What a helpfully disturbing question.
I suppose our neo-Calvinist (or is it new-reformed) sisters and brothers would respond that they always have and always will affirm the terrible wrath of God on those not lucky enough to have been elected from before creation – here is hope that many are so lucky
But I don’t live there.
I was recently discussing what evangelism in our age may look like. I was meditating on Paul’s interaction with the Greeks in Athens. We often use this text to show how we should be relevant, missional, speaking the language of our culture etc – and rightly so. But I often observe that in this context of cultural engagement Paul presents a very un greek message: resurrection and final judgment.
Now I will stress the importance of resurrection here and argue that our gospel proclamation must include the message that the resurrection has already happened; that the kingdom of God has and is breaking trough etc.
I typically then wave my hands at Paul’s second point, in Acts 19:31. “because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness”
I know that I am wrong to do this. Final judgment was as much a part of Paul’s gospel proclamation as resurrection and new creation.
How do we recover this?

I appreciate Derek’s honest tension regarding judgment. I know we have to shed a lot of cultural baggage connected to this unsettling biblical reality. I just hope we don’t end up treating biblical texts as we do apocalyptic texts and defuse the impact of the reality of divine judgment. If we do, then soon, as Ed Gentry notes, we will dilute the acts of Jesus’ redemptive events.

Excellent post. I like how you pointed out all sides of the issue. On one side, there are those that tend to skim across passages of divine wrath against injustice as if it doesn’t exist. And there are those that tend to dwell on it as if it is the only thing that exists. Still others focus on their interpretation on like you said “the whos and wheres and whens of divine judgment.” I appreciate that you pointed out that where we stand with God is the only thing that matters.

In the current dialogue about living in the kingdom tension of ?now but not yet?, I share your concern that the pendulum has perhaps swung too far away from ?not yet? in our quest to correct the perceived imbalances of past generations. I appreciate your beautiful statement that ?the idea of judgment, then, was at the heart of my discovery of divine love.? As C.S. Lewis famously noted, God is not a tame Lion. A diminished belief about the nature of the ?not yet? runs the danger of presenting not a Lion but a defanged bobcat to both ourselves and the world.
Thanks for this post.

I have struggled with this issue mightily for quite some time, and is the main reason I left the neo-calvinist movement for a more moderate theological home.
Could this be why the open theists such as Boyd and Pinnock have argued for a “partly open” future? They see biblical evidence that point to severe judgement for the majority but desire to leave open room that God’s mercy may end up overpowering His wrath.
Interestingly, there was a debate in the Roman Catholic tradition on both sides of this issue between Dale Vree and John Neuhaus. Here is an article written about that ongoiing debate: http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=488 It appears that in the Catholic tradition a small shift has taken place towards a more merciful God, however it must also be noted that no official dogma or catechism has changed. Many Catholics have pointed to the hope of Pope John Paul II who is a hero to not only Catholics, but also many protestants for his more merciful outlook on eschatology.

What was the sum-up of Revelation from a few posts back?
1. God’s team wins.
2. Choose your team.
3. Don’t be stupid.
Something like that. Anyway, unfortunately the idea of judgment is so weighted with baggage about what will specifically happen (we’ve all seen the complex charts, diagrams, and timelines, I’m sure) that it is tempting to chuck it. But we can’t, or we’re left with…what? The Enlightenment myth of Progress? The more Hindu idea that history is cyclical? The cynical belief that there is no ultimate justice to be found, other than what we make?
No. History has a direction. Jesus is redeeming the world, and one day the Story we find ourselves in (or this chapter of it, at any rate) will end. If, when the kingdom fully comes, I am already part of it, it will be a great day. If I am not…well, I don’t know, but I don’t want to find out.

Travis – doesn’t it seem that the message of Revelation oft taught is:
1. God’s team avoids judgment.
2. Everyone else experiences everlasting wrath.
3. Don’t be stupid.

I am sympathetic to the desire to tone down God’s wrath, but we must approach the question from the right direction.
We can’t begin with “my God wouldn’t…” That’s beginning with a possibly incorrect view of God — be of His mercy, holiness, or justice.
We have to take the text seriously. We have to examine it critically. We have to employ Scot’s “with tradition approach.”
We can’t ignore what the Church has taught for long regarding these punishment passages, but we also need to ask if we’ve made a mistake. Is there some nuance in the Greek that was missed, that didn’t make it into the Latin much less the English? When we read “hell,” do we reading to the text ideas that weren’t part of the apostles’ — or Christ’s — teaching?
But in the end, what the text says is what it says. If Jesus taught about hell, we can’t chunk the idea. If hell is the eternal destiny of a large part of the human race, we can’t bury that.
In short, if we’re wrong about hell, let’s find out. If we’re not wrong, let’s act appropriately.

If we are to take scripture literally, then we must be assured that just as it says our God is a merciful and loving God, which He has shown by giving us His only begotten Son to die on the cross to pay the sin debt that we all own because we are sinners, then we must also believe that as it is said in scripture, that our God is a holy God and therefore will come with justice upon those that make the choice not to heed His word when Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” God is holy, therefore no one who has sin in his/her life, and has not chosen to come to the Father through the Son, at His second coming, will be judged by that holy God with true justice. The most important word here is “Holy”, what does this word mean and why do we not believe.

Derek, thank you for your thoughts here. I truly love your closing comment “I am much more certain of my Rock than of my theories.” Bless you, that’s where we ought to be.
Travis, I love that Revelation summary, which I missed before. . .beautiful!
Missing from this debate, as from much church teaching on God’s judgment, is the reality that judgment in the biblical text is frequently not just (or even mostly) about wrath and punishment (I owe much of this thought to N.T. Wright, though I’m sorry to say I can’t think of a reference at the moment). Think of all the times where, in OT and NT, the poor and oppressed are encouraged to lift their heads and hopes, because God’s righteous judgment is coming to pass. God’s judgment/justice entails God’s finally “putting to rights” all that is screwed up in his creation, and while this indisputably involves punishment of the wrongdoer, it also involves the vindication of God’s people, and even the vindication of God himself.
It is certainly appropriate to have some level of “don’t be stupid” fear of judgment, but as citizens of God’s kingdom we should view it far more with anticipation than dread. “How long, oh Lord?” is far closer to the biblical perspective.

Back to number #7:
Better:
1. Judgment is coming
2. God’s team escapes judgment
3. Don’t be stupid.

ChrisB, the text does say what it says; but what does it *mean*? That’s what all the disagreement is about, always…
I appreciate that Derek is wrestling with these questions. Here are some I’ve wrestled with:
Does it make a difference that “Hades” (nothing besides simply the abode of the dead) and “Gehenna” (the garbage dump at the south side of Jerusalem) became conflated in the middle ages and were eventually translated into English as the same word, “Hell”?
Does it matter that in Hebrew “judgment” has the meaning of “setting things, people and relationships right”?
What does it mean that after the judgment has been accomplished, trees remain “for the healing of the nations”? What is left to be healed?
Does “all things”, as in Christ is reconciling all things to the Father, *really* mean All Things, or does it mean only human beings who are “saved” by [fill in soteriologic doctrine here]?
What will humans be doing after Revelation 22?
I don’t think dogma is being “lessened”. I think it’s being set aside. Some people are indeed looking at the biblical text again, in its historical and literary context, trying to deal with the incompatibility of what we usually think of as “wrath” with what we usually think of as a good God, supremely revealed in Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection, accomplished to abolish death, to make forgiveness the ground under everyone’s feet, and to launch “the age to come”. It’s a done deal already.
We can argue about what judgment and wrath mean until we’re blue in the face. If the meaning of scripture holds out *any* hope that God is love and his love does not change, that God is not the author of evil, that evil will be destroyed and that *All Things* will be reconciled to God, which I think it does, I’m going to go with that, even if it’s the “minority view”. If I’m going to be wrong about something, I’d rather stand with Gregory of Nyssa and Isaac of Nineveh (whose writings have never been censured by the oldest expression of the church), and be wrong on the side of Mercy. I believe in the Last Judgment. I also believe it’s not the end of the story…
Dana

RJS,
Actually, I think the message of Revelation oft taught, in my experience, is:
1. Here’s a precise timeline of the destruction of the evil, wicked world by a furious God. Hint: the locusts are helicopters!
2. Before he demolishes the earth, never to be seen again, God will snatch away his team to his heavenly realm of gold, where we will become floating balls of light and enjoy a 10-billion-year-long church service together. Doesn’t that sound awesome?
3. Things will inevitably get worse, since we’re living in the end-times and all, and there’s no reason to try to make things better. Let’s just get everybody to the lifeboats as fast as we can!
I don’t mean to poke fun (okay, yes I do), it’s just that Revelation really is a marvelous book about the ultimate triumph of the Kingdom of God and the redemption and recreation of the world, and many of us have massively missed the point. Will there be judgment involved? Yes, absolutely. Violent upheavals? Without a doubt. But the point, and end-result, is the recreated and redeemed new heaven and new earth, where the triune God dwells among us and we rule under his authority, as we were always meant to.
Are we privy to the details of how this will all happen? Not a bit, but we have enough to dream of and work toward.

It seems to me that there has been an inordinate interest and emphasis among Christian preachers, especially after John Calvin and his interpreters, in making sure people get the message of damnation. Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the hands of an angry God” is typically acknowledged as the greatest sermon in American history. I think it could have been much different.
We are told often in the OT that “His love endures forever” (e.g. Psalm 118; 136). James tells us that “Mercy triumphs over judgment” (2:13). We are not told that judgment endures forever. The nature of God is such that He will reconcile humans to himself. It may take time and various kinds of judgment and trial, but if God wins, he will not be overcome by evil. It’s about reconciliation.

A couple of thoughts: a big part of our problem with the idea of judgment isn’t so much that we don’t want it to come (although we don’t!). It’s that we’ve been taught to think of judgment as bringing eternal suffering for no purpose in a person’s life beyond an eternal “boy, I bet your regret not choosing God now!” In the original language, God doesn’t punish (greek timorion) people, he chastises (greek kolasin) them. Chastisement, obviously, is meant for correction – to bring positive change. Nor is it meant to last forever (greek aidios), but for an age (greek aion). I would not want to stand before God’s wrath and it does alarm me to think of some of the people I know facing the wrath of God. However, knowing that it is for correction and not a permanent state of affairs really takes away the conflict for me. I have no problem saying that God’s wrath will be more than anyone can bear for even a moment – a terrible and frightening thing we should work to avoid. However, I know that even that terrible and frightening wrath comes out of God’s love and good purposes for His creation. Just like Jesus would rather God work his will without the cross, the glory beyond the cross was enough to make Jesus say, “not your will, but my will be done.” God’s judgment is bitter medicine I would rather not have the world have to take. However, without that judgment, mankind is without hope.

Derek: what is the Orthodox Jewish approach to all this? I was amazed 10 years ago when a Jewish woman in our bible class (yes, that’s right) said that there is no concept of an afterlife. Is that correct? But in Jesus’ time, weren’t there divided camps, for example the Pharisees believing in a resurrection, while the Sadducees did not? And when I mean “afterlife” I’m talking about a glorified presence in the new heaven and earth.

An old friend of ours that we’d hung out with as a friend, who became a long distance friend, emailed us one day and said he’d become a christian. We thought he already was a christian, he wasn’t faking it or anything. But the way he put it is he chose Christ to escape hell and now he takes Christ for relationship. In his eyes the realtionship part had been missing. And when he crossed that line he experienced himself as a christian then. So there is that to be leery of when speaking of God’s judgment – that one doesn’t become a christian just to avoid hell or whatever, but understands God’s desire for relationship too.

When I was working through Romans in Greek, I noted that 1:18 is the only verse that has the phrase “orgn theou” – wrath of God in the whole epistle. I found myself wondering why the translators had added “of God” in other verses of the epistle which only had “orgn”. There does seem to be an implication that that the 2nd half of ch. 1 describes both false worship and its product. I.e., the human turning away from God produces inevitable wrath in the vacuum, and the wrath is present in that vice list. (It’s as if the wrath and the law are flip sides of the same coin.) Furthermore, Paul used the present tenses in this verse and others.
So, if the kingdom of God is present now (and not yet), it seems to me that scripture makes clear that wrath is not only a “then” concept, but is present now, too. It’s The Day (of Judgment) which is the rendering of accounts. It seems pretty clear from 1 Cor. that building up one another is the essential work of Christians according to Paul than building worldly status and material things. The latter may burn, but the builder will be saved “but only as through fire.” (1 Cor. 3:15) Do these people who built that which won’t survive the fire come face to face with ashes of their present lives? Is Paul talking about only Christians in that passage, or anyone? Tough questions which seem to be unanswerable, at least presently.

Mike M:
There is no one Jewish view on all this. There are rabbinic texts which speak of the perfectly righteous going straight to paradise and the perfectly wicked going straight to Gehenna while most everyone spends some time (less than a year) in Gehenna until sins are burned up or paid for.
A lot of Judaism in modern times has been rationalistic, such as the woman you met, and rejected any view of the afterlife. These opinions have more to do with modernism than Judaism. Just as some Christian denominations have abandoned historic beliefs, so too with some branches of Judaism. Interestingly, the trend in Judaism is back to the ancient practices and beliefs.
Derek

All:
I apologize for coming in late on my own opportunity to guest blog for the fabulous Jesus Creed community. I was in L.A. on business until 2 a.m. Friday morning. I took Friday just for synagogue preparation and family time. Oops!
In their helpful book, Hell Under Fire, Christopher Morgan and Robert Peterson note that the New Testament suggests three purposes for hell: punishment (fire will not be quenched), destruction (perish, eternal destruction), and banishment (cast into outer darkness). The images do not always match up for a literal read (darkness and yet fire).
I am left with the thought that we know less than we think we do about judgment in the afterlife. The descriptions I learned in my evangelical training were simplistic and ignored the complexity of the New Testament picture.
Nonetheless, I cannot find safety in these ambiguities about judgment to come. They may be every bit as bad as some of these sermons I heard early on. I know one thing — I do not wish to play with God’s judgment and I do not want to be smug either about my place with God (Jesus never approved of the kind of smug certainty often peddled in the name of the Gospel). I choose to hope for the best, trust that God will do right, and meanwhile repent often and fear the Lord my God.
Derek