Monthly Archives: April 2020

What’s the Real Issue with Hell? Part 3: Why would a Loving God Condemn Anyone to Hell?

Reflections on Scripture.

As we we come to the belated end of this series of three posts  on the subject of Hell (see What’s the Real Issue with Hell? Part 1. and What’s the Real Issue with Hell? Part 2: How are we to Understand Jesus’ Teaching on Hell?) it would be good to recap.   Firstly, we’ve learnt from various parts of scripture that God is giving time for people to repent as he would rather they repent than punish them.  Jesus teaches about Hell more than he teaches about heaven.  He mentions Hell twelve times in the Gospel’s and numerous other times when he refers to fire, darkness and eternal suffering!  He also uses descriptive and distributing metaphors to warn people, leading us to conclude that in reality Hell must be infinitely worse!

But, that leaves us with the question why would a loving God  condemn anyone to eternal torment as described in the parable ‘The Rich Man and Lazarus’?  In that parable we get these disturbing words:   ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame’ (Luke 16:24)!God maybe a God of love, but that doesn’t mean he loves everything.  This is illustrated very clearly in Psalm 5:4-5: ‘For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers.  You destroy those who speak lies; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.’  The phrase: ‘evil may not dwell with you’ tells us that God is holy and this is proved in his hatred of sin.  What we have here is a fully rounded picture of God.  His character is consistent as his hatred of evil makes no compromises.  His anger against sin is right and proper.  Jonathan Edwards in his sermon ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God’ illustrates this well. ‘They (sinners) deserve to be cast into hell; so that divine justice never stands in the way, it makes no objection against God’s using his power at any moment to destroy them.  Yea, on the contrary, justice cries aloud for the infinite punishment of their sins.  Divine justice says of the tree that brings for such Grapes of Sodom, “Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?” Luke XIII 7.  The sword of divine justice is every moment brandished over their heads, and it is nothing but the hand of arbitrary mercy, and God’s mere will, that holds it back.’[1]

If we have a problem with Hell it says more about our attitude to sin than about God!  To quote one of the most well-known verses in the Bible:  ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him’ (John 3:16-17).  This is a wonderful illustration of God’s love, but the sad thing is we can be guilty of ignoring the next verse.  ‘Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God’ (John 3:18).  And that’s a tragedy because this verse illustrates our desperate need and God’s love in sending Jesus!

In the end if we insist on rejecting Jesus’ offer of forgiveness we will find ourselves deficient.  We fail to live up to God’s prefect standards!  So it’s right and proper to accept the gracious offer of a loving God who is only doing what we should long for, judging evil in a right and just manner!

Many years ago I was on a walking holiday with some friends in the Lake District . On the second day I slipped and fell about 40 feet and rolled another 150 feet down a slope. One of my friends walked considerable distance to get the mountain rescue and eventually I was taken to hospital by helicopter.  So I’ve always been grateful to my friend Colin.  But suppose I never mentioned him in relation to that event or spoke about him in disparaging terms? You’d think I was a cold hearted and a contemptible human being and you’d be right!

How much more is that the case if we ignore Jesus’ offer of forgiveness.  God must punish our sin or else he fails to be just and right as:  ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’  But the next verse tells us the good news that we can be:  ‘justified   by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 3:2324).  So let’s see sin as God sees it and marvel in his great love in sending Jesus to be our Lord and Saviour!

[1] Jonathan Edwards, Basic Writings, (New York, Signet Classics, 1966) 152.

The parable of the ‘Rich man and Lazarus’ is covered in the sermon Why the Miraculous can’t Cut it when it comes to Conversion!  Feel free to take a listen.

 

The Songs of Ascents Psalm 134

Scriptural Thought for the Month
Bless the Lord

If, as has been surmised, the ‘Songs of Ascents’ were a collection of psalms that were edited together to give us a sense of pilgrimage, and if they were sung on the way up to Jerusalem, then this psalm has a logical place as the pinnacle of the pilgrim’s experience.  The psalms themselves have taken us through a whole range of emotions.  Early on there were psalms about being isolated from God’s people, the journey itself and then the arrival at the tabernacle in Jerusalem.  The psalms highlighted the highs and lows of a believer’s life.  But as we come to the end of these 15 psalms the focus is on fellowship.  So what we have here is probably a psalm that was sung at the end of the festival after the blessing of the High Priest and the people prepared to go home.

Some years ago I went on walking holiday near Ben Nevis in the Scottish Highlands.  I hadn’t been walking for some years and my body had changed so much that I was badly dehydrated for most of the holiday.  That, coupled with thick snow, on some of the ridges made it a very tiring holiday.  But each time I hauled myself up another mountain the view at the top made it worthwhile!  And that, I believe is the point of this psalm.  The journey up to Jerusalem could have been very difficult and tiring, not a relaxing proposition.  But once the pilgrims got to Jerusalem and worshipped they could look back and say it was all worthwhile!

The first thing we notice in verse 1 is everyone is called on to worship: ‘Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand by night in the house of the Lord!’  Its not just the pilgrims, but the priests and others serving in the temple.  The other thing to note is this was happening all the time!  1 Chronicles chapter 9 lists those who served in the temple and it’s clear the worship went on 24/7!  This makes sense as in Psalm 121:4 we read: ‘Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.’  So there’s a simple truth to be derived, our worship is to be 24/7!  So we’re not more of a Christian when we’re in church than on Monday when we’re at work, our whole life is worship!

The phrase: ‘Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord!’ (v2) obviously applies to the priests.  In the former area I worked there was a minister who when approached on street would often say: “I’m not working at the moment.”  That raised the eyebrows of those of us who consider our calling a vocation, but it also illustrates how easy it is for to become jaded and lack the dedication to worship.  There’s an interesting New Testament illustration of this when Paul writes to Timothy. ‘I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarrelling’ (1 Timothy 2:8).  It’s clear that Paul shares the sentiments of this particular psalm!

Lastly, this was a chance to receive blessing.  ‘May the Lord bless you from Zion, he who made heaven and earth!’ (v3).  We forget; the Lord wants to bless his people!  But this also reminds us of the kind a God we worship as he is sovereign over everything in this world and universe!  So, as the High Priest gave the final blessing, it would have reinstated in the minds of the people as the reason for their pilgrimage.  They worshipped the great God: ‘who made heaven and earth!’ and yet had time for his people and wanted to bless them!

The pilgrimages’ to the various festivals showed love and obedience towards God, but the ultimate example of love is found in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus which is the ultimate source of blessing.  Paul draws our attention to Christ’s obedience in his letter to the church at Philippi.  ‘Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.’ (Philippians 2:5-8).  Christ’s obedience brings us blessing indeed!

Would you like to listen to a sermon on the passage? Bless the Lord!