Would You Like It in Heaven?
It seems like we Christians have been schooled in the Gospel Americana.[1] One of its main features is an obsession with meeting the minimal entrance requirements for admission to Heaven. Every time I have watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I recall the scene when Arthur and his band are trying to across a giant abyss in order to enter the castle. There is a bridgekeeper, and he asks each of them three questions to see if they can cross the bridge and enter the castle. If they get any of the questions wrong, they will be cast into the abyss.
The first knight is asked to state his name, and he does. Then to state his quest, and he does. Then the bridgekeeper asks, “What is your favorite color?” The knight says red and he’s amazed that he is allowed to cross the bridge and enter the castle.
The second knight is asked the first two questions and answers them correctly. Then he is asked who won the World Cup in 1948. The knight says, “I have no idea.” and he is cast down into the abyss.
The third knight is confused and frightened, but also answers the first two questions correctly. Then he is asked, “What is your favorite color?” He is nervous and says “Red, no blue!” and he’s thrown into the abyss.
Arthur is the last one, and the conversation goes like this:
Bridgekeeper: “State your name.”
King Arthur: “I’m Arthur, King of the Britons.”
Bridgekeeper: “What’s your quest?”
King Arthur: “The Holy Grail,”
Bridgekeeper: “What’s the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?”
King Arthur: “Well, that depends. An African swallow or European swallow?”
Bridgekeeper: “I don’t know that.” And he is cast into the abyss. [2]
Absurd, right? Most people think the big question is, “How do you know you will get into heaven?”, but the real question is, “If you went to heaven, would you like it and would you stay?”. Dallas Willard was an expert at forcing us to wrestle with a different viewpoint. Here is what he says about getting into heaven and then wanting to be there, and if you would want to stay. Additionally, people think they can simply decide to turn to God whenever they get the desire, but Willard challenges this idea. The “them” he refers to are those who have thus far rejected Christ, but think Christ is always at the ready. Christ may be always at the ready, but what makes us sure that we would be. Willard describes them as already in “Hell.”, but they are there because that is what they want.
“One should seriously inquire if to live in a world permeated with God and the knowledge of God is something they themselves truly desire. If not, they can be assured that God will excuse them from his presence. They will find their place in the ‘outer darkness’ of which Jesus spoke. But the fundamental fact about them will not be that they are there, but that they have become people who locked into their own self-worship and denial of God that they cannot want God. A well-known minister of other years used to ask rhetorically, ‘You say you will accept God when you want to?’ And then he would add, ‘How do you know you will be able to want to when you think you will?’ The ultimately lost person is the person who cannot want God. Who cannot want God to be God. Multitudes of such people pass by every day, and pass into eternity. The reason they do not find God is that they do not want him or, at least, do not want him to be God. Wanting God to be God is very different from wanting God to help me.”[3]
During a crisis, many people turn toward the transcendent. They seek high and low for God, or a god, to help them cope with something unpleasant. When I hear that someone has turned to Christ, I automatically rejoice, but I do wonder “to which Christ did they turn?” Was it the one who claimed to be God, who challenged the religious institutions and the hubris that is inherent in the human race? The one who says, “Repent of your sins, believe the good news, and follow me?” [Mark 1:12-18] Or was it some selective Christ figure or principle that would accommodate one’s lifestyle and world view? Willard states it well in his last sentence: “Wanting God to be God is very different from wanting God to help me.”
Hell is an existence; it could even be a place where all those who insist on their will being done and have rejected God’s will being done reside. It is God’s best for those who don’t like him, oppose him, or have put him on trial and found God to have failed. It is for all those who don’t want the peace and tranquility that come with submission, repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. I recall the repulsion that came at the existence of an all-knowing God who would surveil you for eternity from the late Christopher Hitchens, author of the best-selling book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. He saw it as a violation of his dignity as a human. He mistook sovereign care and love as surveillance. That is just one-way people who insist on having it their way end up in a place separated from God. They don’t want God to be God, they want to be their own god.
[1] Explained in The Cost of Cheap Grace, Bill Hull and Brandon Cook, 2020 Navpress, page 67
[2] Not word for word, but the dialogue is a cross between the film and as presented in Living in Christ’s Presence, Final words on heaven and the Kingdom of God by Dallas Willard and as told by John Ortberg, IVP Books, 2014 Page 53.
[3] Renovation of the Heart: Putting On the Character of Christ by Dallas Willard
