AND THE LIFE EVERLASTING.
“The fires of hell may be made of the very love of God, experienced as torture by those who hate him: the very light of God’s truth, hated and fled from in vain by those who love darkness.” (Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith, chapter 27)
This final post, I am sorry to say, will concentrate on what is probably the least attractive (if not the most downright repellent) teaching in all of Christianity, namely, the doctrine of hell and the eternal punishment of the damned.
Now many people (even some confessed Christians) don’t believe in hell. I don’t particularly want to believe in hell myself (although I don’t want those guilty of terrible evil to “get away with it” either – such is my dilemma). I certainly don’t want to believe that hell is eternal. [Note 1] However, whether I like it or not, the teaching is there in the New Testament, and so, as someone who professes to be a Bible-believing Christian, I can hardly ignore it. Having said this, however, it is worth considering the possibility that the commonly held picture of hell as some sort of everlasting torture chamber is perhaps influenced more by some of the imagery used during the Middle Ages, than reflecting the actual teaching of Christ. [Note 2]
Now, it may come as something of a shock to some that I have for some time now come to suspect that the worst thing about hell for the damned may, in fact, be the presence of God.
But surely, hell is separation from God?
I agree, although the term is not in fact used in Scripture [Note 3], but what does separation mean? Separation from God in hell cannot mean literal separation (as though there were a part of the universe in which God doesn’t exist) for God is omnipresent, so it must refer to separation from God in another sense, I would argue in a relational sense. It is, after all, tragically possible for people to live together, to share the same house, and yet be utterly estranged from one another.
But can this view be defended from Scripture?
Well, one of the clearest scriptural images of hell is that of fire, and fire is used throughout the Bible when referring to the presence of God, whether at God’s covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15:9-21), or in the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-6), or the pillar of fire which led the children of Israel through the wilderness by night (Exodus 13: 20-21), or the fire which descended on Sinai at the giving of the Law (Exodus 19:18), or the fire that consumed the sacrifice in the tabernacle (Leviticus 9:24), or in the Angel of the LORD’s appearance to Gideon (Judges 6:17-22), or at Elijah’s contest with the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18: 36-39) or in Isaiah’s vision of God (Isaiah 6:1-8 – the word seraph comes from a Hebrew work for “burning”). If we turn to the New Testament, we can see this link of the image of fire and the presence of God in the promise that Christ will baptize us with fire (Matthew 3:11, Luke 3:16, see also Luke 12:49), or in the tongues of fire which appeared at Pentecost (Acts 2:3-4), or the testing of our works by fire at the day of Christ (1 Corinthians 3:13), or the coming of Christ with his angels in flaming fire (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9 which contains an explicit reference to the judgement of those who do not know or obey him), or in the warning that “our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29), or the seven burning lamps before the throne of God (Revelation 4:5) and in many other places.
Strange as it may sound, this view of hell also fits with the other leading scriptural image of hell as exclusion, or rejection, of being turned away from the wedding (Matthew 22:11-13), or being banished to the outer darkness (Matthew 25:30) where the lost seek to hide from the face of God (see John 3:19-21) in that those who hate the presence of God would surely seek to flee from him, and would certainly not accept an invitation to come and enjoy being with him at the wedding supper of the Lamb, but instead remain outside, as the older brother did at the party held to celebrate the return of the prodigal (Luke 15:25-32). Perhaps, as C. S. Lewis maintained, the gates of hell are indeed “locked on the inside.”
What then of the other scriptural images, the worm (see Isaiah 66.24, Mark 9.48) and the weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8.12)?
John Blanchard in chapter 10 of Whatever Happened to Hell? sees the key to understanding the references to the worm in the fact that it is referred to as “their worm” as though “this part of the suffering was internal rather than external” and concludes that it refers to the sinner’s own conscience or gnawing awareness of shame, something which seems to me to be perfectly compatible with the view of hell outlined above, particularly given the eternal presence of God who knows everything and brings to light that which we would rather hide away in the darkness (see 1 Corinthians 4.5 and perhaps also Luke 12.2-3).
And so to the weeping and gnashing of teeth. Is this meant to taken literally (as in the joke concerning those who have no teeth, that “teeth will be provided”) or is it a figure of speech? Again I agree with Blanchard who notes how the phrase is associated in Scripture with anger (see Job 16.9, Acts 7.54). This too is compatible with a view of hell as a negative encounter with God and, as with the worm, perhaps gives us a sense of the emotional response of those who have rejected God to the prospect of dwelling in his everlasting presence.
So, to conclude, if salvation can be understood as a relationship with God, perhaps damnation is also, in a sense, a relationship with God, albeit a negative one, being alive forever in the presence of the one whose love is unendurable to those who hate him, whose light casts into torment those who prefer to hide in darkness.
NOTES:
[1] This Christian Think Tank article addresses the common objection to the doctrine of hell (that eternal punishment is way too big a penalty even for serious temporal sin) far better than I could ever do.
[2] Of the many uses of the word Gehenna (the most unambiguous word for hell in the New Testament), only one (James 3.7) is not directly by Christ himself.
[3] As the Evangelical writer John Blanchard notes, “Preachers often warn people about the danger of ‘eternal separation’ from God and describe hell in this way, but the Bible never uses the term. It would be more biblical to warn people about the dangers for them of the eternal presence of God.” (John Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? Chapter 10).
(See other posts in this series and buy Edward’s book)