"If Jesus sent me to Hell, I would go."

 

I remember making this statement as a young Christian and being surprised by the reaction. One friend in particular was apoplectic. “But that doesn’t make any sense! He would never ask you to… I mean why would you…?” And he went on. I get that it’s a little oxymoronic. And you should know I make statements like that with a little more than a touch of irony, but I was stunned by the acute anxiety in his reaction. It was almost as though that were a real possibility. God might actually send him to the “bad place.”

But why would he be so unsettled by, so threatened by something that he knew would never happen? There is no reason, justification, or theology behind the notion of sending believers to Hell. I think that the first problem for him is just that; it didn’t make any sense. However, his level of angst revealed a deeper confusion. My best guess is that my statement was antithetical to his personal theology.

You see, in his theology, the ultimate goal is to get to heaven. That was the promise. “If I believe, then when I die, I get to go to heaven. So, I am believing. I’m doing what I’m told and for that I expect a reward.” This transactional relationship with God is at the heart of many Christian’s relationship with God. It is a danger that inherently limits one’s relationship with God.

As Paul tells Timothy, there are those who “have a form of godliness, but deny it’s power” (2 Timothy 3:5). I think too many of us are powerless to change our lives because our entire “faith” revolves around getting to heaven. In that sense, we are in it for ourselves. Even when we “do” Christianity, it is because we are supposed to. Intuitively we know that it can’t be as simple as saying a little prayer and then getting on with our own lives, having secured our golden ticket. So, we go to church, maybe open a Bible once in awhile, or whatever list of things to do we have been given.

We practice this form of godliness, but it doesn’t add up to much.

As we’ve seen in the past, my friends initial emotional reaction caused him to miss the point entirely. However inartfully put, I was talking about something entirely other to his experience. His anxiety came from a statement that he could never make, and was so far outside of his experience that his reaction was a kind of hostility. I was clearly being heretical.

What I was trying to suggest is that I was not interested in some future destination, the “pie in the sky, by and by.” I wasn’t interested in the promise, so much as the one who promises. John wrote, “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). This IS eternal life - knowing God. That’s it. That’s the whole thing and it’s NOW. There is nothing to wait for.

Know God - know life. No God - no life.

There is nothing to wait for. Nowhere to go. You already have eternal life. There is only the relationship with God, and that is NOW. “Heaven,” will only be a continuation and an intensification of what you have now.

So, why would I go to Hell? My point was that I would go where He goes. If He’s in Hell, I want to be there. I wouldn’t go to heaven if He wasn’t there. It kind of reminds of my dog, Chewie, part Chow, part German Shepherd, who follows me everywhere. If I get up to go to the bathroom, he gets up and follows me. If I close the door to the bathroom, he waits outside the door and then follows me back into the living room. No questions asked. I’ll go where He goes. There is no better place to be.

I wasted a lot of time as a young believer ruminating on the question of salvation. Was I really saved? Could I lose my salvation? I went round and round in my own head and in conversation with other young, not very well grounded, Christians. It was exhausting.

Ultimately, I didn’t so much finally answer the question as I gave up trying to find an answer. I reached a place where my eternal security no longer became an important question. I lost interest in the question. Others became more important; Jesus became more important.

I have said that my definition of sin is selfishness. After that realization, it came to me that the amount of time that I spent worrying about my salvation and trying to secure my salvation was selfish and therefore sinful. That is the problem of a Christianity whose goal is heaven, eternal life, or salvation. You’re in it for you. How is that not sinful? This is why you haven’t changed, why you haven’t been transformed. As long as on any level it is ultimately about you, you will not change. You will be a religious person trying to earn justification.

I finally came to the place where I stopped caring about my eternal destination. I just decided to follow Jesus, whatever that meant. Hell, the ends of the Earth, staying right here, my idea is to go where he goes.

It is true that I can write this knowing that my eternity is secure and the gives me confidence. If in anyway my ultimate destination was in doubt, that would upset the applecart. But my assurance comes from having a relationship with God, which leads to good. Fundamentally, I don’t expect that to change but to continue on forever, which would be heaven.