Locked from the Inside

Eschatology is the study of the last things, and the ultimate last thing is heaven or hell. Clearly the doctrine of hell is the most troubling of all doctrines for Christian people, if it is not something is wrong with us. How can the God we have met as Father and Savior send people to hell, if He is good and powerful why not save them all? If it wasn’t for Jesus teaching on the subject I would probably be an universalist, for make no mistake about it, it is not Paul or the Old Testament writers who make the case for hell, it is our Lord Himself. As always the answer lies in the heart of God. God gave us choices, freedom, and our freedom is real. God’s ultimate value seems to be love and love is one of those choices. We choose to love people and we choose to love God. Romantic love, infatuation, simply seems to happen, it is not hard to fall in love. But real love is a choice we make. So to love God we must choose to love God, we must seek Him and find Him and follow Him. God has made this possible through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So far so good, but there is a problem and the problem is us. We don’t want to follow God, we don’t want the universe on His terms we want it on our terms. This is sin and it is no small problem. It is so deeply ingrained in us it stops us from seeking, loving and following God. It is only when God’s grace reaches us and woes us that we awake to the reality that our lives are in Him. At this point we have a choice, we can repent of our self centeredness and believe upon Jesus or we can insist upon our own will being done. That choice is the choice between heaven and hell. Hell is not the place people go for not having correct doctrine or for any particular sin, hell is the place people choose to go to keep God out of there lives. I think it was Calvin Miller who said, “The gates of hell are not locked on the outside to keep the damned in, they are locked from the inside to keep God out.”