heaven

Will Donald Trump be welcomed into heaven?

/ MurrayCampbell

Will Donald Trump be welcomed into heaven?

 I didn’t expect that question to be going viral this week! But then again, we are all living Alice’s Wonderland of the late Roman Empire. 

This week, during an interview on Fox & Friends, President Trump was speaking of the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. As he spoke of the hopes for the war coming to an end and for some kind of peace to be established, he mentioned his hope for heaven.

“I wanna end it. You know, we’re not losing American lives … we’re losing Russian and Ukrainian mostly soldiers…I wanna try and get to heaven if possible. I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons.” 

Whatever one might think of the sitting American president, he has a sense of humour, and even these remarks contain a touch of jocularity.  Part of the problem when writing about President Trump is that people are so entrenched in their opinions, any thought bubble not fitting prior judgments of the man simply blows away. No doubt, Trumpites are trumpeting his sainthood and have already assumed he is the 13th Apostle. Others are equally convinced Donald Trump is the Devil incarnate and worse than Hitler!

Later on, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked if the President was “partially seeking peace in order to get to heaven. Was he joking or is there spiritual motivation?”

She answered, 

“I think the President was serious. I think the President wants to get to heaven as I hope we all do in this room”.

I’m not God (obvious), and so I don’t have access to the President’s heart. He certainly has a public record that spells out danger. If, however, there is something to the rumours circulating since the first attempt on his life one year ago, President Trump has, at the very least,  been forced to examine the question of mortality.

The question of heaven is one that almost every single person on the planet will ask. Even the most ‘true blue’ naturalist and atheist is likely to ponder whether the God who doesn’t exist will let them into the heaven they believe is fiction. When confronted with death, the word from Ecclesiastes proves true, ‘He has also set eternity in the human heart’ (3:11).  We ask. We even long for an answer in the affirmative. 

What must I do to gain entry into heaven? Who must I be or become to find welcome into God’s home?

Before we get to the answer given by Jesus, let’s consider the President’s plan.

Whether his comment was said in jest or with a doss of honesty, Donald Trump signals that he’s near the bottom of the pile.  His working assumption is that getting to heaven is about moral conduct and or spiritual aptitude. It’s a totem pole or ladder we climb. If the President can bring to a close what is the worst war in Europe since 1945, surely that counts as a big leg up in God’s eyes. 

In effect, the President is relying on the same view of God and heaven that is shared among most of the world’s religions (including distorted views of Christianity): Heaven is reward for the holy, and we achieve this status through self-improvement and helping others, whether it is a volume of good works or spiritual exercises.

The problem with this assumption is that it doesn’t work. It places too much confidence in our ability to create personal righteousness, it belittles our record of personal transgressions, and it thinks too lowly of God’s holiness and too little of God’s grace. Let me explain.

The Gospel of Luke famously retells two encounters where an individual asks the question of Jesus,

“what must I do to inherit eternal life?’”

It’s essentially the same question Donald Trump is asking. 

The first man to approach Jesus was a religious academic. The second man is described as a ruler. He was a local official of some description who also had significant wealth.  One can read about the religious leader in Luke 10:25-37, but let’s focus on the second inquisitor.

A local ruler asks Jesus, ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus turns and asks a question about the requirements in God’s law: Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, and so on.

 The ruler recites the laws, and, whether he’s being honest or dishonest or delusional, he informs Jesus that he has judiciously followed God’s precepts since boyhood. Sounds good so far. But then Jesus went where the man did not want to go: his heart. 

“You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

“When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

The point is not that one can enter God’s Kingdom if our godliness measures up; the point is, no one does. 

If Jesus’ assessment isn’t explosive enough, when the disciples follow up with this question, ‘who then can be saved?’, Jesus states the obvious: 

 “What is impossible with man is possible with God.” 

We can’t con God. The bloke who is paying for his kids’ school fees while having an affair is still behaving reprehensibly, no matter how much the school fees are costing him. The President who secures a peace deal (as good as that is, and we pray that he will succeed), does not remove or justify or excuse a lifetime of dishonouring the God who exists and mistreating others. 

In what can only be described as a devastating analysis of human hubris and religious zeal, the Apostle Paul exposes the notion that human beings can ascend to where God is,

“You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.” (Romans 2:1-5)

These words jar and clash with our sensibilities, but thank God someone is honest with us. Paul continues, 

“There is no one righteous, not even one;

 there is no one who understands;

    there is no one who seeks God.

All have turned away,”

We might even mutter an ‘Amen’ to these words as we consider the American President, but the thing is Paul is also speaking of us. 

This is one of the key ideas of Christianity that unsettled the world in those early centuries AD, and again in the 16th Century and still today in many parts of the world. Christianity is not a religion of merit, but of grace.  It’s not about reward, but repentance. It’s not forging a golden staircase to heaven but receiving forgiveness brought about by a bloody cross.

Another American President once preached, ‘ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.’

Jesus preached a very different message. He came down from heaven and announced, ‘what’s impossible for you is possible for God’: salvation is not what we do for God, it is what God has accomplished for us. He then laid down his life to pay for the sins of many. 

Heaven isn’t a reward for the best of humanity; it is the gift of God to the worst.

Once we realise God’s peace plan, it changes us inside out. It requires humility and confession. This grace changes your outlook and ambition; it reorients how we view the people around us.

So, will Donald Trump make it to heaven? According to Jesus, the answer is no, not if he believes in himself and thinks that his ‘good’ conduct is going to impress the God of the universe. If, like anyone who is convinced by Jesus, and so repents and believes God’s gracious gift, then the answer is yes,   Donald Trump will be welcomed by God.  

That answer will probably grate on the many who see the American President as an existential threat to whatever it is you value, and it might bring a smile to those who adore Donald Trump. But both those responses fail to appreciate the nature of grace. Presidents and Prime Ministers, billionaires and the poor, company executives and employees, everyone without exception will meet God and be held to account. That prospect ought to terrify even the most self-confident.

Should God…can God… open his heart and home to the moral incalcitrant and spiritually vacuous? For us, it’s impossible, but with the God of grace through Jesus, it is certain. 

Do Christians still believe in hell today? A response to Robyn Whitaker

/ MurrayCampbell

“If you don’t believe in hell, you’ll never heard the love of God.” (Tim Keller)

 

As part of commemorating Easter, the Conversation published two articles by Uniting Church minister and theological college lecturer, Robyn Whitaker. 

Whitaker is (as I suspect many pastors have done in the past few weeks)  offering a contribution to the public debate on hell, which has followed Israel Folau’s recent Instagram comments.

Whitaker provides an interesting and at times informative account of the biblical notions of heaven and hell, but readers are left wondering whether we are meant to believe that these destinations are believable today.

It is difficult to know what Whitaker personally believes about heaven and hell. Her excurses take us through some biblical material and references to ANE religions, but there appears to be a reluctance to share what she herself believes. More problematic is the direction she is leaving for her readers.  It feels like an ethereal rendition of John Lennon’s,

‘Imagine there’s no heaven

It’s easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky’

 

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First of all, where does heaven and hell come from?

Readers are given the impression that heaven and hell don’t originate with God of the Bible, but rather they are evolving compilation of many different faith traditions. Whitaker notes the possible influence of cultures surrounding ancient Israel and Judea. While the Bible at times utilises words and images from surrounding cultures, that does not mean that the biblical concepts depend on or are derived from these religious settings.

The Bible describes heaven and hell as places created by and belonging to God, as much as this universe is made by the same God. Biblical authors may at times borrow language from other places to help readers understand what heaven and hell are about (of much greater influence on the New Testament is a heavy dependence on the Old Testament), but to imply that the Biblical teaching should be traced to another religious milieu is both unnecessary and counters the Scriptures themselves (i.e. Acts 17:16-31).

Whitaker not only suggests the Bible’s teaching about heaven and hell are sourced from other ancient religions, rather than originating with God himself, dotted throughout her presentation are misleading phrases like, “mythic stories”,  which reinforce the view that the Bible is either unreliable or is little more than a superb piece of fiction. The quote by Paula Gooder is telling in this regard,

“it is impossible to state categorically what the Bible as a whole says about heaven… Biblical beliefs about heaven are varied, complex and fluid.”

Two millennia of  Creeds, Catechesis, and doctrinal statements have achieved the very thing that Gooder says is impossible! That does not mean that every aspect of the Bible’s teaching on heaven and hell are captured in any of these statements, but the essence of and a faithful representation of these teachings can be accomplished.

Second, is hell a real place?

Whitaker’s argument leaves readers believing that the answer is a likely, no. While Whitaker is more than willing to accept heaven as an ultimate place (by which she understands heaven to be the healing and transformation of this world), her confidence in a literal hell is lacking, to say the least.

For example, Whitaker makes a big deal of the Bible’s use of metaphors and imagery and does so in a way that explains away any imperative to believe these things are representative of real and concrete places.

Jesus frequently used allegories and analogies in his teaching to convey concrete realities. For example, the mustard seed describing the kingdom of heaven, or the farmer’s seed which represents the word of God. The illustrations are vivid descriptions describing very real things. Similarly, fire and smoke and gnashing of teeth may be rhetorical and symbolic but they are not describing a fiction destination but an eternal place.

Speaking of the book of Revelation Whitaker says,

“It should be noted that these are poetic and highly symbolic apocalyptic texts whose purpose is primarily to persuade people to stay faithful to their God, not to set out a precise agenda for the afterlife.”

Why create the dichotomy? Can’t such texts achieve both? The opening verses of Revelation certainly suggest that the book is presenting an agenda for life both this side of death and on the other side.

“The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.” (Revelation 1:1-4)

In addition, there are plenty of non-poetic and non-apocalyptic texts within Scripture that explain future resurrection to either eternal life or to judgment.

“Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Hebrews 9:27)

“ If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.” (Hebrews 10:26-27)

Whitaker then suggests that the Bible itself implies that hell may not be a literal place. She contends,

“One challenge to the idea of hell as a literal place comes from the Bible itself. Parts of the New Testament record that when Jesus died on the cross he descended into the realm of the dead.”

“These fleeting references were preserved in ancient Christian creeds. Medieval Christians called Jesus’ descent to the dead the “harrowing of hell”. The theology behind it is that even the realm of the dead (hell) and death itself have been transformed by God.”

If I have accurately joined her dots together, Whitaker appears to be making the same error that some Reformed and Medieval theologians made, and that is to conflate the realm of the dead with hell. Death and hell are not the same. As Michael Bird explains in Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction,

“The New Testament distinguishes hadēs (waiting place of the dead) from geenna (judgment place for the dead).”

Part of the confusion with Jesus’ descending to the dead (or to hell) lays with a mistranslation of the creed. As Bird explains,

“the Latin creed does not say that Christ descended into hell. This wrong “tradition” is based on a mistranslation of the Latin. The Latin ad inferos found in the creed means “to the grave, the place of the dead” (i.e., hadēs). It does not say ad infernum, meaning “to hell,” the place of punishment after death…A better English translation of the creed, which is used in the Church of England, is this: “He descended to the dead.” In other words, the wrong “tradition” about a descent into hell is really a wrong translation of the Latin perpetuated by the Reformers, who did not differentiate “hell” from “Hades.”

Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection did not close the door on hell or bring about its demolition, rather his atoning sacrifice saved from entering hell those who repent of their sin and put their faith in Him.

And what about this unnecessary yet loaded phrase, “fleeting references”? Again, Whitaker is carefully laying down rhetorical mines to undermine confidence in the Bible. It’s as though she is saying, because the number of references are few, the teaching can’t be all that important or all that reliable.  How many Bible verses are required before we ditch ‘fleeting’ and treat the subject with due seriousness? As it happens, the topic of hell and of a final judgment is pretty commonplace in the New Testament, with it being spoken of in passing commentary and in extended didactic argument and portrayed in lengthy apocalyptic teaching. Lest we forget, Jesus taught about hell more often than any other person in the New Testament.

“If Jesus, the Lord of Love and Author of Grace spoke about hell more often, and in a more vivid, blood-curdling manner than anyone else, it must be a crucial truth.” (Tim Keller)

Third, motivation for talking about hell.

Robyn Whitaker (perhaps as a swipe at Israel Folau), mocks Christians who talk about hell.

“Similarly, some Christians invoke hell to persuade individuals to repent of their sins. Such rhetoric is from a different time and place, when scaring people into faith seemed like a good idea.”

There is some wisdom here, at least in terms of emphases. Becoming a Christian is not primarily about avoiding hell. Preachers who fixate on hell and not on Jesus Christ are in danger of skewing the good news message of Christianity. The Gospel is wonderful and amazing news of reconciliation with the living God through Christ, but it not less than salvation from hell, but more. Keep in mind, it is Jesus who invoked hell as a means of warning people from ungodly living,

“If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”(Matthew 5:29)

“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell”. (Matthew 10:28)

Fourth. What God do we believe in?

In her conclusion, Robyn Whitaker reveals what the conversation is really about. Our views about heaven and hell reveal underlying suppositions about what we believe God is like.

“It begs the question – does hell continue to exist? Many Christians today would say no. Others claim an ongoing belief in a literal place of eternal punishment, which raises a different theological question: what kind of God do you believe in to think God consigns people to eternal torment?”

What we say about heaven and hell reflects what we believe about the Bible and ultimately about God.

What God do we believe in? Do we believe in a God who is telling us the truth in his word or in a God who fibbing or who has changed his mind or is unable to keep his word?

The Bible speaks of God who is love and who is holy. It is because of this love and holiness that hell exists. It is because of this love and holiness, God sent his only Son as a propitiation for our sins, and thus offering forgiveness and eternal wonder instead of his just judgment.

Part of the biblical teaching on hell is to remind and even encourage people that God is just and will bring about righteous judgment. If there is no final judgment, then what are we to suppose to conclude about justice and about God’s character and about hope for those who have suffered injustice?

Is the Bible warning humanity about a judgment that will not come? Is God’s promise of eternal life not eternal? When Jesus promised to return at the eschaton was he telling a whopper? And where is Jesus right now, following his resurrection and ascension? Major aspects of the atonement lose their power and significance, and so does Christ’s resurrection. If we follow Whitaker’s line of thinking we are left with a very different Christianity and a very different God.

What impression do her two articles leave with the reader? We conclude that hell is a minor theme mentioned by a few bible writers who were depending on other ancient religions for the concept, but isn’t something Christians really believe today, except for those few left behind angry medieval preaching type Christians. We are left sensing that both hell and heaven are difficult to pin down, and among Christians, there are diverging views and it is not necessary to that there is such a place known as hell. Is this a helpful conclusion to leave both Christians and unbelievers alike? Is this a recognisable Christian message?

If our speech about heaven and hell leaves people in doubt as to their existence, we have failed to be clear and faithful. If the Lord Jesus taught these topics with clarity and concern, should we not also?

If our speech muddies the Divine promise of a new heavens and new earth and of eternal judgment for the unrepentant, we are misrepresenting God and we are stripping people of hope. 

If our speech denies either the existence of heaven or of hell, then we have failed to be Christian. Christians may wrestle with the biblical material and be confused at times, but to explain away either heaven or hell is to ultimately set ourselves against the teaching of Jesus Christ and against God-given reasons for which he died on the cross and was raised to life.

“Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death.15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.” (Revelation 20:11-15)

“Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” (Revelation 21:1-5)

 

 

 

 

April 30th – A friend of mine who is familiar with Paula Goode’s writings has sent me a helpful email where she points out that Robyn Whitaker seems to have quoted Goode out of context. Far from undermining the ontological reality of heaven, Goode is simply noting the difficulty facing biblical writers in finding vocabulary and imagery to fully explain the wonder that is heaven.