Wild attempts at thinking things through.
Answers to questions submitted through this blog.
Anonymous asks: Have you read “The Evangelical Universalist” or “The Inescapable Love of God”? If so, what do you make of Evangelical Universalism?
No I haven’t, but I have downloaded the first of these and will post a review when I am done.
Anonymous asks:
Do you agree with the image at the link below regarding after death happenings? http://www.bible.ca/hades-lk-16.gif
[Image reproduced here]
Thanks for the question. The answer is “mostly.” It is a diagram that refers to the “intermediate state” – that state of existence between a person’s physical death and the return of Christ and the final judgement. I’ve answered a question on this topic previously.
The diagram draws heavily on the Luke 16 parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus which portrays an existence in which there is a “great gulf” between the (righteous) Lazarus and Abraham and the (unrighteous) Rich Man. I assume the word “paradise” is taken from Christ’s proclamation on the cross to the one crucified next to him. “Tartarus” is a word from Greek Legend to do with the lowest reaches of the heavens and earth; it is not a biblical word and it is careless to use it.
Within the domain of “all humans” (circle on the left) you have a division between the “Power of Darkness” and the “Kingdom of Christ.” There is tartaric doom for those who are in the power of darkness and the “unfaithful” in the kingdom of Christ. I’m not sure what the originator is getting at here but this framework doesn’t sit well with me. The simple demarcator is Christ as Messiah and those that are “in Christ” by covenant of grace through faith and those who are not. I’m not too unhappy with “infants” being classified as those childlike innocents to which the Kingdom of God belongs but in my mind individualistic soteriological analysis such as this is unhelpful. The people of God are in Christ in paradise when they die, that is all that needs be said.
I have no problem with a general resurrection occurring before a final judgement at the end. I do have a difficulty with what follows that event. “Heaven” is a nebulous term. The way we use the word (as in “go to heaven when we die”) is actually more of a referent to the sense of paradise in the intermediate state. The resurrection glory that follows the general resurrection is not so much heavenly but immortal, glorified, new heavens and new earth including some sense of imperishable physicality. Consider 1 Cor 15.
And I am of the opinion that the Lake of Fire for those who are not in Christ is not a gateway to eternal torment but the means of the true eternal punishment – eradication of existence itself. In this sense, unless I can be convinced otherwise, I am something of an annihilationist.
Hope that helps.
CraigC. asks:
Does God want the Gospel spread by deceit? Is it is moral to collect donations on the basis of deceit? He has not promoted the Gospel but shamed it. God did not speak to Camping in any way but by Satan and his own imagination and deceit and greed. He does nothing to promote Christianity in any way, but in fact HARMs it. Maybe God should harm him (Deut 18).
Thanks for the question. I assume you’re referencing some of what I’ve had to say about doomsdayer Harold Camping.
I’m not sure where you’re coming from, but to answer your questions
No, God does not want the Gospel spread by deceit. However, there are many times when God has used the deceitful ways of men to his purposes. This is the simple demonstration that God’s will will be done and nothing, not even deceit, will prevent it.
No, it is not moral to collect donations on the basis of deceit. There are many so-called Christian organisations that are guilty of this. I watched a documentary the other day which attended the seminar of someone who promised corporate success through hypnotism. This man was at least upfront, but he looked and sounded, and used the same pyschological trickery as many prosperity breathing so-called evangelists who collect donations by this form of deceit. Camping is not alone in this regard.
Yes, I agree that Camping is not a true prophet and in many ways has harmed the cause of the gospel. Yet God is gracious, and even through this circumstance he will achieve his purpose.
God’s judgment on Camping is God’s. It is not my place to tell Him what to do.
Over the weekend I get hit with 1000+ spam through the Q&A inputs on this blog.
This means, unfortunately, that I have had to implement the inconvenience of including a captcha input to prove the input is from a human.
It also means that if you have posted a question in the last four days I will not receive it as all new Q&A submissions for that period are being deleted.
Thanks,
W.
St Paul’s Vestry asks: When there are more rabbits beneath the church than believers attending, is it time to fold-up?
Hi Vestry,
I don’t know, there can sometimes be a lot of rabbits beneath the church – 10’s, 100’s! 🙂
You question goes to viability and numbers, but also goes to the essence of ‘what is church’ – what exactly would be “folded up”?
1) Essence of church – without wanting to put in a big ecclesiological treatise, let us say that a church is a local community of the people of God through which the Spirit is at work in the ministry of Word and Sacrament.
2) Numerical viability. At what numerical point does this essence disappear? Obviously you cannot have a church of one. Jesus talks about where “two or three are gathered” (Matthew 18:20) in the context of bearing witness to the truth in confronting sin – perhaps that’s enough. Early churches, based on the synagogue model, expected 10 men to form the community – it might be myth, but I’ve heard this was the basis in early-Anglican-reformation days for only having a service of Holy Communion if 10 households signed up to receive it. More recently viability has been financially determined – the ability to support a paid cleric who can provide the ministry of word and sacrament, or where the ministry is provided voluntarily and locally, to simply maintain the necessary organisational infrastructure. One wonders what the correlation to the essence of church is, however – after all a lounge room doesn’t take much to maintain and it may have a lot of rabbits underneath!
So if by “folded up” you mean ceasing to meet and no longer being church – my answer would be “not necessarily”, even “no!” – particularly if there were no other churches nearby. If by “folded up” you mean something like “change the way in which the ministry is organised” or “sell the building” – my answer would be “probably” – but you wouldn’t really be folding up, you would simply be changing the form in which the essence of the church is held.
Of course, if a group meets in the name of Christ only but is not essentially the church then it should either get serious or pack up and go home, irrespective of size or the local rabbit population.
Bright spark! asks: Is it now possible to be an electronic Christian via all the technology?
What’s an electronic Christian? I assume you don’t mean robotics (‘Pastor Data’) so I take it referring to the use of technology in the necessary exercise of the Christian faith.
To which the answer is yes. But then, at that level it’s possible for someone to be a penpal Christian, a sign-language Christian or even a liturgically-dancing one.
But to focus on technology. Christianity is a communicative faith – it involves proclamation, and the bringing of good news. Over the centuries Christian mission has promoted and embraced new technologies. The early church leadership made use of letters and constructed networks for passing messages around different congregations. Church proclamation helped standardise languages – Latin and Greek in earlier times, German and English in later times. The earliest use of the printing press was to print Bibles, and later, tracts and magazines etc.
The electronic communication media is no different except perhaps in the sense that the Christian mission as received rather than innovated the technology – there are many examples of Radio, TV, VHS/DVD mail orders, Web sites, Social Media all being used for Christian purposes even if they were not developed for them.
So yes, you can be an “electronic Christian” but this is not a revolutionary thing, in fact its quite an old idea.
Shannon asks: Were you ever a member of Little River Band?
No. But I once had hair like John Farnhamin the ’80s
Big Bad Wolf asks: What is the practical role of recent retired people in the church? Stacking chairs and serving cups of tea?
Hi Wolf,
Is their some personal hurt behind your question? I would understand if there was because I have come across churches where the retired/older people are relegated to (what might sometimes be considered to be) menial or trivial tasks, and this is hurtful. So there might be a question behind your question.
But to interact with your question as it stands…
A church, like any organised community, takes a lot of energy to run. If people are to be blessed, particularly newcomers, then there is a necessary reliance on people putting their hand up to serve the community in many various ways. This includes stacking chairs and serving cups of tea!
So, there is no reason why a recently retired person should be excluded from acts of service, if they are willing and able. I have come across many recently retired people who have delighted to serve the church in such a way, and have valued the fact that they can carry some of that load while they have the energy and the freedom from caring from children etc. that may not be afforded to others. Let us not denigrate the necessity, importance, and value of those so-called menial tasks of service and those that volunteer for them. As someone who has reached the end of service to be faced with 100 chairs to pack up, having someone say, “Will, I’ll do that” is such a relief and a blessing, truly soothing. I value it greatly.
But perhaps your question implies an “only” – is that the “only” role for the recently retired? Absolutely not! Each member of the body is gifted according to the Spirit one to another so as to build the people of God and further the gospel. The task of the church is to encourage everyone, regardless of their age, towards ongoing maturity and the wise application of their gifts and talents.
However, if there is one direction that I would, generally speaking, encourage the “recently retired” to particularly explore, it is the task of mentoring. The age group you refer to have a particular wealth of experience and knowledge to gift the church with. If they can be involved in some way, large or small with the ongoing task of identifying, apprenticing, releasing and commisioning newer leaders they will have blessed God’s people and produced much fruit for his glory in that way, and it may be a useful framework for their direct hands-on ministry.
Thanks for the question,
W.
Anonymous asks:
G’day Will,
I was raised to believe that hell was a place of eternal torment.
I always had trouble accepting this teaching, as it seemed contrary to God’s character and that it seemed to be playing a role in turning people away from God……. “If God could be so mean and nasty as to painfully torture people in hell for eternity, then I don’t want anything to do with God”….. Perhaps you may have heard someone even speak these very words.
Strangely, I believe the bible does not teach this at all (eternal torment – eternal life in hell)
Eternal life is a gift, by the grace of God, to those whom give their hearts to Jesus. The alternative is to “perish”. The Lord shall “burn them up” to become “ashes”, leaving them “neither root nor branch”.
They “shall go away into everlasting punishment” and this punishment is to be eternally cut off from God, by death.
Jesus makes it ever so clear;
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16
Interestingly, it was the devil who was first to suggest that sinners would not die (Genesis 3:4). A hell where sinners never perish would prove the devil right.
Question: Can you please share some of your thoughts about this subject? What is it that you believe?
Thanks
Hi Anonymous,
I thought I had blogged about this topic before but I can’t seem to find it. If I do I’ll update this post with the link.
The view you are describing is a form of annihilationism with which I have some sympathy. In this view the hope of the gospel for salvation is towards eternal life forever in the peace and presence of God. But the question remains as to what happens to those who do not come to faith but choose to remain in their rebellion. Some say that all people will eventually come to faith (universalism, something I disagree with), or that those who do not trust in Jesus remain eternally in the power of their sin (the “traditional” eternal damnation viewpoint), or, as you espouse, that those who are not in Christ do no attain to the “eternal” as well as the “life” of “eternal life.”
There are some variations in the position – as to when the “ceasing to be” might happen – depending on the nuances of one’s eschatology – e.g. does it take place at death, before a millennium, after a millennium etc. My view is that for annihilationism to have any biblical justification it must be taken to be in effect post-judgement.
For me it is not a first order black-and-white issue. There are complexities around what the Bible means at various places by “death”, “second death”, “perishing”, “punishment” etc. Sometimes death is clearly relational only, sometimes it may be ontological. Some stories (such as Lazarus and the Rich Man) presuppose an ongoing existence, but possibly only during an intermediate time before the final judgement.
My response is:
1) To firstly assert the clear positive, the hope of the gospel is eternal life in and with Jesus Christ our Lord in the glory of God our Father. 1 Corinthians 15 makes the immortality of resurrection life very clear.
2) Turning to the back of the book, Revelation 19 and 20 refers to the imagery of a “lake of fire that burns with sulfur” (19:20). This lake of fire is interacted with as follows:
Hope this helps,
W.
Thankyou to those who have asked some Q&A questions. I haven’t forgotten them! Answers percolating and on the way.
