As the furor of Rob Bell's book dies down and the world moves on to much more important issues, I find myself reading through Chronicles. Confession time - 1 & 2 Chronicles are not my favorite books of the Bible (though a couple of my favorite passages can be found there). More than once I found myself "zoning out" for a bit while slogging through, hoping that the end would come sooner rather than later.
When I got to 2 Chronicles 12, though, my eyes were opened as I ran smack into a story of love winning.
Cut to the story.
Solomon's son Rehoboam is the King of Israel. He's not the sharpest crayon in the box and he strays from the covenant God had made with his father. The way writer of Chronicles puts it is that he led Israel and they "abandoned the law of the Lord." In other words, Rehoboam decides that neither he nor Israel need God's presence.
Some time after King Rehoboam abandoned the covenant, Israel comes under attack from Shishak from Egypt (don't you just love these Old Testament names?). Before the battle, a prophet comes and tells Rehoboam that God has a message for him: "You have abandoned me; therefore, I now abandon you to Shishak."
In other words, God says, "You're on your own." The people of Israel had decided they didn't need God, so God was prepared to let Shishak run wild over them. And make no mistake about it, Shishak was going to win this war. He had better fighters, better weapons, better everything. Without God, the people of Israel were doomed. And God is prepared to abandon the people to their fate, to give up on them.
Sound anything like the typical doctrine of hell? People abandon God, so God abandons them to a grisly fate. So far, this story simply confirms the traditional doctrine of hell.
But there is more to the story. The people are given a chance to respond. And respond they do, in verse 6:
"The leaders of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, 'The Lord is just.'"
They repent. Faced with certain destruction, they recognize the errors of their ways. What will God do now? On the one hand, God has already decreed their abandonment to separation from God. On the other, they are showing a sincere desire to repent and renew the covenant.
This is where things get interesting. Because if love doesn't win, God will go ahead and abandon them to their fate. If God never changes in response to creation, God must ignore their humble repentance as "too little, too late." But if love wins, God can listen to their repentance and take it to heart and adapt God's actions correspondingly.
Which do you think happens?
Verse 7 tells us everything we need to know, when God says:
"Since they have humbled themselves, I will not destroy them but will soon give them deliverance."
Sounds like love won to me.
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