Those Who Will Not Dance - Christian Universalism

Those Who Will Not Dance (Matthew 11:1-19)

Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Philippians 2:9-11

New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

⁹ Therefore God also highly exalted him
    and gave him the name
    that is above every name,
¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus
    every knee should bend,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue should confess
    that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

           

In Colossians 1:15-20, the word is about Jesus.  We read … 

“¹⁵ He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; ¹⁶ for in^[h] him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷ He himself is before all things, and in^[i] him all things hold together. ¹⁸ He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. ¹⁹ For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, ²⁰ and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”

And then in 1 Corinthians 15:20-28

²⁰ But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.^[a] 21 For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; ²² for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. ²³ But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. ²⁴ Then comes the end,^[b]when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. ²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death. ²⁷ For “God^[c] has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under him. 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.

            From these verses, can we safely acknowledge that the New Testament affirms universal salvation, or at least the letters of Paul affirm universalism?  Of course Universalism refers to the doctrine that in the end, the very end, all people are saved.  Hell is empty because everyone, everyone, gets saved.  Everyone goes to Heaven.

            “At the name of Jesus every knee should bend … and every tongue confess that [He] is Lord.”  Every single one.

            “Through Him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things.”

            “As all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.”

            The thread of universalism weaves through Christianity going back to the earliest times.  There have been theological heavyweights who believed that all are saved.  The most notable in the history of Christianity is Origin, born in 185 AD in the Egyptian city of Alexandria.  Th0ugh he was not branded a heretic, succeeding generations rejected him as a trustworthy theologian because of his opinion that in the end all are saved.[i]

            Origin believed in Hell, but he believed the fires of Hell serve to purify, not torture, punish, or destroy.  This view is a fringe view, far from the most widely-held view that Hell is eternal, conscious torment inflicted by God as punishment for sin.  However, even though it is a minority position, many held it including Gregory of Nyssa.[ii]  One of the most renowned of 20^th century theologians, Karl Barth, has universalist overtones throughout his work.  And more recently, there is the provocative book Love Wins by Rob Bell.  Bell poses questions more than he offers answers.  His questions could lead the reader, with Bible open, to at least consider the possibility of universal salvation.

            Some lesser known theologians, at least not as familiar to me, attempt to assert the case more forcefully.  I offer here a few of the arguments for universalism.  Already we have considered some scripture passage, all from the Apostle Paul, that indeed are suggestive. 

            To this, universalists add the argument for the character of God.  God is love.  This is seen in God’s actions throughout the Bible and is explicitly stated in First John, chapter 4, the second part of verse 16.  The nature of God is love and universalists argue that God will not violate God’s own nature.  To condemn people to Hell, an eternity of suffering, even when the punishment is deserved, goes against God’s nature of love.  God will not go against God’s nature.  I heard one pastor say it this way.

I love my children.  No matter what they did, no matter how they misbehaved, I would not sentence them to eternity in Hell.  God’s love is more perfect than mine and each person is a child of God.  God would not send his children to Hell for eternity.[iii]

            Universalists carry this sense of God’s love to their reading of Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep, found in Luke 15.  God is the shepherd who goes out to find the lost sheep.  Jesus clearly says there that the shepherd does not stop seeking until the lost is found.  The implication?  God is the good shepherd.  He will not abandon us to Hell, but will seek until each and every lost person is found. 

            The proponent of universalism would undoubtedly take the point further and add much in detail.  But I think we can see from what I have shared here a foundation for this doctrine.  The scriptures I mentioned from Paul’s writings declare Jesus has died for all and the case makes sense.  It is a logical argument.  So is the argument for the nature of God – that God is love and love cannot abandon people to Hell and still be called love.  Love seeks desperately for the beloved.  If God is the one seeking, well, God gets what God is after. 

            Bell asks a poignant question.  Does God get what God wants?[iv]  Listen to 2^nd Peter 3:9.  At this point the letter is addressing scoffers who reject the notion that Jesus will come back and set the world right.  In response to any who reject Christianity because Jesus has not returned since the resurrection and ascension, it says, “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.”  Not wanting any to perish … does God get what God wants?  God is, after all, God.  If God does not want anyone to die, will anyone die, eternally?

            Karl Barth came up short of saying that all would be saved.  Barth writes,

We died; the totality of all sinful [people], those living, those long dead, and those still to be born, Christians who necessarily know and proclaim it, but also Jews and heathen, whether they hear and receive the news or whether they tried and still try to escape it.  His death was the death of all: quite independently of their attitude or response to this event.[v]

Though this and many comments by him carry the potential for universalism, Barth would not commit to it.  In fact, late in life he confided to a friend that he had a dream about Hell as a vast, cold, utterly lonely desert.  The dream haunted him and he told the friend of it.  He said he knows about that place, Hell, and for that reason, he must preach Christ.[vi]

            Bell too comes up short of commitment to universalism.  He asks, “Will everybody be saved, or will some perish apart from God forever because of their choices?”  Bell’s response to his own question is “those are questions, or more accurately, those are tensions we are free to leave fully intact. We don’t need to resolve them or answer them because we can’t, and so we simply respect them, creating space for the freedom that love requires.” [vii]

            I understand Bell’s quote, opaque as it is.  There is much about the afterlife and God’s plans we do not know and cannot know.  We do not know whether there literally is a book of life with names written or the idea of “book” is a metaphor that represents God’s mind.  Of course it is a metaphor, but we don’t know God’s method of record keeping.  There are many tensions in questions the Bible does not answer or does not answer completely or does not answer the way we wished it would.  I appreciate that.  I appreciate the logic of saying God is love and thus, God will not violate God’s own nature, and thus, God will not allow anyone to spend eternity suffering in Hell.  I see how that makes sense.

            However, in my own reading of scripture, I cannot accept universalism.  I am not offering here a standard traditionalist response that involves a listed of scriptures used to defend the idea of Hell.  You can find that argument on the internet or read authors like Larry Dixon or J.I. Packer, just to name a few of 100’s.  My response comes from my own sense of the New Testament.  I believe God is love.  God as the giver of perfect love and as the expression of perfect love implores us to choose to worship Him.  God does not force us.  We choose.  God is broken when we choose not to love and worship God.  But God knows some will make that choice.  When they do, God honors that choice.

            Consider Matthew chapter 11.  Jesus is addressing a crowd that had followed John the Baptist.  Now, John is wallowing in Herod’s jail cell, and the crowd has moved.  From one Messianic voice to the next, from John to Jesus, the crowd follows the wind.  Jesus confronts this fickle crowd with the truth. He says,

“What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? ⁸ What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. ⁹ What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. ¹⁰ This is the one about whom it is written,

‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
            who will prepare your way before you.’

¹¹ Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. ¹² From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. ¹³ For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John came; ¹⁴ and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. ¹⁵ Let anyone with ears listen!

¹⁶ “But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,

¹⁷ ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
            we wailed, and you did not mourn.’

¹⁸ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; ¹⁹ the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

            When Jesus plays his music, there will always be those who do not dance.  There will always be people, made in the image of God, lost sheep, who ignore the shepherd’s voice.  The passage we read from 2^nd Peter 3:9 says God wants all to come to repentance.  It does not say God will force all to come to repentance. Repentance is not something that can be forced.  It must be chosen.  Throughout the gospels, Jesus teaches, with urgency, that all people must repent of sin and turn to Him and there are consequences if they do not.  When he approaches Jerusalem prior to being crucified, he weeps saying, “You did not recognizes the time of your visitation from God.”

            Some did see him and chose to follow him.  Many others did not.  They cheered him when he rode into town, but they also cheered and jeered when he was on the cross.  Of those who rejected Jesus, a few came to faith after the resurrection.  His half-brother James is the most notable example.  Most others did not turn to Him in faith.  They chose to reject the salvation God offered.  It has been the same throughout history.  People choose to reject what God offers.

            God, I believe and I think the Bible shows, will honor that choice.  God will honor our decision to reject God and we can spend eternity without God.  That is Hell. 

            I will say more about that next week.  Today, I want to finish by saying, thankfully, that this one thing is most assuredly true.  God is love.  God is here for each and every one of us.  If we choose to turn away from our sins and turn to Him, God will receive us.  God will adopt us.  In Christ we become sons and daughters of God, beginning now, today, and living in His Kingdom for eternity.  For a time, we live in a fallen and broken world.  But God is going to redeem it.  The Kingdom we begin living in when we choose Jesus will become fully known at His Second Coming. 

            Jesus is playing His music.  You have the freedom to ignore it.  But life is on the dance floor.  So come to Him, the Lord of the Dance, come to Him for life. 

AMEN

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[i] Jonathan Hill (2003), The History of Christian Thought, p. 39-60.

[ii] Ibid, p.57.

[iii] Jim Dant ended his speech with this assertion of universal salvation.  What I wrote here is a paraphrase of his words that I am writing from memory.  He shared this at the workshop he led at the national meeting of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in Charlotte, NC, 2010.

[iv] Rob Bell (2011) Love Wins.  Chapter 4 is titled, “Does God get what God wants?”

[v] Larry Dixon (2003), The Other Side of the Good News, p.45.  Dixon is quoting Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol 4, part 1, p.295.

[vi] Ibid, p.49.

[vii] Love Wins, p.115.

Heaven or Hell - A Crucial Question

Heaven or Hell – A Crucial Question (Revelation 21:3-4)

          Author Rebecca Price Janney begins her book about the way Americans think about the afterlife by looking at Mother Teresa and Princess Diana who died around the same time.  At the British embassy in Washington DC, someone set up a large placard that read, “The angels rejoice for heaven welcomes Princess Diana and Mother Teresa.”  A decade later at a concert in Princess Diana’s honor, the performer proclaimed she was “up there” listening.[i]

          How does he know Heaven is “up there?”  How does he know Princess Diana is in Heaven?  How does he know she is spending her there listening to his concert?  How does he know Princess Diana is in Heaven at all?  Or Mother Teresa for that matter. 

How dare you question her credentials!  Look at all the good she did, all the people helped.  But wait!  Don’t we say salvation by grace?  We receive it.  We don’t earn it.  How could Mother Teresa earn something that can’t be earned?  If anyone deserves Heaven, she does.  Oh?  Doesn’t it say in Romans, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (3:23)? 

Why would the person who made the placard put Princess Diana in the same category as Mother Teresa?

          Janney in her book also quotes a New York City firefighter.  Many of his buddies died on September 11, 2001.  He said, “Heaven has some fire department now.”  Not a one of us would begrudge his feelings.  We say such things when someone we admire or love dies. 

But stepping back from it, we have to ask, did he do any kind of assessment of the spiritual condition of his friends in the fire department?  Or do we just say they deserve Heaven because they sacrificed themselves?   

          I have been at funerals where the deceased was someone who did not participate in church and had not for decades.  The deceased cursed and drank, was crabby and mean, and showed no reverence for God.  At the coffin, one of his old friends standing by wipes his eyes and says, “Well, at least he’s in a better place.”  What is the basis for saying that?

          Janney writes, “Contemporary Americans tend to believe that all people go to Heaven and view the idea of Hell as repugnant.  There is a general assumption that unless someone was a child pornographer, racist, drug lord, or terrorist he or she will go to Heaven.”  Then Janney writes in parentheses, “Of course child pornographers, racists, drug lords, and terrorists also believe they are going to Heaven.”[ii]   Is there more to go on than what we feel and what hope? 

          Some in the church see it in black and white.  A friend of mine told of a funeral where he was one of the pall-bearers.  As they others carried the casket toward the burial site, the officiating pastor said, “He is in Hell.  He did not believe in Jesus and now he is in Hell.”[iii]

          In critical debates among theologians the most commonly held view of Hell going back to the earliest times of Christianity is summarized as eternal conscious torment inflicted and maintained by God.  That serves as a default position, but it is not the only view.

Pastor and author Rob Bell has an issue with this notion of Hell.  On the book jacket of his 2011 book Love Wins is the following quote.  “God love us.  God offers us everlasting life by grace, freely, through no merit on our part … unless you do not respond the right way.  Then God will torture you forever in Hell.”  Huh?

          Bell’s phrase ‘respond the right way’ means offering some form of confession that we are sinners, Jesus died for us, and we receive the forgiveness and salvation from him, because of his death on the cross. Failure to make a Christian confession lands one in Hell, eternally tortured by God.  Bell finds this unacceptable.  How can the God of love sentence nonbelievers to eternal misery in Hell?  Bell does not believe God does things that way.

          And yet, eternal, conscious torment is the traditional Christian perspective.  It is either Heaven or Hell.  They are places.  To go Heaven and avoid Hell, we need to confess our faith in Jesus.  If we don’t, then when we die, a pastor lacking sensitivity may stand at the head of our casket, point, and say, “He’s in Hell.  She’s in Hell.”  If the traditional doctrine of Hell is correct, then this pastor is speaking the truth.  But, even if the traditional doctrine is not right, one thing is certain.  All of us die.  Every single one of us dies.

          What happens then?  Would you like to have legitimate hope that you exist beyond death and your existence beyond death is positive?  And what about friends, people we love who are not in Church, who are not Christians?  They die too. What happens to those not following Jesus? 

          We need help in this conversation.  List to Revelation 20:12-15.

          Revelation, 20:11-15.

¹² And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books. ¹³ And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and all were judged according to what they had done. ¹⁴ Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; ¹⁵ and anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

            The Bible says something happens; we are judged according to our works. All people are sinners and God absolutely hates sin.  In the book of Genesis, God rains fire from heaven and consumes two immoral cities – Sodom and Gomorrah.  That’s how God feels about sin.  God is depicted as a God of love in the Bible, but God is also a God of wrath.   That is unmistakable. 

          However, all who are in Christ are declared righteous.  Our sins are forgiven and no longer count against us.  So when Revelation says the dead will be judged according to their works, we keep in mind that Jesus’ followers are judged according to Jesus’ works. 

          All the dead of human history– billions of people - are gathered.  The book of life is opened, the names are read.  Death and Hades are thrown into a lake of fire.  These conditions will no longer exist. In the eternal Kingdom of God’s death will be a meaningless word because the concept will have been consumed in the lake of fire.  But not only death.  Verse 15:  “Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life is thrown into the lake of fire.” 

What is it like in that lake of fire?  Some theologians insist it means you’re consumed forever, annihilated.  That’s what fire does.  Others insist that the fire is metaphor and you’ll be awake for eternity suffering as badly as if you constantly felt the burn of flames on your flesh.  A third position is that that the fire purifies.  All the corruption is burned off, one comes out clean, and then finds his name in the book of life. 

In this series, we will look more at these three doctrines of Hell – Annihilationist, Eternal Torment, and Refining which leads all people to salvation.   For now, we simply acknowledge that all people die.  And all people, per Revelation, go through the judgment.  Death itself ends up in a lake of fire. And those not written in the book of life do too. 

In his letter to the church in Thessalonica, the Apostle Paul addresses the issue of death to those who are followers of Jesus.  The Thessalonians were sure of eternal life with God in Christ.  Notice I am not saying they necessarily thought they’d go to Heaven when they died.  The concept of Heaven many have been taught in Churches is not exactly what the New Testament emphasizes.  In the New Testament we read more about living eternally.  The Thessalonians thought that because Jesus has risen from death they would never die.

What we are actually promised is we will join him in resurrection.  Only dead people are resurrected.  When members started dying, the Thessalonians suffered a devastating crisis of faith.  Some of their brothers died, and Jesus had not come back.  What did it mean?

Paul writes in 1^st Thessalonians 4:13.

¹³ But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters,^[g] about those who have died,^[h] so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. ¹⁴ For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.^[i] 15 For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died.^[j] 16 For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.

          Paul lays out the entire plan.  First, when we grieve our beloved after they have died, our grief is soaked in hope.  Jesus, the Resurrected One, will “bring with him those who have died.”  There will be the archangel’s call and the sound of God’s trumpet.  Then, the Lord descends from Heaven.  The dead in Christ rise.  People who died centuries ago are reconstituted in resurrected bodies and rise to Christ.  Can we picture this?  When we get to end of verse 17, Heaven has come to us.  The promise on which we stand is that we are with Jesus forever.

          Why did Paul write this? So the believers who faced death could encourage one another.  He thought the best thing he could tell them, of all the truths he could share, was they would be with Jesus forever. 

          Hell is horrifying.  I feel myself a character in horror movie.  I feel every awful thing in my bones and I cannot get out.  When that foreboding begins to wash over me, I retreat to the Gospel.

          That’s what Paul is telling us to do. Trust in Jesus.  The faith we have in Him assures us we will be with him.  Whatever Heaven is like, however different than we have maybe been taught to believe, the promise is we will be with Jesus.  The only way our discussion of this topic will be spiritually healthy and helpful is if we trust in Him.  We trust Him with our future and our present. 

          Some believers think the threat of Hell is the best way to motivate nonbelievers to consider turning to Jesus, but not me.  For me, the promise of life with Christ is the drive for sharing faith.  That life begins when one turns to Jesus and continues when we die and then enter the resurrection. 

          When we conclude this series on the afterlife, it will be fine with me if you don’t hold all the same theological positions as I do.  Whether you and I agree or disagree on doctrines of Heaven and Hell, I believe your life and mine will be utterly blessed today – not only in a distant afterlife but also today, right now when we learn how to live in complete trust. We trust Jesus with our very lives and in the smallest bits of our lives and in every bit of our lives. 

          In that we begin to understand and live in the world described in Revelation 21.  There, John sees into Heaven. 

           ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“See, the home^[a] of God is among mortals.
He will dwell^[b] with them;
they will be his peoples,^[c]
and God himself will be with them;^[d]
4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”

⁵ And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” ⁶ Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. 

            If we are in Christ, forever begins today.  The more we trust Him, follow and serve Him, and love in His name, the truer our experience of Him with us becomes and the clearer our picture of Heaven is.  It will be familiar even before we get there because we have been walking with Him all along.

AMEN

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[i] Rebecca Price Janney (2009), Who Goes There: A Cultural History of Heaven and Hell, p.9.

[ii] Ibid, p.10.

[iii] As told to me by Jim Greenlee.