So how about it: Would God use me to send someone to hell?

It’s a question that has deep meaning for me, because it is rooted in a very specific moment in my story. That moment goes something like this:

About a year ago while I was still in ministry I had the opportunity to share the good news of restoration in Jesus Christ with someone. This was no random evangelistic drive-by, rather it was one conversation of many I had with this non-practicing Hindu. Like many Capitol Hill staffers, he and I and a few other Christian friends had an ongoing dialogue during lunch over spiritual things, politics, culture, and religion, and it just so happened that on that day the conversation took a headlong dive into the heart of the gospel. It was an event I will never forget, one that still comes to memory now and again.

But it isn’t necessarily the “event” itself that still returns to memory, rather it is a conversation I had with someone about the event that still disturbs. Afterwards I had discussed the lunchtime dialogue with my boss, and his response seriously shook me and my faith. It was one of those conversations that didn’t faze me until almost an hour later when I was driving home, then what he said really sunk in.

And then I flipped out!

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It wasn’t the first time I shared with this person about Jesus’ sacrifice. But it was one of the more exhaustive conversations. After dancing around the finer points of Christianity, I jumped into the gospel narrative. I situated Jesus’ sacrifice in the wider Jewish story and shared with him how His death became the once-and-for-all sacrifice for the world. He then asked me a clarification question, and as I was about to answer him a friend of his walked in and completely disrupted the conversation.

I wasn’t all that discouraged, but smiled inside at the moment. The Enemy can be so good at side-tracking from Jesus and His story sometimes! After lunch we chatted more and he said he wanted to get together to finish the conversation. I was encouraged and excited about what happened.

As I mentioned, afterwards I went and shared this story with my boss. After I was done telling him the whole exciting and anti-climatic story, he gave me some of the sickest analysis I have ever received from a Christian.

He said that God could have had me share Jesus’ story of sacrifice with this person for two reasons: 1) God wanted to draw my friend to salvation and use my words to do so; or 2) God wanted to give him the opportunity to hear the gospel so that if he rejected that good news, God could tell my friend at Judgment Day that he had the opportunity to “get saved,” but rejected that offer. Apparently, this was suppose to encourage me that if I was a “good Reformed person” (as he put it) I didn’t have to worry, because God was going to choose whom he wanted and I just had to be faithful to tell him the “good news”.

After thinking more about this exchange (the initial conversation sort of washed over me…I really couldn’t believe what I was hearing), I became ill at the thought of my boss; suggestion. I remember it vividly. I was leaving Washington, D.C. in my car, driving over the Potomac on a hot June evening, when I began to have it out with God. I mean, I went off and started yelling and swearing. I don’t know who I was more mad at, the stupid Christian or the stupid Christian’s god who was suppose to be my God, a god I was hoping to God didn’t exist!

So I sat in my car yelling and accusing and questioning and wrestling. I was Job and Jacob and Jeremiah reincarnate. “So God,” I asked, “did You really use me to be an excuse for Your future judgment over this guy? Did You use me to give him the secret information so that upon Judgment Day You can yell a big ‘I-Through-Jeremy Told You So??'”

“Is this the sort of god I serve, God?”

“Are you a god who is using me as an excuse to send people to hell?”

Would God use me and my words to send someone to hell?!?

First, I cannot believe that people actually have this sort of view of God; I cannot believe these people really exist! Any view that God is just waiting for an excuse to burn non-chosen people is sick and twisted. Second, I cannot believe that God would use me to share his good news with someone for the sole purpose of giving Him an excuse to send them to forever crisp and burn.

As I recount this story, I’m still disturbed at the theological claims and implications. I’m disturbed that someone would believe this, let alone say this someone as some sort of word of comfort.

Still disturbed,
-jeremy