Question:
Dear Greg,
I
guess I’ve come to the point where I believe in Jesus, but I am constantly
coming up against a brick wall with the thought of hell.
Even if I look around and see all this beauty and wonder (things that I
look at to try to compel myself into realizing the goodness of God), I always
remember the verse in Revelation about Jesus raising up the condemned dead and
intentionally casting them into flames. Why
couldn’t he just let them be dead? Are
they really hurting anyone anymore? I
really want to love God willingly, but with the thought of punishment in the
back of my mind, it’s really hard to know WHY I want to love God.
Do
you know what I mean and do you think that we almost have to desire this
punishment before we can be worthy of escaping it?
Thanks
again,
Robyn
Answer: Dear Robyn,
I
respond to the issues you raise in an article in the May-June 2003 issue of the
Plain Truth—the article is titled, “The Hotter the Better”.
If you do not subscribe, you can find a copy of the article online.
Simply check our past issues. That
should help you with some perspective.
Another
thought about your faith and your relationship to and with God—God reveals
himself to us as our heavenly Father. Nowhere
in the Bible does God claim that we will understand all of him, grasp his nature
or understand his mind. In fact, the
Bible tells us that we are his children and that we are incapable of
understanding his holiness, love, perfection, eternity, glory and majesty.
See Isaiah 55:6-11.
Another
way of saying this—God is not subject to our mind--the limited mind that he
has created. We therefore cannot
hold him to our pitiful human standard; we can simply be thankful that he has
condescended to our level in the person of Jesus becoming one of us that we
might be saved and have the relationship with him that he offers.
Hope
that helps Robyn.
In
Christ,