The Skeletons in God's Closet: The Mercy of Hell, the Surprise of Judgment, the Hope of Holy War

by Joshua Ryan Butler

The good news is that Jesus wants union with us: he wants to marry

gospel story provokes a paradigm shift. Heaven’s primary counterpart is not hell; it is earth. God’s goal is not to get us out of earth and into heaven; it is to reconcile heaven and earth from the destructive power of sin, death, and hell. Jesus is the Savior who reunites heaven and earth, in order to fill it with the glorious presence of God. This is the biblical story: God’s grand objective is to get heaven into earth—and get the hell out.