The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
‘And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.’
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This will again be a long sermon.
I surmise, by my inner council, that we have not yet talked about hell enough, nor of judgment, nor of who might stand.
For hell has been created as the everlasting dwelling of those, who in their blessedness, yet still chose to rebel against the Lord of Heaven and the single and only God. It was prepared for the devil and all his angels. And even this, as an act of grace. For it is within God’s power to uncreate whatsoever He has created, and yet all that He has created He has deemed very good; even when it has been corrupted, He desires its life and its existence, and He still pours out the gift of being upon it, for he sends the rain upon the just and the unjust alike, upon the blessed in heaven, and the demons of hell.
So hell has been prepared, a place where those who desire only rebellion, and desire it in unrepentance, might still continue to exist—though existence as they want, apart from the gift of righteousness and glory.
We often think it is a cruelty that God would establish a place of eternal punishment specifically because it is eternal, it doesn’t end. But we never see it from the other angle, or perhaps, from God’s angle, that even when He seeks to punish, to give over, those who reject Him to their rejection, yet He does not give them over entirely, but still preserves their life and being; He still, in a sense gives them their epiousios, that is, their ‘daily bread.’
I would not be surprised if in hell, the devils and the condemned are still going about their unpleasant lives wearing clothes and shoes, with food and drink, living in an infernal house and home, even as we are told they retain their reason and all their senses, their body, soul, eyes and ears, and all their members. It is just this that C.S. Lewis once described in his novella The Great Divorce.
We think it is somehow more evil that, when we utterly reject God, He does not utterly reject us, but still cares for us, even if at a distance, even as far away as heaven is from hell.
Yet we still think it would be more compassionate if He just extinguished us like the flame of a candle. We think this because, though we do not want to live with God, we know that we no more could live with ourselves, and we could never live with one another.
For hell is nothing but a place where sin reigns apart from any constraint by the Law of God. It is described as a pit of fire, for in it the wicked passions of man are allowed the fullness of their expression. It is described as an outer darkness, for without the Father of Lights, only our ignorance remains. It is called a worm that shall not wither, for the guilt of their conscience will never again be comforted by the Gospel of God.
There is a painting of hell by William-Adolphe Bouguereau which depicts Dante and his guide Virgil looking upon the lost in the underworld. There they stand, disgusted, gazing upon two men in the midst of combat, with one biting the neck of the other. It is an interesting painting, for it shows the torments of hell as not being so much the seemingly endless array of sadistic tortures we imagine, but rather what sinful men, with no restraint upon their desires, do to one another, when no Law will stop them, and death will never decrease the number of victims. It shows us what the philosopher once declared, ‘hell is other people.’
Hell is perhaps nothing more than our complete enslavement to sin, that is, our enslavement to our defiled passions, desires, lusts, hatreds, envies, and jealousies when they are not curbed and controlled by the manifold social structures that God has established through the authorities of this world, through the threat of the sword, and through the pangs of the conscience. It is just merely our sin, without the Law, not even in its so-called ‘First Use.’
We can understand the torments of hell, and its eternity, perhaps more clearly when we understand this: that in hell, God still sustains and preserves His creation, even as His creation forever seeks to destroy itself.
There are those who say that hell is merely a figment of our imagination; but then again so was Michaelangelo’s David, before he sculpted it. So hell will become hell when it is filled with those whose imagination will make it so. And a pit of fire, and an outer darkness it will be, for it will indeed be a place of endless suffering, for sin within our flesh knows no other end. For St. Paul teaches us today that if you are obedient to sin, this shall lead to death. And hell is death, and obedience to sin.
But our Lord teaches us this day: ‘‘And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.’
At first, it is the kind of thing that makes the soft soul of even the most devout Christian quake, and his spirit tremble; for we are terrified of the punishments of hell, and whether or not we will be their victim.
And yet, it is not Christ’s purpose in telling us to fear God and hell, so that we might be terrified.
Not at all.
See what is written: ‘Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.’ Two sparrows, of no worth, and yet they will not fall apart from the care of God. These two birds, as the birds of air which our Lord spoke about in the Sermon on the Mount, when He told us to be not anxious.
Yet how can He tell us not to be anxious, and yet at the same time put before us hellfire and perdition?
But look closer, and you will see that His very reason for telling us about the destruction of hell is the same reason that He speaks of the lilies of the field and the birds of the air: that we may not be anxious. He tells us about hell, that we might be comforted.
Now you will surely think I am speaking madness. But Jesus speaks about hell not as the first part of our reading today, but as the last. It is the concluding note to a longer discussion. And what is that discussion about? It is about what we talked about before, that the world the Christian goes into is a world in which men are slaves to sin, and that their obedience to sin is given its full expression; perhaps not against one another, but always and ever against the faithful in Christ.
‘Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake.’
For those who would never imagine doing evil against their friend will revile, and mock, and insult, and persecute, and put to death those who bear the name of the Lord.
It is hell, but hell on earth, and hell aimed against the Christian.
Yet our Lord then consoles us: ‘have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.’
‘Have no fear.’
‘But only fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.’
That is, fear God alone.
For the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.
It is this that the doctrine of Hell gives to us. It is this consolation and strength that the doctrine of hell arms us with. Christ does not teach us about hell, that we might be scared. He teaches us about hell, that we might cling to Him against all the world; that we might have no fear against the world, despite its rage and hatred and malice. These are nothing, for God, and only God can destroy. Against us, all the universe is helpless, if we are but in Christ, for:
‘The souls of the just are in the hand of God,
and the torment of death shall not touch them.
In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die;
but they are in peace.’
You see, if hell causes you to tremble before God, that you might obey Him against the assaults of the world, then it has fulfilled its end. But if it causes you to fear God, and flee from Him, then you have misunderstood the purpose of hell, and of our knowing of it. We are told to fear God, that we might have no other fear. We are told to fear hell, that we may have no fear of earth.
We are told to fear God, and His hell, that in this life we might be wise, that is, that we might hold the nations in derision, and overcome the world. For hell to the Christian is nothing else but an instructor, a drill sergeant, who utters threats behind us, but only so that we can more easily go forward into our training, into the battle, into victory.
Do you not know that the Christian, who has been baptized, shall never taste the fire? Do you not know that he will tread upon the serpent? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
We are, even now, slaves of righteousness, in obedience to God, which leads to life. Even if we do not feel our good works, or our continued sins give evidence of our righteousness; yet we are slaves to righteousness, for a slave does not become a slave because he works hard to be one. Rather he is a slave whether he wants to be or not. He is a slave because he has been bought, and once he is bought, he remains a slave in the master’s house, regardless of his works.
By Christ’s blood, dear Christian, you have been bought; not with gold or silver, but with blood, that you might be God’s possession, that you might be his own. That you are now a slave to the Righteous One, to the Father in heaven, depends in no way on your own work; it depends only on God having paid the price in the bloody marketplace of the cross, and Him taking you home to His house, which is the Holy Church.
Do you not know that when you were baptized, the sale was complete? He will not throw away that which He has obtained at such a high price, for our Lord is a collector.
It is for this reason that St. Paul does not tell us to become slaves of righteousness, for no one chooses to become a slave. Rather he tells us, who are already slaves, to present ourselves as slaves of righteousness, that is, to live into our new life which already is ours.
Ponder then, hell, for from it you have been freed. Fear then, God, for in His hand is your soul forevermore. For this you were taught, that you might not flee from the strife of this world, but that you may more boldly push into it, facing every struggle and insult and dishonor of this life, and yet without fear, for you will find your refuge in the Lord. For the one who fears God, fears nothing; and the slave that dwells in the house of the Lord, has Him as his sun and shield. For it is written:
‘He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.”
For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with his pinions,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
You will not fear the terror of the night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.
A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.
You will only look with your eyes
and see the recompense of the wicked.
Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place—
the Most High, who is my refuge—
no evil shall be allowed to befall you,
no plague come near your tent.’
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Preached by Pastor Fields