Love Wins and The Love Wins Companion

Many people in our world have only ever heard hell talked about as the place reserved for those who are “out,” who don’t believe, who haven’t “joined the church.” Christians talking about people who aren’t Christians going to hell when they die because they aren’t . . . Christians. People who don’t believe the right things.

But in reading all of the passages in which Jesus uses the word “hell,” what is so striking is that people believing the right or wrong things isn’t his point. He’s often not talking about “beliefs” as we think of them—he’s talking about anger and lust and indifference. He’s talking about the state of his listeners’ hearts, about how they conduct themselves, how they interact with their neighbors, about the kind of effect they have on the world.

Jesus did not use hell to try and compel “heathens” and “pagans” to believe in God, so they wouldn’t burn when they die. He talked about hell to very religious people to warn them about the consequences of straying from their God-given calling and identity to show the world God’s love.

This is not to say that hell is not a pointed, urgent warning or that it isn’t intimately connected with what we actually do believe, but simply to point out that Jesus talked about hell to the people who considered themselves “in,” warning them that their hard hearts were putting their “in-ness” at risk, reminding them that whatever “chosen-ness” or “election” meant, whatever special standing they believed they had with God was always, only, ever about their being the kind of transformed, generous, loving people through whom God could show the world what God’s love looks like in flesh and blood.

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Now, on to the passages that seem to be talking about hell, but don’t mention it specifically. Let’s start with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the poster cities for deviant sinfulness run amok. In Genesis 19 we read that the city of Sodom has so lost its way, “the outcry to the LORD against its people is so great,” that burning sulfur rains down from the heavens, “destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land.”

“Early the next morning Abraham . . . looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah . . . and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.”

And so for thousands of years the words “Sodom and Gomorrah” have served as a warning, an ominous sign of just what happens when God decides to judge swiftly and decisively.

But this isn’t the last we read of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The prophet Ezekiel had a series of visions in which God shows him what’s coming, including the promise that God will “restore the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters” and they will “return to what they were before” (chap. 16).

Restore the fortunes of Sodom?

The story isn’t over for Sodom and Gomorrah?

What appeared to be a final, forever, smoldering, smoking verdict regarding their destiny . . . wasn’t?

What appeared to be over, isn’t.

Ezekiel says that where there was destruction there will be restoration.

But that still isn’t the last we hear of these two cities. As Jesus travels from village to village in Galilee, calling people to see things in a whole new way, he encounters great resistance in some areas, especially among the more religious and devout. In Matthew 10, he warns the people living in the village of Capernaum, “It will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for you.”

More bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah?

He tells highly committed, pious, religious people that it will be better for Sodom and Gomorrah than them on judgment day?

There’s still hope?

And if there’s still hope for Sodom and Gomorrah, what does that say about all of the other Sodoms and Gomorrahs?

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This story, the one about Sodom and Gomorrah, isn’t the only place we find this movement from judgment to restoration, from punishment to new life.

In Jeremiah 32, God says, “I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger and great wrath; I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety.”

Israel had been exiled, sent away, “banished” to a foreign land, the result of God’s “furious anger and great wrath.” But there’s a point to what the prophet interprets and understands to be God’s “anger and wrath.” It’s to teach the people, to correct them, to produce something new in them.

In Jeremiah 5, the prophet says, “You crushed them, but they refused correction.” That’s the point, according to the prophet, of the crushing. To bring about correction.

According to the prophets,

God crushes,

refines,

tests,

corrects,

chastens,

and rebukes—

but always with a purpose.

No matter how painful, brutal, oppressive, no matter how far people find themselves from home because of their sin, indifference, and rejection, there’s always the assurance that it won’t be this way forever.

In Lamentations 3, the poet declares:

“People are not cast off by the Lord forever,

though he brings grief, he will show compassion,

so great is his unfailing love.”

In Hosea 14 God says:

“I will heal their waywardness and love them freely

for my anger has turned away from them.”

In chapter 3 Zephaniah says:

God “will take great delight in you;

in his love he will no longer rebuke you,

but will rejoice over you with singing.”

No more anger, no more punishment, rebuke, or refining—

at some point

healing

and reconciling

and return.

God promises in Isaiah 57: “I will guide them and restore comfort to them.”

In Hosea 6: “On the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence.”

In Joel 3: “In those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem . . .”

In Amos 9: “I will restore David’s fallen shelter.”

In Nahum 2: “The LORD will restore the splendor of Jacob.”

In Zephaniah 2: “The LORD their God will care for them; he will restore their fortunes.”

In Zephaniah 3: “I will give you honor and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes.”

In Zechariah 9: “Even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.”

In Zechariah 10: “I will restore them because I have compassion on them.”

And in Micah 7: “You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.”

I realize that that’s a lot of Bible verses, but I list them to simply show how dominant a theme restoration is in the Hebrew scriptures. It comes up again and again and again. Sins trodden underfoot, iniquities hurled into the depths of the sea. God always has an intention.

Healing.

Redemption.

Love.

Bringing people home and rejoicing over them with singing.

The prophets are quick to point out that this isn’t just something for “God’s people,” the “chosen,” the “elect.”

In Isaiah 19, the prophet announces, “In that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the heart of Egypt, and a monument to the LORD at its border.”

What’s the significance of Egypt?

Egypt was Israel’s enemy.

Hated.

Despised.

An altar in the heart of Egypt?

An altar was where people worshipped.

They’ll worship God in . . . Egypt?

Once again, things aren’t what they appear to be. The people who are opposed to God will worship God, the ones far away will be brought near, the ones facing condemnation will be restored.

Failure, we see again and again, isn’t final,

judgment has a point,

and consequences are for correction.

With this in mind, several bizarre passages later in the New Testament begin to make more sense. In Paul’s first letter to Timothy he mentions Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom he has “handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.” (Something in me wants to read that in a Darth Vader voice.)

Now I realize that the moment he mentions Satan, things can get really confusing. But beyond the questions—

“Handed over to Satan?”

Paul has handed people over to Satan?

Do you do that?

Can you do that?

How do you do that?

Is there paperwork involved?

What is clear is that Paul has great confidence that this handing over will be for good, as inconceivable as that appears at first. His confidence is that these two will be taught something. They will learn. They will grow. They will become better.

“Satan,” according to Paul, is actually used by God for God’s transforming purposes. Whoever and whatever he means by that word “Satan,” there is something redemptive and renewing that will occur when Hymenaeus and Alexander are “handed over.”

And this is not an isolated incident of Paul’s confidence that the most severe judgment falls squarely within the redemptive purposes of God in the world. Paul gives a similar instruction in his first letter to the Corinthians, telling his friends to hand a certain man “over to Satan for the destruction of the sinful nature so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord” (chap. 5).

How does that work? Because it’s counterintuitive to say the least.

His assumption is that giving this man over to “Satan” will bring an end to the man’s “sinful nature.” It’s as if Paul is saying, “We’ve tried everything to get his attention, and it isn’t working, so turn him loose to experience the full consequences of his actions.”

We have a term for this process. When people pursue a destructive course of action and they can’t be convinced to change course, we say they’re “hell-bent” on it. Fixed, obsessed, unshakable in their pursuit, unwavering in their commitment to a destructive direction. The stunning twist in all of this is that when God lets the Israelites go the way they’re insisting on heading and when Paul “turns people over,” it’s all for good. The point of this turning loose, this letting go, this punishment, is to allow them to live with the full consequences of their choices, confident that the misery they find themselves in will have a way of getting their attention.

As God says time and time again in the Prophets, “I’ve tried everything else, and they won’t listen.” The result, Paul is convinced, is that wrongdoers will become right doers.

We see this same impulse in the story Jesus tells in Matthew 25 about sheep and goats being judged and separated. The sheep are sent to one place, while the goats go to another place because of their failure to see Jesus in the hungry and thirsty and naked.

The goats are sent, in the Greek language, to an aion of kolazo. Aion, we know, has several meanings. One is “age” or “period of time”; another refers to intensity of experience. The word kolazo is a term from horticulture. It refers to the pruning and trimming of the branches of a plant so it can flourish.

An aion of kolazo. Depending on how you translate aion and kolazo, then, the phrase can mean “a period of pruning” or “a time of trimming,” or an intense experience of correction.

In a good number of English translations of the Bible, the phrase “aion of kolazo” gets translated as “eternal punishment,” which many read to mean “punishment forever,” as in never going to end.

But “forever” is not really a category the biblical writers used.

The closest the Hebrew writers come to a word for “forever” is the word olam. Olam can be translated as “to the vanishing point,” “in the far distance,” “a long time,” “long lasting,” or “that which is at or beyond the horizon.” When olam refers to God, as in Psalm 90 (“from everlasting to everlasting you are God”), it’s much closer to the word “forever” as we think of it, time without beginning or end. But then in the other passages, when it’s not describing God, it has very different meanings, as when Jonah prays to God, who let him go down into the belly of a fish “forever” (olam) and then, three days later, brought him out of the belly of the fish.

Olam, in this instance,

turns out to be three days.

It’s a versatile, pliable word,

in most occurrences referring to a particular period of time.

So when we read “eternal punishment,” it’s important that we don’t read categories and concepts into a phrase that aren’t there. Jesus isn’t talking about forever as we think of forever. Jesus may be talking about something else, which has all sorts of implications for our understandings of what happens after we die, which we’ll spend the next chapter sorting through.

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To summarize, then, we need a loaded, volatile, adequately violent, dramatic, serious word to describe the very real consequences we experience when we reject the good and true and beautiful life that God has for us. We need a word that refers to the big, wide, terrible evil that comes from the secrets hidden deep within our hearts all the way to the massive, society-wide collapse and chaos that comes when we fail to live in God’s world God’s way.

And for that,

the word “hell” works quite well.

Let’s keep it.

Click here for notes on this chapter from The Love Wins Companion

Chapter 4

Does God Get What God Wants?

On the websites of many churches, there is a page where you can read what the people in that particular church believe. Usually the list starts with statements about the Bible, then God, Jesus, and the Spirit, then salvation and the church, and so on. Most of these lists and statements include a section on what the people in the church believe about the people who don’t believe what they believe.

This is from an actual church website: “The unsaved will be separated forever from God in hell.”

This is from another: “Those who don’t believe in Jesus will be sent to eternal punishment in hell.”

And this is from another: “The unsaved dead will be committed to an eternal conscious punishment.”

So in the first statement, the “unsaved” won’t be with God.

In the second, not only will they not be with God, but they’ll be sent somewhere else to be punished.

And in the third, we’re told that not only will these “unsaved” be punished forever, but they will be fully aware of it—in case we were concerned they might down an Ambien or two when God wasn’t looking . . .

The people experiencing this separation and punishment will feel all of it, we are told, because they’ll be fully conscious of it, fully awake and aware for every single second of it, as it never lets up for billions and billions of years.

All this,

on a website.

Welcome to our church.

Yet on these very same websites are extensive affirmations of the goodness and greatness of God, proclamations and statements of belief about a God who is

“mighty,”

“powerful,”

“loving,”

“unchanging,”

“sovereign,”

“full of grace and mercy,”

and “all-knowing.”

This God is the one who created

“the world and everything in it.”

This is the God for whom

“all things are possible.”

I point out these parallel claims:

that God is mighty, powerful, and “in control”

and that billions of people will spend forever apart from this God, who is their creator,

even though it’s written in the Bible that

“God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2).

So does God get what God wants?

How great is God?

Great enough to achieve what God sets out to do,

or kind of great,

medium great,

great most of the time,

but in this,

the fate of billions of people,

not totally great.

Sort of great.

A little great.

According to the writer of the letter to the Hebrews, “God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear” (chap. 6).

God has a purpose, something God is doing in the world, something that has never changed, something that involves everybody, and God’s intention all along has been to communicate this intention clearly.

Will all people be saved,

or will God not get what God wants?

Does this magnificent, mighty, marvelous God fail in the end?

People, according to the scriptures, are inextricably intertwined with God. As it’s written in Psalm 24: “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.”

The prophet Isaiah, in chapter 45, says that God “did not create [the earth] to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited.” Paul says in a speech in Acts 17 that in God “we live and move and have our being,” and he writes in Romans 11, “From him and through him and to him are all things.”

The prophet Malachi asks, “Do we not all have one Father? Did not one God create us?” (chap. 2). Paul says in Acts 17, “We are God’s offspring,” and in Ephesians 3 he writes, “I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives it name.”

The writers of the scriptures consistently affirm that we’re all part of the same family. What we have in common—regardless of our tribe, language, customs, beliefs, or religion—outweighs our differences. This is why God wants “all people to be saved.” History is about the kind of love a parent has for a child, the kind of love that pursues, searches, creates, connects, and bonds. The kind of love that moves toward, embraces, and always works to be reconciled with, regardless of the cost.

The writers of the Bible have a lot to say about this love:

In Psalm 65 it’s written that “all people will come” to God.

In Ezekiel 36 God says, “The nations will know that I am the LORD.”

The prophet Isaiah says, “All the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God” (chap. 52).

Zephaniah quotes God as saying, “Then I will purify the lips of the peoples, that all of them may call on the name of the LORD and serve him shoulder to shoulder” (chap. 3).

And Paul writes in Philippians 2, “Every knee should bow . . . and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is LORD, to the glory of God the Father.”

All people.

The nations.

Every person, every knee, every tongue.

Psalm 22 echoes these promises: “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him.”

But then it adds a number of details:

“All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;

all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—”

So everybody who dies will kneel before God, and “future generations will be told about the LORD. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!”

This insistence that God will be united and reconciled with all people is a theme the writers and prophets return to again and again. They are very specific in their beliefs about who God is and what God is doing in the world, constantly affirming the simple fact that God does not fail.

In the book of Job the question arises: “Who can oppose God? He does whatever he pleases” (chap. 23). And then later it’s affirmed when Job says to God, “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted” (chap. 42).

Through Isaiah God says, “I will do all that I please.” Isaiah asks, “Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear?” while Jeremiah declares to God, “Nothing is too hard for you” (Isa. 46; 59; Jer. 32).

This God, in Psalm 145, “is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.”

This God’s anger, in Psalm 30, “lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime.”

This God, in Psalm 145, “is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.”

In the Bible, God is not helpless,

God is not powerless,

and God is not impotent.

Paul writes to the Philippians that “it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” (chap. 2).

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