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Jhud -> RE: Without hell, nobody would believe in God (4/6/2008 11:13:43 PM)
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However, I find it so horrifying when I see comments on a variety of threads sounding like "without Hell, what is there to be saved from?" or even worse "why would we want Jesus if not to avoid Hell?" If you only want Jesus to avoid Hell, then you don't want Jesus, you only want to avoid painful fires. What else could we want to be saved from? How about the sin that infects our very beings with its bondage and its destruction of our very humanity? It's much worse than crack, cholesterol and cancer all put together. Until we want to get rid of that stuff apart from any just and painful consequences resulting from it, we don't want the salvation of Christ.
First off, I guess I am a bit concerned when people start placing words in other peoples mouths to demonstrate a point; I haven’t seen anyone here say, "why would we want Jesus if not to avoid Hell?”, and quoting others as if they have is somewhat deceptive. And no one has said that is the “only want Jesus to avoid Hell”, again, that is misleading.
When we say sin infects us with bondage, that destroys ‘our very humanity?’, we have to ask – How?
The answer of course is that it separates us from God, both in this life and the next, and diminishes our capacity to hope in anything but worldly ambitions and comforts which can never truly satisfy.
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Until we want to get rid of that stuff apart from any just and painful consequences resulting from it, we don't want the salvation of Christ.
The salvation of Christ and eternal life are one and the same; when you alleviate the effects of sin, you have eternal life, and if you don’t have eternal life, you don’t have Christ. We were created to live eternally in fellowship with God.
So let me ask you to choose between two hypothetical destinies (I know you can avoid both, but what horrifies you more?)
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1) Eternal bondage to sin in a physically comfortable place.
2) Never ending physical pain with an intensity as if from fire, but with no sin infecting you in the least--with a clean and pure heart.
The problem with the question is that in order for it to be true, the fundamental nature of God would have to be different – and this rather proves my point that you can’t actually say you believe in Christ in an understanding way without also realizing the effect of believing in Him – Christ not only imparts eternal life, He is eternal life, “ the resurrection and the life”, and therefore frees us from eternal death.
Any hypothetical that doesn't include a correct understanding of heaven and hell is less than the full gospel.
To suggest that there existed a reality where we would exist eternally experiencing a partial redemption from sin, but not from it’s effects, is to suggest a reality where there could be a weak and ineffective Christ, not at all the Christ that we do believe in.
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