All Flesh Will Come and Worship/id

From Gospel Translations

"All Flesh Will Come and Worship"

Except Those "Outside"

Sebuah Renungan dari Yesaya 66:22-24

Oleh John Piper

18 Oktober 2006

Kadang-kadang kita menemui bagian-bagian Alkitab yang menceritakan karya keselamatan Allah secara begitu menyeluruh sehingga kita bingung bagaimana itu selaras dengan realita hukuman kekal. Dengan kata lain, seolah-olah Tuhan menjanjikan penebusan penuh sehingga tidak ada lagi tempat bagi neraka. Bagian-bagian ini mendorong beberapa orang kepada universalisme-kepercayaan bahwa semua orang akan diselamatkan, entah pada saat kematian atau setelah sekian waktu di neraka. Bagian-bagian ini juga mendorong beberapa orang lainnya kepada anihilasionisme-kepercayaan bahwa tidak semua orang diselamatkan, tetapi tidak seorangpun ada di neraka pada akhirnya karena mereka dilenyapkan jika mereka memberontak terhadap Kristus.

Saya telah mencoba memberikan argumen-argumen Alkitabiah yang ekstensif terhadap kedua pandangan ini dalam Let the Nations Be Glad (Baker, 2003, hal. 111-154). Kesaksian Alkitab kepada kesengsaraan yang sadar dan kekal bagi mereka yang menekan kesaksian alam (Roma 1:18-20) maupun menolak Injil (2 Tesalonika 1:8-9) tidak dapat dipungkiri.

Yesus memberikan kita salah satu dari kalimat-kalimat yang paling menentukan dalam Matius 25:46, "Dan mereka ini akan masuk ke tempat siksaan yang kekal, tetapi orang benar ke dalam hidup yang kekal." Dan Yohanes, rasul kasih, memberikan kita kalimat yang paling kuat mengenai kekekalan neraka dalam Wahyu 14:11, "Maka asap api yang menyiksa mereka itu naik ke atas sampai selama-lamanya [eis aiōnas aiōnōn], dan siang malam mereka tidak henti-hentinya disiksa, yaitu mereka yang menyembah binatang serta patungnya itu, dan barangsiapa yang telah menerima tanda namanya."

Karena itu, akan menolong jika kita menemukan bagian Alkitab yang menjelaskan bagaimana kebenaran-kebenaran Alkitab yang paling menyedihkan ini dapat berdiri bersama-sama kalimat-kalimat yang menyatakan penebusan Allah yang menyeluruh. Pertimbangkan satu contoh: Yesaya 66:22-24. Pertama, perhatikan bahwa Yesaya berkata (dalam ayat 22-23) bahwa harinya akan tiba ketika "seluruh umat manusia akan datang untuk sujud menyembah" Tuhan.

For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring and your name remain. From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the Lord.

That’s the kind of statement that makes us puzzle about how everlasting punishment of some people fits in. If "all flesh" will worship the Lord, then who is left who does not worship the Lord? O how careful we must be at such points when we read the Bible! We must ask: Do I have a clear sense of what Isaiah meant—and God meant!—by the term "all flesh"? It sounds like all human life, but is it? The next verse (24) stuns us:

And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.

Immediately we are brought back from our wrong ideas about "all flesh." We thought it meant "all humans who exist in the universe," but the Lord says, No, "all flesh" will look upon a part of the human race who are in torment because "they rebelled against me." Therefore, "all flesh" does not include those on whom "all flesh" is looking.

I mention this as an example of how the Bible sometimes speaks about the work of God in redemption. God is doing a global work—indeed, a universal work—of redemption that extends to all races and all peoples and all tribes and all languages and all classes and all ages. When he has finished his saving work, there will be a completeness to it. It will be a new humanity with a second Adam as its head (1 Corinthians 15:22, 45). Those who "rebel" against Christ’s redeeming work, will be outside this "all."

Perhaps that is why Jesus alluded several times to Isaiah 66:24 when warning us about hell. He said that those who spurned his message were thrown into hell "where the fire is not quenched" and cast into "outer darkness."

If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. (Mark 9:47)

The sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 8:12; cf. 22:13; 25:30)

No one else but Jesus uses the term "outer darkness." Is this Jesus’ way of saying: When my redeeming work is complete, and the new world is fully established (cf. paliggenesia, Matthew 19:28), the fullness of "all flesh" will be there—the whole new humanity with all its glorious completeness in Christ—and those who have rejected the kingdom will be "outside"? They will have no existence inside the new world. Their existence and their weeping and their gnashing of teeth will be in another dimension of reality. Therefore, they will not in any way diminish the sense of completeness and wholeness and fullness of the new heavens and the new earth where all is light and joy peace.

When I finished reading and pondering these things, I prayed, "O God, grant that I would feel the magnitude of my sin. Grant that I would feel unworthy of your grace. Grant that I would tremble at the truth of hell. Strip me of all cavalier thoughts, all self-exalting cleverness, all banal preoccupations, all bent toward amusing people from your sacred pulpit. Open my eyes and my heart to see and feel the wonder of saving grace, and the infinite preciousness of Christ and his love-driven obedience, even to death on the cross. Thank you, Father. Thank you. At any cost make me an instrument of your great salvation. In Jesus’ name. Amen."

Standing near the precipice, secure,

Pastor John