Text: 2 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Well,
it’s summer. It’s hot. We’ve no air conditioning here. So, I figure talking on Hell would be
appropriate; and if can I make this sermon last a while, I figure we will get a
taste of an eternal Hell. I though a
good title for this sermon would be “What the Hell Is Hell”. A bit tongue in cheek I realize, but that
seems to be the question that is at the fore of discussions on it. “What is Hell?” is a very confounded question to answer. Sorting out Hell is a lonely and isolating
task that leaves one with nothing short of a Hell of a mess. Is Hell a fiery abyss where people are
tortured by demons for all eternity or is it an eternal state of being where a
person by his own choice unhindered by sin continually rejects the full
onslaught of the passion or burning fire of the Trinity’s unconditional love
poured upon them. There is a spectrum of
belief on what Hell is making it just as important to ask “who's Hell”. Eastern Orthodox churches understand Hell
quite differently than do Western churches whose beliefs on the subject are
rooted in medieval Roman Catholicism when the Church used the threat of an
eternal fiery punishment in Hell to keep a largely illiterate Europe in
line socially and politically.
For
your information, The Presbyterian Church in Canada
makes a double confession. By our
adhering to the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is the bastion
confession of Calvinism and from which our denomination seems to be effectively
distancing itself, we confess Hell to be “eternal torments” where the
wicked who do not know God and have not obeyed the gospel of Jesus Christ are
“punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from
the glory of His power” (33.2). So how
did we come up with that?
Well, we
draw “eternal torments” from Jesus' parable of The Sheep and the Goats
in Matthew 25 where the goats who showed no compassion were sent away into
“eternal punishment”. Allow me here to
murky the water and wrestle with the Greek.
If we look at where the word we translate as “punishment” shows up in
other classical Greek works contemporary with the Bible, we find that
“correction” might be a better word than punishment. Thus, “eternal punishment” might be better
translated as “eternal correction”.
Moreover, “eternal” may not be referring to time, but rather to its
quality by nature of being from or of God.
For example, when we read eternal life in the Bible it almost never
refers simply to life that goes on for forevermore, but rather to the quality
of life found in the Kingdom of God or in
knowing God in Christ, a quality of life that comes from eternity.
We must
also take note that the method of eternal punishment or correction is an “eternal
fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Once again, take what I just said about “eternal” meaning a quality from
God and since we are using metaphorical language rather than literal (its a
parable after all) add to it that Deuteronomy 4:24 and Hebrews 12:29 both metaphorically state “God is a consuming fire”; i.e., the loving communion of the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit is experientially like a consuming fire. It may just be that this “eternal fire” of
“eternal punishment” is experiencing the presence of the God who is love in,
might I say, a corrective or purgative way.
You see, God in his love by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ
the incarnate Son of God has destroyed evil, sin, and death and is presently
about the work of refining it out of his Creation. It may be then that this eternal fire of
punishment for the wicked is really a purgative exposure to the presence and
the power of the God who is love that is not meant to be for forever. The Eastern Orthodox traditions from very early
on in church history have understand Hell this way.
The
second passage involved is the one we read from 2 Thessalonians. In it Paul is not making a doctrinal
statement about Judgement Day and of the end of the wicked. He is actually trying to comfort persecuted
Christians there in Thessalonica. He is
basically saying: The fact that they are being persecuted for Christ and are
enduring will work out to be proof of God's righteous judgement when Jesus
returns when they will be rewarded for their perseverance and experience
relief. Their persecutors and those like
them who do not heed the fact that Jesus is Lord will, on the other hand,
suffer the consequence of persecuting Christians by means of (not away from) being
exposed to the presence of the Lord. At his
coming Jesus will be openly revealed to be the Lord (rather than Caesar being
Lord) and the persecutors will bow the knee in shame, wailing and gnashing
their teeth as the burning, consuming fire of the presence of the God who is
love works them over with a love from which they cannot hide. Note that Paul there has not mentioned the
resurrection or the judgement that will follow. Rather, he has simply said that
the persecutors of the church and those like them who do not heed that Jesus is
Lord even though having been told that when he returns are going to experience
his presence in a way that confronts them with their shameful doings.
Moving
on, The Presbyterian Church in Canada's second confession of faith, Living
Faith, confesses Hell to be simply “eternal separation from God”
which is a theological euphemism based on what is likely to be a mistranslation
of a preposition in 2 Thessalonians 1:9 which reads “They will suffer the
punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the
glory of his might”. The “away from the
presence of the Lord” there should probably be read with the sense of “by means
of” reading “the eternal punishment that comes from the presence of the Lord.” It's like being an eight year old and Mom and
Dad come home and catch you in the act of smoking. Although you probably will eat the cigarette,
you won't be permanently separated from the family. There is a fundamental belief of the ancient
church saying that there is nowhere that God is not present quoting Psalm 137:7-8,
“Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I
flee from your presence? If I ascend to
heaven, you are there! If I make my bed
in Sheol, you are there!” Sheol is the
Hebrew name for the concealed, underworld holding place for the dead. In most instances it just means “the
grave”. Yet, it's the closest thing to
Hell you'll find in the Old Testament and the Spirit of the Lord is even
present there. The early church couldn't
fathom an eternal separation from God for that would entail a cessation of
existence. The point of Hell is that it
is a form of existence. So, maybe we in
the church in this day and age might what to reconsider describing Hell as
eternal separation from God.
So,
I've only breached the surface of Hell here and hopefully I've done it in such
a way as to avoid giving you fodder to have me defrocked for teaching contrary
to the beliefs of this denomination. To
close, one of the comforts of the Gospel is that God has reconciled the world
to himself in Jesus Christ. He has dealt
with sin once and for all on the cross.
Jesus took upon himself our sin and its consequence of death and died
with it. Jesus death on the cross was
God's judgement of sin and us a sinners.
Thus, at the cross sin and the fact that we are sinners has been utterly
dealt with. They have been born away
from us by Jesus. We are forgiven. There is therefore now no condemnation for
those who are in Christ. As I said, that
is one of the comforts of the Gospel.
The Gospel itself is about the resurrection of our Lord Jesus, the
incarnate Son of God and new life in him by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is that God has saved, is saving, and will
save his Creation and fill it with his glory, with his very self. God is doing this because God is love. Notice that I did not say that the Gospel is
that there is a Hell of eternal punishment which we all deserve for our sins
and the way to avoid Hell is simply to believe that Jesus died for our
sins. That is Good Friday faith and it
falls far short of Easter. Amen.
