If you follow professional football, you know that Jon Gruden was abruptly forced to resign his position this week as the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. During an investigation of another NFL team, a series of his 2011emails was discovered and leaked to The New York Times, describing them as racist, anti-gay, and misogynist.
I was on vacation with my wife and youngest son during the Supreme Court hearings for now Justice Brett Cavanaugh during which his college drinking days became the stuff of prime time television.
Years ago I remember my wife and I decluttering our attic storage when we came across some letters we had exchanged during our college dating years. My eyes bulged as profanity on the pages startled me out of my nostalgic reminiscence. That correspondence quickly accompanied me to the home office shredder for a hasty farewell. .
During therapy sessions some of my clients have expressed a visceral fear of being exposed. “What if my friends knew everything about my past? What if my family found out? They would surely think I’m a fraud.”
The point of these four musings is simple. No one on the face of the earth today could survive a media investigation of his or her background unscathed. We all have pasts that range from embarrassing to shameful to condemning. As Paul’s letter to the Romans declares, “For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23).” It is a sobering fact and an undeniable reality that we persistently try to deny anyway.
Thankfully he continues in verse 24: “they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.”
And again in chapter eight: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.”
Though all of us have sinned against God and one another; though all of us are guilty and deserve the commensurate consequences; still all of us have recourse to the only one who can forgive our debt by taking it on himself.
When we stand before the Supreme Judge at the end of our time on earth, we will have the Spirit of Jesus Christ advocating for us. And unlike attorneys in courtrooms around the world, the Holy Spirit is always successful in achieving a full pardon. A pardon that lasts forever; unending; for eternity.
Forever Is A Long Time
I don’t think we meditate enough on eternity. Everything in our experience at some point comes to a close. This article will end (mercifully). Jobs end and retirement begins – and then ends. Our favorite seasons end despite our protests. Every generation ends – sorry Boomers, we’re next. We simply have no category for something that never ends.
There (heaven), the days do not come and go in succession, and the beginning of one day does not mean the end of another; all days are one, simultaneously and without end, and the life lived out in these days has itself no end.
From a letter to proba by saint augustine, bishop
Consider the oldest person to ever live (according to the Guinness Book of World Records, a French woman who lived to age 122). Now picture living that life all over again. In fact, think of living it 122 more times. Let’s go further. Imagine that she has been living as long as the earth has been in existence (estimated to be 4.5 billion years using radiometric dating). Has your brain shut down yet?
Now the dumbfounding conclusion. At that point she will not have advanced even one nanosecond in eternity. It’s downright scary. I want no part of something that separates me from God FOREVER.
To Hell With Hell
Yet there is a growing trend in theological circles, church discussions, and just friendly family debates that suggests that few individuals if anyone at all ends up in hell. Ralph Martin describes this phenomenon at length in his 2020 book, A Church In Crisis.
The thinking goes something like this: How could an infinitely loving God condemn anyone to a place without Him FOR ALL ETERNITY? Doesn’t Psalm 103 say “His wrath will come to an end; he will not be angry forever. He does not treat us according to our sins nor repay us according to our faults…As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our sins?” So, a place of everlasting suffering without God? To quote from the movie, The Princess Bride, “Inconceivable!”
In other words, if the human mind can’t conceive of it, it cannot be true. If we cannot reconcile the notion of infinite mercy with just punishment, then it cannot be correct. But isn’t there a flaw in that logic? It requires an underlying assumption that a finite creature can fully comprehend an infinite Creator. If that were possible, then we would be equals with God. Now THAT is inconceivable!
Use Your Own Judgment
So I guess I’d rather take Jesus at his word. In chapter 25 of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus describes the final judgment. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, escorted by all the angels of heaven, he will sit upon his royal throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him.” This is not one of his parables. This is the Son of God describing what to expect when the world as we know it ends.
He goes on to say that everyone will be separated into two groups; not three, not five, just two. One group will be told “Come. You have my Father’s blessing! Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world.” To the other group he will say, “Out of my sight, you condemned, into that everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels!” And he concludes saying, “These will go off to eternal punishment and the just to eternal life.”
There’s one of those words again – eternal. Not a life sentence; not a sentence without the possibility of parole. A sentence that NEVER ENDS. I may or may not be able to reconcile this with my concept of a loving God. But it’s enough to scare “the hell” out of me!
