What is Hell?
To understand Hell, I think we need to understand a few Key Moments from this age that we live in according to a macro biblical view.
Creation
GOD created order from chaos taking endless possibility and potential and set boundaries, limits and rules upon them to create “somethings” from “nothings.”
Energy
GOD is the source of energy; he gives and takes away. Energy, we know, isn’t created or destroyed it is changed and moved, exchanged and recycled.
Reality
GOD is the source of reality. His perspective is reality as is his Word, spoken intention of his will.
Will
GOD’s will was to create the heavens and the earth for pleasure. GOD’s pleasure and, I believe, the pleasure of those he created. Creations was created for joy, communion and to share the great love of Father, Son and Spirit. That our will would align with Their will for contentment and shalom. That we, Their Image, would see all as Good, ourselves in our role as very good, and with our freedom, choose to trust him and what he says about Reality.
Testing the Will
There cannot be a free universe without the possibility to choose an alternate existence. GOD gives humans (and most likely divine beings as well) tests and we choose based on what we believe to be Good. We choose based on Reality as it is or based on a False Reality.
According to the Bible, mankind was deceived by the ancient serpent (the great dragon, the deceiver of mankind, the accuser of the brothers, satan) giving them an Alternate Reality, one where GOD should be mistrusted, his goodness should be questioned, where GOD’s word is not true. Eve we are told, believes the deception and participates in this Alternate Reality, transgressing GOD’s command and then leads her husband into transgression too. Only then, when the Man transgresses are their eyes opened and they see their guilt and failure. Still participating in the Alternate Reality, they act according to this new lens for seeing God. Convinced that God will kill them, transformed by fear and shame their Alternate Reality pulls them deeper into a False Reality. They enter Hell in their minds.
Hell
Hell is the False Reality where they believe God is Punisher. Where I am blight. Where no amount of suffering or punishment can satisfy the cost of my guilt. So, they hide from GOD. Hell is the ultimate exile from GOD. If we can just get far enough away from GOD, perhaps we will be safe from Cosmic Punishment. Perhaps GOD isn’t just in the first place and he is a tyrant who by nature is unpleasable? That’s Hell speaking. That GOD isn’t safe and good. GOD wants to destroy me. GOD never liked me anyway. Life must be meaningless if GOD can’t be trusted.
Hell entered our world then, in the beginning, and it continues to weasel into every living soul from then until now. People all over the world are living in a mental or physical Hell as we speak. Any form of Reality that opposes GOD’S Reality is Hell. Any way of existing that goes against, is not aligned with, or deviates from GOD’S spoken word of intent is Hell.
The Hell we find ourselves in may be the False Reality of our own choosing or it could be the False Reality we’ve inherited. How we receive it does not make it any less of a Hell. The degree to which we are deceived correlates to the degree in which we suffer and the degree in which we contribute to others’ suffering. The degree in which we fight against GOD and his truth, in order to maintain our False Reality, is the the degree to which we feel the heat of coming in contact to GOD’s white hot passion. The greater the deception, the greater the friction of pushing against Reality.
An Analogy of Hell and Reality
Perhaps God’s Truth- Reality- is like a boulder sliding down a hillside. The hillside is your plane of Reality. If the boulder in sliding down the hillside and you are holding it back, there will be work required and friction caused. The greater the degree of your deception and False Reality, the greater the pitch of your plane and the steep the hill, therefore the greater pull of gravity there is on the GOD boulder and thus the greater exertion of work you must put out to fight against that boulder. In this scenario it may feel like GOD is trying to crush us and trample over us to move down the hill. This is a Hell of Opposition. We’ve allowed False Reality to put GOD somewhere dangerous to us and are forever pushing him away from destroying us.
Another way to look at this analogy would be to imagine the GOD boulder of Reality sitting at the bottom of a valley immovable. We however, are turned away from GOD to flee His Reality and Truth and fight to gain distance from Him. The hill side leading away is still a plane pitched to the degree of our deception and False Reality. The higher the degree of deception, the more difficult the struggle to climb away from GOD. It requires more work to fight the pull of gravity drawing us into Reality. This is the Hell of Rejection. We reject GOD, Truth and Reality.
Then, there is a third analogy. GOD’s boulder of Reality is on level ground. We are not deceived and the degree of our plane of Reality aligned with God’s plane of Reality. Zero Degree. Zero deception, zero work, zero resistance. Here we aren’t threatened by God crushing us, and we can easily move toward Truth and nearness to GOD.
Planes of Reality and their correlation to Truth.
It is our duty as free thinking human beings to address every belief we hold onto, see what they are, where they are from, if they “hold water” and if they are part of Reality or False Reality. If we are carrying beliefs that do not align with Truth and Life, then we may be participating not only in a Hell of own own but potentially contributing to the Hell of others.
The number one goal of followers of Christ should be to usher heaven into Earth wherever we go, in all that we do and say. How often are we implicit in ushering in one form of Hell or another into the world that is so lost in need of the truth of God’s love? Pulpits across this country would attempt to use fear of hell to motivate people to turn to God. Could we not just teach people who God truly is and set people free from the Hell they already exist in? Could we not act like Christ and descend into the darkest delusions and shine a light on the doorway out?
Every single doctrine must be revisited; every creed we hold, every catechism, every point, every theology. We must be like the Bereans. We must rely upon the Holy Spirit and the Wisdom of the Word which reveals the Truth and sets us free.