A Christian Speculation On Time And Eternity

My brother said that somebody asked him the other day how it could be just that a person who commits a few decades' worth of sin should be punished forever in hell. The punishment does not seem to fit the crime. Few people live long enough to sin for even 100 years. So why should they be punished for quintillions of millennia?

I recall that when I was in college a theology professor addressed this problem. He said the reason that finite sin brings about infinite punishment is because it is committed against an infinite God. It is not so much what you did but Whom you did it against. Your sin can be quantified but God cannot. I think I speak for many when I say that this solution is not intuitively satisfying.

Later a seminary professor made an intriguing suggestion. He said that, though he could not prove it conclusively from Scripture, he suspected that hell is full of people who keep on sinning. They refuse to learn, they do not repent, they choose to continue to rebel against God rather than submit to his will. So their ongoing sin is met with ongoing punishment.

He may have a point. Revelation 16:9-10 speaks of people who, though they suffer apocalyptic judgment, curse God and do not cry out to him for mercy or change their ways. They prefer opposition and its pains to submission and its joys. Maybe hell is like that.

I have another idea though that I would like to throw at the problem. It has to do with time and how we experience it. Perhaps it might prove helpful to put the question of hell's duration (or heaven's, for that matter) in the context of how we understand time.

I told my brother about a thought that popped into my head a month or so after our father passed away suddenly from a heart attack. I was a junior in high school. Our mother grieved with a sorrow inconsolable. Mom and Dad were best friends, and never in my life have I known a marriage better than theirs. So she struggled when he was taken away suddenly. She said to me through tears, "I know that this is wrong and selfish of me, but I think, 'How can he enjoy heaven now if I'm not there with him? How could that be heaven for him?'" An answer came to me in a flash. I said, "Maybe when Dad got to heaven he saw you there." I explained as best I could that, maybe, when we die, we get off the timeline of earthly history and are carried above it into an eternal state. If that is the case, then heaven is not to be understood as a place where people are arriving little by little over the course of thousands of years. Maybe the redeemed are all there at once.

She liked that answer, and I am glad that it comforted her. Is it true? I don't know. We'll find out some day. I would be the first to admit that it cannot be reconciled with literal interpretations of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31 or the martyred souls under the altar in Revelation 6:9-11. But there are several orthodox doctrines that cannot be reconciled with literal readings of those texts. Everyone acknowledges they are symbolic to some degree. (For example, how can souls, which are immaterial, be "under" an altar?) The question is, "How symbolic are they, and to what extent and in which directions?" and that probably is not easy to determine. The realities of heaven and hell can only be communicated to us in terms of our earthly experience. Everything that is true about them must be transposed down to our limited categories, like a Mozart symphony played on a kazoo.

Maybe one of our limited categories is time. We experience personal reality as a succession of moments which we call time, and have difficulty even imagining any other kind of existence. But I'm pretty sure that God exists outside time. I'm pretty sure that time, like the universe itself, is something that he created and is not bound by. If the timeline of history can be imagined as the pages of a book, then we live our lives on (let's say) page 172. The previous 171 pages are history as we know it, and the following pages are, to us, future and unknown. But God holds the whole book in his hands. He can open it to any page. He can even write himself into the book as a character, as he did in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

I wonder if, when we die, we get off the pages of that book and are joined to God's eternal state. If that is true, then the reality of the afterlife is not quite like an endless series of pages in a book that is already very long. It is not like living a billion quadrillion pages followed by a billion quadrillion more. Maybe it is more like seeing that book of time, and a good many other things besides, from the perspective of a good and loving God.

Somewhere I think C. S. Lewis speaks of our experience of reality as something like traveling on a train. Suppose you get on a train and travel from Chicago to Glacier National Park, as my wife and I did a couple years ago. The scenery zips by you, and you enjoy to some extent the sights from the window as the train moves on. But that's the problem: the train always moves on. You long for it to stop, to reach its destination so you can get off and explore delights on either side of the uni-dimensional track. If heaven were as time-constrained as earth, then its endless succession of days might be compared to a train that never stops, a journey that never ends. It lasts a long time, and you never get off the track. But what if heaven were more like a destination than a journey? In this life, we can never fully explore a good moment, no matter how ecstatic it is. Every moment flits through our fingers and is converted into a memory. You can never hold on to it. Poets talk about trying to possess those moments and re-create them for the sake of ongoing joy. ("If I could save time in a bottle"; "Some day...I will feel a glow just thinking of you, and the way you look tonight"). What if, in heaven, we don't have to take a quick snapshot of the scene outside our window and cling to the memory of it by means of a photograph because now, at last, the train has stopped and we can actually go there?

I suspect, though I cannot prove, that the afterlife is not so much a matter of endlessly succeeding days as it is a destination that is either granted by grace or deserved by sin. Its eternality, when transposed into the language of time-bound persons, becomes "lots and lots of years" because the only alternative (again, for time-bound people) is "death" or "non-existence", and it certainly isn't that.

The other day I received a jolt of joy as I listened to physicist Brian Greene explain the extraordinary implications of the nature of time as Einstein helped us to understand it. If you have ever listened to that stuff about relativity, you will know that it is practically impossible to wrap your mind around the paradoxes and anti common-sense notions that physicists now know to be true. At one point, Greene defined time as "that which allows us to see that something has changed." I saw that as a beautiful definition with theological implications that Christians can receive gladly. God does not change. James 1:17 says, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." Hebrews 13:8 says, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." Our eternal God is not governed by time which, by its very nature, requires change in order to be perceived, or even to exist. Perhaps, when we die, we will not be governed by time either. Perhaps instead we will arrive at the destination that our will or his grace has chosen: wretched alienation from him, or blessed union with him.

When Does God Forgive Our Sins?

When does God forgive our sins?

One simple answer is that he forgives our sins when we confess them and turn from them. King David received this forgiveness for the terrible sins of adultery and murder. When Nathan rebuked him, David said, "I have sinned against the Lord," and Nathan replied, "The Lord has taken away your sin" (2 Samuel 12:13). In Psalm 32:5 David wrote, "I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.' And you forgave the guilt of my sin."

John the Baptist talked about God's forgiveness in the same way. Mark 1:4-5 says that he preached "a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins", and that as people confessed their sins, he baptized them. Presumably God forgave them.

Peter said much the same in Acts 2:38. A few weeks after the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, he told a crowd of people, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins." What Peter said to crowds he also said to individuals. In Acts 8:22 he told Simon the Sorcerer that he had to repent and beg God's forgiveness: "Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you" (Acts 8:22).

Then there are the comforting words of John the Apostle to all who confess: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).

A thousand tweaks and nuances and qualifications could be offered here, but the general pattern is plain. Forgiveness is something God extends to those who confess and repent. He does not withhold forgiveness from penitent people, no matter how wicked they have been. Even the miserable tax collector who was too ashamed to approach the temple and lift his eyes heavenward, but who could only mutter, "God be merciful to me the sinner", went home justified according to Jesus (Luke 18:13-14). With rare exceptions (Luke 23:34; John 8:11; Acts 7:60), forgiveness of sin follows the acknowledgement and rejection of it.

That is why part of the sermon I heard this past Easter Sunday bothered me. A guest speaker celebrated the resurrection of Christ and encouraged us to share the love of God with our neighbors, which is very good. But he repeatedly spoke of God's forgiveness as something that had already been given to an unbelieving world. The cart of forgiveness was put before the horse of confession, repentance and faith.

For example, though he acknowledged the apologetic value of defending the resurrection of Christ and the validity of the Bible, he said, "I have yet to see an apologetic more powerful than these two: The God of the universe loves you, and he forgives you." But that is not an apologetic. In fact, it is just a false statement when said to impenitent unbelievers. Though it is true regarding followers of Christ, the speaker at this point was not talking about encouraging faithful Christians - he was talking about evangelizing unbelievers. The biblical pattern of addressing people who have not yet surrendered to God is not, "God forgives you" but rather, "Repent, believe the gospel, and God will forgive you." The tense of the verb is crucial. Noah certainly did not say to his neighbors, "God forgives you." Nor did Jonah say that to the Ninevites, nor Isaiah to the Israelites, nor John the Baptist to the Judeans, nor Jesus to the Galileans, nor Paul to the Galatians, nor John the Apostle to the Sardinians. Forgiveness in the Bible is a thing promised to those who turn to God in faith and repentance, not a preemptive strike blasted scattershot at everybody regardless of their attitude toward God and sin.

The speaker doubled down on universal forgiveness when he quoted himself explaining the gospel to a new acquaintance: "It boils down to this: the God of the universe knows you. He knows all about you. And he loves you. And all the goofy stuff you’ve got clogged in you - he has forgiven every bit of it. He’s forgiven your every sin. And he welcomes you into a relationship with him." Then he asked the young man, "Is there any reason why you wouldn't want to trust him right now?"

What a grace that I was not asked that question! Smart aleck that I am, I would have replied, "Of course there's a reason. There's no need to trust him. I'm already forgiven - you said so yourself. You told me that he's forgiven my every sin, every bit of it. Well, if I'm already forgiven, what's so urgent about giving my life to Christ?"

As much as we might like to say to the man on the street, "God has forgiven your every sin," we simply cannot do that and remain true to the gospel of Jesus Christ. God has not forgiven every sin of every man we meet. Some sins - sadly - will remain forever unforgiven. What God has done is provide the means by which all who trust in his Son will have their sins taken away. But they cannot rejoice in this truth until they repent and believe.

The speaker continued, "The world needs to know that they're loved and forgiven." "Loved" I will grant. There is a universal aspect to God's love as celebrated in John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son...". But forgiven? No, not just yet. We can't jump the gun here. A mere two verses later the Gospel of John makes clear that unbelievers are not forgiven but condemned: "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God." (John 3:18).

We Christians have good news to share with a fallen world. But it is not, "You have been forgiven! Now come to Christ." Rather, it is, "Come to Christ, and you will be forgiven." As Peter said to the centurion Cornelius concerning Jesus in Acts 10:38: "All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."

Do We Accept The Love We Think We Deserve?

Recently a couple people complained to me about the way their spouses treat them. I had nothing to say to make it better. But it caused me to think about all those cases I know of where good people are matched with flawed partners. How does that happen? Why do good people often exercise poor judgment in selecting a mate?

The Perks of Being a Wallflower offers one answer. A character asks,"Why do I and everyone I love pick people who treat us like we're nothing?" Another replies, "We accept the love we think we deserve."

This answer strikes many as insightful, but I have a couple problems with it. For one thing, it places "love" in the category of "things we deserve", and I deny that it is healthy to regard love this way. Love is a thing given, a delight freely offered, not a thing deserved or a merit duly compensated. If I do well on a test, I deserve an "A", and if I cheat, I deserve an "F". But love is not parceled out according to the same categories of fairness and desert. If you think you deserve someone's love, or that someone else deserves your love, I'm afraid you are stepping away from the very meaning of the word "love". Love is not a merit-based commodity. Justice may rightly be spoken of as a thing deserved, but not love.

The other objection I have is softer. I cannot help but think that the slogan, "We accept the love we think we deserve" has an edge to it. It seems to accuse the person in a bad relationship of having a bad self image. "It's at least partly your fault you've got a bad partner - you accepted his paltry love because you didn't think you were worthy of better!" Well, I don't know about that. If you have a bad spouse, I won't add to your woes by blaming you for having such a poor self image that you settled for crap. Instead, I want to praise you for a virtue that you might not have known you had. I certainly don't want to tempt you to pride. But I do want to make you aware of a phenomenon that may give some comfort and understanding. For that, I need to tell you a story.

When I was in seminary I had to take lengthy psychological tests to prove I was sane. We all did. Trinity Seminary wisely did what it could to keep psychopaths out of the pulpit. So I filled in the ovals and completed the sentences and asked myself, "What kind of stupid question is that?", and resisted the temptation to give fiendishly sarcastic answers which I would have found very funny but which probably would have landed me in the category of "Needs Counseling".

Amazingly, I passed. I avoided - however narrowly - the label "Totally Bonkers" and qualified for an MDiv without any mandated counseling or medication. Go figure.

But like everybody I had to get my test results interpreted. You would meet with a counselor who would tell you what your tendencies were and where you were susceptible. One thing that came out in my evaluation was that I probably trusted people too much. "Naive" is the pejorative term for it; "clueless" is another. I don't see bad motives. I don't see warning signs that other people see.

The counselor put a positive spin on this defect, for which I was grateful. "Actually this tendency speaks well of you," he said. "The reason you are not suspicious of other people is because you expect them to be like you. You are honest, so you assume people are telling you the truth. You don't have ulterior motives, so you don't suspect others of being devious and manipulative." He gently warned me that there was a possibility that I would be taken advantage of by unscrupulous people, savaged and blindsided by those who lack integrity. I was likely to impute good motives to bad people, and pay the consequences of misplaced trust.

Boy was he a prophet. It's embarrassing now, in retrospect, to see how many times I have been fooled. I am like St. Peter, who despite being warned by Jesus, "Three times you will deny me," went ahead and did it anyway. Forewarned is not always forearmed. Despite being warned to be more suspicious, I forgot the warning (or did not know how to implement it), and trusted liars.

I think a similar thing happens in situations where a good person winds up with a bad partner. Lacking a particular vice, you assumed the other person lacked it as well. Never in a million years could you ever cheat on a spouse, so you naturally assumed she would be faithful to you too. You're honest, so it never occurred to you that he was lying. You're industrious, so you never thought your sweetheart would leave you with 100% of the housework. You're frugal; you never suspected he would rack up thousands of dollars in credit card debt. You're nice; her cruelty came as a brutal surprise.

Rather than saying, "We accept the love we think we deserve", I prefer to say, "We naturally expect to receive back the love that we give." It is not an unreasonable expectation. We project the internal workings of our minds onto others, and assume that they are like us until a mountain of evidence indicates otherwise. The better and more innocent a person is, the longer it will probably take him to realize that the other person really isn't so nice after all. He will keep giving his partner the benefit of a doubt because he knows that a similar benefit, if given to him, would always turn out to be fully justified.

St. Paul wrote, "To the pure, all things are pure" (Titus 1:15). Pure people, till they are better educated and rendered cynical by disappointment, have the blessed ability to see more purity than what is actually there. If you wound up with a bad spouse, well, maybe your discernment was not all it could have been. But take comfort in this. Your blindness to your partner's faults may actually indicate good things about your character. Where evidence was incomplete or ambiguous, something inside you led you to assume goodness rather than suspect evil. That's usually a good thing. I applaud your naive assumptions. Please, just keep being good, and despite your griefs, resolve to be even better.