Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. – Daniel 12:2

Today's Scripture Reading (September 25, 2023): Daniel 12

Oscar Wilde commented, "We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell." It is a thought-provoking concept. We are the designers and builders of our own hell, at least the one through which we suffer in this life. And I do agree with Wilde. I think even we, as Christians, construct a hell here on earth so we have a place to go and suffer. And we find ourselves in these mini hells too often. But the real tragedy is that we have no reason to go there. Maybe we just have an inborn need to have a place to go to suffer.

The Hebrew Bible doesn't have an organized understanding of heaven and hell. But this is one of the most straightforward statements of the concept of eternal life found in the books of our Old Testament. Those who sleep in the dust will rise, and some will be raised to eternal life while others will be condemned to suffer in shame and everlasting contempt.

The first readers of this vision were suffering in exile. There might have even been an understanding, like we often have today, that they had suffered enough in their own self-created hells that there was no need for an everlasting one. But Daniel needs the people to understand that how they handle themselves in exile is essential to the life to come. We all suffer, sometimes because of the actions of others and other times in our self-imposed purgatories. But either way, what we go through here in this life is somewhat unconnected to what's to come. And Daniel wants us to understand that we can follow God regardless of what the circumstances might be around us.

I have no idea what "Hell" might be like. But my concept of hell is that it is a place utterly devoid of God and his love. And I don't think that we have any idea of how terrifying such a place might be. But for those of us who insist on going through life without him, we will be condemned by our own actions and choices to exist in eternity without him. And without God, there is no redemption or possible escape from our little hells, let alone one that Daniel says is our place of shame and everlasting contempt.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezra 1 and 2