Heaven and Hell
Sermon for Sun. Nov. 1, 2009 Gospel Reading: Luke 16:19-31
Heaven and Hell according to the Bible
Today’s Gospel is the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus and each receiving a foretaste of their life to come at the Resurrection.
The Rich Man is still ordering others around “Send Lazarus…” “Let Lazarus go…” even arguing with Abraham about it, the very one he wanted help from! He hasn’t changed.
Today’s Gospel gives us a little glimpse into a subject which Jesus speaks of more than any other figure in the Bible: Heaven and Hell. I’m going to talk about Hell today. There are many excellent contemporary articles on this topic, the best of which are the writings of Fr. John Romanides, Bishop Hierotheos Vlachos, and one by a layman, Peter Chopelas of Arlington, WA. I’m hoping to publish his article on our website, once I receive written permission from him.
The idea that God is an angry figure who sends those He condemns to a place called Hell, where they spend eternity in torment separated from His presence, is missing from the Bible and unknown in the early church. While Heaven and Hell are decidedly real, they are experiences rather than physical places, and both exist in the presence of God. In fact, nothing exists outside the presence of God. If anything can exist outside the presence of God, we are talking about a finite God, not the Biblical God.
This is not the way traditional Western Christianity, Roman Catholic or Protestant, has envisioned the afterlife. In Western thought Hell is a location, a place where God punishes the wicked, where they are cut off from God and the Kingdom of Heaven. Yet this concept occurs nowhere in the Bible, and does not exist in the original languages of the Bible.
While there is no question that according to the scriptures there is torment and "gnashing of teeth" for the wicked, and glorification for the righteous, and that this judgment comes from God, these destinies are not separate destinations. The Bible indicates that everyone comes before God in the next life, and it is because of being in God’s presence that they either suffer eternally, or experience eternal joy. In other words, both the joy of heaven, and the torment of judgment, is caused by being eternally in the presence of the Almighty, the perfect and unchanging God.
This is not a new interpretation or a secret truth. It has been there all along, held by the Church from the beginning, revealed in the languages of the Scriptures, which were spoken by the Christians of the early church era. This understanding was held by nearly all Christians everywhere for the first 1000 years of the Church’s existence, and, except where influenced by western theologies, continued to be held by Christians beyond Western Europe and America even up to this day (including the roughly 350 million Orthodox Christians worldwide).
The history of the English word "hell" is also revealing. The Old English word from which hell is derived is "helan", which means to hide or cover, and is a verb. So at one time the English church understood that to be judged a sinner meant one would cower and want to hide in fear when in God’s presence. Unfortunately, because of the political expedience of controlling an often rebellious population, corrupt rules in the West, in collusion with corrupt clergy, and adopting ideas from non-Biblical yet popular fantasy novels such as Dante’s Inferno, corrupted the use of this word during the Middle ages. Eventually turning a verb into a noun by popular usage, even if theologically insupportable from the Bible.
Hell is the translation for a group of different words in the Bible
1. Hades=Sheol – the abode of the dead
2. Tartarus - The term "Tartarus" is found only once in the Bible, at 2 Peter 2:4, where it would seem to be a synonym of the "Abyss", as we saw in last week’s Gospel - Luke 8: “Do not send us into the Abyss.”
3. Gehenna - In the synoptic gospels Jesus uses the word Gehenna 11 times to describe the opposite to life in the promised, coming Kingdom (Mark 9:43-8). In Matthew 23:33, Jesus observes, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of gehenna?" The word gehenna is also found in the epistle of James 3:6, where it is said to set the tongue on fire.
In Revelation Chapter 20, it states that Death and Hades gave up their dead, and Death and Hades are placed in the lake of fire when God reclaims the world. If the ones in Hades were judged and will be in torment for eternity "far from the Lord" as so many think, why would these same ones be released from Hades when God returns?
It is because all who have died reside in "Death and Hades" until that moment, when Death and Hades can no longer exist because God is present. The "lake of fire and brimstone" into which Death and Hades is placed, in the Greek would be grammatically correct to translate as the "lake of fire and divinity", or even "the lake of divine fire". When Death and Hades is placed in the fiery presence of God, in the "lake of divine fire", it is destroyed, because it is in the very presence of God, death cannot exist when God is present.
It is interesting to examine the Greek word for "divine", it is from the Greek "theion", which could also mean "divine being", but also means "sulfur’, or in Old English "brimstone" [lit. ’burning stone’].
As strange as that sounds to us, it is because of the ancient understanding of the cosmic order of the nature of all things. All people in all cultures from the Near East to the West understood that there were four ’elements’: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Their nature was that Earth and Water tended to go down toward Hades, and Air and Fire tended to go up toward heaven. This could plainly be seen when the heavenly fire, lighting, would hit a living tree and burn the "life" out of it. Anyone could see that the heat from the tree would go back to heaven in the fire, and the ash that remained would go down into the ground.
But there was also a mysterious yellowish earth substance that behaved very differently, when placed in a fire it burn so brightly that your eyes could not bear to look at it. As it burned, it would release the heavenly substance that was trapped inside and it would rise back to heaven. According to the ancients, clearly, this "burning stone" contained a divine substance, and as such, it was simply called ‘theion” or "divinity.” It was burned within a new temple to "purify" it before consecration, presumably when this burning stone released it’s divinity, it causes all evil things to flee from the temple, and thus was the temple readied for worship.
Yet the word ’theion’ is translated as "brimstone" or "sulfur" in Luke 17:29, Rev. 9:17, 14:10, 20:10, 21:8, which is where ’fire and brimstone’ comes out of heaven, but it is equally interchangeable with the words "divine fire". Since this did not fit the translators’ preconceived ideas, it is rendered always as brimstone in this context.
And lest you think that I am making this up, or that no one outside of the Orthodox Church would honestly translate the word “theion” as such, let me quote the Rev. Charles Pridgeon, President and Founder of the Pittsburgh Bible Institute, who in his 1931 book, Is Hell Eternal or Will God’s Plan Fail? states:
“The word theion translated "brimstone" is exactly the same word theion which means ‘divine.’"
Elsewhere in Revelation it states that the "heat comes out of heaven" and burns the enemies of God, yet does not harm the ones with God’s seal on their foreheads. So the same heat, the heat that is the very life and light that comes from God, burns the sinners, and does not harm the ones that love God.
Consider Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who refused to worship the idol in Babylon (Daniel 3). They were thrown by King Nebuchadnezzer into the "fiery furnace" which was heated "seven times more". The significance of "seven" is a number symbolic of the "furnace" of Heaven, the place where God dwells. The three Jews were unharmed by the fire where one "like the Son of God" was among them. However, the same flames of fire killed the king’s "most mighty" soldiers. This is an analogy to how the presence of God is light and warmth to those who love him, and pain and destruction to those who oppose him, yet it is the same "fire."
For the Jews and early Christians, even Sheol was not separated from God. Translating directly from the Greek of the Septuagint Psalms 139:7,8, 12
"Where can I go away from your spirit? And away from your presence, where can I flee? If I go up into heaven, you are there. If I go down into Hades, there is your presence… Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike."
Again, in many places God’s presence and appearance is described as fire in the New Testament as well as in the Old. Typical is the verse where John the Baptist says
"I baptize you with water, but the One that comes after me will baptize you with fire".
The author of Hebrews writes that God is a consuming fire. Paul also writes that God is like the jeweler who burns gold in the fire to purify it. Jesus Himself states the he brings "fire" to the earth. That is, "divine fire".
Everywhere in the New Testament when humans come face to face with the Transfigured Jesus they cannot look at Him: Peter, James and John on Mt. Tabor, Paul on the road to Damascus-- humans hid their face and fell down in fear and trembling when confronted with the revelation of Jesus as Almighty God. Old Testament figures did the same, but now, in the New Testament, it is revealed that this "holy" fire is present when Jesus reveals his nature. This is because Jesus is the incarnate God of the Old Testament, and the fire we are encountering was known as the Shekinah, or the manifest glory of God to Israel! The First of Christ’s Divinity!
Also totally absent from the Scriptures is any hint that demons are tormenting sinners. This again comes from Dante’s Inferno and other pagan concepts, not from the Bible. Because any "sinning angels" in the presence of God, are also in torment, and their power is made ineffective.
The Church Fathers – a tiny sampling
St. Ignatius of Antioch, in 106 ad, describes God as the furnace that a craftsman uses to temper a sword. When a properly prepared sword is placed within the fire, it makes it stronger and the sword takes on the properties of the fire, it gives off heat and light, but will melt and destroy a sword not properly prepared.
St. Isaac the Syrian in the sixth century writes
"Paradise is the love of God" and he also writes "...those who are punished in Gehennah, are scourged by the scourge of love". So the "fire" is the love of God, and we experience His love as either divine love, or as painful "scourge".
St. Basil the Great (fourth century) points out that the Three Children thrown into the fiery furnace were unharmed by the fire, yet the same fire burned and killed the servants at the entrance to the furnace.
According to St Gregory the Theologian, God Himself is Paradise and punishment for man, since each man tastes God’s "energies" (His perceptible presence) according to the condition of his soul. St. Gregory further advises the next life will be
"light for those whose mind is purified... in proportion to their degree of purity" and darkness "to those who have blinded their ruling organ [meaning the "mind"]...in proportion to their blindness..."
A post-communion prayer of St. Simeon the Translator goes:
"...Thou who art a fire consuming the unworthy, consume me not, O my Creator, but rather pass through all my body parts, into all my joints, my veins, my heart. Burn Thou the thorns of all my transgressions, Cleanse my soul and hallow Thou my thoughts [etc.] ...that from me, every evil deed and every passion may flee as from fire…"
European/Western “Views” of Hell
The western ideas had its roots in Augustinian theology (who was influenced by the Greek pagan philosophers). Unfortunately Augustine could not read Greek and had to devise his own theology from imperfect Latin translations. Late in his life he recanted much of his earlier writings, an act which was virtually ignored in the West to this very day. Both Luther and Calvin developed their own theologies from Augustine’s erroneous writings, and ignoring Augustine’s later retraction.
Some Orthodox would contend that the western God, who both claims to love us, but also would condemn us to eternal punishment, is a schizophrenic God. It is reminiscent of the abusive groom who claims to love his bride but cannot stop punishing her.
Presumably, at the time of death we lose the ability to change, since our condition will be "consolidated" by being "caught" in the pure, unchanging presence of God, which will also occur to the living at the Apocalypse. The idea of changing in Purgatory is incompatible with the timeless, changeless nature of the afterlife.
John Calvin, the famous protestant reformer rationalized if God is all knowing, then He knows who will be saved and who will not even before they are born, so therefore He must have created some people just so He can torment them in Hell for eternity. This is the infamous "predestination" of Calvin, which makes God the author of evil. This is not Biblical and certainly not Christian. Calvin’s answer is that God is inscrutable, and it is not for us mortals to judge.
This is not at all the God of the Bible, but it is Zeus – cruel, arbitrary, and himself in need of healing. It is precisely this false understanding of God that leads one to atheism. What reasonable soul would believe in a God as cruel and arbitrary as this? A God who needs the blood of His own Son to heal His anger and indignity, and slake his thirst for vengeance on his own poor, helpless creation?
This is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Therefore the difference in this understanding is not just a difference between Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy, it is a difference between almost all of the heterodox and the Orthodox.
The Teachings of the Church
The Holy Orthodox Church, in keeping with Scripture and the most ancient Christian doctrine, teaches that all people come into the presence of God in the afterlife. Some will bask in joy because of that infinite love, glory, light, power, and truth that is Almighty God. Others will cower in fear and be in torment DUE TO THAT SAME PRESENCE. All the same, there will be a separation or "great gulf” because, there is a great gulf in the two experiences of this one reality, and one cannot cross over to the other in any way, so terrible is this experience.
The Rich Man and Lazarus in today’s Gospel are surrounded by the presence of the Living God, each receiving a foretaste of their life to come at the Resurrection.
What shall we do? If this is the afterlife, we have but one choice – repent and spread the Gospel. It really is good news! God loves all unconditionally! To be loved, and to love, forever!
Yet, it is precisely this that requires us to love, or else! Or else we will face what love really is, what it could have been for us, and with us. We must be assured that every soul in Prescott has the chance to receive this love, and know the Truth of God in Christ Jesus, not the fantasy Hollywood version, which loves to condemn, and hates to love.
Let’s take a note from our father among the saints, John Chrysostom (AD 344-407) wrote [in homily 76]
"Let us clothe ourselves with spiritual fire, let us gird ourselves with its flame. No man who bears flame fears those who meet him; be it wild beast, be it man, be it snares innumerable, so long as he is armed with fire, all things stand out of his way, all things retire. The flame is intolerable, the fire cannot be endured, it consumes all. With this fire let us clothe ourselves, offering up glory to our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, might, honor, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen."
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit! Amen!
Glory to Jesus Christ!
