Scripture readings: Isaiah 57:14-21; Revelation
20:11-15; Matthew 25:31-46
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| Walking near the Columbia River, Mattawa/Desert Aire, WA March 2018 |
What is God like?
Jesus said, “He who has
seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9) So, what is God like?
Sometimes we read that God
is like a hand.”
David said this to God,
“My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.” (Psalm 63:8)
Hebrews says this about
God, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews
10:31)
What does it mean that God
is like a hand?
Sometimes we read that God
is like fire.
When the prophet Isaiah
received his calling to become a prophet, he had a vision of God enthroned in
glory surrounded by flaming angelic creatures called Seraphim.
The name seraph means burning
one. They are all fire, and wings, and eyes.
Isaiah was in agony with the
fear of his own sinfulness, so God sent a burning seraph to do something
important with fire. “One of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his
hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my
mouth, and said, ‘See, thIs has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and
your sin atoned for. “(Isaiah 6:6-7)
After the resurrection of
Jesus and his departure to heaven, the disciples were waiting for Jesus to send
the Holy Spirit, and this is how it happened: “Suddenly a sound like the
blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where
they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated
and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy
Spirit….” (Acts 2:2-4)
So, the Holy Spirit of God
and Jesus is like fire. The Holy Spirit enables us to follow, and serve, and be
the witnesses of Jesus. The Holy Spirit enables us, as the followers of Jesus,
to demonstrate the love shown by Jesus on the cross to take our sins away. So,
this is like fire. Those who follow Jesus are filled with something like fire.
In Hebrews, again, the
author wants us to be hopeful and excited in our faith, and so he says:
“Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be
thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is
a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:28) Security in the love of God and his kingdom
is like fire.
So, what do we think that God
is like, when we are told that God is like fire?
What do we think that God
is like when Jesus says, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)
What do we think when the apostle John writes that: “God is love.” (1 John 4:8)
We can see the connection between
Jesus and love. Then we hear Jesus say: “Depart from me, you who are cursed,
into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Matthew 25:41)
If God is like Jesus, what
is God like? If God is like fire, and if God is like Jesus, and if punishment
is like fire, then what is God like, and what is Jesus like?
I believe that the Bible
is the inspired word of God. I believe that, through the power of the Holy
Spirit, the Bible always says exactly what God wants it to say, exactly the way
God wants it said. And the same Holy Spirit inspires the hearts and minds of
those who read the Bible to receive exactly what God wants to tell them, so
long as they are ready to hear whatever God wants to tell them, exactly the way
God wants to tell them.
I don’t believe there are
any contradictions in the Bible. I do believe that it is perfectly possible to understand
the Bible and to make sense of it. I don’t believe that anything about the
history of the words of the Bible and how it may have been written and passed
down to us take anything away from its divine authority.
Jesus, the Living Word, is
truly human and truly God, and so he is able to give us everything we need as
human children of God. In the same way, the Written Word of God, in the Bible, is
truly human and truly divine, and, (because of this) it is able to give us
exactly what we need.
There have been many
people who have spoken and written about the geography of Hell, and the
temperature of Hell. There seem to be many Christians who are perfectly happy
to believe that there is a Hell and that some people are going there. There are
Christians who have a very clear idea of exactly who is going to Hell, and they
can hardly wait for that to happen.
I want to say something
about the mentality of Hell and, at the same time, I also want to tell you:
“Don’t go there!”
It’s clear that Hell has
something to do with punishment. But I don’t know if we even understand
punishment that well.
I don’t. But perhaps you
understand it on the basis of your experience as a parent, or as a spouse, in
family and marriage.
In my experience as a kid,
I think kids talk with each other and make plenty of comparisons about how they
are being raised. The 1950’s were the years of the final flowering of the
spanking. My friends and I were amazed when one of us shared that when he did
something wrong, his dad would get out a heavy leather belt, and pull down his
kid’s pants and underwear, and whip him on his bare bottom.
We knew that some of our
own parents had been raised like that. We were genuinely glad that this was a
thing of the past.
Let me tell you about the
punishment my dad gave me. My dad, when I did something that I knew I shouldn’t
do, would get mad. But my dad wouldn’t scream, or yell, or raise his voice. He
didn’t use bad words. My dad spanked me. He spanked me so that it stung, and I
would cry.
But by the time I was
about eight years old, I realized that although his spanking stung a little, it
didn’t really hurt at all. I suddenly realized this right in the middle of getting
a spanking.
I realized that it didn’t
hurt. This almost made me laugh, right in the middle of that spanking. I tried
not to laugh, but I think I snorted and gave myself away. That scared me for a
second, because I wondered, in that second, if it would make him madder.
I remember, at that very moment,
how my dad immediately stopped the spanking. He never spanked me again. After
that, when I did something that I knew I shouldn’t do, my dad wouldn’t scream.
He wouldn’t yell. He wouldn’t raise his voice. He wouldn’t use bad words. My
dad would simply look me in the eyes with anger and with a terrible, terrible
disappointment.
His eyes, that were
normally brown, would turn green for a minute. And I couldn’t stand that.
I mean, I wished that he
would spank me. In those days I would have rather been spanked so that it hurt,
at least a little. I would rather have had a spanking, than see that look in
those eyes. I think my behavior improved a lot when the only punishment I got
was that look in those eyes like an angry, sad, green fire.
With human beings, I don’t
think that plain and simple punishment does any good. OK, punishment may stop
bad behavior. But punishment will also open up a whole new world of trying to
get away with things without getting caught.
With my dad, that look in
those eyes left me helpless and I had no motivation to try to get away with
things without getting caught. There were more things in that green fire than
anger, there was disappointment, there was expectation, and there was love.
Punishment alone, plain
and simple, never touches the heart, and never makes you better. Good parents
know that punishment, plain and simple, is never their job.
Their job is to give their
children everything in their heart. Their job is to bring children to life, and
give their children more and more life, and give their children the capacity to
receive more life from God, and from the love and faithfulness of others.
The parents’ job is to
teach their children to use the lessons of the love they’ve received to become
givers of life and love to others, in their own right. Parents want their
children to be givers of life, especially to those who need it most: to give
that life and love most of all to those who need spanking, because they may
have children of their own.
The Lord says, “Vengeance
is mine, I will repay.” But this is not about punishment, plain and simple. God
is not about punishment and reward.
God is about creating life.
God is about giving to his created children the capacity to thrive in a life that
is learned from God and gifted by God. God is about creating and raising
children of his own.
In the Bible, fire has
strong associations with the holiness of God. Fire often appears when holiness
is broken and when punishment becomes the order of the day.
We think of holiness as a
standard of perfection, and we think of perfection as never making mistakes,
and never breaking rules or laws. Holiness is actually an ability to be devoted
to a purpose, to have a goal in view and never letting go of it. Holiness means
the capacity to focus on your goal and not deviate from it, ever.
God’s goal is not law
keeping. God’s goal is life and love. God’s goal is thriving, and joy, and
appreciation, and thankfulness, and praise. God’s goal is to say to every one
of us, as creatures who have spread the beauty of goodness: “Well done good and
faithful servant.”
Holiness is only one
characteristic of God that we call an “attribute”. What we might call God’s
moral attributes include holiness, justice, and love, and a number of other
very fine qualities.
If we say that punishment
is part of God’s attribute of holiness, we are right. But God is never just one
thing at a time. God’s holiness never exists in the absence of God’s justice
and love.
Imagine that you have, in
spades, the attribute of intelligence. You would never want that attribute of
intelligence to function without the attribute of wisdom, or else you would end
up being too smart for your own good.
It’s no good to go around
being less than you are. You want to be ready to be everything that you are all
the time.
And if you have the
attribute of being right all the time, or at least being right more often that
other people, do you realize how much harm you can do, and how hard you will
make life for others and for yourself. Never let your attribute of being right
elbow your attribute of love out of the way. Some people do that. But, you
never want to be less than all that you are.
Back to parenthood, and
marriage too: you never want to reduce yourself in what you have to give. You
never give enough unless you are ready to give everything.
So, when your child goes
wrong, becoming The Avenger won’t do any lasting good unless your child can see
your hopes, and dreams, and love in your eyes. Even if your husband or wife
messes up, never get mad unless your partner can see your hopes, and dreams,
and love in your eyes and in your voice.
Justice is an attribute
that goes beyond rewarding and punishing. Justice creates a system where
goodness is enjoyed, and flourishes, and where badness fails, and breaks the
heart of even the guilty.
And love,” Bears all
things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never
ends.” (1 Corinthians 13:7-8) And God is love.
And God is a consuming
fire. And Hell is an eternal fire. In the Bible, fire is, first and foremost,
an image and expression of God. Fire is the expression of who God is and what
God is like.
I always loved fire. When
I was a kid I loved to build fires. It became my family job. We had a
fireplace, and I built the fires. When we camped, I built the fire. When we
barbequed, I built the fire. When there was trash to burn I loved to build the
fire.
I grew up with
incinerators in the back yard and burn piles on the farms. Fires were never
about punishment. Except that it feels like you’re being punished, when you’re
the one who has to build and manage that fire in the summertime, in the
Sacramento Valley, when the temperature is 100 degrees. Fire is light, and
warmth, and food, and heating water for washing. It’s for cleaning up the yard
or the field. If fire were punishment, it would only be the saddest use of a beautiful
thing.
Even Jesus says, in his
parable of the sheep and the goats, that the fire of Hell wasn’t made for us.
It was made for the Devil and his angels; not for human beings. (Matthew 25:41)
It was made for cleaning up the creation of God.
God hates us trying to
turn him into something less than everything he is. That’s why the Ten
Commandments forbid us from making any image of God. No image can show all that
God is. So, when the first and foremost expression of who God is, and what God
is like, makes God look like Hell, we can trust that this can never be true.
Something else is true.
All of the attributes of God are always present. Everything that is true of God
is always at work, all the time. Where we see the fire of punishment in the
Bible, there is much more at work than punishment. There is holiness that holds
to the devotion of its purpose to make us the thriving children of God. There
is justice, that creates a system where what is good grows stronger, and more
and more joyful and thankful. There is love, which bears all things, believes
all things, hopes all things, endures all things, and never, never ends.
There was a time, many
years ago, when I was betrayed. People who knew more than I did told me later
that they should have warned me. It damaged me for a long time. But, soon after
that betrayal closed in on me, I preached a sermon about absolute forgiveness.
At the end of that service, I was told by one of the ambushers, that my sermon
about absolute forgiveness was the most negative messages they had ever heard.
That same morning, I went to shake the hand of another one of them and, as I
reached out my hand, their face got dark and grim and they pulled their hands
behind them and backed away from me. I was not being what they wanted me to be
at the time.
Forgiveness and grace can
be an enormous punishment and pain for those who refuse it. Love can become
darkness and fire for those who want to make themselves less, in their
attributes, than God created them to be, when they don’t want to combine the
fires of holiness, justice, and love.
In the story of the sheep
and the goats, neither the sheep nor the goats were aware of doing anything for
Jesus. They had only seen the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger (which means
alien, like the Samaritan who was an outsider and an enemy of God’s people),
the naked, the sick, and the prisoner. These were among the types of people
that the God who looks like Jesus tells us to care for. He cares.
The sheep were people who
went where Jesus would go in order to love those whom Jesus would love with all
the attributes of God. The sheep were the people who shared the attributes of
Jesus. They would refuse to be anything less. In a real sense, they had no idea
what they were doing, but they did it anyway.
The goats never went near
the people with whom Jesus identified. They were content and they led perfectly
happy lives being less than what God created them to be. They were never
anywhere near where Jesus would be, and so they never really did anything for
Jesus.
The sheep must have often
found themselves in places where they were very uncomfortable, and yet they
were on the road to heaven. The goats led their comfortable lives and never
even started up that road. The life of the goats turned out to be all about themselves.
Their souls shrank as their holiness, justice and love shrank. In the end, they
were held forever in the arms of what they had refused to be. The unwanted fire
of love will never end.
If a child is pouting or
having a tantrum, the thing they hate most is to see you moving in toward them
to love them, smile into their faces, and tickle them. This is the way to make
them really howl. Love can be Hell. If you love someone who wants to be less
than they were created to be, or love someone who is happy to be less than they
were created to be, and if you try to love them into being something more: know
that you will make them miserable.
But don’t stop. You want
to be careful about this. Never let anything or anyone make you consent to be
less than you were created to be. Never dream of being any less than Jesus. To
choose to be les is the mentality of hell. Don’t go there!
In the beginning of the
Book of Revelation, when John first sees Jesus, among the many details he
notices is something about those eyes. The eyes of Jesus look like fire. For
those who know Jesus, a different form of fire tells us who God is. This world,
and the best institutions and laws, and all the people in it, punished Jesus
for being all that he is. The punishing fire took the form of a cross, and
nails, and a crown of thorns, and the wounds of a whip, and a spear in his
heart.
There was much more hanging
on the hell of that cross than punishment. The fire of God burned there. The
fire of holiness, and justice, and love burned there and took the punishment
and the curse of our sins. As our hearts give way to that flame, we die and
rise with Jesus. The light in Jesus’ eyes becomes his power and fire in us to
break our hearts for change and a new life. Let’s live in that fire forever.
