Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “The Fire of Hell”. In Monday’s lesson of the same title, the typical Adventist understanding of “Hell” is laid out. For this weekly “thought” I would like to present another view, held by many other Adventists. I hope you find this helpful.
In many Bible translations, the word hell appears 11 times on Jesus’ lips. He actually used the Greek term gehenna, for the Hebrew name Ge Hinnom, “Valley of Hinnom”. According to the Old Testament, in this gorge south of Jerusalem, kings Ahaz and Manasseh conducted the horrendous pagan rite of burning children to Molech. Because of the sins perpetrated in it, Jeremiah prophesied that God would make the place a ‘valley of slaughter’ (Jeremiah 7:32; 19:6). Isn’t it interesting that the inevitable end of the wicked is likened to the burning passions that led to the fertility practices in the “Valley of Hinnom”? The valley was not a place of “punishment” but of consequence, where the self-worship of our sexuality and lasciviousness was seen in its grossest manifestations. Is this a parallel to what “hell” is about…where we are abandoned to the sin we so love and from which we will not be separated? What really is “hell-fire” anyway?
Isaiah 33: 10-16 has the following to say about this “hell-fire”, “’Now I will rise,’ says the Lord; ‘Now I will be exalted, now I will lift Myself up. You shall conceive chaff, you shall bring forth stubble; your breath, as fire, shall devour you. And the people shall be like the burnings of lime; like thorns cut up they shall be burned in the fire. Hear, you who are afar off, what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge My might.’ The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness has seized the hypocrites: ‘Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?’ He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, he who despises the gain of oppressions, who gestures with his hands, refusing bribes, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed, and shuts his eyes from seeing evil: he will dwell on high; His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks; bread will be given him, his water will be sure.”. The unrepentant sinner’s “breath, as fire , shall consume (them)”. Yet, “who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire”? The Righteous!! It appears that “This is not an act of arbitrary power on the part of God. The rejecters of His mercy reap that which they have sown. God is the fountain of life; and when one chooses the service of sin, he separates from God, and thus cuts himself off from life. He is ‘alienated from the life of God.’ Christ says, ‘All they that hate Me love death.’ Ephesians 4:18; Proverbs 8:36. God gives them existence for a time that they may develop their character and reveal their principles. This accomplished, they receive the results of their own choice. By a life of rebellion, Satan and all who unite with him place themselves so out of harmony with God that His very presence is to them a consuming fire. The glory of Him who is love will destroy them” (Desire of Ages pg.764).
This “fire” then, is the very “glory” of God’s love. “The light of the glory of God, which imparts life to the righteous, will slay the wicked” (Desire of Ages pg.107). How we have misunderstood our loving God. The second death is not execution at the hand of our loving Father. It is Him sadly giving us over to the sin that we love and that we will not let go. And when He returns things back to normal…when He can, once again, walk and talk with His creatures in the open communion of love in all His undimmed glory, that very fire that bathes saint and sinner alike will be death to the wicked even as it invigorates the righteous. And this “fire” of love is, in fact, everlasting…eternal. It is the very “fire” of heaven. It is the sheer love energy of our Father, who infuses his children with that love. “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43) because the righteous have become of the same substance as that “fire” …the very nature of that love.
May we never again malign the Father’s reputation with the hideous notion of a retributive hell-fire…as if our “Great Physician” is actually guilty of killing His dying patients. For that is precisely what death is. “Sin pays its servants: the wage is death” (Romans 3:23a Phillips). Sin causes death. “But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 3:23b). God gives life. He is not the author of death, but of life. The resurrection is proof of this, for death could not hold Christ. Let us turn with full-face towards the radiant love or our Father and have him purge us clean of all that is un-love and recreate us into His very likeness… now and forevermore.
P.S. “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, ardor is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised” (Song of Solomon 8: 6-7). Here we see that love, true Love is “the very flame of the Lord”. God will not parlay with us or with sin (and bless His Holy name for it). He purges sin…purges us clean with the fire of love. Paul was right when he said, “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8: 38-39). Even the irreclaimable sinners cannot be separated “from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (ibid). Amen! And let it be so!
With Brotherly love,
Jim