This sermon by Greg Boyd focuses on the meaning of “The Lake of Fire.” Greg introduces the traditional meaning of eternal, conscious punishment, and then he expounds upon an alternative interpretation, one that is founded upon the reality that God is revealed in Jesus Christ on the cross.
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The Lake of Fire
• Greg Boyd
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The “lake of fire” is a central image of the Focus Scripture passage, and Greg Boyd explores how it has been used to scare people into moral living. The common way of viewing this image is that of judicial judgment, where there are laws that name specific legal declarations that are associated with specific actions. Therefore, if you do certain things, you will burn forever in the lake of fire. However, organic judgment is much more pervasive throughout the Bible (e.g. Habakkuk 2:8). This occurs when the consequences of our sin are experienced naturally because they are built into the sin itself. It’s not another person that dictates the judgement. The results of the sin flow out of the action (See Proverbs 1:30–31, 33).
Organic judgement can also help us understand the meaning of the lake of fire. If we read the Focus Scripture passage carefully, we see organic judgement throughout. For instance, God didn’t command the old earth and heaven to flee. They just fled, as a natural reaction to God’s presence. They flee because they’re not compatible with the character of the one who sits on throne.
The final judgement is a time of all people to confront the truth of God’s love. When all that is rooted in lies crashes against the hard wall of this reality, it either transforms people, or they hold onto their lies, flee from God’s presence, and exist outside the gates of the heavenly city. But the light of the city always beckons them to enter in. If they will let the fire of God’s love burn away their lies and render them compatible with his eternal character, they will be transformed.
If God’s very essence is perfect, other-oriented, self-giving love, then must not everything God does express perfect, other-oriented, self-giving love? So, when God judges people, must he not do it out of other-oriented love, with their well-being in mind? This means that there must be a different way of seeing the lake of fire. There is an interpretation that has deep roots in church history, one that holds that the lake of fire is God’s eternal judgement. As a result, God’s love is experienced as wrath to those who oppose it, and, if people resist God’s love, to live in God’s presence is actually hellish.
Hide Extended SummaryTopics: End Times, Hell, Judgment
Sermon Series: The Unveiling, The End Is the Beginning
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Focus Scripture:
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Revelation 20:13-15
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
