I grieve that people are not walking with Jesus because of Christians. I am speaking about something much deeper than political division. I have friends who are atheists or agnostics due to their experience with Christians. Today, again, I met another fine man who is an agnostic. He would like to believe in a God, but because Christians have taught him that all non-Christians will “go to hell,” he does not want anything to do with Jesus. That is what grieves me deeply. That is not good biblical theology. Very briefly and without full explanations, this is what I would like to tell such people, if they were open to listening:
1. The basic biblical message is that God wants to be in a close, eternal relationship with those whom God created. God humbles God-self to effect such relationships.
2. Read literally the key biblical texts, such as John 3:16: and Rom 6:23, tell us that there two spiritual options: people either can accept eternal life with God or they will die, not that they will either live eternally with God or live eternally tormented.
a. The popular teaching that everyone has an eternal soul and can never die comes from ancient Greek thought. It is not biblical. It is read into the Bible.
b. In Gen 3, when Adam and Eve seek to become like God, they do die; they are banned from eating from the Tree of Life. The clear implication is that they were created mortal but had the opportunity of living forever removed because of their sin.
c. The popular-level doctrine of “hell” comes from conflating two different concepts: Gehenna, the depository place of dead bodies, and Hades, the holding place until the resurrection of the dead. (The conflation can be seen in 9th century Anglo-Saxon translations that render both terms by “hel/helle” [underworld].) Revelation calls the final judgement of death, after the resurrection of the dead, the “second death” (20:6,14; 21:8). In the 1st century AD, mortals (vs. angels) being thrown into a lake fire symbolized the complete destruction of the person.
3. God does not limit the option of life to the “informed” (e.g. Jews or Christians). Paul recognizes in Romans 2 that non-Jews who did not have the law and were not circumcised (a sign of being a member of the covenant community) could have the law “in their hearts” and be spiritually “circumcise” (i.e. belong to the community of faith; see 2:11-16, 26-29). God welcomes people from every nation who totally respect God (Luke 1:50; Acts 10:34-35).
4. The main Christ redemption event was to reveal fully the heart of God who is willing lower God-self and then to “lift up” and remove sin, that is to bring people into a state of forgiveness and reconciliation.
5. The salvific language in the Gospels is that people now can participate in the Kingdom of God (eternal life); they can now become participants in Christ, in God; and that God participates now in them through the presence of the Holy Spirit.
When we do not communicate the biblical message of God’s love accurately or well, we hinder people from walking closely with Jesus. It is not their fault. It is ours, Christians.
Note: I understand that my points above do not conform to popular, Christian “orthodoxy.” My efforts as a biblical scholar – recognizing that I am frail and fallible – are to understand to the best of my ability what the biblical terms and concepts meant to the original Jewish and Christian audiences in their time and culture. Here is an example, although it is centuries later than the New Testament. Probably millions of people in the US every Sunday recite from one of the ancient Christian creeds something to the effect of how they “believe in the resurrection of the dead.” I wonder how many of them realize that they are affirming the belief that at the Second Coming of Jesus the dead will then be resurrected? How many understand the biblical teaching of the resurrection of the dead? Much like Jesus’ teaching on participating in the Kingdom of God now, it is generally a lost concept.
Not pulling punches, are you, fella. I am in largescale agreement, but wonder what you do with significant amount of severe threatening in the Bible, some of which seem to imply some sort of suffering? Are these all simply rhetorical overkill for "you will cease to exist"?
ReplyDeleteYes. I understand "Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth" to be a funerary formula for those who have died (cut in two, thrown into fire, etc.) I published on this in “The Idiom of ‘Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth’ in the Gospels: A Funerary Formula,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 47.3 (2020) 283-98.
ReplyDeleteRodney,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your blog! Why did the Lord ever entrust us "vessels of clay" to share the Gospel?!
I had heard that Oprah decided against becoming a Christian when she heard that He is a "jealous" God. Of course, His jealousy is FOR HER, as in wanting the best for her (which of course is Him) rather than for Himself (God doesn't need an ego boost); but it seems that she didn't have a faithful Christian to explain that to her.
And I'm grateful to better understand Hades as temporary (until judgement day) rather than permanent. That perspective doesn't seem to be contradicted in Jesus' story of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31*. This is but one of many Biblical passages that speak of hades as a place of torment, and the (temporary) destiny of the unsaved (those without faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob). But thankfully even that suffering will end with the second death.
Blessings,
Bryan
* AMP Bible, Luke 16:19 “Now there was a certain rich man who was habitually dressed in expensive purple and fine linen; and celebrated and lived joyously in splendor every day. 20 And a poor man named Lazarus, was laid at his gate, covered with sores. 21 He [eagerly] longed to eat the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. 22 Now it happened that the poor man died and his spirit was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s [a]bosom (paradise); and the rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades (the realm of the dead), being in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom (paradise). 24 And he cried out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in severe agony in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things [all the comforts and delights], and Lazarus likewise bad things [all the discomforts and distresses]; but now he is comforted here [in paradise], while you are in severe agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you [people] a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to come over from here to you will not be able, and none may cross over from there to us.’ 27 So the rich man said, ‘Then, father [Abraham], I beg you to send Lazarus to my father’s house— 28 for I have five brothers—in order that he may solemnly warn them and witness to them, so that they too will not come to this place of torment.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have [the Scriptures given by] Moses and the [writings of the] Prophets; let them listen to them.’ 30 He replied, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent [they will change their old way of thinking and seek God and His righteousness].’ 31 And he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to [the messages of] Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”
Rodney,
ReplyDeleteI discussed this topic w/ my pastor who suggested this article, which I'd be happy to discuss w/ you if you'd like?
Blessings,
Bryan
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/destroyed-for-ever-an-examination-of-the-debates-concerning-annihilation-and-conditional-immortality/
PS-This quote supports your (and now my) viewpoint:
ReplyDelete"the claim of the conditionalist is that the ‘traditional orthodoxy’ of eternal torment arose in the early church precisely because biblical teaching was (illegitimately) interpreted in the light of Platonic philosophy, which involved belief in the immortality of the soul and in everlasting punishment."
Yes, a doctrine of eternal torment develops out of Greek dualism and their eternal "soul."
DeleteRod, all of your posts are valuable, but this is one of your best! Sharyn Dowd
ReplyDeleteBryan, you are correct about Luke 16:19-31. The Hebrew understanding of Sheol as a place for the dead gradually gets identified in Judaism with the Greek holding place of the dead, Hades, which had different places for "souls" depending on how they had lived. In the intertestamental literature it even becomes popular to write about "tours" of the holding places (one is at one level of the heavens). This parable-like story of Jesus -- it is not about real characters in a real time and place -- would have been recognized by Jesus' audience as picking up on this extra-biblical notion and the different holding conditions of the Rich Man and Lazarus. The main support for Hades here being a temporary holding place is the allusion in vv 30-31 that there has been no resurrection from the dead. As a parable-like story, I do not think its communicative function was to be a detailed lesson about the nature of Hades. I think its main wisdom function was to exhort people to be righteous toward the poor and needy. Perhaps I can read your posted article and we can discuss it via email? Blessings, Rodney
ReplyDeleteBryan, it looks to me as though Luke 16:1-13 and 16:19-31 are intended by Jesus to be parables rather than "teaching." I could be wrong, of course. But I am always hesitant to construct doctrine from parables, which are illustrative rather than prescriptive. It's true that Jesus doesn't call them parables, but that lable often comes not from Jesus but from the writer of whichever Gospel the story is found in.
ReplyDeleteSharyn Dowd
Sharyn, Good point! I suppose that could apply to Matthew 25:46, which is the only place that I've read of Jesus specifying eternal/unending punishment? Certainly He is speaking in parables through Matthew 25:31 (after which it becomes less clear as to whether it is a parable).
ReplyDeleteBryan
Bryan, I have sent a more detailed comment to you personally. In brief: 1) the word for "punishment" here can be used of death (Jer 18:20 in the Greek translation), 2) "eternal" would not be connected to Hades by a Jewish audience who believed in the resurrection of the dead from Hades (Matt 22:31), but more likely to Gehenna, the place of the dead, with 3) the concept "eternal" punishment (death) emphasizing the finality of the judgment as juxtaposed to eternal life.
DeleteGreat points, thank you Rodney!
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