Well that was an interesting class for sure. As we looked at Ephesians chapter 2 our discussion centered around what our attitude and words should be as believers to those who are the walking dead. I encouraged you to take our example from how Paul mentions that God responds to the walking dead. Living as children of wrath, far from God, living out life in the flesh and feeding the desires of the flesh, Paul makes the astounding statement that God who is rich in mercy, and for his great love with which he loved us [Paul's actual words there] even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
What emerges from this is a clear view of how God sees the walking dead. They are also, as we who now believe, objects of His love through whom Christ has brought life by giving his life as a sacrifice and raising it up again as a new humanity. It's significant that Paul chooses to present the good news to the walking dead in this way. God loves the walking dead and He - out of his love and mercy - desires to restore them to the true humanity that He intended - the masterpieces that He created them to be. His desire for us as well is to live and continue to live out our lives in keeping with the restored humanity that God has given through Christ.
What I am doing is following the logic of Paul as he presents one of the largest thoughts shared in all of his letters in these first two chapters of Ephesians. You will notice that there is absolutely no mention of hell in this discourse. In fact, there is no mention of hell in the entire letter. What we will find as we continue in the letter is a discourse on light and darkness - of which darkness is in keeping with the influence of evil on humanity. It is this evil that Paul encourages believers to expose by living in the light - of which Paul points out is expressed by imitating God [chapter 5] in his character of love.
Make no mistake - the bible and particularly the New Testament writers acknowledge that hell is a real place and a destination for those that remain distant from God. Yet when we read Paul's letters and look at the preaching of the Apostles in Acts, their focus is on communicating the good news by relating that Jesus is the True King and that He has risen from the dead and has restored us to the Father. The phrase "for the forgiveness of sins" indicates the restoration of relationship with God. The Kingdom of God and the Resurrection was the focus of their preaching.
The goal of repentance in the New Testament [the Greek word metaonia which means "changing what we know"] is to give those who are distant from God a true perspective of what God has done for humanity in drawing us back to Him. This centers on Jesus. As the Apostles and the writers of the NT tell us in their books and letters, our consistent message to those who are the walking dead is the they have been shown love by God through Jesus and they are restored to their true humanity. Their willingness and openness to accept this will translate into their transformation - what the NT writers refer to as "metanoia" and what we translate as repentance: A change in how they view themselves, God and the world around them.
So it begs the question - where does the teaching on hell fit in? It fits in terms of the biblical story as a whole that emerges well down along the line of our introducing others to Jesus. Like the NT writers, leaving that for the end and leaving it out altogether makes us aware of what they thought were the important points of the good news to share with others. The good news is the true and rightful King has landed and that He has rescued our humanity and He will judge evil and restore human beings. Introducing people to the reality of hell was not an evangelistic point that the disciples used in their message to the walking dead. New believers after coming to Christ would learn of it all too quickly as they became more familiar with the biblical story. Their knowledge of such an end for those that remain distant from God encouraged them all the more to - as Jude mentions in the New Testament - to snatch people from the fire - and so let Jesus become real and alive in their life.
These were some thoughts that circled in my head as I prepared for teaching Christology at the campus this morning and reviewing with my students what the early believers in the NT believed about Jesus and how they communicated it to non-believers.
Hope this helps put our discussion yesterday into perspective.
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