To listen to an audio of this piece, click here: Part Two
CONSIDERING THE QUESTION
I have never seriously thought about the specifics of “hell,” this place or state of separation from God. I have not desired to do so. As best as I can remember, I have never made it a topic of a talk or an article in 40 years. The scriptures do not really tell us much. Most of us in our modern world have our picture of “hell” from classical literature such as Dante’s Inferno or even film or television, or non-biblical writings and preachings of all kinds of people who have over the centuries liked to speculate from their own minds about the tortures and horrors of hell, outlining perverse things and eternal cruelty to those who do not obey God, turning the minds of many people into believing God is a cruel sadistic vindictive monster – like Torquemada, the “Grand Inquisitor.” I don’t have anything in common with those people.
Certainly the concept of hell over the centuries has been greatly misused and abused. The Roman Catholic church kept everyone in the dark by withholding the scriptures from the laity in their own languages, for a thousand years, convincing everyone they had the power to send to heaven or hell. The Pope or other bishops often used “excommunication” – which meant one was no longer among the community of saints, and would go straight to hell upon death – to manipulate and control kings and countries. I don’t have anything in common with that, either.
As it resolved in me in those early days, as I said, I entrusted the whole issue to the God Who I know IS Love. And I coupled that with John’s word in Rev 21:4 – “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”
To me that meant that there is never any disappointment in the love of God. “To You they cried out and were delivered; In You they trusted and were not disappointed.” (Psalm 22:5 NASB). Some time ago, I had an inner personal assurance, that whatever I apprehended and comprehended in the love of God, would be mine unto eternity. The only “things” that would fall into that category to me, were those “persons” upon whom the Spirit set my desire and faith. Exactly as Jesus did. There is never a record of Jesus saying, “Father, I am bringing everyone in the world back to you.” No, instead Jesus said, “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.” (John 17:12).
Some might ask, “How can Jesus desert Judas? What about Luke 15, where Jesus says if one sheep out of a hundred is lost, He will seek until He finds that one lost sheep?”
But here Jesus is plainly saying that particular sheep has been lost. Why? It is not a deep answer, though it is hard for some of us to accept. The simple answer is, that Judas, even from the beginning, was not “one of His.” (He plainly reveals “those who are His,” in Mark 3: 32-35 – those who do the will of God, which is a “Spirit,” not a “flesh” thing.) He cannot lose those who are His. He will not. The others (who are not His, not through some predetermination God has made, but only because they refused to “partake of the water of life freely”), still serve God in their “good and evil” as vessels of dishonor, by whom the saints are continually tried, and through that trial, God’s Word is declared and manifested in every day’s life!
As far as Judas Iscariot is concerned, every mention of him in the New Testament is followed by some remark about his unfaithfulness or dishonesty. No New Testament writer has anything good to say about Judas. My human reason brain kept being bothered by that. It seemed like Judas was getting an unfair deal, and it also seemed like the apostolic writers were heavily biased against him. I thought they were “unkind” in regard to Judas. Shouldn’t everyone have rallied around Judas, after what he did, put their hands on his shoulders, encouraging him, telling him yes, he did a bad thing, but he didn’t mean to, he was doing his best, not to feel bad about himself?
Of course, that didn’t happen. The New Testament says he hung himself and died, shortly after Jesus’ crucifixion. I can only know him through the words in the New Testament. And they do not speak of the redemption of Judas Iscariot, nor even any sorrow for his self-destruction, but only of his actions and their consequences.
Then further, Jesus said of him: “The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born.”(Mark 14:21)
In the same vein Jesus also said: “Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offenses will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.” (Luke 17: 1,2)
Jesus also described Judas in these words in John 6: 70,71: “Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? He spake of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon: for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve.”
That is the plainest word in scripture regarding Judas Iscariot. He wasn’t a zealot trying to goad Jesus into violent revolution to overthrow the Romans, as most Hollywood movies portray him. He was not caught in some sort of existential angst, fighting against forces and powers he knew not of. He was not as a tragic literary figure, caught in an unwanted destiny which was thrust upon him from without, wishing he didn’t even when he did. No, it was something much simpler than that. Jesus said he was a devil. Why do we continually look for some other solution or resolution of Judas’ situation, while ignoring the simplicity of God’s Word? Long ago I realized that the Bible calls a spade a spade, and not a hoe or a rake. It does not mince words, or try to “nice them up,” as we so often do, for propriety’s sake, or not to hurt feelings. That is why Judas has come down to us, at least through modern media and literature, as a poor tragic figure, probably trying to do what he did for good motives, etc. Whatever…. Jesus just simply said he was a devil. (And He didn’t even bother to give us the doctrinal or scriptural backup to justify what He said!)
………..
Believe it or not, I was actually on my high school’s debate team for a couple of years. Sounds nerdy, and it was, but it was also very good training for lots of things. Doing research on both sides of a proposition for instance, so that one could argue either side. Finding the ability to take cold facts or weighty opinions and put them into a communicable form, in order to be as clear and concise as could be in a more or less extemporaneous on-the-spot oral presentation. We had time constraints, so we had to learn to fit everything we needed to say in the 15 minutes or 7 minutes whichever it was. And then the ability to think quick on one’s feet for the rebuttal part of the debate, which is where each debater gets one opportunity to “rebut” the opponent’s points, with the rule being, no new material introduced in the rebuttal, since each person has only one chance to rebut.
It feels a little like that in this discussion. A debate topic would be introduced like this: “Resolved, that industry-wide collective bargaining has an overall positive effect on the country’s GPN.” One would either take the “Pro” or “Con” position in the debate, competing with other schools at debate club weekends. (I’ll bet if others had known we debated interesting stuff like that, we would have been inundated with myriads of hopeful debater-candidates – but we kept quiet so we wouldn’t attract big crowds.)
That’s sort of the way I feel about this:
“Resolved: that all creatures in the Lord God’s creation, will one day all be reconciled and be in harmony again, as at the beginning. No one will be cast off into outer darkness forever.”
The immediate question to me, is to ask if there is any hint of this in scripture. Is there anything in scripture than can be “interpreted” to support the proposition above? Could I argue for that side?
Well, to be honest, yes there is. If we could line up the scriptures that seem to indicate universal salvation, and all the scriptures that seem to say the opposite, that there IS eternal separation from God, no matter what that form might be, I think anyone would say that scripture is greatly weighted toward the side of “eternal separation,” or “hell,” for those who are not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, or those who do not believe the Son. But nevertheless, there are still quite a few that seem to contradict that idea of eternal separation and open up the possibility for this grand restoration. (I don’t consider scriptural understanding to be acquired in a numbers game, sort of a democratic process, whichever side gets the most scriptures wins the round. No, it only takes one verse for it to be truth if it is a one verse truth. Like, “the just shall live by his faith” (Hab 2: 4c). It is an obscure verse, not really in the context Paul used it for, but that little last phrase in a longer verse in a lesser known prophet named Habakkuk, caused worldwide consequences twice – the first time when Paul caught it and made it the central truth of his message, and the second time when Martin Luther caught it again, after its truth had become virtually unknown, and where it will eventually lead has not been finally seen yet. Truth stands on its own, and does not need votes to make it truth.)
Probably one of the widest used and most obvious verses is 1 Cor 15:22: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” This fits perfectly with the 5th chapter of Romans, verses 18 and 19:
“Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”
There are those who have jumped firmly on these verses, as plain scriptural evidence that “all” will be (or already are) saved.
Now, do not get me wrong, I am not opposed to everyone being “saved.” The more the merrier! Bring them all in, if you can! I am not being facetious. For more than three decades one of my favorite sayings comes from “Julian of Norwich,” a British woman mystic who lived in the 1300s. She said a very simple thing: “All manner of things shall be well.” I believe that. Is not it the same message as Revelation 21:4, quoted above? “All manner of things shall be well!”
Paul says in Romans 11:26 the following: “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.”
He says “all Israel” shall be saved. Without looking further, it might seem Paul is saying that, by virtue of the fact that a person is born in the covenant of Abraham according to the flesh (by human descent and physical circumcision if a male), whether that person has turned to God or not, He “shall be saved.”
And we could leave it at that, but Paul does not. Twice in Romans Paul explained what it meant to be in the covenant of Abraham and a true Israelite.
“For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.” (Rom 2:28)
“God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. … What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.” (Rom 11: 2-7).
“Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant … The election hath obtained it.” Without delving into another deep issue, “election,”* the main thing I want to point out is that Paul has made a division. One part, “the election,” partakes of the Promises, and the other does not. The Son of Promise came according to the Spirit, by free gift, whereas the son of the flesh, Ishmael, and his mother Hagar, came by the works of the flesh, when Abram and Sarai took it upon themselves to hurry along God’s promise. Isaac points at the heavenly Jerusalem, of which we are all citizens, where we have all come and even now find our dwelling place in the building of the Spirit. *(To see an article on “Election,” here are two links: Why Was Esau Rejected – or What is the Election of God? And Sticky Wickets – Choice and Election.)
Paul even quotes Isaiah 10:22, though he changes it slightly: “Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved.”(Rom 9:27).
Again, Paul speaks of his people “according to the flesh,” in Romans 11:12-14:
“Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness? For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.”
“Some of them.”
To the election he says:
“But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” (Hebrews 12: 22-24)
ARE come, the book says, not “shall” come. It is beyond the comprehensive ability of our present minds to understand, to fully grasp the truth of this. ARE come! Meaning, now!
“Repent, the kingdom of God is at hand!”
“I don’t see it. Where is it? Please point it out to me!”
“Do not say, ‘lo here, or lo there’ because it ‘comes not with observation.’ You cannot see it out there. The kingdom is within you.”
Paul is not the only New Testament writer to point out this division. It is right there in one of the most widely memorized passages in the Bible – John 1:10-13:
“He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
John plainly says, some do not receive Him. They do not receive the promises. In John’s terms, those who receive Him are the elect, the remnant. The proof is that they are born of the Spirit in God. John’s “as many as did receive Him” is the same as Paul’s “circumcision of the heart,” and those who did not receive Him, may continue to have the “form” of religion outwardly, but within as Jesus told them, they are dead men’s bones, with no life in them.
Ishmael points to the earthly Jerusalem, and the spirit of bondage and the law of self-effort (Cain’s law). Ishmael does not receive the promised inheritance, because it could only go to Isaac, the Son of Promise. Though Abraham suffered greatly for it, the Lord agreed with Sarah and told Abraham to cast out the “son of the bondwoman,” because the bondwoman’s son (earthly Jerusalem, the law, Cain’s offering) could not inherit the promises. Genesis describes Ishmael as a scoffer toward the things of God, which made him incapable of Abraham’s full inheritance, which was not really great goods and livestock, servants and chests of gold, but the full heavenly riches of Christ, and to bear the “Seed of Abraham.” There is no room for a willful scoffer in the kingdom. “Cast out the scorner, and contention shall go out; yea, strife and reproach shall cease.”(Prov 22:10).
END OF PART TWO
Voice in the Wilderness 