Q & A: "Salted with Fire" -- Hell, Self-amputation & Mark 9 - Brad Jersak

Question from a reader:

I have searched at least 7 articles about Hell from the www.ptm.org search button. There is absolutely no mention of Mark 9:42-50 in any of the articles. There are many scriptures that are addressed about Hell but not this particular one. I know it not to be true but it almost seems that it is intentionally ignored. I so look forward to your response.

Brad's response:

I can't remember if I've included a discussion on Mark 9 in my books 'Her Gates Will Never Be Shut' or 'A More Christlike God,' but it's certainly not a passage I would shy away from intentionally, since it is quite an amazing anomaly in the NT and well worthy of meditation. In fact, I did so for about a year before coming to the conclusions below:

Here is the text in blue, along with my own notes in black as I go. I will use the NASB since it is the most literal translation we have of the Greek and tends not to delete words that other translations though we unnecessary (but are critical to our understanding). 

⁴² “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea.⁴³ If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than, having your two hands, to go into hell,

hell here is a translation of the Greek word, gehenna, (or from Hebrew, Valley of Hinnom) which was literally the valley south of Jerusalem that a long history of destructive fire: (a.) the prophets of Molech burned children there - 2 Chron 28:3, 33:6 (something God never even thought to do - Jer. 7:31); (b.) Josiah, whose name means 'fire of God' burned up all the altars and priests of Molech in that valley; (c.) when Jerusalem would be destroyed by both Babylon and later, Rome, the bodies would be dumped and burned in that fire because there were too many to bury; (d.) the valley would be a burning garbage dump as a memorial to Jerusalem's destruction; (e.)  gehenna would ultimately be restored into a garden holy to the Lord (Jer. 31:40).

Love Hopes: The Christian Bias - Brad Jersak

We all have a bias. The important thing is to recognize your bias and be able to defend or explain it. As a 'critical realist,' I spend a good deal of time and energy studying my biases - how they emerged, and how they influence my thinking. Rather than pretending to be perfectly objective, I confess that since my early days as a terrified infernalist, I have developed a strong preference for hope. I hope in the Good News that God’s love rectifies every injustice through forgiveness and reconciliation. The Gospel of hope that I can preach boldly is this:

God is not angry with you and never has been. He loves you with an everlasting love. Salvation is not a question of 'turn or burn.' We’re burning already, but we don’t have to be! Redemption! The life and death of Christ showed us how far God would go to extend forgiveness and invitation. His resurrection marked the death of death and the evacuation of Hades. My hope is in Christ, who rightfully earned his judgment seat and whose verdict is restorative justice, that is to say, mercy.

Hope. That is my bias, and I believe that Scripture, tradition, and experience confirm it. I want to explain and validate my hope in those contexts. This book will address the central problem of this 'heated' debate: not infernalism versus annihilationism versus universalism, but rather, authentic, biblical Christian hope vis-à-vis the error of dogmatic presumption (of any view). Hope presumes nothing but is rooted in a deeper confidence: the love and mercy of an openhearted and relentlessly kind God.

In short, I do not intend to convince readers of a particular theology of divine judgment. I hope, rather, to recall those relevant bits of Scripture, history, and tradition that ought to inform whatever view we take on this important topic. That said, the data summarized in my book, Her Gates Will Never Be Shut,  did lead me to four conclusions, which you may or may not share after all is said and done:

1. We cannot presume to know that all will be saved or that any will not be saved.2. The revelation of God in Christ includes real warnings about the possibility of damnation for some and also the real hope that redemption may extend to all.3. We not only dare hope and pray that God’s mercy would finally triumph over judgment; the love of God obligates us to such hope.4. Revelation 21–22 provides a test case for a biblical theology of eschatological hope.

To summarize my proposal, I quote Hermann-Josef Lauter.

'Will it really be all men who allow themselves to be reconciled? No theology or prophecy can answer this question, but love hopes all things (1 Cor 13: 7). It cannot do otherwise than to hope for the reconciliation of all men in Christ. Such unlimited hope is, from a Christian standpoint, not just permitted but commanded.'

Adapted from Brad Jersak, Her Gates Will Never Be Shut (Wipf & Stock).

If you want to see folk damned, there is something wrong with you! - Randal Rauser

J.I. Packer has long distinguished himself as among the foremost evangelical critics of universalism. At the same time, he also made the following admission:

“No evangelical, I think, need hesitate to admit that in his heart of hearts he would like universalism to be true. Who can take pleasure in the thought of people being eternally lost? If you want to see folk damned, there is something wrong with you!”

Packer’s certainly right about that. And yet, the disturbing truth is that many conservative Christians don’t want universalism to be true. I wrote about this problem four years ago in “The very worst reason to reject universalism.” In that article I noted that acerbic Christian apologist Ray Comfort repudiated universalism because it entailed that Nazis and pedophiles could end up in heaven. Yes, it does mean that. It also means that acerbic Christian apologists like Ray Comfort can end up in heaven. And even a few tentative apologists too!

I was reminded of this topic the other day while reading the following passage in Brad Jersak’s A More Christlike God:

“According to Archbishop Lazar Puhalo, moral outrage at others’ sin is often a confession of one’s own deeply repressed cravings. Do we ourselves need hell to keep our envy of sinners at bay? One pastor in my city even confessed that without the threat of hell, he would not be a Christian.” (20)

The notion that people are most vociferous against the sins with which they most struggle is so familiar as to be called a cliché. The pastor who regularly rails against “demon alcohol” or “lust” invites suspicions as to his own struggles.

What I find especially haunting is the suggestion that we might need hell to reassure us of our own life decisions to eschew certain temptations (and, dare we say it, our inherent worth and superior moral standing over the “sinners”).

Two of Jesus’ parables speak powerfully to this. 

CLICK HERE to continue reading

Why share the gospel if there's no hell? by Brad Jersak

I am frequently asked why anyone (including Jesus, the apostles and countless martyrs throughout the ages) would bother sharing the gospel if there is no hell. Before we even go there, I would hasten to ask, "Who told you there's no hell?" Of course there is.

Now as for the nature of hell, that's another matter. The idea of hell as 'eternal conscious torment' in an everlasting lake of fire is abhorrent to many who've experienced the fathomless depths of God's love, or have at least thought through the irrationality of its contradictions, or studied the competing images of divine judgment within Scripture. But that doesn't mean there is no hell. Have you been inside Burma's borders? Or experienced the front lines of a Middle East war zone? Or visited a sex-trafficking brothel? I know those who have and they assure me absolutely: hell exists.

I'm not a universalist, but I do believe in hopeful inclusivism. That is, we cannot presume that all will be saved, or that any would be lost, but love obligates us to hope and pray that the mercy of Christ would have the last word on the Day of Judgment. If so, what is the point of evangelism?

I think the difficulty in perceiving the point of evangelism if there is a hope that one day, every knee will bow and every tongue confess and glorify Christ as Lord exposes something awful about our perception of the Gospel and what Evangelism is.

These questions are the beginning of a renewed vision around all of that. First, let's start with this: If everything does finally "comes out in the wash," (i.e., that Christ does somehow accomplish "the restoration of all things," Acts 3:21), then sharing the Good News of God's love in Christ is the divinely appointed means whereby the restoration begins to happen in this age. That is, the Gospel is that Jesus is the Saviour of the World, the restorer of hope, the perfection of love, and the One who would embrace all and redeem everyone from our enslavement to Satan, sin and death. Telling the world this fabulous news and inviting them to it is integral to how Christ is restoring the cosmos. Moreover, now that Christ holds the keys of death and hades, apparently the power of death is broken and no longer creates a barrier or deadline before which Christ is powerless to continue his salvation project. I don't presume to know what that means exactly in the next life, but I'm not waiting until then to invite people to the benefits now.

Thus, the question, 'Why bother telling people" overlooks two critical facts:

1. People around the globe are already suffering spiritual, emotional and physical enslavement right now, and it's literally killing them. Anyone I ask can tell me exactly what the nature of their hell is today ... the condemnation that is already oppressing them. Jesus didn't need to come condemn the world--when he arrived he found it already in ruin and in need of his grace and life (John 3:16-18). Almost anyone can tell me about their deepest needs and most painful wounds. I don't need to tell them their problem. They consistently tell me. And unless they're attached to their self-pity, they tell me because they want some Good News.

2. But also, salvation is not just from something; it's for Someone. Why introduce people to the best thing that's ever happened to us? Why share the kindest Person we've ever met? Why offer deliverance from the fear of death and the offer of peace and well-being now? Perhaps Christians will be better able to answer this if they commit to knowing Christ for themselves before pushing their 'fire insurance' gospel on others. Even in an era when evangelists are perceived as ponzi scheme hucksters, I keep talking gospel because I've come to know Jesus is alive and he's wonderful and knowing him IS eternal life now. Sharing the gospel is not about trying to convince someone to give up their quality-of-life hedonism in exchange for a 'get out of jail free' card to a hypothetical eternal Auschwitz down the road. Rather, it's an invitation to a family of love feasting on the presence of Love Himself.