where a king was said to rule in the image of a particular god. The famous King Tut is an Egyptian example of this. His full name was Tutankhamen, which is translated “the living image of [the god] Amon.” The king was seen as the embodiment of a particular god on earth. If you wanted to see what that god was like, you looked at that god’s king.
The writer of Genesis makes it clear that in all of creation there is something different about humans.4 They aren’t God, and they aren’t going to become God, but in some distinct, intentional way, something of God has been placed in them. We reflect what God is like and who God is. A divine spark resides in every single human being.5
Everybody, everywhere. Bearers of the divine image.6
Picture a group of high school boys standing by their lockers when a girl walks by. One of the boys asks, “How do you rate that?” They then take turns assigning numerical values to the various parts of her anatomy, discussing in great detail how they evaluate her physical attributes.7
This scenario happens all the time, all over the world, every day. It’s a pastime for some. There are television shows and websites and endless discussions all devoted to deciding who’s hot and who’s not. It’s an industry, a form of entertainment, a culture.
And it’s everywhere.
The problem is that “that” is actually a “she.” A person. A woman. With a name, a history, with feelings. It seems harmless until you’re that girl—and then it hurts. It’s degrading. It’s violating. It does something to a person’s soul.
When a “She” Becomes a “That”
Jesus had much to say about what happens when a woman, an image-bearer, a carrier of the divine spark, becomes a “that.” In the book of Matthew, Jesus teaches that “anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”8 He connects our eyes and our intentions and our thoughts with the state of our hearts.9
Jesus then takes it farther. He says, “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away.”
Which is a bit violent. Not to mention painful. And if taken literally, renders half of the human race blind in a matter of moments. Not to mention that blind people are fully capable of lusting. Our only conclusion is that Jesus is using the “it’s merely a flesh wound” picture here to point us to something else.10 Some truth beyond the removing of body parts. If we’re not supposed to take it literally, then how, or where, are we supposed to take it?
Jesus explains by saying, “It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”
How did we get from lust, which is so common and doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, to having your body thrown into hell in just a couple of sentences?
And to avoid this fate you should cut off your hand? Poke out your eye? That would be better?
He’s stretching it a bit, isn’t he?
Or did we miss something?
To understand how Jesus makes these connections, we have to explore the first-century Jewish understanding of heaven.
In the book of Psalms, it’s written: “The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.”11 To the Jewish mind, heaven is not a fixed, unchanging geographical location somewhere other than this world. Heaven is the realm where things are as God intends them to be. The place where things are under the rule and reign of God. And that place can be anywhere, anytime, with anybody.
It’s also written in the Psalms that “the highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth he has given to humankind.”12 So there is this realm, heaven, where things are as God wants them, under the rule and reign of God. But the earth is different. God has allowed for the temporary existence of other kingdoms. Other realms of authority. The earth “he has given to humankind.” Which means we can do whatever we want. We can live however we want. We can choose to live under the rule and reign of God, or we can choose to rebel against God and live some other way.
Now if there’s a realm where things are as God wants them to be, then there must be a realm where things are not as God wants them to be. Where things aren’t according to God’s will. Where people aren’t treated as fully human.
It’s called hell.
Think about the expression “for the hell of it.” When someone says “for the hell of it,” what they mean is that whatever is being discussed was done or said for no apparent reason. It was, in essence, pointless. Random. And God is for purpose and beauty and meaning.
When we say something was a “living hell,” we mean that it was void of any love or peace or beauty or meaning. It was absent of the will and desire of God.
We hear about war zones being like hell, working conditions being hellish, a divorce being emotional hell, a famine feeling like hell on earth.13
Concentration camps are hells on earth.
And that’s Jesus’s point with the “gouge out your eye” teaching. His point isn’t that you should mutilate your body if you find yourself lusting after someone. His point is that something serious—sometimes hellish—happens when people are treated as objects, and we should resist it at all costs.14
Right Now
When Jesus talks about heaven and hell, they are first and foremost present realities that have serious implications for the future. Either can be invited to earth, right now, through our actions.
It’s possible for heaven to invade earth.
And it’s possible for hell to invade earth.
A friend of mine talks honestly about how he spent years exploiting women for sex. He knew exactly what to say, how to act. He was a master at finding a woman who had a troubled relationship with her father and manipulating the situation for his pleasure. The first time he was telling me his story, he made a profound point that is true for all of us. He said that exploiting women for sex didn’t just rob them of their humanity, it robbed him of his as well. As the years went on, he found that he didn’t like what was happening to him. He was becoming less human in the process.
He said he was becoming a monster.
In treating women as objects, he was losing something of his own humanity. Somewhere along the way he came to his senses. He was repulsed by the person he was becoming. He describes it as a “rebirth” in which for the first time he saw things as they really are. Several years later, my friend came across a group that works undercover in Southeast Asia to free young girls from the sex trade. In remote rural areas, girls are kidnapped and brought to the city, where they are forced to work as prostitutes. My friend signed up and recently went undercover on a “mission,” rescuing girls and helping them start a new life. I was with him when he showed a group
