My friend Lindsay has just posted a very interesting bible study on hell based on Ezekiel 18:32. She was talking about who goes to hell and why but it got me thinking about what is hell?
I have always wondered about hell. My biblical knowledge isn’t exactly extensive but I don’t recall it ever being mentioned in the old testament anywhere. Nor heaven for that matter although this could be implied with the various people who got taken up to be with God.
With the coming of Jesus a new covenant was established and the “modern” ideas of heaven and hell were formed. Does this mean they didn’t exist before then? I don’t think so. So either there has always been a hell and God happily sent all his followers there without warning or hell is not exactly what we think it is.
I’m sure there are some passages in Revelation that explain that hell is a fiery and unpleasant place (understatement) but lets have a wander into theory for a second… I’ve always considered the fact that maybe hell is just the absence of God. Maybe hell is what I used to think of as death when I was an atheist: nothing. An eternity of darkness and nothingness without God.
This makes the whole resurrection thing make more sense in my head as Jesus coming back to life to live at God’s side doesn’t mean anything if you have to die to be in heaven. If death is death and you can only get to heaven by being alive again through resurrection then it makes more sense to me. In order to get to a fiery place called hell would mean having to be resurrected as well surely?
Now I’m sure I am very wrong in all of this and that there are lots of biblical verses to tell me as much. I think I need to go away and do a bit more research to learn more!
However the important thing is not what hell is, it is that there is one. If this is the case then it makes sense to me to find out what I need to do to not go there! I believe that this is a fairly simple job and can be done by just believing that Jesus was the son of God and that he died in order to forgive my sins and give me a clean slate before God.
if you are anything like me though then you’ll want to know as much as possible before you start believing something. Especially something with such a negative image like it has today!
I advise everyone who is not already a Christian to do a little bit of research on what could be the most important decision in your life. If what happened 2000 years ago on a cross was for real (and I have come to the conclusion it was based on lots of compelling historical evidence) you owe it yourselves to discard whatever preconceptions you have about religion and try and find out a little more.
One way to do this is through books but the easier way is through an Alpha course. This is a 13 week course that goes through the basics of Christianity. I went on it when I was still an atheist and it is a great course as they don’t preach at you and try and convert you. They let you be as stubborn and negative as you want. They are only interested in giving everyone a chance to make up their own mind.
My church is running a course at the end of September. More details will be coming soon but in the meantime if you are in the Swindon area and interested in finding out more let them know. I’ll put up another post in the near future as the details become available.
For those of you not in the Swindon area then don’t worry as there are Alpha courses running all over the country. Have a look at http://uk.alpha.org/findacourse to find your nearest event.
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