Vessels for Destruction - The Worst Verse in the Bible
What happens to people when they die and never accepted Jesus as their savior?
The fundamental Christian answer is sad but clear…
They go to hell.
Now regardless of your beliefs on heaven and hell, let’s say for the sake of argument that it’s a horrible place with weeping and gnashing of teeth.
That might seem unfair, but don’t worry. God is just.
And since we all know God is good and fair, most Christians believe that people make the choice of whether or not they want to accept Jesus. So even if hell is really this awful place, at least Christians can argue that the heathens had a choice and hell is the consequence for their sin and rejection of God.
After all, without Jesus’ blood, without his sacrifice, without him acting as the propitiation for our sins… God cannot even look upon us because we are so unclean.
So we believe as Christians that hell is somehow earned or the fault of the non-believer.
But what if it isn’t?
What if the non-believer has no choice?
Paul – Romans – predestination – we ask God how he can fault us if we were chosen as vessels for destruction
Now I need to be careful here. I used to say Galatians was a steaming pile of doo doo, since it was so densely packed with Paul’s doctrines.
On heaven and hell–so many faith traditions have this universal view but have you ever heard of someone say I believe this and I am going to hell? Of course not, only those who perceived themselves “saved” will confidently talk about how others will find hell since they are not finding our one true path.
The bible anthropomorphize God as a parent quite often, what parent do you know that creates something for the garbage? Why parent do you know has cast out their child as if they never knew them.
To understand the concept of hell we must consider how the concept evolved. The roots of the bible are surrounded by by oral tradition where the elders would pass down stories from their elders to teach the younger ones about right and wrong, honor and dishonor, loyalty and treachery, in case those youngers should be stirred to move in a direction in congruent with the elders worldview.