In the last lesson we considered how God isn’t a nice-oholic by looking at how He doesn’t answer all of our prayers because He’s not a cosmic Santa. Instead, He’s a loving parent who disciplines His children because He’s more worried about making us good people rather than making us spoiled. When considering whether God is a nice-oholic, the greatest point that needs to be addressed comes down to this: Does God allow everyone into heaven? It’s amazing how so many people who don’t believe in going to church or who don’t have any real theology background want to believe that you just have to be a good person to go to heaven. That sounds nice… but is that true or is that making God a nice-oholic? I argue nice-oholic… because that’s what it does. It makes God a pushover who doesn’t have healthy boundaries: “Whatever’s easiest for you. I don’t want to put you out and make you spend time with me because your lives are so important.” Unfortunately, this ignores the whole reason God made us – to have a relationship with Him. Sure, He wants us to be good, but just like God isn’t a cosmic Santa, He also isn’t a cosmic teacher passing out grades for how we live our lives with those who fail not going to heaven: “You didn’t murder anyone, so you get an A! Welcome to heaven. Next… you murdered someone, but you had a bad childhood, so I’ll give you a D- to let you in the pearly gates. Next… you don’t like Broadway musicals… that’s an F; sorry. Your eternity will be listening to pop stars without Auto-Tune.”
Hypothetically speaking, if “good” was all we needed, what would qualify as good? If you look at the 10 Commandments, the first two rules are about keeping God first. Even believers are terrible at that (or maybe that’s just me). Even more, the Bible is blatantly clear: “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” (Rom 3:23) And what’s that standard? Perfection: “But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Mat 5:48) How many people achieve that status? Not too many. Beyond theology, just using logic we can see that there has to be more to get to heaven than being “good.” If God is perfect, logically, how can any imperfect thing be allowed in His presence? Perfection and imperfection can’t mix. If you put perfection and imperfection in a blender and turned it on like if you blended chocolate chip cookies and broccoli you end up with a large mass of something that’s imperfect. This follows the Christians claim that when we die the blood of Jesus makes us perfect and allows us in God’s heavenly presence, which is why John 3:16 is so famous: “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” Based on this verse, the blood of Jesus doesn’t save all of us. It doesn’t even save all the “good” people. It actually has nothing to do with our actions – it’s our heart; it’s “everyone who believes in him.” This means no matter how good or bad we are, the grade we think we’re getting for how we live life isn’t going to do anything for us. Based on the Bible, we all fail unless we believe in Jesus. So if God can send good people to hell, the question changes from “Is God a nice-oholic?” to “Is God even nice?”
In the book Letters from a Skeptic, in Gregory Boyd’s one response to his skeptic dad’s question about hell, he writes: “… it is people who put themselves in hell, not God. ‘God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance,’ the Bible says. If anyone goes to hell, then, this is against God’s will! It is simply inaccurate to construe God as taking any delight in people’s pain. He tells us exactly, ‘I take no delight in the destruction of the wicked’ (Ezek 18:23). It is, rather, the rebellious people themselves who ‘loved darkness instead of light’ (John 3:19). Hell is where they want to be, not where God wants them to be.” This idea follows the concept taught in the Parable of “The Prodigal Son.” In this story Jesus teaches, either the son despises his father so much or is so overwhelmingly selfish that he demands his Father immediately give him his portion of the inheritance. This is a very strange request to his father because… well, his father is still alive. What’s even stranger is the father grants the son his wish. Nowadays if a child asked his parents for their inheritance, there’s a good chance they’d be removed from the will… and not allowed to cook for them: “Is this cookie covered in sugar sprinkles or rat poison?” Reading this story I can’t help but wonder how rich the father was that he could afford to give half of what he had away and how much richer he would be by the time he actually died. If the father is as good at growing his wealth as he appears to be, the son cheated himself out of more potential inheritance by demanding it early – that’s foolish. Either way, the father accepts his son’s crazy demand. He doesn’t fight him about it. He doesn’t even beg the son to stay in touch. The father just lets the son leave even though that means he’ll likely never see the son again. He gives the son that much freedom.
Near the end of the story, when the son has lost everything and working as a servant for a terrible master, he returns home to his father hoping he’ll be allowed to work as a servant there because at least his father was a good man who treated his servants well. The son had essentially reached a point where he’d rather risk being rejected or punished by his father than continue the life he had. The story then flips from sad to joyful. When the father sees his son in the distance, there’s this beautiful moment where he runs out to greet his son with a full bear hug and tears. There’s no punishment or retribution; there’s only grace and love.
This story is normally used to demonstrate God’s goodness, but let’s mix it up and consider how this relates to people going to heaven and hell. Like the father in the story, God allows us to leave Him. He gives us control of our lives and lets us choose where we go. In the story, the son eventually realizes the mistake he made by leaving and decides to go home, but how different would the story be if there was an accident and he died before he realized his mistake? There wouldn’t have been the moment of reconciliation with the father, which is the whole moment of hope the story is supposed to inspire. Instead, the father and son would’ve been separated for the rest of time. Rather than a story of grace, it would’ve been a story of great tragedy… just like for us. What if we don’t return to the Father in time? What if we die before we want to have a relationship with Him? We’ll be separated from Him for the rest of time – that’s terrifying.
This leads to the way I like to explain heaven and hell: God gives people what they want in the afterlife. If you want Him in your life on earth, then God brings you into His presence for eternity while those who don’t want Him in their life on earth, God also gives them what they want – eternity without Him. This is a terrifying thought and why some Christians can do crazy things hoping to get people to care about God – I want you to have the better eternity. This seems pretty straightforward (and not as fear mongering as some Christians often put it). What gets tricky to my idea, however, becomes the question of whether existence without God means an existence without love, which follows the verse that states God is love, or does it mean we cease to exist because outside of God, there is no life? Boyd mentions to his dad a theory he doesn’t himself follow, but makes sense to me, annihilationism. This basically teaches that people who don’t go to heaven cease to exist because God doesn’t want people to suffer for eternity. Whether it’s true or not, the bottom line is God is not a nice-oholic. This means we need to be careful how we choose to live our lives because in regards to eternity God gives us what we want.
Bonus: I’ve found the biggest roadblock for giving God a chance is Christians (the non nice-oholic kind). The problem is Christian or not, people either suck or they’re good people with sucky moments. Thus, judging a perfect God based on imperfect people is incredibly unfair (and foolish). A saying I recently learned that I really liked is God doesn’t make bad people good; He makes dead people alive. Of course, through our love of God, our actions should improve, but no matter what we do, we “all fall short.” The great thing is the more we follow God and strive to please Him (i.e. we strive to be more loving), the more we bring heaven on earth.
This week may you consider what it means if God gives us what we want, life with Him or life without.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)
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