Part XI of the Western Series
How Western Beliefs Changed the Original Gospel Message
… Heaven and Hell: The Divine Fire of God’s Love …
with the blessing of her spiritual father
I once came across two cartoons. The one depicted Heaven as a few winged “saved” souls playing harps while sitting atop fluffy white clouds. Their conversation with one another revealed their underlying existential crisis about the meaning of their evidently “boring” salvation. The other cartoon depicted the “fun” of Hell as a big, “blazing” party with standing room only where people pushed and shoved to enter the flames. This imagery satirized the Western view of Heaven and Hell as physical “places,” where Heaven derisively disappoints and Hell rewards. Western views of the afterlife commonly generate questions like, “If God is so loving, why can’t He just forgive the Devil?” And “if God made Hell for the Devil and his angels, why does He throw people in there too, if He lovingly died for them?” All this stems from an injured view of God, caused by human legalisms and demonic temptations that deeply undermine the Divine Grace, Love and Humility of the Almighty.
What are the answers to these hard questions? The early Christians were so overjoyed with the true message of the Gospel, and their impatience for the Kingdom of Heaven was such that the word “Maranatha,” or “come, Lord Jesus,” was continuously on their lips. They did not concern themselves much about Hell. One of these early Christians was St. Anthony the Great of Egypt (251-356A.D.), whose disciple, Saint Athanasius the Great, recorded his life, as did some of the Holy Fathers. This portion of Holy Tradition, in the synopsis that follows, answers one of those hard questions:
A demon once wanted to know if God would forgive and receive him if he repented. And so, disguised as a man, he approached St. Anthony, weeping and lamenting. “Why, man, do you weep and cry from the heart, and shake my soul with your tears?” the Saint asked. And the cunning demon replied, “Holy Father, I am not a man but a demon, and that because of the multitude of my iniquities.” The Saint thought that out of great humility he called himself a demon because God had not yet revealed to him that this was a demon. The elder then asked, “What do you want me to do for you, brother?” The demon replied, “Holy Father, pray fervently to God to tell you whether or not He will receive the devil if he repents, because if He receives the devil, He will receive me.” The elder said, “Go home and return tomorrow, and I will tell you what the Lord said.”
The demon left and when night fell, the elder raised his holy hands to heaven, and prayed. Immediately an Angel of the Lord stood before the elder and said: “Thus says the Lord our God, ‘Why do you ask Me for a demon? He came to test you cunningly.'” The elder said to the Angel, “Then why didn’t the Lord God reveal to me that it was a demon, but hid it from me, so that I wouldn’t see the demon’s cunning?” The Angel answered, “Let it not trouble you, for this is the wonderful providence of God for the benefit of sinners who have committed many iniquities, so that they do not despair, but repent, knowing that the all-merciful God does not turn His face away from anyone who resorts to Him, even if it was the cunning devil himself. God did not reveal to you that it was a demon, to reveal the stubbornness of demons who will never repent.
When the tempter returns to you, tell him that God is so merciful that He does not turn His face away from anyone who resorts to Him, even if he is the devil himself. He promises that he will receive you too, if you fulfill what He orders you to do. And if he asks what God orders him to do, say to him, “Thus says the Lord God: I know who you are, and from where you have come. You are an ancient evil and you cannot be a new virtue; you have long been the chief of evil, and you will not stop doing evil now. Accustomed to pride, how can you humble yourself to repentance and find mercy? Nevertheless, so that on the Day of Judgment, you do not have the excuse that you wanted to repent but God did not receive you, the gentle and merciful Lord commands you, if you agree, to repent in this manner: Facing the East, you are to stand motionless in one place for three years, crying out day and night, ‘God, have mercy on me, the ancient evil!’ You are to say this a hundred times. Then you are to say a hundred times ‘God, have mercy on me, the abomination of desolation!’ And after that again a hundred times, ‘God have mercy on me, who am darkened by delusion!’ After you have repeatedly prayed this way to the Lord with humility for three years, which will not be difficult for you because you do not have a body to become tired or weak or drowsy, then you will be included among the Angels of God, and you will be in the original dignity in which you were before. If the demon promises to adopt this, you may accept him for repentance. But I know that he will never repent.”
Then, the Angel left and when the dawn came, the demon returned. From afar, he began to cry and weep like a man, and when he approached the elder, he bowed. The Saint did not reveal that he knew he was a demon, but said to him, “As I promised you, I prayed to the Lord my God. He will receive your repentance if you do what He commands you through me.”
The demon asked, “And what is it that God has commanded me to do?” The elder then told him all that the Angel of the Lord had said he must do. Immediately, the demon threw off his false form of repentance, laughed out loud, and said to the elder: “O monk! if I wanted to call myself the ancient evil, and the abomination of desolation, and the one darkened by delusion, I would have done it earlier, in the beginning, to be saved. Should I call myself an ancient evil now? Not at all! And who says that? Oh, I am wonderful in my glory until this hour, and all cowards obey me! And why would I call myself the abomination of desolation or the one darkened by delusion? Not at all, monk, not at all! For I still rule over sinners, and they love me, and I am in their hearts, and they live according to my will. Does repentance make me an unnecessary and wicked servant? Never, evil old man, never, never will it be that I push myself from such a great honor into such disgrace!”
Having said that, the devil became invisible and the elder stood in prayer thanking God, saying, “You have told the truth, Lord, that ancient evil cannot become a new virtue; the creator of evils cannot be the creator of new goods, nor will the devil ever repent.”
This is why, dear reader, having the foreknowledge that the Devil would never repent but that Mankind would, our sweet and tender Lord, who unconditionally loves all His corporeal and incorporeal creatures alike, entered Human history as a man, and not as a spirit, to orchestrate the salvation of Mankind. At the end of human history, the general Christian Faith holds that on the Last Day at the Resurrection of the Dead, every person who ever lived will be physically resurrected and the souls of all those who have died will be united with their raised and incorruptible bodies, while the bodies of those who are still alive, will be changed in an instant. Everyone’s body will become like that of the Resurrected Christ. Our resurrected bodies will no longer experience illness, ageing or physical decay. Since Christ is the first to have risen from the dead with this type of glorified body, scripture calls him, “… the firstborn from the dead … “(Colossians 1:18, Revelation 1:5). Because of His unconditional love, this will be God’s loving gift to all people, both the righteous and the wicked “… for He makes His sun rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).
Although bodily resurrection will be experienced by everyone, its effects will differ depending on one’s relationship with God. The resurrected will experience either eternal communion with God or eternal estrangement from Him. In other words, the righteous will follow Christ “into” Heaven and the wicked will follow Satan “into” Hell. After this point, Eastern and Western Christianity diverge dramatically in their views of what Heaven and Hell are and how they come about.
If you recall from Part V, the East views physical death as the natural outcome of our willful separation from God, who mercifully permitted death for us, to end to our ability to sin. On the other hand, the West generally views our physical death as a curse from God and a legal punishment for sin. The punitive and legalistic view of some Western theological traditions carries through to an afterlife, where God actively continues and augments His punishment for the lost. This is because divine justice “demands” eternal conscious punishment, understood as retribution, rather than therapeutic transformation. Hence, in their immortal, resurrected bodies, the lost will suffer forever, enduring all the suffering and physical pain imaginable with no destruction, deterioration or ending. They will receive an infinite amount of punishment for a finite number of sins committed in a relatively short lifetime. Even after breaking away from the Roman Catholic church the Protestant Reformers maintained this same view, and many continue to believe that hellfire is a literal, created, physical fire, into which a wrathful God actively thrusts those who displease Him.1
In Eastern Orthodoxy, because “all have sinned,” it is not sinners who will experience Hell, but those who have never repented. In Orthodoxy, there is no physical fire in Hell. In addition, Heaven and Hell are not static; there are degrees of Heaven and degrees of Hell, and these are not spatial places (Heaven is up and Hell is down). Furthermore, Heaven and Hell are not defined by any degree of material rewards or punishment, or the amount of sensual pleasure or suffering experienced. God does not “send” people to Heaven or Hell, and neither does the Orthodox Church, for she sees herself, not as a judge, but as a hospital for sinners. The goal of Orthodox Christians is not to “get to heaven” as to a place, but to grow deeper in communion with God, through their own efforts and desire combined with the Grace of the Holy Spirit. This begins in this life and continues into the next. Whether we experience Heaven or Hell, is not decided by God, but by us.1 How does this work?
God’s Final Judgment is not something that will be imposed upon us by Him. It will be God’s revelation of the true state of the heart. In this sense, we will judge ourselves by the degree to which we have accepted or rejected His divine Love. Besides teaching that “love and humility is the frequency in which God works,” our parish priest also teaches that we cannot understand God through human rationalism. Human words and the human mind cannot adequately explain or comprehend God. He can only be experienced in the soul, which carries His image within us. Heaven and Hell are two of those human experiences of God, and they begin in this life, to be more fully realised in the next.
Now when [Jesus] was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you [emphasis mine]. (Luke 17:20-21)
When my father visited the Holy Mountain in 1988, the monks told him of some hermits who lived on the neighbouring peaks of Athos. These were sometimes seen praying, either kneeling or standing with their arms extended to the sky, motionless, for days. During the night, their figures contrasted against the dark sky like lit torches. Those who saw them from afar, knew they were in rapture, and they would go to them to ask what they had seen and felt. The younger monks wanted to learn how they, too, could have such an experience of God. The response was often, “My child, I could only withstand a few minutes of His glory. If it had lasted a moment longer, I would have surely died.” The holy elder, whose face was lit and shining, was not even aware that three whole days had elapsed.
Within the memory of the Orthodox Church (aka Holy Tradition) there are myriad such examples of the human experience of God. An earlier account is that of Abba Joseph of Panephysis (4th century) of the Egyptian desert:
Abba Lot [asked] Abba Joseph, “Abba, … I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?” Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire, and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.” (B. Ward, The Desert Christian, p. 103)
The Holy Elders who lead a life of repentance, prayer and asceticism, live to experience the Kingdom of God in this life and more fully in the next. When visited with God’s Grace, they are filled with the sweetest ecstasy and peace of His Divine Love from within, and they radiate with His uncreated Light and Fire from without. There is no human vocabulary these elders can use to adequately describe their heavenly experiences. St. Paul understood this from his own experience, which he described when he wrote to the Corinthians:
I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord: I know a man [St. Paul] in Christ who fourteen years ago – whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows – such a one was caught up to the third heaven … he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter… [emphasis mine]. (2 Corinthians 12:1-5)
After being caught up to the third Heaven, St. Paul said:
…as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared
for those who love Him.”
(St. Paul in 1 Cor. 2:9, interpreting Isaiah 64:4)
For since the beginning of the world
Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear,
Nor has the eye seen any God besides You,
Who acts for the one who waits for Him. (Isaiah 64:4)
Isaiah’s rendering of Heaven clearly indicates that Heaven will be the experience of God, Himself. This is not a physical place, nor is it static. It is a dynamic, living condition, ever moving from one degree or level of bliss to higher degrees and levels for all eternity. It is an everlasting journey for the redeemed. As God, Himself, is infinite, knowing no limitations, so will the redeemed move into an ever deepening and intensifying life in God, advancing in growing perfection from grace to grace and from glory to glory.1 This Orthodox teaching is confirmed by Holy Scripture in the words of St. Paul:
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror [reflecting] the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image [as God] from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord [emphasis mine]. (2 Corinthians 3:18)
and in the words of Jesus:
Let not your heart be troubled; … In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also [emphasis mine]. (John 14: 1-3)
The many mansions in His Father’s house are not different physical places, but different degrees and stages of advancement in grace and glory, in proportion to each one’s desire, love, and inclusion of God in their life. This will also determine our capacity to receive His divine Light. The greater our capacity, the fuller our experience of Heaven will be. Everyone will experience the maximum joy, bliss and fulfillment they can withstand. Each person’s experience of Heaven will vary, because it is not just based on forgiveness from God that we will be there. It is also based on our degree of sanctity, desire for, and love for God.1
As there will be degrees of Heaven, there will also be degrees of Hell. St. Gregory the Theologian (4th century) said,
Receive … the Resurrection, the Judgment and the Reward according to the [righteousness] of God; and believe that this will be Light (that is, God – seen and known) to those whose mind is purified proportionate to their degree of purity, which we call the Kingdom of Heaven; but to those who suffer from blindness of their ruling faculty, [this will be] darkness, that is estrangement from God, proportionate to their blindness here [on earth] [emphasis mine]. (St. Gregory the Theologian, Oration 40 on Holy Baptism)
When Jesus sent out His disciples, He said to them,
And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet … it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city! [emphasis mine].” (Matthew 10:14-15)
and He also said,
Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you [emphasis mine]. (Luke 10:13-15)
The degrees of Heaven and Hell are also shown in the following Scriptural texts: The Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30, the Parable of the Minas in Luke 19:11-27 and in 1 Corinthians 3:11-15. To summarize these passages, the servants who increased their talents or minas the most received a proportionately greater reward than those who had a smaller increase, whereas the lazy or fearful servant lost everything and was cast “into the outer darkness [where there was] weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12, 22:13, 25:30).
Scroll Down to Continue
Similarly, the servants who built on the foundation, which is Christ, with good works (expressed as “gold, silver, costly stones”) passed through the fire with their good works intact and for this, they received a reward proportionate to their intact good works; whereas the lazy servants who built on the foundation of Christ with only poor works (expressed as “straw, wood or hay”) passed through the fire with their poor works consumed and annihilated by the fire (1Corinthians 3:10-15).
The meaning of these passages is that in this life, God’s various gifts are given to everyone with the expectation that we work to increase them with faith, trust and diligence, according to our love for God, our gratitude, and our zeal in pleasing Him by living according to the Gospel. The excuses of the lazy and cowardly servants in the parables, who hid their one talent or mina or who built on the foundation God gave them with straw, reveal thanklessness, and a lack of faith and trust in God’s grace and provision. They represent those who fail to embrace the opportunity to multiply the Lord’s gifts, because they are too resentful, too lazy to use them or too afraid, fearing failure and punishment. They believe God will be unmerciful if they do not make a ‘profit’; or too demanding because they perceive He did not give them enough talents. When some see God giving more talents or minas to others, they are angry and resentful at God’s seeming ‘unfairness,’ and they give up trying to multiply their seemingly fewer gifts.
The Lord, however, is not unfair. He said, “Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor [emphasis mine]” not according to the result, but according to “the labor [effort]” (I Corinthians 3:8); and He also said, “to whom much is given, much is required” (Luke 12:48), meaning those who have received many talents in the form of blessings, advantages, or opportunities carry a greater burden of responsibility to use their gifts for the benefit of others, or to use their potential to the fullest. Greater blessings, talents or minas, also come with higher expectations and greater accountability. Those who receive many gifts or talents and choose an easy life based solely on these gifts without any effort to multiply them, are as guilty as those who receive only one talent and do nothing with it. Therefore, however we are endowed, none of us has any excuse to neglect multiplying our talents. In the end, everyone’s works will be proven by God’s Divine Fire.
So far, we have spoken much about light and fire, but how does this pertain to God? Just as we cannot look at the sun, but we know it is there because we experience its energy as light and heat, so it is with God. No one can see Him and live (Exodus 33:20), but we know He is real when we experience His uncreated energies. One of these energies is God’s uncreated Light. Physical sunlight illumines and is life-giving, but it also burns. While created light from the sun can be seen with our physical eyes and felt on our skin, God’s uncreated Light can only be seen and felt with the spiritual eyes of the heart or soul. This divine Light was present in the burning bush on Mt. Sinai as a fire that did not consume or destroy the bush. It was also present during Jesus’ transfiguration on Mt. Tabor. His three closest disciples experienced this “inasmuch as they could bear it” according to the Orthodox hymn for the Feast of the Transfiguration.1
Pilgrims to Christ’s Holy Tomb during the Orthodox Paschal Resurrection Service, also experience God’s uncreated Light. At first, the Holy Light is often seen as a mist rising from Christ’s tomb or as a blue light that emanates from the marble slab. It then transforms into a column of fire, which is used to light candles. Sometimes the Holy Light floats out of the tomb to the people as a blue ball or it darts across the room like a laser light show, lighting the people’s candles by itself. The Holy Light becomes a Fire, which at first, does not burn the hands, faces, hair or beards of those who collect it. Afterwards, it changes to a physical fire that does burn when it is touched.
In both the Old and New Testaments, and in Holy Tradition, there are many other references to and experiences of God’s uncreated Fire and Light. Such experiences are expressions of His divine Love. In Orthodoxy, the ever-present God, “who dwells in all places and fills all things,” 2 meaning the entire universe, has the same unconditional Love for everyone, the righteous and the wicked. How, then, will some end up in Heaven and others in Hell? In Orthodoxy, whether the divine fire of God’s Love illumines us with light and joy or burns us with pain and sorrow, is not determined by anything God does, for God is unchangeable. Our experience of Him is determined by our own condition. The righteous who have “the Kingdom of God within” them, already experience God through His uncreated energies in many wonderful ways, such as inexplicable peace during chaos, a spiritual sweetness, a delightful aroma, or illumination with wisdom and knowledge of the Truth. This is why many saints rejoiced and glorified God while being martyred for their faith. They were experiencing God’s inexpressible energies as life-giving warmth and comfort, even while undergoing terrible tortures. These experiences, which can be so powerful and so beautiful, are foretastes of God’s Heavenly Kingdom. On the other hand, “… he who does not believe is condemned already” (John 3:18). This is why, even while enjoying the material comforts of this life, such as wealth, power and fame, we can still feel internally discontented, confused, desolate, angry and tormented. If we feel this way because of a guilty conscience or the absence of God in our lives, these are foretastes of Hell.1
Let us ponder, for a moment, the meaning of the proverb, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink. In so doing, you will heap burning coals [of fire] on his head, and the Lord will reward you” (Proverbs 25:21-22, Romans 12:20). This does not mean that the Lord rewards us for heaping literal coals of fire on anyone’s head. The ‘coals of fire’ imagery is a metaphor that is believed to reflect an ancient Egyptian ritual where individuals carried burning coals on their heads to show repentance. When we overcome evil with good by showing kindness to our enemies, the spiritual suffering of shame and guilt that they feel from our love is like “burning coals of fire.” If this spiritual suffering brings them remorse and repentance, the “fire” of our love cleanses and transforms them, and “the Lord will reward [us]” for having loved that soul to repentance and salvation.
This proverb helps explain how the same unconditional Love that God has for everyone can be experienced differently by different people, both in this life, and in the afterlife. The divine Fire of God’s Love “burns” if our conscience is holding us to account. When this happens, we can use our free will to heed our conscience and repent, or we can freely choose to suppress our conscience and persist in our sinful ways. If one does the latter, the hellish experience of burning guilt begins in this life, and if one never repents, it intensifies in the afterlife, where, it becomes augmented by bitter regret with “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12,13:42, 22:13, 25:30). Jesus warned us about this many times. He said that “hell [is a] fire … where ‘their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched’” (Isaiah 66:24, Mark 9:43-48). According to St. Gregory of Nyssa and other Church Fathers, the “indestructible worm” is the guilty conscience that will torment sinners in the future life. The Russian poet, A. S. Pushkin, aptly describes this in his dramatic play, “Miserly Knight:”
Conscience,
A sharp clawed animal, which scrapes the heart;
Conscience,
An uninvited guest, annoying discourser,
A rude creditor; and a witch…
And further in the play, the old knight remembers with terror, the tearful pleading of all those he had mercilessly robbed.3
In Part II of this series, we read how God respects our freedom and does not force us to obey our conscience. He does not break into the human heart to rule it. While we are yet alive, He continuously knocks on the door of our conscience, our spiritual heart, providing endless opportunities for repentance when we open the door to experience His Love and Joy. God does not leave anything undone to reunite us with Him. Jesus continues to “knock” on the human conscience when he warns us about Hell in Scripture. He makes many references to the experience of Hell such as “hell fire (Matt. 5:22, 10:28, 25:41, Rev. 14:11),” “outer darkness (Matt. 8:12, 22:13, 25:30),” “everlasting [and] eternal fire (Matt. 25:41, Jude 6-7),” “eternal [and] everlasting punishment (Matt. 25:46),” “fiery furnace (Matt. 13:49-50),” “lake of fire and brimstone [and] lake that burns with fire and sulfur (Rev. 21:8),” “unquenchable fire (Mark 9:43),” “eternal [and] everlasting destruction (2 Thess. 1:9),” “eternal punishment (Matt. 25:46),” “I am in agony in this fire (Luke 16:23-24),” and so on. According to the Orthodox understanding, Jesus used these human terms to metaphorically explain a spiritual condition that could not be otherwise understood by humans. In so doing, He was not describing a physical place, but a spiritual state of perpetual shame, guilt, bitter regret and darkness. This condition will be as painful to the soul as fire is to the body.
Everyone has experienced negative emotions because of sin, either their own sins, or the sins of others. Some respond to their own sins and the bad feelings they generate with humility, through prayer, repentance and confession; and to the sins of others with love (forgiveness). Others pridefully minimize their own sins and magnify the sins of others. When it comes to their own sins and the bad feelings they generate, the proud suppress the bad feelings by hardening their hearts against their conscience with defiance and self-justification. When it comes to the sins of others, again they harden their hearts against lovingly forgiving them and may even seek revenge. For both angels and humans, whether we belong to the humble and loving camp, or the hardened and proud camp, depends on our free will. Those who choose love and humility, will heed their conscience, their spiritual heart. Those who choose anger and pride, will persistently muzzle, stifle and even strangulate their conscience to prevent it from numbing the satisfaction they feel when they fuel their lust for pride and revenge, greed or immorality. Ultimately, however, the conscience will be unmuzzled and heard loud and clear, and if we do not heed it in this life by turning away from sin, our own guilty conscience will lead us to Hell in the afterlife.
The illumined Church Fathers often described the Divine Fire as having different effects on us based on the disposition of our heart. To illustrate this, they used the metaphor of wax and clay. As the same physical fire softens wax but hardens clay, the same divine Fire of God’s Love softens hearts of wax inclined towards good but hardens hearts of clay inclined towards evil.1
The soul is wax if it cleaves to God, but clay if it cleaves to matter. Which it does depends upon its own will and purpose. Clay hardens in the sun, while wax grows soft. Similarly, every soul that, despite God’s admonitions, deliberately cleaves to the material world, hardens like clay and drives itself to destruction, just as Pharaoh did. But every soul that cleaves to God is softened like wax and receiving the impress and stamp of the divine realities, it becomes “in spirit the dwelling-place of God” (Eph. 2:22) [emphasis mine] (St. Maximus the Confessor, 7th century, The Philokalia, Vol. 2, p. 116)
We do not all receive blessings the same way. Some, on receiving the fire of the Lord, that is, His word, put it into practice and so become softer of heart, like wax, while others through laziness become harder than clay and altogether stone like … no one compels us to receive these blessings in different ways. It is as the sun whose rays illumine the world: the person who wants to see it can … while the person who does not want to see it is not forced to … he alone is to blame for his lightless condition. For God made both the sun and man’s eyes … how man uses them depends on himself. (St. Peter of Damascus, 12th century, The Philokalia, Vol. 3, p. 78)
Recall how in Exodus, God said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt … I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, so that he will not let the people go [emphasis mine]” (Exodus 4:21). Did God purposely cause Pharaoh to rebel? No! God was foretelling Moses that Pharaoh had a heart of clay. Therefore, the divine Fire of God’s Love would progressively harden Pharaoh’s heart of clay against God and against the Israelites. The plagues of Egypt were a visitation of God’s love to ‘shake up’ the Egyptians and the surrounding tribes and nations and bring them to the knowledge of the true God and to repentance.1 According to the Book of the Revelation, a similar thing will happen at the end times. God, who leaves nothing undone for our salvation, will again send plagues as a last resort, this time to the apostatized nations to bring them to repentance; but instead of repenting, their hearts of clay will grow harder, and they will blaspheme God. “And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory” (Revelation 16:9).
Although Holy Scripture often represents God as a judge who casts people into Hell, such passages should not be interpreted in isolation, but in context with the whole biblical teaching on the subject. The Holy Church Fathers taught that such language communicates truth to those who understand at the most basic level, which is most people. St. Basil the Great wrote that Scripture often represents God in this manner because “fear … edifies simple people.” 1 St. Theognostos said:
God is [not] angry with us. He is angry with evil. Indeed, the divine is beyond passion and vengefulness, though we speak of it as reflecting, like a mirror, our actions and dispositions, giving to each of us whatever we deserve [emphasis mine]. (The Philokalia, Vol. 2, “On the Practise of the Virtues,” p. 370)
Jesus said that the unrighteous will be cast into outer darkness. In Orthodoxy, Hell is described as darkness, and its fire is a dark fire. Although God’s divine fire of Love is Light and spiritually illuminating, it is not perceived as such by the lost because of their willful spiritual blindness. This is what Christ meant when He said, “If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:23).1 It depends on us whether God’s unconditional Love will be perceived as Joy, Light and Illumination, or as a darkness that burns. These spiritual states begin in this life, and by personal choice. It is not God who changes by becoming vindictive or wrathful. It is we who change our experience of God by resisting Him and ceasing to desire Him (John 1:5, 9-11; 1 John 1:5-7).1 Jesus said,
And this is the condemnation [verdict], that the light [Jesus] has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God. (John 3:19-21)
In his book, Surprised by Christ, My Journey from Judaism to Orthodox Christianity, the late Rev. James A. Bernstein quotes C.S. Lewis. The latter, though not Orthodox, offers an insight that resonates with Orthodox teaching:
This life is either a foretaste of Heaven or a foretaste of Hell. Those who go to Hell do not want to go to Heaven; “going to Heaven” is not a change in location but drawing ever closer to the God who is repulsive and abhorrent to them. Some say that there are no doors in Heaven – there is nothing preventing the lost from entering, other than their refusal. To “come in” means to commune with God forever. “Ultimately,” states C.S. Lewis, “there are only two kinds of people … those who say to God ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell … The doors of Hell are locked on the inside. (C.S. Lewis, the Great Divorce: A Dream pp. 66-67)1
Similarly, the door of the human heart or conscience, is locked on the inside, which is why Christ “knocks” on the door to get our attention so that we may choose to let Him in while we are yet alive. Human freedom permits us to exclude God from our will and our lives to a certain degree, but a total exclusion of God is impossible. Even the continued existence of the lost is the result of His grace and love. Rather than merely having love, God really is Love, a Love that never destroys what it has created.1 To emphasize God’s goodness, St. Isaac the Syrian underscores God’s injustice:
Do not call God just … [for] He is good to the evil and to the impious. How can you call God just … on the wage given to the workers? … [or] when the father ran and fell upon the neck [of his prodigal son] and gave him authority over all his wealth? … Where, then, is God’s justice, for while we are sinners Christ died for us! (The Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian, homily #51)
Recall how Adam and Eve tried to hide from God in the Garden because of their shame (Genesis 3:8-10). Their sinfulness and their nakedness became exposed when they lost their garment of God’s uncreated Light because of their disobedience. When God came looking for them, instead of repenting, they resisted Him and no longer desired Him; and for the first time, they experienced God’s Love as fear and wrath.
Similarly, the lost who will suffer in the dark fire of Hell, will be the unrepentant who refuse God. Heaven and Hell are not places or spaces, but the presence of God, who is everywhere. The uncreated Love, Light, Fire, Energy and Grace of God that eternally emanate from Him since before creation, permeate and sustain everything in the universe. In the afterlife, there is no escaping the omnipresence of God. His Divine Fire will make Heaven, Heaven for those who love and desire Him, and Hell, Hell for those who want to escape Him but can’t. The hearts of wax will grow ever softer in the presence of the Divine Fire of His Love, cleaving ever closer to God as they rise from grace to grace and from glory to glory. The hearts of clay that hate God risk growing ever harder, falling deeper and deeper into the abyss of Hell. This explains how God can love all people unconditionally forever and yet be experienced as anguish and suffering by those who hate Him.1
Like fallen Adam and Eve who tried to hide, the burning conscience of the lost who would not repent, will try to escape from the inescapable God. God’s Love, which Adam and Eve resisted with pride, will feel like fear and wrath. They will acutely remember every harbored sin with shame, because in this life, they kept refusing repentance and the mercy of His forgiveness.1 My personal take on this is that because we are all made in the image of God according to His likeness, it is unnatural – against our very nature – to reject Him, who is our Creator, source and sustenance, and in whose image we were made. Therefore, when we try to rid ourselves of Him, we suffer, because by denying God, we deny our very selves. It is like denying the life-giving blood that runs through our veins. Rejecting that which gives us life can only result in misery and death.
This is tragic because God is eager to grant us mercy and forgiveness if we ask for it. “You do not have because you do not ask” (James 4:2). By this, the apostle is not referring to asking for material things, but for spiritual gifts, such as God’s mercy and forgiveness. Recall that our Deification requires “Love and humility [which] is the frequency in which God works” (St. Paisios, 20th century). It takes Humility to examine ourselves and acknowledge our sins so that we may repent and ask for mercy and forgiveness so that we may have mercy and forgiveness. This is another reason why the Orthodox adhere to face-to-face confession; this type of confession in front of one’s spiritual father requires a deeper humility, which is closer to the extreme humility of God, than simply praying alone for forgiveness.
Because “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), few, when judged by “the awesome judgment seat of Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:10), will be found worthy of His Heavenly Kingdom. We will be judged by our conscience, which will lie exposed before Christ like an open book. Revelation 20:12 states, “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.” In Orthodoxy, there are no physical books in Heaven. The opening of the books will be the opening of the hearts of all men and women before God. Jesus said, “For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light” (Luke 8:17).
In this life, we have the freedom to keep the door of our heart, our conscience, locked from the inside, pridefully harboring all manner of sin, while keeping Christ and His healing mercy on the outside; but in the next life, this door will unlock and open like a book, and everything within will be revealed by the Light of God that will shine into the hearts of all Men. Only what was righteous and good, loving and humble, will remain; all the other trash of the heart, every unrepented sin will burn in the divine Fire of His Love.
Since we are all guilty of sin, our only recourse is God’s forgiving grace. This is free for the asking by repenting and appealing to God’s mercy through Holy Confession. Since “all have sinned,” it is not sinners who will go to Hell, but those who have never repented. “You do not have [mercy and forgiveness] because you do not ask [for mercy and forgiveness]” (James 4:2).
This is why the holy Elders live in repentance with the Jesus Prayer continuously on their lips, saying, “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” Additionally, they continually do works of “love and humility.” The most profound, the most needed, and the most difficult work of love and humility that also counts the most is to grant forgiveness as well as to ask for it. This is difficult because the opposite of humility, a huge barrier of pride, often stands in the way. Pride wants to receive a humble apology to forgive, and the humbler, the better; but Love and Humility do not need any apology. Jusus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31). Do you want to be forgiven? Forgive others. Do you want to be loved? Love others. Let us pray with honesty the Lord’s Prayer, “…and forgive us our sins as we forgive the sins of others …”
Since Love and Humility is the frequency in which God works, we must strive to align our frequency with God’s frequency, so that we can draw near and unite with Him in this life and the next. The saying, “Be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16), does not mean to be sinless or to be justified by being right, as in correct. Being holy means imitating the Love and Humility of God by becoming Christ-like. According to St. Symeon, the New Theologian, it is not so much what we believe or what we do, but what we are (in love and humility) that will determine our spiritual future:
In the future life, the Christian is not examined if he renounced the whole world for Christ’s love, or if he has distributed his riches to the poor or if he fasted or kept vigil or prayed, or if he wept and lamented for his sins, or if he has done any other good in this life, but he is examined attentively if he has any similitude with Christ as a son does with his father [emphasis mine]. (St. Symeon the New Theologian, The River of Fire: Homily 2, Ch. 3, p. 119)
In the next life, God will not actively judge us in a long, drawn-out courtroom type process with physical scrolls and books. Divine Justice will take place in a flash because at His second coming, His divine image in us, our spiritual heart, our conscience, will instantly judge us based on how we react to His divine presence. When His Divine Light shines through the unlocked door, onto the pages of the open book of our hearts, will we run to Him, or will we flee from Him? This is a very important question that we must answer now and henceforth, because the awesome truth is, we will ALL “get to” Heaven but for those who rejected the love and humility of Christ, it will feel like Hell.
Therefore, while we are yet alive, let us continuously strive and struggle to imitate the Love and Humility of God. Let us prepare to receive that Light, so that in that Day, we may hear with joy:
Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. (Matthew 25:34)
Sources
- A. James Bernstein, Surprised by Christ, My Journey from Judaism to Orthodox Christianity, 2008. Pg. 310-311, 308-309, 324
- Doxology, Great Vespers, Pentecost:
Heavenly King, Comforter, the Spirit of truth, who dwells in all places and fills all things, Treasury of blessings and Giver of Life, come and dwell in us; cleanse us of every impurity and save our soul. Amen. - CONSCIENCE God’s Voice In Mankind, Orthodox Christianity, Bishop Alexander (Mileant),
