Hell & Beyond

by Michael Phillips

  “How have I chosen it?”

  “You chose the steps that would lead you here. You chose to be made ready for the final purification. We must choose to be good, choose to deny ourselves, choose to put others first, choose to repent, choose to atone for our sins to those we sinned against, and thus become sons and daughters of our Father in heaven.”

  “Is that heaven over there—the Mountains?” I asked, pointing across the chasm.

  “Perhaps,” answered the Scotsman, exactly as he had answered my question about hell. “From where you presently stand, you cannot yet understand all. But being of a logical mind—I was told all about you—you may be able to understand it like this:

  “In a certain sense, heaven and hell are both retrospective, as one of my good friends here called it in his book on the subject. To those now living in the Mountains of God’s country, all this was heaven from the beginning, stretching all the way back to their lives on earth. Both heaven and hell spread forward and back. Damnation extends back and defiles everything that came before. Repentant childness glorifies all that has come before with the radiance of heaven’s slow-dawning Light. Surely you have seen glimpses of it already. As you paid your debts of forgiveness, your past as well as your present began to change. Your forgiveness worked in both directions. But for those who refuse the call of forgiveness, the hell of Self where they lived their earthly lives becomes the fully realized hell of eternity. As my Irish-born friend says, the blessed will say they always lived in heaven, the lost will say that they were always in hell.”

  “It is difficult, I must say, to get my head around the way things work here.”

  “Yes,” he nodded. “But you were only an atheist.”

  “Only an atheist!” I said in surprise. “That was bad enough, wasn’t it?”

  “Oh, not so bad really. Atheism is not the great sin. For the honest-hearted, it may be a sincere response to the conundrums of the universe. Although from being appraised of your file, I know that your atheism contained within it an unhealthy dose of self-righteousness.”

  “You are right,” I said. “I was not an honest-hearted atheist in any sense of the word. It is mortifying to see with clarity what I was.”

  “If atheists looked at the evidence of existence with fair and unbiased objectivity,” the Scotsman went on, “they would become believers in an instant. I suppose, however, that is too much to ask. Few atheists have the courage of the Don to look at the evidence and admit they are wrong. But when I said that your difficulty was less, I was thinking how much more difficult it is for many religious types when they arrive here.”

  “Seriously? How can that be?” I said. “I would think their religion would prepare them for all this far better than did my atheism.”

  “That would certainly be true if all their beliefs were correct. But wrong belief about God can do more damage than atheism. Once you woke up on this side, saw that you had been wrong, that was it—you knew you were wrong. There was the Lord walking toward you. Your atheism was undone in the blinding light of his Presence. But imagine what it is like for Muslims, to wake up and discover that nearly everything about their religion was false from beginning to end.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Even a good many Christians have a similar difficulty, though perhaps not quite so severe. Yet many of them resist what they are told here because it so conflicts with what they always believed. It is true that most Christians, when they arrive and are startled at what they find, have little difficulty embracing it. When their eyes are opened, they immediately fall in with the deep purposes with joyful obedience because their hearts are pure, and blessed are the pure in heart. They are overjoyed to see one such as you here. Nothing could make them happier! They were seekers of truth in spite of the fact that they had been wrongly taught about some of God’s ways.”

  I reflected on his words for some time, then first noticed what appeared a huge throng gathered some way off.

  Twenty-One

  The Crowd at the Precipice

  “Who are all those people?” I asked, pointing to the crowd of men and women in the distance. They appeared to be milling about near the edge of the pit.

  “A most fascinating collection of individuals,” he replied sadly. “If their self-deception were not so heartbreaking, it would be humorous. They represent some of the most extreme examples of the human condition—dreadful pagans along with some of the most self-righteous religious individuals you will ever meet. Many Jewish Pharisees are among them, great numbers of Islamic so-called holy men, along with a few infamous villains of history. It would make a most interesting character study for a novel,” he added with a sigh. “Alas, I have so little time for that sort of thing anymore. It is remarkable how busy one stays here. Little would be accomplished anyway. It would be the same as it always was there,” he mused, “—those who needed the book most would be the least likely to read it.”

  “What is a group like that all doing together?” I asked in astonishment.

  “They all have different agendas. They generally huddle in their own cliques. The pagan leaders are scheming the possibility of raising an army from some of the Cities of Death and storming the Mountains by force. The Pharisees are analyzing various Talmudic and legalistic theories of fire. The Muslims are just trying to keep as far away from the Christians and Jews as possible.”

  He paused and drew in a long sigh. “The Christians among them,” he went on, “are extremely confused. They reached the pit expecting to see a bridge across it in the shape of a cross matching the imagery they always envisioned. Most have walked back and forth many times searching for it. They anticipated waking up to angels and white robes. Now they find themselves at the edge of a terrifying cliff. In their bewilderment, some take to repeating various formulas over and over, changing the words and phrases slightly, assuming that if they get the words just right, the cross will miraculously appear before them and they will be suddenly on their way. But their foolish attempts are in vain. They had no idea,” he went on, “how little their plans and prayer-recipes probed the true intent and personal power of the sacrifice that was made on the cross.”

  Again he grew thoughtful for a moment.

  “They were under the illusion that salvation meant that Jesus would merely save the elect from hell and that was essentially all there was to it. But that was all wrong. Jesus came to set the world free from sin, not merely keep us from hell. He does not protect us from the Father’s wrath, he takes us to the Father’s love.

  “Yet others,” he continued, glancing up with a smile on his face as he looked across to the Mountains across the chasm, “even among those who were wrongly schooled in the purposes of God, joyfully abandon those untruths in an instant. In their hearts, they always knew that something was amiss with the doctrine. They are overjoyed to find that God is as good as they were sure he must be. They were simply too timid to ask the important questions that God wanted them to ask. Once their eyes are opened to the reality of cleansing purification, they embrace it gladly. They cry to God, Be it unto me according to your Word. Cleanse and purify me according to your perfect will. Many scarcely feel the fire. They have been yielding their wills in self-denial to the Master for so long, there is little left to be done. In spite of certain dreadful ideas that clung to their beliefs, they were yielding themselves daily on the altar of self-denial. They were children already.”

  “What about you?” I asked. “Did you have to endure the fire?”

  He smiled. “That is my story, not yours,” he replied. “There are some questions we are forbidden to answer.”

  “Why don’t you tell them—those over there at the edge of the precipice—tell them how it is, tell them what you are telling me? Surely they would listen to you.”

  “All I have to say I said long ago,” he replied, “along with many others who spoke similar truths. But the attempt would only entrench them more deeply in their unbelief. They would want to eng
age in intellectual arguments about the doctrine of the thing, the most useless of exercises in getting at truth. No, I fear discussion would be less than helpful. Their eyes must first be opened.”

  “How will they be opened?” I asked.

  “They must open them. They must open their hearts to the infinite Fatherhood. Until that time comes, I fear there is not much to be done.”

  “But you are explaining everything to me.”

  “Because you were willing to open your eyes, which really means opening your heart. Another reason I am explaining these things to you is that you never had the chance to hear the real truth of Christianity. I am often sent to such as you to clarify God’s eternal purposes. How I would have loved to have met you when we were both in our former lives. The discussions we might have had! Having observed your journey here, I am convinced that had you encountered one who spoke of the true God and Father of Jesus Christ, you would have received him kindly and given him an honest hearing.”

  “I was terribly conceited,” I said. “Still, I hope you may be right and that I would have listened.”

  “You may have your chance yet. A few of us get together from time to time for the most fascinating discussions. We don’t meet as often as we might like—we are all so busy here! But once you are on the other side, I hope you will join us. I know you will have insights to offer the rest of us.”

  “I would be privileged merely to listen. When you say a few… I would think everyone would want to join in.”

  “People have their own interests, even here. It is only a thousand or two.”

  “That is a big enough group!” I rejoined. “No doubt they come to hear you.”

  “I don’t usually say much. I am more eager to listen to everyone else. I don’t want to miss the opportunity to hear an idea I haven’t thought of before. There’s nothing so exciting as that!”

  “Then I hope I shall be given the privilege of joining you.”

  Twenty-Two

  The Outer Darkness

  We were silent together for a long time. The Scotsman turned and gazed again across the pit of flames to the Mountains beyond. Eventually I broke the stillness with the question that had been growing upon me.

  “Will everyone eventually get to the High Mountains,” I asked, “even if it takes a million years?”

  The Scotsman became more thoughtful than I had yet seen him.

  “Honestly… I don’t know,” he replied slowly. “I have thought and prayed on the mystery of that question for years. I used to be reasonably certain of it. But you have seen here that free will is no less the law of this place than it was in our former lives. Since being here I have been amazed at the positive stubbornness that exists in mankind. Yet, there is all eternity for God to accomplish his work.

  “And therein lies a great truth—even a million years is but the blink of an eye to him. All eternity has not played itself out yet. Of this I am certain—there will never be an end to the opportunity for God’s infinite love to probe the corners of his universe, searching for cracks even into the most hardened of hearts. But whether opportunity becomes reality… what will be the final outcome… whether some will eternally and everlastingly choose to retain the sin that is in them rather than cast it from them, resisting repentance aion unto aion… I do not know.”

  He smiled. I could sense that he was thinking back to his former life.

  “Many called me a universalist back then,” he said at length.

  “You mean one who believed that all people would get to heaven in the end?”

  He nodded.

  “I may have been—I am not really sure. I always disdained such labels. But the Don may be right, and some will never make the imperative choice.”

  “I mean to take nothing away from my own sin,” I said, “for my selfishness, my denial of truth, my betrayal of God, my attacks on others. But beyond sins of self-centeredness and belief, what about hideous, barbaric, and monstrous evil—murderers, rapists, thieves, terrorists, child molesters? They commit the most heinous atrocities without sting of conscience… truly heinous men. I occasionally wondered if those who gave in to such depraved passions were almost sub-human.”

  “That often crossed my mind as well. I tried to believe that there was some remnant of good in every human being. But the Neros of antiquity and the Hitlers of your time, not to mention the inhuman cruelties of primitive man and all the Molechs of history certainly challenge that view. The Calvinists weren’t altogether wrong when they spoke of the depravity of man. I know that God loves all his creation. But I simply don’t know what will be the result of that love at the very end.”

  “The Hitler conundrum lay at the root of such questions in my time,” I went on. “The most horrific aspect of it is that they must have chosen their evil, chosen it over and over. That is one of the profound truths I have learned here—about myself first and foremost: All sin is chosen. It is difficult to imagine what he would say to them at their first meeting. Do you think there are degrees of sin? How will God meet absolute, amoral, diabolical evil?”

  “You are probing one of the great mysteries in God’s intent as well as the depths of human evil,” he replied slowly. “To answer you, certainly there are degrees of sin. There was evil in all our hearts. It must be repented of. But not all sinners mean to do evil. I do not think, even in your atheism, that you meant to do evil. You were often less than kind to those who challenged you. But you did not mean and intend evil. There was sin in both our hearts, to be sure. All sin must go. But not all sin is to be equated with fully chosen, bestial evil.”

  “What then about those who choose their evil by intent and design?”

  “For the intentionally cruel, those who were dismissive of human life and the suffering they inflicted on others… for such I presume that Malachi’s Furnace of purification yet lies aions in the distance. They may indeed be met with an altogether different kind of fire—the fire kindled by the wrath of a righteous and angry God who will chastise and sorely punish their wickedness with a vengeance we can scarcely fathom. There are no doubt places on this side that I have never seen. I can only imagine that the guides for those regions must be severely broken souls whose aions have been painful indeed.”

  “You are not saying, are you… that there exist two hells?”

  “There are different degrees and different purposes of the fire,” the Scotsman answered. “Whether the wrath I speak of will merely punish their devilry against his creation, or whether it will be the cleansing punishment that hopes to wake some spark of life within them, I cannot say. Being on this side, one sees both good and evil more for what they truly are.”

  “How do you mean, that both are magnified?”

  “More that both gain absolute clarity of motive and end result.”

  I nodded.

  “Some evil is so repellant and debased that it would seem to deserve nothing but the fire of retribution… or perhaps even annihilation.”

  “You are not saying that God might actually do away with some unrepentant souls?”

  “I don’t know. There are those who wonder if he might be forced to such a final judgment in the end.”

  I shook my head, trying to take in the scope of the idea.

  “But of course, God is not ultimately bound to punish sin, but to destroy sin—destroy sin, not sinners. How he will accomplish that in the face of utter evil, these are mysteries still cloaked within the heart of the Godhead and not revealed to the rest of us. How could one such as myself possibly see to the end of it—my heart is not near as big as his.”

  “So are there different kinds of fire?”

  “Malachi’s Furnace is God’s tool of purification for those who have made themselves ready for it. But it may be that his righteous wrath will have to be poured out in the Black Fire of the Outer Darkness to make some ready to begin being made ready. I speak in contradictions because I speak of mysteries into which no one can see.”

  “What do you mean b
y the Outer Darkness? Is that hell?”

  “It is the hell of hells. The Outer Darkness may be hot with the fire of the Black Death where punishment is required before waking can take place. It may be that the most heinous of evildoers will indeed wake, not to a Portal of Light and a journey toward readiness, but to the horrifying fires of utter blackness. They are not yet within many aions of readiness for the final purification. Perhaps the Fire of Wrath is indeed required for their high crimes against God and humanity. For such, nothing will perhaps serve but the Outer Darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

  “How could such punishment make them ready for purification?”

  “I cannot answer you by any knowledge I possess, only by my imagination.”

  “I would like to hear what you would say.”

  The Scotsman thought a moment.

  “As I say,” he began after some time, “I can only imagine what the eventual opening of eyes would be like in the Outer Darkness of deepest hell. How different indeed would it be from your journey. One requiring that fire may find himself surrounded by the despair of utter aloneness, with only himself and his memories of what he was. At last he would see his own raw evil for what it was. His horror of self-revelation would be a far worse hell than any flames of fire.”

  As he spoke, I was reminded of Lelia. She would have said exactly the same thing about her years in the City of Isolation.

  “His inner agony of suffering would rise to such heights that he would long for death. His self-loathing would be the greatest punishment imaginable, worse than any torment that could be imposed upon him. Not a hint, not a shadow of anything outside his consciousness would reach him. In the dead world of the black flame, he would find himself in the prison of his own separated Self.

  “Even loathing himself, however, there would yet be no light to which he could turn. Though he could not know it, even in that state he would be held alive by the life of God, held alive for the terrible compulsion of the Black Fire to do its work.