![]() But then they’re corrupted by sin, they’re torn by the destructive power of sin, death, and hell, and so sin and death and hell are invasive intruders in God’s good world that kind of rip creation apart.īut because God is good, he hasn’t abandoned his creation, and his humanity he loves to sin, and death and decay, and the destructive power of hell that God is on a mission to reconcile heaven, to bring back together what hell has torn apart. They’re there and they have a relationship to each other, but it’s to say that scripture doesn’t tend to talk about them the same way that we tend to talk about them today.Īnd I would suggest to you that often we get hell wrong because we get heaven and earth wrong, and if we kind of reclaim the biblical story of heaven on earth, the smaller subtopic of hell starts to make more sense as to what is that storyline? Well, the storyline is one where God creates a good heavens and a good earth, but then heaven and earth are created good by God. Now, that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. Heaven and hell, there’s zero versus no place in scripture where they show up in the same verse. So having an earth are this narrative thread that weaves its way throughout the whole biblical story. The words, heaven and earth appear over 200 times in the biblical story together in the same verse. It’s not hell it’s actually earth, but which I mean. So earth now, heaven, hell later where the problematic stories when we’re right now live on earth, but one day I’m going to die and when I die, God will be there, kind of wispy up to heaven or down to hell, and one of the problems with that storyline is that, A) heaven and hell kind of have no relationship to our present experience here on earth today, and B) earth is nowhere in our eternal future with God, but we actually find in the Bible is that it doesn’t tend to talk about heaven and hell the same way definitely talks about them, but an example would be heaven has a counterpart in scripture only. ![]() So if you want to go a little deeper, there’s more info there, but maybe just to wet the appetite a bit with, what’s been a big paradigm shift for me has been to ask what is the broader storyline that hell fits into? Because I think a lot of us have a caricature of actually what the biblical story is on this, and so if I were to describe the caricature or kind of the problematic story, I’d say it’s one of earth now, heaven, hell later, right? I actually offer a couple in a new chapter in this book, actually by TGC, before you lose your faith. This tough topic where I think our fear is if we really opened up the closet doors, open up scripture and take a closer look that we’d find that God’s not truly good or worthy of our trust, and I found this because I think we often have a caricature of what’s actually going on in the biblical story, and so I want to offer a paradigm shift or two. That’s one I’ve wrestled with myself over the years, and I found many of us fear that hell is kind of this skeleton in God’s closet. So we’ll start with the first question, how do I reconcile God’s love and the reality of eternal judgment and sending some people to hell? Josh is the pastor of teaching and direction at Redemption Church in Tempe, Arizona, and his passion is to help others who wrestle with tough topics of the Christian faith. On today’s episode, you’ll hear from Josh Butler as he answers two important questions on hell and judgment. How can we winsomely respond to the issues that are driving young people away from the faith? In this five week series, we’ll focus on some of the toughest and most common questions the younger generation has about Christianity. Host: You’re listening to TGC Q&A, a podcast from the gospel coalition, and this is a new series called Gen Z’s questions about Christianity. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy. The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |