2047AFC112020 – Are you done with that?
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Ezekiel 34:11 – Thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will look after and tend my sheep.
1 Corinthians 15:28 – 28 When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all.
Matthew 25:46 – 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment*, but the righteous into eternal life. *κόλασιν (kolasin) {kol’-as-in} kólasis – from kolaphos, “a buffeting, a blow” – properly, punishment that “fits” (matches) the one punished
Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Grace and Peace to each of you from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus the Christ, in the Power of the Holy Spirit. Today is Friday, November 20, 2020. It is the 325th day of the year. There are 41 days left. This is a day the Lord has made, so let’s rejoice, be glad, and try not to mess it up. At 00:06, the time this post went live, I turned 74 years old. It hasn’t changed me a bit, although I wonder if perhaps this will be the year, or even the day or hour, when I will complete my last assignment and get some time off. Or is that some time on? Ah! Knowing me, it’s probably a time out! I am eager to be done with all of this, nonetheless, I will keep pounding away until I don’t have to.
How about you? Are you done with this yet? I hear a lot of people saying that these days. “I’m done with this! No more masks, no more sickness, no more politics, no more nothing.” I get it. This is tiring stuff! There’s only one problem I see with being done; well, not a problem really, just an observation. I end up asking the question, “What’s next?” (← Check it out!) This post is along the line of that post from back in 2015. It’s possible some pieces of that might end up in this piece, but I really want to focus on that Key Verse passage from Sunday’s Gospel. The 2015 post talked about how to get to Heaven; the conclusion was it is only through the Grace of God that we have any chance of getting there.
This post is going to deal a bit with how to get to Hell. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but when the promptings for this message started, I ended up with four pages of notes on that topic. Don’t worry, Belovéd, I’m not going to take much more of your time than usual, but I am going to try to make all of us think a little bit harder about that question, “What’s next?”. As long as we are in this corporeal world, there is always a “next thing.” Do you remember YOLO-F? You Only Live Once – and it’s FOREVER. Our last “next thing” is the eternal part of our lives – that Life Everlasting in the Gospel of John. We’ve covered the idea of life forever in the presence of God, and death forever in the absence of God, several times over the years. What is that alternative like, that life in Hell?
I was surprised to learn that there are folks in the past who have spent a great deal of time thinking about that. Of course, since they are earthlings, there is no consensus. One view holds that at the Day of Reward (which most folks call Judgment Day) the “bad people” will be refused entry into Heaven, be shipped off to some mysterious place, and be annihilated. This is called Annihilationism. One’s existence is cancelled; that created soul as well as the entire life it led are permanently terminated. If these souls actually do spend any time in a literal Hell, at some point God causes them to cease to exist – eternal elimination. Being denied Heaven in any form is also referred to as “the second death.” (See for example Revelation 20:14 and Revelation 21:8)
Another view is referred to as Universalism. In this view everybody has immortality – YOLO-F – and the kicker is that eventually everyone is forgiven. In Universalism and Annihilationism, all evil will eventually be wiped out, and only Holiness will remain; Hell will be empty. These theological constructs are contrary to what the Church and Christian tradition hold to be true; that is, that God does indeed have a place called Hell – not just “Sheol” or “Hades” or “Gehenna” but really truly actually eternal tortuous hellfire and brimstone. This is the point of view called Traditionalism.
In the opposing views, it is argued that it is inherently unjust for a just God to eternally punish a soul for temporal – that is for time-alive – sins. They argue that God would not submit any soul to punishment because that cancels out his victory over evil and death won for us on the Cross. How would God create a soul knowing that ultimately that soul would be assigned to eternal torment? Or, in another view, is this whole idea of suffering in Hell – or even cleansing in Purgatory – just a perverted exaggeration of God’s Divine Sovereignty? Isn’t Eternity with God supposed to be one hugely harmonious God-centered celebration of Life and Joy? Why would God leave a dab of humanity in a disharmonious, ugly, painful eternal torment? What was most surprising to me as I read through these differing viewpoints is that they all claim to be biblical! The disparity between the three viewpoints is such that it would be impossible for all three to be true, and it seems equally unlikely that two of them could be true, but if we accept only one view, what should that be? I decided that the view I could best accept and understand is the Traditionalist view of Eternal Punishment. Here’s why:
Let’s take a look at the Universalist view. Take a moment to think of a person or a group that’s been in the news recently, a person or group that really raised your ire. Now, picture them sitting with you at the Heavenly Banquet. Now imagine that next to them you see Stalin, Hitler, and Mao in a lively conversation. Further up the table are the Apostles Peter, Paul, and John. In the other direction you spot a neighbor who was caught in adultery and decided to get out of the trouble he was in by murdering his family and committing suicide. After all the good things you did in your life to gain a place at the Table, you realize it is only by the Grace of God that you are here, so the same thing must apply to them. God indeed has the power and authority to do that, so how or why did your struggle with sin and repentance make any difference?
We can say much the same about the Nihilists’ outcomes. After being judged as unfit for Heaven, they are eliminated from Heaven and eternity in the blink of an eye. That means that all the people imagined above simply disappeared without any further reckoning for their conduct on Earth. That banishment is indeed eternal since all those deemed worthy will live forever in the presence of God. But wait, haven’t we forgotten about YOLO-F? Didn’t God create us in his image and that means we too are created to be holy and eternal? Hmmm. Blinking the evil out of the Universe might not be an option. So how about those traditionalists? What would they say?
I need to interject something here that is strictly my own point of view, one of those IMHO[1] statements. It is related to this question: When we are all called to the New Jerusalem, to live with God and his angels as resurrected citizens of Heaven, will we still have Free Will? Most Christian theology stances point to Free Will as essential to Salvation. We must choose to love and serve God. There’s no point in him forcing us to love him, because then it wouldn’t really be love. Love requires the decision to commit the act of loving, and that impulse to make that decision is an innate part of us by God’s command. When we suppress that impulse, we sin. In the post-resurrection Heaven, IMHO, there must still be the choice to love God or not to love God, to obey God or not to obey God. If we have free will, then we can use that to elect to be unholy. Nothing unholy is permitted in Heaven, so what would God do with any soul – or angel – who chose to unholy? IF there was already a Hell, and IF it were extant outside of heaven, then the disobedient would immediately proceed to Hell. That’s why there should be a hell. Now, I agree, God could just blink them back into Heaven by forgiving them again, or he could blink them out of existence by banishing them, or he could do as he has always said he would do: Condemn them to everlasting torment.
Now, early on in this post I showed you a link that said (← Check it out!). The following inserts come from that post (1546AFC111315) in 2015. Follow the link if you want to check out that context:
Jesus himself said there is a continuation of life after death. We now know it as Heaven or Paradise. Admission to eternal, everlasting, glorious life with God is attainable through a belief in Jesus that is sufficient to constitute true faith.
In addition, Jesus referred to God the Father as “God of the living and not of the dead. He is the God of the living, not of the dead is found in …
| Matthew 22:32 | Mark 12:27 | Luke 20:38 |
As such God will award the righteous with eternity with him and will award the unrighteous with eternity without him. It is Christ who will be the judge. It is God who will grant the awards.
2 Thessalonians 1:5-10 – 5 This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, and is intended to make you worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering. 6 For it is indeed just of God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7 and to give relief to the afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, 10 when he comes to be glorified by his saints and to be marveled at on that day among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.
Jesus told his disciples – especially those he chose to be Apostles – that there were good outcomes and bad outcomes based on how people lived.
Matthew 13:49-51 – 49 “So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 51 Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.”
Now, here some object that there is no literal “furnace of fire.” We don’t know for certain how that experience of being separated from El Shaddai Olam (Almighty Ever-Living God) will manifest, but it is clear throughout scripture that it will be extremely unpleasant and unrelenting.
Jesus will send angels who are assigned to gather into two groups all the souls that ever lived (remember, we all live forever).
Matthew 13:41-42 – 41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, 42 and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Not all of the angels will be with “the good guys.”
2 Peter 2:4 – 4 For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment; (Want to know more? Try all of 2 Peter 2)
If we decide, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that there is no God, no Christ, no Salvation, and no sin then we condemn ourselves.
Revelation 21:8 – 8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
In addition, if we succeed at convincing – or even attempt to entice others to sin as we sin – then that will also bring separation from God. Jesus declares this in two of the Gospels:
Mark 9:42 – 42 If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.
Matthew 18:6 – 6 “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.”
Yet God has planned all of this from the first Word of creation, and part of the plan is that we should choose to love him. As the Prophet Isaiah said,
Isaiah 64:4 – 4 For since the world began no one has seen or heard of such a God as ours, who works for those who wait for him! Living Bible (TLB) The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Today, I ask all of us, “Are we done with sin? Do we commit to loving God and neighbor as he commanded? Are we done with the life we have chosen to live, including the times we suppressed our consciences? Are we ready to hear God ask us, ‘ARE YOU DONE WITH THAT?'”? Well, are we? Like you, I’m doing the best I can – I hope – but, honestly, it’s not enough. However God decides to deal with those who are deemed unworthy of Heaven, I absolutely aspire to be in that other group and I absolutely do not want to be guilty of failing to warn, to coax, or to plead with and for any soul that could end up being separated from God in any fashion whatsoever. I’m done with that, and I’m (finally) done with this post. I want you to know that if you got to this point, I deeply appreciate your patience! I just want to encourage you to Take Time To Be Holy (↔ Music Link) and to remember You Can’t Be A Beacon if your light don’t shine (↔ Music Link) so that God may be all in all.
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
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Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
[1] NB – this is my POV and in no way reflects the teaching of the Catholic Church, or of any other person or organization. It may or may not seem reasonable to anyone else, but is based on my 65+ years of experience studying the Word. Of course, I’m not the only person to ever think of this, so you can run a search to find out about Free Will After the Resurrection.
