I have wanted for a long time to tell everybody that God is reconciled to them by the blood of the Cross, but standing in my face is the fact of Hell with all that that seems to imply. But maybe that is where the problem comes in, with the implications and inferences we have drawn. Our conviction is that Salvation equals Heaven, and that everyone who doesn't win has lost. But what about Our Lord's teachings about saving the least, the lost, the last, the losers of the world? Heaven, as we have pictured it is the ultimate way to become a winner, thus disqualifying you completely for the Gospel that is preached to the poor. We seek to follow the Man of Sorrows into bliss and happiness. If we are ever going to see the world any differently I think we are going to have to go further back. We need to revisit that very Old Testament concept of Wrath, and perhaps discover that it is simply the strangest disguise that Grace ever wore.
Wrath is best pictured by thinking of the book of Judges. Here we have the repeated cycle of Wrath. It begins with Sin, then Wrath comes and brings Repentance, then we find ourselves right back in Sin only it is worse this time, and the Wrath is consequently greater to produce, sadly, a lesser Repentance. This seems like the descending spiral of a whirlpool. We are simply circling the toilet bowl until the flush is complete. But when we look at this cycle, I think we gloss too quickly over the Repentance. We think because it is impermanent and inconstant that it isn't real. But this is the key point that I want to make: The Wrath of God ALWAYS produces Repentance as its fruit.
What does any of this have to do with Heaven and Hell? Well, interestingly(to me at least), two such different characters as John Baptist and Paul refer to Hell as "the wrath to come". So, one important way to understand Hell is as Wrath. Which seems obvious, but if we believe in a God who doesn't change it brings with it an important but easily overlooked feature. The "wrath to come" must be essentially the same as the Wrath we are familiar with. It may be different in form but it has the same purpose and the same power. And like everything that God does both the present wrath and the eschatological wrath must succeed in the purpose for which He employs them.
We have said that the effect of Wrath is to produce Repentance, in other words to separate us from our sin, at least temporarily. And I want to suggest that that is its purpose, both here and in the hereafter. Perhaps I can write this without inviting the wrath of all of my readers, that the people, and demons, in Hell are not as bad of sinners as you and I, in fact I think that on the other side of being in Our Lord's Presence(parousia- the Greek word for the "Second Coming"), in the Resurrection which unambiguously comes to all men, there are no more sinners. We know that the lucky winners in Heaven are kept from sin by Grace, but it seems that the poor losers in Hell are kept from sin by Wrath.
But back to Paul and John. There are at least six references to God's judgment as "wrath" in the Epistle to the Romans and approximately that many unambiguous references in the rest of Paul's epistles. The "wrath to come" is one of the Baptist's major themes but I want to look at the words that the Evangelist John puts into his mouth (or possibly the Evangelist's own commentary on the Baptist's words but either way) in his third chapter.
35 The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. 36 He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.
I want to consider this word "abides". Our only experience of wrath is very transitory. It comes, we cry, we repent. But we have already looked at the diminishing returns of Wrath so now I add that both Grace and Wrath are perfected in the Resurrection (which again comes to all men indiscriminately as is obvious in Revelation 20). If it takes more and more wrath to produce less and less repentance then a God who is determined to give us the infinitely valuable gift of separating us from our sins, must eventually employ wrath in its fullest form continuously. For anyone who thinks this is a Pyrrhic victory, that the price exceeds the reward, I have two answers. First, happiness is a small thing next to holiness(separation from sin) and if you don't think so then you don't have enough experience with sin to know anything about it. Perhaps as Luther suggested you should go out and "Sin boldly." so that you may mourn and be blessed by being comforted. Where sin abounds grace abounds much more. Secondly, if we believe that love is an essential attribute of God then it seems that we can trust Him to make that choice for us.
The Judgment really is God's total victory over sin, Each of us is forever after separated from our sin. Now I don't want to downplay the hellishness of Hell. It only works because it is the absolute misery and horror of God's wrath. But it does work. And I would like to suggest that those in Hell are able to perceive what we are not, the graciousness of their sentence. Maybe I am wrong, but maybe the damned are the ultimate losers who receive the Gospel. Maybe they(or we) for the joy that is set before them endure Hell, despising the shame, and find in Hell the rest of Christ's Presence.
Whether you agree with any of that or not, can we at least recognize that attempting to avoid and subvert God's judgment of us, is not the precondition of faith, they are opposites?
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