I recall the remarks of a woman whom shared with me about her young daughter witnessing her grandfather being hit by a dump truck as he crossed the road.

She shared how she had dreamed about her daughter being hit by a dump truck while visiting her grandfather, and for some time, the mother had not taken her daughter to visit him because of her fear at that dream.

That woman, as we all have in various forms, been visited by the Almighty for many years in the form of dreams. She shared about how she would see specific people dying in house fires, and warned them about it, only to have them scoff at her… and later see their house burn.

She shared about a bad feeling about a certain car she and her husband bought, and how she sensed death in the car. He sold it at her behest, and later learned how the young man whom bought it was killed in it shortly afterwards.

Relenting to her daughter’s request, she took her for a visit one day, and recalls how her daughter went into psychogenic shock after witnessing her grandfather cross the road to get the mail and get hit by a dump truck.

It happened almost exactly as she had seen it in her dreams.

Her daughter was so immediately and forcefully traumatized by the event that the mother had to literally slap her face very hard to bring her to her senses.

It worked.

Had she not done that, her daughter would have been incapable of being consoled or comforted by her mother, or others, and perhaps thusly incapable of processing the emotions she needed to have access to, in order to work through the traumatic event.

C.S. Lewis wrote that “Pain, as God’s megaphone, gives us the only opportunity we may have for amendment. It plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul. All of us are aware that it is very hard to turn our thoughts to God when things are going well.”

It is wrath? Is it simply a cause-and-effect? Who cares? The point is that “God’s [desired] action is to deliver us from the default state of the human condition: condemnation.” To argue about wrath is a bit like arguing over whether or not more water is pouring in the mammoth-sized gouge on the starboard side, or port side of the Titanic… as it sinks.

Get into action, do something useful!

Don’t just stand there like damn fools, save yourselves (or others).

“There is therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.”

I simply cannot believe that a God who is capable of such creative thinking that he could make an entire world would choose to disown people over what amount to a minor technicality surrounding his son.

This has been the major stumbling block in my belief in the Christian religion, and in fact it is the major stumbling block of all religions. God said those who seek me will find me. That seems more real to me. So a Muslim born into that faith and culture and living in Indonesia will find God if they seek him, and of course, being a devout Muslim they are seeking him.

Perhaps Jesus greets them at the door of heaven and explains that he in fact God’s son (and God too), so maybe everyone is afforded that opportunity. If not then God, or at least the men who wrote words in his name, would therefore be lying when it was said “those who seek me will find me.”

As I tried to communicate, hell is not about a deity sadistically venting his frustrations upon people who piss him off due to their moral imperfection. God is not itching to damn anyone, and no one in hell will be there because they forgot to put their moral commas in the right place. I once read that hell will be populated by people who subscribe to the philosophy “better to rule in hell than serve in heaven.” Borrowing an idea from C.S. Lewis, I would say that the doors of hell are locked from the inside.

I can see why the verse can be read as some will go to hell because of a technicality: “Oooops, you didn’t say Jesus. Too bad. I gotta damn you.” Yes, I do think that Jesus is critical and central to the destiny of humankind and the whole of creation. And, I do think that our response to him (both individually and collectively) matters. However, I also think that God’s judgment will be perfect, that it will not be subject to any limitations; it won’t miss any nuance or subtlety, and it will take into account all contextual factors. He will know if our resistance to him is due to ignorance, confusion, deception, lack of genuine opportunity, or if it is because in the end we have decided to be our own gods, and thereby stubbornly refuse to acknowledge him.