Hell ?

Is there hell ? i think probably so. is it for most of us ? i don't know. possibly not. not that the other options are actually nice. i can't imagine anything worse than sitting outside in the cold, with the gate firmly shut and the sounds of the party going on inside. you don't need to invent torturers and medieval pictures.

if i didn't want to hang with him in this life, his way it seems logical that i might not get into the "do" at the end.  if i left the invitation in the unanswered post rack until dust and stains made it so grubby i put it in the bin; if i thought everything else was more important, however trivial it will look then; it seems logical that i will sit and cry and grind my teeth and kick the gates and then it will be over. i can't believe we would survive very long. and then it will be over. all over.

by that stage, if i'm aware of anything other than my own pig headed stupidity,i might see the fires whatever.  i will probably be glad that there is justice and might feel like just prison or plain extinction simply isn't good enough for what some have done. all it is is justice. i'm absolutely certain that his justice will be just - not excessive, just just.

it's the only way i can live with the world - knowing that there will be justice one day, and working to ensure that as many people as possible access mercy.

My summary of Isaiah

as far as i can tell 

foreword : dear isaiah – this mind blowing vision is a hint for you to volunteer to take my message. as soon as you say yes you will go i will then let you in on the secret that they’re not going to listen anyway. 

here are the messages :

ch 7 to 45 :  

"look after fatherless, widows, aliens, weights and measures regulations, justice, alcohol moderation, leaning on God not other nations, no idolatry or immorality or else. 

if you bully the weak you’ll end up getting bullied by a nation bigger than you and see how you like it then – look it’s happening to your neighbours so hurry up and get your act together cos i really mean it. 

and woe to the lying prophets who are saying its ok, we’re doing the right things, we must be in God’s will, he’s on our side."

ch 46 - 66 

"ok, ok, i know this is a horrible dry flat desert region but i will eventually let you go back to your hills and fertile crescent when you have twigged that i’m still with you even out here in this wilderness. look i made all this and i made you. you know you never really kept me in a box in the first place and you certainly cant now. 

i’ll send my servant to fix things. here are a few signs to look out for to know it’s him. 

ps even the trees and the hills will be rather cheerful about all this…

ps it all works out all right in the very end too."



(lizeph paraphrase of isaiah.)


therefore (my conclusions)

a) jews dwelling in the land should look out for the first half of isaiah's prophecy for those dwelling in their own land

b) jews living in exile should take particular note of the words to them while they’re in exile.

Is God angry with us ?

I don't think the right balance will be brought by just preaching the opposite extreme. Some how it's one of those mysteries that we are all created in God's image and so all of value and all have some of his characteristics, but we are also spoiled by sin and alienated from God. I have grown to like the verse that used to give me the creeps - for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I'm given to understand that the word sin comes from ye olde english to illustrate falling short. It seems it's an archery word for when the arrow not only doesn't hit the target but it comes out wobbly from the bow and does a belly flop on the ground before even getting that far (and everyone watching the competition laughs or jeers I suspect). It helps me to remember that without God I'm part of that belly flop even tho I try to be a nice person, even if I haven't broken one of the ten commandments this week. I hope that makes me less patronising with those who've not yet turned to Jesus, but also keeps in mind that we do need what Jesus did. Love the sinner, hate the sin is the old cliché but I think it's very valid.

I've read some interesting stuff lately about God's anger/not. I'm still thinking it through.

I must say I have been very put off by images of a grumpy god turning his back on mankind and I think it is an over balance of what was once a healthy teaching to challenge complacent church members to repentance - the ministries of people like Finney and others. I associate it with the Fundamentalist movement too with their rather particular approach to the final judgement, hell and so on. I must say that in my opinion it's a pretty aggressive approach and not one I'm totally at home with. For example I don't think Jesus talked about hell with the ordinary people, only with the religious.And I think we've got our end times interpretations of some scriptures a bit knotted up.  I think Jesus approach is amazingly compassionate and loving and thoughtful when he's with ordinary folks. Brood of vipers is saved for the religious.

Having said that, as part of my current pilgrimage reconciling me to certain bits of the bible, I had to face up the the wrath passages in the minor prophets so I set my face and did a study to find out what actually makes God mad. I worked through the first half of Isaiah and all of Amos for starters and found a list that shouldn't have surprised me but it did. Of course there is the drunkenness, apostacy, foreign gods, idols, false prophecy etc but a really large part of God's gripe seems to have been how they treat the poor, needy, defenceless women and children, aliens/foreigners, false weights and measures, rigged trials,  denying proper legal rights to people, etc And it seems to me that the ultimate punishment for this sort of bullying and theft is to hand them over to even bigger bullies and thieves until they get a taste of their own medecine with the invasion and exile in Babylon. The actual poor themselves get left behind in the land to make out on their own !

So basically God goes lary about the things I wish I got more angry about too ! And as a disabled woman, on my own, with sick kids, in a foreign land, struggling with the economic crisis caused by the greedy, resulting in cuts to services I can identify with a lot of the people that God is sticking up for ! I don't mind him getting cross about how people like me get treated - and I've not had a bad ride compared to many, I'm one of the relatively rich in the world.

It seems to be yet another of those mysteries where the answers must be somewhere in not either/or but both. Some how I need to hold in my head the two images of God - so angry about wrong and injustice, yet so loving and merciful towards us. I'm not too fond of the old ying and yang thing, but I can see that it has some element of comprehension of this wonderful paradox.