Fun topic for a blog post eh?

Last Sunday my pastor’s sermon topic was mercy, (Oct 24, Mercy – The Capping of the Tree mp3) and how God’s justice and God’s mercy are flipsides of the same coin. They are both intrinsically part of Him and inseparable from His nature. It’s His merciful love that saves some from the just punishment that we deserve by the gracious giving of Himself in the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus. To quote a Relient K song, “And this life sentence that I’m serving, I admit that I’m every bit deserving, but the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair”

At this point, I begin talking to myself, asking questions and attempting to answer them as they come up in my mind …

But how can people be punished eternally for finite sins?

The traditional argument in defense of eternal punishment is that sins against an infinite God necessitate an infinite punishment. In our society, we consider the death penalty to be more severe than life imprisonment; if that’s the case, an “afterlife sentence” (so to speak) in hell would be a lesser punishment than annihilation.

But there is another option to the (as far as I know) more traditional conception of hell … Dr Shepherd (author of the quote in the “God’s Love is Not Tame” post) defends conditional immortality (see page 3 of PDF, these are his cursory notes from his systematic theology class) as at least a scripturally defensible position (following Clark Pinnock et al). I don’t know if he personally holds that position but he sees it as a viable option.

But what about …
1) infants
2) kids
3) mentally disabled people
4) those who’ve never heard
5) people who call themselves Christian but act like jerks

1) I don’t know for sure
2) I don’t know for sure
3) I don’t know for sure
4) I don’t know for sure
5) According to Matthew 7:21-23 (et al), these “Christians” have more to worry about than anyone fitting into categories 1-4.

Re 1-4 above, since scripture doesn’t definitively give clear answers, I don’t feel as though I need to be concerned about it. If God is truly both perfectly just and perfectly merciful, then whatever He chooses to do will be both merciful and just. To quote a certain famous president, it’s “beyond my pay grade” to speak too definitively about 1-4 where scripture is silent.

That said, it’s currently my opinion (held loosely in my hand; an opinion being differentiated from a conviction or persuasion) that for 1-3 there is at least a decent case that they will not be in hell. (See for example Ron Rhodes, The Wonder of Heaven, 159-171. Most of those pages are available for viewing for free via Google Books.)

But how come there will be so few in heaven? Jesus said “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.” (Matthew 7:13)

Jesus did say that, but this doesn’t necessarily mean the majority of people who live throughout history will be in hell. If it is true that people who are in categories 1-3 above go to heaven when they die, the number in heaven becomes larger. And when you consider that the population of the world is higher than it has ever been and nearly 1/3 of it is Christian, that number increases further.

Now, even if the “many” in this case is a relatively small number (percentage-wise), still, to God who wills that all be saved (1 Timothy 2:4) any at all who end up otherwise will seem like “many”; God laments even one who chooses to live apart from Him and the purpose and destiny that He planned for us.

But if this is what God is like then I don’t want any part of him.

Sadly then it may be the case that you will be given your wish. What else could God do in that circumstance?

Disclaimer: As always, my opinions (musings) here are subject to change as I learn more and grow deeper in my faith. Also some thoughts may be poorly phrased, or just plain erroneous. Hopefully not … but please try to interpret me charitably. Oh, and as I tell my Sunday school class, whenever I make a mistake, it’s on purpose just to test you.

I came across this on the website of one of my old profs today and thought I’d share it with you:

Evangelicals [Christians] know that while God is  love (1st John 4:8) and can therefore do nothing but love, when God’s love encounters human sin his love “burns hot”, as Luther liked to say.  God’s anger or wrath, then, is never the contradiction or denial of his love.  (Indifference is always the antithesis of love.  After all, the people with whom we are angry we at least take seriously; the people to whom we are indifferent we’ve already dismissed as insignificant.)

God’s anger “heats up” only because He loves us so very much and so very relentlessly that He can’t remain indifferent to us and won’t abandon us.  Profoundly He loves sinners more (or at least more truly, more realistically) than we love ourselves, since our self-love, perverted by sin, issues only in self-destruction.  And as the cross on which He “did not spare his own Son but gave Him up for us all” (Romans  8:32) makes plain, He longs to spare us torment more than He longs to spare Himself.

Rev Dr Victor Shepherd, “What’s an Evangelical?“

God’s love is not tame. It’s powerful and true!

Be My Escape truncated song lyrics are below (by Relient K … full lyrics here)

Also check out a beautiful acoustic piano version of Be My Escape

I’ve given up on giving up slowly, I’m blending in so
You won’t even know me apart from this whole world that shares my fate

And I’ve been housing all this doubt and insecurity and
I’ve been locked inside that house all the while You hold the key
And I’ve been dying to get out and that might be the death of me
And even though, there’s no way in knowing where to go, promise I’m going because

I gotta get outta here
I’m stuck inside this rut that I fell into by mistake
I gotta get outta here
And I’m begging You, I’m begging You, I’m begging You to be my escape.

I’m giving up on doing this alone now
Cause I’ve failed and I’m ready to be shown how
He’s told me the way and I’m trying to get there
And this life sentence that I’m serving
I admit that I’m every bit deserving
But the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair

I am a hostage to my own humanity
Self detained and forced to live in this mess I’ve made
And all I’m asking is for You to do what You can with me
But I can’t ask You to give what You already gave

I fought You for so long
I should have let You in
Oh how we regret those things we do
And all I was trying to do was save my own skin
But so were You
So were You

A duckling hatches. Unlike most ducks, which lay their eggs near bodies of water, this duckling has, for whatever reason, been born inland, with no water nearby.

Our duckling grows up into a duck in an arid climate, seldom feeling the cool, wet caress of raindrops. In those rare rainy moments, he steals brief glimpses, takes a small foretaste, of something more. Yet he is content in his environment, never having known anything else.

One day, a fierce wind begins to blow. Try as he might to weather the storm, he decides to venture out of his comfortable surroundings in search of shelter. He walks (for he has never had a need or occasion to fly before) as the wind continues to intensify, filling the air with sand and debris. Steadfastly, he pushes ahead, sometimes allowing himself to be blown forward by the wind, other times pressing headstrong against it. He walks, and walks, perhaps for hours, perhaps for days, it’s difficult to have any sense of time or direction.

Then, suddenly, the wind dies down, and as his eyes begin to clear he can scarcely believe what he sees.

Water. A billion, trillion times more than he has even seen before.

He has been led to the ocean.

He stands, then sits, then stands once again, staring at the magnificent scene in front of him. At length, be approaches timidly, dipping at first a single webbed toe, then a foot. Although scared by this new experience, this foreign environment, nonetheless he intuitively knows that he is on the threshold of greatness.

Still, he hesitates. It’s unfamiliar, untested, even scary.

Yet, he takes a step of faith and jumps into the water … and for the first time, swims.

It’s unlike anything he has experienced before, but at once he knows. This is what he is meant for. Not just his perception of the world has changed; he has changed. It’s not that he is abandoning everything about his life on land, but now that he has experienced the fullness of this new environment, he can never go back to the way things were before … he is home.

Photo credit: spyros_tav

The experience of encountering and walking with the living God is not like putting a feather in your cap; it’s more like putting on glasses and really being able to see for the first time. It is the fulfillment of cravings of which we are only given a foretaste in the natural world.

C. S. Lewis once said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” This, I think, captures part of the transformative power when a person realizes that they have finally been freed to become the person they were always meant to be.

“If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Jesus

Is it possible that God has been at work in your life all along? Maybe it’s time to explore your world beyond your current boundaries in search of the ocean, and ask the question: What does your soul crave?