We're told that the gates of heaven will never shut, will always remain open, and that those same category of people, the cowardly, unbelieving, vile, and murderers that were thrown into the lake of fire, will remain outside of the gates until they are ready to enter. Alright. Thanks for joining us on the channel here, and thanks for following along with this series about the upside down apocalypse. The book is out next week. So hopefully, if you haven't preordered already, you can jump online somewhere where all fine books are sold and pick up a copy if you're interested in reading revelation through the nonviolent lens of Jesus.

But let's look today at one last image in Revelation. Let's look at the lake of fire because this is one of those tough ones. Right? I mean, what do we do with the idea that eventually some of us may be abandoned forever in some kind of torturous pit? Well, first of all, I'll play my cards here.

I don't think that's what's happening in the Bible. I don't think that's what's happening in Revelation here. But let's look at the images a little closer to see why I don't think that and why I actually think that's not a straightforward reading of the text at all when we pull back and read the whole story. Now there's a couple relevant passages here. In Revelation 20, we read that anyone whose name was not found in the book of life was thrown into the fire.

And that's an interesting phrase because if you read it in Greek, it doesn't actually say anything about anyone's name being written in the book of life at all. In fact, what it actually says in a more strict literal interpretation would be something like this. And if a certain one not found in the book of life written, thrown then into the lake of fire. That sounds pretty similar. A certain one, if they're not written in the book of life, they're thrown in.

The question is what this pronoun tis or certain one is referring to in English. And, you know, granted in Greek, that's probably going to make one think of a person, but that's not the only thing that's possible here. Now there's a couple of relevant passages here in Revelation. In chapter 20, we read that death and Hades, which again are symbolic of something bigger. These these principalities and powers that oppose God, they are thrown into the Lake Of Fire and the kings of the earth are killed.

I think it's important here to understand that the Lake Of Fire seems to be reserved for abstract conceptions of forces, ideologies, principalities that oppose the story and the working of God, not to their victims. If you are a victim of death and Hades and deceit and sin and lies, you are not tossed into the Lake Of fire. It is only those forces, those powers that are ultimately destroyed. However, we do read that the kings of the earth are killed and the birds gorge themselves on their flesh. That's a pretty problematic story, isn't it?

However, things get complicated if we keep reading because we also find that the kings of the earth are then later welcomed into heaven. So what's going on here? There must be something more than people being murdered, killed, slaughtered by God, and then discarded. There must be some type of judgment and redemption motif that's happening throughout the narrative. Well, if we skip forward a little bit to chapter 21 in Revelation, we're gonna read some really interesting things.

We're gonna hear that the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, all those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and the liars, they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. So here we go. We've had the kings of the earth killed and death and eighties put into the fire, but now we find that all those who have followed in their path are also consigned to the lake of burning fire. That must be hell. That must be the end of it.

God is done with us or very least, actually worse, probably, God is going to torture some of us forever. However, we have to read this in an apocalyptic mindset. We have to read this not as a straightforward narrative, but as imagery that's pointing towards something bigger that's taking our perception of the world and shifting it just enough to show us something different. Because what's really interesting is that people who have succumbed to evil and brokenness are thrown into the lake of fiery sulfur. We're told that the gates of heaven will never shut, will always remain open, and that those same category of people, the cowardly, unbelieving, vile, and murderers that were thrown into the lake of fire will remain side of the gates until they are ready to enter.

So why does Revelation present us with the image of people being thrown into the lake of burning fire and then tell us, well, the gate remains open and those people remain outside the gate until they're ready to come in? It must be that revelation does not have the same imagination of that lake of burning fire that we do, that this is not some kind of eternal conscious torment where people are abandoned forever, but perhaps some kind of painful, scary, but ultimately redemptive experience where people go through the fire, have all of those murderous and vile identities burned away from them until they are ready to come in through the gates. Let me read you a line from the church father origin. He says, blessed then is the one who is baptized in the Holy Spirit and does not need the baptism by fire. But three times unhappy is that person who has need to be baptized through the fire, though Jesus take care of them both.

This is pretty in line with what we're seeing in Revelation. It is so much better to not to need to go through the lake of burning sulfur. It is so much better to align ourselves with the nonviolent, graceful way of Jesus, to give ourselves over to the self giving witness of Jesus, and in that, to participate in the transformation of the earth. But at no point does God ever abandon any of us to torture. That torturous experience, that painful experience of going through the fire is about being purified and having those experiences, those identities that we have chosen to hold on to burned away from us so that then we can experience the open gates of heaven that God will never shut.

And to be fair, we should be scared of the fire. That's what John is trying to warn us from. That's what origin is trying to push us away from. But the image here is not one of being abandoned or left by God or God torturing you in eternity forever. This is about God's ongoing perfect commitment to transformation and redemption and the fact that God does that through the nonviolence of the cross where Jesus gives himself to us, that that is the height of what we see in God.

God is not consumed by sovereignty and control and power the way that we are. God is so infinitely powerful that control means nothing to God. The only thing that becomes interesting to God is to give God's self away. And this is why passages like the Philippian hymns become so important, not just for our Christianity, but for our conception of the divine as a whole. Because in this, we see that Jesus reveals God to us perfectly, and that Jesus, being in very nature God, did not see power and equality and control with God as something to be grasped, but instead gave himself away, became a servant in service of a greater good.

That's who God is. That's what God does. God gives, God sacrifices, God relinquishes God's self to us. And in that, we see the power that transforms the universe, overcomes evil, that redeems all things, and returns creation to everything that God has imagined it to be. That's what the book of Revelation is about, this profound hope, this conviction that everything is bound up in the goodness of God.

And that even when we struggle to see that in our world, when we follow the way of Jesus, when we give ourselves away for those in need, we participate in the force that changes everything, the way that God will heal all, the way that God will redeem creation for all of us. The book of Revelation is this profoundly hopeful book that believes one day everything will be made right. And it will be hard and it might be scary along the way. There will be moments where monsters will scream and yell and terrorize us. But if we trust that God is on the throne, that God is looking after all, and that God's intention is to heal all, then we can align ourselves with that way in the world, and we can make the world just a little bit better in our slice of time contributing to a story that will outlive all of us.

One that we will one day get to participate in. Hey, I hope you've enjoyed this series. Maybe you picked up some new ideas about Revelation. If you're interested in going deeper, by all means, preorder the book. I'd love to hear what you think.

Send me a note. Shoot me an email. I'd love to hear your thoughts as you read and even some pushback if you're confused about ideas or see things a little differently. I think that's part of the fun of theology as long as we are all trusting in the Jesus who calls us, who shapes us, who leads us into tomorrow. Thanks so much for listening.

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