Chapter
13
The
Destruction of Sin
There is more to the final destruction of the wicked than the previous chapter indicated, God is still faced with the problem of sin. This is one subject
that for a short time really had me questioning all I believed and imagined God
to be. It isn’t the destruction of the wicked itself, but more how they are
destroyed. Some religious authors indicate that sinners are tormented greater
depending on how wicked they were in life. This is supported in many verse found
in the Bible such as Luke 12:48,
“But
he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with
few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required:
and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.”
To me
this makes God out to be cruel. If God could destroy the wicked quickly, but
doesn't just for the sake of justice, it would make him out to be arbitrary and
cruel. This would mean that I, and the justice system if the United States, is
more loving than the very God who is himself love and the creator of me. I do
not believe that God decides what is sin and what isn’t sin. God is not arbitrary;
He does not make things up because He likes the feel of His authority. Sin is
determined by the consequences it brings. If you are turned from following
Love, the driving force of the universe, then you are on a path of sin. God
does not say, “I think I will make Marijuana a sin to smoke today” no, God is
not arbitrary like that. Marijuana is only sin if it truly leads you away from
a vibrant understanding of God and His character. Anything that leads you away
from the natural flow of existence and towards nonexistence is “sin”. So when you are questioning whether or not an action is sin you have to ask yourself if it destroyed your understanding of God, or harms your ability to explore his character. This can be applied to all major hot topics today, human sexuality, marijuana, etc etc. It is only sin if it destroys your relationship with God. What is sin is up to the individual to decide.
So is the destruction of the wicked a result of a
penal code being broken, or is there something more? Does God just arbitrarily
impose a punishment for sin, or is there something more at work here?
Let’s address God's law for a moment, after all,
isn’t sin the transgression of the law? Is God's law just an arbitrarily made
up set of rules? God's law was not created just because God wanted it to be so.
God laid down a set of principles for humanity. We are created and along with
existence God gives us operating instructions. We cannot continue on existing
without them. It's like a car, when you buy a new car from a dealer it usually
comes with a service plan. If you ignore that service plan, your car will run
for several thousand miles, maybe even as much as 20,000 miles, but without
changing the oil and servicing the tires and brakes etc. your car will fall
apart. Eventually the oil will break down to such an extent that it will no
longer be doing its job and the pistons will start to score and your motor will
seize and your car will be useless without a new motor. The law of God was
given to help me enjoy existence, just like the service plan was created to
help you enjoy that new BMW, or whatever car you prefer.
So with this thought in mind,
what do you think God's reaction is to the transgression of that law? What is
the reaction the dealership has to your ignorance of their service plan? Are
they angry with you? Do they punish you for your poor care of your vehicle? Do
you spend time in prison for ignoring the service plan? No, Of course not! They
may be disappointed that you ruined a perfectly decent car, but the
consequences of your actions are enough of a punishment in themselves. That is
the way God sees the transgression of His law. It's not that His law is so holy
that He is angered when we break it. No! He is saddened at the consequences of
such disobedience of the instruction manual for existence.
Does this mean that there is no punishment for
sin? Of course not. When we disobey the commandments of God the punishment is
the consequences of our actions. Reality itself is made up of a force called
love, it is the essence of God and when we go against that fundamental fabric
of reality, we are in opposition to reality and physics itself, and we began to
break down. Left to itself, such opposition cannot continue to exist because it
seeks to be free of the foundational love of the universe and to be free if
that is to cease to exist. You cannot be free of the existence of God because
God is existence itself!
Sin so distorts reality that it affects the very
fabric of space-time that we exist inside of. I do not know how exactly this
works, but in the future I am sure that many things will be revealed that we
know nothing of today, this theory and indeed all my writings are merely my
speculations about something I do not know. I'll call this sin "dark
matter" and this dark matter begins to chip away at the fabric of our
existence in some way. God must eradicate this sin to save the universe, not
just the individual. There is something going on here that is bigger than you
or I can even begin to comprehend! This is what God is seeking to do in those
of us living right now. He seeks the total eradication if sin in the life. This
development is the work of a lifetime. What is developed over a lifetime of sin
is not readily undone. What was done inside space and time, God cannot undo in
just seconds. What was done in existence must be undone in existence.
The righteous give God the right to perfect them
even in death, death is not a hindrance to God, as we will study later. He can
communicate just fine with the dead. There is no such thing as death to God.
Death is only a different form of reality that God can do whatever He wants
with because Existence is inside the mind of God, and what he wishes to be
done, is done. God draws from the righteous the desire for that perfect love
and the eradication of sin. It is not so for the unrighteous. If God had no power
over their life, He has no power over their death either. God does not force,
and He cannot take part in the death of the wicked because to do so would be to
force himself on someone who consciously chose not to accept love as the ruling
agent in their life. That is why God hates the death of the wicked, but loves
the death of the righteous. The death of the wicked is the end!
Yet, even though death is the end for the
wicked, the Bible indicates that they are still raised to life at the end,
“And
I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth
and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the
dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another
book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of
those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the
sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead
which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.”[1]
So why then are the wicked raised in the end?
Does God really just want to resurrect them to punish them again and kill them?
No! What a cruel God that would be, the wicked already experienced punishment.
Death is the consequences of sin. However, there is one more work that God has to
do. It is the total eradication of sin. God has to do with the wicked what he
did with the righteous. How do you purify a wicked person who is so corrupted
by sin that it is a part of their very nature, mind, body and spirit?
Sin not only corrupts the mind but like I said
before, I have a theory that it corrupts the very fabric of existence as well.
The mind has a great deal of power over reality and God has to release that
power forever. As God pours out his spirit one last time His presence is a
consuming fire and in that glory all sin starts to be destroyed. What happens
over a lifetime and often into death for the righteous is accelerated for the
wicked. They experience the full measure of the mercy, love and truth of God
like it has never been poured out before. In that awesome presence they behold
the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and by be holding they
become changed. It is a different change than accompanies the righteous
however. Sin has so rooted itself in the life, body and mind of the wicked,
that as they are purified their existence starts to unravel. Not because God
hates the wicked and wishes them to be destroyed, but because they have built
their life in such a way that sin itself has taken root in their existence and
as God gives them their desire for nonexistence they must be unraveled from the
fabric of space time. I do not claim I know how this works physically but it is
the only thing that makes sense in the framework of what I know of a God who is
himself Love.
“Wait, surely I left out some Bible verses that
clearly state that the wicked will be burned for ever and ever, such as
Revelation 20:10, and Revelation 14:11.” Isolated alone, these texts could
easily be read as if God burns people in hell forever. However, comparing
scripture with scripture we begin to see a different view emerge. The Bible
likens the destruction of the wicked to Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities that
were destroyed by God during Abraham’s time. The Bible says,
“And
the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he
hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the
great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like
manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh,
are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”[2]
First, let’s address the most obvious. We know
where Sodom and Gomorrah are today. You can go there and pull sulfur balls out
of the ash that used to be the massive walls of those two great cities. If
Sodom and Gomorrah are examples of eternal fire than eternity is not very long.
There is one thing that is eternal about Sodom and Gomorrah it is their punishment.
Both cities experienced the finality of destruction. Never to rise again, they
are a prime example of what God is speaking of when He speaks of eternal fire.
The punishment is eternal, not the punishing. Second is the fact that Jude 1:6
says that the angels are chained in eternal chains that last till the judgment.
This is clue number 2 that the author is conveying the certainty of a specific
outcome. God does not burn people in hell forever and ever.
“For,
behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and
all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them
up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.”[3]
This verse proves the interpretation
to be correct and leaves the Bible with no contradiction. It is the punishment
that is eternal. Those who die the second death, never live again. They pass
out of existence as they reject the existence of God. God cannot force, and to
force the wicked to stay in his presence for all eternity would be diabolically
opposed to His character. Not to mention that the earth would not be a very
nice place since that is where the wicked are destroyed and burned up. If God
kept the wicked alive forever to torture them, then we would see them every
day. Heaven would be in the center of hell, and we would be forced to view the
suffering of fallen humanity.
That being said however, the Bible talks about some
taking longer to purify then others, I believe that if the Bible writer was correct
about this, than it is because some have done more evil and affected more of space-time
than others. Those who have accomplished much against God in life, their impact
will be harder and take longer to eradicate then will others who did not do
nearly as much. Or take Satan for instance. For at least 6,000 years, possibly
tens of thousands of years, Satan has been working against God, how easy do you
think his impact on reality will be to remove? His four dimensional lines will
crisscross reality like a web as he sought to overthrow the creator by
influencing the heart of man. Satan undoubtedly will experience the most Love
poured out. The one who did the most sin, will experience the most love, for
only by beholding Love, can sin be cleansed.
One last thing that must be addressed on this
subject and that is why God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in the first place. Or
even more than that, why did He destroy the entire earth in a flood? One text in
particular stands out to me to answer this question and reveal the character of
this God we are exploring,
“Except
the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as
Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.”[4]
You see, though destruction is a
terrible thing it often accomplishes something that in the end is good. In a
way God gave Humanity a chance at life. God destroying is His strange act,
because it is out of love that God destroys or allows destruction. All of
humanity would have rejected their creator if the flood hadn’t have happened.
God is making sure that the most number of individuals have the opportunity to
accept life as possible. Notice that this verse does not focus on the
destruction of humanity rather it focus on the ones who were saved. God did not
destroy the wicked, rather saved the only man who would listen.
In reality, when you look at why bad
things happen to this world, you can almost always attribute them to natural
causes. Take the flood for instance. We now know that a giant asteroid struck
off the coast of Mexico, creating one of the largest craters known to man. This
impact caused the crust of the earth to break open which caused the
displacement of massive amounts of water. As the Bible records and countless
other legends and myths throughout the world indacte, water came shooting up
from the ground and flooded the entire planet. The earth tilted on its axis and
gave us the seasons, the ice age, the poles and our oceans. Now we have to ask
the real question, did God do it, or did chance do it? The Bible attributes it
to God certainly, but is it outside the realm of probability that it was merely
an act of nature? God revealed to the only man who would listen what was
coming, Noah listened to the voice of God and he was saved, but all the rest of
humanity refused to walk in the way of God and were caught off guard when this
natural disaster hit the earth.
A similar story can be told for
Sodom and Gomorrah. There were massive sulfur pits not to far from where those
cities were located. The Bible even mentions them in Genesis. From what science
has been able to tell, an Asteroid struck those tar pits which rained down
“Fire and brimstone” from the sky. Sodom and Gomorrah were most likely destroyed
by natural means. This paints a completely different view as to what the angels
of the Lord were doing in the city in the first place. They went to the only
living inhabitant of that city who still chose to listen to the voice of God.
Lot and his family were spared, but all others perished in the fire. Is God’s destruction
then merely the result of us mentally choosing not to listen? This goes back to
what we studied in the previous chapter. Chance happens to all the same. In a
perfect world we would have known the asteroid was coming and taken precautions
to eliminate the destruction.
You look out over the vast reaches of the
universe and you will see a similar story to what happens here on earth.
Destruction, explosions, collisions and energy decay, It is all part of he
beauty of existence. God has given to all free will. It is written in the very
fabric of the universe, not only for those of us with intellect, but also for
every three dimensional object. The asteroid was thrown in a trajectory toward
earth, it is unfortunate, but it happened. These things will continue to happen
even after humanity is saved from sin. The only difference will be that we will
have infinite knowledge at our fingertips as we are once again brought into the
collective mind of God.
We will be made perfect, but not mere
automatons, the same will be with the universe around us, perfect but not
merely a stagnant unchanging existence. Asteroids still will fly, stars will
die and collisions may occur, but yet we will be able to choose, as Noah did
and Lot after him, to commune with the one who holds infinite knowledge in His
grasp and with that we will avoid all that would make this life miserable. We
will once again be in harmony with Love.
God says in Isaiah 1:18,
“Come
now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they
shall be as wool.”
Jesus
invites us to reason with Him; to come into communion with Him, to question
him. He is even waiting at the door, waiting for us to open it.
“Behold,
I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I
will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”[5]
God is waiting for us to accept Him, it isn’t
that God is hiding in obscurity trying to hide Himself from us; He stands at
the door to our life waiting for us to realize that we want to have Him apart
of it. He does not force his way in; He waits for us in our own free will to
choose to be His friend. So why do we so often turn down the call of God? Are
we afraid that God will take away all the fun we have in this life? Even if God
intended to do that, which He doesn’t, what is our life really worth us? The
average American, for instance, lives an average of 70 years. When in respect
to eternity, 70 years is so small! When compared to just the distances involved
in travel through our galaxy, let alone the universe, 70 years doesn’t even get
us out of our galaxy when traveling the speed of light.
The average American’s life span can be broken
up into a couple major categories that we spend doing in our lifetime. Below is
a list of the findings of one study.
Sleep...............23 years.........32.9%
Work...............16 years.........22.8%
TV....................8
years...........11.4%
Eating..............6 years............8.6%
Travel..............6 years............8.6%
Leisure............4.5 years.........6.5%
Illness..............4 years............5.7%
Dressing..........2 years............2.8%
Religion...........0.5 years.........0.7%
Total................70 years.........100%
Our life literally is worthless. Who
wouldn’t exchange 23 years of sleep and 16 years of work, and all the rest of
wasted time, for eternity? This life is not worth it. It might seem sometimes
that our own way is better and that we have a pretty good life on our own, but
the Bible says,
“…For
what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and
then vanisheth away.”[6]
Jesus
said, “Without me you can do nothing.”[7] Truly without the abiding
presence of Jesus we really can do nothing. Without Christ, our life is just a
sad average, a collection of years spent in wasted time. Jesus says again,
“And
he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He
that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall
find it.”[8]
When
we give into Christ, that is when we actually truly start living. If we give
our life over to the infinite Love of God, we gain life in return.
The story of the women caught in adultery is a
prime example of how God relates to the sinner. What did Jesus tell her?
“When
Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her,
Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No
man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no
more.”[9]
This is exactly what we studied in the previous
chapter. This is an awesome picture of forgiveness. A woman caught in the very
act of adultery yet Jesus tells her, “Neither do I condemn thee.”
Christ
is in the business of forgiveness,
“For
God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not
his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might
be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not
is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten
Son of God.”[10]
God loved us enough that He was willing to give
up all of heaven, all power, and all praise and glory just to save us from a
miserable place called earth. What an amazing thought. God did not desire for
us to die without salvation, but he wanted us to have everlasting life. He did
not come to condemn us, but to save us. If we believe on Him we are not
condemned. Who is condemned? Those who have not believed are Condemned. They
condemn themselves by their own unbelief. Christ only waits for us to accept
Him so that He can forgive. Forgiveness is their waiting; we are the ones that
hold it back.
The Bible says,
“Having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself,
according to the good pleasure of his will…In whom we have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.”[11]
Christ has predestined us to be saved. Not to be
lost, but that we all should not parish but have eternal life.
No comments:
Post a Comment