Richard's Bible Study

It is hard for me to read Proverbs and not think about politics. There are so many proverbs about rulers, the law, justice, the poor, etc. These proverbs remind us of our need for God to work in our world, but also lead us to serve Him in His war against injustice. We must fight injustice in our own hearts, and also when we see it taking shape in the powerful institutions of the world.

I read Proverbs 27-29 last night. One verse that stuck out to me was:

“He who increases his wealth by exorbitant interest
amasses it for another, who will be kind to the poor.”

Proverbs 28:8

America was founded with knowledge of how corrupt rulers can become, and the oppression that they can wield on their subjects. The founders did their best to guard against such oppression by giving the citizens power over the government, and limiting everyone’s power through a contract known as the Constitution.

But oppressors are always looking for ways to gain more power, and our government is growing in the power it wields over us. It does this in the name of good things: helping the poor, providing health care for all, fixing the economy. But in reality, the government is amassing wealth for its own purposes, and its corruption will inevitable lead to more suffering for the poor.

But this proverb provides hope: the corrupt government will eventually pass away. Its wealth and power will be given back to the people. The new government will be kind to the poor by giving them freedom and opportunity, rather than crippling them through broken promises of entitlement.

I just read a good article by John Piper: How Willingly Do People Go to Hell. In it, he challenges C.S. Lewis’ statements about hell: that “all that are in hell choose it” and “all God does in the end with people is give them what they most want.”

John Piper makes very good arguments to show that hell is so horrible that no one could possibly want it. He argues, “What sinners want is not hell but sin. That hell is the inevitable consequence of unforgiven sin does not make the consequence desirable.”

He also argues that God does not just send people to hell, but he throws them:

God does not just “send,” he “throws.” “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown (Greek eblethe) into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15; cf. Mark 9:47; Matthew 13:42; 25:30).

The reason the Bible speaks of people being “thrown” into hell is that no one will willingly go there, once they see what it really is. No one standing on the shore of the lake of fire jumps in. They do not choose it, and they will not want it. They have chosen sin. They have wanted sin. They do not want the punishment. When they come to the shore of this fiery lake, they must be thrown in.

I don’t know too much about why C.S. Lewis said what he did, but my guess is that he was trying to illustrate how a loving God could allow people to go to hell. So Lewis concludes that people choose hell themselves. I think Piper and Lewis are headed the same direction, Piper is just being more accurate as he goes. People don’t choose hell, they choose sin, and sin’s consequence is hell.

This still preserves the fact that people have a choice, which seems to be Lewis’ intent. And in fact, the people who wind up in hell are making that choice (to choose sin) up until God finally throws them in. And then, even in hell, though they want desperately to get out, they still are incapable of choosing to turn from their sin.

One other thing, the descriptions of hell that Lewis portrayed (for instance, in The Great Divorce) are pretty ordinary. No fire. No gnashing teeth. Just ordinary people who can’t stand each other – kind of like the hell that Sartre described (“Hell is other people”). Piper might mistake this for being less horrible than hell really is, but I doubt C.S. Lewis was trying to downplay the torment of hell. In fact, his descriptions emphasize how hellish people’s thoughts already are, revealing the torment they unknowingly experience without God even now on this earth.

Sin is intertwined with its consequence; so much so that through sin, hell bleeds out of its gates and into our world. Only Christ’s sacrifice could break the bond we had with hell through our sin, so that we would instead be grafted into Christ’s Kingdom. And now, through Christ’s righteousness living in us, heaven overflows its gates and brings light to earth, even now.

Apparently, according to my Archaeological Study Bible, the ‘wild ox’ in Job 39:9 is probably an extinct type of wild cattle called an aurochs. They were much larger than most domesticated cows. According to Wikipedia, they went extinct in 1627 AD.

Wikipedia also says:

The wild-ox called re’em (Strong’s # 07214) in the Bible (Numbers 23:22 and 24:8, Deuteronomy 33:17, Job 39:9-10, Psalms 22:21, 29:6, 92:10 and Isaiah 34:7) is occasionally associated with the aurochs and has incorrectly been translated as “unicorn” in the past (The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Entry for ‘Wild Ox’, Copyright, 1939, by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.).