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Ah Hell! Ah Heaven!



If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. (Matthew 5:29-30)

For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live! (Ezekiel 18:32)

 

 
    Yesterday morning, I came across this picture from Ligonier Ministries. I heartily recommend Ligonier to people. It's a great ministry if you don't mind thinking and learning. Not surprisingly, the meme brought Hell to mind. Many people think in terms of Dante's Inferno  when they think of Hell. They imagine a horror movie version of a medieval torture chamber, with demons punishing people for their sins. Some people add God looking on in glee to this picture. The Bible doesn't give much of a description of Hell. There are mentions of fire, and worms, and fallen angels, but more often the only thing mentioned as being in Hell is people.

      Based on this, and inspired in part by C. S. Lewis' Great Divorce, and in part by foolish challenges by atheists, I have been rethinking my own picture of both Heaven and Hell. Some people claim that Hell doesn't exist, and that everyone gets to go to Heaven (at least eventually.) It seems to me that those who have spent their lives rejecting God would find Heaven to be Hell because they could never escape God's presence. That's what Heaven is: the place where God is. If that is what Heaven is, then Hell would seem to be the opposite, the place where God is not. Of course, God is omnipresent (always everywhere) so I have been saying that Hell is where God's manifest presence is not. The idea that Hell is where God's graciousness is completely removed is a better way to put it.

       Some have suggested that this might not be so bad. Man finally gets to have his way. C.S. Lewis said that there are “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.'" I can't think of anything more horrible than being of the second sort. God is love, therefore there is no love in hell. God is light. Hell is darkness. The fruit of God's Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control - all absent in Hell. Hope cannot be found. The only thing that comes to mind that one would find in Hell would be sin. Those sins that you can't seem to shake? Those weaknesses about which you joke? What happens if they become the focus of your existence - your masters? What happens if even something that seemed good becomes all consuming?

       If this is a true description of Hell, then the architecture doesn't matter. You could live in a mansion with servants at your beck and call, and it would still be Hell, and there would be no escape because you carry it within yourself. Similarly, in Heaven you could live in a tin hut with a dirt floor, but it would still be Heaven because God is there and He carries it "within" Himself.

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