GOD WILL BALANCE THE SCALES

This is a message I’m sharing for the sole purpose of separating fact from myth regarding the subject of Hell vs God’s judgment

Whatever we conclude regarding Hell, it’s all about justice.

It’s about addressing “injustice.” Meaning it’s God responding appropriately to the injustice of this life

As scripture says, “Vengeance is mine declares the LORD. I will repay” (Deuteronomy 32:35)

Those who murdered innocent people and were never convicted, God will repay

Those who stole from others and were never caught, God will repay

There are many who have wronged someone and gotten away with it. Those who’s sins have remained a secret.

God will balance the scales.

The interesting thing about our Bible and more directly, the subject of Hell is, there is no “nuance”

And that should raise a red flag

In our present understanding of Hell, the murderer (who got away with it) and the thief (who was never caught) both receive the same punishment. But is that “justice”? No

So what are we missing in our understanding of Hell?

What we’re missing is the “context”

In the gospel of Matthew we find multiple passages about “eternal punishment” and the “firey furnace.” But do we stop to ask “who” these passages are directed towards? And “why,” specifically, are they most prominent in Matthew’s gospel?

In order to address this, we need to go back further. We need to go back to the Old Testament

Where, in the Old Testament, is Hell discussed? No where

That’s our first clue. For whatever Hell is, thousands of people, including the nation of Israel, had never been “warned” that it was a consequence for sin in the Old Testament.

Imagine this scenario: One day, at the start of the New Testament, God says, HEY GUESS WHAT, people who sin and don’t repent go to this place called Hell, where they’ll suffer forever and ever and ever. But I just “forgot” to tell the rest of human civilization before today.

Does that sound like something a good God would do? NO

Meaning would God send people to Hell without first informing them and warning them? No

We have a real problem then, don’t we

The problem is this:

Hell wasn’t mentioned in the Old Testament because, it didn’t “exist.”

But what “was” mentioned?

We see in Psalms 68:22-23 and 73:17-20, 27, God “judging” the wicked, even after their death.

But that’s not Hell. But we can conclude this:

God will balance the scales.

But since this is not Hell, but something else. Something where God sits as a perfect judge who is bringing about justice where injustice has occurred, we can now move forward.

In Isaiah it says, “And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have REBELLED against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.” (Isa 66:24). And then we all know the passage in Daniel which says, “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” (Dan 12:2).

Here’s the interesting thing about Isaiah 66:24: It’s saying this about the wicked rulers of “Israel,” not of the “whole world.” Plus, this is a purely physical judgment where people will walk by and look at these dead bodies that are left out to bake in the heat of the sun and where the worms will eat at their flesh vs being buried in the ground like a normal burial. And any body left unburied, out for the elements and birds to eat away at, was seen as “cursed” back in those days.

And within the context of Daniel chapters 11 and 12, we are looking at a particular “generation” of people who will be worshipping the devil (ie., the Anti-Christ/Beast) and according to the imagery, the ones who follow the Beast are the Jewish leaders of Israel. But again, this is all about a specific “generation” of wicked people who will be judged, not all people of all time.

My point is this, context matters. And the problem is that the majority of us have been trained to see Hell (whatever it is) as like a “blanket of judgment” that’s just thrown over all people who’ve not accepted Jesus throughout all of history.

Then there is this problem:

When you and I read the New Testament, we place ourselves and our society “within” the story. And that’s because no one ever told us that the New Testament wasn’t written “to” us, but to a specific generation living in the first century, though parts of it can still speak to us and apply to us.

So we see in the Old Testament that God cares alot about justice. He cares both about rewarding the righteous and punishing the wicked “fairly.” And we should celebrate that.That is what a good Judge does.

Yet, we don’t see in the Old Testament the concept of an eternal firey “Hell” where souls are burning forever without relief.

And that’s because our Bible is missing 400 years of Israel’s history and writings

And it’s there, in the inter-testamental period between Malachi and Matthew, that we see Hell developing

In the Jewish book of Enoch, written sometime between 300 – 100 BC, we learn about the Prophet Enoch going on a journey through Heaven and learning from the angels all of the answers to the “mysteries” left unexplained in the Old Testament.

And one of the angels shows him the different pits where the souls of people are held who are being punished and suffering for their wickedness

You might be familiar with the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man from the gospel of Luke. The history and ideas of that story originate from the book of Enoch.

But the book of Enoch is Pseudopigrypha. Meaning it’s claiming to be written by someone it’s not really written by. Enoch did not write it, and there’s so much overwhelming proof of this in history it’s laughable.

This kind of Jewish Pseudopigrypha was popular during Jesus’ day. Much of it stemmed from the unanswered mysteries in our Old Testament along with a profound interest in heavenly visions.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where the New Testament got it’s idea of Hell from.

BUT HANG ON

Now allow me to explain “why” and “how” Jesus used “their tradition” of Hell to make a completely different point

Jesus is condemning the beliefs of the religious leaders of Israel:

The Pharisees and religious leaders of Israel saw “themselves” as the righteous and blessed people of God. Because they were rich and extra religious (obeying the Torah perfectly, so they thought) and the poor of Israel were cursed because they were “poor.” They got these ideas from how they interpreted the Old Testament. Also they believed that the Gentile nations around them were wicked and cursed by God because, of course, they weren’t part of God’s “chosen people,” Israel.

So they equated those in poverty, within Israel, along with the nations outside of Israel, as being bound by Satan and rejected by God. And they saw themselves as the righteous and the inheritors of God’s Kingdom

So what does Jesus do in the Gospel of Matthew, in the passages equated with Hell, and in the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, in the gospel of Luke? He turns everything on its head

Jesus takes the religious leaders own traditions about Hell and uses it against them to condemn them

And that’s how Hell should be understood

Hell is a “weapon” that Jesus used to condemn the very people who were condemning the poor, the outcast, and the other nations.

Hell was never the consequence for all people of all time who didn’t believe in Jesus

Finally, the New Testament’s use of the concept of Hell, whether it’s in the gospels or at the end of the book of Revelation, is saying one of these two things depending on the context:

1) It’s saying that the judgment you use against someone else is the judgment that will be used against you at the end. This is Jesus’ point in Matthew and Luke, and he’s not talking about “anyone else” except the proud and pious self-righteous religious.

2) That there will be a “specific generation” of wickedness on earth, mostly, if not completely, stemming from the religious people of Israel, who will worship the Beast of the book of Revelation, as we see mentioned in the book of Daniel chapters 11-12. However, this could be a repeated event because it seems as though it’s occurred a few times already. It occurred in 167 BC in Jerusalem ( meaning the first Beast, as found in Daniel chapter 11), and once again, in 70 AD in Jerusalem, just as Jesus foretold in Matthew chapter 24. And it seems it will occur once again at the very end (according to Daniel chapter 12). This will be a generation who “intentionally” worships Satan and the Beast and that hates God

So what is Hell?

It is God’s method of getting rid of all pride and everything that seeks to bring destruction to God’s good image that He’s created humankind to reflect.

It is God’s way of removing the kingdom of Satan

And yet, there is also another judgment, as mentioned in the first section of this message. It is God’s judgment of everyone who’s ever lived or died. This does not include those who’ve already been forgiven by Jesus, of course.

It is where there will be consequences for those who “got away with” what they shouldn’t have gotten away with. It is where God will balance the scales and fix every injustice ever committed. And we see this most clearly in Luke 12:47-48 when God comes at the end of time and judges humanity according to their “knowledge of good and evil.” And the person who knew that what they were doing was evil will be punished “more severely” than the person who didn’t know that what they were doing was evil. That person will be punished “lightly.”

But that is not “Hell.” It is the normal judgment for all human sinners on judgment day.

So there are “two” types of judgment it appears. One for humanity and one for Satan’s kingdom

I hope this helped someone