Chapter 5
This week’s blog entry is from Mike Netzer. Enjoy!
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In chapter 5, Keller addresses the objection of “How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?”
Consider the implication of a loving God who is not just. I believe Keller does a good job showing how this belief is not necessarily as logical as one might think.
Imagine a God who created the world, gave the world’s inhabitants free will, and then revealed himself to these inhabitants as “loving”. Now imagine there were no immediate or deferred consequences for disobedience. Would this God still be considered “loving”?
I believe that a critical building block to Keller’s argument is the idea that doing something other than what God has instructed (sin) is harmful to us. For example, if you saw someone you cared about hurting themselves and didn’t try to help them, would that not be perceived as uncaring? So it is with God. A lack of help/correction would be more of an indictment against God as “unloving” than his judgment could ever be. Why? Because not helping someone who is harming themselves demonstrates indifference, the “final form of hate”, says Becky Pippert.
In reading this chapter I was reminded of Jesus’ words concerning judgment found in the book of John.
John 3:16, everyone knows, but often overlooked is John 3:17, For God did not send the Son to Judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Jesus repeats in John 12:47 I did not come to judge the world, but to save it.
What did Jesus save it from? Man’s ultimate destination apart from God: Hell.
There must be a consequence for rejecting God’s offer of relationship and eternal life in Him and that consequence must be eternal separation from Him. Keller says that hell is simply “one’s freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory to infinity.”
It is worth repeating that Jesus’ purpose, his mission, his driving force, was not to judge. John 3:16 says for God so loved the world, not God was so frustrated with the world or God wanted to teach those evil humans a lesson. See also 2 Peter 3:9 [The Lord] is patient toward you, not wanting anyone to perish, but for all to come to repentance.
Judgment is a necessary byproduct of Jesus’ saving work. I feel like I fully believe, but only half-understand this truth. (Maybe some enlightened commenter will shed additional light!)
Once a belief in God’s loving judgment has been established, the belief “vengeance is the Lord’s” (and only the Lord’s) serves as the backbone for a belief in non-violence. To insist upon non-violence without reason is naive, and such a belief will never endure trial. A stance in non-violence must be rooted in the belief that God will judge the righteous and unrighteous. This makes a lot of sense to me. Without this belief, when wronged, you will either react violently and get caught up in a cycle of retaliation or fall into a bitter emotional state where you desire revenge, but lack the courage to act. Only a belief that God will judge evil will allow you to patiently, peacefully endure suffering at the hands of another.
- How do you understand God’s justice and love to be interconnected?
- Are the wars the U.S. is currently involved in Biblically justifiable?
- What do you believe is the opposite of Keller’s definition of Hell as “one’s freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory to infinity”?
3 responses so far
One way to consider the conversation is God’s passion for his own glory… we see the reason he does things throughout the Bible as “for my own Name’s sake”. And if something/someone maligns his glory (by sinning against him) punishment is therefore required. He MUST punish sin, otherwise he is made un holy by way of not raising holiness to the utmost. It is therefore LOVING that he provides a way out of our sin, this is found even in the story of Noah, where the wood of the ark points to the wood of the cross, saving a remnant from the wrath of God. Christ absorbs the wrath of God on the cross for the believer that was intended for us because of our sin (Hebrews 2:17). How wonderfully loving for a God to give a provision for us rebels to repent and turn from our wicked ways. (Ephsians 2:1-10)
I liked your 2nd question. It’ll be challenging to keep discussion on point after that one. Here’s a more difficult question: when do you go to war? Is legalizing abortion a reason for war? If there were Jewish death camps in your town would you just pray? or would you take up arms to stop it? Very very difficult question. In America we fought a war over slavery, in Britian, William Wilberforce fought against it in parliament for decades; with the same conclusion.
These are difficult questions. I’ll side with Keller who encourages us to dive into these difficult questions and doubts, so that we will have an answer for the skeptic both inside and outside of ourselves. (page xvii in the introduction, I think.)
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I have to say, after reading this chapter, I am more and more convinced of a non-violent stance. I am very convinced that the wars the US is involved in are not Biblical. As to the other questions you posed, are we robbing God of some glory by exacting revenge that he reserves for himself? Much in the same way the one might argue we rob God of glory by ascribing to ourselves any credit for salvation. I am leaning that way, though I haven’t fully explored the idea.
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It is only with tears that the subject of hell is contemplated by those who reach out daily in love for sinners” (Lausanne Covenant).
Other Matters…
I think it’s important within this discussion to consider the nature of both sheol and hades (and thirdly, the lake of fire) including respective inhabitants. Furthermore, “hell” should be investigated as a destiny specifically for those who reject the presented testimony of Jesus as the Messiah or all those who do not accept Jesus as the Missiah, including those who have not heard the testimony, or of some other criteria.
I think Thomas Oden breaks down intermediate states (here we’re relating to sheol)rather succinctly throughout in his “Classic Christianity,” though all of Part V is a helpful read. Thus I point here for a very introductory starting place.
Concerning the nature of “hell,” Zondervan (surprisingly, I know) publishes a good discussion on matter. Specifically, William Crocket gives an excellent perspective on the metaphorical view, as does Clark Pinnock on the annihilationist view as well as providing an exemplary background to the hellenistic influence on Western Christianity, specifically in how such influence misinforms us in regards to the inherent immortality of the soul (or in fact, lack thereof). Besides these two, Zachery Hayes also adds to the discussion by providing an insightful philosphical case for the RCC’s view of Purgatory, and John Walvoord unsurprisingly mails in an embarrassing grouping of words that fills some pages yet is absent of any intellectual or serious thought. *Just my thoughts.
Discussing inhabitants gets tricky. Keller quotes Lewis, himself an inclusivist, a position quite reasonable to argue within the Biblical text and shared by many great Christian thinkers and expositors. Then we run into interpretive issues such particulars of Rev. 21-22 and wonder if things might be a little more complex than Randy Alcorn or Thomas Constable would leave us to believe. Circling back to Mike’s argument (purposeful or not) on a redemptive fire, we find resonance with many universalist thinkers besides Mr. Netzer and find ourselves considering Biblical imagery of fire and purification (to be clear and rather obvious, inclusivism and universalism are not the same as pluralism, which is itself historically not a distinctively Christian position).
Regardless, we must all understand that these issues are (as is eschatology in general) difficult if not impossible to understand fully.
As for non-violence, I’m just going to merely point those interested to the standard Christian writing on this topic: Tolstoy’s “The Kingdom of God is Within You.” Read it.
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