Twelve Quotes for Christmas (9-10)

 

 

 

Dayton Art Institute Creches

“Herod, you are troubled with idle fear.  Your kingdom would not contain Christ; nor is the Lord of the world to be confined within the narrow limits of the power of your scepter.  He whom you wish not to reign in Judah, already reigns everywhere.”    (Pope Leo the Great)

 

“What shall the tribunal of the Judge be like, when the Nativity of an Infant, makes proud kings tremble?  Let kings fear Him, now sitting at the Right Hand of the Father, Whom the impious king feared, while yet at His Mother’s breast.”  (St. Augustine)

See Quote 8

Next Quote 11

The Folly of Wealth

While wealth and prosperity may be a blessing from the Lord, they represent a certain temptation, humanly speaking, for those trust in their wealth.   Our Lord Jesus told this parable:

 At that time, Jesus told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’  So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”   (Luke 12:16-21)

Wealth and prosperity are much welcomed and valued in this world, yet they are of no value in any life beyond this world.  They are thus the materialist’s best friend for getting through this life.   For those who believe in God, life in this world represents only a limited portion of the life in God – for God’s plan and Kingdom exist beyond the limits of death and this world.   Thus wealth and prosperity cannot be judged only for their value in this world but also for the impact they may have on life in the world to come.   St. John Chrysostom (sounding a bit like the Buddha) says that the wealth of this world is but a dream—when we die, we will awake from this dream and understand the true value of wealth.

“Present realities, you see, are no better than a dream; rather, just as people imagining in sleep they have money, even in control of a king’s ransom, are more indigent than anyone once day dawns, so too with this life, because you can take nothing to the next, you will be more indigent than anyone, even if in possession of everyone’s property. You were rich in dream only, after all.”

Prosperity squandered on one’s self in this world is of no real benefit in this world for bringing about satisfaction nor in the world to come.  Profligacy and prodigality do not quench one’s selfish passions but rather inflame them.  Taking all one can get leads to wanting more, not to being satisfied let alone being generous.    Overeating leads to obesity to longevity.    Sharing one’s food, even with a modicum of ascetic self denial, can lead to longevity of life in this world, and eternal blessings in the life of the world to come.

Take a few minutes to read Leo Tolstoy’s HOW MUCH LAND DOES A MAN NEED?

Facing God’s Final Judgment

Giotto's Last Judgment (1305AD)

Among certain Christian groups, (especially apocalyptic, end times and sectarian traditionalists), it is addictively popular to conjure up images of the Last Judgment with sinners and unbelievers being subject to eternally excruciating tortures as they pay for their sins; all this despite proclaiming that Christ died for our sins and paid the price on the cross that God should be exacting from sinners.   As St. Paul wrote:

 “While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. …  But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us”  (Romans 5:6-8 RSV).

Paul’s words seem to mean not so much that Christ died in place of us (a substitution) but that He died on our behalf in order to spare us all from the coming judgment of God. 

St. Matthew in his Gospel offers us a few other images about the Last Judgment which certainly put the basis for God’s judgment against humanity in terms very different than sin and unbelief.

First there is the rather well known imagery of the Last Judgment Parable in Matthew 25:31-46 in which the sheep and goats are separated before being judged.  In this parable however it is not sin which leads to condemnation by the Judge, but the failure of people to minister to the least of Christ’s brothers and sisters – the failure to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, provide shelter for the homeless, or to visit the sick and imprisoned.   The judgment is not based upon committing sin but rather upon omitting acts of charity and ministry when they were in the power of people to do so.   Righteousness in the parable is equated not with sinlessness, nor even with repentance, but rather with compassion, charity, kindness, mercy and ministry. 

Another imagine of the Last Judgment can be found in Matthew 18:23-35, the Parable of the unforgiving servant.  The king forgives the debt of a servant who owes him a fortune so large it could not possible be repaid, but then the forgiven servant refuses to forgive the debt of a fellow servant who owed him a significant but certainly repayable amount of money.   St. Matthew wrote:

At that time, Jesus said to Peter, “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. … Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you   besought me; and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord delivered him to the jailers, till he should pay all his debt. So also my    heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

The king’s final judgment of the servant is clearly based upon the servant’s willingness or unwillingness to forgive  his fellow servant.  The image is one of the servant being forgiven by his Lord and King (not his equal!) but his own unwillingness to forgive his fellow servant (his equal).   Christ concludes the parable saying God will not forgive us at the Last Judgment if we are unforgiving and unmerciful.  It is not sin and unbelief that will cause the judgment but our willingness (or unwillingness) to forgive and be merciful.

These two parables in Matthew’s Gospel give us additional insight into God’s final judgment and move that judgment away from simply being about condemning sinners.  God in Christianity is not the enforcer of karma, but is Lord of the universe and can lay aside justice in an act of love, forgiveness and mercy, which He demonstrated His willingness to do by sending His Son into the world to die on the cross for us.  This is an act of God’s love for us and His desire to overcome death and our own sinfulness.

The failure to forgive, the failure to be merciful, the failure to be charitable and compassionate:  these are the failures that bring about God’s judgment and wrath according to Jesus Christ our Lord.   Images of God venting justice and revenge on sinners and unbelievers do not reveal the full picture of God’s Last Judgment, nor are they faithful to the images Christ gave to us through His own teachings.   To have such a narrow view of vengeful God is to risk falling under the same condemnation as Job’s “friends” (Job 42:7-8) who were so certain that God’s judgments are always just and who end up condemning rather than comforting God’s servant only to find themselves condemned by God.

Hell: It’s No Place to Go

This blog is a post script to the series on hell.   The previous blog was Orthodox Hymns on Hell. 

Writing the blog series on the Christian understanding of hell caused me to reflect on the fact that despite the emphasis the threat of hell has in much modern Christian preaching or the prominence the threat of hell has in modern end time Christian writings (like the “left behind” literature), hell as a place where God keeps sinners alive just to torture them is not the emphases of our Scriptures.   The term “hell” is not part of  the early Jewish Scriptures – for example it is never mentioned in the Adam and Eve story of the “fall” of humankind nor anywhere in Genesis or the Torah.     Relatively speaking the terms “hell” or “Hades” occurs very seldom in the New Testament with the Evangelists Mark and John and the Apostle Paul never using the term hell, which after all was not a Jewish term.  

This leads to asking the question do the New Testament writers believe in the idea of Apokatastasis –  that in the end everyone will be saved?  Is the power of God’s love ultimately greater than Satan, evil, death, sin, human rejection of God?    The Scriptures surely do present God as being omnipotent, and they do not present Satan or evil as being God’s equal and opposite, not even close.   Neither Satan nor death nor hell are eternal -  none of them can resist the power of God.  

However, the Christian Scriptures do clearly speak about a final judgment, a winnowing or separation of those who loved Christ from those who didn’t, of the righteous from the wicked.    John in his Gospel even speaks of the unbeliever being “condemned” but does not spell out what that implies for he does not use the words hell or Hades and thus presents us a Jesus who does not teach those ideas either.   Certainly the Christian Scriptures do present the notion of universal salvation – what Christ did He did for all of humanity -  not just for Jews or Christians.  God is the Lord of the universe, not just the Lord of believers.   Christians should be careful not to read too much into what the Judgment Day will be like for the New Testament does use a language of metaphor and imagery to convey to us ideas of hell.  Hell is not the ultimate goal God has for his fallen creatures; the entire story of the Gospels is about Christ overcoming those powers associated with hell – sin, death, demons and evil.

Discerning what the balance will be on Judgment Day between God’s love,  mercy and forgiveness on the one hand and His justice, holiness and judgment on the other is for the Christian a heart wrenching experience which requires the Wisdom of God to discern.   What will triumph in the end?     I am reminded of imagery Chrysostom once used to contrast arrogance and humility:

To learn how good it is not to imagine that you are something great picture to yourself two chariots.  For one, yoke together a team consisting of justice and arrogance; for the other, a team of sin and humility.  You will see that the chariot pulled by the team which includes sin outstrips the team which includes justice.  Sin does not win the race because of its own power, but because of the strength of its yokemate, humility.  The losing team is not beaten because justice is weak, but because of the weight and mass of arrogance.  So humility, by its surpassing loftiness, overcome the heaviness of sin and is the first to rise up to God.  In the same manner, because of its great weight and mass, pride can overcome the lightness of justice and easily drag it down to earth.” (St. John Chrysostom,  ON THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE NATURE OF GOD, Homily 5)

Does God’s love triumph over justice?  Or is justice an expression of God’s love?  Part of the faith of Jews and Christians is that God as Lord of the universe is capable and free to judge the world as He chooses.  God is not bound by karma – some universal rule of justice which binds all things even limiting God’s decisions and power.   In the Western monotheistic tradition, God is able to forgive, grant pardon, and resurrect even the worst of sinners.   He doesn’t exist just to enforce an impersonal law of justice.     God is gracious and free to act even overcoming karma and the effects of sin on humanity.   That is the notion of grace which when comprehended can so overwhelm the heart of those who think purely rationally and who see justice as triumphing over all in the end.

For the Christian perhaps the thing to consider is what should we hope for on Judgment day – justice or mercy? 

If God is only just, and justice demands that even one sinner be cast into hell for eternity, won’t that mean that all sinners must therefore be justly punished, since as the Scriptures claim all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)?   Pure justice demands punishment for all – equally and fairly.  

Do not be afraid little flock

On the other hand, if God is merciful, and even the worst of sinners can be forgiven, won’t that mean that the rest of us can be forgiven as well?  Praying for the salvation of the world is what we do liturgically.  We are warned of judgment and justice, but we pray and hope that God will show mercy on sinners, including ourselves.  “For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; if it begins with us, what will be the end for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinners?” (1 Peter 4:17-18, NRSV)

We do sing endlessly in Church, “Lord, have mercy.”   We do not respond to every prayer and petition by singing, “God be just” or “Judge us, O Lord.”   Jesus Christ did not come into the world to condemn sinners but rather to save them (John 3:17).   God could have condemned sinners quite well thank you without having His Son become incarnate and dying miserably on the cross.   The coming of Christ into the world is Good News – Gospel.    At Pascha we don’t proclaim, “Christ is risen and all sinners are condemned to hell.”  Our message is that the risen Christ triumphs over hell in order to save humanity.  He came to fill hell with Himself, not to fill it with the souls of those who don’t believe.

Next blog:  Christ, Not Hell, Has the Final Say About Sinners

Contemporary Orthodox Theologians on Hell

This continues my blog series in which I am reflecting on hell     The first blog in the series was Hell, no?    The immediate previous blog to this one was Patristic Images of Hell.   What follows are various quotes from Orthodox theologians of the 20th and 21st Centuries.

“… of hell itself.  This idea, designed to terrorize souls, does not attain its goal, because it is abstract and therefore powerless.  But, at the same time, striking sensitive hearts with horror, paralyzing filial love and the childlike trust in the Heavenly Father, this idea makes Christianity resemble Islam, replacing love with fear.”   (Fr. Sergius Bulgakov)

“For St. Isaac, hell did not exist prior to sin and its ultimate end is unknown.  Hell is not a place of punishment created by God, but a spiritual mode of anguished suffering created by sinful creatures willfully separated from God.  According to Isaac, sinners in this hell are not deprived of the love of God; only they suffer in the profound realization of having offended against love and of being unable to participate in it.  Hell is none other than this bitter awareness of separation and regret…”    (Fr. Theodore Stylianopoulos)

“Those who proclaim the infinity of torments also necessarily affirm the eternity of evil and its coeternity with good, as well as the invincible fury of the hatred that sinners direct toward God.”   (Fr. Sergius Bulgakov)

“But it is even more difficult to admit the eternity of evil, attributing to an inexhaustible creative activity, at least without a clear acceptance of Manichaean dualism.  Evil is a negative; it is the minus of being.  Evil has a bottom; and if it appars bottomless or poses as bottomless, this is only a deception or a self-deception.  … Inasmuch as hell is not a creation of God but a product of the self-determination of the prince of this world and of those enslaved by him, it does not have being in itself, nor, therefore, its proper eternity; its ‘eternity’ is only a temporary state of life.  These ontological arguments oblige us to deny the infinity of hell; in the ages, hell dissolves into nothing, which is its genuine foundation.”  (Fr. Sergius Bulgakov)

“Over many centuries, the conception of the eternity of torments as unchangeable and infinite in duration appeared to offer the most appropriate and effective means to strike the souls of sinners with the fear of God, to conquer their wickedness and spiritual laziness.  But at the present time, this pedagogy does not attain its goal.  Not terrorization but God’s love, manifested even toward those in hell, most effectively touches the soul and awakens it from spiritual sleep.  … it is a question of the impossibility of recognizing ‘eternal torments’ as compatible with God’s justice and love, of the inability of the human consciousness even to entertain this notion.  … the pedagogy of St. Gregory of Nyssa and his followers, which has not been condemned and which, in any case is permitted by the Church, is, even today, more appropriate and more convincing than the pedagogy of terrorization.   To be sure, ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ (Ps 111:10; Prov 1:7), but not is end, for ‘there is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear’ (1 John 4:18)…  It was love, not fear, that engendered the prayer of the early Christians: ‘Even so, come, Lord Jesus.’”  (Fr. Sergius Bulgakov)

“Hell is nothing else but separation of man from God, his autonomy excluding him from the place where God is present.”  (Paul Evdokimov)

“Hell is none other than the state of separation from God, a condition into which humanity was plunged for having preferred the creature to the Creator.  It is the human creature, therefore, and not God, who engenders hell.  Created free for the sake of love, man possesses the incredible power to reject this love, to say ‘no’ to God.  By refusing communion with God, he becomes a predator, condemning himself to a spiritual death (hell) more dreadful than the physical death derives from it.”   (Michael Quenot)

“Hell – that is to say, the place where God is not – can only be created as a result of an estrangement between our world and God.”   (Fr. John Chryssavgis)

“The last word of Christianity is not hell but victory over hell; God does not promise us universal salvation because he can only offer it to us and wait for our response, our love, to let it happen.”  (Olivier Clement)

“Hell is not a place created by God for the punishment of sinful people.  Indeed, hell is not a place at all, but a state of being.  For those who may experience hell after the last judgment, that state or condition will be a product of their own conscience, a result of a free choice which they themselves have made.  Hell is an affirmation, not a rejection.  No one experiences hell because he has been rejected by God or deprived by God of His love.   Hell is an affirmation of our own choices, of the fact that God respects us and respects our choices for all eternity.”   (Archbishop Lazar Puhalo)

“Hell is the name of that false history against which the true story, in Christ, is told, and it is exposed as the true destination of all our violence, by the light of the resurrection, even as Christ breaks open the gates of hell and death.  Hell is with us at all times, a phantom kingdom perpetuating itself in the wastes of sinful hearts, but only becomes visible to us as hell because the true kingdom has shed its light upon history.  In theological tradition, most particularly in the East, there is that school of thought that wisely makes no distinction, essentially, between the fire of hell and the light of God’s glory, and interprets damnation as the soul’s resistance to the beauty of God’s glory, its refusal to open itself before the divine love, which causes divine love to seem exterior chastisement (so St. Maximus the Confessor, Origin and St. Gregory of Nyssa – my note).  Hell is the experience (a possibility in each moment) of divine glory not as beauty, but as a formless sublimity …  The ‘fire’ of hell is … the soul’s refusal to become (as Gregory says) the expanding vessel into which the beauty of God endlessly flows.”  (David Bently Hart)

I’ll conclude with a excerpt from Scott Cairns’ poem  “Gehenna, Its Duration”  from his book LOVE’S IMMENSITY: MYSTICS ON THE ENDLESS LIFE.  The poem is based on the writings of St. Isaac of Nineveh.

That we should think that hell

is not also full

of love and mingled with compassion

would be an insult to our God.

By saying He will deliver us

to suffering without purpose, we

most surely sin.  We blaspheme also if we say

that He will act with spite or with a vengeful purpose,

as if He had a need to avenge Himself.

See also my blog:  God’s Judgment Does Not End Free Will

Addendum Blog:  Orthodox Hymns on Hell

Patristic Images of Hell

This blog continues my series of reflections on hell.  The previous blog was Go to hell?   The first blog in the series was Hell, no?     Below are a few select comments from Patristic writers regarding their own thoughts on hell.

St. Basil the Great

“For estrangement and turning away from God are more unbearable than the punishments expected in hell, and more oppressive to the one suffering than the deprivation of light is to the eye, even if no pain is added to it, or than the deprivation of life is to a living creature.”    (St. Basil the Great, d. 379AD) 

“We surely ought not to think that what is referred to as ‘hell’ is a place, but a state of life, invisible and incorporeal, to which Scripture teaches us that souls lead.”   (St. Gregory of Nyssa, d.384AD)

“You see, true kingship is this, being in a position to win the Lord’s benevolence and clemency through the excellence of one’s lifestyle.  After all, the reason we ought to be in fear and dread of hell is not the undying fire, the terrible punishments, the unremitting retribution, but rather offending such a good Lord and finding ourselves outside his benevolence.”    (St. John Chrysostom, d. 407AD)

St. John Chrysostom

“Now, if in the case of friends and children we think distressing them is far worse than being punished, much more should this be our attitude in the case of God, and we should think that doing anything not pleasing to him is worse than any hell.”     (St. John Chrysostom) 

“Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free. He has destroyed it by enduring it.  He destroyed Hades when He descended into it.  He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.  Isaiah foretold this when he said, ‘You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below.’  Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.  It was in an uproar because it is mocked.  It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed. It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.  It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.  Hell took a body, and discovered God.  It took earth, and encountered Heaven.  It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.  O death, where is thy sting?  O Hades, where is thy victory?  Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!  Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!  Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!  Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!  Christ is Risen, and not a single corpse remains in the grave!”  (St. John Chrysostom, Paschal Sermon)

Chrysostom says in his “Address on Vainglory and the Right Way for Parents to Bring Up their Children” that the age at which to teach a child about hell is “when he has grown older, tell him also more fearful tales; for you should not impose so great a burden on his understanding while he is still tender, lest you dismay him.  But when he is fifteen years old or more, let him hear of hell.”

“…He (God) threatened us with hell, not to inflict it on us but so as not to inflict it, while he prepared it for the devil -  ‘go into the fire prepared for the devil’ (Matt 25:41), he says, remember – he prepared the kingdom for human beings, showing that he did not wish to cast a human being into hell.”   (St. John Chrysostom)

 “Sin, Gehenna, and death do not exist at all with God, for they are effects, not substances.  Sin is the fruit of free will.  There was a time when sin did not exist, and there will be a time when it will not exist.   ….   I also maintain that those who are punished in Gehenna are scrounged by the scourge of love. … For the sorrow caused in the heart by sin against love is more poignant than any torment.  It would be improper for a man to think that sinners in Gehenna are deprived of the love of God.  … Thus I say that this is the torment of Gehenna: bitter regret.”  (St. Isaac the Syrian, 7th Century)

In the writings attributed to (Pseudo-)Dionysius the Aeropagite (5th Century AD?), there is found the story of the holy Carpus who takes offense at the behavior of a couple of Christians.  Carpus  prays to God asking for the instant destruction of these two men and at that moment his house is split open and he sees a vision.  “A vivid flame appeared which came down on him; the sky was rent; Jesus revealed himself in the midst of a multitude of angels…     Carpus lifted his eyes and stood astonished at what he saw.  Looking down, he told me, he watched the ground itself opening to make a black yawning abyss, and in front of him on the edge of the abyss the two men he had cursed, trembling and gradually losing their foothold.  From the bottom of the abyss he saw snakes crawling up and wrapping themselves round the men’s feet trying their utmost to drag them down.  The men seemed to be on the point of succumbing, partly despite themselves, partly quite willingly, since there were being assaulted and at the same time seduced by the Evil One.  Carpus was overjoyed, he told me, as he contemplated the spectacle beneath him.  Forgetting the vision above (Jesus), he was growing impatient and indignant that the unbelievers had not yet succumbed.  Several times he joined his efforts to those of the snakes…   In the end he lifted his eyes and saw again in the sky the same vision as shortly before.  But this time Jesus, moving with compassion, came down to the unbelievers and stretched out a hand to help them… then he said to Carpus, ‘Your hand is already raised.  It is I whom you should strike, for here I am to suffer again for the salvation of humanity…moreover you should consider whether you yourself should not stay in the abyss with the snakes, rather than live with God…”   “Carpus’s vision convinces him that to wish to damn anyone is to attack Christ himself, to annul his Passion and so to compel him to undergo it again; similarly it is to throw oneself, by one’s own actions, in the abyss.”  (Olivier Clement, d. 2009)

Next blog:  Contemporary Orthodox Theologians on Hell

Go to Hell?

This is the 3rd blog in the series of my reflecting on the notion of hell.   The first blog was Hell, no? and the 2nd Hell, yes?    

Part of St. Paul’s own amazement about the reaction of his fellow Jews to the Gospel of salvation was that a message that God universally forgives sinners, was not welcomed by God’s People.   Whereas for St. Paul the Jews were to be light to the nations, meaning they would guide and inspire all people to God’s kingdom, the common notion among the Jews was that being a light meant they alone would be saved of all the people on earth and the rest of humanity would see Israel’s glory and weep and gnash their teeth.  The thought that God might extend His love to all the nations of the world is not welcomed by those who believe their righteousness not only distinguishes them from the rest of humanity but also is the very thing that condemns the rest of the world.   This surely is the message Luke has Jesus offering in the parable of the Publican and Pharisee (Luke 18:9-14;  “He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others:”), of the Last Judgment (Matthew 25:31-46), of a Kingdom where the first are last and the last first (Matthew 20:14-16)  and in which foreigners not the sons of the kingdom enter into the joy of their master (Matthew 8:12).   Though hell for sinners was not even mentioned at the beginning of creation as part of God’s plan or will, some of God’s people came to see heaven as their right and hell as the just reward for all the Gentiles.  The New Testament changes the dividing line from between Jews and non-Jews to distinguishing between those who believe in God’s salvation and those who don’t.   There is one God for all the world.  He is not just the God of the Jews.   It is God’s good pleasure to populate the earth and heaven, not hell.

If we look at the New Testament, we can see there is clear indication that we are to fear God, that there will be a Judgment Day, a winnowing process in which the unbelievers and sinners are separated from the righteous and are condemned.   But condemned to what?  Hell?  Or exclusion from God’s presence, kingdom, heaven? 

In the RSV of the Bible, the word “hell” occurs only 13 times all in the New Testament.  Matthew makes the most references to hell – 7 times with 3 occurring in one short passage.  Luke uses the word hell only once.   The Evangelists John and Mark and St. Paul the Apostle do not use the word at all!   James makes one reference to hell and Peter twice refers to hell.    The word “Hades” occurs only 9 times in the RSV New Testament and not at all in the Old.  Luke refers to “Hades” four times – twice in his Gospel and twice in Acts.  Matthew only makes one reference to Hades, while it is referred to 4 times in Revelation.    Again St. John, St. Mark and St. Paul make no reference to Hades.   One can find more numerous mention of “fire” (unquenchable, eternal, testing) in the New Testament with Matthew and Revelations by far making the most references to these judging fires with several of the New Testament books including at least one reference to a judgment by fire.   However, only some references in the New Testament seem to refer fire to a hell, others see fire raining down on earth or envision some other form of judgment which destroys the wicked rather than keeping them in perpetual torment.   Matthew in his gospel refers to the gnashing of teeth which will occur in the end six times while Luke makes one reference to teeth gnashing.   Again neither Mark or John mention such things in their gospels.    Mark and John also do not mention “eternal punishment” or “destruction” while you can find a few such references in Matthew (2), Luke (1), and also in Paul, Hebrews, Peter and Jude.

The picture of a judgment by God of the people of earth is certainly portrayed in the New Testament and found on the lips of Jesus Himself.  Though the hell fires are spectacular and damning when portrayed, they may loom larger in the minds and pronouncements of some then they do in the New Testament.   The fires of hell are not the main proclamation of the Christian Scriptures – the kingdom of God is.  For example on the Orthodox Pre-Lenten Sunday of the Last Judgment, the hymns mention the rivers of fire consuming sinners in a terrifying picture which combines images from the book of Revelation to form its cataclysmic destruction.   However, the Gospel reading is from Matthew 25:31-46, which does not mention sinners or unbelievers nor violators of God’s commandments.   Those doomed to judgment are those who do not serve the least of Christ’s brothers and sisters.  And Christ says the hell fires were prepared for the devil and his angels,  not for humans!  This is in the Gospel which mentions hell more than any other book in the New Testament – 7 times while the entire rest of the New Testament mentions it only 6!   That St. Mark and St. John both give to us tradition in which they never record or remember Jesus making any reference to hell or Hades or punishment is significant.  They envision the Gospel message of Jesus not including those terms; a tradition in which hell is not essential to the teachings of Jesus and in which they never put such terms in Jesus’ mouth

Obviously Christian tradition did include those writers who use the terms hell, Hades, punishment in the official Scriptures of the Church.  So the fact that some New Testament authors never mention those terms cannot be used as the basis for rejecting those words or the ideas behind them.  Those terms are part of the New Testament and St. Matthew at least believed Jesus used those terms even if sparingly (hell, Hades, punishment occur  only 10 times in Matthew, 4 times in Luke’s Gospel but never in John or Mark’s Gospels).   Hell does not appear to have been a major part of Jesus’ message or concern; whereas Jesus is concerned about judgment, a theme that comes up in various ways thoughout the Gospels especially in Jesus’ parables but also in his teachings about forgiveness and mercy or end times.   Christians need to keep these facts in perspective as they talk with others about what faith in God means.  As one bit of wisdom from tradition said, “The person who obeys God for the reward of heaven is nothing but a mercenary.  The person who obeys God out of the fear of hell is nothing but a slave.  But the person who obeys God out of love for the Creator is a true child of God and it is children, not slaves or mercenaries that God seeks.”

Next:  Patristic Images of Hell

Hell, yes?

This is part 2 and the continuation of my blog series which began with Hell, No?   It is my own train of thoughts regarding the existence of hell, beginning with looking at the book of Genesis.   Sometimes it seems to me that believers are eager to inflict hell on non-believers or anybody they don’t particularly like.   My own personal question is whether the ideas of hell in the Scriptures have in fact been inflated by believers in order to control, beat and threaten others.

Throughout Genesis and the unfolding story of humanity’s fall into sin, God does endeavor to discipline or punish the humans for their sinfulness.  However, at no time in Genesis does He ever threaten hell or eternal damnation to sinners.   God seems to have no interest from the beginning in keeping sinners alive just to torture them.

Notions of hell, eternal punishment, torture and damnation do not occur from the beginning of God’s creation.  This is something to remember, especially when discerning what God intended to do with sinners and unbelievers from the beginning.  Adam is cast outside of Paradise, and then later dies, but at no time does God ever threaten him with eternal damnation.  This of course raises an interesting question as to whether at some time later in history, long after their deaths, God could posthumously “revive” Adam or Cain and place them in hell to further punish them for their sins?   Could or would God retroactively impose on those long dead, eternal punishments for sins, only after the Jewish Exile period when the Jewscame to believe such things, since God had not imposed such punishment from the beginning? 

For the most part the Hebrew Scriptures envision a place for the dead – Sheol, a shadowy existence of a place where all the dead (righteous and sinners) continue to abide but in which they are not capable of doing anything.  Sheol is not a place of torment nor of damnation.   Ideas of hell or Hades appear in Jewish thinking in the post-exilic (6^th-3^nd Centuries BC) and intertestimental  period (4^th- 1^st Centuries BC).   It is in this time period that Jewish ideas of resurrection and eternal judgment coalesce.  Christians inherited this thinking as the basis for their own understanding of what God is doing and how He is working out His plan and will on earth. 

It seems that once the idea of eternal judgment came to be accepted by God’s people, there was an ever increasing enthusiasm to impose that judgment on non-believers and sinners.  God’s people also became increasingly desirous of delineating those who were “outside” of God’s people (first, the non-Jews, and later the non-Christians) and ever consigning  these outsiders to eternal torment. 

The God who never mentioned  eternal damnation for Adam or Cain or the Babel residents or the pre-flood sinners, and who regrets destroying creation in the flood, and who sends His Son into the world to save the world, and who does not wish the death of the sinner, is He as eager to damn sinners and unbelievers to Hell as are His people?  

The Prophet Jonah knew God would save the Ninevites which is why he didn’t want to warn them about God’s intentions (Jonah 4:2) and tried to flee from God.   Jonah preferred to see the Ninevites toasted.   God proved Himself every bit as gracious, merciful and abounding in steadfast love as Jonah lamented.   Jesus who died on the cross in order to save sinners, who commanded us to pray for our enemies (which presumably includes sinners and non-believers), who forgave those who crucified Him, did he want us to wish for damnation for those outside the Church?  

Isn’t a main part of the Gospel story that what the Jews got wrong was their exclusivist and  elitist ideas of election?  They were to be light to the nations, not those intentionally trying to ensure that darkness doomed the Gentiles to an eternity of Hell.   Christians are supposed to go forth into the world with the Gospel – the Good News of salvation.   Christians too are told by Christ to be a light to the world.   The glad tidings are not that sinners are to be eternally tortured, but that all sinners are loved by God and can be forgiven of their sins.   The Gospel was not meant to be a club with which to beat, threaten, intimidate, terrify or horrify sinners.  It is to be the wonderful sound of glad tidings, a message of God’s love and forgiveness and an invitation for us to serve and love one another by sharing the blessings God has bestowed upon us.   Jesus on the cross did not threaten his tormentors with eternal damnation but asked God to forgive them for their ignorance.  In Christ’s parable of the Last Judgment (Matthew 25:31-46 ) it is not sinners who are consigned to damnation but rather those who failed to love and serve Christ in the least of His brothers and sisters.   In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, it is again not an issue of sin which separates the two in Judgment, but failure of the rich man to provide for the beggar Lazarus – neither one is praised for their virtues but described only in terms of their need and their wealth.  

For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.   (John 3:17, RSV)

Next:  Go to hell?

Hell, no?

Statue of Hades

In this blog series, I will comment on something I’ve been thinking about – the existence of hell.   My intention is to take a look at the absence of any mention of hell in the book of Genesis in particular, but also to note its lack of mention in most of the Old Testament.  (It isn’t mentioned in a standard RSV which uses the Hebrew Sheol for the place of the dead, but the NKJV does use “hell” instead of the Hebrew Sheol.  The OSB prefers Hades following the Septuagint).   Hell and Hades both imply more judgment and punishment than does the more passive Hebrew “Sheol” which simply is where the dead both good and wicked reside without being a place of continued punishment.  

One of the most interesting aspects of the book of Genesis is the tools of punishment that God has at His disposal to use with His human creatures when they sin.  

In Genesis 2:16-17, God warns the first human that should he break God’s command and eat of the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil that he would die.  We do not know if this is the most severe punishment God can conceive, but it is punishment threatened by God.  God does not explain death, but the implication certainly is that one will cease to be able to enjoy God’s blessings.  Is death thus a permanent state?  The text offers no further explanation of death, but one might infer from Genesis that passing into death is not a good thing for one then is placed beyond enjoying the rest of God’s creation.   There is no sense that death places one in a place of permanent torment, a hell, only that one is cut off from one’s people and one’s God.  In fact one might almost conclude that death ends one’s existence as there is no indication of life beyond the grave, though the murdered Abel’s ‘blood’ does cry from the ground to God which seems to be a figurative not literal expression, but might keep open the issue of a continued existence beyond death.

Icon of the Expulsion from Paradise

In Genesis 3:17-24, after Adam and Eve have broken God’s commandment, God pronounces judgment on Adam sentencing him to toil hard to make crops grow, and sentencing him to death which is now clearly described as the dissolving of the human body back into the dust of the earth.  Further God expels the man from the Garden of Delight in which He had placed the man in the beginning, forcing the man out of his caretaker position in God’s garden and consigning him to till the earth to produce his own food.  The expulsion from Paradise does not say that the man is eternally forbidden from returning to the Garden.  Rather the cherubim and the flaming sword prohibit the man from re-entering, which would seem to imply that the situation is temporary for these guardians could be removed allowing re-admittance to the man at some time in the future.   Paradise was not annihilated, nor were the humans.   Humanity is separated from Paradise but both continue to exist.   

As the story progresses it will be Abel, not Adam or Eve who first taste death as returning to the dust of the earth.  Again God makes no mention of a hell as a  place of unending torture for sinners nor is there any indication that this punishment is connected to future sins of humans.  This is a specific sentence against Adam, though it is very possible that the story is a typology and what has happened to Adam happens to all of humanity.   We share in Adam’s sin and the consequence of his sin to the extent that Adam is a type (representative) of all humans (see Romans 15:14, I Corinthians 15:21-22, 45-49).

The next event which God must confront is Cain’s murder of his brother Abel in Genesis 4.  God exiles the fratricide Cain from the rest of humanity for his crime, but he does not inflict capital punishment on Cain for his crime, nor does God ever threaten Cain with eternal damnation.  Cain’s punishment is recognition by God of Cain’s own action – Cain has cut himself off from civilized human beings. The punishment of Cain is imposed upon him for his sins.  Though his descendents will suffer the consequences of what happens to him, they are not declared punishable for his sins nor are the labeled as enemies of God.  Perhaps indicative of the early biblical attitude toward such things it is Cain who builds the first human city – the murderous Cain, expelled from humanity founds the fist city – human civilization!

Flood Waters

The Genesis story continues as does human sin.  God Himself becomes increasingly troubled by the creatures He has made.   He is disillusioned with the humans He made in His own image and experiences grievous anguish in His heart about the humans.  In Genesis 6:6-13 God decides to take action against His human creatures because of their wickedness.  He decides to bring them to an end by flooding the earth.  But again His intention is a temporary punishment – not a continuing state of punishment; for He also decides to save a few humans in order to repopulate the earth.  He is not completely exterminating humankind nor the earth He has created, but more is cleansing it of wickedness.   The story of Noah and the flood is God’s fourth major action against human sinfulness.  God decides to drown sin and the sinful, but simultaneously tremendous collateral damage is decreed for all of life must suffer because of and with the wicked humans.   God is not only punishing the specific evil doers but has decided to wipe out sinful humanity which would include innocent infants and children – with the noted exception of Noah, his wife, their sons and sons’ wives – no children were spared according to the story.    The punishment visits death upon humanity, but no mention is made of this being continuous and eternal for the victims of the flood.  Their lives are ended, they are not kept alive for further torture.

At the conclusion of the flood, God has a change of heart about His human creatures.  He recognizes that “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” and apparently decides to live with this sad reality.  God also vows never again to destroy all living creatures just because of the sinfulness of humans (Genesis 8:21-22).   God then establishes a covenant with not only the humans but with all the creatures of the earth never again to destroy the earth by flood (Genesis 9:8-17).  Unless God means His covenant promise to be totally literalistic (He won’t flood the world to destroy it, but He might use fire!), God seems to have decided that a permanent state of punishment is not part of His plan for rebellious humanity.  

Even the flood doesn’t end humanities rebellion against God.   In Genesis 11 God confronts the humans for building the tower to heaven in Babel.  The punishment this time is that God both “confuses their tongues” by multiplying languages so that the humans cannot communicate with each other and He scatters them over the face of the earth.  Despite the hostilities that will now arise as a result of miscommunications and misunderstandings, God does not devise a hell – a place to keep people alive in order to torture and punish them for their wrongdoings.   All of the punishments of God in Genesis are confined to this world – first expelling the humans from His Paradise and forcing them to struggle laboriously with agriculture and child birth, and then using exile, death and catastrophic events to punish (not discipline) the sinners.   But as for mention of some form of continued torture beyond life in this world, in hell, no, not in Genesis.  Perhaps hell as a method of punishment was not yet part of God’s tools of dealing with sin and evil.   It certainly would indicate that hell itself is not eternal, but completely temporal.  

Next blog:   Hell, yes?

Addendum Blog:  Orthodox Hymns on Hell

Giving to the poor = Lending to God

St. John Chrysostom is well known for using commerce imagery when talking about giving charity to the poor.  Generally he saw money given to charity as an investment the Christian makes in this world, but he collects it back with interest in the Kingdom of God.   Chrysostom famously said to give to the poor is to put God in debt to you for it is God who will pay you back all money you gave to the poor – with the caveat that the repayment occurs not in this world but in the world to come.    The more you give to the poor in this world, the more that awaits you in the Kingdom; you are thus providing for your own eternity.    God relies on the Christian people to be His bankers for the poor – to provide for their needs through charity which in reality is for you to make a loan to God which God repays in the Kingdom of Heaven.  Charity is thus not giving away anything but rather lending to God; God will repay the loan with interest as a reward in His Kingdom.   Giving to charity puts God in your debt – not a bad position to be in according to St. John when Judgment Day comes around.   His imagery relies on Christ’s words in Matthew 25:31-46 in which Christ says whatever we have done to the least of Christ’s brothers and sisters, we have done to Him.  Chrysostom said in his commentary on the Pslams:

“So when you see that gold is lovely, and you are reluctant to throw it way, think of the sowers, think of the investors, think of the merchants, who begin with outlay and expenditure, each of them entrusting this to insecure ventures; waves and hollows of the ground, after all, and debtors’ receipts are all insecure.  Investors frequently sustain a loss of their capital, you recall, whereas the one who tills the heavens has none of these risks to fear, but has grounds for confidence about capital and interest – if, that is, we should call this sort of thing interest and not something far more significant than capital.  Capital, after all, is money, whereas heaven’s interest is the kingdom.  Do you see the kind of investment involved, bearing an interest far in excess of the capital?  While it is an investment redeemed in the future, in the present life you will enjoy great freedom: you will have relief from scheming, you will put paid to the envy of calumniators and plotters, you will live your whole life at ease, not stressed by concern for possessions but borne up by hopes for future goods.”   (St. John Chrysostom, comments on Psalm 112)