How Can You Believe in a God Who Sends People to Hell?

I want to start off with a question of my own as we jump into this big, tough issue:

Why is a belief in hell—an eternity of horrendous torture mandated by God—the litmus test for true Christianity?

I was born into and raised in the Church. And like the overwhelming majority of Christians, I believed in heaven and hell: That those who believe in Jesus, no matter what kind of people they are, will go to heaven; and that those who reject Jesus, no matter what kind of people they are, will fry in hell.

Admittedly, it seemed to make sense. God, in Jesus, has made it possible for us to live in relationship with God. That relationship is one of grace and forgiveness. If we choose to reject that overture of love we’ll live with the consequences—forever.

But as I began to wrestle with my understanding of the character of God, I realized that my starting point was wrong. I recognized that the starting point for God’s character is not that of an angry judge but that of a radically gracious parent. And if that’s the true character of God, the issue of hell becomes increasingly problematic. If God truly is lavishly and recklessly gracious, then how can that same God be capable of creating such a horrific eternity for those who might reject that grace?

For a while I tried to say that hell is, in essence, an act of love. Love forced is not love but abuse. A loving God will not force God’s self on us. If we chose to reject God’s act of love in Jesus, God will love us enough to respect that choice. God, out of love, would not want to force us to spend eternity with him.

But still… it didn’t answer all the questions:

• Is my rejection of God’s love stronger than God’s love for me?

• Does my free will usurp God’s grace?

• Will the God who goes to the cross for us finally give up on us?

• Is God’s grace bound by human time and space?

Or, as my friend, the late BJ Thomas, put it in one of his songs: I wonder why the pure in heart… they have to have a judgment day. I wonder what the Lord has made… that he plans to throw away.

 One blog post will not solve the problem of hell.

 But I want to suggest a starting point by going back to the story of the Prodigal Son which I referred to in another post.

 The Context: Jesus is caught red handed in the act of eating with the wrong kinds of people: sinners and tax collectors—those the religious leaders had written off because they believed God had written them off. No self-respecting Jewish Rabbi would debase himself in such a way. By eating with these people Jesus was in essence treating them as friends and equals. And in the process, ceremonially defiling himself. In response to criticism from the religious elite, Jesus tells the story of a father of radical, reckless grace.

 A quick summary:

1)    The younger son asks for his father for his inheritance early bringing shame onto the father, his family, and his village. Strike one.

2)    The younger son takes his money to a non-Jewish (unclean) land and wastes it all there on wild living. Strike two.

3)    The younger son ends up feeding pigs (unclean animals) for a gentile (an unclean person) in order to survive. Strike three.

Culturally, this younger son has gone beyond the point of no return. He is now considered dead to the village and his family with no way of redemption. Story over!

A major point: When the son decides to head home, he does not go home, as we often assume, repentant. He goes home defiant. He goes home with a scheme in place to manipulate his dad. He wants his dad to hire him in the hope that he can work off his debt, weasel himself back into the family, and receive his inheritance all over again when dad dies. This young man is still dead! He still rejects his dad’s love.

What does this have to do with hell?

Should the villagers catch the son walking into the village they will beat him up and banish him (to hell) from the community once and for all.

But notice what the dad does. And remember, this son is defiant. This son still rejects his father’s love!

The father (representing God) runs to this son who deserves only punishment and condemnation—and rescues him with grace.

• He throws his arms around his son to protect him from the mob.

• He puts the family robe around his shoulders.

• He puts the ring of sonship on his finger.

• He puts shoes on his feet.

• Then he throws a party for him!

All this for a son who, to that point, has rejected his father’s love!

As the father says to the older brother later: This son of mine was lost, but I found him. He was dead. But I made him alive again.

The grace of the father proved stronger than the rejection by his son.

The picture Jesus paints of God in this story is not one of a God who condemns people to hell but who runs to hell-condemned people and graces them with life. God runs to dead people—people who can neither reject or accept love—and raises them to life!

Theologian Jurgen Moltmann says it this way: According to this Christian view, neither God nor human beings decide about hell, but Christ alone: ‘I died, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and hell’ (Rev. 1:18). What is Christ going to do with ‘the keys of hell’? ‘Christ hath burst the gates of hell,’ says Charles Wesley in his Easter hymn. So all its gates are open. Hell is no longer inescapable…  (In the End, the Beginning—the Life of Hope. 2004)

Or as John says it in his Gospel: For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:16)

Does God send people to hell?

The Cross says:  For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. (2 Corinthians 5:19)

The Cross says:

You were lost but God found you.

You were dead but God through Christ raised you to life.

You are the one clothed in the robes of grace.

You are the one wearing the ring of sonship/daughterhood.

You are the one wearing the shoes of forgiveness.

Because God’s grace will always have the final word…

And that word is life.

More next time.

You can reach me at Tim@TimWrightMinistries.org

The Relentlessness of God

This is a blog for those wrestling with Christianity, and more specifically, wrestling with many of the beliefs about God many Christians hold.

Too often God is presented as mean, vindictive, condemning, and hell bent on sending us to hell.

Jesus, however, paints a far different picture. And his primary way for painting that picture is through story-telling: telling stories that turn our perceptions of God upside down.

Like this story about a rejected invitation:

The scene:

Jesus was the guest of honor at a Sabbath meal hosted by a Pharisee. It’s an interesting invitation in that many of the Pharisees were Jesus’ fiercest critics. They didn’t feel he obeyed the rules enough. They were scandalized by his penchant for hanging out with the wrong kinds of people.

Yet this particular Pharisee invited Jesus to be his guest of honor. Was he curious about Jesus? Did he want to catch Jesus out? Did he want to join his team of followers?

Almost immediately Jesus proves to be a pain-in-the-butt guest.

First, during the meal, he heals a man—on the Sabbath Day, the day of rest. Some of the guests would have seen that as a provocative breaking of the Sabbath rules.

Next, he criticizes those who fought for the most prestigious spots around the table as they sat down for the meal.

Then, he criticizes his host for inviting friends, telling him that he should instead be inviting the outsiders to a meal—those whom God has seemingly abandoned: the crippled, the lame, and the blind.

You get the sense that Jesus probably didn’t get invited back to parties often.

The story trigger:

Then, perhaps to change the subject or lower the room temperature, one of the guests said: Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the Kingdom of God!

It was a brilliant move. Immediately the minds of all the guests turned to the long-awaited promise of God—the promise of a day when all of Israel’s enemies would be vanquished and Israel would live in peace.

It was a promise made in Isaiah 25. On that day God will spread out a banquet feast where death will be at an end and tears will be wiped away.

One small problem: Isaiah said that this banquet would include Gentiles—non-Jewish people. But by the time of Jesus, Biblical interpreters added commentary to that passage saying that while the Gentiles will be invited, it will not be an honor for them but a meal of shame and plagues. Others said that the Gentiles would be slaughtered at that meal by the angel of death.

For some of the Jewish elite in Jesus’ day, the inclusive feast of Isaiah had become an exclusive feast for the chosen Jews only. There was no way outsiders would be invited in.

When the guest threw out that feast as a topic of conversation, he was hoping Jesus would turn from his somewhat cantankerous mood to a more upbeat, celebratory mood. But Jesus saw it as an opening to rock their view of God with a story of outrageous, relentless grace.

The Story:

A man wanted to host a feast and invited many from the community. In Jesus’ day the invitations would be sent out without a specific date because all the food was prepared fresh. A servant would bring word of a soon-coming banquet, get RSVP’s from the guests, and then the process for gathering and preparing the food would begin.

Once all was ready the servant went out immediately to say: The party is on! Come quickly. And the guests would stop what they were doing and head to the party.

But in this story, rather than keeping their commitment to the party, many of the guests began to make excuses for why they couldn’t come.

• One had purchased a piece of land he needed to inspect

• One had purchased five oxen and needed to test drive them

• One had just gotten married

These all seem like appropriate excuses but those listening to Jesus would know that none of those excuses were valid in that culture. They instantly understood that the invited guests in this story were intentionally dissing the man who invited them to the party. In an honor/shame culture, such behavior was scandalous.

Imagine you had planned a big banquet. You invite your friends. They all turn up. You put the food in front of them. And then, rather than eating, one by one they make some kind of excuse.

Oh, I just forgot, I need to:

• Mow the lawn

• Feed the cat

• Catch the next episode of the latest binge-worthy show

And then leave.

How would you feel? Angry? Hurt? Bitter? Dissed?

And what would you do or want to do? Drop them from your Facebook friends list? Diss them on Twitter? Delete their contact information from your phone? Never speak to them again?

The party host has the same response. Jesus says that he was angry. But notice what he does next: Rather than taking vengeance on those who hurt him he extends his grace even further. This man’s natural expression of anger is remarkably more grace!

He tells his servant to go out and invite the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame—all those seemingly abandoned by God

Then, when there’s still room for more, he instructs his servant to go out onto the streets and compel people to come in—because he wants his house full. He has a bountiful feast and he wants to share it with as many people as possible.

This well-known socialite, so to speak, hosts a banquet for:

• People sleeping in the doorways of Macy’s

• People used to eating scraps from the trash bins behind swank hotels

• People who haven’t bathed in a summer of Sundays

And it costs them absolutely nothing. It is undeserved, unexpected, unearned.

This party host proves to be relentless in his desire to share his abundance with as many people as possible.

The Point: This is what God is like!

Jesus shows us that:

God is relentless when it comes to grace! Grace abhors a vacuum. God will not rest until heaven is filled. God is a gracious heavenly father who’s prepared a feast for all humankind and he will not stop until the banquet table is full—pursuing us through the cross.

God’s grace always includes those we think are beyond God’s grace. Whoever it is we think is unworthy of God’s grace, Jesus says, “Surprise! God loves them, too!” As the Reformer Martin Luther reminds us, grace is always for and only for sinners.

Or, to quote Episcopal priest Robert Capon, Grace says: All you have to be is a certifiable loser and God will send his servant Jesus to positively drag you into his house!

The God of Jesus will not stop surprising you with that unexpected, relentless grace!

You can contact me at Tim@TimWrightMinistries.org

How Can You Believe in a God Who Allows Suffering? Part 1: Setting the Stage

Where has God been the last two years?

• Millions of people around the world have died from COVID

• Millions more have suffered from the virus

• Millions have lost their jobs

• Mental and emotional distress has increased exponentially

• George Floyd was murdered by a police officer on his neck

• American citizens tried to overthrow the US Government

• Afghanistan has fallen once again into the hands of the Taliban

And that doesn’t include ongoing poverty, homelessness, people killed by drunk drivers, and the growing chasm between the have and the have nots!

If God is a loving God, why does God allow all of this suffering? Why doesn’t God put an end to it? Why doesn’t God intervene? Where has God been?

That question, along with the Hell question, presents one of the biggest stumbling blocks to faith and has done so since humans could ask questions.

In times of chaos, upheaval, and suffering we all look for something to make sense of it all—to bring meaning to the meaninglessness of it all.

And for people of faith the search for meaning begins with God (and that holds true even for those who don’t consider themselves religious).

There are generally two go-to responses to the question of suffering:

The first is the-God-is-control answer.  One of the common encouragements used to bring some hope in the midst of hardship is: Don’t worry. God’s got this. God is still in control!

For example, consider this word of hope from social media:

Sorry to break up the big panic, but the coronavirus will not take anyone outta this world unless that’s the good Lord’s plan. And you’re not gonna change that no matter what you do or what you buy. 

In other words, none of this is beyond God’s control.

But… if this is what God-is-in-control looks like, what does it looks like when God isn’t in control?!

This view of a God who has everything under control pictures God as a master puppeteer. Think Geppetto with Pinocchio, controlling and manipulating every move at every moment of every day; pulling the strings of human interactions, circumstances, and world events.

But when we dig down into that view of God, we find that it makes God responsible for all of the death, violence, chaos, and loss that we all experience in life. It makes God responsible for pandemics and cancer and divorce and suicide and car accidents and poverty and war and the Holocaust, etc.

If that’s what God is like, no wonder people want nothing to do with God!

The second response is the same as the first, but rather than fixing suffering onto God to bring hope, suffering is blamed on God in order to dismiss God altogether. How can a loving God allow suffering?

The argument goes something like this:

• God is all-powerful so can prevent suffering.

• God is good and loving so you would imagine God would want to eliminate suffering.

• But suffering exists so God is not all powerful or good or loving.  

And with no seemingly viable answer those questions, many people either abandon the faith or give up on the possibility of a God before even getting started with the questions.

But when we dig deeper into this second view, we also have some unresolved issues.

Let’s take God out of the equation for a moment. Many people who simply can’t believe in God because they can’t believe in a loving God who allows suffering, still have the problem of suffering.

Suffering doesn’t go away if we give up on God.

So how then do we explain it or come to terms with it?

Here’s atheist Richard Dawkins on suffering and evil:

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. (River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life)

If Dawkins is right, if life is chance or pitiless indifference, where does that leave us?

But what if it’s true that God’s love and suffering are related, but not in the way we’re often taught?

What if a loving God speaks to suffering, to this seemingly pitiless indifference, not in the way we think God should, but in the way we need God to? Does suffering automatically prove that God isn’t loving or powerful? That God doesn’t exist?

More to come next time.

You can connect with me at Tim@TimWrightMinistries.org