Warning! This is not a pleasant topic nor one to read in a dreary mood. I read this article and it ticked me off. I don't mind a good argument or differing views but I can't stand it when someone makes claims and does nothing to back them up. (growl)
Peter Chopelas begins his essay on" Heaven and Hell in the Bible"
(see http://www.orthodox-christianity.com/2011/01/heaven-and-hell-according-to-the-bible/)
with this sentence:
"The idea that God is an angry figure who sends those He condemns to a place called Hell, where they spend eternity in torment separated from His presence, is missing from the Bible and unknown in the early church."
Was the early church unaware of Matthew's Gospel Mr. Chopelas?
What have you done with Matthew 25:31-46 specifically vs 41, Mr Chopelas?
(I am using the American Standard Bible from Biblegateway.com)
"Then He (Jesus) will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels"
The word for "eternal fire" in the Matthew 25 passage is the word gehenna and it is also found in the parable passages of Matthew 13:36-43 specifically vs41- 42.
"The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth".
The same idea is seen again in Matthew 13:49-50
"So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Now to be fair, Chopelas does state that "Heaven and Hell are decidedly real, they are experiential conditions rather than physical places, and both exist in the presence of God." He then goes on to say: "In Western thought Hell is a location, a place where God punishes the wicked, where they are cut off from God and the Kingdom of Heaven. Yet this concept occurs nowhere in the Bible, and does not exist in the original languages of the Bible."
Really? What exactly is the concept taught in these passages Mr. Chopelas? These judged people don't seem to be left in God's presence but removed from the place of blessings for the righteous. The angels remove the condemned and throw them elsewhere. These passages sure seem to emphasize a physical removal and physical punishment.
I don't know how Chopelas can make the claim that "The idea that God is an angry figure who sends those He condemns to a place called Hell, where they spend eternity in torment separated from His presence, is missing from the Bible and unknown in the early church."
I'd like to ask him if he has ripped these passages out of his Bible. Maybe his Greek version doesn't include Matthew? I wish he would post or at least translate what his Greek Orthodox Bible says so I can research and dissect it for myself.
He then goes on:
"This is not a new interpretation or a secret truth. It has been there all along, held by the Church from the beginning, revealed in the languages of the Scriptures, which were spoken by the Christians of the early church era."
And yet he does not give a shred of evidence to back up his claim! If this is a true statement how would I know?
Then there are these passages which caused me to smirk because it is the heart of why he has written this article:
"This understanding was held by nearly all Christians everywhere for the first 1000 years of the Church’s existence, and, except where influence by western theologies, continued to be held by Christians beyond Western Europe and America even up to this day (including the roughly 350 million Orthodox Christians worldwide)."
"When you examine what the Roman Catholic Church teaches and what most Protestants believe about the afterlife, and compare that with the scriptures and early Church beliefs, you find large disparities. You will also find their innovative doctrines were not drawn from the Bible or historic Church doctrine, but rather from the mythology of the Middle Ages, juridical concepts, and enlightenment rationalizations, all alien to early Christian thought."
Ah, so this version of Hell and judgment that Chopelas professes in his article is a thinly veiled swipe at the Westerners of the faith! The division between Eastern Church and the West, the True Church and the corrupted.
This article is rather lengthy so I will post more as soon as I am able. Bye for now.
