephesians 4:18) and then hell (Sheol) filled up that space.
For me, this is not a completely satisfactory answer. I think there is a lot to be learned yet about the way the Hebrews viewed the afterlife and used the word sheol. It does seem to signify a single idea, and it has tangible meaning to it, but I don’t think we know enough about what was intended by the word and its varied uses to make a judgment as to what the Hebrews believed or didn’t believe. What they definitely did believe was that people die and there is more afterward, that physical death was not all there was to life.They also did seem to believe that whether you were righteous or unrighteous had some bearing on what happened afterward.
There are huge passages of the Hebrew Scriptures dealing with the restoration of God’s kingdom on earth (like I said before, in the Latter Prophets, which most Christians refer to as the Major Prophets) and those have direct bearing on the righteous dead. I’ll deal with that in the next post.
On to the Christian story.
Gospel Terminology Used by Jesus
The New Testament is not anywhere near as vague. In fact, it is quite clear from the teachings of Jesus that there is a difference in how the righteous and unrighteous fair in the afterlife. In the Christian testament, the gospel writers use two words for the afterlife.
- Hades, which is a Greek word borrowed from the Greek god of the dead.
- Gehenna, a borrowing from the Hebrew ge-hinnom, which appears in the Hebrew Scriptures from the latter kingdom of Judah as a place of idol worship (2 Kings 23:10, 2 Chronicles 33:6, Jeremiah 7:31-32, et al)
(There is a third word that only appears once, Tartarus. It is a Greek place of darkness and torment for the wicked, but it only appears in 2 Peter 2:14 and in a verb form.)
I don’t think it is a mistake that the former Jews who wrote the Gospels used terms tied with Greek mythology and Canaanite religions when referring to the place of the unrighteous dead. It is a very intentional move on their part. The Gospel writers are turning the Gentile terminology back on the Gentiles. When Jesus spoke in Aramaic and used whatever word he used, the Gospel writers were there. When they sat to pen their gospels in Greek, they intentionally chose these words.
This is where Rob makes a bad interpretation of Jesus’ words. He doesn’t think about the words. He doesn’t give the Gospel writers (and the Holy Spirit) enough credit in their word choice. The Greek speakers who received these gospels knew what Jesus was trying to say. This was an intentional association.
Think about it.
Let’s look back at Luke 16:19-31. Go ahead. Read it.
In Jesus’ narrative, the rich man is “clothed in purple and fine linen.” Who wore purple in Jesus’ day?
The Romans.
Again – an association with the pagans, but why? Because they were pagans? No, because they were oppressors and rapists, because they were captors and destroyers, because their culture was focused on the satisfaction of human desires and the pursuit of success at the cost of others.
In short, the Romans represented everything that Jesus was teaching against.
Hades is for the unrighteous. Not for those who do not assent to a creed or say a sinner’s prayer. It is for those who do not follow the way of Jesus – which is the way of GOD.
What about Gehenna? The word is self-explanatory, isn’t it?
Read Jeremiah and you find that this is the valley where the devotees of Canaanite gods burned their own children. It was the place of fire long before the time when it became the garbage pit that most commentators use to interpret the word. Jesus probably did use this term directly, and he uses it to again turn things on their heads. The place where once kings burned children now becomes the place where their spiritual successors will burn, the people who would sacrifice children to get ahead, who are of their father the devil – both ideas Jesus uses and condemns.
Gehenna is the fires of pagan sacrifice consuming the worshipers of pagan gods, any god who is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – even if that god is yourself.
Gehenna is for the unrighteous.
The Lake of Fire
And in Revelation 20, John writes that death and hell have an end that is not an end. This is what appears there:
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:13-15)
Previously, John had already pointed out that the lake of fire was a place of torment “day and night for ever and ever.” Despite Rob’s efforts to show that eternity does not mean never-ending, there is no denying the Greek that underlies this. The Greek phrase, just like the English, is a doubling. It literally means “age upon age.” In Greek, this form is used to indicate infinite or unmeasurable scales. This is not purgative – pruning away your wickedness. This is everlasting and unending.
Can I be honest? I’m with Rob on wishing that this condemnation was not eternal. That’s why I understand him as being in earnest. I would love for this passage to not be in the Bible, but it is. End of discussion on that one.
Who goes?
Of course, the biggest criticism of Rob’s book was that people said he advocated universalism – that everyone ultimately gets to be in ‘heaven’ (this is a misuse of the word heaven, for one thing – but that’s for another day).
I actually don’t think Rob’s point was that clear. He uses the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) to illustrate that God confronts us with “his story” of our lives.
In the parable, one son goes off and squanders his inheritance and comes back to his father believing he is worthless. His father receives him and says, “NO! You’re my son, returned from the dead!” and throws him a party.
The other son has remained with his father and gets mad that his father is celebrating his brother’s return. He believes he is worthy, and the father says, “Hey, you’re not worthy. You’re no better than my other son. You can’t earn my love. I was with you the whole time.” This other son completely misses the point – that this whole story is about the father, not about him.
I think, and I could be wrong, that Rob’s point in using this parable was that it is not about the good we do or the sin we commit. Ultimately, ‘getting into heaven’ is about whether we will accept God’s truth or not. In other words, when I come to God with my own version of my story – either being worthy or being unworthy – God says, “No, your story is found in my Son Jesus and I accept you as resurrected in Him. Come into the party.” Maybe I am reading my own feelings into Rob’s writing, but I thought that was what he was saying.
But I digress.
My Final Thoughts
Let’s be clear.
This is where I have no doubt that Rob is struggling with the wrong questions.
Who goes to hell?
I think Rob has it right, even if I misunderstood what he was trying to say. The people who go to hell are those who refuse to listen to God, who refuse to hear their story as he wants it told.
But here is where Rob goes wrong. The story is not my story but Jesus’ story.
Who goes to hell?
Those who refuse to be united with Jesus in the resurrection (Romans 6:4-7). What Rob missed about the prodigal son is what I mentioned above. The father says, “My son was DEAD, and is alive again!” (Luke 15:24)
Jesus said to Nicodemus:
God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:17-18)
Everyone wants to talk about the question, “Why would a loving God send people to hell?” And that’s the wrong question. Jesus says we are condemned ALREADY. And the condemnation doesn’t come from him. It comes from me. It comes from you. It comes part and parcel with being sinners.
Who goes to hell?
The dead. That is who death and hell give up to be judged in the passage I started this whole thing with in Revelation 20. The dead are those who have not partaken in the resurrection.
The dead are those who are not in Christ.
The dead are those who want to believe their own story and come to God with their own version of righteousness.
They are eternally condemned.
Rob is right in that hell is present in people. It is inescapable.
Except in Christ.
Rob did stop short of spelling that out directly. I wish he had. It would have made this whole controversy much simpler.
Because it isn’t about the hell we create or the heaven we hope for.
It is about the living Jesus Christ, who once was dead and calls the dead to rise with him.
The Unorthodox Review of Rob Bell’s Latest
Posted by Erik in Book Reviews, Theology, Things We Shouldn't Discuss on March 21, 2011
I finished reading Love Wins. Maybe I am more of an apostate than I thought I was, but I did not see anything Rob said that denied the orthodox views of the afterlife. What I did read was an earnest attempt by a very hip pastor to explain how something like hell and judgment can exist with a loving God.
Rob writes terrible prose. I am going to be honest. He does not write the style of prose we are used to reading and that makes him somewhat inaccessible to people who expect a pastor to write in the accepted manner. Because of his style, Rob opens himself up to a lot of misinterpretation. In fact, my assessment might itself be a misinterpretation – who knows?
At the core of Rob’s thesis, which he does not really get to until the last couple of chapters. Really, he has two primary ideas to convey.
Point 1 – It is not about creed or prayer
Rob is at great pains to explain that salvation is not about assenting to a creed or saying the right prayer. There is no magic trick to getting into heaven. In fact, getting into heaven is not the reason we should be coming to God in the first place.
The big controversy that surrounded this book comes down to Rob saying that you don’t have to believe in one person’s version of believing in Jesus. In other words, he’s saying that Jesus is bigger than our creeds and ideas. He is both narrow and universal. We can follow him without even knowing his name (and if you have a problem with that, you should consider the Old Testament since he isn’t named there once.)
Point 2 – Hell Is Our Own Sin
People essentially create their own hell by refusing to allow God to retell our story. What Rob calls ‘retell our story’ is equivalent to what most evangelicals would say as ‘accepting Jesus’.
We come to God with our version of our story. God has the true version. We have to trust God that his version of our story is the right one. When we don’t trust him, we are left in the hell of our false story. We can be in the midst of God’s glory and be in hell because we do not trust God.
What about this idea doesn’t jive with orthodox faith? If you believe in a literal hell, then people go there because of their sin. God saves us by telling us the story of redemption and meaning through Jesus. If we refuse that story, we choose to remain in our sin. While we would say that story is directly revealed in the Scriptures, even the apostle Paul believed that it existed in creation and was accessible to all men. (Romans 1)
Rob makes it plain. God is still righteous and loving. Those who do not trust him still go to hell. How Rob defines hell is a little different than how most evangelicals define it but it certainly is not a new idea. It is an idea that has existed throughout Christianity’s storied and varied history.
And if someone accepts the story God is telling but does not know all the names of the characters, are they not good enough? If Mother Theresa was a little confused about the role of her works but still accepted the story God was telling her, then does she go to hell for not conforming to the evangelical doctrinal statement?
If you ask me, all the controversy revolves around fear and misunderstanding. Rob approaches a difficult question or set of difficult questions with a style all his own. It is not my own way of telling it, but I did not see anything that made him an apostate. A bit theologically loopy? Yeah, I could say that. But I can’t find it in me to reject him because he tells the same story of redemption in postmodern language.
Hey, Rob Bell Wrote a Controversial Book!
Posted by Erik in Book Reviews, Cross Posts, Doesn't Fit in a Category, General, Other Bloggers, Reading, Theology, Things We Shouldn't Discuss on March 19, 2011
You may not have noticed, but here are some people who have.
http://www.redletterchristians.org/love-wins-rob-bell-and-the-new-calvinists/
http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/03/19/rob-bell-reviews/
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/features/25030-is-rob-bell-a-universalist
http://www.albertmohler.com/2011/03/16/we-have-seen-all-this-before-rob-bell-and-the-reemergence-of-liberal-theology/
http://www.jesusneedsnewpr.net/my-thoughts-about-rob-bells-interview-lovewins/
http://www.russellmoore.com/2011/03/15/the-blood-drained-gospel-of-rob-bell/
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/april/lovewins.html
http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=34868
These are just the links from the last day or two. The book was released on Tuesday and has been flying off the shelves. Christianbook.com announced on their website that due to the controversial nature of the book, all profits from sales would go to Compassion International.
And if you missed it, there was this hard-hitting (and a bit bizarre) interview by MSNBC host Martin Bashir.
The Christian blogosphere is all a twitter about this. And a friend from church who is currently serving overseas with the military sent me a Facebook message about it.
So, I broke down and bought the book. I’m reading it and I will let everyone know what I think in a series of upcoming posts.
For those who don’t know who Rob Bell is, he is a pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has written a number of controversial books but this one has really caused a stir.
Harper Collins, who publishes the book, must be loving it. Currently, Bell’s book is #2 on the Amazon.com bestseller list. It will quickly eclipse his other books in sales, guaranteeing that Rob Bell will keep stirring up controversy and they will keep profiting from it.
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