"For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him (Jesus), and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross."

Hell

In God’s plan of salvation for mankind, he has a timetable. He is not trying to save everyone today. It is clear to all reasonable people that throughout history he hasn’t tried to save everyone. In Old Testament times salvation was not even offered to the Gentiles and they were the vast majority.

Now, Christians are still a minority, albeit a big one.

Do you really think that God, who is all powerful, all knowing, all wise and all loving actually intends to burn the majority of people who have ever lived for ever and ever?

Really?

Babies burning in hell?

Now I could understand some people thinking that if you knew God was God and that you should worship him but you refused to do so that God could be rightly angry with you.

I don’t say it’s good theology, I just say I can understand it. The truth is that the knowledge of God is spiritually hidden from most people and they couldn’t accept him even if they wanted to. When God decides to open someone’s eyes – he does! Look at Saul of Tarsus. God called him to be an apostle and opened his spiritual eyes. Saul’s response was to become converted.

I was working in a garage in Burgh Heath when God opened my spiritual eyes to “see” Jesus. I was a teenager looking for fun, not God. My response was that I gave my life to God there and then. I don’t say that you can’t try and resist the call of God, I just say that if I was a betting man, my money wouldn’t be on you lasting out that long.

But how could God’s wrath be on babies?

“Because they were born in sin as a result of Adam’s fall,” some say. This is really sad theology isn’t it? How could you live with yourself in heaven if you thought about all the billions who were for eternity suffering the fires of hell while you enjoyed yourself?

Eternity is a long time

Many Christians have read Bible verses that have led them to believe that unless you become a Christian in this life you are doomed to spend eternity in hell.

Actually, the Bible teaches no such thing.

The Bible recognises a number of distinct ages in God’s plan of salvation. It talks of the patriarchal age, this present evil age, a millennial age and the ages to come.

The writers of the Bible didn’t generally have a concept or vocabulary for unending eternity. When they spoke of “age long” periods this has been translated as “eternal” by present translators.

So what actually happens?

If you are a Christian, when you die your body goes to earth, i.e. your body is usually either buried or cremated. Your spirit returns to God and is in his presence until the resurrection. This resurrection is described as the first resurrection and will occur when Jesus returns at the end of this present age. All the saints who have ever died are now in this state. Their spirits are awaiting the resurrection to life. To varying degrees, the nature of Christ has been formed in them and God has qualified them to live and reign with him for eternity.

“Sisters, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or grieve like the rest of women who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, we who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.”

“For then there will be great distress, unequalled from the beginning of the world until now – and never to be equalled again. If those days had not been cut short, no-one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened."

See all of Matthew chapter 24 to get much more information that Jesus gave when his disciples asked him about the end of this present age.

You will have a glorious spiritual body

After you die and until the resurrection your spirit is in a state of sleep. You have no awareness of the passage of time. At the first resurrection you will be given a new spirit body that unites with your spirit. You will be “you” then but with a spiritual, incorruptible body.

“The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.”

“They (the Christians) came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years." (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended).

At the end of the 1,000 years, those who died as non Christians are given physical bodies and are brought back to life on the earth for their period of judgement. Don’t be alarmed about this. Just as Christians are being judged during their lives now, so those who will believe when they are resurrected in the second resurrection (and believe me, you will be a believer by then) will have their own similar period of judgement at that time. The Devil is released from his spiritual prison and he immediately goes out to deceive mankind and to stir up rebellion against God. Despite the fact that the whole earth is as beautiful as the Garden of Eden by this time, many are influenced by him.

It is in this crucible of temptation that God wins over the lost to himself in untold billions. It is a hard path for them and will be a time of much suffering but out of it there will be spiritual “gold tried in the fire”.

The ultimate end of it all will be when God draws all men to himself through love – the supreme power in all the cosmos and heaven itself.

We can’t judge ourselves let alone others.

What about Heaven then?

This is the presence of God and is everywhere outside the cosmos.