In a later Jewish apocalyptic work, Fourth Ezra, the more the author received a vision of the details of a promised impending divine judgment, described as “perishing” but also as an eternal “torment” in “Hell” in which the “unrighteous” will be forced to own up to their evil lives—the more he finally realized that he and others among God’s chosen were also imperfect, and always had been. He begins to try to intercede for those outsiders. He pleads with God:
Let it not be your will to destroy those who have had the ways of cattle; but regard those who have gloriously taught your Law. Be not angry with those who are deemed worse than beasts; but love those who have always put their trust in your glory. For we and our fathers have passed our lives in ways that bring death, but you, because of us sinners, are called merciful. For if you have desired to have pity on us, who have no works or righteousness, then you will be called merciful. For the righteous, who have many works laid up with you, shall receive their reward in consequence of their own deeds. But what is a man, that you are angry with him; or what is a mortal race, that you are so bitter against it? For in truth there is no one among those who have been born who has not acted wickedly, and among those who have existed there is no one who has not transgressed. For in this, O Lord, your righteousness and goodness will be declared, when you are merciful to those who have no store in good works. (4 Ezra 8:26–36)
He harassed God repeatedly to explain why He had even created those “sinners” outside his special group if He was simply going to torture them after Final Judgment, and the stock answer from God or an angel was always, “You don’t understand since you’re just a human on earth.” Even if the author admitted that he and other believers were imperfect, and not that much different from those who were destined to be punished, he was finally told to quit thinking about the others and simply be thankful that he was going to be saved through it all. But how could one enjoy the endless beatitude in God’s presence while knowing of all those who were just as good and sincere and beneficial to the world who will have to endure endless torment from God? That is the real question of extreme religious bifurcations of humanity.
If that is “justice,” “Ezra” wants none of it. If earlier prophets called the vindication “justice,” he recoils. After all, he knows that he and others of the “chosen” do not keep God’s law perfectly either. So why such disparity of judgment under the pretense of being “justice”? When he raises the question, God essentially tells him to mind his own business!
He answered me and said, ‘Some things you have spoken rightly, and it will come to pass according to your words. For indeed I will not concern myself about the fashioning of those who have sinned, or about their death, their judgment, or their damnation; but I will rejoice over the creation of the righteous, over their pilgrimage also, and their salvation, and their receiving their reward . . . For you come far short of being able to love my creation more than I love it. But you have often compared yourself to the unrighteous. Never do so . . . For many miseries will affect those who inhabit the world in the last times, because they have walked in great pride. But think of your own case, and inquire concerning the glory of those who are like yourself, because it is for you that Paradise is opened, the tree of life is planted, the age to come is prepared, plenty is provided, a city is built, rest is appointed, sealed up for you, illness is banished from you, and death is hidden; hell has fled and corruption has been forgotten; sorrows have passed away, and in the end the treasure of immortality is made manifest. Therefore do not ask any more questions about the multitude of those who perish. (Fourth Ezra 8:37–39, 47, 50–55)3
“Ezra” is informed that the earth God created provides much clay for making earthenware, but only a little dust to turn into gold. Likewise, a farmer spreads many seeds in his field, but only a few actually germinate. So one must simply accept that “many have been created, but few will be saved” (8:3). When Ezra challenges the seed reference, by insisting that seeds and humans are not analogous, and, besides, God claims to have created them both, as well as what is needed for them to succeed, God simply silences him by saying that the present things are for those who live now, but “things that are future are for those who will live hereafter” (8:46). So if God divides the world by His standard, it is divided. The point of it all is that obedience of the imperishable Torah remains the criteria. Or is it really? Not as Ezra saw it.
This graphic prohibition by God for Ezra to quit standing in judgment of Him (God) by asking these pointed questions about those God was planning to punish is quite instructive. It suggests that at least some people in “Ezra’s” day realized that even despite the fact that they were a people trying to follow their God, they were ensconced in a rigid exclusiveness in their group, which had grotesque implications for all other people. This blatant exclusiveness prevailed only if and when they were able finally to dismiss this nagging question about how much more righteous they were than those who were not “chosen,” and only when the question could be ignored or was dismissed could they move beyond some unresolved guilt themselves—why they deserved or at least why God was being more gracious to them, or why they did not try harder to get these others to join their ranks. But how could they dismiss such a natural question? There remained then over the generations a general Jewish admission that there might just be some “righteous” Gentiles or “outsiders” even though Judaism did not emphasize conversions of radically different others.
The single apocalyptic work that made it into the Christian canon concludes with the picture of Final Judgment, and the disparate destinies are again sealed absolutely. It reinforces Habakkuk’s insistence on the division of humanity, that was challenged by “Ezra.” This author is not warned to quit worrying about those God will punish. Perhaps the author is really not concerned with them, or actually feeling vindicated that they ultimately will be punished for opposing Christians? In any case, it is clearly too late to change, to make amends, and if God says it is too late, it is. One is either pure or filthy, righteous or evil—and God’s impending justice will be applied accordingly. This corresponds to the whole of the apocalypse’s content, which divides the world into two parts throughout: God’s faithful and God’s enemies. Everyone will be repaid “according to everyone’s work,” (Rev. 22:12), so the righteous will enter the city, but the “dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood” will be excluded. (12:15). “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near. Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy. See, I am coming soon: my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work” (22:10–12).
These three examples can easily be observed in religious people in our day. There are many who have questions about why they have experienced tragedy or severe pain or chronic illness when they have diligently belonged to a religion that promised more and better life. Some blame themselves or try to figure out what they have done that they deserved such, just as Job was told by his friends to do. But that often proves nothing, no matter how much guilt one places on oneself. Many live with cognitive dissonance. Perhaps one of the more obvious examples of this is the predominant Orthodox Jewish explanation of the Holocaust (which I will address in chapter 10) namely, that God is faithful to the covenant He established with Ancient Israel and the later Jewish people, so, as Deuteronomy 28 suggests, the Holocaust must be God’s punitive response to the Jewish failure, for their assimilation into the Gentile culture. But this creates a problem in so many ways, as Rabbi Richard Rubenstein showed, that it tends to make it impossible for a Jew to continue to worship God or love God. The division of humanity tends to encroach even upon the religious, violating its earlier parameters.
For those who feel the religious promises have not been met, there may be a substitute “fulfillment” if one is able to reinterpret the earlier understandings. Or, a typical response is to look to future justice or some vindication or assurance that one’s support of the religion has not been in vain. In the more extreme form, this hope of life turning out as the believer had been assured, takes on the eschatological4