By Gary D. Robinson
Let’s not make the mistake of believing, however, that only addicts can lose their humanity. I was told of a woman — a regular churchgoer — who could not let go of her son. Even though he had married and had children of his own, his mother still considered him hers. She strove to drive a wedge between her son and the woman who had had the gall to take “her boy” away from her. She went to ridiculous lengths to keep her son by her side. Once again we ask, “Am I looking at a person — or a piece of a person — a grasping, pulling hand.
“Things fall apart,” wrote Yeats. “The center does not hold.” The poet could have been writing about the disintegration of human personality, which is the essence of Hell. Without a solid center to my life — the meaning, purpose, and hope Jesus gives — what will keep me from flaking apart? Those who resist the doctrine of Hell might ponder this question: Can God embrace a soul bent on its own destruction — a soul breaking down, hollowing out — without crushing that soul to bits?
Some people declare that the only Hell is on earth. Unfortunately, there’s more truth in that statement than they realize: Hell does start here on earth. Isn’t this the warning of the third chapter of John’s Gospel? “ . . . whoever does not believe stands condemned already . . . ” (3:18). To put it another way, “These walls were carved by men while yet they breathed.”
Before it is good news, the Gospel is bad news: “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” (3:19). In other words, “These walls were carved by men while yet they breathed.”
We flinch from the notion of Hell. We salve the burning truth with talk of “love” (that may never be returned) and “forgiveness” (that may never be accepted). We try to create in our minds a kind of humanity God never conceived: Made for infinite happiness, rejecting infinite happiness, yet somehow turning out OK. It won’t work.
C.S. Lewis explained it, if not in the nicest words, certainly the words that make the most sense: “What are you asking God to do? To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what He does.”
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Gary Robinson is Preaching Minister at Conneautville Church of Christ in Conneautville, PA.