Who rules in heaven?
I used to ask that question to kids when the Trophy Wife and I led Children’s Worship at the church we attended in East Lake, a community in Birmingham, Al., that could best be described as ‘transitional.’ The children’s ministry did not reflect the attendance of the church as a whole because it was decidedly mixed. Our Vacation Bible School drew kids from the neighborhood, which was racially mixed, while Sunday morning worship was very White.
When I asked that question, these kids would kind of look at me as if unsure of what to answer, like it was a trick question. Eventually, someone would answer “God?” in a quiet voice, turning the answer into a question.
Then I would ask, “Who rules in hell?” And it was amazing – without missing a beat, with no pause whatsoever, I’d get a very loud, confident response from both the kids who grew up in church and those who didn't: “The Devil!”
Which is incorrect, of course. God rules in Hell just as He rules in Heaven. God created Hell as a place of punishment and separation where, eventually, the Devil (or Satan or Lucifer - pick your name) himself will be cast into for all eternity. How can the character we call “the Devil” rule in a place where he is being sent as punishment for his rebellion?
But what amazes me about this is how much our theology is shaped by popular culture. I grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons that often depicted this fiery-red, pitch fork wielding, horned Devil sitting on some kind of throne in this place called “Hell,” directing his demons.
The character of Satan, in John Milton’s epic “Paradise Lost,” at one point says, “Here we may reign secure, and in my choice to reign is worth ambition though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”
I put that last line in bold face, because it has been oft-quoted. And I wonder if that isn’t where this concept began that permeates our culture that somehow Heaven and Hell are equal and opposite reflections of each other, the one where God reigns over streets of gold while the other is a place where Satan reigns over fire and brimstone.
Even our concept of Heaven gets twisted. In the popular book “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” by Mitch Albom, a newspaper columnist I really admire, the story is told of a man who feels unimportant, who dies and goes to heave and meets five people who tell him how much his life really did matter. There the man discovers what his life was all about – but nowhere in this story do we get a glimpse of God or Jesus Christ.
Even in our Christian churches, when a member dies we often hear people say, “They’ll be welcomed in Heaven by …” and we’ll go on to list a lot of family and friends who preceded this person in death – spouse, maybe a child, mother and father, a dear friend – without mentioning the only person that matters: Jesus.
The Trophy Wife and I went to see a really wonderful movie recently called “Paul, the Apostle,” which has to do with the apostle Paul in prison in Rome, and the plight of Christians being persecuted in that city yet converts being added to their number daily. In the end – and I hate to be the spoiler – Paul is executed, and we get a glimpse of Paul awakening in this place that we assume is heaven, and all these people who are lined up to meet him. Off in the distance, finally, we see this person coming over a hill that we assume is Jesus, as if Jesus is waiting to let these family and friends greet Paul before Paul sees the one person that, if you’ve read Paul’s writings, you know Paul was most longing to see and who is the focal point of a Believer’s afterlife.
I am afraid I am sounding critical here, and I guess I am. I'm not saying we won’t see other people in Heaven. I assume we will – Jonathan Edwards put it this way: “The redeemed will indeed enjoy other things . . . but that which they shall enjoy in the angels, or each other, or in anything else whatsoever, that will yield them delight and happiness, will be what will be seen of God in them.” In other words, all these other things will be secondary gifts that God gives us, and our happiness in those things will only be part of our happiness in being in the presence of God.
But I know that the one person who, according to Scripture, will welcome me and who will be the focal point of it all is God, with His Son Jesus by His side. As the Apostle John wrote of his experience in viewing Heaven: “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead” (Revelation 1:17).
But for some reason, we have trouble putting Heaven and Hell in a proper, Biblical perspective.
That was a long introduction to get to where I what I really want to talk about, which is the first two chapters of one of my favorite books of the Bible, the book of Job. I encourage you to read the first two chapters, because it's a strange, strange story with a lot of implications.
Job gives us this glimpse into Heaven, into the presence of God. And when I read this passage with people in church, I always ask “What bothers you about this passage?” And there is a lot to be bothered about.
But one thing that always gives people pause is the line that says “One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”’
Wait. Satan in Heaven? Presenting himself to the Lord? And God not only acknowledging Satan, but having a conversation with him?
I have had people say that can’t happen, that God cannot tolerate the presence of evil. I have had people say that God banished Satan from heaven and would not allow him to return. I have had people tell me this is just a story, a prologue to an allegory if you will, not to be taken literally because Satan would not be in Heaven.
Yet in the book of Zechariah (3:1-2) we read, “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. …” and in Revelation (12:10) where it says, “Then I hear a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night …”
Satan is throughout the Bible story – blinding minds (2 Cor 4-4); stealing God’s Word (Matt 13:19); opposing God’ work (1 Thess 2:18); tempting God’s people (1 Cor 7:5), attacking God’s word (Gen 3:1) spreading false doctrine (1 Tim 1:3), persecuting God’s church (2:10).
But throughout it all, Satan’s main purpose seems to be spelled out in that verse in Revelation: accusing. If indeed, as Zechariah and Revelation say, Satan stands beside God making accusations, then clearly there is something going on we don’t often hear about in our churches.
And if you go on to read the story of Job, it’s kind of a scary idea. Because while Job is certainly “upright and blameless,” I wonder if Job isn’t a picture of all of us, to some extent; I wonder if Satan doesn’t stand there accusing even me to God, trying to prove me unworthy in God’s eyes (which I am of course, except for the fact that my unworthiness has been replaced by the ultimate worth of Jesus and his Sacrifice, redeeming me in the sight of God and even, I assume, before the eyes of Satan himself).
And while I love that God is so confident in Job’s faith that God even says to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job?”, and I pray that would be worthy of that kind of faith in me by God, I also fear that kind of attention by Satan and God. Do I really want God to say to Satan, “Consider my servant Ray?” Especially when I see what happens to Job next?
Maybe Job isn’t such a strange story. Maybe it’s our story – all of us who are followers of Christ. Maybe this is just part of the plan - We commit to being followers of God, so God choses, for whatever reason, to risk His reputation – His glory – on our actions.
And I have to ask, what is God thinking? Doesn't He realize how weak and willing to sin I am?
Yet from the beginning, didn’t Satan believe he could turn Adam and Eve against God? Didn’t he even believe he could tempt Jesus himself to turn against God? Isn’t that the essence of the whole cosmic battle?
Job was an ordinary man, flesh and blood. But he was asked to endure something with cosmic consequences.
For some reason, what we do here in this life matters to God. Paul says in 1 Cor 4:9 - “We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men.” There are verses about the cloud of witnesses that observe what we do. Maybe that’s the gathering that takes place at the beginning of Job, that presenting of the beings to God.
It’s an amazing responsibility we’ve been given.
I wonder if I really comprehend what my faith means to God. In some mysterious way, Job’s ordeal was worth it to God, because God took a risk in giving human beings like you and me free will, giving humanity a value to God that we can’t imagine. I’ve often wondered about that passage in Matthew 13:58, where Jesus’ power seems limited by a lack of faith.
We need a right understanding of God, of Heaven, of what our lives mean in the sense of eternity and what it means when the Westminster Shorter Catechism says that our chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy Him forever.
See, true faith is not about getting God to give me the life I want.
True faith is about putting me in a position to glorify God in whatever comes my way.
Ravi Zacharias said it this way: Faith is confidence in the person of Jesus Christ and in his power so that even when his power does not serve my end my confidence in him remains because of who he is.
Because Satan is indeed in heaven – for a time, anyway – accusing us before God, saying we’re not worthy and ready to make a bet with God that we will reject God when things don’t go our way.
The question we must live with every day is, who is going to be proved correct? Satan? Or God?
No comments:
Post a Comment