I told my son-in-law (who teaches/preaches with me at the ministry where we serve) that I believe we are dealing with more atheistic students this year than ever before. What’s encouraging to me is that I am hearing from them, and some are asking questions.
Several Christian students have been part of these dialogues and it has led to one of the most basic and inevitable questions you will ever get when you do student ministry.
Today, after I finished preaching, a girl came to me with this question. I’ll try to preserve her diction:
“Mr. Spencer, you know there are atheists, people who believe in Mary and Muslims. Many different beliefs. And there are people who believe the world is going to come to an end. If the world were to end, would all of these people who are not Christians go to heaven or hell?”
I love this question, because it opens every door I want to open with a student.
Think with me.
A) Why do we have a longing to know what happens to us and to others after death? You won’t find a human culture that doesn’t have rituals and practices related to the question of what will happen to us. If it is so deeply ingrained in every culture, perhaps it’s just part of our evolutionary past….or perhaps it is the remnants of our collective memory of who we are- persons with a creator- and our longing to “go home.”
B) We want to believe that “going to heaven” is about a PREFERENCE on our part. We make a choice or no choice, and we get the same result. But the Gospel of Jesus tells us that we don’t have PREFERENCE issue, we have a PROBLEM. Unless our sins are removed and forgiven, and unless our relationship with God is made right, we won’t go to heaven.
C) We believe that if a person is nice, or at least not a terrible person, God is unconcerned with whether they are an atheist, a Muslim or a Christian. In a sense, God does look at all of us the same (we are all sinners), but he doesn’t look at our FAITH the same. If God only looks at us, he sees our PROBLEM, because that problem of sin separates us from God. If our problem has been placed upon Jesus, then he sees a PERSON, a MEDIATOR, the one who makes things right. Our Faith is alway in/on something/someone. That matters a lot.
D) Christians don’t believe they are better than someone who doesn’t believe in Jesus. We don’t hope in our goodness, but in Jesus. Christians believe that Jesus is better than all of us- perfect in fact- and that only his perfection will cover up our PROBLEM. It’s as if we all “stink,” but for those who trust in Jesus, he covers over the “odor” of our sins with the fragrance of his righteousness and covers our sins with his blood.
E) Christians don’t know any person’s spiritual condition, we can only know what the Bible says and what people say about Jesus now. The Bible says that it’s given to every person to die once, and then to go to God either with their PROBLEM or with the PERSON who solves the problem. There is no other way for sin to be forgiven. That’s not a verdict on who is nice, because some non-Christians are much better people than some Christians, but the Bible says that even our right actions and thoughts are still so covered in our PROBLEM that they can’t possibly make us right with God. The only people the Bible says are saved from God’s judgment against sin are those who have placed their sins on the right PERSON: Jesus.
F) Is God more generous than what I’ve described? To save anyone is very generous. Look at Noah’s flood in Genesis 6. All we know about God is from the Bible, and in the Bible God is a certain and consistent judge who does what is right. Counting on God to lay aside his judgment and be generous to all totally apart from Jesus is saying that the Bible is 100% wrong inthe way it presents God. That could be right, and everything is fine. But if the Bible is telling the truth, then the PROBLEM of sin can only be solved by the PERSON of Jesus.
G) I can’t judge anyone, but according to the Bible, God has sent his son to the cross to be judged for the sins of the world. If Jesus was judged for sins, what awaits the person who rejects Jesus? Judgment.
Jonathan:
Who understood Jesus better: Paul or Amos?
Does Romans 1-3 teach the Gospel accurately? (I’m assuming that’s what Paul is doing in Romans, rehearsing the Gospel.)
Is the phrase “for our sins” in I Cor 15:1-4 important?
peace
ms
In Romans 1-3, if it is about God punishing Jesus instead of us, why doesn’t Paul just say that? The only time that ‘judge’ and ‘Jesus’ come together in Romans 1-3 is Ro 2:16 where Jesus is the judge, not the one being judged.
What if the ‘Righteousness of God’ is more like Amos says, a flood that destroys and gives life? And Jesus’ life, most specifically in the cross and resurrection is the main spigot for this flood?
Of course “for our sins” in 1 Cor 15:1-4 is important! But the Greek is not anti “in the place of” as it is often read, but the plain hyper “for”
But does 1 Cor 15 say that Christ died as a punishment for our sins? It says simple that “Christ died for our sins.” Of course, Paul can and will compress his theological formulae into sharpened phrases, but does Paul elsewhere say that Jesus was punished instead of us? And if he doesn’t, then what right do we have to read that into here?
And notice where Paul goes with the gospel in 1 Cor 15, Christ’s resurrection is the beginning of the ‘flood’ of New Creation, of God’s Kingdom into the world, ending with the destruction of death, so that God will be all in all.
So which image works better here? Amos’s or the Greek’s? I’m sticking with Amos.
Many wish to be saved by themselves without the Gospel and Christ Jesus.
I like the perspective Jonathan raised. I also don’t see a requirement in 1 Cor 15, for example, that Jesus dying “for our sins” must be read as “a punishment for our sins”. That sacrificial act can also be seen with a more hopeful way, like Amos’ everlasting stream, as an active response of dying on behalf of, as a cause of, in response to, our sin — our separation and our death. Either way, that act isn’t that in which we find hope.
To die for our sin whether as punitive Justice-demanded punishment for our sin or as a loving act of Justice to purify us from sin, neither is our ultimate hope. That sacrifice is a good and trustworthy road sign pointing us to our bright hope: the resurrection. For if Jesus was not raised then we have no hope and all is vain. (The punchline and climax of 1 Cor 15, after all.)
I think iMonk does well in helping us to keep our eye on the PERSON of Christ, because Resurrection is the act of a divine PERSON in gracious response to a human sin PROBLEM. He answered death with new life. I see the promise of hope, of new life, of new creation wrought as HIS WORK of redemption and salvation. Not our human work. Not even religion’s work. Yes, He empowers us to build for that work. Yet, the good news doesn’t end in interpreting the nuances of a sacrificial death but begins with permission to imagine, embrace and grow in hope by Him.
Jonathan:
Just to be up front here, You deny that atonement is penal, but you affirm it is substituionary. Is that correct?
I’ve never been able to grasp how a person looks at the OT sacrificial system, the Passover lamb, etc and comes up with something other than the language of Is 53: He was punished for our transgressions.
But I don’t have any stake in what you say. I’m quite convinced in my own mind.
peace
ms
Imonk thanks for this post. I agree with alot of your views and sometimes vehemently disagree, but on this point I am with you and it is because of this truth we can rightly be called brothers. I am glad you are out there spreading the Gospel among students – keep up the work.
Jonathan,
I am curious as to what you mean here?
You maintain that Christ died “for our sins” as it says, but not that he died “in the place of them” – then what do you interpret this as meaning?
If I had to label my atonement theology, it would be about 80% Christus Victor, 10% Penal Substitutionary, 10% Moral Influence.
My point is mainly that penal substitution is, at most, a minor melody in the great symphony of what God did in the cross and resurrection of Jesus. Yet the symphony is played as if it is the major melody, and it doesn’t sound right.
Again, the sacrificial system does not mean that the animals and the lamb were punished in the place of the people. Sacrifice can mean all kinds of things. Heck, when someone kills a cow for my hamburger, it doesn’t mean the cow is being punished for my sin, it means I’m hungry!
Again, if you go to Isaiah 53, the ‘for our sins’ is a bad translation. It’s not a lamed, it’s a ‘men’ which means from. Honestly, when I was translating Isaiah 53 for an exegesis class I was shocked when I came across it. But the text actually reads: “he was punished from our transgressions.” Now truth be told, there is an element of punishment here. It does say “he was punished” that’s why I’m 10% Penal Substitutionary.
But put Isaiah 53 in it’s context. Isaiah 52 is all about God becoming King, God’s coming Victory, God baring his holy arm, and what does that look like? Isaiah 53.
Christ died for our sins. I think the “for” is deliberately vague, not seeking to limit what Christ did on the cross. However, most preaching of the gospel jumps right to Penal Substitution, and misses the other 90%. If Paul never out right says: “God punished Jesus instead of us,” why do we? If Paul never says: “Jesus paid for my sins,” why do we?
Again, if Jesus doesn’t preach the gospel like Anselm does, why do we?
Jonathan:
Is your position that the church has, as a whole, always believed what you believed and you and others have only recently translated and understood the truth of the scripture accurately,
or
is the church’s historic adherence to the many metaphors that give a major (but not exclusive) place to penal substitution atonement a refection of the way most Christians have understood the best expression of the Bible’s overall message?
I’m a big fan of NT Wright and I believe in using several different ways to describe the atonement. I almost always give more emphasis to person than to work.
But I don’t feel it’s reasonable to say that the NPP, Wright etc are “finally” recovering what the Reformers completely missed. As a post evangelical I’m rather cautious about announcing we have finally discovered what 2000 years of Christian theology missed.
peace
ms
IMonk:
This is a serious question from me: Can you explain or define what you mean by “post evangelical?” I believe you used this term to describe yourself.
I never had an problem with the idea that Jesus died for my sins and therefore i should love God, it made total sense. But now I guess it doesn’t have the same effect on me. I can’t relate any more to the idea of a just and holy God who needs blood to placated. It makes him seem insane or something. I feel like, he made me and put me on this planet in a state of sin, so really its HIS fault not mine. Maybe my heart has gotten hardened through sin, and that’s why I’ve lost the ability to be impressed by the cross.
Tim W, there is an analogy that helps me understand the issue of sin and why it costs so much to be free.
Parents warn their children not to play in the road. Then one day a kid disobeys and gets hit by a car. Now the child is in the hospital with broken bones (or worse).
From the child’s point of view, is this pain and suffering the result of angry parents who are punishing the kid for disobeying? Why can’t they just forgive the child’s disobedience and make everything better?
I know it is an imperfect analogy, but perhaps we don’t realize how serious sin is really. Maybe we are not experiencing a punishment by God as much as we are experiencing the actual break or separation that happens because of what sin is.
The parents can forgive their disobedient child, but it will still cost a lot to save and finally heal that child.
God can forgive us, but it did cost a lot to save and heal us, too.
Just a thought.
Tim W
I think the whole concept of blood sacrifice as atonement for sins has to be kept in it’s proper context (place and time, especially time). Perhaps God chose to have His blood shed precisely because the people at that time would more easily connect with blood sacrifice/sacrificial lamb, etc. IOW it’s less God’s needs and more the need for a strong human connection (sacrifice and all it entails.)
Whose fault is it that you (or I) sin? God made us with free will. WE alone, insofar as we are psychologically capable, make the decision to do right or do wrong, to accept Christ or not. God does not force Himself on anyone.
“God does not force Himself on anyone.”
Well, he should.
If my child runs in the road, I don’t respect his freewill; I run out in the road, OVERRIDE his freewill, and get him out of there.
Imonk,
I know you probably don’t have time to listen to many podcasts yourself, but since we’re on the topic of Atonement theories, I found the following podcast absolutely fascinating. It’s an interview with Dr. Joel B. Green from Asbury on “The Illumined Heart,” an Eastern Orthodox podcast. From the link, scroll down to the podcast called “Recovering the Scandal of the Cross.”
http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/illuminedheart/P84/
This three part series by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware is one of the most fascinating discussions of the atonement I have heard. It’s at the bottom of the page and is called “The Cross of Christ.” The section lecture is particularly fascinating. I pray I’m not drifting into heresy, but these talks truly warmed my heart. I’m not Orthodox, and I’m not trying to proselytize on your blog. I just think this is a interesting addition to the discussion.
http://holycrossonline.org/our_parish/media/
I meant to say, “The second lecture is particularly fascinating.”
Tim W:
There’s a huge leap from rescuing a child who has no grasp of what could happen, and God taking an unwilling person who knows what SHOULD happen. It’s not just. God is both perfectly just, and perfectly merciful, but He’s not going to drag you into heaven yelling and screaming. He gives you every chance to willingly accept that you need.
Andy D noted:
“If any of you were born in Saudi Arabia, the odds of you accepting Jesus would be next to nil.”
This statement is surely accurate. Thus:
“Should God punish you [for] eternity when he knew that there was [almost] no chance you were going to accept him?”
I find it telling that nobody here has tried to answer this. This is the rotten core at the heart of Christian theology: that people will be sent to Hell just for being born in the wrong place.
(I’m sure someone will say that they deserve to be punished for their sins – but since Christianity tells us that humans can’t help but sin, this makes no sense either.)
Allan,
I’ve tried to avoid your question because I don’t remember how evangelicals handle the question.
The Catholic answer is: for those seeking God and rejecting evil have the possibility THROUGH JESUS, to enter heaven. We don’t know how or any other details, though. (If you are interested, you might want to explore “Natural Law.”
A supporting Bible passage is the one where Jesus is talking about separating the sheep from the goats. The sheep are the ones who helped others, the goats are those who did not.
Matthew 25:31-46. Interesting.
The whole Christian version of salvation, when you get to the very heart of it, seems to boil down to trying to either bribe or scare people into worshiping Yahweh.
You either have to tantalize them into thinking if they believe now, they will get to live in the candy store, or if they reject the offer, they get tossed in the furnace.
People can bark about free will and predestination all day long, but I find it impossible to feel affection for any being that holds a gun to my head and says “Love me, or else”.
If the whole thing revolves around Yahweh picking some to rescue and damning the rest, it seems he like to use cruel and inefficient means to accomplish what could have been a very simple act of just making only those he would choose and be done with it.
Would you consider a potter sane who spent his days making jars that his only intention was to throw off the balcony just to show the few he was saving how wonderful of a craftsman he was?
I guess the only refuge is, to believe that, somehow, it all makes sense when you die.
“God is both perfectly just, and perfectly merciful, but He’s not going to drag you into heaven yelling and screaming.”
He should. A parent drags his kid yelling and screaming to a place that is best for him, so if God is a loving parent, he shouldn’t let my yelling and screaming stop him from doing what is best for me.
“Would you consider a potter sane who spent his days making jars that his only intention was to throw off the balcony just to show the few he was saving how wonderful of a craftsman he was?”
Good point.
God seems to me like a superhero with low self esteem who feels un appreaciated for his deeds. So he then goes and engineers situations where people will get into trouble so that he can then swoop down like Robin Hood and say A Ha! I have rescued you! and then get the glory he craves.
i took a seminary course last year and we had to write a paper each week and ever week, I asked the same question “how is this MY fault?” and could never get an answer that would satisfy me and bring me back to the place I used to be, where I could agree with God and really FEEL in my heart that yes I’ve sinned and need a saviour and be thankful to jesus for saving me.
Adam sinned , so that makes me a sinner. That just seems so unfair! Doesn’t matter if jesus has come as the second Adam and reversed everything, he still comes across as the underappreciated superhero.
I guess I’m jsut hardened by sin, that’s the only explanation. I’ve talked to God, and to lots of smart christians, and the only thing i’ve heard that makes even a little sense is something my mom said, that okay, lets say God is the unappreciated superhero who craves recognition and glory — he has forgiven you, maybe you should just forgive God?
“Would you consider a potter sane who spent his days making jars that his only intention was to throw off the balcony just to show the few he was saving how wonderful of a craftsman he was?â€
Brian, This potter has never made a jar for the purpose of throwing it away. He loves all of us. I do not believe that God loved me any more after I turned to Christ than before, back in my days of ridiculing Christianity. The love is constant and beyond anything I can comprehend. His love humbled me.
If we don’t choose Him, why would we want to spend eternity with Him? I view hell as the absence of God. But, really, anything to do with an afterlife is completely beyond my understanding.
I did not come back to Christ out of fear or the prospect of reward. Mine was an overwhelming longing from deep inside. Fear or reward would not have worked because I didn’t believe anything existed beyond death. Now, I would not dare suggest what is possible or impossible with God, only that much more is possible than my pride ever let me suspect.
I believe that God loves the people in societies that reject Christianity every bit as much as He loves us. As to matters of an afterlife, I’m guessing they wouldn’t want to spend eternity with Jesus. Other than that, it’s not for me to say. I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t give much thought to an afterlife. I am so grateful for God’s love right now.
Tim and Brian, I have struggled with similar thoughts. Unfortunately, many Evangelicals told me to buck up, be a man, stop questioning the almighty, and some even suggested that my questioning was a sign of non-election. All I can say is please don’t give up. Look outside of mainstream Evangelicalism. N.T. Wright has helped me a lot. I’m also appreciating some Eastern Orthodox writers, Anglicans from the Oxford Movement, and, paradoxically, even the Quakers. If you haven’t done so already, I suggest studying church history. This helped me a lot– sure puts a lot of people’s sectarian claims in perspective.
“God seems to me like a superhero with low self esteem who feels un appreaciated for his deeds. So he then goes and engineers situations where people will get into trouble so that he can then swoop down like Robin Hood and say A Ha! I have rescued you! and then get the glory he craves.â€
If this is how God seems to you, all I can suggest is to seek God, not interpretation of God. We may be image bearers but the reflection isn’t always so bright.
Dave, I would have a real problem with anybody that told me to stop questioning God. I’m not kidding. I ask God questions a hundred times a day. I have been led to change many things in my life, but asking questions is not one of them.
I’m also a big fan of N. T. Wright. I don’t think I really appreciated Paul until I read Fresh Perspective.
ProdigalSarah: “If we don’t choose Him, why would we want to spend eternity with Him?”
I don’t *believe* in a perfectly good, totally powerful being, but if I did, I would be perfectly happy to “spend eternity with Him” as you put it.
During all the years when I said there is no God, God was still with me. He still loved me. I made Him invisible.
If you’re in a room blindfolded and you refuse to reach out your hand, it is possible to conclude that the room is empty. That was my life.
Just maybe an afterlife is like that. If God is invisible to you, then you are left in isolation. I have no idea. The whole concept is beyond me. I only know what has happened since I reached out my hand and discovered that I wasn’t alone.
@ Allan C — I think your concern and skepticism regarding the issue you raised is a good one.
It’s difficult to be extremely brief, but I share my perspective of coming to hope and belief after years of firm skepticism that may be helpful. First, I think it is good to note the premises of justice and hell upon which your concern rests, while certainly a valid and common concern, especially of our time, are informed by culture, philosophy and values that are no more empirically proven or self-evident than the values upon which Christian faith can rest. I don’t say that as a put down, but only to frame that I think it is tremendously good to value doubt while also staying open to revisiting the assumptions upon which our beliefs and values rest.
1. The concept of hell is helped when considered in light of Hebrew culture (both the beliefs of Sheol and the literal junk heap of Gehenna) more than Greek notions of Hades, Platonism, and especially late writers like Dante. Yes, the Bible, esp. the New Testament, contains brief and varied affirmations that hell/sheol/gehenna is real and tormenting, but I believe it is sound and humble to be cautious about developing a dominant and punitive gospel emphasis driven from brief passages like the parable of Lazarus and Dives. I’m not saying hell is not real for those who reject God. But I think hell can be as easily interpreted as a sad, pathetic, tormenting existence absent from God, driven more by humanity’s will and problem of sin, rather than a place God wills for people to be created and destined.
2. I see in the Genesis narrative a good creation that God began that humanity chose to reject, favoring its own will, creation, judgment, justice, beauty, salvation, etc., resulting in sin and separation from God. I see death and hell, therefore, as a reality ushered in by fallen creation, that is overcome in new life offered in Him. If Abraham was justified in his faith absent of a clear Christology, then I see a place for hope that there are many means by which God reaches all who will have Christ as their Lord and why He is so patient with His creation. I don’t think this hope I have in God’s trustworthy power to redeem His creation needs to be fleshed out in a clear, speculative, and I think counter-Biblical theology, such as after-death Christian witness/conversion as a way to formulate how God can redeem His creation and those persons born to areas foreign to religio-culturally ingrained Christianity.
3. I think it is helpful to keep emphasis planted on the dominant hope of the Christian gospel: resurrection — a new heaven and new earth — and redeemed human creation. I see in the testimony of the New Testament, and especially Acts, a testimony of Christ-ushered new creation and redemption now underway and in action, involved with His human believers, but not arbitrated by them. It is God’s work and He who seeks, saves and redeems. He may reach us by means of missionary work, his direct intervention, works of the spirit, gifts of the spirit, scriptural witness, a witness in creation, faith-driven action by humans (even non-Christians), etc. I think the risk (and often what is experienced in the real-world ) can be of misconstruing humanity’s involvement for God’s kingdom as a kingdom arbitrated by human authority. You don’t just find it in heretical human-centric doctrines of salvation such as LDS temple works. You can also find it in Christian culture where believers take it upon themselves to be God, judging the hearts of who is saved and who is not, who will find hell and who will find find heaven. I believe Christians should respond to grace with lives of goodness and action, intentionally working for the kingdom of God. But I also see in scripture an image of God, quite able to reach all those who will have Him as Lord, by all means at His disposal that may or may not look as convenient as the outward markers by which believers often judge others.
This whole question of bllions of souls in hell for eternity has really perplexed me lately…mainly because it didn’t used to trouble me before.
But…when you really meditate upon it–Billions of souls…for eternity. There is a real problem there. Catholics sometimes get around it with purgatory and the possibility that people can be saved without having heard the gospel. Protestants sometimes get around it by either coming up with what seem like coldly logical reasons for why we all deserve to be in hell, or by saying, a la NT Wright, that somehow those in hell are somehow less “human.”
I have been working through these thoughts on my own for while and am heavily leaning in the general direction of annihilationism…..not just because everlasting torment is doctrinally unappealing, but because I am beginning to believe that humans are not intrinsically immortal. Instead, I am toying with the idea that humans are mortal by default and can only obtain eternal life through God’s gracious gift of it through Jesus.
God is our source of life. Without Him our destiny is death and destruction…and I think that is meant literally, not figuratively.
This concept is not without its own problems…but I don’t think its much more difficult to deal with then really thinking about the existence of hell and working that out.
“Tim and Brian, I have struggled with similar thoughts. Unfortunately, many Evangelicals told me to buck up, be a man, stop questioning the almighty, and some even suggested that my questioning was a sign of non-election.”
And others have told me that God is not offended by anything; he can take anything I throw at him, and there is nothing I can say that will make him stop loving me.
terri:
Purgatory is not a way to “get around” hell. In RC theology, purgatory, which comes from the latin word meaning “to purify” is where a repentant sinner who died in a state of grace goes to get cleaned up, kinda like a detailing job at the carwash. Then the soul goes to heaven. Purgatory is more like a process than a place, or maybe part of the journey to heaven.
As to annihilationism, there’s at least one problem with that concept that I can think of, and that’s Jesus’ “speaking to the spirits in prison” 1 Pet. 3:18-20, which strongly implies an eternal spirit.
“This whole question of bllions of souls in hell for eternity has really perplexed me lately…mainly because it didn’t used to trouble me before.”
Exactly! It never troubled me before either! I had no problem witnessing to people and talking to them about sin and hell either, it was a sugar-coater.
Maybe the reason it didn’t trouble me before is because I wasn’t going there, so it wasn’t my problem; now I feel like I AM going there, so now it IS my problem! lol
“If we don’t choose Him, why would we want to spend eternity with Him?”
Well, Jesus said that he chose us, we didn’t choose him.
If my eternal state is dependent on my free will choices, then I’m done for. I’m a fool and I will make the wrong choice. I did the sinners prayer thing at age 7 but I feel like it has lapsed or is no longer valid. I have the same creeping feeling of doom that I have when I have forgotten to pay a credit card bill.
it doesn’t seem fair of God to put our eternal well-being into our OWN hands! we will screw it up! its like letting a 6 year old play with a pistol.
MAJ tony…I know there are problems with annihilationism…..but I don’t think there is any problem-free solution to this question.
Annihilationism doesn’t necessarily preclude the existence of “spirits in prison”. The main point of annihilation is that suffering is not eternal. Punishment is eternal in the sense that those who die without Christ perish….face destruction…are dead…..never to exist again.
The whole view of man as a mortal being without God is more something I have been thinking about, not necessarily what most people think about in regards to annihilation.
Terri —
I’m with ya. I am also sympathetic to annihilationism, but it can appear difficult to reconcile this more Sheol-compatible notion with the Gehenna-like everlasting fire and eternal punishment references in the NT… and the large Christian tradition that has interpreted hell in such a willfully punitive and eternally cognizant way.
I could be wrong but the Lazarus and Dives parable is the only NT reference that seems to imply a conscious awareness of hell punishment. It seems like like too little to go on to teach in a Dante-esque fashion that the damned to hell are burning in conscious pain awareness for eternity.
The main thrust, like other parables, seems to be in the principles, not the facts of the details. Seems to me the greater message is to teach the importance of life now influencing life hereafter; that the kingdom is now; that goodness brings rewards, if not here then later; that evil breeds separation, if not outwardly apparent now then later; that miracles and signs aren’t needed to make the scriptural witness any more real than it is; and etc.
Then again, I could be seeing in the story just what I want to see
Clift Barnes:
A post evangelical believes that the current version of evangelicalism is dying, and seeks the future of evangelicalism in the practices of the more ancient, deeper, broader church of the reformation to the first century.
Kelly said “…saving faith is not our response– it’s receiving something that God gives us single-handedly”.
But receiving IS a response; receive is a verb, an action word. I have never quite gotten this notion that we as humans do nothing. We don’t earn our salvation, true, but…. I like to think of it as the old Japanese soldiers found hiding in the jungle many years after WWII, hiding there and not realizing the war was over. But the war WAS over, no matter what they thought or did; they had no part in that, did not cause it, did not control it. But, when they were told that the war was over, they had to act on the knowledge of that fact, leave the jungle, and go home or refuse to believe it and stay in the jungle. The war was still over, even if they did nothing, but they would not be a part of the peace if they did not respond. Jesus death and resurrection ended our war with God, but if we don’t respond to that, we are, like the soldiers, staying in the jungle and continuing the fight.
Hi ProdigalSarah, I just wanted to clarify something I think was not evident in what I said.
You wrote
>>Brian, This potter has never made a jar for the purpose of throwing it away. He loves all of us. I do not believe that God loved me any more after I turned to Christ than before, back in my days of ridiculing Christianity. The love is constant and beyond anything I can comprehend. His love humbled me.<>If we don’t choose Him, why would we want to spend eternity with Him? I view hell as the absence of God. But, really, anything to do with an afterlife is completely beyond my understanding.<<
If a man approaches a woman he desires and says, “I love you, and if you don’t reciprocate my love I am going to keep you in my cellar and torture you for years on end. Do you love me?” ”
Would you consider that any kind of a real choice? Just replace the man with Yahweh and the woman with an unbeliever and I think you can the point I am trying to make.
As for hell just being the absence of God, I would recommend reading Johnathan Edwards sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” to get a feel for what used to be a Christian understanding of the fate of the unbeliever.
I suppose that all of this is neither here nor there since most of the time people believe different interpretations of the Bible and there is really no way to verify just exactly how Yahweh meant for people to understand it.
Don’t take what I said here personally, I am just bouncing my thoughts off of yours.
“…it doesn’t seem fair of God to put our eternal well-being into our OWN hands!â€
I wish I could recall where, but somewhere I read a fascinating interpretation of the Genesis story.
Adam and Eve chose to worship knowledge of good and evil over their relationship with God. In other words Adam and Eve made an idol of the knowledge of good and evil. And we still do. We sometimes think we understand good and evil better than God. Or that God should do things according to our understanding of good and evil.
If there is God, which I believe, then surely he is a far better judge of what is fair and unfair.
If God cared… Where was God when that happened? Why did God let that happen? People say these things all the time. They speak as God’s judge.
But either God so loved the world and can be trusted or He can’t be trusted or He doesn’t exist. I happen to think that He can be trusted, even if there is a great deal that I don’t understand.
I’m not a fundamentalist, and I’m not an American, and I live in a very diverse society (and I like it that way). So at times when reading this excellent blog I feel like an alien from another planet (not your fault, of course). For example, this notion that billions of people from non-Christian countries and cultures will be sent to eternal punishment in hell. I’m utterly astonished that there are actually people who can believe in such an ungenerous God. (And to think I’ve thought some of you Americans need to get out more. Maybe I do.) Couldn’t a more nuanced, less western-centric and … er …sophisticated interpretation be appropriate?
“If a man approaches a woman he desires and says, ‘I love you, and if you don’t reciprocate my love I am going to keep you in my cellar and torture you for years on end.’ Do you love me?â€
That description isn’t so far removed from the teachings of my childhood. Our preacher seemed to take some sort of sadistic pleasure in describing hell in the most horrific terms.
Then I walked away. God didn’t put up any roadblocks. God patiently waited until I yearned for Him. Then He welcomed me back, like the loving father, like the good shepherd rejoicing that one lost sheep. For the first time in my life I understood God as a loving God.
All I can say is that I trust God to know what is right.
Donna G:
Billions of people from non-Christian countries will be in heaven, according to the Bible. And billions of people from Christian countries will likely not be.
peace
ms
MAJ Tony and Tim W,
God didn’t drag me kicking and screaming into the Kingdom– but he also didn’t wait until I was “willing,” in and of myself, to change my own heart of stone (Ezekiel is helpful here) to a heart of flesh and accept Him.
The fact is, He mercifully *changed* my God-hating, rebellious heart, so that I *wanted* to accept Him. If He had waited until I was “willing” to save me, I would have never been saved. How is a dead person (dead in sins), darkened in understanding and at enmity with God, willing to accept Him, unless God Himself does that work in a person’s heart?
Tim W, don’t look to yourself for your hope of salvation. Look at your sin, but then look to God’s holiness and Christ’s grace. If your sin makes you hopeless, in and of yourself, you have the right idea. If God’s holiness makes you tremble, good! If it doesn’t, then look deeper, into the absolute *purity* of that holiness. We are all sinners. No sinner can stand before such a holy God without the sacrificial, substutionary blood of Christ to cover and cleanse that sin.
Grace is the answer to this problem, and it is a gift of God which He will give to anyone who asks– even the grace to believe (belief also being a gift of God which we do not “generate” ourselves). Even when we *ask* for the grace to believe, that is grace at work in us, not a work which we do to *earn* God’s grace.
Jennifer,
With all due respect, the God of which you write is not the God of Christianity. You believe that our “being human” is sufficient for God. According to the Bible though, part of our “being human” is that we are sinful and in rebellion to God, suppressing what we already know of Him in unrighteousness. For more on this, read the first chapter of the book of Romans.
Being human, by itself, will not save anyone from a holy God. However, being forgiven *will* save– and God Himself provides the way to that forgiveness, in His son, who lived a perfect life (a life that *we* should have lived) and who died the death that *we* deserve, and finally, rose from the dead, so that those who trust in Him will have life and peace with God, now and forever.
iMonk,
I finally have had time to respond!
As I look at church history it seems that different metaphors of the atonement come to different levels of prominence. For instance, the Christus Victor model of atonement was the major model of understanding the atonement. But once the Christians became in charge of the Roman Empire, this model had less appeal. Think of the debates about the “rights of the devil†that surround Christus Victor. Not surprisingly, while the church was being persecuted in the early years, it seem apparent that the devil had rights, but after Constantine and Christendom, it did not seem like the devil had rights. So later, Anselm elaborates his objective model of the atonement, which fits well with Christendom and medieval concepts like satisfaction.
As the culture leaves a Christendom mindset (which seems to be part of the point of your CEC series), I expect that Christus Victor will make a come back as an atonement theory, and that Substitutionary Atonement will make less sense in a post-Christendom context.
So to answer your questions: I think that the church has held to a Penal Substitutionary over-emphasis because of Christendom. In a sense, I think that Christendom has led the church to misread scripture and the atonement. Now that we are in a post-Christendom age, I think this has given people a chance to look at scripture afresh. And I do think that Christus Victor is a more faithful reading, since Christendom readings are often unfaithful to the gospel.
I also am a big fan of NT Wright, but I also don’t think that Wright has “finally†recovered something that we’ve missed. I do think that Wright and the NPP are generally doing a better job than the Reformers, but I also do not think that we have finally arrived. For instance, I don’t think that the reformation reading of Gal 3:10-14 works because it assumes a point that no one can really do the law, which is a major point of contention between Paul and the Judaizers. I cannot imagine that a communicator as excellent as Paul would be so foolish as to not state a most contentious point. However, none of the NPP proposed readings work either, even Wright’s. So I don’t know what Gal 3:10-14 means and how it works as argument.
I am also skeptical of announcing that we have discovered that what 2000 years of Christian theology missed, but ultimately I am a Protestant. If I have to choose between scripture and tradition, I choose scripture. And it seems to me that substitutionary atonement is more emphasized in the church and theology than it is in scripture.
Donna G,
You write that the God of the Bible seems “ungenerous” to you. This seems to imply that you see all people as being basically good at heart. What is more important though– what we think of ourselves and other people, or what God tells us about ourselves and other people?
Jonathan Hunnicut,
Do you understand Isaiah 53 to be a prophetic picture of the death of Jesus Christ? It certainly reads as a vivid portrait of penal substitutionary atonement.
I’m not saying that penal substitution is the *only* valid understanding of the Atonement. However, the concept is quite prominent throughout the Old Testament and in the New Testament epistles.
There’s no way to get around the concept of a loving, merciful God contrasted with one who decrees eternal damnation for the majority–if we believe Jesus’s words that many are called, but few are chosen–of people who have ever existed.
I haven’t really justified why I’ve been leaning towards annihilation. Part of it is the idea of unfairness in the doctrine of hell as it is commonly portrayed, but that’s only one part of it.
The more important, solid part of it lies in Scripture. Notice that Jesus almost always refers to those without eternal life as perishing or as facing death or destruction. Because we believe that man, or his “spirit” is immortal, we read those words and superimpose the doctrine of hell over them every time we read them, instead of taking those words at face value and in a very literal sense.
How does something continue to exist for eternity if it is destroyed? How can the term “death” mean a state in which something still consciously exists?
I have been thinking about this quite a lot recently. Through reading the gospels with this idea in mind, I have been struck by the fact that Jesus almost always refers to salvation as “eternal life”. We superimpose the concept of Heaven and escape from Hell over those words when we read them, instead of considering them at face value….real, physical, never-ending life….a future resurrection that awaits believers.
That was the hope of the Jewish people in the Bible, not abstract concepts of Heaven and Hell.
Throughout the Old Testament judgment was always manifested as death. You can’t really find the concept of “hell”, as we now think of it, in there.
The only eternal, immortal, invisible spirit is God. Everything else is created. The only way for us to live is for Him to impart that life to us….which is what you find Jesus saying over and over again in the Scriptures.
Geez….writing this all out…I realize how close I am to jumping ship on the idea of hell…much closer than I had realized