Does God give up? Heaven, hell and other stuff

I tell you! There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who changes his or her heart and life than over 99 good people who don’t need to change. Luke 15:7

We’ve all read the story of the lost sheep. It’s pretty cute; a shepherd searches and searches for this one missing sheep even though he would do alright with 99. You might also have read the story straight after it about a woman looking for a lost coin even though she has another 9. So here’s the spoiler: the lost sheep/coin represents us when we aren’t interested in God, and the moral is that God, the shepherd/woman, never stops searching for us, and doesn’t give up until we are returned to him. Happy endings all round.

But wait a minute. Hang on. Hold the phone. These stories seem to miss one major issue: the fact that not everyone gets ‘found’ before they die. Not everyone makes a final confession to God on their death bed.

And then what? Well, eternal torment obviously. Fire, brimstone, little red men poking everyone with their tridents, all that stuff. As I say so often, I am not a Bible scholar, and so I’m not in any position to start arguing the existence of hell and what form it might take (although I would suggest Rob Bell’s book Love Wins for anyone interested). I can, however, discus why I think the idea of people being sent to an eternal hell is unrealistic, and goes against what we know about the nature of God.

To start with, neither you or I know what goes on in someone else’s heart, so for the sake of argument lets imagine that every single human has the potential to love God and go to heaven (whatever heaven is, I could write a whole ‘nother post on that topic), and that no one’s heart is so bad that it can’t be reversed.

So if you really think about it, an eternal hell suggests that God gives up on us.

I mean, that either God must consider some people to be irreparable, or that he stops caring about them after a certain point. Both of these suggestions contradict the Bible which tells us quite clearly that nothing is impossible for God, no heart is beyond his ability to heal, and that Gods love is infinite, it transcends time and space and human knowledge. If this is the case why then should he stop pursuing us after death? Why would he give himself this cut-off point, a point at which he considers our souls to be beyond his reach and he is simply content to see us end up in a place of punishment and separation from him?

Another idea, as C. S. Lewis presents in his final Narnia novel, suggests that hell is something people choose i.e. the choice to spend our lives without God and without love and goodness. Rob Bell says we have a choice every day, whether or not you are a Christian; a choice between spitefulness and kindness, cruelty and humanity, pain and hope. It is choosing to make someone else's life difficult, ignoring the person who is desperate for friendship, breaking someone's heart. It is rape, human trafficking, destruction of forests, child abuse. You can see why the language used to describe hell is so strong and offensive: it reflects the darker side of the world.

But even then, even those people who make all the wrong choices must be loved by God, for God loved the world so much, that he gave his only son. Not just Christians or good people or people who go to church every Sunday. The world. So if he loves the people that make the wrong choices then he must be searching for them.

I'm sure most of us will agree that some part of us carries on after we die. Why then do we dismiss the idea that God continues to seek us out even after death? That he pursues our hearts even if we die with those hearts in shatters or rotten to the core? I want us to consider the very real concept that he never gives up on a single human soul, that sometime in the distant future he will gather us all together in heaven.

My final point is this, I know that God is impossible to comprehend and in his mysteriousness and complexity he will always do things which we can find no explanation for. I also understand that God, like any loving parent, disciplines his children to make them better people. But I can’t reconcile myself with the idea that God sends people to hell because they are too far from him, or that he allows them to separate themselves from him, at least not without trying to reach them.

I was taught that the moment you make even the smallest move towards God, he comes running towards you with his arms wide open. Since none of us is perfect, and since we’re all sinners, no matter what religion we follow or gods we serve, I think that when we make that small move there must be rejoicing and celebration in heaven.

So make the move, because God will never give up on you.

Fin.

Disclaimer: this post is based on my very limited knowledge of the Bible and on what I know about God as a person and how he acts. I recognise that I probably miss some fundamental pieces of scripture and I would love to hear what anyone else has to say on the topic.

Also when I started writing it I had no idea how deep it would lead me into ideas about heaven, hell and the good and evil in all of our hearts. So sorry if I got a bit carried away and didn’t explain everything properly.