http://youtu.be/n3u-6UFLubI

Mike learned early in his life about rescue and what it required. Do you think Mike believed in hell?

“Sit where you normally would”

Contemporary thinking on hell suffers from the same fractious polarization that plagues many other areas of the church.

As much of the culture is deeply skeptical about the reality of hell, the church, which in the modern era honed its pitch as the antidote to hell and its anxiety (Evangelism Explosion questions “If you were to die tonight…”) tries to figure out how to address the change.

One of the best illustrations I’ve heard of culture is that culture is like folding a piece of paper. Once you fold it one way it’s always pre-conditioned to follow the same fold. The American church in thinking about hell has followed this illustrations. The liberal wing of the church expressed deep skepticism thus prompting the fundamentalist wing to double down.

Hell?

While belief in God recedes slightly , belief in a God who wouldn’t hurt a fly flourishes. An enormous irony of our cultural moment is that while secularism flourishes with the assumption of Darwinian selection and mass evolutionary extinctions the God that is either responsible for this world or completely immanent within it (pantheism) is also supposedly a God who would never cause pain or suffering. This god is supposedly completely committed to giving us our best day now and helping us to always feel good about ourselves.  Doesn’t anyone stop to wonder why we have so many dead flies? Didn’t dinosaurs have feelings too?

Belief in Hell and Social Conditioning

The second contemporary irony like the first is how we all easily belief that all religious beliefs and assumptions are socially conditioned and constructed except of course our own “which are simply true because we know we’re smart and see the world as it really is”.

Fortunately for us people from other cultures also know how to think, argue and write and if we are humble enough to listen to them they might shed some light on some of our cultural blind spots. One such cultural commentator is Miroslav Volf who after enduring the Yugoslavian civil war went on to teach at Yale.

My thesis that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many Christians, especially theologians in the West. To the person who is inclined to dismiss it, I suggest imagining that you are delivering a lecture in a war zone (which is where a paper that underlies this chapter was originally delivered). Among your listeners are people whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit. The topic of the lecture: a Christian attitude toward violence. The thesis: we should not retaliate since God is perfect noncoercive love. Soon you would discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God’s refusal to judge. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die. And as one watches it die, one will do well to reflect about many other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind.

Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf pgs. 303-304

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid!

Some Christians, sensing the cultural winds change, twenty years too late, again, then double down on the great idea that the best way to attract people to their ideas and their churches is to scare them straight. This prompts the kinds of “God Hates Fags” activities of the Westboro Baptist Church and the Hell House phenomenon. Your church too can scare kids into the arms of Jesus with a reasonably priced kit that promises to “Shake your city with the most “in-your-face, high-flyin’, no denyin’, death-defyin’, Satan-be-cryin’, keep-ya-from-fryin’, theatrical stylin’, no holds barred, cutting-edge” evangelism tool of the new millennium!”

Timothy George nicely responds to why this misses the mark.

It may be that some young people will find their way to genuine faith through such ghoulish shenanigans, but their overall import is a distortion of the Gospel. Those who indulge in such displays are taking something serious, eternal, and consequential and treating it with a finesse of a butcher doing brain surgery. In the process, they trivialize evil and domesticate grace. I seriously doubt that the Old Fiend himself is much upset about how his wiles are portrayed in such faux-dramas. He knows that conversion without discipleship is not likely to be lasting or deep. He is well aware that evangelism as entertainment seldom, if ever, results in genuine repentance or transformation.

H E Double Hockey Sticks

What this polarization does to many Christians is to effectively keep us from talking about hell. While hell a theological tenet we subscribe to and rejecting manipulative tactics that feel disingenuous and unloving, we join the culture’s quiet denial of the notion that the Almighty will, at some point, call humanity to account for what we’ve done to each other and what we’ve made of his creation. Hell then gets shoved into the church storage closet with the excess VBS materials and household donations from well-meaning members.

After a long soak in our cultural juices we begin to put away inconvenient texts that make God seem angry or upset and prioritize “giving you life in abundance” type verses. This requires, however, a rather Jeffersonian approach to the Bible but instead of eliminating the supernatural texts we eliminate the violent texts and therefore much of the Bible. Does anyone have a nice picture of Marcion of Sinope to hang on the wall? If you want to embrace the historic canon of the Christian church you can’t avoid recurring stories of rescue and of punishment. Is there no way to understand them? Are they really that impossible to understand?

YHWH the Navigator

In our working through the story of the book of Exodus we are at the point where the death of the firstborn has bought the reluctant freedom of Israel.

Exodus 12:31–32 (NET)

³¹ Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron in the night and said, “Get up, get out from among my people, both you and the Israelites! Go, serve the Lord as you have requested!³² Also, take your flocks and your herds, just as you have requested, and leave. But bless me also.”

The text takes the time for Yhwh through both Moses and the pillar of fire to stop for a moment to plan the practicalities of this escape. Moving a people and their flocks and herds takes some doing. Yhwh decides they don’t want to take the normal road, this would force them to face the populations along this road and enduring warfare might discourage the people so they decide to take a more southern route.

This all seems practical but as the story unfolds it seems Yhwh in fact is not completely finished with Pharaoh and Egypt because he know our nature. Pharaoh and Egypt will have a change of heart. During the “plagues” the court officials and the people were frustrated with Pharaoh’s leadership and said “enough already, let them go!” but as most leaders know giving the people what they ask for in the moment is fickle business.

Exodus 14:1–7 (NET)

¹ The Lord spoke to Moses: ² “Tell the Israelites that they must turn and camp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea; you are to camp by the sea before Baal Zephon opposite it.³ Pharaoh will think regarding the Israelites, ‘They are wandering around confused in the land—the desert has closed in on them.’⁴ I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will chase after them. I will gain honor because of Pharaoh and because of all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.” So this is what they did.

⁵ When it was reported to the king of Egypt that the people had fled, the heart of Pharaoh and his servants was turned against the people, and the king and his servants said, “What in the world have we done? For we have released the people of Israel from serving us!” ⁶ Then he prepared his chariots and took his army with him. ⁷ He took six hundred select chariots, and all the rest of the chariots of Egypt, and officers on all of them.

Now it is plain both from the text and looking at a map that this is a setup. There are plenty of land routes that the children of Israel can take. If you do a simple Google search you can familiarize with all of the various scenarios that we speculate upon. Is the “reed sea” the lakes just east of Egypt? Will they cross the “Red Sea” towards Sinai in Arabia? It doesn’t matter what is clear is that Yhwh intentionally leads them to butt up against a water barrier they cannot contend with and the Egyptians will see this as their opportunity to once again, despite the plagues, get their property back.

No Half Measures

Right now we are getting a flurry of action hero and superhero movies from Hollywood. Why? Because people love them. Why? Because we want a hero and we feel the need to be rescued. In most of these movies the story is not concluded until the victims of evil are finally safe from the perpetrators.

In an amazing scene from Breaking Bad Mike tells Walt why he no longer takes half measures (video clip, it is graphic).  He tells the story of when he was a beat cop and he would regularly have to respond to a domestic violence call where the battered wife refused to press charges. One day he’s alone and after responding to the call takes the abusive husband to an isolated spot, puts a gun in his mouth and threatens the guy that if he ever lays a hand on his wife again he’ll blow him away. The abusive husband pees his pants, begs, prays, promises to never do it again. Mike lets him go, but as you can imagine, finds that this man not only beat his wife again but killed her. From that time forward Mike made a promise to himself, no half measures.

Yhwh knows this world. Egypt is a superpower and as long as Pharaoh has a memory of the delights of Hebrew slavery he will march his army into the wilderness and take her back. Butting Israel against the sea will simply give an opportunity for Pharaoh and Egypt to reveal what is in all of our hearts. This is who we are. Half measures don’t work with us.

Revelation

Exodus 14 is an amazing piece of writing. It is the part of the story Hollywood loves to show (Prince of Egypt, The Ten Commandments)

Exodus 14:8–31 (NET)

⁸ But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he chased after the Israelites. Now the Israelites were going out defiantly.⁹ The Egyptians chased after them, and all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh and his horsemen and his army overtook them camping by the sea, beside Pi-hahiroth, before Baal-Zephon. ¹⁰ When Pharaoh got closer, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians marching after them, and they were terrified. The Israelites cried out to the Lord,¹¹ and they said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the desert? What in the world have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? ¹² Isn’t this what we told you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone so that we can serve the Egyptians, because it is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!’ ”

¹³ Moses said to the people, “Do not fear! Stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord that he will provide for you today; for the Egyptians that you see today you will never, ever see again.¹⁴ The Lord will fight for you, and you can be still.”

¹⁵ The Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.¹⁶ And as for you, lift up your staff and extend your hand toward the sea and divide it, so that the Israelites may go through the middle of the sea on dry ground. ¹⁷ And as for me, I am going to harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will come after them, that I may be honored because of Pharaoh and his army and his chariots and his horsemen. ¹⁸ And the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I have gained my honor because of Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.”

^14:19 The angel of God, who was going before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them. ^14:20 It came between the Egyptian camp and the Israelite camp; it was a dark cloud and it lit up the night so that one camp did not come near the other the whole night. ^14:21 Moses stretched out his hand toward the sea, and the Lord drove the sea apart by a strong east wind all that night, and he made the sea into dry land, and the water was divided. ^14:22 So the Israelites went through the middle of the sea on dry ground, the water forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.

^14:23 The Egyptians chased them and followed them into the middle of the sea—all the horses of Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen. ^14:24 In the morning watch the Lord looked down on the Egyptian army through the pillar of fire and cloud, and he threw the Egyptian army into a panic. ^14:25 He jammed the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving, and the Egyptians said, “Let’s flee from Israel, for the Lord fights for them against Egypt!”

^14:26 The Lord said to Moses, “Extend your hand toward the sea, so that the waters may flow back on the Egyptians, on their chariots, and on their horsemen!” ^14:27 So Moses extended his hand toward the sea, and the sea returned to its normal state when the sun began to rise. Now the Egyptians were fleeing before it, but the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the middle of the sea. ^14:28 The water returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the army of Pharaoh that was coming after the Israelites into the sea—not so much as one of them survived! ^14:29 But the Israelites walked on dry ground in the middle of the sea, the water forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. ^14:30 So the Lord saved Israel on that day from the power of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the shore of the sea. ^14:31 When Israel saw the great power that the Lord had exercised over the Egyptians, they feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.  

If you had to locate this passage in a New Testament book a good candidate would be the book of Revelation. This is a picture of Yhwh rescuing his people from evil and keeping them safe so that this evil would trouble them no longer.

A Timeless Song

Chapter 15 then is the famous song of Miriam where “the horse and rider are thrown into the sea.” Part of what’s amazing about the song is that it’s intentionally composed to be timeless. Read verse 17:

Exodus 15:17 (NET)

¹⁷ You will bring them in and plant them in the mountain of your inheritance, in the place you made for your residence, O Lord, the sanctuary, O Lord, that your hands have established.

Anyone familiar with the Old Testament will notice a reference to the temple in Jerusalem. Why would this be on Miriam’s lips hundreds of years before Solomon would build the temple?

This whole story is designed to show us what God’s rescue looks like and what that great day of deliverance will be and will feel like. It is God sweeping away all evil and rescuing his own to enjoy him and enjoy his good gifts. It is an image of the new heavens and the new earth. It too would easily be found in the book of Revelation.

Revelation 21:1–4 (NET)

¹ Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had ceased to exist, and the sea existed no more. ² And I saw the holy city—the new Jerusalem—descending out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “Look! The residence of God is among human beings. He will live among them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them.⁴ He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will not exist any more—or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the former things have ceased to exist.”

A Better God Wouldn’t Have Killed Pharaoh and his Army

Our cultural complaint to this story is that a better God wouldn’t have killed Pharaoh and his army. Doesn’t this story just invite the kind of abuse of power that post-modernity protests against?

To all of us who feel this way I have good news. According to theology developed after this Hebrew story telling drowning in the Red Sea is not the end of Pharaoh. A part of Pharaoh, his truest part, his most enduring part continues to exist and go on being Pharaoh. For the sake of discussion let’s call this part Dead Pharoah or Pharaoh’s soul. What kind of context must we plop Pharaoh’s soul into if Pharaoh’s soul will be happy?

I suppose Dead Pharaoh or Pharaoh’s soul will need a whole other Egypt to reign over and not have a pesky Yhwh to interfere with him. He will need slaves and servants and concubines and a people to command and control for him to be happy and I suppose all the old Hebrew slaves the Yhwh rescued need to be brought back. He will now be free to play with genocide once more and perhaps this time the midwives will comply.

If we are to work this imaginary picture through a bit more we might see that there is a problem that develops. Pharaoh would have to have either imaginary people, because we wouldn’t want this God subjecting real people to his tyrannies on a perpetual basis, or he would have to live in a real after-world where all others who also want to be away from Yhwh’s pesky intrusions would be spared his presence. He could be there with all other historical tyrants, large and small (including the spouse beater Mike talks about) to try to carve up their little piece of their shared afterworld. If that seems too grim then I suppose he would need to be in a world all by himself. Christian theology has always called this place… Hell.

We would also want Yhwh to rescue the Hebrews, the African slaves in the American south and the wife of Mike’s wife-beater and take them to a place where they would be troubled by tyrants to more. We would want reunions and pleasures and comfort and rest. We can call this “the age to come”.

Is Yhwh Just a Bigger Bully?

When we tell this story we naturally place ourselves within the story at an advantageous position. We place ourselves with “the good guys” (like we do every time we go to the movies) and cheer as the hero rescues the victims of the perp’s tyranny. The trouble is that, as we will see, the children of Israel aren’t always qualitatively different from Pharaoh. What separates them often is simply the means.

This of course incites the post-modern suspicion that Yhwh himself is not wholly different from Pharaoh, he’s just a bigger bully with way more power available to him. Yhwh beats down Pharaoh like Pharaoh beat down the Hebrews like Moses beat down the Egyptian. The circle of life in the age of decay.

Yhwh will save the Hebrews from Pharaoh, but next week we’ll see the limited impact of that salvation on their hearts. A display of power alone is not strong enough to address what’s deep inside of us. If moving water and worlds was sufficient to make us wise and kind and good then all we would need to see God’s heart would be a good telescope. The story of Israel will be a story of the limitation of God’s power to reveal himself to us at the waters of the Red Sea. We not only need to see his power, we need to see his heart.

Mike’s little theater with the wife beater was only a half measure and all that Mike knew to do to the abuser was to kill him.

God’s Full Measure

Jesus was known as a miracle worker. He could still a storm, heal the sick and raise the dead. This immediately communicated to his Jewish audience that this was (dare they imagine) the presence of Yhwh in their midst. You might have noticed in Exodus 14 that God requires Moses to be involved in the rescue. Could Jesus be a new Moses? Would Yhwh now drown the Romans in the Mediterranean?

How could this powerful man be subject to Roman soldiers, brutalized and then hung on a cross as an exhibition of Roman power? If Yhwh drowning Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea was communication for demonstrating that compared to Yhwh earth’s empires are no match then certainly crucifying Jesus was proof positive he was not from Yhwh. Yhwh clearly could have handled the temple guard and the cohort of Roman soldiers in Jerusalem. This irony was of course not lost on the guys on the scene.

Matthew 27:39–44 (NET)

³⁹ Those who passed by defamed him, shaking their heads ⁴⁰ and saying, “You who can destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are God’s Son, come down from the cross!” ⁴¹ In the same way even the chief priests—together with the experts in the law and elders—were mocking him:⁴² “He saved others, but he cannot save himself! He is the king of Israel! If he comes down now from the cross, we will believe in him! ⁴³ He trusts in God—let God, if he wants to, deliver him now because he said, ‘I am God’s Son’!” ⁴⁴ The robbers who were crucified with him also spoke abusively to him.

Jesus was suffering hell. He was abandoned by Yhwh. He was being abused by his enemies. There was no one to save him. The full measure of God’s wrath fell upon him.

Timothy George picks up on this in the same article. 

At the heart of the paschal mystery is the descent of Christ into hell. This motif has been variously understood in the Christian tradition, but in essence it means that in the sending and self-sacrifice of his Son, God himself has absorbed not only the penalty of sin but also its eternal consequences, the “wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Jesus Christ has visited the original House of Hell, and this has rendered redundant all cheap imitations. As John Calvin said, “By his wrestling hand to hand with the devil’s power, with the dread of death, and with the pains of hell, Jesus Christ emerged victorious and triumphed over them, that in death we may not now fear those things which our Prince has swallowed up.”

Resurrection

In Jesus’ resurrection enemies would come to be his friends and live together, without fear of tyranny or abuse. Jesus did not drown Romans, he won their hearts. Romans would now break bread with Hebrews, and Greeks, and Arabs, male and female, rich and poor, slaves and free. In Jesus the internal bonds are broken first so that the external bonds are freely laid aside. This of course is the opposite of hell, it is heaven, it is the age to come, it is God with us, it is the restoration of the broken creation.

It is not finally a display of God’s raw power that wins us, but a display of his love and his mercy. It is a display of his commitment to us as incredible cost to himself. It is a display of the opposite of hell and the heart of the new creation. Just like the foothills of hell are common among us so also are the samples of the age to come.