What is Hell?

It has been rather quiet over here on my blog but that does not mean that I have not been busy, I have been hard at work on a new book and am making good progress. Hopefully I will have some news on that project for everyone around about the end of the year. But for now, I wanted to tell everyone about Jeremy Myers' latest book that I was fortunate enough to write the afterword for (Brad Jersak wrote the foreword). For anyone who is interested in the subject of hell, it really is unique in much of its content. He does a great job of documenting how the traditional notion of hell developed over time and shows how warped much of our thinking has become in contrast to what the Bible actually has to say about hell.

While the book does touch on the three main views of hell, it primarily argues that the bulk (not all) of the verses that people generally use in discussing hell have nothing to do with the afterlife at all but rather, in their context, are specifically concerned with how to avoid 'hell on earth' in this life. Some of the arguments are quite insightful and persuasive making this a challenging and thought provoking read. Without sharing too much though, I thought that I would just share what I wrote at the end of the book with everyone instead. Here it is:

Your kingdom come.

Your will be done.

On earth as it is in heaven – Jesus of Nazareth

Have you ever heard the old Johnny Cash song entitled No earthly good? It is a song about people who become so focused on heaven as an afterlife destination that they essentially neglect the present hellish realities that are all around us. One becomes so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good. The lesson that we can take from it is that we can be very spiritual, invest our time in prayer, in church meetings, in studying the Bible and more but end up leaving the world behind with little evidence that we were ever here or made a difference while we were on it.

This is not the kind of Christianity that we see lived out in the pages of Scripture though. Jesus and those who followed Him early on had a bit of a reputation for been troublemakers. Not because they got up to mischievous acts but because they tended not to toe the line very well. They saw brokenness in the world, in the systems around them and in the people who were victims of it all and they chose to stand up and fight against it.

When Christ taught His disciples to pray as quoted above, He did not encourage them with the future hope of heaven but rather challenged them to bring a little bit of heaven down to earth. “Your kingdom come” has nothing to do with church real estate; rather it is a declaration of war against the kingdom of darkness, it is heaven invading earth with the knowledge that the gates of hell will not be able to stand up against the churches attacking army. Yet this is no ordinary army, most armies bring with them calamity upon the lands and peoples affected by them resulting in hunger, poverty and destruction. The soldiers of Christ though lay down their own lives sacrificially for others, instead of capturing they release, rather than oppress they set free. And instead of bringing death they bring life. Jesus, reading from Isaiah, once said the following:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD. (Luke 4:18-19).

The more one thinks about it the more you realize that this was not just His mission on earth but the calling for all of those who belong to Him as well. It is our privilege to continue the work that Jesus started here on earth of serving the poor, participating in the healing process where we find brokenness, setting the captives free and proclaiming our LORD to those who are surrounded and entrapped by darkness.

Yes, the implications of trusting in Jesus for eternal life or refusing that gift extend far beyond the few short years that we are given before our bodies will one day be laid to rest. But the good news is that eternal life starts now in the present. The kingdom of God which began like a small mustard seed is growing day by day here on earth, light is overcoming the darkness and as it spreads the kingdom of hell is forced to relinquish ground and retreat. This is a battle that we are winning.

My hope for this book is that it will help to shed light on many of the myths that people have been led to believe surrounding hell and ultimately around God Himself. By properly contextualizing some key verses and understanding various words oftentimes associated with hell and punishment, we can learn to trust that God is indeed good. And it is because of His love for us that He warns us about the dangers of a life lived apart from His ways and guidance. When we fall off the rails, we don’t need to hide from God in the bushes like Adam and Eve tried to do, we know that the safest place in the world will be to run directly into His waiting arms where we will find love, mercy and help. This is what I take from Jeremy’s book and what I hope that you will find in its pages as well.

You can grab a copy of What is Hell? On Amazon by clicking over here.