The Fire That Consumes

The Fire That Consumes

A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment

Third Edition

EDWARD WILLIAM FUDGE

THE FIRE THAT CONSUMES

A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment

Third Edition

Copyright © 2011 Edward William Fudge. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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ISBN 13: 978-1-60899-930-9

Cataloging-in-Publication data:

Fudge, Edward.

The fire that consumes : a biblical and historical study of the doctrine of final punishment. third edition / Edward William Fudge, with forewords by F. F. Bruce, John W. Wenham, and Richard J. Bauckham.

xxiv + 418 p. ; 23 cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN 13: 978-1-60899-930-9

1. Hell—Biblical teaching. 2. Future punishment—biblical teaching. 3. Immortality—Biblical teaching. 4. Resurrection—Biblical teaching. I. Bruce, F. F. (Frederick Fyvie), 1910–1990. II. Wenham, John William. III. Bauckham, Richard. IV. Title.

BS680.H43 F92 2011

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

This work is humbly and worshipfully dedicated

as the offering of an unworthy servant

to God’s Son, my Savior,

the LORD JESUS CHRIST,

who alone is able to deliver us from the Wrath to Come.

“Where a very serious crime is punished by death

and the execution of the sentence takes only a minute,

no laws consider that minute as the measure of the punishment,

but rather the fact that the criminal is forever removed

from the community of the living.”

St. Augustine

Foreword to Third Edition

SINCE THE PUBLICATION OF its first edition in 1982, Edward Fudge’s book The Fire that Consumes has been the fullest and most thorough exposition and defense of the view that the fate of the unsaved will be final destruction, not (as in the traditional doctrine of hell) eternal torment. In the meantime the issue has been more widely discussed among Evangelical Christians than ever before and the view that Fudge advocates is undoubtedly now favored by more Evangelical Christians than ever before. Some prominent Evangelical leaders have endorsed it and there is a widespread sense that this is an issue on which discussion and disagreement among Evangelical Christians is entirely legitimate.

A new edition of the book is therefore amply justified, especially as Fudge’s work has been frequently cited and critiqued by those who have defended the traditional doctrine. He has taken the opportunity to engage with these critics and thereby to clarify and strengthen his case at many points. He also chronicles the main developments—the growing acceptability of conditional immortality and the controversies and discussions—that have occurred since 1982.

A major strength of Fudge’s work, in my view, is that he takes full account of the Old Testament and the continuity in concepts and images of divine judgment between the two testaments. It is all too easy to suppose that, because the Old Testament rarely speaks of judgment after death, it is largely irrelevant to the issue of hell. That view is too simplistic and ignores the New Testament’s pervasive allusions to the Old Testament in its treatment of this, as of every other, topic. Here, as in every respect, we need a truly biblical, not a purely New Testament theology. This is not to downplay the importance of Second Temple Judaism as the immediate context within which Jesus and the New Testament writers thought and taught, for the Jewish tradition was overwhelmingly one of exegesis and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. When New Testament writers reflect the Judaism of their time, they are engaged with it in reading and understanding the Old Testament Scriptures.

Fudge’s work is very focused. He himself puts it thus: “One issue alone divides traditionalists and conditionalists: Does Scripture teach that God will make the wicked immortal, to suffer unending conscious torment in hell? Or does the Bible teach that the wicked will finally and truly die, perish, and become extinct forever, through a destructive process that encompasses whatever degree and duration of conscious torment God might sovereignly and justly impose in each individual case?” His consistent focus on this issue is what enables him to deal so fully and thoroughly with all the relevant texts and the discussions of their interpretation. In my view, we very much also need a fully theological study of the wider contexts and implications of this particular issue within biblical theology. Especially I find it impossible to ignore its relationship to the doctrine of God. But not everything can be done at once and we can be very grateful for what Fudge has achieved.

I commend this book warmly. It is likely to remain a standard work to which everyone engaged with this issue will constantly return.

Richard BauckhamCambridge, England, 2011

Foreword to First Edition

WHILE THE SUBJECT OF this study by Mr. Fudge is one on which there is no unanimity among evangelical Christians, it is at the same time one on which they have often engaged in fierce polemic with one another.

If there is no unanimity here among people who are agreed in accepting the Bible as their rule of faith, it may be inferred that the biblical evidence is not unambiguous. In such a situation polemic should have no place. What is called for, rather, is the fellowship of patient Bible study. It is the fruit of such study that Mr. Fudge presents here.

All immortality except God’s is derived. The Father, who has life in himself, has shared with the Son this privilege of having life in himself. All others receive life in the Son. This is true in a measure even of natural life. “In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind.” But it is of spiritual and eternal life that we are now thinking.

Nor are biblical writers alone in insisting that God only has inherent immortality. Plato in the Timaeus points out that, if there is a morally good creator of the world, then all souls apart from himself exist by his will, even if his will decrees their immortality. It is a truism that Plato’s teaching has profoundly influenced Christian anthropology. But the main difference between Plato’s teaching and the biblical doctrine lies here: whereas Plato predicates immortality (albeit derived immortality) of the soul, when the New Testament writers speak of immortality in relation to human beings they predicate it of the body—of the body revived or transformed in the resurrection age.

Christian theologians chiefly disagree over the destiny in the Age to Come of those who live and die without God. The New Testament answer to this question is much less explicit than is frequently supposed. Paul is reported in Acts as declaring before Felix that he looked for “a resurrection of both the just and the unjust.” But the only resurrection on which he enlarges in his letters is the resurrection of believers, viewed as their participation in the resurrection of Christ. “If we believe that Jesus died and rose again” provides a far more secure basis for the Christian hope than any theory of the innate immortality of the soul, but it throws little light on the destiny of unbelievers.

It gives me pleasure to commend Mr. Fudge’s exposition of this subject. All that he has to say is worthy of careful consideration, but there is special value in those chapters where he examines the testimony of successive sections of the Holy Scriptures.

I suppose that, as the terms are defined in this work, I would be regarded as neither a traditionalist nor a conditionalist. My own understanding of the issues under discussion would be very much in line with that of C. S. Lewis. Lewis did not systematize his thoughts on the subject (and I have not done so either); Mr. Fudge would no doubt ask (and rightly so) if our exegetical foundation is secure.

“It is a fearful thing,” we are assured by the writer to the Hebrews, “to fall into the hands of the living God.” True—and yet into whose hands could anyone more confidently fall? King David knew how fearful a thing it was; but when it came to the crunch, he made the right choice: “Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great.” Christians have the assurance, both for themselves and for others, that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ will never do anything unjust or unmerciful: he cannot deny Himself.

F. F. BruceManchester, England, 1982

Foreword to Second Edition

FOR SIXTY YEARS I have believed and taught what Edward Fudge so lucidly expounds in this book, but in all these sixty years it has been difficult in Britain to get hold of any publication which sets out the case for conditional immortality in a thorough and systematic way. Now this book, first published in the United States in 1982, has become available in a British edition, which has been skillfully revised and slightly abridged by Peter Cousins.

Christians in general and evangelicals in particular have in recent years become confused about the inspiration of the Bible and it has become all too easy to let the awful doctrine of hell disappear from sight in this general confusion. Fudge believes in the inspiration of the canonical scriptures of the Old and New Testaments without reserve and has researched the whole subject with painstaking care, trying to extricate the pure doctrine of the Bible from the accretions of later centuries. Fudge’s clear-headedness and fair-mindedness are apparent throughout. He rejects the notion that humans have immortality without new birth, they gain immortality by becoming partakers of the nature of the God “who alone has immortality.” The terror of the fires of hell is that they burn up all that is unfit for heaven. God’s world in the end will have no place where sinners live on unreconciled to their maker; all will be light and glory.

I believe that this book will help many to worship God more wholeheartedly and to proclaim the gospel more confidently.

John WenhamOxford, England, 1994

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the following for their contributions to this book:

TOM OLBRICHT—for suggesting that it might be interesting to see how New Testament writers outside the Gospels talked about final punishment.

HAROLD LINDSELL—for publishing my 1976 article on hell in Christianity Today.

ROBERT D. BRINSMEAD—for sponsoring the research project that led to the writing of this book, and for skillfully producing the first edition.

MARK and PHYLLIS WHITT, JOEY and VICKI CURTIS—for their prayer support during the original research and writing.

WILLIAM L. LANE—for his personal encouragement and affirmation of my scholarly pursuit (although he was of a different opinion).

PROFESSOR F. F. BRUCE and REV. JOHN W. WENHAM—for lending their considerable reputations to an unknown author by contributing forewords to the first and second editions.

DWAIN EVANS and FIELDING FROMBERG—for making possible the crucial second printing.

THE EVANGELICAL BOOK CLUB—for being there at just the right time to serve as God’s distribution agent.

CLARK H. PINNOCK—for constant encouragement and friendship from before the genesis of this project until his sudden death in August 2010.

CRAIG CHURCHILL, Theological Librarian at Abilene Christian University, and NOEMI PALOMARES, his assistant—for making remote research possible, pleasurable, and profitable.

CHARLES MICKEY, SHARON COFRAN, and NANCY ISAACKS, Director and Librarians at Lanier Theological Library, Houston—for extraordinary hospitality and helpfulness.

FIFTEEN FRIENDS—for helping check citations during the manuscript’s evolution.

MIKE CLEMENS (Alaska) and ANDREW PRITCHARD (Australia)—for helpful stylistic suggestions, for reading page proofs, and for compiling the Scripture index.

ROBIN PARRY—for bibliographic suggestions and editorial hand.

SARA FAYE—for her wifely support, intuition regarding euphony and impact of phrases, and for her uncomplaining loneliness for months on end.

PROFESSOR RICHARD BAUCKHAM—for his example of what it means to love God with all one’s heart and mind, and for his generosity and encouragement in contributing the foreword to this third edition.

MARK and BECKY LANIER—for dreaming dreams to the glory of God, and for the generous sponsorship that made this revised edition possible.

Edward William Fudge

Abbreviations

Reference Works

ANF The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989.

APOT The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English. I–II. Edited by R. H. Charles. Oxford: Clarendon, 1913.

BAG A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Edited by William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich. Translated and adapted from Walter Bauer’s Griechisch-Deutsches Worterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments and der ubrigen urchristlichen Literatur. 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957.

BDT Baker’s Dictionary of Theology. Edited by Everett F. Harrison et al. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1960.

BEC Backgrounds of Early Christianity. 3rd ed. Everett Ferguson. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987.

BH Biblia Hebraica. Edited by Rudolph Kittel. Stuttgart: Wurttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1937.

CD A Catholic Dictionary. Edited by Donald Attwater. 2nd ed. New York: Macmillan, 1957.

DCB A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects, and Doctrines. Being a Continuation of The Dictionary of the Bible. Edited by William Smith and Henry Wace. London: Murray, 1880.

DCG A Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels. Edited by James Hastings. 2 vols. New York: Scribner’s, 1906.

DM A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament. Edited by H. E. Dana and Julius R. Mantey. New York: Macmillan, 1960.

DRE A Dictionary of Religion and Ethics. Edited by Shailer Mathews and Gerald Birney Smith. London: Waverley, 1921.

DSS Dead Sea Scrolls

EB Encyclopaedia Biblica. Edited by T. K. Cheyne and J. Sutherland Black. London: Black, 1901.

ECE The Englishman’s Critical and Expository Bible Cyclopaedia. Compiled and written by A. R. Fausset. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1878.

EGT Expositor’s Greek Testament. Edited by W. Robertson Nicoll. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961.

ER Encyclopaedia of Religion. Edited by Vergilius Ferm. New York: Philosophical Library, 1945.

ERE Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. Edited by James Hastings. New York: Scribner’s, 1912.

ERR Encyclopaedia of Religion and Religions. E. Royston Pike. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1951.

HDB Dictionary of the Bible. Edited by James Hastings. 2nd ed. Revised by F. C. Grant and H. H. Rowley. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1963.

HR A Concordance to the Septuagint. Edited by Edwin Hatch and Henry A. Redpath. London: Clarendon, 1879–1906. Reprinted, 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998.

ICC The International Critical Commentary

IDB The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. 4 vols. Edited by George Arthur Buttrick. New York and Nashville: Abingdon, 1962.

ISBE The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance, 1937.

JE The Jewish Encyclopedia. Edited by Isidore Singer et al. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1925.

LXX Septuaginta. 7th ed. 2 vols. Edited by Alfred Rahlfs. Stuttgart: Wurttember-gische Bibelanstalt, 1966.

M–M The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament Illustrated from the Papyri and Other Non-Literary Sources. Edited by James Hope Moulton and George Milligan. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1963.

NBD The New Bible Dictionary. Edited by J. D. Douglas. Reprint. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974.

NCE New Catholic Encyclopedia. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1967.

NICNT New International Commentary on the New Testament

NIDNTT The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Edited by Colin Brown. Translated from Theologisches Begriffslexikon zum Neuen Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975.

NIGTC New International Greek Testament Commentary

NSHE The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. Edited by Samuel Macauley Jackson. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1911.

NT New Testament

OT Old Testament

PD The Protestant Dictionary. Edited by Charles Henry Hamilton Wright and Charles Neil. London: Hodder & Staughton, 1904.

RE The Religious Encyclopaedia: or Dictionary of Biblical, Historical, Doctrinal, and Practical Theology. Based on the Real-Encyklopadie of Herzog, Plitt and Hauck. Edited by Philip Schaff. 3rd ed. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1891.

Str–B Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud and Midrasch. Edited by Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck. München: Beck, 1928. Excursus in volume 2 on Sheol, Gehenna and the Garden of Eden.

TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Edited by Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich. Translated by G. W. Bromiley from Theologisches Worterbuch zum Neuen Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964.

TGW A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. Being Grimm’s Wilke’s Clavis Novi Testamenti Translated, Revised and Enlarged. Translated by Joseph Henry Thayer. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1963.

WBC Word Biblical Commentary

ZPBD The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary. Edited by Merrill C. Tenney. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1963.

PERIODICALS

AngThRev Anglican Theological Review

BQ Baptist Quarterly

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CCen Christian Century

ChrTod Christianity Today

CTM Concordia Theological Monthly

CRJ Christian Research Journal

CTJ Calvin Theological Journal

CTR Criswell Theological Review

DDSR Duke Divinity School Review

EQ Evangelical Quarterly

EvT Evangelische Theologie

ExAu Ex Auditu

ExpTim Expository Times

FGB Free Grace Broadcaster

HDSB Harvard Divinity School Bulletin

HTR Harvard Theological Review

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature

JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

JRel Journal of Religion

JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament

JTS Journal of Theological Studies

Kairos Kairos: Zeitschrift Fur Religionswissenschaft und Theologie

LQ Lutheran Quarterly

LQHR London Quarterly and Holborn Review

ModCh Modern Churchman

ModRef Modern Reformation

NT Novum Testamentum

NTS New Testament Studies

RTR Reformed Theological Review

RR Reformed Review

RL Religion in Life

RS Religious Studies

RevExp Review & Expositor

RQ Restoration Quarterly

RR Riff Review

SJT Scottish Journal of Theology

ThTod Theology Today

TMSJ The Master’s Seminary Journal

TrinJ Trinity Journal

VE Vetus Evangelische

WTJ Westminster Theological Journal

SCRIPTURES AND OTHER ANCIENT SOURCES

ASV American Standard Version

CEV Contemporary English Version

ESV English Standard Version

HCSB Holman Christian Standard Bible

KJV King James Version

NASB New American Standard Bible

NIV New International Version

NLT New Living Translation

RSV Revised Standard Version

SCRIPTURES

Hebrew Bible / Old Testament

Gen Judg Neh Song Hos Nah

Exod Ruth Esth Isa Joel Hab

Lev 1–2 Sam Job Jer Amos Zeph

Num 1–2 Kgs Ps (pl. Pss) Lam Obad Hag

Deut 1–2 Chr Prov Ezek Jonah Zech

Josh Ezra Ecc (or Qoh) Dan Mic Mal

New Testament

Matt Acts Eph 1–2 Tim Heb 1–2–3 John

Mark Rom Phil Titus Jas Jude

Luke 1–2 Cor Col Phlm 1–2 Pet Rev

John Gal 1–2 Thess

Apocrypha/deuterocanonical books

Tob Wis 1–2 Esd Jdt Sir 1–2 Macc 3–4 Macc Bar

Old Testament Pseudepigrapha

As. Mos. Assumption of Moses

CD Damascus Document / Zadokite Fragments

1 En. 1 Enoch / Ethiopic Enoch

2 En. 2 Enoch / Slavonic Enoch

Jub. Jubilees

L.A.E. Life of Adam and Eve

3 Macc. 3 Maccabees

4 Macc. 4 Maccabees

Pss. Sol. Psalms of Solomon

Sib. Or. Sibylline Oracles

T. Ash. Testament of Asher

T. Benj. Testament of Benjamin

T. Reu. Testament of Reuben

Apostolic Fathers

Barn. Epistle of Barnabas

1 Clem. First Clement

2 Clem. Second Clement

Did. Didache

Diogn. Letter of Diognetus

Ign. Eph. Ignatius’ Letter to the Ephesians

Ign. Magn. Ignatius’ Letter to the Magnesians

Ign. Phld. Ignatius’ Letter to the Philadelphians

Ign. Pol. Ignatius’ Letter to Polycarp

Ign. Smyrn. Ignatius’ Letter to the Smyrneans

Ign. Trall. Ignatius’ Letter to the Trallians

Mart. Pol. Martyrdom of Polycarp

Pol. Phil. Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians

Introduction

THIS YEAR OF 2011 begins the thirtieth year since the publication of the original edition of The Fire That Consumes. University and seminary professors are teaching today who then were not yet born. That original edition was something of a groundbreaker. As mainline evangelicals, we were at home with the majority interpretation of hell as unending conscious torment (the “traditionalist” view), and we assumed that it was thoroughly biblical and beyond dispute.

For most of us, the understanding of hell as a place of total, everlasting destruction (the “conditionalist” view) was still completely new—as was the five-hundred-page case that The Fire That Consumes presented in its support. It was appropriate for the tone of that original edition to be didactic rather than argumentative.

God’s Power and Glory

That was 1982, and God’s hand had been evident in this book from the beginning. Written by an unknown author with no prestigious institutional connection, and privately published by a small and obscure Verdict Publications, the original edition of The Fire That Consumes nevertheless carried a commendatory foreword by the highly-respected New Testament commentator, F. F. Bruce. The second, British, edition included a second foreword by John W. Wenham of Oxford. A new foreword by Richard Bauckham crowns this third edition.

The first printing sold out in five months and the publisher turned the book over to me. Two elders in my church cosigned a bank note to finance the second printing and, in view of all the circumstances, I registered the trade name “Providential Press” for this book alone. The Evangelical Book Club chose it as an Alternate Selection, and, since 1982, our gracious and sovereign God has used The Fire That Consumes to help stimulate a rethinking of hell around the world.

My Weakness

The apostle Paul tells us that God sometimes uses what is foolish, weak, and despised in this world to accomplish his purposes and to glorify himself. This book provides one more example. Six years after The Fire That Consumes was published, I received a doctorate in jurisprudence and began more than two decades of practicing law. When a major book defending traditionalism appeared with the title Hell on Trial, it seemed appropriate that at least one participant in the theological conversation should also be an attorney.

Some readers, learning of my profession but confused on the chronology, imagined a modern Simon Greenleaf and accorded me unwarranted respect. Little did they know that while researching and writing The Fire That Consumes, I was working as a typesetter in an Alabama print shop and serving as volunteer pastor for a thirty-person nondenominational congregation who regularly met in a renovated barn. Happily, none of those things presented any problem for God, whose providential arrangement of circumstances and timing of events accomplished results that would have been impossible through human planning, means and effort.

Feedback

Since this book’s publication in 1982, at least a dozen books have been written in response, in addition to multiple Master’s theses and at least two doctoral dissertations, including one at the University of Oxford.

Throughout this new edition, I interact with seventeen traditionalist authors. In addition, I welcome every opportunity to present the conditionalist case at any school or church, and to interact in person with responsible persons of good will who hold a different view. My website is www.EdwardFudge.com and my email address is Edward@EdwardFudge.com.

In the larger picture, all disputants in the present debate are on the same side. I hope always to treat all of God’s image-bearers, and especially his children, with courtesy and respect. As believers, we all trust in, belong to, and seek to serve the same Lord Jesus Christ. God holds each of us accountable for how we handle the light we have been given, and for how we respond to new light that breaks forth from his holy Word.

Profession Vindicated by Action

As evangelicals, we profess commitment to a high view of Scripture. Translating that commitment into our daily work is easier said than done, especially when, as here, we start our journey entangled in centuries of Catholic and Protestant traditions. For many Christians, those traditions are reinforced by denominational or ecclesiastical confessions and by institutional statements of faith. How we work through these competing interests will depend on, demonstrate, and/or determine the sincerity of our profession and the mettle of our commitment.

Edward William Fudge

Houston, Texas

In the Year of Grace 2011

1

Rethinking Hell: Apostasy or New Reformation?

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO HELL?” asks British evangelist John Blanchard.[1] “First it was there, then it wasn’t,” satirical novelist David Lodge chimes in.[2] “Hell disappeared,” American church historian Martin E. Marty repeats, then adds wryly, “No one noticed.”[3] As a specialist in popular culture and religion, Marty should know better than most.

In the public square, fire and brimstone are definitely out of vogue. Hell still shows up in conversation often enough, but generally as an expletive rather than as a serious subject. Hell is not unique in this regard—the same can be said of Jesus Christ.

More troubling than hell’s absence from secular society is its general disappearance from many Christian pulpits. Interestingly, although nearly all evangelical pastors and teachers firmly believe that Jesus will “come to judge the living and the dead,” a considerable number of them cannot remember when they last preached or taught on the subject. Might those missing sermons reflect a deeper, widespread problem with the traditional interpretation of hell?

The Rethinking of Hell

Book titles tell the story: Hell on Trial [4] and Hell Under Fire.[5] A banner headline on the front of Modern Reformation magazine asks: “Hell: Putting the Fire Out?”[6]—a reference to the international discussion now underway among evangelical Christians. This debate is defined more clearly by Christianity Today’s cover story titled “Hell: Annihilation or Eternal Torment?”[7]

The worldwide restudy of the biblical doctrine of final punishment did not begin by accident or without good reason. It resulted from the writings of such respected scholars as John W. Wenham[8] of Oxford, a major British advocate of biblical authority for over half a century and the author of the most widely-used Greek textbook for many years throughout the English-speaking world.

Similar encouragement came from F. F. Bruce,[9] one of the most trusted New Testament commentators of the twentieth century. And we must not forget John Stott[10]—the noted London pastor beloved worldwide for his books, leadership in world missions, and unsurpassed preaching—who urged a fresh investigation of biblical teaching on this subject.

When leaders of this caliber call for a more serious study of hell, or even announce that they have rejected parts of the traditional view and urge others to follow suit, it is enough (borrowing a phrase from the erudite J. I. Packer) to “put the cat among the pigeons.”[11] Other notables include E. Earle Ellis of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Reformed Anglican visiting professor Philip E. Hughes of Westminster Seminary (and elsewhere), long-time professor Homer Hailey of the Churches of Christ, and Canadian Baptist Clark Pinnock.

Joining these very visible authors are thousands of committed and thoughtful evangelicals—pastors, teachers, professors, and other serious Bible students—who, privately or publicly, question the traditional doctrine of unending conscious torment, denounce it as an unbiblical hindrance to evangelism, or consider it an unnecessary slander against God himself.

What Is Behind the Change?

Albert H. Mohler voices the question many are now thinking: “How did a doctrine so centrally enshrined in the system of theology suffer such a wholesale abandonment?”[12] Mohler blames “theological compromise.”[13] Alan W. Gomes credits a “desire for a kinder, gentler theology.”[14] D. A. Carson identifies “this age of pluralism” as the cause.[15] Robert A. Peterson says it reflects the fruit of the Enlightenment and the exaltation of human reason.[16] From their perspective, the answers given by these prominent evangelicals, all of whom defend the traditional interpretation of hell as unending conscious torment, make perfect sense.

But what if they all are mistaken, unknowingly distracted from the real answer by centuries of tradition, human assumptions, and denominational creeds?[17] What if the muting of hell is due neither to emotional weakness nor loss of gospel commitment?

What if the biblical foundations thought to support unending conscious torment are less secure than has been widely supposed? What about a growing doubt concerning the idea that God, who gave his Son to die for sinful human beings, will keep billions of those same people alive forever, only to torment them without end?[18]

Since publication of The Fire That Consumes in 1982, earnest believers throughout the world have voiced suspicions just such as these. I have spoken with evangelical university and seminary professors, and have heard from still others, who have carefully restudied all that the Bible says about the destiny of the wicked and have felt the necessity to reorder their understanding. Not infrequently, they speak of colleagues who share their views but who, for a variety of reasons, presently choose to keep those views to themselves.

Some Biblical Details That Inspire Change

The more deeply one digs into the Scriptures for understanding regarding final punishment, the clearer it becomes why many godly pastors and teachers are taking out their Bibles and restudying matters that they formerly took for granted. For example, Scripture makes it clear that God will resurrect (or transform) the redeemed unto immortality and incorruption, but Scripture never hints that the wicked will be raised either immortal or incorruptible. Instead, the Bible indicates that the wicked will be banished from God’s presence and expelled into the lake of fire, to experience the second death.

Jesus warns of everlasting punishment in the age to come, and he also explains the nature of that punishment, as do Paul and John among others. It is the second death, the wages of sin. It is everlasting destruction, at the hands of God who is able to destroy both soul and body. To undergo this punishment is to perish—eternally and entirely, fully and forever—and to forfeit eternal life, the gift of God that throughout the New Testament always stands as the blessed alternative to death, destruction and perishing.

These details, and scores of others from both Testaments, provide a clearer view of the biblical hell than does the majority tradition of unending conscious torment. They represent an understanding of the divine character more fully in accord with the revelation of God revealed in Scripture and in Jesus Christ, including both his goodness and his severity. They furnish a place to stand with confidence, a position grounded firmly in Scripture, an incentive to forego timidity based on uncertainty, a boldness to declare the whole counsel of God on this important subject.

“But,” someone asks, “if the traditional doctrine of hell does not come entirely from the Bible, how did it originate and why is it almost universally held? And what exactly does the Bible teach, if not what we have always heard? These are very important questions that deserve answers. With these questions clearly in mind, let us journey together through the Scriptures and through centuries of Christian history.

My Perspective: Evangelical Christian Theist

What one learns from a study of the Bible depends largely on where one stands in relation to other things. Is she a theist, an atheist or an agnostic? If a theist, is she a Christian? If she professes to be a Christian, is she liberal, evangelical, or fundamentalist? Is he open to learn on this biblical subject, or does he suppose that the answers are already clear and settled? If he is open to study, what will be his determining authority?

Is he committed most of all to a particular Confession, to what he thinks “the church has always taught,” to philosophy and reason, or to the words of the Bible itself? If he professes the latter, does he reason from a specific truth—such as God’s love, wrath, or justice—or from an overall gathering and inductive weighing of passages on the subject from both the Old and New Testaments?

What will be the final criterion when these various standards do not point the same direction—something they do not always do. Is she willing to confess an element of mystery where she cannot find full answers—or does she then bend and stretch some scriptures to cover the gap left by others? The matter of authority is not a simple one, even to the reader with good intentions.

I am a theist, a Christian and an evangelical,[19] persuaded that Scripture is the very Word of God written. For that reason I believe it is without error in anything that it teaches, and that it is the only unquestionable, binding source of doctrine on this or any subject.[20] This is a negative statement since it eliminates anything else as an unquestionable or binding source of doctrine. It is also a positive statement since it requires me to use Scripture as a final authority and not simply to praise it for that purpose.

Such a high view of Scripture does not take away from a healthy respect for the common opinion of the universal church throughout the centuries. If someone begins to suspect that he alone has discovered a certain truth, he has good reason to doubt its validity. No uninspired speaker or writer knows anything definitive about final punishment that has not come from the Word of God.

At the same time, the church’s greatest theologians and most devout believers have always realized that God can continually cause new light to break forth from the Word that has been there all the time. One of the greatest compliments that can be paid the church is that it is always reforming, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit and under the authority of the Word.

These are not mere words, but standards by which this book is to be critically measured. Not a day passed during its original research and writing, or during its subsequent revisions, without my earnest prayer for divine leading and wisdom. A number of special friends also supported that work in regular prayer.

Any child of God can ask assistance in weighing the message of uninspired authors while beseeching a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of the things God has said (Eph 1:17–18; Jas 1:5–7). This not only comforts; it creates a sense of humility and of responsibility (Jas 3:1). We must open Scripture prayerfully and handle it with care. We must then listen to it without objection or argument. It is the Word of the living God.

Standards That Easily Distract

Before we begin our exploration of Scripture and Christian history, we must acknowledge our common guide and agree to honor his authority. That guide, of course, is the Holy Spirit, who speaks truth through the canonical writings of prophets, apostles, and other holy men, now collected in Scripture. As evangelical Christians, it is very easy to claim the Bible as our authority, but fail to carry out the implications of that claim when dealing with difficult issues—especially if that means standing with the minority.

Then the tendency is to look for a way out, to grab some passing straw in an effort to escape the whirlpool from which we see no ready exit. It is easy to deceive ourselves under such circumstances. We need to be very sure, therefore, what we are excluding when we say that the Bible is our final authority.

Desires

It is always tempting to read into Scripture what we wish. The nineteenth-century Anglican archbishop, Richard Whately of Dublin, warns us not to confuse our own desires with the Bible’s teaching.

In judging of the sense of Scripture, we should be careful to guard against the error of suffering our wishes to bias the mind. If indeed we had to devise a religion for ourselves, we might indulge our wishes as to what is desirable, or our conjectures, as to what seems to us in itself probable, or our judgment, as to what may seem advisable. But when we have before us “Scripture-revelations” on any subject, it is for us to endeavor to make out what it is that Scriptures teaches, and what it does not teach.[21]

Easy Answers

The desire for easy answers can also mislead our minds during difficult Bible study. Edward White, author of the nineteenth-century classic, Life in Christ, reminds us of this danger.

Perhaps we never ought to be more suspicious of our arguments than when they are derived from the presumed advantages of the projected conclusion. There can be no doubt that the desire for a neat and simple argument in support of a truth may dispose even able men to offer some little violence to evidence that points in the direction of complexity. What we consider neatness and simplicity is not always a characteristic of Divine working, or Divine teaching. A passion for simplicity of statement has often blinded men to facts that indicated more complexity than might at first have been supposed.[22]

This danger is ever-present regarding any subject, but it hovers over a study of hell like some bird of prey. “How will this view affect evangelism?” people may ask. “Which view of hell most motivates sinners to repent?”[23] These questions come to mind, but are secondary and must wait their turn. First we must ask what the Bible teaches. Only when that is settled are we ready to consider the practical implications of such teaching.

Evangelicals who profess great fidelity to Scripture have not always been careful to respect its form and manner of speaking. “Evangelical zeal for literal interpretation has too often resulted in running roughshod over those literary forms for which literal interpretation is inappropriate,” writes J. Julius Scott.[24] The problem is compounded, Scott continues, because “some biblical genres, such as Hebrew poetry, wisdom literature and apocalyptic, are strange to western readers.”[25]

Private Interpretation

We also need to avoid the danger of thinking we have discovered new truth never known or taught before. The great Reformers rejected ecclesiastical tradition as having authority equal to Scripture, and so must we. But they never intended that every man should invent his own interpretation of the Bible, nor did they intend to enslave the church’s corporate interpretation to “the free-lance opinion of any one individual.”[26] Robert E. Webber addresses this abuse of a good principle when he exhorts: “Evangelicals should come to grips with the fact that the Bible belongs to the church. It is the living church that receives, guards, passes on, and interprets Scripture. Consequently, the modern individualistic approach to interpretation of Scripture should give way to the authority of what the church has always believed, taught, and passed down in history.”[27]

Webber was one of a group of evangelical leaders who met in May, 1977, for a period of self-analysis, resulting in a now-classic document known as “The Chicago Call: An Appeal to Evangelicals.”[28] In the section, “A Call to Biblical Fidelity,” the group said: “We deplore our tendency toward individualistic interpretation of Scripture . . . Therefore we affirm that the Bible is to be interpreted in keeping with the best insights of historical and literary study, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, with respect for the historic understanding of the church. We affirm that the Scriptures, as the infallible Word of God, are the basis of authority in the church.”[29]

To a church often dominated by mass-media pastors, magazine editors, parachurch organizations, and free-lance interpreters, these words carry timely wisdom, and we ought to give them careful attention. Even true prophets are subject to discerning by other spiritual people (1 Cor 14:29; 1 Thess 5:20–21), and many false prophets are in the world (1 John 4:1). How important, therefore, that we test everything by Scripture, always remembering that we are not the first to do so, and that we do not read Scripture in isolation apart from the people of God.

1. Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell?

2. Lodge, Souls and Bodies.

3. Marty, “Hell Disappeared,” 381–98.

4. Peterson, Hell on Trial.

5. Morgan and Peterson, Hell Under Fire.

6. Modern Reformation (May–June 2002).

7. ChrTod (Oct 23, 2000).

8. Wenham argued “The Case for Conditional Immortality,” in a paper so titled, at the Fourth Edinburgh Conference on Christian Dogmatics in 1991. In it, he described the traditional doctrine of endless torment as “a hideous and unscriptural doctrine which has been a terrible burden on the mind of the church for many centuries and a terrible blot on her presentation of the gospel.” The conference papers were published the following year as Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell, and Wenham’s quote above appears on page 190. He repeats it in the introduction to his autobiography, Facing Hell, on page vii.

9. Bruce contributed a foreword to the original edition of The Fire That Consumes, in which he noted the lack of evangelical unanimity on the subject of hell and called for “the fellowship of patient Bible study.” See page vii.

10. Stott first expressed his views publicly in a debate with Anglican liberal David Edwards, published in 1988 as Evangelical Essentials: A Liberal–Evangelical Dialogue.

11. Packer, “Evangelical Annihilationism in Review,” 38.

12. Mohler, “Modern Theology,” 16.

13. Ibid.

14. Gomes, “Evangelicals and the Annihilation of Hell,” 15.

15. Carson, quoted by Peterson, “Undying Worm, Unquenchable Fire,” 37.

16. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 120.

17. That is always a possibility. Most of the Christian Church was confused about the core doctrine of justification by grace through faith from about the time of Augustine until the Protestant Reformation—a period of more than a thousand years.

18. For non-Calvinist Christians, the moral offense is magnified by three when the traditionalist speaks from a Calvinistic perspective. Not only must the non-Calvinist hearer struggle (1) with the notion of unending conscious torment, but, as the Calvinist is conscience-bound to affirm, (2) the chief (“most ultimate”) reason why one is in hell to begin with is “God’s sovereign decision to pass by many sinners and allow them to suffer the consequences for their sins”; and (3) the only reason the sinner in hell continues to live and suffer for eternity is that God intentionally keeps that person alive for that very purpose. (Peterson, “Systematic Theology,” 164; Helm, The Last Things, 118, 120.) I mention this, not to be divisive, but to encourage greater understanding by those on both sides: to the non-Calvinist, that the Calvinist must speak from deep convictions; to the Calvinist, that the non-Calvinist must be horrified when that happens.

19. The term “evangelical” itself covers a spectrum of opinions regarding the proper role of tradition vis-à-vis Scripture. Certainly the opinions of our theological ancestors deserve attention, respect, and careful, prayerful, hesitant thought before being rejected—but evangelicals say that even those opinions are subject to critique in the light of Scripture, and to rejection when such critique warrants it. However, as Roger E. Olson documents, “[t]he present traditionalist temperament of many conservative evangelical theologians leads them to seek rapid closure to any theological discussion of new proposals . . . [and] to reject any innovative interpretations of Scripture . . . Since most evangelicals have always believed in the eternal suffering of the wicked, conservative evangelical theologians tend to react negatively to any suggestion of annihilationism.” Olson, Reformed and Always Reforming, 187. For example, the case for unending conscious torment presented by my co-author Robert A. Peterson in Two Views of Hell consists of an endorsement by eleven other theologians through the centuries, an appeal to ten passages of Scripture, and three rationalistic arguments drawn from various areas of systematic theology. Peterson, Two Views of Hell, 117–81.

20. I am a full member of the Evangelical Theological Society in good standing, having joined that organization about forty years ago. I have served as an ETS regional vice-president and have been published several times in its scholarly Journal (JETS), as also in Christianity Today. The first edition of The Fire That Consumes was an Alternate Selection of the Evangelical Book Club.

21. Whately, A View of the Scripture Revelations, 185–86. Of the four major Protestant streams since the Reformation, the Anglican has been the most open to conditionalism, followed by the Anabaptists and Lutherans, with the Calvinist tradition holding most tenaciously to the doctrine of unending conscious torment.

22. Edward White, Life in Christ, 293. White emphasizes the positive aspect that life is to be had only through Jesus Christ, rather than the negative aspect that contradicts the doctrine of unending conscious torment. White believed that man’s soul survives bodily death in an intermediate state. His conditionalist contemporary, Henry Constable, believed that body and soul both die in the first death. Both men affirm a resurrection of good and bad, a universal judgment, and the entire destruction of body and soul in the case of those who are cast into hell. The two men demonstrate that one’s view of hell does not require a certain view of temporal death or the intermediate state.

23. Albert Mohler wisely warns against “watering down” biblical teaching of final judgment, however understood, as a tactic to gain more converts. (Mohler, “Modern Theology,” 40–41.) However, John Stott’s example is undeniable proof that missionary zeal does not depend upon one’s acceptance of the traditional view of hell. Brian A. Hatcher studied the relationship between one’s views of hell and missionary practice, as demonstrated by a generation of missionaries associated with the Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS) from 1845–75, and reached the same conclusion. (Hatcher, “Eternal Punishment and Christian Missions,” 39–61.)

24. Scott, “Some Problems in Hermeneutics,” 74.

25. Ibid., 74–75.

26. Braun, Whatever Happened to Hell? 48.

27. Webber, Common Roots, 128.

28. The text of “The Chicago Call” is included in Webber’s Common Roots, quoted here and below.

29. Webber, Common Roots, 252–53. The text continues with a reminder of the fallibility of all human creeds and confessions: “We affirm the abiding value of the great ecumenical creeds and the Reformation confessions. Since such statements are historically and culturally conditioned, however, the church today needs to express its faith afresh, without defecting from the truths apprehended in the past” (ibid., 253).

“

2

Back to the Bible: The Protestant Principle

AS BELIEVERS, WE ARE not only individuals but also members of a great family with ancient and honorable roots. As such, we read and interpret Scripture as partners in the larger Christian community, a fellowship ecumenical in scope and unbounded by space or time.

This larger perspective encourages “a willingness to read Scripture, taking into account the ways in which it has been read in the past . . . It is a willingness to give full weight to the views of those who have gone before us in the faith, providing forceful reminders of the corporate nature of the Christian faith.”[1]

Healthy attention to tradition serves four constructive purposes, according to J. I. Packer. It “allows us to discover our historical roots, introduces a sense of realism concerning our own situation, provides resources for the modern church and acts as a reminder of yesterday’s successes and failures, so that the church may learn from them.”[2]

Ecclesiastical Tradition Not Infallible

However, proper appreciation for the thinking and conclusions of those who preceded us does not free us simply to rest on insights of those who went before, nor does it require us to accept as final whatever the church has taught in the past.

Cautions and Admonitions

“Many Christians, perhaps most of us, are simply content to follow the party line,” writes Anabaptist Gerald D. Studer. “If this leaves some biblical data unaccounted for, we protect ourselves either by saying that not all of us can be theologians or we take comfort in the fact that ‘this is the way we have been taught!’”[3]

The most authentic heirs of the Reformation are not those who close their eyes and cling with all their might to a particular creed or confession of faith. They are those who, in the words of Reformed theologian John R. Franke, maintain “without reservation that no single human perspective, be it that of an individual or a particular community or a theological tradition, is adequate to do full justice to the faith of God’s revelation in Christ.”[4]

This is something evangelicals must remember, says Oxford’s Alister McGrath, no foe of tradition rightly used.

For evangelicals of today to affirm uncritically what evangelicals thought and did in the past is to be trapped by a tradition. It does not matter whether the tradition in question is evangelical or not. The key point is that it is a tradition . . . At least in principle, we must recognize that our distinguished forbears may require gentle and godly correction—in precisely the same way as future generations may wish, with equal gentleness and godliness, to correct us in our beliefs and practices. This is a painful insight; it is, however, an essential and biblical insight.[5]

One shows no disrespect to the universal church by attempting to stand with the earliest Christians, as Robert Webber put it, “on the other side of theological debate and formulation.” Such work poses no threat to the Christian community so long as it builds on the solid rock of divine revelation.

Instead, “the work of individual theologians contributes greatly to the general understanding of the tradition of faith and life to which Scripture, creed, and liturgy are standing witnesses.” If the theologian’s freedom is sometimes “in tension with the mind of the community,” it “may frequently be the role and duty of official authority to keep legitimate options open.”

These are not the words of some free-lance interpreter. They come from the official report of a joint commission of Anglican and Roman Catholic theologians who dealt with the specific subject of “authority in the church.”[6] They are quoted here, not as authoritative within themselves, but simply to show that those who champion the value of church tradition most strongly also make room for individual Bible students to help the church move beyond its present understanding of biblical truth.

Scripture and Tradition

Evangelical theology must run the risk of arousing displeasure, says Clark Pinnock—both of “the conservatives who are content to rehearse thoughtlessly the slogans of the past” and also of “the radicals who seek liberation from biblical norms in order to shape a system to suit their own taste.” Because theology is a creative activity, it “cannot rest content with mere reiteration of earlier insights.”[7]

Past formulations and definitions have value, for telling us where our family of faith has been, but it is not the role of tradition to tell us where we ought to go from here. McGrath elaborates: “Tradition is to be honored where it can be shown to be justified, and rejected where it cannot. This critical appraisal of tradition was an integral element of the Reformation, and was based on the foundational belief that tradition was ultimately about the interpretation of Scripture—an interpretation which had to be justified with reference to precisely that same authoritative source.”[8]

It is a defining principle of the Reformation that ecclesiastical tradition, however good and wise, cannot provide the final word.[9] That is Scripture’s function, properly used, as N. T. Wright explains:

The challenge of living with tradition is not so much . . . that one should let Scripture and tradition flow together straightforwardly into a single stream, but that tradition should be allowed to be itself; that is, the living voice of the very human church as it struggles with Scripture, sometimes misunderstanding it and sometimes gloriously getting it right. That is why the challenge comes fresh to each generation. Traditions tell us where we have come from. Scripture itself is a better guide as to where we should now be going.[10]

The Reformation Continues

The sixteenth-century Reformation “was the beginning of something and not the end,” A. T. B. McGowan reminds us.[11] Proper appreciation of that truth does not mean “abandoning the core of Reformation theology,” McGowan continues, but neither does it warrant moving “toward a rigid confessionalism, giving the impression that the final codification of truth has already taken place and that there is no further need for reformation.”[12]

The Obstacle of Petrification

The danger of which McGowan warns is more than a theoretical possibility; it has become reality with frightening regularity throughout the history of Christianity as McGrath explains.

It seems to be a general feature of the history of Christian thought that a period of genuine creativity is immediately followed by a petrification and scholasticism, as the insights of a pioneering thinker or group of thinkers are embodied in formulae or confessions . . . Orthodoxy merely guarded the ashes of the Reformation, rather than tending its flame. The period of Orthodoxy between the first phase of the Reformation and the Enlightenment is characterized by its confessionalism, which effectively replaced the dynamism of the first phase of the Reformation with a static understanding of the nature of theology.[13]

This admonition must not fall on deaf ears. Nothing is accomplished by paying lip-service to the canonicity and authority of Scripture if we then fail to put those principles to use in actual practice. Some adherents to a particular confessional standard might rejoice to read remarks such as the following, but those who truly seek to make Scripture the final word cringe to hear a theologian say, “I have had but one object in my professional career and as a writer, and that is to state and to vindicate the doctrines of the ________ Church. I have never advanced a new idea, and have never aimed to improve on the doctrines of our fathers. Having become satisfied that the system of doctrines taught in the [creeds and confessions] of the ________ Churches is taught in the Bible, I have endeavored to sustain it, and am willing to believe even where I cannot understand.”[14]

What, we might ask, is this? Was not the exact sentiment, as expressed by medieval Roman Catholicism, a specific cause of the Protestant Reformation? The author of the quotation above says “Reformed” where the two blanks appear, but there is no place for anyone else to smirk or point the finger. The same attitude is found across the theological spectrum, although rarely expressed with such pride and candor. Wherever this attitude is found—in Reformed circles or Arminian, among Baptist folk or people of the Stone-Campbell Restoration, in Adventism or Lutheranism, among Charismatics or Dispensationalists, Fundamentalists or Emergents—all professions of commitment to a “high view of Scripture” become suspect as hollow and hypocritical, as insubstantial as a game of charades played at a birthday party of twelve-year-olds.[15]

“A major principle of the Reformation was reformata et semper reformanda—reformed and always reforming,” writes Roger Olson. “How is continuing reform of evangelical faith and life possible if being evangelical requires firm adherence to a humanly devised cognitive structure of doctrinal content?”[16]

Such blind allegiance to a man-made system subverts the purpose of theology by making humankind, not God, its ultimate authority. Franke elaborates:

The task of theology is not an attempt to identify and codify the true meaning of the text in a series of systematically arranged assertions that then function as the only proper interpretive grid through which to read the Bible. Such an approach is characteristic among those who hold confessional statements in an absolutist fashion and claim that such statements teach the ‘system’ of doctrine contained in Scripture. The danger here is that such a procedure can hinder the ability to read the text and to listen to the Spirit in new ways. Theology should always lead us back to the Bible. Its goal is to place the Christian community in a position to be receptive to the voice of the Spirit speaking in and through the biblical text to refashion the world after the eschatological mission and purpose of God.”[17]

Last Things Left Behind

Like ancient Judah, who placed confidence in its Temple despite prophetic warnings that such boasts were misplaced, today’s evangelicals sometimes take pride in the ecclesia reformata (“the church reformed”), while overlooking the rest of the slogan that says semper reformanda (“always reforming”). The Reformers were busy men who had to battle on many fronts. But they were not immortal—and they died with some work still unfinished.

Specifically, says James P. Martin, while the Reformers talked about last things, they never did construct an eschatology using the building blocks of Scripture. Martin offers specific examples for his charge that “in spite of the high doctrine of the authority, perspicuity, and inspiration of Scripture, tradition, rather than Scripture, was the real starting point in the eschatology of Orthodoxy” and that “the treatment of the last things did not represent a new start in an exegetical way.”[18]

This means that the Bible was used as a source for proof-texts concerning eschatology, Martin says, but there was “no attempt at a historical understanding of these texts.”[19] Luther and Calvin both rejected the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory, for example, not because they made a thorough study of scriptural eschatology and found it missing, but because purgatory clearly contradicted the doctrine of justification that they had discovered in the Bible.

The problem was not a low view of Scripture but a failure to use their high view to full advantage. Because the Reformers and their descendants frequently worked amidst the heat of controversy, where quick answers were at a premium, it was easy for them to limit their doctrine of “perspicuity” (that Scripture can be clearly understood) to certain subjects.[20] Those subjects, says Martin, did not include last things.

The Opponent in the Mirror

Those most to blame for stopping short, says Martin, are not the Reformers but those who came after them—the real shapers of Protestant orthodoxy.

Both Luther and Calvin neglected the special content of eschatology. It is a reproach against Orthodoxy that it did not supply this lack by a renewed investigation of . . . Holy Scripture. Orthodoxy supplied the lack of content by taking over the general medieval tradition with its spiritualizing and individualistic tendencies. This tradition was altered only here and there in accordance with Protestant ideas. The dogmatic system reigned supreme to the detriment of a biblical eschatology, and consequently, to the whole of theology. Orthodoxy is an example of the truth that a high doctrine of Scripture is no guarantee of its actual or proper use.[21]

Edward Beecher adds that “the whole energy of the church, in the highest state of holiness and communion with God, has never been brought to bear upon this subject [eschatology], so as to result in a thorough and reliable investigation of the whole great question.” Instead of conducting such a thorough study of Scripture, charges Beecher, the great Reformation churches manifested “a fixedness and immobility that is not the result of any antecedent profound investigation, but simply of unreasoning inertia and uninquiring tradition.”[22] It makes me genuinely sad to say it, but much literature defending hell as unending conscious torment provides additional evidence in support of Beecher’s critique.

The shapers of Protestant orthodoxy were sensitive to Rome’s false claims of authority, and they did not hesitate to respond to those claims whenever they made an appearance. Yet, as Reformed theologian Louis Berkhof points out, even while the new Protestants refused to make exegesis the servant of councils and popes, they “were in danger of leading it into bondage to the confessional standards of the church.” As a result, exegesis “became the hand-maid of dogmatics, and degenerated into a mere search for proof-texts.”[23]

If Scripture did not clearly teach what the Reformation church was teaching, Martin notes, it was easy to simply say, “This is what our theology holds.” In this way the height of doctrine “was gradually identified with the basic dogmatic outlook of the particular theologian. The Confessional view became the interpreter of Scripture.”[24] The inclination to subordinate biblical exegesis to the conclusions of theologians and theologies remains a constant temptation.

The literature concerning final punishment clearly supports Berkhof’s criticism each time traditionalists place weight on accepted dogma instead of Scripture, cite confessional standards as if they were repositories of ultimate truth, and replace actual exegesis with an accumulation of proof-texts left unexplained.

The Challenge Before Us

These are not the critiques of unbelievers. They are the sober assessments of committed scholars who are determined to fight their way upstream to the pure source of their doctrine. Their challenges to the status quo have born fruit, and

[t]heological work . . . following in the footsteps of the reformers, has brought about a thoroughgoing reorientation of evangelical teaching as a whole in the direction of eschatology.

Connected with this is a new effort to reach a correct understanding of the last things themselves. Here attention must be concentrated on those aspects of eschatology that were neglected by the reformers, and its true biblical content clarified i.e., within the limits that Holy Scripture itself prescribes for the insights of faith.[25]

These warnings and criticisms deserve to be taken seriously and A. M. Hunter acknowledges progress in this regard. “Our time has witnessed a revival of interest in the whole subject of New Testament eschatology,” he observes, “and it is becoming clear that the time is ripe for a radical rethinking, by our systematic theologians, of the whole Christian doctrine of the last things.”[26]

Crediting Others with Good Faith

We began with the reminder that we all are part of a great family of faith, and that our study is part of a larger ongoing family conversation. Because we are talking to family members, it is important for us to forbear making personal accusations or judging the motives of others in the conversation.

Good men and women holding various views on final punishment set this standard long before we entered the dialogue. Most advocates on all sides of the debate about hell today also seek to understand the teaching of Scripture and wish to teach nothing else. Most also credit their opponents with the same good faith. I earnestly hope always to do the same. Such generosity of spirit flows more naturally when we rank our issues the way Jesus and the New Testament writers weigh them—in proportion to their relationship to the gospel. That means, as Randy Harris explains, that we “imagine concentric circles with the cross at the middle” so that “[c]onversations at the center carry a great deal more weight than conversations in one of the outer circles.”[27] Assessing an issue’s relationship to what is most central—the gospel itself—puts it in biblical perspective.

AN ADMIRABLE EARLY ILLUSTRATION

That is what happened in 1942, when the Advent Christian Church applied for membership in the National Association of Evangelicals. This application was a bit out of the ordinary, because the “distinctive principles” of the Advent Christian Church[28] include the beliefs that humans are created mortal, that God will give immortality to the saved in the resurrection, and that the damned, not given immortality, eventually suffer the Second Death and forever cease to exist. The group thus rejects as unbiblical the traditionalist view of unending conscious torment.

Howard W. Ferrin, better-known for his service as chancellor of New England’s Barrington College, was a member of the Commission that prepared a Statement of Faith for the National Association of Evangelicals and that decided whether applicants met its criteria. Ferrin continues the story in his own words: “Two questions arose about Advent Christians. (1) Were they ‘orthodox’ in respect to truths which had to do with the redemptive work of God in Christ? The answer of the Commission was, ‘Definitely Yes!’ (2) Could their ‘distinctive principles’ be judged to be so unevangelical in character as to disqualify them? The answer was ‘Definitively No!’ Consequently, at the first Convention of the National Association of Evangelicals the Advent Christian Church qualified for full membership.”[29]

Ferrin observes that Advent Christians “probably devote more time in their preaching and writings to warning unbelievers ‘to flee from the wrath to come’ than most evangelicals” and states his personal opinion that those holding “the Traditionalist view of ‘unending punishment’ or the Annihilationist view of ‘extinction’ . . . both believe in the biblical teaching of hell” and that the difference “is a matter of hermeneutics.”[30]

ADMIRABLE MODERN EXAMPLES

A more recent salutary example is that of Robert L. Reymond, who, in disagreeing with John Stott’s views on hell, adds: “I want to disabuse those readers who have not read Dr. Stott directly of any notion that he advances the doctrine of annihilation because he is trying to find an ‘easier road’ for the ungodly, for such is simply not the case . . . Nor is Dr. Stott’s tentative advocacy of annihilationism due to an unwitting lapse away from the supreme authority of Scripture toward an unscriptural surrender to mere emotionalism.”[31]

Similarly, J. I. Packer, himself the courteous gentleman through and through, takes issue with his fellow-Anglicans John Stott and John Wenham, then appends: “Both men adopted annihilationism[32] . . . for the right reason—not because it fitted into their comfort zone . . . but because they thought they found it in the Bible.” A few pages later, Packer comments: “It is distasteful to argue in print against honored fellow-evangelicals, some of whom are good friends and others of whom . . . are now with Christ, so I stop right here.”[33]

I praised God when Michael Horton, a staunch advocate of the traditional view of hell, editorialized in a special issue of Modern Reformation magazine on this topic as follows: “Edward Fudge’s The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment reflects a concern to be biblical and engage in serious exegesis . . . Whatever we make of that exegesis, Fudge’s book breathes a high respect for biblical authority; consequently, we cannot dismiss him out of hand by claiming that he can only reject eternal conscious punishment if he ignores Scripture. The same is true of Anglican John Stott, the late Gordon-Conwell professor Philip E. Hughes, and others.”[34]

AND NOT SO ADMIRABLE

Sadly, some advocates resort to personal vilification and even attempt to judge the motives of others. Jon Braun asserts that conditionalists are people who “wanted to be universalists but just couldn’t bring themselves to justify it.”[35] Robert A. Morey accuses conditionalists of “holding a weak view of Scripture” and claims that they are trying to “justify their wicked lives” and to “defend their evil ways.”[36] John MacArthur dismisses conditionalists as “so-called scholars who find ways to manipulate the text,” and says that they are “poisoning evangelicalism with unbelief.”[37] John Gerstner, author of Repent or Perish, is extraordinarily disrespectful to John Stott and others he discusses. Such personal attacks are detrimental to any cause and are an embarrassment to godly people who might espouse that same cause.

The Inquiry Goes On

Today, more than ever, evangelicals are less likely to agree with one who prefaces his study of last things with the remark that the “safest, most sure way to learn the truth of God is to discover what the overwhelming consensus of the church has been with respect to what God says in the Scriptures on the subject over the nearly two thousand years of history.”[38]

Evangelicals resonate instead with the judgment of Alister McGrath, who writes that, “Tradition is to be honored where it can be shown to be justified and rejected where it cannot. This critical appraisal of tradition was an integral element of the Reformation, and was based on the foundational belief that tradition was ultimately about the interpretation of Scripture—an interpretation which had to be justified with reference to precisely that same authoritative source.”[39] Traditionalist Alan W. Gomes states what ought to be obvious when he says that, “[w]hile it is true that the doctrine of [conscious] endless punishment . . . is the position traditionally held by the church throughout the centuries, this in itself does not make it correct.”[40] Indeed, as McGowan challenges, “[c]an we really imagine that all theological issues are now settled once and for all?”[41]

Of this we may be sure: “Evangelicals, who criticize the Roman Church for putting tradition on a level with the Bible, must be very careful that we ourselves do not unwittingly fall into the same snare . . . The question is simply, What do His words mean? . . . No Protestant should object to being asked to re-examine any traditional belief in the light of the Word of God, searching the Scriptures to see whether these things be so.”[42]

1. McGrath, “The Importance of Tradition,” 161.

2. Dr. Packer’s four purposes as summarized by McGrath, in “The Importance of Tradition,” 165–66.

3. Studer, After Death, What? 111. Studer concludes that the exact nature of final punishment must remain a fearful unknown but that we should preach its terror and know that God’s ways are both holy and just.

4. Franke, The Character of Theology, 79.

5. McGrath, “The Importance of Tradition,” 164.

6. Yarnold and Chadwick, Truth and Authority, 15. The commentary later affirms, “Even when a doctrinal definition is regarded by the Christian community as part of its permanent teaching, this does not exclude subsequent restatement,” but notes that “restatement always builds upon, and does not contradict, the truth intended by the original definition” (ibid., 50).

None of the ecumenical creeds specifically defines the nature of hell as unending conscious torment, although that interpretation was certainly known well before Nicea and, its advocates claim, before the formulation much earlier of the Apostles Creed as well. Both ecumenical instruments refer to final judgment but neither one defines the nature or outcome of that judgment.

7. Pinnock, “Prospects for Systematic Theology,” 93.

8. McGrath, “The Importance of Tradition,” 160.

9. The church must scrutinize tradition periodically in the light of Scripture, says Alister McGrath, if only because “we may, through weakness or sheer cussedness, get our interpretations wrong from time to time and need correction.” McGrath, “Evangelical Theological Method,” 31.

10. Wright, Last Word, 119.

11. “McGowan, “Introduction,” 13.

12. Ibid.

13. McGrath, “Reformation to Enlightenment (1500–1800),” 151.

14. Hodge, The Life of Charles Hodge, 430. From a letter dated August 24, 1857, from Charles Hodge (1797–1878) of “Old Princeton” Theological Seminary, to a Dr. Cunningham.

15. Stanley J. Grenz and John R. Franke sound an important warning in saying that all human creeds and confessions of faith, “despite their great stature . . . do not take the place of canonical Scripture as the community’s constitutive authority. Moreover, they must always and continually be tested by the norm of canonical Scripture.” Grenz and Franke, Beyond Foundationalism, 124. Alister McGrath cautions that the elevation of any uninspired confession of faith to the level of rational certainty “runs the risk of becoming secret prisoner” of an Enlightenment foundationalism that is now dying if it is not dead already. McGrath, A Passion for Truth, 173.

16. Olson, Reformed and Always Reforming, 39.

17. Franke, The Character of Theology, 135.

18. Martin, The Last Judgment, 3.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid., 2.

21. Ibid., 4–5.

22. Beecher, History of Opinions, 311.

23. Berkhof, Principles of Biblical Interpretation, 28ff, quoted by Kevan, “The Principles of Interpretation,” 291.

24. Ibid.

25. Quistorp, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Last Things, 194.

26. Hunter, The Gospel according to St. Paul, 111.

27. Harris, “Doctrinal Disagreement,” 54.

28. The Advent Christian Church is a thoroughly orthodox denomination distinguishable from other evangelical bodies by its commitment to conditionalism and the “sleep” of the dead. Advent Christians are Sunday-meeting descendants of the William Miller revival who, after the “Great Disappointment” of October 22, 1844, committed themselves to continue preaching the imminent advent of Jesus Christ but never again to attempt to foretell its date.

29. Ferrin, “A Review of Resurrection—His and Ours, 157.

30. Ibid., 158–59.

31. Reymond, “Dr. John Stott on Hell,” 42.

32. In the broader sense, “annihilationism” refers to the view that the wicked are eventually destroyed and become extinct, as opposed to being tormented forever or to being restored to God. Like the atonement, there are several possible explanations. One view sees humans as created mortal, with only the saved given immortality in the resurrection (conditional immortality or conditionalism). Another sees humans as created immortal but with the wicked finally destroyed, soul and body, by God the creator (annihilationism in the narrower sense). Wenham holds the first view; Stott the second. Although the view expressed in this book is conditional immortality, I am supportive of other annihilationist views that include a general resurrection, separation of redeemed and damned, and the final, irreversible, total destruction of the wicked.

33. Packer, “Evangelical Annihilationism in Review,” 43, 47–48.

34. Horton, “The Very Idea of It,” 15.

35. Braun, Whatever Happened to Hell? 49

36. Morey, Death and the Afterlife, 157, 203.

37. MacArthur (“Foreword”), Hell on Trial, vii.

38. Braun, Whatever Happened to Hell? 43.

39. McGrath, “The Importance of Tradition,” 160.

40. Gomes, “Evangelicals and the Annihilation of Hell” (Part 1), 16.

41. McGowan, “Introduction,” 14.

42. Guillebaud, The Righteous Judge, 46–47, 49.

3

Souls: Immortal or Otherwise

SINCE AT LEAST THE fourth century, most Christians have been taught that every human being will live forever. “You have an immortal soul,” the revivalist’s message often put it, “and it will spend eternity in either heaven or hell.” Quite often, the sermon featured the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.[1] In time we will discover that the doctrine of immortal souls was the womb from which the traditional Christian teaching of unending conscious torment was born.

Plato and Human Immortality

The immortality of the soul was a principal doctrine of the Greek philosopher, Plato (429–347 BC), who was roughly a contemporary of Malachi in the Old Testament.[2] In Plato’s thinking,[3] the soul (or psychē ) was self-moving and indivisible or “simple.” Ungenerated and eternal, it existed before the body did that it inhabited, and it would survive the body as well. To be apart from the body was the soul’s natural and proper state; to be imprisoned in a body was its punishment for faults committed during a previous incarnation.[4]

Plato came to these conclusions by several roads. One line of argument explained his peculiar theory of knowledge. All education, he said, is actually reminiscence. When people think they are learning, the soul is really recalling something it has known from a previous existence. If this is true, the soul must have its own life independent of its successive bodies. Plato gave this “likely account” of affairs, modestly acknowledging that “the greatness of the subject and the weakness of man” prohibited certainty.[5]

Plato’s teaching about the soul was given to illustrate his other principles. He did not intend to be taken literally but taught that “about the other world or worlds we can speak for the most part only in figure or allegory.”[6] But Plato’s successors—like those of many another great thinker—literalized and systematized what he had said. Along the way, they somehow lost all the “disarming tentativeness”[7] of Plato’s original dialogues.

Christian Apologists Nuance Plato

Many Christian writers of the second and third centuries wanted to show their pagan neighbors the reasonableness of the biblical faith. They did that the same way the Jewish apologist, Philo of Alexandria,[8] had done it long before. They wrapped their understanding of Scripture in the robes of philosophy, choosing from the vocabulary of worldly wisdom the words that sparkled and adorned it best. Paul had often warned against contemporary philosophy (1 Cor 1:19—2:5; Col 2:1–10), but these apologists, zealous for their new-found faith, set out to battle the pagan thinkers on their own turf.

They freely borrowed the Platonic conception of the soul, the chief characteristic being its separability from the body.[9] When these Christian defenders argued for the resurrection and last judgment, they often used the pagan doctrine of immortality to show that these things were not “logically absurd.”[10]

However, the Christian writers nuanced their meaning of the “immortal” soul to distinguish themselves from the pagan doctrine. The soul is not inherently immortal, insisted the fathers. It had a beginning—from God. And though it survives the death of the body, its future existence also depends entirely on God’s will.[11] Even Origen[12] and Augustine,[13] who sometimes spoke of the soul’s natural immortality, made this distinction clear. Others, like Justin Martyr and his pupil Tatian,[14] viewed the pagan doctrine of immortality as a challenge to the resurrection and fought against it openly.[15]

Sometimes these ancient writers gave theological reasons for man’s immortality. Ignatius saw it as the abolition of the punishment of sin, Irenaeus as the restoration of human destiny, Tertullian as the vindication of God’s justice.[16] Most church fathers agreed that human immortality is derived, not inherent, and that the future continuance of the “immortal soul” rests entirely in the hands of the Creator. They said these things when talking about the soul itself, but when they talked about final punishment, their reasoning was inconsistent with what they had said about the soul.[17]

The immortality of the soul became a subject of intense controversy during the Reformation, but the convergence of Calvin’s vehemence, Luther’s reticence, and the antipathy of both men toward the Anabaptists, resulted in the inclusion of Catholic traditionalism into the new Protestant creeds and eventually into unquestioned Protestant “orthodoxy.” Despite the traditionalists’ nuanced definition of immortality, some major theologians have built their doctrine of unending conscious torment directly on the foundation of immortal souls.

Immortality Verbatim

W. G. T. Shedd affirms the immortality of the soul as it was taught for seventeen centuries:

But irrepressible and universal as it is, the doctrine of man’s immortality is an astonishing one, and difficult to entertain. For it means that every frail finite man is to be as long-enduring as the infinite and eternal God; that there will no more be an end to the existence of the man who died today than there will be of the Deity who made him. God is denominated “The Ancient of Days.” But every immortal spirit that ever dwelt in a human body will also be an “ancient of days” . . . Yes, man must exist. He has no option. Necessity is laid upon him. He cannot extinguish himself. He cannot cease to be.[18]

If someone inquires why this does not fly into the face of Scripture’s statement that God alone possesses immortality (1 Tim 6:16), many traditionalists answer that man’s immortality concerns only his soul, which survives bodily death. Writes Henry Barclay Swete:

God is immortal in the sense that he cannot die . . . God “only hath immortality” such as this. Man is immortal in the sense that there is in him that which does not die. His body dies, but his soul survives. It lives on after it has left the body. His identity is not lost when he dies; his true self, the ultimate being and personality of the man, remains as it was before death . . . Not all of him dies; there is a part of him, and by far the more essential [which cannot die].[19]

These theologians frankly admit that the expression “immortal soul” is not in the Bible, yet they confidently declare that Scripture assumes the immortality of every soul. Lehman Strauss states it unequivocally. “The Word of God assumes the eternal existence of every soul regardless of its destiny,” he writes. “Every man’s soul is immortal and can never be annihilated.”[20] He later notes, “‘They that are Christ’s’ tells us who shall become immortal,” and “‘At His coming’ . . . tells us when we shall become immortal.”[21] Yet he adds: “As a matter of fact the soul never lost its immortality.”[22]

Since Calvin (whom we will consider in detail in chapters 29–30), Reformed writers in particular have viewed man’s immortality as a consequence of his formation in God’s image and his quickening by God’s breath of life.[23] Harry Buis exercises caution in saying that while “this cannot be considered absolute proof of the natural immortality of man, it certainly points in that direction.”[24] But Larry D. Pettegrew throws caution to the wind and declares: “The traditional doctrine of the immortality of the soul is correct. The Westminster Confession states the doctrine simply: ‘After God had made all other creatures, he created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls’ (IV, 2).”[25]

Uneasiness within Traditionalist Ranks

While traditionalist writers persist in affirming their version of the immortality of the soul—though often with a look over the shoulder—through the years some of their number have charged the doctrine with serious deficiencies. The feeling persists that something does not fit.[26] And although the doctrine that every soul is immortal is still the majority view, it is increasingly regarded as a post-apostolic innovation—not only unnecessary but positively harmful to proper biblical interpretation and understanding.[27] Critics patiently explain that the traditional view of immortal souls is without support either from Scripture[28] or even from human wisdom.[29] These critics often quote the passages of Scripture that speak of human immortality, noting that in every instance immortality is associated with the glorified resurrection body still future, never to the soul or spirit at present. And, they also observe, the Bible always speaks of human immortality as God’s gift to the saved, never as an inherent quality or birthright of every person born into the world.

Early Corrective Voices

These corrective voices began to be heard as early as the nineteenth century, and during the twentieth century they swelled into a mighty chorus. “The dream that death is an emancipation of the spiritual essence from a body that imprisons and clogs it, and is in itself the entrance on a freer, larger life, belongs to the schools, not to Christianity,” cautions James Orr.[30]

B. F. Westcott notes that, “on principles of reason there seems to be no ground whatever for supposing that the soul as separate from the body is personal.” Such a statement goes against popular language and belief, he admits, which “are so strong in the assertion of the personal immortality of the soul . . . that it is very difficult for us to realize the true state of the problem.”[31]

S. D. F. Salmond calls attention to the fact that Paul, who gives more “of a seeming psychology” than any other New Testament writer, “never contemplates a simple immortality of soul; he never argues for man’s survival merely on the ground that there is a mind or spirit in him. He proceeds upon the Old Testament view of man.” That view, Salmond continues, “is essentially different from the Hellenic idea which ruled the scholastic theology, and has exercised a deep and unfortunate influence on modern systems of doctrine.”[32]

Dispensationalist J. N. Darby expressed his conviction that the idea of the immortality of the soul “is not in general a gospel topic; that it comes, on the contrary, from the Platonists; and that it was just when the coming of Christ was denied in the church, or at least began to be lost sight of, that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul came in to replace that of the resurrection.”[33]

A Modern Chorus

Today the doctrine of immortal souls is under attack by Christian thinkers—not in the name of science or philosophy, but as the direct result of intensified work in biblical theology. George R. Beasley-Murray followed through on the stroke Darby initiated. Philosophical arguments in favor of man’s survival of death “usually proceed without reference” to Jesus’ resurrection, he observes, and therefore “cannot strictly be termed Christian.” In the end they are therefore “irrelevant, for the resurrection is itself a sufficient revelation both of the fact and the nature of immortality.” The kind of liberal preaching which dissolves Jesus’ resurrection into an example of every man’s immortality is unworthy of the gospel, Beasley-Murray declares, and such an argument “bears little relation to the New Testament.”[34]

N. T. Wright likewise distinguishes between the philosophy of Plato and the teaching of Paul. “Platonists believe that all humans have an immortal element within them, normally referred to as ‘soul’ . . . In the New Testament, however, immortality is something that only God possesses by nature and that he then shares, as a gift of grace rather than as an innate possession, with his people.”[35] Joel Green summarizes it succinctly, stating that “the capacity for ‘afterlife’ is not a property of humankind, but is a divine gift, divinely enacted.”[36]

The relation between the doctrine of the soul’s immortality and the doctrine of final punishment is real. If every soul lives forever, there are only two possibilities concerning those who go to hell. Either they will endure unending conscious torment, or else they will be restored to God’s favor and be delivered from hell. Advocates of unending conscious torment cling tenaciously to their doctrine, for they truly believe that the Bible teaches the indestructibility of every human being. But that is an opinion that no longer goes unchallenged.

Humankind in Biblical Perspective

Many evangelical scholars now point out that while mankind is made in God’s image (Gen 1:27), immortality is no more an essential quality of God than omnipotence or omniscience. They note that even if the image of God included immortality, that quality might have been lost with the fall, for Adam “begat a son in his own likeness, after his image” (Gen 5:3).

The tree of life represented immortality in fellowship with God; but sin brought death, and mankind was cast out of the garden. So far as man becoming a “living soul,” they note that the identical Hebrew words are translated “living creature” in the same context (Gen 2:19; 9:12) and are applied to brute animals. Furthermore, the man who first became a living soul was told that if he disobeyed God, he would surely die.

Jesus’ quotation of the declaration, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Matt 22:32), has often been used in support of man’s immortality. Staunch conservatives have noted, however, that Jesus uses the quotation to prove, not immortality, but the resurrection.[37] The Lukan parallel (Luke 20:37–38) says that “to him all are alive,” but both the context and the argument point to the resurrection of those who belong to God, not the immortality of every person.[38]

When the Bible speaks of the “salvation of the soul” and equivalent expressions (e.g., Mark 8:35–37; Heb 10:39, KJV; 1 Pet 1:9), it is simply quoting such passages as Pss 16:9–11, 49:15 and 73:24, in which the Psalmist expresses his hope for abiding fellowship with God, who will not let his own perish. “The ‘soul’ . . . does not stand in dualistic contrast to the body, but signifies man himself whom God seeks and saves for life eternal.”[39] Jan N. Bremmer traces the body/soul dualism of later Judaism, and eventually of the Christian church, directly to the influence of the Greeks.[40] The soul, for New Testament writers as well as Old, generally stands for “the natural life of man . . . in his limitedness and humanity over against the divine possibilities and realities.”[41]

Some Key Biblical Words

Man is described as a “soul” (Hebrew: nephesh; Greek: psychē ) something over 150 times in the Old Testament and about sixteen times in the New. The Old Testament displays nephesh in such a rainbow of shades that English translators have rendered it forty-five different ways![42] God forms Adam of dust, breathes into him “breath of life,” and he becomes a “living soul.” We use the same kind of language when we say that a man or animal is a conscious being and also has conscious being.[43]

The Old Testament applies the same terms to both man and the animals. This is true of nephesh/soul-life (Gen 9:5), ruach/spirit-breath (Gen 6:17) and neshamah /spirit (Gen 7:22). “Soul” is the most comprehensive term for man in his wholeness, and its meanings range from “neck,” “life,” “self,” and “person” to what seems the opposite of life, “corpse” (Num. 19:13).[44]

“The soul is not only the upholder of certain states; it is the full soul-substance with special qualities and powers.”[45] It “is man himself viewed as a living creature.”[46] Wolff breaks down the Old Testament view of man in his wholeness according to its primary terms. Soul speaks of “needy man,” flesh is “man in his infirmity,” spirit points to “man as he is empowered,” and heart signifies “reasonable man.”[47] Nikolainen summarized the Old Testament’s holistic anthropology like this:

Man is an indivisible whole. Seen from different points of view, he is by turns body, flesh and blood, soul, spirit, and heart. Each of these portrays a specific human characteristic, but they are not parts into which man may be divided. Body is man as a concrete being; “flesh and blood” is man as a creature distinguished from the Creator; soul is the living human individual; spirit is man as having his source in God; heart is man as a whole in action. What is distinctively human is in every respect derived from God. Man is in every cell the work of God (body), he is in all circumstances the property of God (soul), he is absolutely dependent on God (spirit), and in all his activity he is either obedient to God or disobedient (heart). The God-relationship is not merely the life of the “highest part” of man. The whole man “from top to bottom” exists only by relation to God.[48]

All these details lead to a single conclusion: “When death occurs, then it is the soul that is deprived of life. Death cannot strike the body or any other part of the soul without striking the entirety of the soul . . . It is deliberately said both that the soul dies (Judg 16:30; Num 23:10; et al.), that it is destroyed or consumed (Ezek 22:25, 27), and that it is extinguished (Job 11:20).”[49] This is the consistent witness of the Old Testament.

Postmortem Survival the Gift of God

The New Testament does not take a different view of the matter. Paul uses “soul” ( psychē ) only thirteen times, usually with reference to the natural life of man. The adjectival form of this word designates the unspiritual or carnal man as opposed to the spiritual man (1 Cor 2:14–15), or the natural body of the present life in contrast to the spiritual body of the life to come (1 Cor 15:44).

Every biblical expression of hope after death, of vindication beyond the present life, or of communion with God beyond the grave is grounded on the faithfulness of the living God, who has shown himself true in life and who certainly will not forsake his own people in death. David expects to “dwell in the house of the Lord forever” for the very same reason he anticipates “goodness and love all the days” of his earthly life (Ps 23:6). That reason is the fidelity he has always seen in God who keeps covenant. It is not any death-proof substance he discovers in his own self. Like Jesus (Luke 23:46), Stephen (Acts 7:59), and Paul (2 Tim 1:12), the Christian believer’s hope is in the faithfulness of his Creator (1 Pet 4:19), who is able to raise the dead (Rom 4:17; 1 Pet 1:21).

Bruce R. Reichenbach probes into man’s nature in Is Man the Phoenix? He finds Adam’s race, like Mr. Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness, to be made of dirt. He concludes that “the doctrine that man as a person does not die . . . is apparently contrary to the teachings of Scripture . . . There is no hint that the only thing spoken about is the destruction of the physical organism, and that the real person, the soul, does not die but lives on.”[50] Donald G. Bloesch underscores this conclusion. “There is no inherent immortality of the soul. The person who dies, even the one who dies in Christ, undergoes the death of both body and soul.”[51]

Anthony A. Hoekema says that “we cannot point to any inherent quality in man or in any aspect of man which makes him indestructible.”[52] F. F. Bruce warns that “our traditional thinking about the ‘never-dying soul,’ which owes so much to our Graeco-Roman heritage, makes it difficult for us to appreciate Paul’s point of view.”[53] Helmut Thielicke tells us that Paul speaks of no “immortal substance which would victoriously break through our mortal fate.” Our hope is altogether in God, he continues. And “God has given us the hope that on the other side of the great fissure he continues to be Lord and does not allow his history to be ruptured, that he is for us a God of life and resurrection, that he remains the Creator ex nihilo—and his initial installment of this hope is the Spirit (2 Cor. 5:5).”[54]

The late apologist and theologian, Edward John Carnell, cut simultaneously through the humanist’s optimism, the scholastic’s tradition, the philosopher’s wisdom, and the religious man’s self-righteousness to focus on man before God—man as creature, man as sinner. He stood on the solid rock of biblical faith, surrounded by the best of orthodoxy’s heritage, when he concluded:

Instead of teaching that man is of such infinitely incontestable value, that God, to be worthy of his name, must preserve him immortally, the Christian follows Paul’s judgment that there is none righteous, no not one (Rom 3:10). Man, then, deserves death, not life. The Christian cannot appeal to the rationality of the universe, for all rationality is from God. He cannot claim an independent rule of goodness and justice to assure him of life, for all goodness and justice flow from God. In short, the Christian knows that man, a vile, wretched, filthy sinner, will receive immortal life solely and only by God’s grace; man neither deserves immortality nor is worthy of it. Unless he that made man sovereignly elects to give him salvation and life, by grace and not by works, man is absolutely without hope. Man came into this world naked and it is certain that he will depart in exactly the same manner; and he who gave life in the first place can also recall it either to damnation, blessedness, or annihilation.[55]

Interaction[56]

No Platonic Influence?

Dr. Robert A. Peterson calls it “ludicrous” for conditionalists to argue that traditionalists, including Tertullian, reached their conclusions based on Platonic philosophy.[57] Similarly, Dr. Robert W. Yarbrough says that he is unaware of any early patristic writers deferring to Plato concerning the immortality of the soul.[58]

In fact, Tertullian explains his reasoning process in language far too explicit to be denied, although Drs. Peterson and Yarbrough apparently either overlooked the passage or forgot what they had read. “I may use, therefore, the opinion of Plato,” writes the ancient apologist from Carthage, “when he declares, ‘Every soul is immortal.’”[59] But what of Jesus’ warning to fear God who can destroy both soul and body in hell? How is that possible, if the soul is immortal?

In light of Tertullian’s presupposition, the answer is obvious. “Destroy” does not mean “destroy.” When Jesus says that God can destroy the soul, explains Tertullian, he really means that God will torment the soul forever. “We, however, so understand the soul’s immortality as to believe it ‘lost,’” Tertullian concludes, “not in the sense of destruction, but of punishment, that is, in hell.”[60]

But even Tertullian’s direct quote from Plato, coupled with a straightforward admission of dependence on Platonic assumptions, is not evidence enough to satisfy Professor Peterson. Undaunted, he offers four reasons why we should not believe what, to many, seems rather conclusive.[61]

PETERSON’S FIRST REASON

First, says Peterson, “those who have argued for a traditional view of hell have done so because they believed that this is what the Bible teaches.”

I am not suggesting otherwise. Many people who march with Dr. Peterson on this subject do not know that Plato is leading the parade. But their ignorance of that fact does not change the reality. Peterson will agree with me that most Jehovah’s Witnesses who have gone house to house denying the deity of Jesus Christ also “have done so because they believed that this is what the Bible teaches.” He does not really believe that a teaching is true just because someone thinks it comes from the Bible.

PETERSON’S SECOND REASON

Second, Peterson presents a syllogism in narrative form. Traditionalists have “taught that the immortal God grants immortality to all human beings,” he begins, but Plato did not recognize immortality as God’s gift. Therefore, Peterson concludes, the traditionalist “view of immortality” is “not Platonic but biblical.” Peterson accurately states the traditionalist position in the first premise and he correctly represents Plato’s view in the second premise. However, Peterson’s conclusion does not follow from those premises.

The Platonic element in traditionalism is the notion that all human beings are immortal. That Plato left God out of the picture does not make the notion of universal human immortality any less Platonic. Nor does the non-biblical notion that all human beings are immortal suddenly become biblical because traditionalists and Plato disagree on the source of that immortality. It is possible to borrow some of Plato’s teaching without taking everything the Greek philosopher taught.

PETERSON’S THIRD REASON

Third, Peterson observes that most traditionalists “use the phrase ‘immortality of the soul’ to describe our final destiny.” This usage “is misleading,” Peterson correctly points out, because Scripture portrays “our final state” as “a holistic resurrected one on the new earth” and not as “a disembodied spiritual life in heaven” (emphasis added). Peterson admirably observes that “All things considered, it is better to talk about the immortality of people, not of souls.” This fits “the language of 1 Corinthians 15,” he continues, “which says of the resurrected righteous [emphasis added], ‘For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality’ (v. 53).”[62]

Peterson’s two observations, that the Bible ascribes immortality to “holistic resurrected ” people, and that those whom 1 Corinthians 15 says will be raised imperishable and clothed with immortality are the righteous, beautifully sum up the case I am trying to make, and represent an exceptional degree of candor within the traditionalist ranks. These two observations, faithfully and consistently applied, will eventually bring about the collapse of traditionalism. In fact, had these two truths been understood and remembered from the second century forward, the doctrine of unending conscious torment probably never would have appeared within the Christian church.

PETERSON’S FOURTH REASON

Fourth, Peterson says (and states that this is most important), “I do not believe in the traditional view of hell because I accept the immortality of human beings, but the other way around. I believe in the immortality of human beings because the Bible clearly teaches everlasting damnation for the wicked and everlasting life for the righteous.”

Brother Peterson certainly has a right to follow his own rationale, but he should not imagine that he is representative of traditionalists in the matter he describes here. Tertullian reasoned explicitly from immortality to everlasting torment, as did Augustine nearly two centuries later. So also did Pusey and Shedd in the nineteenth century, as have many others besides.

Most if not all traditionalists throughout Christian history have rejected the doctrine of innate or natural immortality of the soul as taught by Plato, for a God-given immortality (a biblical idea) which they presumed to be bestowed on humans universally, either by creation or by resurrection (an idea found nowhere in the Bible).

Because these traditionalists believe that every human will be immortal in the age to come, they approach the Scriptures with a presupposition that those who go to hell cannot literally be destroyed and pass out of existence. Understandably and inevitably, the traditionalists’ presupposition of universal human immortality entices them to interpret Scripture so that they always arrive at the traditionalist conclusion.

Even Honest People Have Blind Spots

The things I have just said do not mean that traditionalists are dishonest, or that they intentionally and knowingly manipulate the Scriptures. It does suggest that when they study this subject, they do so through a mental filter, about which they probably are largely unaware. No human being on earth is perfectly objective. We all have blind spots, although in different areas.[63] The most that any of us can do is pray for wisdom and guidance, commit ourselves to proper methods of interpretation, and do the best job that we can.

1. See chapter 14 for a detailed examination of Luke 16:19–31.

2. See any standard sourcebook of philosophy. Hoekema writes: “It should first be noted that the idea of the immortality of the soul (namely, that after the body dies the soul or immaterial aspect of man continues to exist) is not a concept peculiar to Christianity . . . The concept of the immortality of the soul was developed in the mystery religions of ancient Greece, and was given philosophical expression in the writings of Plato.” (Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, 86.) Although Stoicism and Epicureanism were the “two principal philosophical schools of the Hellenistic age” (Ferguson, BEC, 354; see Acts 17:18), neither taught the immortality of an individual soul. That teaching, despite some modification by Christian philosophers, remained the heritage of Plato. And while Aristotle intervened between Plato and early Christianity, his influence was not significantly felt in the Christian church until many centuries later. (Ibid., 338, 342, 354–57, 370, 374.)

3. But not all Greeks held such views. “Important philosophical schools, such as the Epicureans and Stoics, or influential physicians, such as Herophilus and Erasistratus, continued to believe that the psychē does not exist independently from its body.” Bremmer, The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife, 3.

4. Brady, “Soul, Human, Immortality of,” 13:464. The argument, made by Gregory of Nyssa and others (Brady, “Soul, Human, Immortality of,” 465), that the soul is immortal because it is a simple and not composite substance and therefore cannot suffer disintegration comes from later Platonists and not the master himself, according to Leonard Hodgson. Hodgson also says that Plato did not originate the later idea that the body was evil or the source of evil (Hodgson, “Life after Death,” 108). See also Ferguson, BEC, 330–33.

5. Brady, “Soul, Human, Immortality of,” 464).On Plato’s “Myth of the Cave,” see also Ferguson, BEC, 334–35.

6. Selwyn, “Image, Fact and Faith,” 238.

7. Gatch, Death, 32.

8. In response to objections from some who minimized Philo’s influence on the church fathers, Harry A. Wolfson refers to evidence in his book, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers. He then adds: “Whether even without Philo the Fathers of the Church would have attempted to harmonize Scripture and philosophy is a plausible assumption. Whether the result of their harmonization would have been the same as it is now is a matter of conjecture. But it happens that Philo came before them and it also happens that all kinds of evidence show the influence of Philo upon them” (Wolfson, “Notes on Patristic Philosophy,” 124).

9. Wolfson, “Immortality and Resurrection,” 79; Nash, The Gospel and the Greeks, 29;

10. Ibid., 90–91; Brady, “Soul, Human, Immortality of,” 464.

11. See Wolfson’s “Immortality and Resurrection” for detailed quotations and references in support of this thesis. Included are Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho 5), Irenaeus (Against Heresies 2.34.4), Tatian (Oration to the Greeks 13), Theophilus (Ad Autol. 2.27; 2.24) as well as the undisputed conditionalists, Arnobius and Lactantius (Wolfson, “Immortality and Resurrection,” 57).

12. Wilken, “The Immortality of the Soul,” 114. A debate continues whether or not Origen was consistent in this position. Wolfson says he was (“Notes on Patristic Philosophy,” 125ff) in response to critics of the opposing view. Consistent or not, both sides seem agreed that Origen conceded God the right to destroy the soul. His remark that the soul cannot have “essential” (substantialis ) corruption means, according to Wolfson, “that the soul, having been created by God as partaking of his own nature, will not be destroyed by God; it does not mean that God could not destroy it, if he so willed” (Wolfson, “Immortality and Resurrection,” 59–60).

13. Wolfson, “Immortality and Resurrection,” 60. Froom makes Augustine a thorough-going Platonist and says that in Augustine “Immortal-Soulism reached the high-water mark of post-Nicene times” (Froom, Conditionalist Faith, 1:1073).

14. Pelikan, The Shape of Death, 14, 21–22.

15. Although popular books often cite Arnobius as a father of the conditionalist position on hell, he actually said very little on final punishment. His primary thrust was directed against the Platonic worldview as such, especially its anthropology. We will examine his writing about hell in chapter 27.

The Neo-Platonism which formed the backdrop for the fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries was itself in a state of flux. Its fundamental problem was to “locate the soul metaphysically by defining its relation on the one hand to the visible world which it inhabits, and, on the other hand, to the intelligible world, the intellectual substance, with which it is naturally affiliated” (Norris, Manhood and Christ, 13). Norris warns against the tendency to equate every dualistic statement of the fathers with “Platonism,” showing that Platonism of the period included both dualistic and monistic elements that were never fully reconciled (ibid., 14–16). At the same time, he stresses that “Christian theology of the fourth and fifth centuries owed to Middle Platonic and Neo-Platonic thought much of the conceptual structure in terms of which it interpreted the church’s gospel.” He also notes that “the presuppositions of this philosophical outlook” became, “whether in a disguised or an explicit fashion, part of the framework of Christian theological discussion” (ibid., 18).

Gatch observes that a contemporary issue within Platonism of the time was the question whether or not the soul was created (Gatch, Death, 195). The inconsistency that even a created “immortal soul” posed for the biblical view of man was felt by the fathers, says Norris, who adds that “no patristic thinker of this period is willing to pursue the logic of the philosophical tradition which he had inherited to its normal conclusion” (Norris, Manhood and Christ, 18–19).

16. This summary comes from Suchocki, “The Question of Immortality,” 294, who offers process theology as a fitting modernization of the biblical and patristic hope. I appreciate her encapsuled insight into these three writers but disagree completely with her primary point.

The statements above from Norris, Wolfson and Gatch represent a refinement in patristic studies, since even H. Wheeler Robinson overlooks the distinction they make between the fathers and the philosophers (The Christian Doctrine of Man, 169–70). Froom also would profit from these works for the same reason.

17. Traditionalists hear certain church fathers say that the soul’s immortality is from God, and that God can destroy whatever he has made, then conclude that the fathers were not influenced by Plato’s teaching. This completely overlooks the fact that, despite those concessions just noted, the fathers (and some traditionalists until the present time) explicitly revert to Plato’s larger teaching that souls are indestructible when they began to talk about final punishment. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 99–100.

18. Shedd, The Doctrine of Endless Punishment, 490.

19. Swete, The Life of the World to Come, 3.

20. Strauss, Life After Death, 14.

21. Ibid., 17.

22. Ibid., 16.

23 Reformed Christians have championed the immortality of the soul since Calvin and Bullinger, while Lutherans, Baptists, and Anglicans have tended to be more open to mortalism. Fundamentalism seems to have inherited the immortalist position almost genetically through its “Old Princeton” Calvinist ancestry, and the doctrine has since settled into the fundamentalist household with the unquestioned authority of a venerated relative.

24. Buis, The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, 8.

25. Pettegrew, “A Kinder, Gentler Theology of Hell?” 214.

26. A. Hodge (Outlines of Theology, 549–52), Shedd (Dogmatic Theology, 2:612) and Berkhof (Systematic Theology, 672) all defend immortality as a biblical doctrine. Bavinck calls it a “mixed article” demonstrated better by reason than by revelation (Bavinck, Gereformeerde Dogmatick, 4th ed., 4:567; 3rd ed., 4:648). Berkouwer comments that “Scripture is never concerned with an independent interest in immortality as such, let alone with the immortality of a part of man which defies and survives death under all circumstances, and on which we can reflect quite apart from man’s relation to the living God” (Berkouwer, Man, 276. These references and others are in Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, 89.

27. Gundry writes that “although St. Paul mentions Judaism in Galatians as a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, within the apostolic period itself Hellenistic philosophy soon appears as another schoolmaster. Nor, indeed, did it prove any exception to the failing of schoolmasters at large—that of becoming an intellectual tyrant whose domination of the pupil lingers on long after the pupil has left school” (Gundry, “The Ghost in the Machine,” 164).

The popular view of man’s immortal soul has replaced the resurrection as ground of comfort in actual practice, according to several writers. See Heller, “The Resurrection of Man,” 217–18; Hofmann, “Immortality or Life,” 231; Gundry, “Ghost in the Machine,” 169; Blenkinsopp, ‘Theological Synthesis and Hermeneutical Conclusions,” 119; Thielicke, Death and Life, 197–99. Herhold looks at the modern rash of testimonies about “after-death experiences” and comments: “One does not need Easter if the spirit or soul is immortal. But it is precisely because ‘when you’re dead, you’re dead’ that the resurrection is such incredibly good news” (Herhold, “Kubler-Ross and Life after Death,” 364).

28. Cullmann, Immortality or Resurrection? 19–39; Harris, “Resurrection and Immortality,” 50–55.

29. A Lutheran philosopher critiques the arguments of Plato (ibid., 113–18), Aquinas (ibid., 119–26) and Kant (ibid., 126–32) for immortality and finds them all wanting (Reichenbach, Is Man the Phoenix?).

30. Orr, The Resurrection of Jesus, 282.

31. Westcott, The Gospel of the Resurrection, 146–47. In a footnote Westcott exempts from his comments here quoted the intermediate state of the soul between death and resurrection.

32. Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality, 573. Salmond was ahead of his time in noting the tension between the biblical and philosophical attitudes regarding man. Although he comes out in the end against the annihilation of the wicked, he considers the possibility and makes some objections.

33. Darby, “Hopes of the Church,” 1:463, quoted by Petavel, The Problem of Immortality, 111. This statement was weakened in a later edition of Darby’s book, though the gist remained.

34. Beasley-Murray, Christ Is Alive! 153.

35. Wright, Surprised by Hope, 160–61.

36. Green, Body, Soul, and Human Life, 180.

37. Orr, The Resurrection of Jesus, 283.

38. Guillebaud, The Righteous Judge, 3.

39. Hanhart, The Intermediate State in the New Testament, 238–39.

40. Bremmer writes: “Through the Septuagint . . . psychē entered the vocabulary of the Greek-speaking Jewish community and subsequently that of the early Christians. As the Old Testament did not yet know the Greek opposition of soul and body, . . . it would take a while before the early Christians started to use psychē in such a way . . . It is only after the growing influence of philosophically-trained Greek theologians . . . that the Platonic opposition was gradually taken over by the Christian community.” Bremmer, The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife, 3.

41. Ridderbos, Paul, 120. See also 549–50.

42. Atkinson, Life and Immortality, 3. Atkinson’s role in this debate is detailed in chapter 32.

43. Ibid., 2.

44. Heller, “The Resurrection of Man,” 220–21. The KJV has man become a “living soul” in Gen 2:7 but translates the exact same Hebrew phrase “living creature” in Gen 2:19, where it is applied to the animals. Snaith calls this “most reprehensible” and says “it is a grave reflection on the Revisers that they retained this misleading difference in translation . . . The Hebrew phrase should be translated exactly the same way in both cases. To do otherwise is to mislead all those who do not read Hebrew. There is no excuse and no proper defense. The tendency to read ‘immortal soul’ into the Hebrew nephesh and translate accordingly is very ancient, and can be seen in the Septuagint rendering of Lev 24:18, where the Greek translators omitted the word” (Snaith, “Justice and Immortality,” 312–13).

45. Pedersen, Israel, 1–2:152.

46. Ladd, New Testament Truth, 37.

47. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, Table of Contents.

48. Kantonen (The Christian Hope, 30ff) so summarizes Nikolainen’s 1941 Finnish-language study, Man in the Light of the Gospel. Quoted here from Heller, “The Resurrection of Man,” 222.

49. Pedersen, Israel, 179. Froom quotes part of Pedersen’s statement here as evidence that in the Old Testament view “the soul dies.” Yet one wonders if Froom is reading Pedersen with Greek eyes himself. Pedersen says earlier: “This does not mean that nephesh means life or soul interchangeably; still less does it mean, as has been maintained, that nephesh does not mean soul at all, but only life . . . But the fact is that soul as well as life with the Israelites means something else than it usually does with us” (ibid., 152). Pedersen seems to say that, given the Hebrews’ holistic view of man, it was natural that they should speak of “the soul” dying; he is not taking sides on whether or not “the soul” (in a dualistic or Platonic sense) either can or does “die.”

50. Reichenbach, Is Man the Phoenix? 54

51. Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology, 2:188.

52. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, 90.

53. Bruce, “Paul on Immortality,” 469. The quotation appears also in Bruce, Paul, 311.

54. Thielicke, Death and Life, 133. Thielicke puts anthropology and soteriology under the same microscope, compares them side by side, and then contrasts Luther’s strain with the Roman Catholic strain. Luther saw man in need of God’s constant creative gift of life—and of imputed righteousness by grace through faith. Rome pictured man as having immortality in his own soul—and receiving an infused righteousness and grace in himself.

Thielicke comments: “Just as no creature on the level of death and life has any inherent qualitative immortality, so also on the level of sin and justification no man has inherent qualitative righteousness” (ibid., 107). Later he writes that “both righteousness and zoē [life] remain exclusively at God’s disposal and that I participate in them only to the degree that fellowship with God in Christ is vouchsafed to me . . . for no intrinsic reason at all” (ibid., 197).

Here, he says, “the reformers’ biblical understanding of justification reaches, as it were, its high point. Just as I stand with empty hands before God and remain standing, just as I can only beseech God nevertheless to accept me, in just this fashion do I move into my death with empty hands and without any death-proof substance in my soul, but only with my gaze focused on God’s hand and with the petition on my lips, ‘Hand that will last, hold thou me fast!’ . . . I remain in fellowship with him who is Alpha and Omega, and with this knowledge I walk into the night of death, truly the darkest night; yet I know who awaits me in the morning” (ibid., 198–99). Calvin’s predisposition toward the immortality of the soul prevented him from making this connection between man’s nature and his salvation.

55. Carnell, An Introduction to Christian Apologetics, 344–45.

56. The original edition of The Fire That Consumes (1982) interacted with the major published advocates of traditionalism at that time, including many who wrote in dictionaries, encyclopedias, commentaries, journals and articles, theologies, and other primary and secondary sources. In that first edition, I interacted in great detail with the limited number of authors who had written books specifically on hell, including nineteenth century traditionalists (see bibliography for details) E. B. Pusey, S. D. F. Salmond, and W. G. T. Shedd, and, from the twentieth century, Jon E. Braun, Harry Buis, A. W. Pink, Lehman Strauss, and H. B. Swete. The second, British (1994) edition also interacted with Robert A. Morey and a few other traditionalists who published books between 1982–94.

This third edition retains the substance of the interactions in earlier editions, but it also interacts with seventeen contemporary traditionalists as represented in twelve separate books. Those authors are G. K. Beale, John Blanchard, Daniel I. Block, Eryl Davies, Larry Dixon, Sinclair B. Ferguson, John Gerstner, Kendall S. Harmon, Paul Helm, Bruce Milne, R. Albert Mohler, Douglas J. Moo, Christopher W. Morgan, J. I. Packer, Robert A. Peterson, Robert W. Yarbrough, and John Walvoord.

57. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 177.

58. Yarbrough, “Jesus on Hell,” 87n80. Dr. Yarbrough writes: “To my knowledge early patristic writers do not defer to Plato in this way with respect to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. It is more likely they inferred it from a combination of Old Testament teaching and views expressed by Jesus (e.g., his teaching on eternal punishment) and various New Testament writers.”

59. Tertullian, Resurrection of the Flesh, 3.

60. Ibid., 35.

61. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 177–78.

62. Robert A. Morey also admits that “immortal” and “incorruptible,” when applied to human beings, refer to embodied resurrected saints (Morey, Death and the Afterlife, 59), and D. A. Carson acknowledges that “some affirmations of human immortality are misleading, since they tend to give the impression of intrinsic indestructibility that not even God could reverse.” Still, he says: “I perceive no decisive argument against a properly articulated view of human ‘immortality,’ and much to commend the idea.” Carson, The Gagging of God, 535.

63. Peterson says essentially the same about me, stating that I am “a basically sound interpreter” who “handles the Bible in a straightforward manner”—except on the subject of hell. (Peterson, Two Views of Hell, 12–13.) Although we all see through a glass darkly at present, one day we all will see clearly. Until that time arrives, I will keep loving Brother Peterson and other traditionalists, and continue trying to convince them that on this subject they are woefully confused. And if someone should say that such personal remarks as these are inappropriate in a scholarly discussion, I will respond that Christian scholarship has been the poorer because too many scholars became so caught up in the thrill of academic pursuits that they lost sight of the Christian brothers or sisters on the other side of the argument.

4

Aiōnios: Duration, Quality, or Both?

THE EVANGELIST CONDUCTED FIFTY citywide campaigns featuring his trademark sermon, “What Is Hell Like?”[1] Thousands were baptized, and three times as many rededicated their lives to Christ.[2] But one day the evangelist, Dr. Jimmy Allen, read a century-old booklet that shook his thinking and impacted him to the core. Says Allen: “It seems that the last time I preached on hell was twenty-five years ago. As I consider my history as a revivalist, I sometimes wish I had never presented the sermon. I certainly frightened many children. Furthermore, I have become known as ‘a hell-fire and damnation preacher.’”[3]

Allen had not capitulated to modernism, liberalism, or relativism. “I still believe in hell,” he states. “I can use the language of the New Testament in reference to hell. However there are some things I have said about hell in the past that I can no longer repeat.”[4] Allen had read a booklet published in 1879 by Moses E. Lard, in which Lard explored the scriptural use of the Hebrew and Greek adjectives translated as “eternal.”[5] Neither Lard nor Allen accepted either annihilationism or universalism, However, both men concluded that in the New Testament the word “eternal” carries a qualitative meaning of the age to come, but that it is impossible to know whether it also means “endless.”[6]

Lard and Allen have not been alone in their desire to understand the meaning of the original biblical words translated as “eternal.” Through the centuries, the discussion about final punishment has usually been accompanied by controversy concerning these Greek (aiōnios) and Hebrew (olam) adjectives. Does aiōnios describe time in unending duration (“everlasting”), some unknown quality of the age to come (“eternal”), both of these, or neither of them? Do these usual translations represent its sense, or should we coin some new adjective such as “aionic” or “aionian”?

Jesus himself spoke in a single sentence of “eternal” life and “eternal” punishment (Matt 25:46). Since Augustine, many theologians have looked at that verse and insisted that the punishment must last as long as the life. The few scholars who have not said that have had to defend their interpretations before the great majority who have. In this chapter we will survey some of the approaches that have been made in trying to understand the meaning of aiōnios (and its noun parent aiōn) in the New Testament.

Some advocates of the traditional view of hell have insisted that these words signify only endless time. W. G. T. Shedd denies any sense of quality. “The truth is,” he flatly states, “that aiōn is a term that denotes time only, and never denotes the nature and quality of an object.”[7] A recent popular writer practically turns purple at the suggestion that aiōnios denotes a quality. He calls this idea “wishful thinking,” “nonsense” and a “biblical word game” that “denies the truth of God” and “has no basis in fact.”[8]

Some objectors to the traditional doctrine have been equally as extreme in their response. F. D. Maurice said the word was purely qualitative, having nothing to do with time. He said it spoke only of things that are spiritual, essential, beyond present categories of thought.[9] W. H. Dyson looks at aiōnios in the New Testament and says “it is clear that ‘eternal’ and ‘everlasting’ are not interchangeable.”[10] He wishes there were some other English word to use in their place. Frederic W. Farrar claimed that it was already “so ably proved by so many writers that there is no authority whatever for rendering it ‘everlasting’” that there was no further point in even talking about it.[11]

Derivation of the Word

Even the derivation of aiōnios is disputed. One writer traces our English word “eternal” through the Latin aeternus to aeviternus to aevum, that he says matches the Greek word aei that gives aiōnios. “Thus the basic sense in both Greek and Latin is of everlasting existence,” and the word clearly means “always.”[12]

Non-biblical sources from early Christian times offer little help. Moulton and Milligan cite papyri inscriptions from the first and second centuries AD. There aiōn is used for the “life” of a person as well as the life wished for a Caesar, or in centuries BC for a Pharaoh. They give no evidence outside the New Testament for a qualitative meaning of aiōnios, saying that in their sources “it never loses the sense of perpetuus.” The word’s roots are too deep to dig for, they say, and they conclude that in general the word “depicts that of which the horizon is not in view, whether the horizon be at an infinite distance . . . or whether it lies no farther than the span of a Caesar’s life.”[13]

We should probably conclude that both “eternal” and aiōnios have roots signifying time in both English (and its Latin ancestor) and in Greek. But, in biblical interpretation, the important thing is not secular etymology so much as sacred usage.[14] How the Bible uses a word is far more crucial for understanding a passage of Scripture than all the historians of any language. We must now ask how Scripture uses aiōn and aiōnios.

Everlasting Things That Last Forever, and Some That Do Not

Roger Nicole observes that fifty-one times in the New Testament, aiōnios applies to the “eternal felicity” of the redeemed, and there “it is conceded by all that no limitation of time applies.”[15] On the other hand, Emmanuel Petavel insists that at least seventy times in the Bible, this word qualifies “objects of a temporary and limited nature,” so that it signifies only “an indeterminate duration of which the maximum is fixed by the intrinsic nature of the persons or things.”[16] The word means “forever,” but within the limits of the possibility inherent in the person or thing itself. When God is said to be “eternal,” that is truly “forever.” When the mountains are said to be “everlasting,” that means that they last ever so long—so long as they can last.

Petavel points out that Scripture frequently uses aiōn, aiōnios and their Hebrew counterparts (olam in various forms) of things that have come to an end. The sprinkling of blood at the Passover was an “everlasting” ordinance (Exod 12:24). So were the Aaronic priesthood (Exod 29:9; 40:15; Lev 3:17), Caleb’s inheritance (Josh 14:9), Solomon’s temple (1 Kgs 8:12–13), the period of a slave’s life (Deut 15:17), Gehazi’s leprosy (2 Kgs 5:27)—and practically every other ordinance, rite, or institution of the Old Testament system. These things did not last “forever” in the sense of “time extended without limitation.” They did last beyond the vision of those who first heard them called “everlasting,” and no time limit was then set at all.

According to this view, held by Petavel, Froom, and others, this is the meaning of “eternal” in the Bible. It speaks of unlimited time within the limits determined by the thing it modifies. Yet Beecher—a critic of the traditional doctrine of hell—denies that this is a proper definition, noting that the Mosaic ordinances and the possession of Palestine “might have lasted to the end of the world, but did not.”[17]

The Quality of Another Aeon

While it is unquestionably true that the Bible uses “eternal” to describe God in his tri-unity, as also the redemption, salvation, and final bliss of the redeemed, it is clear that the New Testament sometimes uses the word in a qualitative sense. This seems to reflect one common Jewish attitude about history and last things. In this view time is divided into two ages—the present age and the age to come (Matt 12:32; Luke 20:34–35).

Jesus speaks of the cares of this age (Matt 13:22; Mark 4:19), the sons of this age (Luke 16:8) and the end of this age (Matt 13:39–40; 24:3; 28:20). Paul also speaks of this age with its debaters (1 Cor 1:20), wisdom and rulers (1 Cor 2:6, 8; 3:18), course of life (Eph 2:2), world rulers (Eph 6:12 KJV), and the rich (1 Tim 6:17). Over against this age he also contrasts the age to come (Eph 1:21).

The present age is under Satan’s dominion (2 Cor 4:4), and Christ gave himself for our sins to rescue us from it (Gal 1:4). The age to come is of another order that may be called “eternal.” To be guilty of an “eternal” sin (Mark 3:29) is to be guilty of one that will not be forgiven even in the age to come (Matt 12:32).

That the age to come is eternal in quality is seen in the fact that the life of the age to come (eternal life) is possible even in the present age through faith in Jesus.[18] Where John talks of “eternal life,” the other Gospels generally speak of the “kingdom,” though these expressions are used interchangeably in the Synoptics (Matt 19:16–17, 23; Mark 9:45, 47) and in John (John 3:3, 5, 15, 16). To inherit the kingdom is to enter into eternal life (Matt 25:34, 46).

Based on this Jewish eschatological usage, aiōnios sometimes suggests “quality of being, almost meaning ‘divine’ rather than enduring.”[19] It describes things that are bound to the kingdom of God, so that it is “almost the equivalent of ‘Messianic.’”[20] It “takes us into a sphere of being” where we view things “in their relation to some eternal aspect of the Divine nature.”[21] The word speaks of “being of which time is not a measure.”[22]

Given this definition, “eternal” punishment and “eternal” fire are fire and punishment that “partake of the nature of the aiōn,” that are “peculiar to the realm and the nature of God.”[23] The real point is the “character of the punishment.” It is “that of the order of the age to come as contrasted with any earthly penalties.”[24] When the New Testament speaks of “eternal” life, in this view, the adjective aiōnios refers to “the quality more than to the length of life.”[25]

Traditionalist Bruce Milne correctly states: “The word commonly rendered ‘eternal’ in our New Testament translations is in fact literally ‘of the age (to come).’ Thus it refers in the first instance to a particular quality of life, rather than to its durational quantity.”[26]

This does not detract from the endlessness of the bliss, for Scripture explicitly states that nothing can ever separate God’s people from his love—even things to come (Rom 8:38–39). They will “always” be with the Lord (pantote, literally “every-then,” 1 Thess 4:17). God will glorify them and give them a body that cannot die (1 Cor 15:53–54). The endless joy of the saved does not finally depend on the meaning of aiōnios, for even if that word spoke only of a quality, Scripture says sufficient to assure believers of everlasting happiness.

To say that aiōnios has a qualitative meaning is not a “linguistic smokescreen”[27] but represents the sober thinking of a cross section of scholars, including several who hold the traditional view of hell.[28] Nor does it satisfy everyone!

W. G. T. Shedd concedes that Scripture speaks of two ages or aeons and that the adjective “eternal” is related to this concept. But he points out that while the present age will end, the age to come will never end. Both ages are described by the Greek aiōn and the Hebrew olam. Things in both ages are described by aiōnios. The crucial question, according to Shedd, is “in which of the two aeons, the limited or the endless, the thing exists to which the epithet is applied . . . If anything belongs solely to the present age, or aeon, it is aeonian in the limited signification; if it belongs to the future age, or aeon, it is aeonian in the unlimited signification.”[29]

H. A. A. Kennedy agrees with Shedd. Although in many passages aiōnios loses its time-quality to become “virtually equivalent to ‘transcendent, perfect,’” Kennedy argues that “the age of God’s dominion is necessarily final. If St. Paul does not describe it as ‘eternal,’ in so many words, it is because the conception is self-evident to his readers.”[30]

Just as traditionalist Harry Buis concedes a qualitative sense for “eternal,” but insists that it retains a quantitative meaning as well, so conditionalist Guillebaud says that “though ‘eternal’ is more than endless, the idea of permanence is an essential part of it.”[31] He cites several passages that contrast the temporary with the permanent (Luke 16:9; 2 Cor 4:17—5:4) to support this conclusion.

Shedd and Braun are wrong to deny any qualitative sense. Maurice and Farrar are wrong to say there is no other sense. Buis and Guillebaud differ on the nature of final punishment, but both men concede ground on this point and meet in the middle. Let us commend their humility and their objectivity and join them there.

Having said that “eternal” can describe either character (quality) or duration (quantity), or both character and duration, depending upon the context, what precisely does it describe in the case of final punishment? Traditionalists and conditionalists may strike hands in agreement concerning the word, but they immediately draw swords when they begin to apply it to hell. The wicked go into eternal punishment, but exactly what does that mean?

“Eternal” with Words of Result

Of the seventy usages of the adjective “eternal” aiōnios in the New Testament, at least five times the adjective modifies a noun that names the result of an action.[32] These are eternal salvation (Heb 5:9), eternal redemption (Heb 9:12), eternal judgment (Heb 6:2), eternal punishment (Matt 25:46), and eternal destruction (2 Thess 1:9). Three occur in Hebrews; all five involve the final accounting and sentencing when Jesus returns and the dead have been raised.

Here we see again the other-age quality of the “eternal.” There is something transcendent, eschatological, divine about this judgment, this sin, this punishment and destruction, this redemption and salvation. They are not merely human, this-age matters, but are of an entirely different nature. Yet the contexts and the contents of Scripture passages in which aiōnios modifies the words judgment, sin, punishment, destruction, redemption, and salvation justify the conclusion that something about each of these will never come to an end.[33]

Eternal Punishment (Matt 25:31–46)

Jesus concludes his Parable of the Sheep and Goats with the statement that the wicked “will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” Jesus attaches the adjective “eternal” to the word “punishment” (kolasis), a noun of the class that names the result of an action.

Both the life and the punishment pertain to the age to come, and are therefore “eternal” in the qualitative sense. This book attempts to show that both the life and the punishment are also unending, and are therefore “eternal” in the quantitative sense. This “punishment” can encompass a broad spectrum of degrees of conscious suffering based on varying degrees of guilt, but the essence of this “punishment” is the total and everlasting dissolution and extinction of the person punished (Matt 10:28; 2 Thess 1:9).[34]

This is a powerful argument that conditionalists have pressed with vigor.[35] In all the literature covered by this study, no traditionalist writer has dealt with it at all except perhaps to assert that it is false without giving any reasoning or evidence—and that but rarely. Like most conditionalist arguments, this one has simply been ignored.

Eternal Judgment (Heb 6:1–4)

Among the “elementary teachings” that make up the “foundation” of Christian teaching are “the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.” This is literally the resurrection “of the dead ones” (plural, nekrōn, seemingly both good and bad,[36] and it is linked to a judgment belonging to the age to come, not merely a judgment made by man or God in the here and now. That is its quality, but what of its duration? How is the last judgment “eternal” in the sense of everlasting?

We notice that the adjective “eternal” does not modify an action-word (a verbal substantive, either infinitive or participle) as if to speak of God as eternally judg-ing. Instead it modifies a noun, indeed a result-noun in form, and so speaks of eternal judg-ment (krimatos ). The Bible pictures the judging as taking place on a specific “day” fixed by God (Acts 17:31; Rom 2:16; 2 Tim 4:8; 1 John 4:17). The act of judging will certainly not last forever. However, the judging (action) will produce a judgment (result)—and that result will never end.

Eternal Redemption (Heb 9:11–12)

Christ has entered upon his high-priestly service through the greater tabernacle that is not handmade or a part of this creation. “He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.” The adjective “eternal” describes a noun, in form a result-noun, and it tells us that the “redemp-tion” (lytrōsis) is eternal and not the redeem-ing.

It is clear that “eternal” here also has a qualitative aspect. These matters pertain to an order that does not belong to the present age. This redemption is also “eternal” in the sense of everlasting. Our author specifically makes the point that Christ did not have to suffer “many times since the creation.” Rather, “he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb 9:26). The redeeming happens and then it stops. But the redeeming produces a redemption that will never end.

Eternal Salvation (Heb 5:9–10)

Through reverent submission and perfect obedience, Jesus became “the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” Here the adjective “eternal” modifies “salvation,” a result-noun in its form or morphology. This salvation partakes of the eternal quality of the new order (v. 10). But this salvation is also “eternal” in that it will have no end. Jesus is not forever saving his people. He did that once for all. The saving takes place, resulting in salvation. The salvation is eternal and never will pass away.

Eternal Destruction (2 Thess 1:9)

When Jesus comes, he will punish his enemies who have refused to know God and to obey his gospel. “They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power.”[37]

“Destruction” (olethros) is a noun, not a verb. This destruction clearly belongs in the age to come. In that sense it is “eternal” in quality. In keeping with what we have seen already, this destruction is also everlasting and unending.

The NIV uses two verbs to describe what will happen to the wicked on that day. “They will be punished” (with everlasting destruction), and they will be “shut out” from the Lord’s presence and power. The second verb is not in the Greek; it is supplied by the translators. But whatever happens will happen “on the day he comes” (v. 10). God will not forever be destroying, but when the destroying is over, the destruction will endure forever.

In keeping with teaching of both Old and New Testaments, to be examined in following chapters, this “eternal destruction” will be the extinction of those so sentenced. This retribution will encompass whatever conscious suffering divine justice might require, but the attention in this passage is on the punishment of destruction—a destruction that is absolute and without end.

Summary

We have seen that the adjective aiōnios, usually translated by “eternal” in the New Testament, distinctly carries a qualitative sense. It suggests something that partakes of the transcendent realm of divine activity. It indicates a relationship to the kingdom of God, to the age to come, to the eschatological realities that in Jesus have begun already to manifest themselves in the present age.[38] It reminds us that while the nouns it modifies may be familiar, they are somehow set apart from our present experiences.

The traditionalist writers who deny any qualitative sense in aiōnios have overreacted. Their zeal for one truth has blinded them unnecessarily to another truth. Unless we decide to coin a more appropriate word such as “aionion” or “aionic,” this aspect of aiōnios is best represented by the word “eternal.”

We have also seen that the adjective aiōnios has a temporal aspect, indicating something that will never end. God himself has no limitation, including the limits of time. The age to come partakes of that limitlessness. So do the works of God that Scripture calls “eternal.”

Conditionalist writers who deny any temporal sense in aiōnios have also overreacted. They have not needed to deny the permanence of the “eternal” in order to hold to its otherness. Both are true. Many writers holding both positions have happily admitted as much. This unending aspect of aiōnios is best represented by the word “everlasting” until someone finds a word more appropriate.

Finally, when an adjective (including but not limited to aiōnios = “eternal”) modifies a noun—in this case a result-noun, recognizable by its form, or morphology, the adjective describes the result of the action (which is what the noun names), not the action itself (named by the noun’s cognate verb), that produced the result. We have seen this in regard to eternal salvation (not an eternal act of saving), eternal redemption (not an eternal process of redeeming), eternal judgment (not an eternal act of judging), eternal destruction (not an eternal process of destroying), and eternal punishment (not an eternal act of punishing). This punishment, more specifically identified as this destruction, will last forever. Those who are punished with everlasting destruction will cease to exist.

Interaction

The theme of the Fourth Edinburgh Conference on Christian Dogmatics held in 1991 was “Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell.” Two of the presenters had traveled together from Oxford by train: Rev. John Wenham, nearing eighty, a highly-respected evangelical scholar, author and Anglican priest; and Kendall Harmon, a young Episcopal priest from America. A protégé of J. I. Packer at Regent College in Canada, Harmon had come to Oxford the previous year to earn a doctorate, writing his dissertation on aspects of hell.

During a visit to England in 1992, my wife and I were recipients of John Wenham’s gracious hospitality, and we also enjoyed afternoon tea and “biscuits” (cookies) with Kendall Harmon at his Oxford flat. A few years later, I recommended (by then, “Dr.”) Harmon to InterVarsity Press as a potential co-author of Two Views of Hell, but he declined, stating that he preferred to devote attention to opposing universalism. Harmon later became a leading spokesperson for the evangelical element within the U.S. Episcopal Church and editor of The Anglican Digest.

The Edinburgh conference was international in scope, its Scottish venue was impressive, and Harmon’s criticisms of The Fire That Consumes have been quoted widely[39]—as explanation for the level of attention given to it here.

John Wenham’s Edinburgh paper, “The Case for Conditional Immortality,”[40] expressed publicly his own convictions of sixty years, succinctly summarized the biblical data supporting conditionalism, and answered the most common traditionalist objections.

Harmon’s Critique

Harmon’s paper at Edinburgh was titled “The Case Against Conditionalism: A Response to Edward William Fudge,”[41] and is thirty-one book pages in length, of which fewer than one-third are actually devoted to critique. Rather than responding to any of my scriptural arguments, Harmon makes one global objection each to the methodology, exegesis, and hermeneutic of The Fire That Consumes. I will respond here to Harmon’s exegetical concern, and to his other two criticisms in chapter 10 on the Pseudepigrapha.

The first edition of The Fire That Consumes (1982) included a sentence stating that the extinction of the unrepentant wicked “will be preceded by penal suffering.” Harmon objected to that statement, saying that I had introduced “a chronological lapse of time . . . which is not there in the texts themselves,” resulting in my case being “exegetically flawed.”[42]

I agree that my language portrayed a chronological lapse of time, but I respectfully point out that it is quite impossible for us to visualize these matters other than sequentially. Traditionalist authors do that all the time, some even speculating that sin committed in hell causes consequences in hell later. The Bible itself speaks of final judgment in temporal terms, describing it as occurring on “a day,” as we saw earlier.

Whether or not we use sequential language when talking about hell is completely irrelevant to our view of what happens to those who go there. Christopher Morgan says that Harmon “astutely observes” my “chronological lapse of time,” but neither Morgan nor Harmon explains why it makes any difference whatsoever in the outcome of this discussion.[43]

Weight Given to Tradition

In the end, Harmon’s greatest uneasiness with conditionalism has nothing to do with methodology, exegesis, or hermeneutics, but with church history. In a passing reference to Wenham’s paper, Harmon says: “I respectfully suggest he shows an inadequate appreciation for the role of tradition in Christian thinking.”[44] Even before he begins his summary of my position, Harmon comments: “A . . . more important reason for our skepticism about Mr. Fudge’s view is the role of Christian history, a role which is unfortunately neglected in much recent evangelical thinking. The great majority of the finest theologians in the church for the last twenty centuries have held to the traditional view.”

In fact, John W. Wenham and I both take ecclesiastical tradition into serious account, but here we find it outweighed by the fruit of biblical exegesis. The difficulty here is not our under-emphasis on ecclesiastical tradition but Harmon’s over-emphasis. That made an impression on Wenham, who recounts it in his autobiography: “Sad to say,” Wenham recalls, “Harmon’s paper did not seem to me a really serious attempt to answer Fudge. It looked like another case of the doctors of the church taking precedence over the natural meaning of Scripture.”[45] There is a reason why chapter 2, titled “Back to the Bible: The Protestant Principle,” appears near the very beginning of this book.

1. Allen, What Is Hell Like? 227–48.

2. Allen, Fire In My Bones, 220.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Lard, A Lecture.

6. Ibid., 3–41.

7. Shedd, The Doctrine of Endless Punishment, 87.

8. Braun, Whatever Happened to Hell? 162. Like many other traditionalist writers, Braun seems essentially unaware of the conditionalist position. Although he makes a passing use of the term, he mistakenly limits it to the view that the wicked will never be raised (ibid., 49). His assumption that no one in 2000 years has suggested the transliteration “aionic” or “aionion” instead of “eternal” (ibid., 97) overlooks Shedd’s use of the term. The statement that the “Greek used in the New Testament does not have a single adverb with the meaning the same as the English word forever” (ibid., 159) ignores the Greek adverb pantote, so cited by Baker in reaching the same view of hell as Braun. See Baker, A Dispensational Theology, 651; see also Bruce, Answers to Questions, 202.

9. Cupitt, “The Language of Eschatology,” 305–17.

10. Dyson, “Eternal Punishment,” 1:540.

11. Farrar, Eternal Hope, 197.

12. Cupitt, “Language of Eschatology,” 314.

13. M–M, 16.

14. Silva, Biblical Words, 34–36; Carson, Exegetical Fallacies, 28.

15. Nicole, “The Punishment of the Wicked,” 14.

16. Petavel, 574.

17. Beecher, History of Opinions, 149. Beecher argues at length for the meaning “age-long” or “dispensation.” He insists that the New Testament meaning of “eternal” is formed off this root by the authors of the Septuagint and so passes into New Testament use (ibid., 140–47). To the extent that this is correct—and it is beyond dispute that the New Testament vocabulary contains much fruit born from the union of the Hebrew Old Testament with the Greek language in the Septuagint—“eternal” in the New Testament is loosed from classical meanings discovered through strict etymology.

Origen used the Hebrew olam to argue that “eternal” is not everlasting but a very long time, according to Wolfson, “Immortality and Resurrection in the Philosophy of the Church Fathers,” 65. Vos, on the other hand, argues from the same Hebrew word for the sense of perpetuity and unendingness (Vos, The Pauline Eschatology, 288–89).

“Everlasting” equals ten generations in Deut 23:3, 6. Salmond discounts all references to temporary things that are called “everlasting” in the Old Testament by saying that “for the moment the imagination of the speaker or writer gives to the things the quality of the eternal” (Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality, 654).

18. This is true especially in the writings of John. The adjective “eternal” occurs seventeen times in the fourth Gospel and six times in 1 John, always with the noun “life.” It indicates “a life that is different in quality from the life which characterizes the present age” (Hendriksen, The Gospel according to John, 141), although it also carries a quantitative connotation. For more bibliography, see Roberts, “Some Observations on the Meaning of ‘Eternal Life’ in the Gospel of John,” 186–93.

19. Hill, Greek Words and Hebrew Meanings, 163–201 (summarized by Whiteley, “Liberal Christianity in the New Testament,” 25).

20. Dyson, “Eternal Punishment,” 540.

21. Bisset, “Eternal Fire,” 1:537.

22. Westcott, quoted in Dyson, “Eternal Punishment,” 540.

23. Baird, The Justice of God, 233.

24. Richardson, An Introduction to the Theology of the New Testament, 74.

25. Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology, 2:229.

26. Milne, The Message of Heaven and Hell, 151.

27. As charged by Zens, “Do the Flames Ever Stop in Hell?” 2. Jon Zens has since renounced unending conscious torment and is now a conditionalist. In an email sent on July 21, 2010, he asked me to include his statement of conviction as follows: “I believe that only God’s people are bestowed with immortality on the final resurrection day. I believe that the wicked will be destroyed—burned up like chaff—burned up like the materials thrown in the garbage dump of Gehenna of Jesus’ day, where the smoke never stopped.”

28. In addition to Westcott and Bloesch, cited above, see Buis, The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, 49–50, and Erickson, “Principles, Permanence, and Future Divine Judgment,” 322.

29. Shedd, The Doctrine of Endless Punishment, 84–85. Vos, on the other hand, sees no relation between the adjective aiōnios and the “formal eschatological distinction” between the two ages (Vos, The Pauline Eschatology, 289).

30. Kennedy, St. Paul’s Conceptions of the Last Things, 318.

31. Guillebaud, The Righteous Judge, 7. Further evidence for a qualitative sense of the Greek adjective for “eternal” is the qualitative nature of all adjectives, formed as they are on nouns. This is particularly relevant in the present case, where the Hebrew construct state often serves in the absence of adjectives and, in the Septuagint and New Testament, sometimes becomes attributive genitives and sometimes Greek adjectives. On the phenomenon see Zerwick, Biblical Greek, 14, #40.

32. These nouns that name the result of some action often are recognizable (in English as well as in Greek) from the form or morphology of the word itself. In Greek, “result” words often end with -ria (sōtēria), -ma (krima), or -sis (lutrōsis). In English, “result” words commonly end with -tion (salvation, redemption), or with -ment (judgment, punishment, atonement). Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament, 152–53.

33. We here bypass a larger issue concerning the philosophical and theological nature of “time” and “eternity.” See opposing views in Cullmann, Christ and Time, 37–68; and in Barr, Biblical Words for Time, 135–58.

34. Some have objected that total and everlasting extinction would not be sufficient “punishment” or that it would not suit the description “eternal.” We will later see that both points are conceded by Augustine and by Jonathan Edwards.

35. Petavel, The Problem of Immortality, 194–95; Froom, Conditionalist Faith, 1:288–91. Guillebaud says: “We do not claim to have proved that this interpretation is certainly right, but to have shown that it is legitimate and possible, and cannot (so far as the texts containing the word ‘eternal’ are concerned) be called a forcing of Scripture to suit a theory” (Guillebaud, The Righteous Judge, 11).

36. As a general rule, when the New Testament speaks of the resurrection “of” the dead (tōn nekrōn), it has in view a general resurrection comprising both good and evil. When it speaks of a resurrection “from” the dead (ek nekrōn), it usually has in view a resurrection of the righteous unto life. Jeremias makes a contrary distinction in one important passage, however, in his “‘Flesh and Blood Cannot Inherit the Kingdom of God’ (I Cor. xv. 50),” 155.

37. There is no reason at all why the NIV should here follow the KJV in choosing to use “everlasting” instead of “eternal” (as in the ESV, RSV, NASB and others). It is particularly strange since the NIV has “eternal” punishment in Matt 25:46.

38. The Holy Spirit’s descent upon the Christian church at Pentecost is also related to this. The Spirit not only guarantees believers fullness of life in the age to come (Rom 8:16–23; 2 Cor 5:4–5; Eph 1:13–14; 2:6–7); he is also the mediating source by which God demonstrates the power of that age among his people even now (1 Cor 14:24–25; Eph 3:16, 20; Heb 6:5). There is an already to this not yet, though there is so much more to come!

39. Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 245; Morgan, “Biblical Theology,” 143n5, 145n11; 147–49; Packer, “Annihilationism in Review,” 39; Peterson, Hell on Trial, 74n8, 181n13.

40. Wenham, “The Case for Conditionalism,” 161–91.

41. Harmon, “The Case Against Conditionalism: A Response to Edward William Fudge,” 193–224.

42. Ibid., 210.

43. Morgan, Hell Under Fire, 148.

44. Ibid., 201.

45. Wenham, Facing Hell, 261.

5

Sheol/Hades: Gravedom?

JON E. BRAUN WRITES: “I have seen pompous claims by some that . . . Sheol is the expectation of the wicked and the righteous alike.”[1] But are those to whom Braun objects making “pompous claims”? Or is Braun the one speaking here without accurate knowledge? One can be very certain, yet totally wrong, as I was reminded in a law school class many years ago. The professor asked a question and no one responded. When I could stand the silence no longer, I confidently answered the question. To my chagrin, the professor replied: “Well, Mr. Fudge—frequently mistaken, but never in doubt!”

Let us consider the “pompous claims” to which Braun objects. Do good and bad alike go to Sheol, as viewed by the Old Testament? The mainline Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible flatly states: “Nowhere in the OT is the abode of the dead regarded as a place of punishment or torment.”[2] The evangelical Baker’s Dictionary of Theology says that, “Sheol is uniformly depicted in the OT as the eternal, amoral abode of both righteous and unrighteous alike.”[3] Most of the time, says David J. Powys, sheol has neutral connotations as “the ‘place’ of all the dead,” although he acknowledges eight occurrences “when it is construed as a place of condemnation.”[4]

Anyone with a concordance can verify these statements for himself. Faithful Jacob expected to go “down to Sheol” when he died (Gen 37:35; 42:38; 44:29, 31). Righteous Job longed to hide in Sheol until God’s anger passed him by (Job 14:13). David, the man after God’s heart, viewed Sheol as his resting place, though he trusted God to redeem him from its grasp (Ps 49:15). Even Jesus Christ, the Holy One of God, went to Sheol (Greek: hades ) upon his death (Ps 16:10; Acts 2:24–31). There is simply no basis for making Sheol an exclusive place of punishment for the wicked.[5]

Etymology and Translation

According to Theodor H. Gaster, the word sheol does not appear in any non-Hebrew Semitic literature yet discovered, other than as a loan-word from the Hebrew.[6] (Such generalizations are always subject to sudden change based on discoveries in biblical archaeology). The etymology is uncertain. Most modern scholars seem to think it comes from a root meaning “ask” or “inquire.” Older writers sometimes suggested a root meaning “to bury one’s self.” The idea of something hidden appears in synonyms of several languages. The German Holle comes from Hohle, a cavern (kin to “hole” in English). The Greek hades literally means the “unseen” realm. The English word “hell” comes from the Anglo-Saxon helan, that meant “to cover” or “to hide.”[7]

The Old Testament uses the word sheol sixty-five or sixty-six times. The KJV translators followed their own conception of things and made it either “hell” (thirty-one times), “the grave” (thirty-one times) or “the pit” (three times). The ASV and ESV simply transliterate it as “Sheol.” The NIV usually translates sheol as “grave,” though at least once “the realm of death” (Deut 32:22). This supports Froom, who distinguishes sheol from the material grave but suggests “gravedom” as a suitable translation.[8]

Sheol’s Inhabitants

Even if the noun itself is limited to the Hebrew language, says Philip S. Johnston, the picture it conveys is not.[9] The common understanding of at least a particular region is seen in the Gilgamesh Epic. The dead hero, Enkidu, returns to tell his friend of the wretched state of those in Erkallu, the Land of No Return.

Looking at me, he leads me to the House of Darkness,

. . . To the house which none leave who have entered it,

On the road from which there is no way back,

To the house wherein the dwellers are bereft of light,

Where dust is their fare and clay their food.

They are clothed like birds, with wings for garments,

And see no light, residing in darkness.[10]

Job also describes “gravedom” as “the place of no return . . . the land of gloom and deep shadow, . . . the land of deepest night, of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness” (Job 10:21–22). David calls it “the place of darkness” and “the land of oblivion” (Ps 88:12). It is “the land of dust, forgetfulness, and forgottenness, silence, monotony, loneliness, and sleep.”[11] Such descriptives as we have “suggest a somnolent, gloomy existence without meaningful activity or social distinction.”[12]

Although individuals are sometimes pictured as carrying on conversations in Sheol or engaging in other such lifelike pursuits (Isa 14:9–18), they are not whole persons but mere shades, personified for dramatic purposes.[13] The state of the deceased cannot be called “life” in any meaningful sense. It is “such a pale and pitiful reflexion of human existence that it has no longer any reality, and is only a metaphorical expression of non-being.”[14]

This is mythological language for the most part, borrowed from its pagan time and place—much like our kind of language, by the way, when we speak of the sun “rising” and “setting” or use the names January or Saturday (originally honoring Roman gods), or Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday (originally honoring pagan gods of Europe). We should not suppose, however, that the Hebrews took the language literally or used it with its original pagan meaning. In a well-reasoned article on the subject, John B. Burns shows how the Old Testament “demythologized” such language and uses it only for effect, contrast or literary purposes.[15]

Life in Relation to God

Because the Old Testament defines man’s life by his relationship to God, Sheol is evil. It removes man from his place on earth, where he lived and rejoiced in God’s fellowship and praised him for his goodness (Isa 38:11, 18–19). Yet Sheol is not beyond God’s sight or reach or power (Job 26:6; Amos 9:2). Righteous men and women repeatedly express confidence that God will restore them from Sheol to enjoy life in his fellowship once more (1 Sam 2:6; Ps 16:9–11; 68:20).

God’s people have experienced his joy and faithfulness already on the earth. The joy they have tasted makes them want to live with him forever;[16] his faithfulness they already have experienced gives them confidence that they will.[17] Job’s poignant expression of hope surely touches deeply anyone who reads it:

If a man dies, will he live again?

All the days of my hard service

I will wait for my renewal to come.

You will call and I will answer you;

You will long for the creature your hands have made.

(Job 14:14–15)

Part of Creation

To understand best the Old Testament view of mankind, we must begin where it begins—with the story of creation. Genesis 1–2 comes straight to the point. There was a time when humans did not exist. God made Adam from the elements of the earth—just as he did the animals. Into both Adam and beast God breathed “breath of life,” and they all became “living souls.”[18] God then made woman from the side of man. To understand the Old Testament’s view of humankind, we must begin with their origin.[19] Humans exist in a double relationship—vertically with God, and horizontally with the rest of creation.

Because mankind did not exist until God formed Adam and gave him life, every human being should view life each moment as God’s immediate gift of grace. Without God’s constant provision of life, humans have no claim on their own existence. Men and women alike bear God’s image, but they are still God’s creatures. No human being exists for a moment independently of God, although all are capable of lusting after that position. Every attempt to be one’s own god is doomed to failure, for we are dust—scooped from the earth.

When God takes back our breath of life, we return to the clay from which we were taken. Plato would agree with Longfellow’s “Psalm of Life” that the soul is above all this. But the Old Testament more nearly supports Bryant’s “Thanatopsis” instead. It tells man that when he dies: “earth, that nourished thee, shall claim thy growth, to be resolved to earth again. And, lost each human trace, surrendering up thine individual being shalt thou go to mix . . . with the elements.”[20] Human beings can rejoice in a hope beyond death—but only in God. Adam’s very name also means “dust.”

We are also one with the rest of God’s creation, composed of the same elements found in the rocks and rivers and trees. We participate with them in the cycle of life. Even the sun and moon are active partners in human life on God’s earth. We must not despise our “physicalness,”[21] therefore, or disregard the rest of God’s creation. We are not constitutionally superior to these things so that we can look on them with disdain.[22]

Because human beings are a part of God’s good creation, the Old Testament invites them to enjoy “a healthy materialism, a reverence for the dignity of the body which is human life in the concrete.” Humans can rejoice in “the healthy eroticism of the Song of Songs” and look forward under God to the “comfortable bourgeois condition” of sitting under their own vine or fig tree undisturbed.[23] The key phrase even here is “under God.” God is the giver and sustainer of life. The Old Testament shows us that “life is manifested in God’s entering into covenant with his people . . . The righteous can have life only by holding fast to the God of salvation who is the God of life. Life is understood as a gift.”[24]

Traditionalists are absolutely correct when they point out that “life” means far more than bare “existence.” Helmut Thielicke describes the God-related quality of true life in the Old Testament.

Wherever God is, there is life. Where God is not, there is death (Ps 104:29–30; Job 34:15) . . . Whoever does not have this contact with the breath of God, whoever lives in protest against him or in internal detachment from him, is already dead regardless of how much vitality he might have externally (Eph 2:5; Rom 5:21; 7:10; 1 John 3:14–15). His life is disconnected from its actual source of power, though still rolling along “in neutral” according to the law of inertia.[25]

Human Death

The opposite of this is also true. The most notable characteristic of the dead in the Old Testament is that they are cut off from God. Death is lack of relationship with God.[26] In this, men and women differ from the animals, who share their earthly origin and gift of life. Thielicke paints a vivid picture of mankind’s uniqueness among God’s creatures. Only humans are aware of being related to God, are conscious of their sinfulness, can contemplate their own mortality.

The flowers and the grass, the whales and the mountains know nothing of being thus related to God. Only man knows this. Only he with his solitary awareness of death protrudes above the creaturely realm and thus has a different form of perishability, as though his were raised to a higher power. He alone must pose the question of the meaning of God’s action that comes to expression in his death . . . Because he is compelled to pose the question, it becomes evident that man’s returning to dust is qualitatively different from the simple physical returning to dust of a simply physical being . . . He sees clearly a decision being made against him here with which he must come to terms.[27]

The first man tasted this death-fear when he ate the forbidden fruit, then heard God approaching in the Garden. Adam must have supposed that God was coming even then to inflict the promised penalty of death. But an eternal purpose already outweighed the historical event. Already grace was abounding more abundantly than sin. Mankind had indeed forfeited the right to exist, but God willed to bring many sons and daughters to glory! “The existence of our race then is a boon beyond the limits of law.”[28]

Summary

The Old Testament’s concept of Sheol belongs to its larger view of humankind before God. This perspective, framed in light of the creation, determines the Hebrews’ attitude toward both life and death—and hope beyond that. Sheol is the common fate of all mortals. It is not a place of punishment.

Throughout most of the Old Testament, the wicked have no reason to expect to leave Sheol. However, the righteous do have such hope, for they know and trust in the living God. Nothing is hid from his eyes, and no power can withstand his deliverance. His people lie down in peace, fully expecting to live again. That hope is stated explicitly only a few times, but it pervades the entire Old Testament.

Interaction

Braun is absolutely certain that Sheol is the Old Testament’s equivalent to Gehenna in the Gospels. In this opinion he is completely wrong, but at least he is not without company. Eryl Davies writes: “[I]t must be said emphatically that [Sheol is sometimes] used in passages where ‘hell’ is clearly in view.”[29] John Blanchard believes Sheol sometimes means the grave, sometimes the place to which all the dead go, and sometimes a place of punishment for the wicked.[30] This is one of many details about which traditionalists do not agree among themselves.

Despite Braun’s level of certainty, the evidence is heavily weighted against him, as even his fellow-traditionalists testify. Daniel I. Block writes that “the Old Testament understanding of the place called Sheol bears little resemblance to the Gehenna/hell we read about in the New Testament.”[31] Robert Peterson concludes that in the Old Testament, Sheol refers to the grave, and perhaps sometimes also to “a netherworld to which all go at death.”[32] Harry Buis calls Sheol the “place of shadowy existence where the good and the evil continued to exist together after death”[33] and “where good and evil alike share a similar dreary fate.”[34] Braun would have fared better had he consulted with them before writing his own book.

1. Braun, Whatever Happened to Hell? 131. Braun’s book contains much good information, but it suffers from misinformation, overstatement, and over-dependence on ecclesiastical tradition. In his defense, Braun joined the conversation quite early, before all the current data had been put on the table. On the other hand, a person of ordinary prudence might find in that very circumstance strong motivation to speak with a measure of caution.

2. Gaster, “Abode of the Dead,” 1:788.

3. Laurin, “Sheol,” 484.

4. Powys, ‘Hell,’ 83.

5. The argument, made by Shedd and repeated by Braun, that Sheol equals modern “hell” because it is never threatened to the righteous vanishes into thin air upon a moment’s thought. God does not threaten the righteous but the wicked. We have seen passages of Scripture that show that the righteous and wicked alike go down into Sheol. For a thorough study of the term see Atkinson, Life and Immortality, 42–53.

6. Gaster, “Abode of the Dead,” 787.

7. Petavel, The Problem of Immortality, 91, note 1.

8. Froom, Conditionalist Faith, 1:160–65.

9. Johnston continues: “The linguistic distinctiveness permitted a clearer expression of theological distinctiveness.” Johnston, Shades of Sheol, 79.

10. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 87. Hooke gives a slightly different translation in “Life after Death,” 236. On Egyptian ideas of the afterlife see Brandon, “Life after Death,” 217–20. On the relation between Israelite and pagan attitudes regarding this subject, and on their different use of common language, see Burns, “The Mythology of Death,” 327–40.

11. Burns, “Mythology of Death,” 332. The Jewish Encyclopedia says: “Sheol is a horrible, dreary, dark, disorderly land” ( JE, vol. 11, col. 283).

12. Johnston, Shades of Sheol, 85.

13. They are the rephaim (Job 26:5; Ps 88:10; Prov 2:18; 9:18; 21:16; Isa 14:9; 26:19). “For the member of the community of Israel, the dead were beyond his interest for they had ceased to live and praise Yahweh” (Burns, “Mythology of Death,” 339).

14. Martin-Achard, From Death to Life, 17.

15. Burns, “Mythology of Death,” 327–40, esp. 339.

16. “A man must have great interests, a devouring, hungry sense of life, must have essayed tasks far beyond his powers, have known moments so intense in their heartbreaking loveliness, must have glimpsed meanings so suggestive and alluring that it will take more time than his allotted span on earth to follow through and complete, before he desires a life beyond” (Martin, “Life after Death,” 141).

17. Throughout the entire Bible, God’s faithfulness is the ground of his people’s hope. Since the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, believers have had historical verification that God will not abandon them even in death.

18. The NIV recognizes this and correctly translates nephesh in Gen 2:7 as “living being.” See also Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament ; Ladd, The Pattern of New Testament Truth, especially the chapter entitled “The Background of the Pattern.”

19. Ridenhour surveys Old Testament scholars Rowley, Wolff, von Rad, Martin-Achard, and Piper, and finds agreement that the Old Testament views human life relationally in respect to God and to his covenant people (Ridenhour, “Immortality and Resurrection, 104–9).

20. Omitted in this quotation is the word “forever.” The biblical writers disagree with Bryant about this, since they look for a resurrection of both good and evil.

21. Steve Motyer argues that our “physicalness” is essential to our personhood, our relationships, and to our “spirituality.” Motyer, “‘Not apart from us,’ (Hebrews 11:40),” 235–47.

22. On mankind’s place in creation and the effect of the biblical pattern on philosophical categories of metaphysics, epistemology and ethics, see Schaeffer, He Is There, 1–88.

23. Vawter, “Intimations of Immortality,” 170–71.

24. Ridenhour, “Immortality and Resurrection,” 104.

25. Thielicke, Death and Life, 106–7.

26. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 107.

27. Thielicke, Death and Life, 138.

28. White, Life in Christ, 116, 119.

29. Davies, An Angry God? 99.

30. Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 36–37.

31. Block, “The Old Testament on Hell,” 44.

32. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 36.

33. Buis, The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, 3.

34. Ibid., 12.

6

Divine Justice: When?

MOST BOOKS ABOUT HELL contain very little information from the Old Testa-ment simply because their authors are looking for a certain image of hell, a place of unending conscious torment. The Old Testament provides no details about such a place, sending these authors back from their narrow search empty-handed and somewhat apologetic. We looked, they honestly report, but we could find nothing.[1]

This does not mean that the Old Testament has nothing to contribute on the topic of hell. It provides important information, but we must ask the proper question to access it. If we look for signs that say “hell,” or search for the traditionalist version or vision of hell, we will find nothing. But if we move through the Old Testament with a different question, we will soon discover so much material that we will need to make more than one trip to take it all back home.

What Can the Old Testament Tell Us?

The question that opens the doors to biblical meaning is more general: What data does the Old Testament contain about the end of the wicked? In this chapter and the two chapters that follow, we will journey through the Old Testament Scriptures with that question clearly before us. But first we need to meet an earlier explorer of the Old Testament, whose past discoveries can encourage us as we begin.

No one has mined the Old Testament for information about the end of the wicked more than LeRoy Edwin Froom, author of a cyclopedic two-volume study titled The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers. Froom finds fifty different Hebrew verbs that describe the final fate of the wicked—and all signify different aspects of destruction.[2] Such verbs are buttressed, he says, by figurative or proverbial expressions that also speak “everywhere and always” of “the decomposition, of the breaking up of the organism and final cessation of the existence of being—never that of immortal life in endless suffering.”[3]

Froom combines both lists to present some seventy English expressions that describe the end of sinners. The cumulative impact of this list is most impressive—despite Froom’s occasional over-reaching—particularly in view of the resounding silence from traditionalist authors who oppose his view.[4]

Our goal in these three chapters is not to repeat Froom, but to build on his efforts, improve on his methods, and progress beyond his results. I will be sensitive to observe three different genres of texts—poetic, historical, and prophetic, and to read each text in its context, not read meanings into the texts, and not extract meanings from the texts that are not there.

Moral Principles of Divine Justice

First we notice texts from the poetic books of the Old Testament that reflect moral principles of divine justice. Utilizing a broad variety of words, metaphors, and similes, these passages of Scripture state the outcome of God’s justice when applied to those who do good and to those who do evil. These texts are significant for our study because they express moral principles inherent in God’s own character, which never changes and cannot be thwarted.

On earth, men and women who do very evil things sometimes escape unpunished and even undetected. If God says that evildoers will meet a particular end, and that does not happen now during life on earth, it will surely occur in the age to come. For this reason, texts that state moral principles of divine justice say something important on our subject.

Someone might object that texts of this sort specifically refer only to judgments during the present life and say nothing about the punishment awaiting in the age to come.[5] Indeed, many such statements do refer to earthly consequences of wrongdoing. Wisdom literature deals in proverbs, aphorisms, and sayings about life here and now. However, so long as one insists that God’s justice will finally triumph over injustice, and acknowledges that perfect justice does not always prevail in this life, there is a place for these texts. They speak indirectly, by implication. They communicate in terms of principle. They lead and instruct by implication. Whoever sees the wicked person prosper in life and die in peace, may rightly ask, “Is this all there is to God’s justice? Do the wicked escape so easily?” These texts assure us that they will not escape.

Because of this apparent injustice, these passages fairly may be said to point to a final reckoning for the wicked beyond temporal death. Seven psalms in particular call for our consideration.

Psalm 11:1–7

This psalm comes immediately after Ps 10, which portrays the wicked man in his prosperity mocking God’s justice. “The wicked man is so arrogant he always thinks, ‘God won’t hold me accountable; he doesn’t care.’ He is secure at all times. He has no regard for your commands; he disdains all his enemies. He says to himself, ‘I will never be upended, because I experience no calamity’” (Ps 10:4–6, NET).

In response, the Psalmist discusses moral principles of divine justice (Ps 11:1–7). Even now God rules from his heavenly throne, observing and examining both righteous and wicked (vv. 4–5). Evildoers on earth sometimes destroy the very foundation of moral society, and the godly know nothing they can do (v. 3). Then they may know that God is on the throne and that his day of reckoning will surely come. The godless may hide in the shadows and ambush the righteous—now (v. 2); now they may tantalize and mock those who trust in God (v. 1). But then God will reverse the roles and even the score. “On the wicked he will rain fiery coals and burning sulfur (brimstone, AV); a scorching wind will be their lot” (v. 6). Then “upright men will see his face” (v. 7).

This world does not reward virtue or punish evil, but a day of divine reckoning will surely come. This psalm pictures the fate of the wicked in terms taken from the punishment of Sodom, when “the Lord rained down burning sulfur” (Gen 19:24) and “overthrew” city, people and vegetation (Gen 19:25). He “destroyed” the wicked in a “catastrophe” so thorough that the next day Abraham could see nothing but “dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace” (Gen 19:28–29).

Psalm 34:8–22

This psalm praises God, who delivers his people from their troubles. According to the heading, David wrote the psalm after he escaped from the Philistine king, Abimelech (Achish in 1 Sam 21:10–15). Peter uses this psalm to encourage suffering Christians, quoting from verse 8 (1 Pet 2:3) and also verses 12–16a (1 Pet 3:10–12).

The psalm contrasts the fates of those who trust God and those who do not. The one who fears God and takes refuge in him will find him good (v. 8). Such a one will lack for nothing good (vv. 9–10). God will be close to him in need (v. 18), see his plight and hear his cries (vv. 15, 17), and save or deliver him from trouble (vv. 17, 19). The psalm tells how to have a long and good life (vv. 12–14); it also reassures God’s people that, in the end, God will redeem them and not even one of them will be condemned (v. 22).

In contrast to this, God turns his face against the evil (v. 16), who finally are slain by their own wickedness (v. 21). At the last, God will condemn them (v. 21) and cut off their memory from the earth (v. 16).

These contrasts catch our attention and speak to our minds and hearts. Whether a person is good or evil, God is the One to whom each must finally give account. The righteous may expect to be delivered and vindicated because God is their mighty savior. The wicked must know that their adversary and judge will be God and not humankind.

But as often as not, people do not reach these destinies in earthly life. The righteous sometimes die in unjust suffering and shame; the wicked sometimes die in prosperity and peace. The psalm therefore looks beyond the present life for its infallible fulfillment. In that sense, at least, it speaks of blessing and punishment in the world to come. Whether we see it now or not, the psalm promises a day when the righteous will shine (v. 5) but the wicked will be no more (v. 16). This is God’s word on the matter, and God will do what he says.

Psalm 37:1–40

This psalm describes the security of those who trust in God and the insecurity of the wicked. David observes: “I have seen a wicked and ruthless man flourishing like a green tree in its native soil, but he soon passed away and was no more; though I looked for him, he could not be found” (vv. 35–36). This is the way with the wicked, he says, as he boldly extends his observation to wicked men in general.

Job’s objection comes to our mind: where do we see this happening to the wicked? The answer must be that we do not yet see their end. This is made more certain by Jesus’ use of the promise from verse 11 that “the meek will inherit the earth” (Matt 5:5), which in the Beatitudes is synonymous with the kingdom of God. The meek do not inherit the land—now. But like the writer of Hebrews, Jesus and David speak of the pilgrim’s future homeland (Heb 11:8–16) in the world to come (Heb 2:5). They look, with Peter, for the new heaven and earth, the home of righteousness (2 Pet 3:13).

In this light the couplet in verse 10 to the expression Jesus quotes becomes more significant. “A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found.” This is said not once but repeatedly throughout the psalm. David assures the godly that the wicked:

• will soon wither like the grass and die away like green plants (v. 2);

• will be no more so they cannot be found (v. 10);

• will be laughed at by the Lord, for their day is coming (v. 13);

• will be pierced by their own swords, and their bows will be broken (v. 15);

• will be broken in power (v. 17);

• will perish like the beauty of the fields and vanish like smoke (v. 20);

• will be cut off (vv. 22, 28, 34, 38);

• will be destroyed (v. 38).

In this psalm David defines die and destroy by a variety of figures from nature. The wicked will be like grass that withers or smoke that vanishes when they “die” and are “destroyed.” These are not mere hollow hopes of Job’s shallow and uninspired friends. They are the solemn promises of David as he speaks by the Holy Spirit (Matt 22:43; Acts 2:29–30). Those who trust in God might not see it happen now. But they are to wait patiently for the Lord’s time, confident that he will bring his word to pass (vv. 7, 34). This psalm is surely instructive concerning the final fate of those who mock at God.

Psalm 50

This psalm of Asaph extols God, who judges both the righteous and the wicked. God comes in fire and tempest to judge his people (vv. 3–6). “Call upon me in the day of trouble,” he invites the godly; “I will deliver you, and you will honor me” (v. 15). But to the wicked God says: “What right have you to recite my laws or take my covenant on your lips?” (v.16). “Consider this,” he says to those who forget God, “or I will tear you to pieces, with none to rescue” (v. 22).

The picture is the usual one. God comes in fire storm for judgment. It is symbolic, and its words are chosen for impact rather than literal description. But they teach something, and what they teach is conveyed to the emotions by the threat, “I will tear you to pieces, with none to rescue.”

Psalm 58

Imprecatory psalms have long disturbed Christian readers. How can the godly man call for vengeance on his enemies? Should he not, rather, ask God to forgive them? It is important for us to understand that David’s enemies are also God’s enemies (that finally is why they are David’s) and that David is turning all vengeance over to God. In this context we observe what David expected to happen when God took vengeance.

We must not read back into the Old Testament what is not there. Rather, we must listen to each passage for its own message, however shadowy or vague that message might be. Here is what David regards as God’s just punishment in this psalm:

• their teeth will be broken in their mouths (v. 6);

• they will vanish like water that flows away (v. 7);

• they will melt like a slug as it moves along (v. 8);

• they will not see the sun, like a stillborn child (v. 8);

• their blood will bathe the feet of the righteous (v. 10).

The ultimate result will be God’s honor. People will then exclaim: “Surely the righteous still are rewarded; surely there is a God who judges the earth” (v. 11).

Psalm 69:22–28

New Testament writers frequently quote this imprecatory psalm. They apply its words to Jesus (v. 9/John 2:17; Rom 15:3; v. 21/John 19:28–30) on the one hand, and to Judas (v. 25/Acts 1:20) and unbelieving Israel (vv. 22–23/Rom 11:9–10) on the other. Here is the desperate cry of a poor man, outnumbered and overpowered by wicked enemies, calling on God for vindication (justification) and deliverance (salvation).

The Psalmist longs to see God’s wrath poured out on the wicked (v. 24), their place deserted and their tents empty (v. 25). He is sure they will have no part in God’s salvation (v. 27) but rather will be blotted out of the book of life (v. 28). God will finally hear the righteous (vv. 32–33); they and their children will inherit Zion (vv. 34–36).

In this psalm, the end of the wicked is that they cannot be found! Their place is empty—they are not listed among the living. They are victims of the righteous wrath of God. Meanwhile, the righteous enjoy God’s salvation. The language is figurative, the style is poetic, but the meaning is clear and the message is true. We must make room in our understanding for the imagery of this psalm.

Psalm 145

David praises God for his goodness in this psalm, which is general in tone and universal in scope. It is not limited to a particular occasion or person or incident. God’s gracious kingdom is forever (vv. 8–13). He also rules in justice, which gives the godly hope.

“The Lord is righteous in all his ways . . . The Lord watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy” (vv. 17, 20). This is a general statement, but it informs us so far as it goes, and it is in complete harmony with the language of the rest of Scripture.

Summary

Throughout the Old Testament, God reveals truth about the end of the wicked in various ways. The books of poetry—Job, Psalms, and Proverbs—reflect on the meaning and value of life under the sun. What will be the difference between godly and ungodly in the end? How does it pay to serve God? Why do the righteous sometimes die in poverty while the wicked lay down in fame and prosperity?

To answer these questions, the poetic books take us behind the scenes. There they point to the sovereign God on his throne, and tell us that God will also one day judge. Then he will vindicate all who trust in him. The godless will come to nothing. They will perish, will disappear, will not be found. Their place will be empty. They will no longer exist.

Their bows will be broken and their own spears will slay them. The godly will wipe their feet in the wicked man’s blood. The wicked man’s name will not be found in the register of the living. Those who trusted in God will rejoice in his salvation. They will endure forever. They and their children will inhabit Zion. They will be vindicated when they see God and dwell with him. They will inherit the earth.

The language of poetry is frequently figurative. Figures are not to be taken literally. God’s people will not turn on a faucet of wicked men’s blood to bathe their feet. However, a figure does truly correspond to the truth it illustrates, otherwise it misleads and deceives. Without being literal, therefore, we may learn from these passages of Scripture. They say nothing of conscious unending torment.

None of them hints at a fire that tortures but does not kill. They do not envision the presence of the wicked forever—even in a distant place. Rather, they picture a time and a world where the wicked will not be. There the meek will rejoice in God’s presence forever. Every living creature will praise God, who has shown himself to be a righteous judge.

These things do not happen now. We look for their fulfillment, therefore, in the age to come. Jesus and the New Testament writers quote from these psalms and apply their words to the coming age. They tell men and women of faith today that the same moral principles of divine government rule behind the scenes.

Interaction

Although Daniel Block’s chapter in Hell Under Fire is titled “The Old Testament on Hell,” he looks only at Old Testament words that describe the netherworld and does not mention moral principles of divine justice. Peterson and Davies are similarly silent on the subject. John Gerstner mentions this argument from the poetic books, based on moral principles of divine judgment, but he dismisses it as of “little cogency for the matter in question.”[6]

Paul Helm cites Pss 37 and 145 in making the point that God is perfectly just and that heaven and hell will bring to full reconciliation earthly moral accounts left askew by death.[7] John Blanchard admirably acknowledges the underlying principle of divine justice developed in this chapter. He first reassures the reader that God is in control, a fact that finally will become apparent to all. Blanchard writes: “As surely as the world is a moral creation, it will come to a moral conclusion. The judgments of God fall often enough in this world to let us know that God judges, but seldom enough to let us know that there must be a judgment to come. God is not always a God of immediate justice, but he is a God of ultimate justice. Nothing less than the character of God is at stake here.”[8]

However, divine justice is not always carried out during this life, Blanchard observes, therefore it will be executed in the age to come: “The only satisfying alternative to the injustices of this life is perfect justice in the next one; the only remedy for the present triumph of evil over good is the future triumph of good over evil. In a moral universe all bills must be paid and all accounts settled.”[9]

Larry Dixon likewise draws this fundamental lesson, though somewhat less directly. While discussing God’s anger at sinners, Dixon notes that “the afflicted do not always get their ‘rights’ in this life, the wicked often prosper in inverse proportion to their character, and God does declare that he holds some in contempt.”[10]

The Old Testament not only says that divine justice will be done but also tells what mortals can expect to see when that takes place. If men escape justice in the present life, God’s moral character assures us that it will be meted out later. To describe what that will look like, the Old Testament uses as many as seventy metaphors—all taken from experiences and scenes of ordinary life. Cumulatively, these scenes portray a consummation when wickedness will no longer be present and unrepentant sinners will forever have been made extinct.

1. In the multi-author book, Hell Under Fire, Daniel I. Block contributes the chapter titled “The Old Testament on Hell,” and he begins the chapter with this question and answer: “What does the Old Testament teach about hell? The simple answer to this question is, ‘Very little.’” (Block, “The Old Testament on Hell,” 44.)

2. Froom, Conditionalist Faith, 1:106.

3. Ibid., 107. For example, the wicked will be as: a vessel broken to pieces, ashes trodden underfoot, smoke that vanishes, chaff carried away by the wind, tow that is burned, thorns and stubble in fire, vine branches pruned off, wax that melts, fat of sacrifices, a dream that vanishes, etc.

Petavel speaks of the “multitude of proverbial expressions, a long succession of images which sometimes seem to exclude each other, but which always, by association of ideas, and like fractions reduced to a common denominator, are found to be in accord when used to describe the end of the existence of evil and of obstinate evildoers. Everywhere we find the notion of a final cessation of being, of a return to a state of unconsciousness, never that of a perpetual life in suffering” (Petavel, The Problem of Immortality, 88–89).

4. Froom, Conditionalist Faith, 1:108–10. Several of Froom’s seventy examples seem less applicable to the subject, and a few appear to be completely out of place. Some call on God to judge the wicked or give the righteous victory over their enemies, with no apparent reference to last things (Pss 55:23; 60:12; 94:23; 104:35; 139:19). Others praise God for deliverance over the wicked (Pss 118:12; 119:119; Isa 43:17). One simply states temporal blessings given or withheld by God (Prov 13:9). Another prescribes the ultimate penalty of excision under the Law of Moses (Exod 22:20). Closely akin are three passages which speak of sin’s original death penalty, itself the subject of much debate (Gen 3:19; Ezek 18:4, 20). Two others appear to speak only of God’s power to sustain life—a relevant point to the discussion but one needing more explanation than here given (Ps 75:3; Isa 40:24).

5. Thus Peterson (Hell on Trial, 26), and Gerstner (Repent or Perish, 109). The Bible sometimes teaches indirectly, by suggestion, rhetorical question or by principle. These texts from the Old Testament Wisdom literature teach us indirectly, if we will hear. Their moral argument is one element of evidence in this cumulative case for conditionalism.

6. Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 111.

7. Helm, The Last Things, 71, 121.

8. Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 101.

9. Ibid. Blanchard’s sentence continues: “but annihilationism throws these hopes out of the window.” He does not agree with the view set forth here, but that is not the “annihilationism” of which he speaks. Rather he is refuting the notion “that human beings are annihilated at death,” never to be seen again (ibid., 61). If that were the case, the injustices of this life would be the final word.

10. Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News, 167.

7

Divine Justice: Historical Examples

HERE WE LEAVE THE poetic material of the Old Testament and move into the narratives, where we will pay special attention to specific divine judgments now past. At times, these judgments fall upon Israel, but also upon a variety of pagan cities and nations. Sometimes the Old Testament describes these judgments in straightforward, narrative language. At other times, it uses vivid symbols, similes, or metaphors that grab our attention, speaking through dramatic images that involve our senses of hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and touching.

A Lexicon of Divine Judgment

As we move through the Old Testament, the descriptive language in these accounts gradually forms a lexicon of judgment and a vocabulary of destruction. When later biblical writers wish to describe some future judgment against sinners, they often go to this lexicon of judgment for an appropriate descriptive symbol.

Although descriptions of historical judgments necessarily occur within the present age, both Old and New Testament books often borrow language from these historical judgments to describe God’s final punishment of the wicked in the age to come. Of course, words based on present-day judgments cannot fully describe eternal judgment. But even though such words are not exhaustive when used of final punishment, they are nevertheless true.

The biblical writers—and sometimes Jesus Christ himself—chose these words to transfer, from their minds to our minds and from their hearts to our hearts, some detail that these words contain. Jesus and those who wrote the New Testament books had other words at their disposal that they could as easily have used to tell us about the future judgment. But they selected these words instead, as assisted by the very Spirit of God.

Whatever the limitations of those words might be, we can be sure that the words taken from the lexicon of divine judgment will neither mislead us nor deceive us. When these words reach their ultimate fulfillments and the wicked experience their final destiny, no one will say that those realities would have been described better by words that mean the exact opposite of the words Jesus and the biblical writers have regularly used.

Biblical Paradigms

The Flood (Gen 6–9)

The story of the Flood (Greek: kataklysmos = English “cataclysm”) is one of the most familiar stories in Scripture and also one of the most debated with respect to its details. However, our interests involve undisputed matters: the judgment that occurred, its effect on the population, the biblical terminology that describes that effect, and the story’s use by New Testament writers as a prototype or example of eschatological judgment at the end of the world.

THE EVENT

Because of humankind’s thorough depravity (“every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time,” Gen 6:5), God decides to “wipe mankind . . . from the face of the earth” (Gen 6:7). A few verses later God tells Noah his plan “to put an end to all people” (v. 13), “to destroy both them and the earth” (v. 13), “to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish” (v. 17). Seven days before the Flood, God again tells Noah, “I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made” (Gen 7:4). Only life in the ark will survive.

The event itself is as severe as the threats. When the Flood came, the author of Genesis tells us, “Every living thing that moved on the earth perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark” (Gen 7:21–23).

After Noah and his family leave the ark, God promises that he will never again “destroy all living creatures” as he has done (Gen 8:21). Never again will “all life be cut off” by such waters; never again will there be a flood “to destroy the earth” (Gen 9:11). God formalizes his promise in a covenant with Noah and his sons, sealing the covenant with the sign of the rainbow.

THE LANGUAGE OF JUDGMENT

Throughout the story, the operative verbs are “perish,” “destroy” or “die,” and they are used synonymously with “cut off” and “wipe out.” Sometimes Scripture writers use such words poetically, figuratively or metaphorically. But in this canonical version of the Flood story itself, these terms are clearly intended to be read literally. In this specific judgment event, evildoers meet the very end that the Psalms and Proverbs describe again and again.[1]

LATER BIBLICAL USAGE

The story of the Flood is so important within the larger narrative that it becomes a standard model for later crises and judgments throughout the Bible. Other writers point to the Flood’s unexpectedness (Matt 24:38–39; Luke 17:26–27), its victims (2 Pet 2:5), those it saved from the world’s wickedness (1 Pet 3:20; 2 Pet 2:9), Noah’s faith (Ezek 14:14, 20; Heb 11:7), as well as God’s patience preceding the judgment (1 Pet 3:20; 2 Pet 3:4–6) and the certainty of his covenant that followed it (Isa 54:9). Jesus (Matt 24:38–39; Luke 17:26–27) and Peter (2 Pet 2:5, 9; 3:3–7) both use it to illustrate elements of their teaching about last things.

Because both Jesus and Peter point to the Flood’s watery destruction of the wicked to help explain the final destruction of evildoers by fire, we need to consider carefully what Scripture actually says. The authors of Scripture could have written hundreds of pages of philosophical discussion about the exact meaning of “destroy” and “perish.” Instead, they point us back to what God did once before, and they warn us that it exemplifies what the wicked may expect again.

INTERACTION

Unfortunately, traditionalist authors either have not noticed, not understood, not cared, or not considered important the use Scripture authors make of the Flood story thereafter. After I worked through such biblical teaching by Jesus, and by writers of books in both Old and New Testaments, John Gerstner dismissed it all with thirteen words: “The flood is discussed with no significant point being made in the debate.”[2]

In the Flood, John Blanchard sees a “devastating [demonstration] of God’s wrath,”[3] but he explains away the devastation and misses the intended biblical demonstration.[4] To his credit, Blanchard quotes Peter that “the world of [Noah’s] time was deluged and destroyed (2 Pet 3:6).” To his discredit, he impulsively asks: “Where is there a shred of evidence in Scripture to suggest that God annihilated our planet and created another one to replace it?”[5] This is too serious a matter to quibble over petty points of physics, and Peter’s parallel is plain. Just as God destroyed the old world by water, one day he will bring about the destruction of ungodly sinners by fire (2 Pet 3:6–7). Can anything be stated more clearly and directly?

Larry Dixon sees the Flood as “an actual event of judgment” but without illustrative value.[6] The only thing that Eryl Davies learns from the Flood is that God is angry.[7]

Robert Peterson notes that when God punished the world by Flood, “the punishment consisted of sudden physical death.”[8] We should note carefully that God’s punishment inflicted by the Flood was no less punishment because it “consisted of death.” It was capital punishment. Let us remember that detail as we encounter many texts that speak of sin’s final wages as death.

But there are three important differences between the death of the Flood victims and the second death that awaits the wicked. The Flood was an event within the present age; the second death is an event of the age to come. The death by Flood killed only the body; the second death awaiting the wicked will kill the whole person, soul and body alike.[9] The first punishment by death was temporary; the second will be permanent. The punishment in Matt 25:46 is “eternal” in two senses: first, because it belongs to the age to come; second, because the death of which it consists will never end.

Finally, the multi-authored volume Hell Under Fire contains not a single reference to the Flood, in either its topic or Scripture index, and I find no discussion of the Flood when reading the book itself. Jesus Christ and the authors of five New Testament books thought it necessary to speak of the Flood when teaching on divine judgment. Yet at least five outstanding Christian teachers—including two associate deans, one department chairman and two other professors of theology—do not say a word about it, although their topics would naturally include the subject.[10]

Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19:24–29)

The destruction of metropolitan Sodom and Gomorrah with their suburbs ranks alongside the Flood as a window into the nature of final judgment. Sodom’s population becomes a synonym for wickedness,[11] its chief survivor a model of one receiving God’s mercy (2 Pet 2:7–9).

THE EVENT

Following Abraham’s unsuccessful attempt to save the city through intercession (Gen 18:16–33) and the inhabitants’ shameful attack on their two angelic visitors (Gen 19:1–11), Lot is warned to gather his family and flee for their lives (Gen 19:12–17). Lot requests asylum in the nearby village of Zoar and the angels grant his request (Gen 19:18–23).

Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur [brimstone] on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot’s wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt.

Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.

So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived. (Gen 19:24–29)

Constable reduces this unforgettable scene to words: “In the days of Abraham, four rich and populous cities flourished in the plain of Jordan. On a sudden, fire descended from heaven, and, after a period of terror, regrets, and pain, the inhabitants were deprived of life. They and their works were burnt up; and this ruined, lifeless, hopeless, condition has remained to the present time.”[12]

THE LANGUAGE OF JUDGMENT

Scripture uses the word “destroy” to describe the effect of this divine judgment against the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. This story also contributes to the lexicon of judgment the symbol of “brimstone” or “burning sulfur” (which becomes a shorthand term for a total annihilation) and the figure of rising smoke (which, like the proverbial “mushroom-shaped cloud” in modern parlance, refers to a completed devastation).

LATER BIBLICAL USAGE

Biblical writers call attention to at least seven specific characteristics of Sodom’s destruction, noting that it was:

• Inclusive––Isaiah is impressed by the destruction of the entire wicked population. Not one person escaped! (Isa 1:9). Paul quotes Isaiah’s words for the same point (Rom 9:29).

• Sudden––The suddenness of the judgment catches the attention of Jesus. When God comes against the wicked, the righteous are wise to drop everything and run (Luke 17:26–33.) Godly survivors are like sticks snatched from the fire (Amos 4:11; Jude 23).

• Complete––Even the agent of destruction becomes a biblical symbol for divine punishment. This is the origin of “fire and brimstone” in the Bible, with brimstone (sulfur) to suffocate by its fumes, and fire to consume completely.[13] God’s wrath struck, “burning them to ashes,” and made them “an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly” (2 Pet 2:6).

• Quick––The actual burning of Sodom was notably quick, in that regard even merciful (Lam 4:6).

• Devastating––In keeping with other passages on the end of the wicked, Sodom’s destruction also resulted in a barren and empty land void of human inhabitant. Moses later stresses this point (Deut 29:23), as do Jeremiah (Jer 49:18) and Zephaniah (Zeph 2:9).

• Perpetual––Even more significant, this desolation is perpetual. Centuries later God foretells Babylon’s punishment of everlasting ruin, and Sodom is the example he gives (Isa 13:19–22; Jer 50:40). Jude emphasizes the perpetuity of Sodom’s desolation when he says that Sodom serves “as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 7).

• Accomplished––The next day after Sodom’s destruction, Abraham went out to view the site below. All that remained was a dense smoke rising from what a day earlier had been a bustling city. Now all was quiet, the smoke a grim reminder of the severity of a divine retribution now fully accomplished. Biblical writers use this symbol in connection with later judgments (Isa 34:10; Rev 14:11; 19:3).

In a multitude of places, biblical writers from Deuteronomy to Revelation point to Sodom as an example of God’s impending judgment. We must not ignore this host of witnesses as we hear the biblical case on this subject. Furthermore, we should listen carefully to what they say about this example and note precisely how they use it. Surely it is appropriate for us to give Sodom’s destruction the same place and significance in our thinking that it receives from Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zephaniah, Peter, John, and Jesus.

INTERACTION

Most traditionalist authors seem almost unaware of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which both Peter and Jude identify as a preview in the present age of the final punishment in the age to come. Blanchard refers to Sodom’s destruction only as evidence against universal salvation;[14] Dixon, only as an actual event of earthly judgment;[15] Davies, only as evidence of divine wrath.[16] Morgan notes Peter’s reference to Sodom and Gomorrah’s “burning to ashes” as an example of final punishment but he offers no explanation, leaving us to take the words at face value.[17]

Jude 7 defines and gives content to the phrase “eternal fire” by reference to the fire that destroyed Sodom once and forever. However, Dr. Gerstner insists that “eternal fire” means something else: “Jude meant, when he used the expression ‘eternal fire,’ that the fire that was temporary for the two earthly cities became ‘eternal’ for its inhabitants. An ‘eternal fire’ does not go out. If it goes out, as Fudge’s does, it is not an eternal fire, only eternal ashes.”[18] Jude certainly was free to say that, had he wished to do so. However, there is a more natural explanation, based on Jude’s use of Sodom as an “example,” as supported by 2 Peter (2:6), Philo (Mos. 2:56), Josephus (J.W. 4:483), and the Apocrypha (Wis 10:7). Even in the first century, AD, it was thought, the erstwhile site of Sodom smoldered. In that view the still-smoking site, explains Cambridge Professor Richard Bauckham, “signifies that the cities will never be rebuilt. Their destruction lasts forever.”[19]

Of our seventeen traditionalist authors, Peterson gives most attention to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He observes that these cities suffered “the cataclysmic loss of human life”[20] when their “citizens were totally obliterated,” and that their destruction “furnishes an earthly temporal example of the final fate of the damned.”[21] However, Dr. Peterson refuses to follow his logic to its natural conclusion—that “the damned” will be “totally obliterated” in hell. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah, he observes, “were destroyed at death, never to exist again.” But because they will be raised to face God in judgment, and their destruction “does not speak of life after death,”[22] Peterson concludes that their fate cannot truly exemplify final punishment.[23] But Dr. Peterson misses the parallelism. Just as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed at (the first) death, never to exist again (in the present age), so those finally lost will be destroyed at (the second) death, never to exist again (in the everlasting age to come).

Broken Covenant (Deut 29:18–29)

Near the end of his life Moses leads Israel in a renewal of the covenant made at Sinai. In solemn assembly before the Lord (vv. 10–15) he warns them to avoid idols and keep their hearts for Jehovah (vv. 16–18). Anyone who enters the covenant hypocritically, thinking he can avoid God’s punishment, will bring total disaster on himself and the people. “The Lord will never be willing to forgive him; his wrath and zeal will burn against that man. All the curses written in this book will fall upon him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. The Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law” (Deut 29:20–21). Here is the Old Testament counterpart to the Gospel’s unforgivable sin: “The Lord will never be willing to forgive him.” This man is comparable to the unbeliever on whom Jesus says God’s wrath abides (John 3:36). The situation also closely parallels the crisis described in Heb 12:15, where believers also are warned about the “bitter root” that may grow up to their great harm (Deut 29:18).

Moses pictures the outcome of God’s continuing, unforgiving wrath against the land, comparing it to a previous divine judgment: “The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur—nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, that the Lord overthrew in fierce anger. All the nations will ask: ‘Why has the Lord done this to this land? Why this fierce, burning anger?’ And the answer will be: ‘It is because this people abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers’” (Deut 29:23–25).

God portrays in down-to-earth terms the terrible effects of his covenant wrath. We might also relate this passage—and the picture it shows—to the strokes that fell on Jesus at Calvary. There the one who was always faithful to God’s covenant became this man under the covenant’s curse.[24] In both Testaments, God’s salvation springs totally from sovereign mercy. In both cases, he establishes it in a covenant with his people. This covenant contains stipulations and blessings, but it also threatens despisers with the direst of curses.

SUMMARY

In this Old Testament paradigm, the curse of the broken covenant is unmitigated disaster—a destruction and extermination from off the land—leaving only the grim reminder of a desolate and fruitless earth (cf. Heb 6:4–8). The execution of this penalty surely includes great terror, anguish and pain. But when the divine wrath has swept past, no sound is heard in its wake. The silence following the judgment is unbroken.

INTERACTION

Of the seventeen traditionalist authors we are reading, only Gregory K. Beale discusses any part of Deut 29:18–29. Beale cites Deut 29:23 as one of several passages in which the figure of fire and brimstone “indicates” an earthly judgment resulting in death, although he ultimately rejects that meaning in Rev 14:9–11.[25] However, I am unaware of any text, from Sodom onward, in which it is clear that the symbol of fire and brimstone does not involve total destruction including loss of life.

Faithless Judah (Isa 1:27–31) [26]

Isaiah opens his book with an oracle against rebellious Judah and Jerusalem. God has already chastened his people through the Assyrians (Isa 1:7–9), but they have not repented (vv. 4–6). He will continue to punish, but the punishment will be a purgative, leaving a purified remnant faithful to God. “I will turn my hand against you; I will thoroughly purge away your dross and remove your impurities . . . Afterward you will be called The City of Righteousness, The Faithful City” (vv. 25–26). Those who receive correction will be blessed; those who stiffen against God will face a punishment even more severe.

Isaiah contrasts these two facts, using the vivid symbolism common to the prophets: “Zion will be redeemed with justice, her penitent ones with righteousness. But rebels and sinners will both be broken together, and those who forsake the Lord will perish . . . You will be like an oak with fading leaves, like a garden without water. The mighty man will become tinder and his work a spark; both will burn together, with no one to quench the fire” (Isa 1:27–28, 30–31).

SUMMARY

The picture is one of total desolation. Like Sodom and Gomorrah, Judah will be left without survivor or remnant (Isa 1:9). God hammers home this point through powerful figurative language: the people will burn like tinder with no one to quench the fire. Because the fire will not be quenched or extinguished, it will destroy completely. The result can be compared to an oak with fading leaves or a garden with no water.

Nothing remains but destruction, emptiness, and ruin. The wicked will be no more . . . In this case the outcome is total desolation with no survivors. Moses describes that outcome in the “code language” of burning fire that is not quenched and that therefore destroys completely.

Sinful Jerusalem (Isa 5:24–25) [27]

God’s woes and judgment-warnings to Jerusalem continue. The land will be emptied, and its inhabitants will go into captivity (vv. 9, 13). Mockers may rise and tempt God now, but their day will come (vv. 19–21). The prophet pictures their fate in these words: “Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust . . . Therefore the Lord’s anger burns against his people; his hand is raised and he strikes them down. The mountains shake, and the dead bodies are like refuse in the streets. Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised” (Isa 5:24–25). Again God shows us an empty land. Only corpses line the streets. The wicked are as helpless against God’s judgment as straw and dry grasses are against fire. Nothing of them is left—“their roots decay and their flowers blow away like dust.”

We should not interpret this language literally. Isaiah’s hearers did not puzzle over the inconsistency of corpses in the streets on the one hand and destruction by fire on the other. Such prophetic language strikes like a series of thunderclaps or like bolts of lightning. God is not previewing the Jerusalem Evening News; he is painting an abstract landscape. He is not informing the mind or satisfying the curiosity; he is arresting the attention and enlivening the conscience.

One writer compares such prophetic language to Picasso’s abstract painting, Guernica. Here the artist shows the terrible tragedy that befell a particular Basque town on April 28, 1937. His work is not a photograph but an impressionistic painting. By “de-calendarizing” the scene, Picasso universalizes it. It is still specific, but it has become far more. Now it is also a symbol of the ravages and trauma of war throughout history.[28]

Edom (Obad 15–21)

The one-chapter book of Obadiah is “what the Sovereign Lord says about Edom” (v. 1). Throughout the vision, God contrasts the fates of Edom (Esau) and Jacob, of Mount Teman and Mount Zion. In a larger sense Edom and Jacob stand here for those who trust in God and those who do not. In this light we may find the passage instructive on our subject as well.

God will punish Edom for her pride (vv. 3–4), indifference to injustice (vv. 8–11) and betrayal of a brother (vv. 12–14). Divine judgment will be manifested on “the day of the Lord,” a day that is near not only for Edom but for all nations (v. 15). When God does judge, the wicked nations “will drink and drink and be as if they had never been” (v. 16). “The house of Jacob will be a fire and the house of Joseph a flame; the house of Esau will be stubble, and they will set it on fire and consume it. There will be no survivors from the house of Esau. The Lord has spoken” (v. 18). At that time “deliverers will go up on Mount Zion to govern the mountains of Esau. And the kingdom will be the Lord’s” (v. 21).

This text concerns the actual destruction of a specific nation. But it describes Edom’s fate in symbols used by New Testament writers to describe what appears to be final judgment (Rev 14:9–11). That is not surprising, since “Edom” and “Zion” here also seem to stand as representatives of the godly and impious in general. We observe in passing that Edom’s destruction, like Sodom’s, left no survivors, and that the last words are that the kingdom is the Lord’s.

INTERACTION

Of the seventeen traditionalist authors we are reading, only Beale discusses this passage. He cites Obad 16 as one of several passages in which the figure of the cup of God’s wrath symbolizes an earthly judgment resulting in death, although he ultimately rejects that meaning in Rev 14:9–11. Dr. Beale correctly points out that the symbol of the cup does sometimes but not always represent a fatal judgment.

I urge that the cup does stand for fatal judgment in Rev 14:9–11 for two reasons. First, outside Revelation, ultimate extinction is everywhere else in Scripture the clearly-described destiny of the wicked. Second, the three other symbols used in Rev 14:9–11, when used in Scripture outside Revelation, either mean (fire and brimstone; smoke ascending) or are consistent with (no rest day or night) a judgment that ends in death.

Nineveh (Nah 1:2–15)

Like Obadiah’s oracle against Edom, Nahum’s book is directed to a specific pagan people, Nineveh (Nah 1:1). As in Ps 50, God comes in stormy fire for judgment (vv. 3–6). He pours out his wrath like fire that no one can endure (v. 6). He pursues his enemies into darkness (v. 8). He brings their plots to an end, never to reappear (v. 9). They are consumed like dry stubble (v. 10). God cuts them down and they pass away, completely destroyed and left without descendant (vv. 12, 14–15).

Again we get the “feel” of the prophetic judgments. God mixes metaphors freely, for he is not speaking literally. He comes in fire and pursues into darkness. No one should stop and ask how fire and darkness can coexist. The mention of “fire” calls for one emotional response; “darkness” elicits another. Both are true. God graphically describes Nineveh’s plunder later in Nahum’s prophecy in literal terms (Nah 2:3–10; 3:1–3), but that language is no more fearful than this.

Note that Nineveh’s judgment is pictured in terms of fire and darkness—it consumes the people so entirely that they pass away without descendant and with no hope of return.

INTERACTION

Of our seventeen traditionalists, Blanchard[29] and Davies[30] alone discuss this passage in Nahum. Both see it as describing God’s wrath,[31] the only lesson Davies derives from it. Blanchard sees it teaching also the relevance of our deeds, for which God will punish the wicked, in a manner pictured by fire.[32]

Day of the Lord (Zeph 1:14–18) [33]

The “day of the Lord” is the usual prophetic expression for a time of divine judgment against a city, nation or the whole world—a time when God is clearly in charge. This day stands in sharp contrast to “man’s day” (the literal expression in 1 Cor 4:3), when the wicked may occupy the throne and the righteous suffer.

Zephaniah stacks up figure upon figure as he portrays the “day of the Lord” soon to come on Jerusalem in the agency of the Babylonian armies.

The great day of the Lord is near—near and coming quickly. Listen! The cry on the day of the Lord will be bitter, the shouting of the warrior there. That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness, a day of trumpet and battle cry . . . Their blood will be poured out like dust and their entrails like filth. Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the Lord’s wrath. In the fire of his jealousy the whole world will be consumed, for he will make a sudden end of all who live in the earth. (Zeph 1:14–18)

The prophet describes God’s “day of judgment” (here a specific historical judgment against Jerusalem) from its victims’ point of view. It is a day of wrath, distress and trouble—all words that Paul uses to describe the final day of judgment (Rom 2:5–9). It is a day of anguish. It is a day of darkness but also of consuming fire—expressions also repeated in the New Testament warnings of the End.

Zephaniah helps us see again how the Old Testament prophets, by the Spirit of God, pictured God’s approaching punishment. By such passages we learn the prophetic vocabulary for divine visitations of wrath and destruction. These are emotive terms, vivid pictures, powerful descriptions, that create terror and inspire awe.

Summary

In the previous chapter, we examined Old Testament poetic passages that affirm moral principles of divine government. The wicked may thrive now and the righteous suffer, these texts tell us, but that is not the final picture.

In the present chapter, we looked closely at eight historical examples of divine judgment already accomplished. When the first world became too wicked to exist, God destroyed it completely, wiping every living creature outside the ark from the face of the earth. Second Peter says that is a model of the fiery judgment awaiting the present heavens and earth.

When Sodom became too sinful to continue, God rained fire and brimstone from heaven, obliterating the entire wicked population in a moment so terrible it is memorialized throughout Scripture as an example of divine judgment. From this terrible conflagration emerged not a survivor—even the ground was left scorched and barren. Only the lingering smoke remained. Sodom will never be rebuilt.

Second Peter and Jude say that Sodom is a sample of the final judgment to come. From Sodom’s destruction come the symbols and the definitions of fire and brimstone (destruction is total), rising smoke (destruction is completed) and eternal fire (destruction is irreversible).

Edom and Judah, Babylon and Nineveh, in their turn came under God’s temporal judgments.

As we become familiar with the symbolism used by Old Testament prophets, we will learn to look to those earlier Scriptures for the meaning of those symbols when used in the New Testament, always realizing that New Testament authors are free to change that meaning as needed. Familiarity with the biblical vocabulary of judgment lessens the risk of arbitrarily assigning meanings to biblical expressions that have no basis in Scripture, meanings that in fact contradict the regular scriptural usage of those very expressions.[34]

1. Physical death was not their final end, of course, in view of the resurrection and future judgment. However, according to New Testament writers, the Flood-judgment that occurred in this age is a true prototype, in some significant sense, of the final judgment awaiting the wicked in the age to come.

2. Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 112.

3. Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 99.

4. Ibid., 238.

5. Ibid.

6. Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News.

7. Davies, An Angry God? 71.

8. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 23.

9. This sentence is accommodative and not divisive in intent, since both traditionalists and conditionalists differ among themselves regarding the nature of humankind. In whatever way and to whatever extent one thinks of body and soul as distinct entities, one can usefully include this referenced sentence within its paragraph.

10. In fairness to Mohler, Moo, Beale, and Packer, their chapters do not cover topics that reasonably call for discussing the Flood. However, such mention might reasonably be expected at least in chapters by Block, Yarbrough, Peterson, Morgan, and Ferguson.

11. Deut 32:32; Isa 1:10; 3:9; Jer 23:14; Ezek 16:46–56; Rev 11:8. Yet Jesus says judgment will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for the cities that rejected his personal ministry and miracles (Matt 10:15; 11:23–24; Luke 10:12).

12. Constable, Duration and Nature of Future Punishment, 141.

13. Brimstone (“sulfur” in the NIV, NLT, CEV, HCSB, TNIV) is part of the divine retribution against apostates in Israel (Deut 29:23; Job 18:15; Ps 11:6), against Assyria (Isa 30:33), Edom (Isa 34:9), Gog (Ezek 38:22), idolaters (Rev 14:10), the beast and false prophet (Rev 19:20), Satan (Rev 20:10) and sinners in general (Rev 21:8). Petavel speaks of its suffocating vapor, which he includes as an agent of destruction (Petavel, The Problem of Immortality, 193). The final outcome of “fire and brimstone” in the prototypal historical judgment of Sodom was the complete extermination of every sinner and the unequivocal desolation of their land. When the “fire and brimstone” had passed, nothing but smoke was left.

14. Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 196.

15. Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News, 155.

16. Davies, An Angry God? 71.

17. Morgan, “Biblical Theology,” 141.

18. Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 112.

19. Bauckham, “Judgment in the Book of Revelation,” 19.

20. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 24.

21. Ibid., 84–85.

22. Ibid., 22.

23. Ibid.

24. Heb 3:2, 6. According to a growing number of scholars, the expression “the faith of Christ” (Gal 2:16, 20, et al.) may well refer to Christ’s own faith(fulness) to God as a man under the covenant. Although Jesus kept faith with God by perfect obedience to the covenant stipulations and thereby earned the covenant blessings, he willingly “became a curse for us” (Gal 3:13). To charge the imputed curse of the cross to Jesus’ own merit is the blasphemy of 1 Cor 12:3, and it fails to recognize that the smitten one receives the stripes due to others (Isa 53:4–5). That this one seemingly accursed by God should be the Messiah was the gospel’s scandal to unconverted Saul of Tarsus.

25. Beale, “The Revelation on Hell,” 114.

26. None of the seventeen traditionalist authors with whom we are interacting discusses this text. (See chapter 3, note 56 for list of authors.)

27. None of the seventeen traditionalist authors with whom we are interacting discusses this text.

28. Eller, The Most Revealing Book of the Bible, 87–90.

29. Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 117, 137, 162, 172.

30. Davies, An Angry God? 73–74.

31. Ibid., Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell?162.

32. Ibid., 117, 172, 137.

33. Of our seventeen traditionalist authors, only Blanchard mentions this text; he does so to illustrate that God is angry (Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 106).

34. In a manner seemingly unique to this subject, traditionalist authors regularly indicate little interest in allowing Scripture to interpret itself. Of all traditionalists we have read, whether published before the first edition of The Fire That Consumes (1982) or since, Dr. Gregory K. Beale is the notable regular exception to this charge, showing a willingness to acknowledge common biblical meanings of symbols that other traditionalists either vehemently deny or simply ignore.

In its interpretation of biblical teaching on the final destiny of the unrepentant, The Fire That Consumes takes into full account language and symbols from the Jewish Scriptures, clearly showing the continuity in concepts and images of divine judgment between the two testaments. Traditionalist authors often criticize this approach as a flawed hermeneutic and dismiss its results as faulty exegesis. Professor Bauckham, on the other hand, regards it as a “major strength” of the book. Bauckham, “Foreword,” ix.

8

Divine Justice: Messiah and the End

W E CONCLUDE OUR Old Testament exploration with eight prophetic passages that speak directly about final punishment. In each case, the prophecy either is interpreted as messianic in the New Testament, or its Old Testament context clearly relates it to the end-time[1] when God will judge the world.

Direct Prophetic Statements of Future Judgment

These texts have special value for our study, since they look beyond circumstances of ancient history to the final expression of divine justice (toward the wicked) and divine mercy (toward the redeemed).

Psalm 1:3–6

This psalm contrasts the godly person and the godless one, regarding their present lives and their future destinies. It specifically takes God’s final judgment into account. The godly person is like a well-watered fruit tree that produces year around (v. 3). The picture reminds us of the Garden of Eden in Genesis or of the eternal city in Revelation.

The wicked, by contrast, are “like chaff that the wind blows away.” They will not be able to stand in judgment, and their path will finally perish (vv. 4–6). The phrase pictures disintegration and desolation. Other passages will add details, but none will contradict what these verses say.

INTERACTION

John Blanchard says that if the Psalmist intended to foretell the “annihilation” of the wicked, the Hebrew word here translated “perish” could convey that meaning.[2] However, John Gerstner sees the only two alternatives as unending conscious torment or instantaneous annihilation,[3] overlooking the fact that the wicked finally perish says nothing about the duration of the destructive process.

Dr. Gerstner also resurrects Anselm’s argument that applies class-based concepts of twelfth-century feudal justice to the subject of final punishment. “Dr. Fudge himself . . . thinks . . . adequate punishment for . . . sin against an infinite God is some finite time period.”[4] The “adequate punishment . . . infinite God . . . finite time period” rested on feudal law, which determined criminal punishments and civil damages by the relative social status of the wrongdoer and the victim.

The Mosaic Code expressly prohibited such calculations, mandating the precise opposite in the command referred to as the lex talionis: “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” (Exod 21:23–25; Lev 24:18–20). This divine command was intended to provide equal justice to all, with criminal punishments and civil damages precisely fitted to crimes, without regard to persons.

Even if it were not contrary to Scripture in principle, Anselm’s argument would not foreclose the final extinction of the wicked. The second death is irreversible destruction (unlimited in time), and it involves the whole person (unlimited in scope). Being without limitation in both respects, it also constitutes “infinite” punishment by definition.[5]

Based on Scripture indices and tables of contents, none of our other contemporary traditionalists mentions Psalm 1.

Psalm 2:9–12 [6]

New Testament writers regularly apply language from Ps 2 to Jesus as the Messiah.[7] Verses 9 and 12 describe the Son’s wrath against his enemies. “You will rule them [or break them] with an iron scepter; You will dash them to pieces like pottery” (v. 9). “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment” (v. 12).

In this text, evildoers do not pass quietly away. They “perish” as the result of the Messiah’s kindled wrath, when he “shepherds” them with an iron rod, an end that the Psalm compares to being shattered like earthenware. This Psalm portrays destruction in the ordinary sense of the word.

Isaiah 11:4 [8]

The New Testament interprets this chapter as messianic. Paul applies verse 10 to his gospel ministry to the nations (Rom 15:12). New Testament writers[9] paraphrase or echo verses 1–5. Various interpreters relate verses 6–9 to the gospel age, or the millennium, or the new heavens and earth—in each case, as they see it, the fruit of Jesus’ redemptive work.

The Messiah judges justly, rendering decisions on behalf of the world’s poor and therefore powerless. The wicked also feel his judgment, for “he will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked” (v. 4). The language reminds us of Ps 2. Men may scoff at Christ now, but one day he will be their judge. From his lips now flow life and peace; by them the wicked will then be slain. The picture is symbolic but its import is clear.

Isaiah 33:10–24 [10]

This passage refers to the age to come, as indicated by verses 17–24. Redeemed Zion will “see the King in his beauty and view a land that stretches afar” (v. 17). God’s people will look on the eternal Jerusalem (v. 20), where none will be ill and all sins will have been forgiven (v. 24).

Oppressors afflict Israel now, Isaiah says, but God has a brighter future for his people. When he “arises,” the scene will change (v. 10). If the wicked attempt to protect themselves, they will be as disappointingly weak as one who conceives chaff and gives birth to straw. The wicked will ignite themselves by their own sins (v. 11), which will then “consume” them (v. 11). They will burn “as if to lime,” blazing like “cut thorn bushes” (v. 12). This is a picture of total destruction.

Some traditionalists have interpreted verse 14 as referring to unending conscious torment, but the entire context argues otherwise. Verses 11–12 picture total destruction by fire. This fire consumes, which is why no wicked person can “dwell” with it. Verse 14 describes the eternal holiness of God himself, who is a “consuming fire.”[11]

The “everlasting burning” of Isa 33:14 parallels the “consuming fire” of verse 11, and both refer best to God in his holiness. Verse 14 asks a question that is answered by the following verses. Only the person who “walks righteously and speaks what is right” can dwell with the God who is a consuming fire, whose holy glory is an everlasting burning against all sin.[12]

Isaiah 51:3–11 [13]

This passage is messianic in context and in content. Jesus both precedes (Isa 50:4–10) and follows it (Isa 52:13—53:12). These verses anticipate God’s righteousness and salvation, which (from our perspective) Jesus has procured and the Holy Spirit now administers. There might be a partial spiritual fulfillment now, but the consummation awaits the End. Passages such as this add content to the Old Testament witness about the final destiny of the wicked.

God will restore his people to a new Eden ringing with thanksgiving and joyful song (v. 3). All the nations will share in God’s righteousness and salvation that will last forever (vv. 4–6, 8). The wicked will have no part in this paradise. “For the moth will eat them up like a garment; the worm will devour them like wool” (v. 8).

This language is symbolic but true. We therefore take it seriously but not literally. God does not intend for us to picture the damned as the main course at a banquet for giant insects and their larvae. The figure is just that—a figure. But it stands for something and it truly describes the reality for which it stands. This passage can teach us something about the end of the wicked if we allow it to speak in its own genre.

Isaiah 66:24

This text is one of the most quoted biblical passages related to the topic of final punishment. It is also one of the most neglected. Verse 24 is particularly interesting because it does not describe the actual execution of divine judgment. Instead it provides a visual postscript, a victorious afterword that underscores God’s universal triumph and reaffirms the safety of his people.

The Book of Isaiah opened with a picture of all nations coming to Jerusalem to learn God’s word (2:1–4). Now it closes with a similar, all-encompassing picture—a scene from the new heavens and the new earth (v. 22).

THE SCENE

As Isa 66 begins, God promises peace and comfort to the humble, but he warns that fury awaits his foes (Isa 66:2, 12–14). The language is typical prophetic symbolism. God executes judgment against his enemies with fire and with sword; their casualties are “many” (v. 15–17). No wicked people remain alive. Only the righteous have survived, and they will endure forever (v. 22). The dream of psalmist and prophet will come to pass.

People from all nations come to Jerusalem to worship God (vs. 18–23). It is a joyful and triumphant scene. This is the setting of the crucial text, Isa 66:24, a final brief comment that brings the book to a close. Concerning the righteous, Isaiah adds a single sentence: “And they will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.”

Salmond, who defended the traditionalist view of hell, summarizes: “This is the picture at least of an absolute overthrow, an irreversible punishment overtaking the rebellious.”[14] Let us consider the details in this picture one by one.

Exposed Corpses

To the Hebrew mind, even if a man could live to be two thousand years old and have one hundred children, without a proper burial he would better have been stillborn (Eccl 6:3). Like Jezebel, these corpses are left unburied; they are “loathsome” to all who see them (2 Kgs 9:10). Jeremiah also predicts this ultimate disgrace for God’s enemies: “At that time those slain by the Lord will be everywhere—from one end of the earth to the other. They will not be mourned or gathered up or buried, but will be like refuse lying on the ground” (Jer 25:33). Such discarded corpses are fit only for the worms and fire.

Worms

Other Bible verses mention “worms” in connection with dead bodies.[15] Several kinds of flies lay eggs in the flesh of carcasses that hatch into larvae known as maggots. These serve a beneficial purpose in hastening decomposition. They are also a symbol of ignominy “precisely because they attack only bodies deprived of burial.”[16]

In Isaiah’s vision, the worms do not die, at least not until they finish their consumptive task. However, even if the worms were said to be immortal, which is not the case, that would neither transform dead bodies into living people, nor redefine the worms’ mission from one of consuming to one of tormenting, nor reconstitute the corpses they had consumed.[17]

Fire

Although death by burning was not unknown to the Old Testament,[18] that is not the picture here. To burn a corpse signified at times a thing utterly accursed or devoted to God for destruction (Josh 7:25). It also was an act of complete contempt (Amos 2:1).[19]

The figure of “unquenchable” fire appears frequently throughout Scripture and signifies a fire that cannot be resisted or put out until it has done what fire is intended to do. Because this fire is “not quenched” or extinguished, it completely consumes what is put into it. Yet an “unquenchable” fire eventually goes out, when it has consumed its fuel. “Unquenchable” does not mean ever-burning, but irresistible. Because it cannot be thwarted in its intended purpose, or stopped short of accomplishing its goal, “unquenchable” fire (“irresistible fire”) fully consumes (Ezek 20:47–48), reduces to nothing (Amos 5:5–6) or burns up what is put into it (Matt 3:12).[20]

Loathsome

The corpses in Isa 66:24 lie exposed and unburied, the food of maggots and the smoldering garbage fire. The worms and the fire both signify a total destruction, and both make this a “loathsome” scene. It is not a picture of pain but of shame;[21] the righteous who view it react with disgust not with pity. The sight and smell of burning, maggot-ridden corpses is loathsome, contemptible, abhorrent, repugnant, and repulsive.

The text before us contains not one hint of conscious torment. Let us suppose that, in the process of dying, the people whose corpses we now discuss had suffered very much indeed. Even so, by the time we arrive at verse 24, all conscious agony has come to an end. In this scenario, the wicked are thoroughly dead.[22]

Although this vignette of future judgment is clearly symbolic, it might reflect an actual spectacle witnessed by Isaiah himself. When

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;[23]

God answered Hezekiah’s prayer by performing one of the greatest acts of deliverance since the Exodus. That night “the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies!” (Isa 37:36).

Now Isaiah envisions a similar scene on a grander scale. In both historical event (Isa 37:36) and prophetic picture (Isaiah 66:24), the righteous contemplate with satisfaction “the dead bodies” of the wicked. They look at corpses (Hebrew: pegerim), not living people. It is an image of destruction rather than misery.[24]

THE LANGUAGE OF JUDGMENT

This simple narrative leaves us with a final view of dead bodies being consumed by maggots and by fire until finally nothing remains. It contributes three symbols or ciphers to the biblical vocabulary of judgment. Two symbols are very familiar: the undying worm and the unquenchable fire, insatiable competitors for the total consumption of dead bodies. Less well known is the statement that this sight is loathsome and worthy of contempt by all who view these corpses of God’s erstwhile enemies.

LATER BIBLICAL USE

Jesus quotes these words concerning the undying worm and unquenchable fire in one of his own best-known teachings about hell (Mark 9:48). The same words have formed the basis for much Christian teaching on hell ever since. The Hebrew word translated as “loathsome” or “abhorrent” appears later in Dan 12:2, for which this text might be a source.

INTERACTION

Arbitrary definitions

There is no scriptural or logical warrant for defining “unquenchable” fire as “fire that never goes out.” Yet through the centuries, traditionalists regularly give it that meaning. Then they argue that if the fire never goes out but burns forever, the people in that fire must be alive forever, suffering everlasting torment.[25]

Biblical usage of the adjective “unquenchable” inspires a different line of logic. “Unquenchable” fire is fire that cannot be resisted. Therefore it completely consumes whatever is put into it. Therefore those who go to hell will truly die, perish, and be destroyed—in their entirety and forever—without recourse or return.

Evangelical Methodology

When interpreting a New Testament quotation from the Old Testament, a high view of Scripture calls us to begin with the original contextual meaning of the Old Testament phrases and symbols (here: corpses, worms, fire, contempt), then to approach the New Testament quotation with that meaning in mind, sensitive to any change in meaning by Jesus or the New Testament writer. Instead, traditionalist authors often either bypass the original Old Testament meaning entirely or, noting it, arbitrarily replace it with a different meaning based more on their systematic theology than on biblical exegesis.

Peterson stands the exegetical process on its head. Yet he charges me with “flawed methodology” for beginning with Isaiah’s picture. He says that “proper theological methodology involves allowing the New Testament writers to move beyond their Old Testament background in keeping with the progress of revelation. Fudge errs by reading his supposed meaning of Isaiah 66:24 into the New Testament, where it does not fit.”[26]

That is a straw man argument. In fact, I have constantly urged that we allow New Testament writers absolute freedom to change any original Old Testament meaning. In this case, that original meaning (of death and destruction) “fits” the New Testament teaching very well, although it does not “fit” Peterson’s traditionalist conclusions.

A Case in Point

Although Jesus does not change the meaning of Isaiah’s picture, he “moves beyond” Isaiah’s picture in four specific ways. First, he names the place: Gehenna, an identification implied in Isaiah but made explicit in the intertestamental pseudepigrapha. Second, Jesus describes at least two attitudes manifested by those who go to Gehenna (hell).[27] Sometimes they are remorseful, expressed by weeping. Sometimes they are filled with rage, expressed by gnashing their teeth. We will examine both reactions close up when we work through the teaching of Jesus.

Third, although Isaiah’s scenario mentions only dead corpses, Jesus warns that God is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna (Matt 10:28). Fourth, the imagery in Isaiah involves events, places, and things, that all belong to the present age. Jesus borrows the imagery to describe “a retribution of another order than any that takes effect on earth.”[28]

Traditionalist Missteps

Traditionalist authors respond to Isa 66:24 in a variety of ways. Some simply ignore the passage and proceed as if it did not exist.[29] Others expand the meaning of the text to satisfy their own sense of what Scripture ought to say.[30] Since Tertullian, many traditionalist authors have been concerned that the wicked not be punished too “lightly,” even if that meant changing the plain teaching of Scripture to something quite different from what it actually says.[31]

This eisegetical practice of reading extraneous ideas into the biblical text began at least as early as the intertestamental book of Judith. Near the end of that apocryphal book, God marvelously delivers his people from the Assyrians, and the heroine Judith leads the people in a victory song. Alluding to Isa 66:24, she says: “Woe to the nation that rises up against my race: the Lord Almighty will take vengeance of them in the day of judgment, to put fire and worms in their flesh; and they shall weep and feel their pain for ever” (Jdt 16:17). Judith clearly expects her enemies to suffer unending torment, an idea totally foreign to Isa 66. We will return to Judith later.

Daniel 12:2–3

Even scholars who see very few Old Testament references to a final resurrection acknowledge it in this verse.[32] The passage includes a dual resurrection of both good and evil, but it is not clear whether it includes all or only some of the dead. Opinions regarding the larger purpose range from “a solution to the problem of the defense of the righteous in persecution”[33] to God’s reversal of human judgment wrought by an end-time Antichrist.[34]

Concerning the wicked, the text says only that “multitudes” will awake from the dust of the earth, some “to everlasting life,” but others “to shame and everlasting contempt.” The Hebrew word here translated “contempt” also appears in Isa 66:24, where it is translated “loathsome” and describes unburied corpses.

INTERACTION

Most traditionalist writers either ignore this passage altogether,[35] or mention or quote it without explanation.[36] Peterson is restrained and limits himself to Daniel’s words regarding “eternal disgrace.”[37] Other traditionalists are bolder, claiming the text in support of unending conscious torment. Dixon alleges, without substantiation, that “everlasting contempt” here “assumes the continuing existence of the object of God’s hatred.” Presumably he sees the contempt as God’s.[38]

Beale observes that Second Temple Judaism “more predominantly” expected the wicked not to rise at all, quoting a rabbinical saying that the wicked “shall arise for the day of judgment, but they shall not live.” Then, with no stated reason or basis, he explains the rabbinical saying to mean that “they will not live the kind of resurrection life that God’s saints live.”[39]

Block goes even further with a two-fold argument. Daniel does not contrast “eternal life” with “eternal death,” Block notes, but with “disgrace and eternal contempt.” He then defines “life” as life filled with divine fellowship and blessing. He concludes that the wicked also live in the sense of not being “dead,” but not in the blessed sense that the righteous enjoy. [40]

However, there is a much simpler explanation. Daniel shows us a scene earlier than the second death—the general resurrection of good and evil. The destiny of the wicked will be “shame and everlasting contempt,” but between Daniel’s resurrection and that final destiny there is the second death and the scene we saw in Isa 66:24.

Concerning the phrase “eternal disgrace and contempt,” Block notes that normally a corpse “decomposes fairly rapidly” in a repugnant and loathsome process, but the repugnancy ends when decomposition is complete. In Daniel, however, the wicked are raised to “eternal disgrace and contempt,”[41] from which Block deduces that the wicked live forever, zombie-like, but in a state of decay characteristic of someone recently dead.

Daniel 12:2 neither needs nor warrants such creative explanation. It is enough to observe that the wicked in Dan 12:2 are not decomposing corpses at all, having been raised (to eternal disgrace and contempt). However, if we place this vision alongside that of Isa 66:24, they will be corpses again soon enough.

When these wicked people are finally destroyed in the second death, they will never be raised again. Nor can they anticipate a positive legacy through a rehabilitated memory: forever their legacy will be “shame and everlasting contempt.”

Malachi 4:1–6

These half-dozen verses stand on one side of the great chasm of intertestamental silence,[42] where they reach out expectantly for the story that the Gospels will resume 400 years later. Jesus himself says John is this passage’s “Elijah” (Matt 11:14; Mark 9:11–13; Luke 1:17). Like the book of Revelation in the New, this last book of the Old Testament Scriptures (in time, not in canonical order in either Hebrew or Greek) contrasts the final destinies of good and evil.

THE SCENE

The “day” of God is coming (v. 1), the “great and dreadful day of the Lord” (v. 5). For those who revere God it will bring joy. They will leap like frolicking calves as they rejoice in the healing rays of the Sun of righteousness (v. 2). This day will also bring their vindication; the wicked will become “ashes under the soles” of their feet (v. 3).

Arrogant evildoers will become like “stubble,” and the coming day will “set them on fire.” This is an all-consuming fire that will leave them “not a root or a branch” (v. 1). The expression eliminates every possibility of remnant or survivor.[43] It will be too late then for remedy; there will be no hope of restoration or possibility of escape.

We need not literalize this prophecy or try to plan its program. These are representative symbols. But the reality they convey is in keeping with the sense of the pictures. The symbol corresponds to the fulfillment. It does not contradict it. The picture portrays the righteous rejoicing in God’s salvation and the wicked gone forever. The picture does not include perpetual torment, though it does include a total consumption by destroying fire.

With these sobering verses Old Testament revelation ceased. God’s next prophet would cry in the desert, demanding repentance in view of the approaching fire of God (Matt 3:7–12). That judgment fire is unquenchable and cannot be resisted. For that very reason, the wicked cast into it will be burned up (Matt 3:12).

INTERACTION

This prophetic word from God through his messenger Malachi is clear, direct, and unequivocal, and it powerfully sets forth the final end of the wicked as taught throughout the rest of Scripture. Small wonder, therefore, that traditionalist advocates almost always pass by it on the far side of the highway as if it were not even there.[44]

Dixon, however, faces this text head-on. He does not deny that Malachi says that the wicked will be set on fire, that the fire will leave them neither root nor branch, or that they will become ashes under the soles of the feet of the righteous. He cannot deny those things, for they are right there on the page. Instead he denies that the words mean what they actually say. Writes Dixon: “The words ‘burn’ or ‘burn up’ used of the wicked in Malachi 4:1–3 . . . are shown not to mean annihilation by Job 30:30 and Revelation 14:10–11.”[45]

And exactly why do the straightforward words burn and burn up as used in Malachi 4:1–3 really mean anything except what they actually appear to say? For two reasons, Dixon says. First, because in what is perhaps the most pitiful saga of sustained suffering in the Old Testament, boil-covered Job had cried out in his agony, “My bones burn up!” (Job 30:30). Job was obviously speaking figuratively, Dixon reasons, therefore Malachi must be doing the same. Second, we cannot take Malachi’s words literally, says Dixon, because it would conflict with the literal interpretation of Rev 14:10–14, a highly-symbolic scene in an apocalyptic vision given centuries later to an exiled apostle on Patmos.[46]

Summary

The Old Testament prophets speak to their own times, but they also stand on tiptoe and view the distant future. A day is coming, they tell us, when God will bring an end to all he has begun. That judgment will be the last.[47] Good and evil people alike will be gathered to see the righteousness of the Lord whom they have served or spurned. This will be the judgment of God through his Messiah, the judgment of the End, the eschatological judgment. We examined eight different passages of this kind, all used by New Testament authors and applied to Jesus and/or to the end of the world.

In these texts, we encountered fire and storm, tempest and darkness. The slain of God will be many—corpses will lie in the street. Amid this scene of utter contempt, worms and fire will take their final toll. Nothing will remain of the wicked but smoke and ashes—the righteous will tread over them with their feet. God’s kingdom will endure forever. The righteous and their children will inherit Mount Zion. Joy and singing will fill the air. The Redeemer has rescued. The Warrior has conquered. The Judge has vindicated his people. Finally, all creation will praise the Lord! Such is the Old Testament picture of the end of the wicked.

1. Marshall calls “eschatology” a “slippery word” because of its frequent careless use in at least nine different senses. He suggests avoiding the term so far as possible and urges that it be used, when necessary, with care and precision (Marshall, “Slippery Words,” 264–69).

2. Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 234.

3. Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 113.

4. Ibid.

5. Witsius, a highly-respected Reformed theologian of the seventeenth century, explains the logic leading to this conclusion, as quoted in connection with our discussion of Anselm in chapter 29.

6. None other of our contemporary traditionalist authors mentions this Psalm.

7. Matt 3:17; 17:5; Acts 4:26; 13:33; Heb 1:5; 5:5; Rev 2:26–27; 12:5; 19:15.

8. This passage is not indexed or listed in the contents of any of our seventeen traditionalist authors.

9. Acts 13:23; Matt 3:16; John 2:25; 7:24; 2 Thess 2:8; Eph 6:14.

10. Of the traditionalist authors we are tracking, only Gerstner discusses this passage, denying our interpretation but not answering it (Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 116–19).

11. Deut 4:24; Heb 12:29; Isa 5:24, 25; 10:16–18; 47:14.

12. Traditionalist (Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 116–19), conditionalist (our explanation here) and universalist/restorationist (Baker, Razing Hell, 178–79) all include the fire of God’s presence in their scenarios, but with very different results.

13. Three traditionalist authors cite some portion of this text in passing remarks about something else: Peterson, regarding eternal salvation (Peterson, Hell on Trial, 35), Dixon, regarding judgment (Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News, 80), and Block, regarding the netherworld (Block, Hell Under Fire, 45). None of the seventeen authors we are following actually discusses this passage.

14. Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality, 354.

15. Isa 14:11. Job speaks thus of himself as one already dead in Job 7:5; 17:14. The New Testament knows one case of death preceded by an attack of worms (Acts 12:23).

16. Petavel, The Problem of Immortality, 323.

17. Traditionalist John Gerstner cannot explain how corpses might feel pain of torment, so he changes the corpses in Isaiah’s picture into non-corpses. Gerstner writes: “The worms do not die and the fire is not quenched because these dead people are not dead! They are the burning ‘dead’ in torment . . . One does not have to be a traditionalist to see that ‘carcasses’ which do not die are ever-living ‘carcasses.’” (Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 122.)

18. “Death by burning is prescribed for two sexual offenses (Lev 20:14; 21:9); in the story of Gen 38:24 it is for harlotry” (Greenberg, “Crimes and Punishment,” 1:741).

19. Pedersen reads later ideas into the text in his comment: “When the worms gnaw the dead body, the soul feels it” (Pedersen, Israel, 1–2:180).

20. See also 2 Kgs 22:17; Isa 1:31; Jer 4:4; 21:12; Mark 9:43, 48.

21. Christopher Morgan assumes, contrary to Isaiah’s stated picture, that the worm and fire are agents of torment and not of consumption. “The agents of suffering (the worm and the fire) are never extinguished,” he says. “The implication is strong: The agents of suffering never end because those in hell experience conscious suffering forever” (Morgan, “Biblical Theology,” 137).

Robert W. Yarbrough assumes that the notion that “hell’s agonies are ongoing and never-ending . . . is . . . at least as old as Isaiah.” He reasons that “in ancient Israel . . . [t]here was at the very least belief in some quarters” in unending conscious torment, which is true, as we saw in previous chapters. Next he assumes that “[t]his idea came from God, through Isaiah [66:24] and Daniel [12:2–3].” Then he assumes that when Jesus quoted from Isa 66:24, he “appropriated” the belief Yarbrough had assumed earlier. Based on this combination of assumptions, Yarbrough concludes that Jesus “endorsed” belief in unending conscious torment (Yarbrough, “Jesus on Hell,” 74).

The only proven detail in that entire chain of logic is that Yarbrough’s view was held “in some quarters” in “ancient Israel.” We will soon investigate the actual teaching of Jesus himself in five chapters, where we will discover that he taught consistently and in a variety of ways that the wicked will be destroyed both soul and body in hell.

Block rightly notes that “[t]he image is also that of a pile of corpses, victims in battle, ignominiously dumped in a heap and torched” (Block, “The Old Testament on Hell,” 61). However, having stated the original situation so carefully, he leaps several steps to a non sequitur conclusion: “When the doctrine of hell develops in the New Testament, it borrows much of its imagery from . . . the images of perpetual suffering through maggots and unquenchable fire in Isaiah 66:24” (ibid., 65 [emphasis added]). Jesus does “borrow” imagery from Isa 66:24 (of destruction), but perpetual suffering is nowhere in Isaiah’s picture.

22. Gregory K. Beale makes a gentle effort to turn Isaiah’s corpses into living people. He appeals to a Targum (an interpretative Aramaic translation read in the synagogue) on this passage that says “their spirits [or breaths] shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched.” However, in a footnote Beale acknowledges an ambiguity in the Aramaic text concerning whether the suffering is temporary or everlasting. He clearly prefers the latter reading but notes that “one does not need to assume that [New Testament writers] would have endorsed every interpretative addition introduced by the Targum” (Beale, “The Revelation on Hell,” 132). That is a wise comment to remember, whether the Aramaic Targum favors temporary suffering or unending conscious torment.

23. Byron, “The Destruction of Sennacherib,” Online: http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/348.html/.

24. On God’s people viewing the carcasses of their enemies with satisfaction, see also Exod 14:30 (the prototypical event); Pss 58:10; 91:7–8; Ezek 39:9–22; Mal 4:1–3.

25. Eryl Davies admits that Isa 66 describes a scene of physical death, but he claims that Jesus’ repeated mention that “the fire . . . never shall be quenched” underscored “the permanence both of divine wrath and the conscious punishment of unbelievers” (Davies, An Angry God? 138–39).

Yarbrough claims that “[a] fire that ‘continues to destroy until nothing remains’ is not unquenchable; it is rather quenched—if ‘nothing remains,’ as Fudge claims, the fire must go out” (Yarbrough, “Jesus on Hell,” 82).

Robert A. Peterson says that “Isaiah uses earthly images of corpses beset by undying worms and inextinguishable fire to point to the final doom of the wicked—eternal punishment” (Peterson, Hell on Trial, 36). Later he claims that “Isaiah pictures . . . endless punishment when he says ‘their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched’” (ibid., 63).

26. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 63.

27. Whether alternatively, intermittently, simultaneously, or successively.

28. Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality, 354.

29. Braun ignores the passage entirely (Braun, Whatever Happened to Hell? 130–42).

30. Isaac Watts says there would be “no punishment at all” if the text meant what it pictures, so he allegorizes the gnawing worm into “the remorse and terrible anguish of conscience which shall never be relieved,” and makes the unquenchable fire “the pains and anguish which come from without” (Watts, The World to Come, 300–301). Gerstner takes the same approach, insistent that nothing but conscious torment qualifies as “punishment” (Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 120–23).

31. Blanchard interprets the contempt to mean that “the conscience will endlessly gnaw at the sinner’s soul” (Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 145). Foregoing exegesis, Calvin also explained “the plain meaning” to be “that the wicked shall have a bad conscience as an executioner, to torment them without end . . . and finally, that they shall tremble and be agitated in a dreadful and shocking manner, as if a worm were gnawing the heart of a man, or a fire were consuming it, and yet thus consumed, he did not die” (ibid., 439). Luther also makes the worm “the bite of the conscience,” an interpretation that Augustine had suggested (Luther, Luther’s Works, 17, 416). Here the Reformers engage in blatant eisegesis, reading into Scripture from their own imagination something that is not there.

32. Rowley calls Dan 12:2 “the only clear and universally recognized reference to resurrection in the Old Testament,” according to Ridenhour, “Immortality and Resurrection,” 107.

33. Ridenhour, “Immortality and Resurrection,” 107.

34. Block, “The Old Testament on Hell,” 62–63.

35. Braun, Whatever Happened to Hell? ; Davies, An Angry God?

36. Buis, The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, 12.

37. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 35–36.

38. Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News, 77.

39. Beale, “The Revelation on Hell,” 131.

40. Block, “The Old Testament on Hell,” 63.

41. Ibid., 64.

42. The period was “silent” in terms of canonical prophet, but it was richly filled with colorful speech in many accents, much preserved in the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha and Dead Sea Scrolls.

43. When God promised Judah a surviving remnant on another occasion, he used language just opposite this (2 Kgs 19:30; see the same figure applied to Jesus in Isa 11:1; 53:2).

44. Blanchard quotes part of this Malachi text without explanation (Whatever Happened to Hell? 137), Dixon comments as discussed below, and our fifteen other traditionalists remain silent.

45. Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News, 79.

46. Rev 14:10–14 and Rev 20:10 are the two biblical texts that come closest to affirming unending conscious torment, and they are the only two texts that do. Traditionalists frequently resort to those two passages whenever they encounter any of the scores of other Scriptures that seem directly to contradict their view. Although simplistic, it is almost fair to say that this whole debate rests finally on one question: should we interpret dozens of straightforward texts throughout the Bible to match the literal sense of two symbolic texts in the Apocalypse, or ought we to interpret the two apocalyptic texts symbolically to conform to the many others? It is highly unlikely that, on any other subject, any of our traditionalist brothers or sisters finally base an entire doctrine on two texts from Revelation.

47. Forsyth wrote: “For the Bible as a whole . . . history is viewed under the category of judgment (though saving judgment) and not under that of progress . . . The course of historic events is that of a series of judgments . . . a long crescendo of judgment, ending in a crisis of all the crises, a harvest of all the harvests which had closed one age and begun a new, a grand climacteric of judgment, a last judgment, which dissipates for ever in a storm the silting up of all previous judgments, because ending a temporal world and opening an eternal” (Forsyth, The Justification of God, 185; quoted by Morris, The Biblical Doctrine of Judgment, 60).

9

Diversity: Apocrypha and Dead Sea Scrolls

MOST AUTHORS WHO HAVE written in defense of unending conscious torment have presupposed that Jesus held that same view. Traditionalists commonly say that the Old Testament is largely silent concerning the end of the wicked. During the time between the Testaments, they allege, the doctrine of unending conscious torment developed from Old Testament principles.[1] By the time Jesus was born, they continue, the idea of unending conscious torment had become “the Jewish view.”[2] From these premises, traditionalists concluded that Jesus himself also believed in everlasting conscious torment,[3] and that we ought to interpret his teachings with that presupposition in mind.

Traditionalist Assumptions

From the biblical data surveyed in the previous three chapters, we already know that the first premise in this traditionalist argument is false. It is true that the Old Testament never uses the word gehenna (translated “hell”), and that it never mentions unending conscious torment. However, the Old Testament says much concerning the end of the wicked.

The second premise above is partly true and partly false. True, a doctrine of unending conscious torment did develop within Judaism during the time between Malachi and Matthew. However, it is not true that this doctrine developed from Old Testament principles. Instead it evolved from a blend of biblical symbolism and a generous input of ideas from the larger Hellenistic culture. This was the same culture that earlier led the apocryphal heroine Judith to change Isaiah’s vision of corpses consumed by external fire and worms into a vision of living people tormented by internal worms and fire.

But what of the claim that, by the time of Jesus, the concept of everlasting conscious torment had become “the Jewish view,” so that we must assume that Jesus accepted it? Happily, we are able to test this claim as well. We need only to examine the Second Temple Jewish literature that we have written largely between the Testaments—the Apocrypha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and varied Pseudepigrapha—to see whether it speaks with one voice regarding the final destiny of the wicked, or if it reveals a diversity of Jewish opinion on the subject.

As we survey this literature, we will discover a picture that “is far from clear or coherent.”[4] Instead of unanimity, we will find “a heterogeneous mass of ideas in constant flux.”[5] But before we test the final premise of this traditionalist argument, let us briefly look at a special type of literature, and at the people, circumstances and events that produced it.

Interaction

Kendall S. Harmon strangely comments that, “Fudge admits” that this material “is quite diverse.”[6] Actually, I insist that the intertestamental literature “is quite diverse,” and I always have. Indeed, that diversity of Jewish opinion at the dawn of the first century of the present era is the primary point that I hope we will take home from our study.

And why does that matter? The reason is worth repeating. This diversity means that we cannot presume, based on some supposedly uniform “Jewish view,” that Jesus believed in everlasting torment. We must consider Jesus’ own words and allow him to speak for himself.

Tyrant, Heroes and Apocalyptic Literature

Within a century after Malachi, Alexander the Great had conquered his world, taking monetary tribute but leaving a language and a culture wherever he went. The Greek language became the common tongue. The Jews were widely dispersed. Those who returned to Palestine soon found themselves under foreign occupation once more. The Seleucids of Syria and Ptolemies of Egypt competed for mastery of this land-strip and finally relinquished it to the Romans, who installed as rulers the mixed-race family of Edomite Herods.

The last two centuries before Christ were troubling years for faithful Jews, as the Syrian tyrant, Antiochus IV (175–164 BC)[7] outlawed, on pain of death, Sabbath observance, circumcision, and laws concerning food. Antiochus then committed ultimate blasphemy by erecting an altar to Zeus in the temple at Jerusalem, most likely the “abomination that makes desolate” described in Dan 11:31. Open rebellion came in 167 BC, when a faithful priest named Mattathias killed the king’s representative and fled to the countryside with his family and an ever-enlarging band of volunteers. The guerrilla movement continued under Mattathias’ son Judas, known as Maccabeus (“the hammer”). Judas defeated the king’s army at Emmaus and then at Beth-zur. On 25 Chislev, 165 BC, Judas rededicated the temple to the worship of God, an event still celebrated each December in the Feast of Hanukkah.

Such times reveal apostates and make martyrs. They also spawned a special type of literature known today as “apocalyptic.” Among its common traits are: the conviction that the end of the age is at hand; a sense of man’s existence in historical time; the use of mysterious and secret revelations;[8] and a strong sense of the otherness of God. This literature “located the believer in a minority community and gave his life meaning by relating it to the end, soon to come, that would reverse his present status.”[9] Jews who believed in Jesus and Jews who did not both produced such material until about AD 100.

The Apocrypha

We move first into a collection of fourteen or fifteen books commonly known as the Apocrypha, so-named from a Greek word meaning “hidden.” Many in the early church used the Apocrypha as “instructive and edifying,” and some regarded these books as fully canonical. Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox, like the Septuagint’s translators, include them in the Bible. Canonical or not, scholarly appreciation is growing for these documents as background material for New Testament studies and for insight into some thinking found within Second Temple Judaism.[10]

Tobit [11]

This didactic romance tells the story of a pious family from the tribe of Naphtali whom Shalmaneser took captive to Nineveh. It may date from about 200 BC The hero’s dying words to his son Tobias detail this hopeful picture of the end time:

All the nations that are in the whole earth, will turn and fear God truly, and all will leave their idols, who err after their false error . . . All the children of Israel that are delivered in those days, remembering God in truth, will be gathered together and come to Jerusalem, and will dwell forever in the land of Abraham securely, and it will be given over to them; and those who love God in truth will rejoice, and those who do sin and unrighteousness will cease from all the earth. (Tob 14:6–8)

There is no mention here of a resurrection. Righteous Israelites who are alive will inherit the promised land and rejoice forever. Sinners simply “will cease from all the earth.” Whether they are executed and consumed, as in the Old Testament, or are converted en masse to worship the true God, is an open question, though the text suggests the latter. Conscious unending torment is nowhere in the picture.

Sirach (or Ben Sira) [12]

Also called Ecclesiasticus, this book of wisdom purports to be the Greek version of a Hebrew work written by the translator’s Palestinian grandfather. The Greek version probably comes from Egypt somewhere between 195–71 BC The author is acquainted with the ways of Hellenism, but as a loyal Jew he is repulsed by it.

His view is that of the Old Testament. Those led astray by wine and women “will perish.” “Mold and worms will take possession” of them (Sir 19:2–3). The sinner’s end will be as with fire. “Like tow wrapped together is the assembly of the ungodly, and their end is the flame of fire” (Sir 21:9). Isaiah also compared the end of the wicked to tow or tinder, that is no sooner ignited than it is consumed (Isa 1:31). The only other mention of “tow” (Greek: stippuon) in the Old Testament observes the same fact about its combustibility (Judg 16:9). Sirach says the wicked will so perish when their slick path slides them into “the pit of Hades” (Sir 21:10).

Sirach also speaks of “the glowing fire” in which the wicked will “be devoured” and “find destruction” (Sir 36:7–10). The Greek text has a “fire of wrath,” and the Syriac text says “in anger and in fire.” Another passage warns: “In the assembly of the wicked a fire is kindled, and in an apostate nation wrath burns” (Sir 16:6). The following verses compare this fate to the destruction of Sodom, to the extermination of the Canaanites, and to an unidentified occasion on which six hundred thousand enemy footmen were destroyed.

The meaning of the imagery of fire begins to expand during this period. Alongside the Old Testament fire that cannot be quenched until it totally consumes, the literature also begins to speak of a fire that torments its victims but does not destroy them. R. H. Charles notes signs of this transition in one passage from Sirach.

The Hebrew text of Sir 7:17 says “the expectation of man is decay,” and a later rabbinic quotation repeated it as, “the hope of man is the worm” (Pirqe Aboth 4.7). But when Ben Sira translated his grandfather’s words into Greek, he included an additional thought. Instead of “decay” or “the worm,” he put “fire and the worm.” Although the shift is discernable, Ben Sira still did not go all the way. His statement regards mankind in general, not specifically the wicked, and even “fire and the worm” could totally consume (as in Isa 66:24) rather than torment forever. However, the change seems to reflect a current opinion.

Baruch [13]

This work, attributed to the secretary of the prophet Jeremiah, addresses the Jews in Babylon. It probably was written about 150 BC or later. The author urges the righteous to suffer patiently, using a figure familiar to the Old Testament. “My children, suffer patiently the wrath that has come upon you from God, for your enemy has persecuted you; but shortly you will see their destruction, and will tread upon their necks” (Bar 4:25).

A few verses later Baruch describes the coming end of Israel’s enemies in language that had been used by Isaiah and Jeremiah, and that is used later by John in Revelation: “Miserable are the cities that your children served: miserable is she that received your sons. For as she rejoiced at your fall, and was glad of your ruin: so will she be grieved for her own desolation . . . For fire will come upon her from the Everlasting, long to endure; and she will be inhabited by devils for a great time” (Bar 4:32–35).

Jeremiah had promised that “Babylon’s thick wall will be leveled and her high gates set on fire; . . . the nations’ labor is only fuel for the flames” (Jer 51:58). He had said God would destroy Babylon so that “it will be desolate forever” and would “sink to rise no more” (Jer 51:62–64). This is probably the meaning of Baruch’s “fire long to endure.”

His statement that the city would “be inhabited by devils for a great time” likely reflects Isaiah’s words that Babylon (who “will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah”) will never again be inhabited but will become a haunt for “desert creatures”—jackals, owls, wild goats, and hyenas (Isa 13:19–22). Baruch uses the established language of the Old Testament prophets. Both his passages might have a temporal judgment in view rather than a judgment at the end of the world.

Judith [14]

This tale of a heroic Jewish maiden who saves her people from an enemy general named Holofernes might come from 150–25 BC, though the date is disputed. At the end of the story the heroine, Judith, leads Israel in a great song of victory over their former oppressor. Her closing words warn: “Woe to the nations that rise up against my race; the Lord Almighty will take vengeance against them in the day of judgment, to put fire and worms in their flesh; and they will weep and feel their pain forever” (Jdt 16:17).

The fire and worms probably come from Isa 66:24, but now the transition Sirach hinted at is fully brought to pass. This language is unmistakable. It describes the traditionalist hell. In all the Old Testament’s inspired pictures of the wicked—historical, poetic, or prophetical—we have not encountered this scene even once. We have not found this clear picture of unending conscious torment in the apocryphal material until now. This passage in Judith marks its first unequivocal appearance in our literature.

INTERACTION

Yarbrough quotes Judith’s reversal of Isa 66:24 and says: “Fudge calls on the usual whipping boy, [and] . . . attributes Judith’s reading of Isaiah to ‘the pagan Greek notion that souls are immortal and cannot die,’ but this is speculative and less likely, overall, than that Judith is drawing on the same conviction that Isaiah voiced.”[15]

It is difficult to conclude that Judith is “drawing on the same conviction that Isaiah voiced” if one considers the following differences between Isaiah and Judith. Isaiah describes unburied corpses; Judith has living people. Isaiah pictures fire and maggots that consume dead matter; Judith’s fire and worms torment people who will never die. In Isaiah, God’s enemies are killed and their corpses totally destroyed; in Judith, they are kept alive and tormented forever. Judith is not drawing on Isaiah’s conviction; she is denying it. She is not following Isaiah. She is reversing Isaiah.[16]

First Maccabees [17]

One of the more reliable sources of information concerning the stormy and eventful years it covers, this historical narrative tells the story of the Maccabean liberators and their valiant deeds. It was probably written about 110 BC by an author sympathetic to the Hasidic movement within Judaism, the remote ancestor of the Essenes and Pharisees alike. In sectarian terms the book is nonpartisan, espousing the distinctive views of neither the Pharisees nor the Sadducees.

First Maccabees does not speak clearly about the eschatological end of the wicked. One passage reflects the same Old Testament outlook we have already seen, that the sinful man will meet his end in the earth. (In Dan 12:2, revelation advances beyond this point, as by implication in a few other Old Testament texts.) The author exhorts: “And do not be afraid of the words of a sinful man, for his glory will be dung and worms. Today he will be lifted up, and tomorrow he will not be found at all, because he is returned unto his dust, and his thought is perished” (1 Macc 2:62–64).

Second Maccabees [18]

Judas Maccabeus is the hero in this book that may have been written slightly ahead of 1 Maccabees, whose saga it continues. This author goes beyond any apocryphal literature we have seen yet in clearly affirming a bodily resurrection, although he seems to limit it to the righteous. So far as the wicked are concerned, the martyr heroes here stand fast on the sovereignty and justice of God. He will punish their tormentors—of that they are sure—but, compared to much other literature, they say surprisingly little of the details.

Eleazar, a sort of Jewish Polycarp who welcomes martyrdom in his ninetieth year rather than renounce his God, is certain that God will punish the ungodly. He disdains threatened death, saying that “even were I for the moment to evade the punishment of men, I should not escape the hands of the Almighty in life or in death” (2 Macc 6:26).

Chapter 7 clutches the reader’s heart with its torture and death of seven brothers and their faithful mother. They encourage each other to the very last in hope of a bodily resurrection, a resurrection in which they warn their adversary he will have no part. God will be his judge, they say again and again, but their tortured final words stop with that general statement.

The second brother challenges the king with the words: “You cursed miscreant! You send us from this life, but the King of the world will raise us up, who have died for his laws, and revive us to life everlasting” (2 Macc 7:9). The fourth brother similarly faces his executioner. “It is fitting for those who perish at men’s hands to cherish hope divine that they will be raised up by God again; but you—you will have no resurrection to life” (2 Macc 7:14).

The fifth brother warns that God’s “sovereign power will torture you and your descendants!” (2 Macc 7:17). The sixth brother says, ‘Do not think that you will go unpunished for daring to fight against God!” (2 Macc 7:19). The seventh draws himself up to say: “But you, who have devised all manner of evil against the Hebrews, you will not escape the hands of God” (2 Macc 7:31). Later he adds, “You will receive by God’s judgment the just penalty of your arrogance” (2 Macc 7:36). Still later he says he is praying that God will make the persecutor acknowledge “in torment and plagues, that he alone is God” (2 Macc 7:37).

This punishment may well be expected in the present life and culminate in a death from which there is no return so far as these martyrs declare. Their tormentor will have no part in the resurrection to life, and they do not seem to expect a resurrection of any other kind. If they held any views of conscious unending torment for their persecutor, the occasion of their torture and martyrdom would offer an ideal occasion to express it. But they do not, although they do warn him of God’s certain vengeance.

Wisdom of Solomon [19]

Probably written during the first century before Christ, this book was born speaking the Greek language and breathing the air of Greek philosophy. Some see here an unbiblical bodiless reward for immortal souls (Wis 2:21—3:9), but the book’s language about the wicked could come from the Psalms or Proverbs of the Bible. Two passages illustrate this agreement. The first text combines metaphors of destruction.

But the Lord will laugh them to scorn.

And after this they will become a dishonored carcass,

And a reproach among the dead forever:

Because he will dash them speechless to the ground,

And will shake them from the foundations,

And they will lie utterly waste, and be in anguish,

And their memory will perish.

(Wis 4:18–19)

The second passage presents a montage of the most transient figures found in the culture of this ancient author to describe the end of the ungodly:

Because the hope of the ungodly is like chaff carried off by the wind,

And like a thin spider’s web driven away by a tempest;

And like smoke that is scattered by the wind,

And passes away like the memory of a guest who stayed only one day.

But the righteous live for ever,

And the Lord is their reward,

The one who cares for them is the Most High.

(Wis 5:14–15)

Nickelsburg notes that while the Wisdom of Solomon attributes immortality to the soul of the righteous man already, neither life nor immortality are inherent to the soul but are the result of the godly man’s actions in this life—a form of conditional immortality. For this reason, he says, even in the Wisdom of Solomon immortality is ascribed only to the righteous, while the “wicked bring death upon themselves, death in an ultimate sense.”[20]

Other Apocryphal Works [21]

The Apocrypha also includes 1 Esdras (a historical work that closely parallels Ezra-Nehemiah), sometimes 3 Maccabees (an alleged historical work before 2 Maccabees but generally regarded as less reliable), and several smaller additions to canonical books (1 Baruch, Epistle of Jeremiah, Prayer of Manasses, and additions to Daniel and to Esther). These vary in textual authority and religious value, and they add nothing to what we have found to this point.

Summary

This body of literature called the Apocrypha, revered as canonical by Catholics, often used by the ancient church, and sadly ignored by most Protestants, stands between the divine revelation of the Old Testament and the fanciful imagination of some of the Pseudepigrapha.

Concerning the fate of the wicked, this literature overwhelmingly reflects the teaching of the Old Testament. The wicked will not escape God’s judgment. They will surely die. Worms will be their end. They will pass away like smoke or chaff, or burn up like tow. The righteous may hope for a resurrection and blessed life with God, but the wicked will have no part in that. Even faithful martyrs gasping final words of warning to their murderers say no more.

Judith contains the single explicit reference to conscious everlasting pain. The Greek version of Sirach changes the Hebrew in one passage to what might reflect the same view. This expectation is clearly present, but it is not the general one. On the other hand, the total, irreversible destruction of the godless was clearly anticipated by some faithful Jews as late as the first century before Christ.

Dead Sea Scrolls [22]

Few discoveries in biblical archaeology have caught the public eye like that of the documents popularly known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The discovery in 1947 of the library and headquarters of an ancient ascetic Jewish commune near Qumran, northwest of the Dead Sea, was heralded by daily newspapers around the world. From the first, a few opportunistic scholars exploited the public interest curiosity with sensational “revelations” from the scrolls, but their machinations were exposed and sobriety prevailed. Personal jealousies and professional politics also stalled the translation process for years.

When The Fire That Consumes was written in 1982, the number of Dead Sea Scrolls accessible to non-specialists in the field was quite small. Today, more than eight hundred scrolls and fragments from the Qumran caves have been translated into English and are readily available to any who wish to read them.[23]

The Qumran Community

The Qumran sect was evidently organized by one calling himself Teacher of Righteousness, and it functioned for about two centuries before the Roman destruction of Palestine in AD 66–73. These pious Jews repudiated the Hasmonean high priesthood in Jerusalem and denounced what they perceived as its corrupted liturgical calendar. They were the righteous remnant in their eyes, and they would be used by God to execute judgment at the rapidly-approaching End. Until then they would quietly perfect their own holiness and offer pure worship, meekly enduring whatever suffering the wicked establishment might cast their way.

These “covenanters” read their Old Testament in the light of their own movement. Isaiah’s “Assyrian,” Habakkuk’s “Chaldean,” and Daniel’s “king of the North” all referred to the Romans (“Kittim”), according to the Teacher of Righteousness. God had used these pagans to punish Israel’s wicked priests, but God would soon punish them as well.

The Qumran worshipers would become God’s guerrillas in a final war against the “sons of darkness.” This war would involve seven battles, and the last would be won by the direct intervention of Michael, the archangel. This victory would usher in the kingdom of God’s saints and the end of the old world. The new covenant and the new age would be a reality.

Josephus’ Testimony

Writers on final punishment have often cited Josephus’ description of Essene belief concerning souls. According to his lengthy discussion,[24] the Essenes held the common Platonic view of immortal souls trapped during life in mortal bodies but freed at death to their natural sphere. Souls of wicked men would finally be judged and enter everlasting torment, according to Josephus’ account of Essene belief. He identified this doctrine with Greek philosophy, calling it a “lure” not easily resisted by those who “once tasted their wisdom.”

This evaluation must now be seriously questioned if the Qumran sectarians were indeed Essenes, as is commonly thought. The Dead Sea Scrolls “speak plainly” of “annihilation for the wicked,”[25] as we will shortly see. “The Essene Writings From Qumran,” as an important early English translation termed the Dead Sea Scrolls,[26] come down squarely on the side of total extinction for sinners.

Testimony of the Scrolls

God had sent the Teacher of Righteousness “to make known to the last generations what he would do to the last generation, the congregation of traitors,” according to the Damascus Document.[27] The document continues with a lengthy description of the end of sinners, comparing it to the fate of the antediluvians who perished in the Flood and of the unfaithful Israelites who fell in the wilderness. God’s judgment of sinners will leave “no remnant remaining of them, nor survivor.”[28] They would be “as though they had not been.”[29]

The wicked will end in the terrible Pit of fire and darkness. The Rule of the Community (Manual of Discipline) tells of its horror in a formal curse against the “men of the lot of Belial.” The imprecation says: “Be cursed in all the works of your guilty ungodliness! May God make you an object of dread by the hand of the Avengers of vengeance! May he hurl extermination after you by the hand of all the Executioners of punishment! Be cursed without mercy, according to the darkness of your deeds! Be damned in the night of eternal fire!”[30] Such will be the fate of all who follow the Spirit of Perversity instead of the Spirit of Truth.

And as for the Visitation of all who walk in this (Spirit),

it consists of an abundance of blows administered by all the Angels of destruction

in the everlasting pit by the furious wrath of the God of vengeance,

of unending dread and shame without end,

and of the disgrace of destruction by the fire of the regions of darkness.

And all their time from age to age

are in most sorrowful chagrin and bitterest misfortune,

in calamities of darkness till they are destroyed

with none of them surviving or escaping.[31]

Some evildoers will be destroyed in the eschatological War between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness. They are given no hope of resurrection of any kind. The War Scroll instructs the men of Qumran concerning this “final destruction for all the lot of Belial.” Wickedness will “be crushed without a remnant and without any survivor for [all the son]s of darkness.”[32] The soldiers of Qumran are to inscribe certain war trumpets with the legend: “God overflows all the sons of darkness: he will not withdraw his anger till he has destroyed them.”[33]

God will extinguish the enemy as he once wiped out Pharaoh. The pious conquered will become the heroic conquerors in this last great battle. This will be their shining hour—they will “pass like a flaming torch in the straw, devouring the wicked and not returning until the destruction of the guilty [has occurred].”[34]

Qumran commentaries on biblical books make the same point. The explanation ( pesher) of Psalm 37 promises that “all who rebel against being converted from their iniquity will be cut off.”[35] So also say the commentaries on Psalms 1 and 2. “They will be wiped out, and on the earth not a [wi]cked man will be found.”[36] The wicked princes who oppressed God’s people “will perish like smoke that van[ishes before the wi]nd.”[37] The Habakkuk pesher tells how God will make an end of the Wicked Priest. “He will make him appear for judgment, and . . . he will declare him guilty and will judge him with fire of sulphur.”[38]

Like the Psalter of the Old Testament, the Hymn Scroll of the Qumran Community celebrates the terrors that await all the sinful enemies. Judgment comes for some at the hands of the Sons of Light (the warriors of Qumran). “The Sword of God will hasten and all his sons of tr[ut]h[39] will rouse themselves to [destroy] ungodliness and all the sons of transgression will be no more. And . . . they will trample (them) underfoot to destruction leaving no remn[ant].”[40]

The rest will taste God’s special terrors at the end of the world. Another hymn brings that scene alive, a foretaste of the time when the earth will rumble, the mountains will crumble and dissolve, and the heat of God’s wrath will turn earth’s very foundations into a hellish river of molten ruin.

And the bonds of Death tightened leaving no escape,

and the torrents of Belial overflowed all the high banks

Like a fire consuming all their shores,

destroying from their channels every tree green and dry

and whipping with whirlwinds of flame

until the vanishing of all that drinks there.

It devours all the foundations of pitch

and the bases of the continent;

the foundations of the mountain are prey to fire

and the roots of flint become torrents of tar . . .

And the eternal foundations stagger and shake

and the host of the Valiant of heaven

brandishes its whip in the world;

and it will not end until utter destruction which will be final,

without anything like it.[41]

Summary

Despite the testimony of Josephus that the Essenes held to the immortality of the soul and the everlasting torment of the wicked—a viewpoint that Josephus considered a “lure” of Greek philosophy—our examination of the scrolls available to non-specialists at the original publication of The Fire That Consumes pointed in a different direction.[42] So far as the authors of these ancient scrolls give any indication, the community whose views they record anticipated a day when the wicked would be thoroughly destroyed and be no more.[43] This is the same vision we found throughout the Old Testament and, with one exception clearly stated and a second one possible, throughout the Apocrypha as well.

But there were other voices expressing another view during the time between the Testaments, as the writings known as the Pseudepigrapha make very clear.

1. John Blanchard takes a different approach. “[B]iblical revelation is progressive,” he notes, “often giving a fuller picture of a subject in the New Testament than in the Old; and this is certainly true with regard to hell” (Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 128).

2. Shedd, The Doctrine of Endless Punishment, 14n1; Pusey, What Is of Faith? 49. Kendall S. Harmon notably is an exception, stating: “It is important to stress here that I am not saying . . . the intertestamental literature is . . . uniform in its support for the traditional view of hell, which is not true” (Harmon, “The Case Against Conditionalism,” 209n. 43). To his credit, even Salmond, who lacked much of the Second Temple Jewish literature available today, discerned and stated that “the class of literature that is the most relevant witness to the state of Jewish belief in Christ’s time, shuts us up to a choice between annihilation and a penal immortality as the prevalent conception of the future of the impenitent” (Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality, 359).

3. Buis, The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, 24. The Pharisees probably believed also in the pre-existence of souls, according to Josephus ( J.W. 2.8.14; Ant. 18.1.3). The same belief might be reflected in John 9:2. Bruce cautions concerning Josephus’ “eagerness to assimilate” his account of the Pharisees’ teaching “to the Greek outlook” (Bruce, Paul, 301).

4. Hooke, “Life after Death,” 276.

5. Charles, A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, 362. Bruce uses the intertestamental literature to illustrate the “varieties of expectation among religious Jews in the last two centuries BC” Bruce, “Paul on Immortality,” 459. See also Bruce, Paul, 302.

6. Harmon, “The Case Against Conditionalism,” 203.

7. Antiochus took the surname “Epiphanes” (“The Manifest [God]”), prompting some of his enemies to call him “Epimanes” (“The Madman”). This brief history of the period reflects Turner, “Antiochus,” 1:150–51.

8. Beardslee, “NT Apocalyptic,” 424–25.

9. Ibid., 424. Another scholar who has specialized in intertestamental thought reminds us of “the fact that theological conceptions and the literature that contains them do not evolve in a vacuum. They are the products of real people, living in concrete historical situations” (Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life, 10).

10. Quotations in this chapter are from R. H. Charles’ edition of APOT 1, with archaic English spelling and word forms updated. For introductory material regarding the authors, times, and places of origin of the apocryphal books, we reference individual articles in IDB.

11. Wikgren, “Tobit,” 4:658–62.

12. Burkill, “Sirach/Ben Sira,” 4:380.

13. Tedesche, “Baruch,” 1:362–63.

14. Winter, “Judith,” 2:1023–26.

15. Yarbrough, “Jesus on Hell,” 83. Larry R. Helyer considers that for Judaism, the Hellenism “superimposed upon native populations” by Alexander the Great was “one of its most dangerous challengers.” Helyer, Exploring Jewish Literature, 75.

16. Ajith Fernando correctly cites Judith as evidence that fire sometimes symbolized torment in intertestamental Judaism, but remarkably says nothing about Isaiah 66:24 as the source of Judith’s symbols, or the fact that Judith reverses their signification in Isaiah. Fernando, Crucial Questions About Hell, 39–40.

17. Brownlee, “1 Maccabees,” 3:203–6.

18. Brownlee, “2 Maccabees,” 3:206–10.

19. Hadab, “Wisdom of Solomon,” 4:261–63.

20. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life, 88, 179.

21. Fritsch, “Apocrypha,” 161–66; Ferguson, BEC, 440, 446–48.

22. Charles includes these among the Pseudepigrapha, but Charlesworth does not.

23. A very highly-regarded edition of the scrolls is The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, edited by Martinez and Tigchelaar, containing 1361 pages in two volumes. Left-hand pages display the Hebrew text; right-hand pages contain the English translation.

24. J.W. 2.8.11.

25. Bruce, “Paul on Immortality,” 459–60. Powys concurs, adding that the scrolls reflect an expectation that the doom of the wicked would result from final, imminent warfare. Powys, ‘Hell’: a Hard Look at a Hard Question, 140.

26. Nickelsburg concludes that the Essenes had “a belief in, or akin to, immortality of the soul, but not resurrection” (Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality and Eternal Life, 169).

27. CD 1.11–12.

28. CD 2.6–7.

29. CD 2.20.

30. 1QS 2.4–8.

31. 1QS 4.11–14.

32. 1QM 1.5–7.

33. 1QM 3.9.

34. 1QM 11.9–11.

35. 4Qp Ps 37.1.3–4.

36. 4Qp Ps 1.6–8.

37. 4Qp Ps 2.8.

38. 1Qp Hab 10.3–5.

39. This is the title of a major English translation of the scrolls, from which all translations here are taken, revised by me into modern English (e.g., “runneth” to “run”; “thou” to “you,” etc.). Dupont-Sommer, The Essene Writings from Qumran.

40. 1QH 6.29–30, 32.

41. 1QH 3.28–31, 35–36.

42. In preparing this third edition of The Fire That Consumes, I read in their entirety the English translations contained in The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition edited by Martinez and Tigchelaar. Without more contextual guidance and years of specialized work in the Scrolls, it is sometimes difficult to ascertain whether the authors are talking about temporal divine punishments, God’s vengeance on evildoers in the final War between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness, or post-judgment punishments following that war. Even when the milieu seems evident, the language is sometimes ambiguous.

My own review of the eight hundred-plus DSS now available in English translation, plus personal conversations during March 2011 with Dr. Garcia Martinez at the Lanier Theological Library in Houston, Texas, confirm opinions stated in the first edition of The Fire That Consumes about the expected destiny of sinners reflected in the DSS. Should it happen that I inadvertently overlooked some contrary statement, or read but misinterpreted the meaning of such, that oversight or misreading would only enhance the single point I am drawing from the Intertestamental (or Second Temple Jewish) literature. That point is that, at the beginning of the first century AD, Jewish opinion regarding the end of the wicked was not unanimous but markedly-diverse, so that one cannot automatically attribute any particular view to Jesus Christ, but must ascertain the meaning of his teaching in each instance by sound and specific exegesis.

43. Matthew Black suggests otherwise, stating that “a number of passages appear to imply the old biblical idea of she’ol though in several cases that idea has been developed to become a doctrine of eternal punishment and the fire of the dark regions, that is to say, Gehenna, corresponding to the everlasting or eternal life of the covenanters who escape the wrath of God at the Last Judgement.” Black, “The DSS and Christian Doctrine,” 21–22.

10

Diversity: Pseudepigrapha

THE PEOPLE OF INTERTESTAMENTAL[1] Judaism were living, breathing, thinking folk who sometimes differed vigorously on theological matters. This perfectly reasonable fact has not always come across in popular writings about the period. Today, many scholars emphasize this diversity, hoping to correct the common misconception that Jewish thinking at the time was monolithic or even consistent.[2]

The situation has been particularly confusing regarding the matter of final punishment. As noted in a previous chapter, traditionalist authors have argued that the Old Testament is largely silent concerning the end of the wicked but that by the birth of Jesus, four centuries later, the doctrine of unending conscious torment had developed from Old Testament principles to become “the Jewish view.” These authors conclude that Jesus must therefore have believed in everlasting conscious torment as well, and that we should interpret his teachings with that presupposition in mind.[3]

As we continue to test those premises, we come now to a fluid[4] group of writings called the “Pseudepigrapha.”[5] James H. Charlesworth, a specialist in the area, lists seventy-seven known works under this category and leaves the list open for further additions.[6]

Overrating the Pseudepigrapha

Although the books that we call the Pseudepigrapha stand well outside the canon of Scripture, they provide valuable perspective for New Testament studies. However, scholars have sometimes exaggerated the Pseudepigrapha’s worth, as if this collection of writings were the actual source of New Testament doctrine, including eschatology.

For example, A. Bisset speaks of the book of 1 Enoch as “the great storehouse of teaching” on final punishment.[7] S. H. Hooke says 2 Baruch gives “the most fully developed description” of such matters.[8] C. T. Fritsch goes so far as to say that “most of the ideas regarding the future life which are found in the New Testament writings had their origin in the apocalyptic writings.”[9] Overstatements such as these have not passed unnoticed, as numerous scholars have pointed out.

Priority of Old Testament

Joel Green aptly warns that, “we would be mistaken were we to argue that a direct or simple line can be drawn from Old Testament texts to Second Temple Jewish interpretation. Rather, with the onset of the fourth century BCE, Hebrew understandings of death and the afterlife were transformed under Greek and later Roman influence.”[10] For that reason, he notes, anyone errs who “supposes that Jewish thought as it developed in this period [between the Testaments] simply draws out the message present in embryonic form in the Hebrew Bible, and on this shaky foundation . . . [asserts] that these later Jewish texts provide us with faithful commentaries on Old Testament perspectives.”[11]

Jewish rabbi and scholar Samuel Sandmel cautions against what he calls “parallelomania,” a term he defines as “that extravagance among scholars which first overdoes the supposed similarity in passages and then proceeds to describe source and derivation as if implying literary connection flowing in an inevitable or predetermined direction.”[12] That a particular word or idea appears in the Pseudepigrapha and appears also in the New Testament does not necessarily mean that the New Testament author either learned it in the Pseudepigrapha or borrowed it from that source. Professor Richard Bauckham, now of Cambridge University, issues this word of caution: “What we have still to take full account of is the fact that most of the concerns of Jewish apocalyptic in NT times do not appear in the NT writings. Heavily influenced by apocalyptic as primitive Christianity undoubtedly was, it was also highly selective in the aspects of apocalyptic which it took over. This is a fact about the NT which can only be appreciated by diligent study of pseudepigraphal works which do not look at all relevant to the NT.”[13]

Of course, we must appreciate and consider the possible significance of the non-canonical literature from between the Testaments, and Harmon did well to remind us of that fact. On the other hand, Daniel I. Block observes that the doctrine of hell in the New Testament “borrows much of its imagery from the Old Testament.”[14] That is true but it is an understatement. E. Earle Ellis provides needful perspective when he says that “[t]he primary background for understanding the New Testament’s teaching on the punishment of the wicked is the background to which it appeals. That is the Old Testament Scriptures which were received as canonical authority by first-century Judaism and which, with the possible exception of Esther, were identical with the Old Testament canon received by Protestants and Jews today.”[15]

However valuable the noncanonical literature of the period might be, Ellis points out that “neither the Qumran writings nor the Old Testament Apocrypha, nor the largely post-first-century Jewish apocalyptic and rabbinic writings are of central importance; they are neither appealed to nor (with one exception) cited by the New Testament. And it is, I think, a fundamental error in method to interpret the New Testament primarily from Jewish apocrypha and pseudepigrapha or (as the History of Religions school did) from the views of the surrounding paganism, even from pagan views that had infiltrated sectors of Judaism.”[16]

This point is important for anyone who is studying the New Testament teaching about final punishment. However, for evangelicals, it is much more than important. For us who call ourselves “evangelicals,” it is definitional and self-revelatory. To represent oneself as an “evangelical” is to pledge before God and humankind to regard as divine revelation whatever Scripture teaches, and to humbly accept divine revelation as one’s standard of doctrine, rule of life, and court of final appeal. If we knowingly do otherwise, our conduct contradicts our claims and reveals that, at least on that occasion, we were untrue to our profession.

This responsibility is neither frivolous nor optional. We are not engaged in an academic game or dialogical contest. God cautions those of us who are teachers that he will hold us accountable to a higher standard (Jas 3:1). When we face him to give account, there will be no advantage gained on the basis of our publications, travels, academic degrees or institutional affiliations. The only issue then will be our faithfulness. Meanwhile, our every thought and motive is naked and open before the eyes of him to whom we finally must give our account (Heb 4:12–13).

Interaction

In the first edition of The Fire That Consumes, I responded to Fritsch’s overstatement, quoted above, that “most of the ideas regarding the future life which are found in the New Testament writings had their origin in the apocalyptic writings” with the casual (and, I thought, non-controversial) observation that “[m]uch of the New Testament language shares that background to be sure, but its crucial ideas regarding final punishment come from the biblical books of the Old Testament, not from these imaginative writings between the Testaments.”[17] By “crucial ideas,” I simply meant New Testament doctrine or teaching but admittedly the sentence was ambiguous.

The second (British) edition of The Fire That Consumes removed the ambiguity by changing the sentence slightly to say: “Although the New Testament repeats some concepts and language found in the intertestamental material about final punishment—including the place-name ‘Gehenna’ itself—its teaching clearly originates in the Old Testament.”[18]

But that is not what the first edition said, and that was the edition that Kendall Harmon read as he prepared his paper for the Fourth Edinburgh Conference on Christian Dogmatics that was conducted in 1991. And instead of reading the sentence as a casual comment in response to Fritsch’s overstatement of the intertestamental literature, Harmon read it as an absolute hermeneutical presupposition on which the entire book depended.

“Fudge’s book is methodologically flawed,” Harmon critiqued, “since when interpreting the New Testament passages, he over-emphasizes the Old Testament background at the expense of the intertestamental literature.”[19] And again: “Fudge’s case is methodologically flawed,” he writes in summary, “since he fails to see the importance of the intertestamental literature for the New Testament texts.”[20] In fact, I agree that the intertestamental literature can sometimes provide important background and context for interpreting the New Testament. Harmon and I are in substantial agreement as to basic methodology.

In the end, Harmon agrees with my primary point concerning the intertestamental literature, and he agrees with me on its importance. “It is important to stress here,” writes Harmon, “that I am not saying . . . the Old Testament background is not crucial to understanding the New Testament texts, because it is.”[21] I also agree with Harmon’s primary point when he says “that by Jesus’ day there were not only Old Testament texts but also traditions of how these texts were understood; even though these traditions were not uniform, they do form an important source for New Testament interpretation, both in terms of language and ideas.”[22]

Harmon apparently overlooked the fact that, throughout this book, I note several ideas that arose during the intertestamental period and were adopted by Jesus and/or by New Testament authors. Among those are the use of the word “hell” (gehenna) as the name of the place of final punishment, based on its association with the literal Valley of the Sons of Hinnom; the idea of pain and anguish in anticipation of final judgment; and the concept of several kinds of weeping in the context of judgment.

There is no doubt that by New Testament times, much Old Testament prophecy had come to be read as part of the diverse conversation within Second Temple Judaism about the end-times, the Messiah, and the age to come. In the course of this history, some Old Testament symbols, words, and phrases took on connotations not found in the Old Testament. We have just heard warnings from Harmon and Peterson not to ignore that fact, and also warnings from Green, Sandmel and Ellis not to make too much of it.

Indeed, as Richard C. Gamble reminds us, “Scriptural revelation is grounded in history, and is structured in a historically progressive fashion. Later biblical books follow from and are grounded upon the earlier books.”[23] Gamble’s balanced perspective here suggests two general hermeneutical principles for dealing with New Testament quotations from (or allusions to) the Old Testament.

First, because later biblical books are “grounded upon the earlier books,” when we come upon Old Testament figures or language in the New Testament, our interpretation of that teaching should begin with the larger meaning of the same words or symbols in their Old Testament contexts.[24]

Second, because Scripture is “structured in a historically progressive fashion,” neither the New Testament writers nor we today are limited to the original meaning of Old Testament language. New Testament writers freely expand the meaning of Old Testament language but always in view of God’s saving deeds in Jesus Christ as illuminated by the Holy Spirit. We are free to do the same thing, with the awareness that our expansions, unlike those made by New Testament writers, are not canonical, even if they prove edifying to ourselves and persuasive to others.[25]

The Wicked Will Totally Pass Away

That said, I now call attention to a few excerpts from the non-canonical Second Temple Jewish literature known as the Pseudepigrapha[26] that illustrate a diversity of Jewish opinion regarding the final destiny of the wicked.

The Sibylline Oracles [27]

In this composite work of uncertain date, books 3 and 4 are generally believed to come from a Jewish author, perhaps during the second century BC Some other parts of the Sibylline Oracles appear to be much later in origin and salted with Christian interpolations.

The Jewish core says the wicked will be totally destroyed. The author warns “Babylon” that “from the air above will come to you . . . eternal perdition. And then you will be as you were before, as though you had not been born” (Sib. Or. 3:307–10). Crete, too, faces “a scourge and a dread eternal destruction,” when it will be “wreathed in smoke, and fire will never leave you, but you will burn” (Sib. Or. 3:504–7). God “will burn with fire the stubborn human race” (Sib. Or. 3:761). This seems to take place in a mighty conflagration that will destroy the whole earth along with all its sinners. Book 4 tells how God will carry this out.

And he will burn the whole earth, and consume the whole human race, and . . . there will be sooty dust. But when at last everything has been reduced to dust and ashes, and God quenches the giant fire, even as he kindled it, then God himself will fashion again the bones and ashes of men, and will raise up mortals once more as they were before. And then the judgment will come in which God himself will give sentence, judging the world once again. And all who have sinned with impious deeds a heap of earth will cover again, and murky Tartarus and the black recesses of hell. But all who are godly will live again on earth when God gives breath and life and grace to them, the godly.

(Sib. Or. 4:176–90)

This conflagration reappears in book 5, where it involves a “battle of the stars” and results in “a new creation” (Sib. Or. 5:207–13). God will “utterly destroy” his enemies “so that dead bodies will remain on the earth more numerous than the sand” (Sib. Or. 5:298–305).

Damascus Document / Zadokite Fragments [28]

This work consisting of two manuscripts was discovered in 1896 in a storeroom (“geniza”) of a synagogue in Cairo, and contains content parallel to a scroll (1QS) and fragments discovered in Cave 1 at Qumran. The texts found both in Cairo and at Qumran feature priests of the lineage of Zadok and a migration to Damascus, the basis for both of its names and also its abbreviation (“CD” for Cairo and Damascus).

Here the wicked face God’s “power and might and great fury with flames of fire . . . so that there should be no remnant, nor any to escape of them” (CD 2:4–5). They await “destruction” (CD 9:12–13) when they will be “cut off from the midst of the camp” (CD 9:49).

The Psalms of Solomon [29]

According to the common but not unanimous opinion, the Psalms of Solomon come from pre-Christian Hasidim, those pious covenanter Jews who begat as spiritual offspring both the Pharisees of mainstream Judaism and the ascetic Essenes of Qumran. This document likely comes from the middle of the first century BC

Like the Old Testament book their name suggests, these psalms anticipate a time when the wicked will vanish from the earth and never again be found. God “brings down the proud to eternal destruction in dishonor” (Pss. Sol. 2:31). He will “recompense the sinners forever according to their deeds” (Pss. Sol. 2:34), which later is explained as extinction.

The sinner “falls and rises no more. The destruction of the sinner is forever, and he will not be remembered, when the righteous is visited. This is the portion of sinners forever. But they that fear the Lord will rise to life eternal, and their life will be in the light of the Lord, and will come to an end no more” (Pss. Sol. 3:10–12).

Another passage says the slanderous tongue will perish in flaming fire (Pss. Sol. 12:4–5). Israel may hope for God’s salvation forever, but sinners will “perish together at the presence of the Lord” (Pss. Sol. 12:6). When “the life of the righteous will be forever,” sinners “will be taken away into destruction, and their memorial will be found no more” (Pss. Sol. 13:11). Their “inheritance . . . is destruction and darkness, and their iniquities will pursue them to Sheol beneath” (Pss. Sol. 15:10). Sinners “will perish forever in the day of the Lord’s judgment, when God visits the earth with his judgment” (Pss. Sol. 15:12). A few lines later the author repeats himself for emphasis: “sinners will perish forever” (Pss. Sol. 15:13).

Fourth Ezra / Second Esdras [30]

Numerous writings circulated under Ezra’s name during the early Christian centuries. Charlesworth calls this one “one of the most brilliant and original of all apocryphal compositions.” Scholars generally recognize an authentically Jewish core in chapters 3–14, which they believe were composed in either Hebrew or Aramaic during the final decades of the first century after Christ, probably in Palestine. Two Christian compositions written in Greek, sometimes called 5 Ezra (chs. 1–2) and 6 Ezra (chs. 15–16), are thought to have been added later.

Like many other works of the period, 4 Ezra has the wicked suffering immediately after their death and before the final judgment. Here that suffering consists primarily of remorse for the past and dread of the future, that are described under seven headings (4 Ezra 7:78–87). Before the end of the world there will come a series of Messianic Woes. Sinners who survive these will be converted, and all living people will hold to the truth (4 Ezra 6:25–28).

Messiah will reign in joy over his people 400 years on the earth, and then he and all his subjects will die. Primeval silence will shroud the earth for seven days. Then the new age will begin, and the old order will be gone forever (4 Ezra 7:26–31). The earth will give up all its dead, and the Most High will set up his throne of judgment. “And then the pit of torment will appear, and over against it the place of refreshment; the furnace of Gehenna will be manifest, and over against it the Paradise of delight” (4 Ezra 7:32–33, 36).

When Ezra expresses sorrow that so few are finally saved, God compares them to his jewels. He rejoices over the few, he says, and continues: “And I will not grieve over the multitude of those that perish: for they are now made like vapor, counted as smoke, and are comparable to the flame: They are fired, burn hotly, and are extinguished!” (4 Ezra 7:61).

Ambiguous Testimony

The Assumption of Moses [31]

The date of this work is uncertain. Guesses range from the second century BC to the first century AD One passage in particular speaks of the fate of the wicked, and it is ambiguous.

For the Most High will arise, the Eternal God alone,

And he will appear to punish the Gentiles . . .

You will look from on high and will see your enemies

in Ge(henna)

And you will recognize them and rejoice,

And you will give thanks and confess your Creator.

( As. Mos. 10:7, 10)

In a footnote to the phrase “in Ge(henna),” Charles acknowledges that his text actually has terram for the Greek ge (“earth”). Rather than having the saved see their enemies “on earth,” Charles makes ge an abbreviation for ge(henna), thus amending the text to fit a view with better documentary support elsewhere in the literature. But “Gehenna” is still ambiguous since it may either consume the sinner entirely or keep him alive in torment.

Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs [32]

Fragments of the Testaments have been discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the synagogue geniza (storeroom for discarded scrolls) at Cairo, Egypt. Charlesworth says the material existed in recognizable form about 100 BC and was based on more ancient works. The present manuscripts probably include several later Christian additions and changes.

The language of the Testaments is also capable of more than one interpretation. Reuben warns women to avoid the “wiles” of head and facial adornment “because every woman who uses these wiles hath been reserved for eternal punishment” (T. Reu. 5:5). Levi sees “fire, snow and ice made ready for the day of judgment,” when God will make “retributions for vengeance on mankind” (T. Levi 3:2). Those who bless God will be blessed, but everyone who curses him “will perish” (T. Levi 5:6).

Unless men avoid lying and anger, they will “perish” (T. Dan 2:1) when Messiah comes to “execute an everlasting vengeance” on Israel’s enemies (T. Dan 5:10). Besides an intermediate state of suffering after death (T. Ash. 6:5), readers are warned to escape a punishment such as fell on “Sodom, that sinned . . . and perished forever” (T. Ash. 7:1). The context applies this statement to the Dispersion—the people are nowhere to be found in their homeland, but they are still alive and suffering somewhere else.

Benjamin closes the book with language borrowed from Daniel. “Then will we also rise,” he says, “each one over our tribe, worshipping the King of heaven . . . Then also all men will rise, some unto glory and some unto shame” (T. Benj. 10:7, 8).

Everlasting punishment and vengeance could mean that the wicked perish forever, never to return. It could also describe eternal conscious torment. The shame to which some will rise could possibly mean everlasting pain, although neither Daniel (Dan 12:2) nor Isaiah (Isa 66:24) pictures that in the canonical precedents to this language. This book will probably continue to be a bone of contention, and both sides in the debate will likely claim it for support.

The Life of Adam and Eve [33]

This expanded version of Genesis 1–4 probably came in a Semitic tongue from a Jewish writer of the first century before Christ. Its reference to the final doom of the wicked is also unclear: “God will stir up for himself a faithful people, whom he will save for eternity, and the impious will be punished by God their king, the people who refused to love his law . . . Therefore the Lord will repel from himself the wicked, and the just will shine like the sun, in the sight of God” (L.A.E. 29:7–9).

Mixed Testimony

The Book of Jubilees [34]

This book from the second century BC retells the Bible story from creation through the Exodus in the Jewish commentary form known as midrash. The opening words identify it as “the history of the division of the days of the law and of the testimony, of the events of the years, of their (year) weeks, of their Jubilees throughout all the years of the world, as the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai when he went up to receive the tables of the law and the commandment” ( Jubilees, preface). It is generally regarded as one of the most important Pseudepigrapha. Portions of it appear among the Dead Sea Scrolls; it probably represents the same stream of Judaism that produced Essenism. The original language was likely Hebrew, although it is extant in full only in Ethiopic manuscripts. Its message about the fate of the wicked is almost totally that found throughout the Old Testament.

Again and again Jubilees stresses that the wicked will be utterly destroyed and perish from the earth. Aside from a single passage we will note, this is its exclusive word concerning the ungodly, and even there the language is capable of that interpretation. Abraham warns Isaac against following the way of sinners lest he “sin a sin unto death before the Most High God.” God would then “hide his face from you,” Isaac is told, “and give you back into the hands of the transgression, and root you out of the land, and your seed likewise from under heaven, and your name and your seed will perish from the whole earth” ( Jub. 21:22).

Later Abraham tells Jacob of the idolaters’ end:

There will be no hope for them in the land of the living; And there will be no remembrance of them on the earth; For they will descend into Sheol,

And into the place of condemnation they will go,

As the children of Sodom were taken away from the earth

So all those who worship idols will be taken away.

( Jub. 22:22)

When Esau wants a fatherly blessing, Isaac tells him instead that he will “sin a complete sin unto death, and your seed will be rooted out from under heaven” ( Jub. 26:34). Isaac blesses Levi with the promise that his food will “fail not unto all the ages,” while those who hate him will “be rooted out and perish” ( Jub. 31:16, 17). Anyone who afflicts and curses Judah “will be rooted out and destroyed from the earth and be accursed” ( Jub. 31:20).

The sin of incest is especially heinous. For this abomination “there is no atonement forever to atone for the man.” Such a man “is to be put to death and slain, and stoned with stones, and rooted out from the midst of the people of our God. For no man who does such in Israel is permitted to remain alive a single day on the earth, for he is abominable and unclean” ( Jub. 33:13, 14). This unforgivable sin never has atonement precisely because the man is speedily executed before the sun goes down! While these passages all speak of total destruction, it is not clear if their penalty follows a final judgment or is to be carried out wholly in time and history. A few other texts seem to refer clearly to an eschatological judgment at the End.

God blesses Jacob with the words: “I will give your descendants all the earth under heaven, and they will judge all the nations according to their desires, and after that they will possess the whole earth and inherit it forever” ( Jub. 32:19). This picture could be borrowed from numerous Old Testament passages that portray a similar scene. The wicked will be “judged” (here at the hand of Israel)—never to be mentioned again—and the righteous will inherit the earth.

Jubilees specifically describes an earthly Messianic kingdom, at the end of which comes judgment. The spirits of the righteous rise in everlasting joy, but their bodies rest in the earth. This text says the wicked are judged, but it leaves us in the dark concerning their final fate.

And [the righteous] will complete all their days and live in peace and in joy, and there will be no Satan [or “satan”—accuser] nor any evil destroyer; for all their days will be days of blessing and healing . . . And the righteous will see and be thankful, and rejoice with joy forever and ever, and will see all their judgments and all their curses on their enemies. And their bones will rest in the earth, and their spirits will have much joy, and they will know that it is the Lord who executes judgment, and shows mercy to hundreds and thousands and to all that love him.

( Jub. 23:29–31)

Because the Philistines mistreated Isaac, another passage curses them in view of a final day of judgment:

And no remnant will be left to them, nor one that will be saved on the day of the wrath of judgment; for the whole posterity of the Philistines is [reserved] for destruction and rooting out and expulsion from the earth, and these Caphthorim will no longer be left a name or a descendant on the earth . . . And neither name nor descendant will be left to him on all the earth; for into eternal malediction will he depart. And thus it is written and engraven concerning him on the heavenly tablets, to do to him on the day of judgment, so that he may be rooted out of the earth.

( Jub. 24:30, 32, 33)

“Eternal malediction” is their fate on “the day of the wrath of judgment.” The passage specifically describes that destiny as expulsion and being rooted out of the earth, a destruction that leaves no remnant, seed or even name forever.

One passage in Jubilees could suggest the idea of conscious everlasting torment, although its context does not seem to require that meaning. Isaac warns Jacob and Esau of the punishment that will befall either of them who ever attacks his brother after Isaac dies. The penalty will begin in the present life. “Everyone that devises evil against his brother will fall into his hand, and will be rooted out of the land of the living, and his descendants will be destroyed from under the heaven.” But that is not all, as the warning continues:

But as he burned Sodom, so on the day of turbulence and execration and indignation and anger he will burn his land and his city and all that is his with flaming devouring fire, and he will be blotted out of the book of the discipline of the children of men, and not be recorded in the book of life, but in that which is appointed to destruction, and he will depart into eternal execration: so that their condemnation will be always renewed in hate and in execration and in wrath and in torment and in indignation and in plagues and in disease forever.

( Jub. 36:9–11)

These last words sound much like the unending conscious torment of the traditional hell, clearly seen already in Judith. Two considerations, however, weigh against that interpretation here. First, if this is the author’s meaning, it is the only place he reveals it in the entire book. Furthermore, it would seem to contradict what he consistently affirms whenever he otherwise mentions the subject.

Second, the context itself suggests his more usual view of the wicked’s destruction. The day of “turbulence and indignation and anger” is also the “day of execration.” He describes it as a day of vengeance like the judgment that came on Sodom: “as he burned Sodom, so on the day of turbulence and execration and indignation and anger he will burn his land and his city and all that is his with flaming devouring fire.” The sinner is not found in “the book of life” (i.e., listed among the living) but is “appointed to destruction.” He departs into “eternal execration”—that is, he is cut off forever. His condemnation is “always renewed”; not being exhausted in this life, it extends into the age to come. Now there are plagues and disease; then there will be hate and execration, wrath and indignation and torment. I do not wish to twist the author’s words to fit a particular view. The literature will amply document both expectations. We simply call attention to these details for fair consideration.

But what of the “torment” in this passage? Does not that word require everlasting conscious pain? The author of Jubilees sheds light on that question in another place as he tells how Simeon and Levi avenged the rape of their sister Dinah by the Shechemites.

And Simeon and Levi came unexpectedly to Shechem and executed judgment on all the men of Shechem, and slaughtered all the men . . . and left not a single one remaining in it: they slew all in torments because they had dishonored their sister Dinah . . . And the Lord delivered them into the hands of the sons of Jacob that they might exterminate them with the sword and execute judgment upon them . . . See how the Shechemites fared and their sons: how they were delivered into the hands of two sons of Jacob, and they slaughtered them under tortures.

( Jub. 30:4–6, 17)

The fate of the men of Shechem is clear. Simeon and Levi “slaughtered” them, “executed judgment” on them, “exterminated them with the sword.” What is interesting is that the author of Jubilees describes this by saying, “they slaughtered all in torments” and later that “they slaughtered them under tortures.” The punishment involved torments and tortures, but its end was extermination. Might not the same scene be in view in the ambiguous passage we have just seen? If so, Jubilees gives a single, consistent view of the end of the wicked—final extermination forever. If this interpretation is not permissible, Jubilees offers a mixed and inconsistent picture. Several times it expects sinners finally to be exterminated, though one passage threatens everlasting conscious torment.

First Enoch / Ethiopic Enoch [35]

Sometimes called Ethiopic Enoch to distinguish it from 2 (Slavonic) Enoch and 3 (Hebrew) Enoch, this book is extant in its entirety only in Ethiopic, preserved because of its canonical status in the Ethiopic Church. That text is based on a Greek version, according to F. F. Bruce, who says the bulk of the work probably comes from the second century before Christ.[36]

Enoch is divided into five major parts, four of which are quoted among the Dead Sea Scrolls. This book made a deep impression on other authors of its time and thereafter. It appears in allusion or quotation in the book of Jubilees, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Assumption of Moses, 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra among the Pseudepigrapha. It contains the words that Jude attributes to “Enoch,” as well as many phrases scattered throughout the rest of the New Testament. Numerous church fathers quote from this Enoch, many of them by name.

Of its five sections, the one most relevant to New Testament doctrine is the “Similitudes,” that speak of “the [rather than “a”] Son of Man.” According to R. H. Charles, the doctrine of a resurrection “was made a commonplace of Jewish theology” by this book.[37]

Although it does not strictly concern our study of final punishment, we note in passing Enoch’s detailed concern with detention and torment, even before the great judgment, for both wicked angels (1 En. 19:1–2; 21:1–10) and for certain sinful men (1 En. 22:11–13; 103:5–8). At times 1 Enoch has sinners finally exterminated; at other times he has them enduring conscious pain forever.

SINNERS EXTERMINATED FOREVER

In some passages sinners are “driven from the face of the earth” (1 En. 38:1) and “perish” (1 En. 38:5), their life “at an end” (1 En. 38:6). It had been better for such people never to have been born (1 En. 38:2). Apostates will not be found in heaven or on earth after “the day of suffering and tribulation” (1 En. 45:1, 2). Enoch seems to teach annihilation when he quotes God as saying:

And I will transform the heaven and make it an eternal blessing and light:

And I will cause my elect ones to dwell upon it:

But the sinners and evil-doers will not set foot on it.

. . . But for the sinners, judgment is impending with me,

So that I will destroy them from the face of the earth.

(1 En. 45:4–6)

Enoch warns sinners in the next chapter that “darkness will be their dwelling, and worms will be their bed, and they will have no hope for rising from their beds” (1 En. 46:4). When God judges, “the unrepentant will perish before him” (1 En. 50:4). Sinners “will be destroyed before the face of the Lord of spirits, and they will be banished from off the face of his earth, and they will perish forever and ever” (1 En. 53:2).

Enoch saw “the angels of punishment” as they prepared “instruments of Satan” by which God’s enemies would “be destroyed” (1 En. 53:3–5). In another place the angels “execute vengeance” on those who have oppressed God’s children. The enemies “will be a spectacle for the righteous and for his elect” when God’s “sword is drunk with their blood.” The righteous “will never afterward see the face of the sinners and unrighteous” (1 En. 62:11–13). Sinners “will die with the sinners, and the apostate go down with the apostate” (1 En. 81:7, 8). Charles surmises in a footnote that they “go down” to Gehenna.

Enoch sees a parable about wicked rulers and apostate Israelites. In it, seventy shepherds and their blind sheep are “judged and found guilty and cast into this fiery abyss, and they burned . . . And I saw those sheep burning and their bones burning” (1 En. 90:25–27).

Charles has rearranged the text that says that “sin will perish in darkness forever, and will no more be seen from that day forevermore” (1 En. 92:5), that he thinks speaks of the flood in the days of Noah. A clearer passage warns: “And now, know that you all are prepared for the day of destruction: wherefore do not hope to live, sinners, but you will depart and die; for you know of no ransom; for you are prepared for the day of the great judgment, for the day of tribulation and great shame for your spirits” (1 En. 98:10). A few verses later it said that sinners “will have no peace but die a sudden death” (1 En. 98:16).

God uses fire to destroy the wicked. The heathen are “cast into the judgment of fire, and will perish in wrath and in grievous judgment forever” (1 En. 92:9). Sinners “perish in the day of unrighteousness” (1 En. 97:1), “in shame and in slaughter and in great destitution” when their spirits are “cast into the furnace of fire” (1 En. 98:3).

“You will perish, and no happy life will be yours,” Enoch warns (1 En. 99:1). This will come to pass when the wicked are “trodden under foot upon the earth” (1 En. 99:2) or are “slain in Sheol” (1 En. 99:11). They will burn in “blazing flames burning worse than fire” (1 En. 100:9) and will “be utterly consumed” (1 En. 99:12). One passage describes this fiery destruction in graphic and explicit terms.

I will give them over into the hands of my elect:

As straw in the fire, so will they burn before the face of the holy:

As lead in the water, they will sink before the face of the righteous,

And no trace of them will any more be found.

And on the day of their affliction there will be rest on the earth,

And before them they will fall and not rise again.”

(1 En. 48:8, 9)

UNENDING CONSCIOUS TORMENT

At other times 1 Enoch seems to expect the wicked to suffer forever in conscious pain. Enoch sees an “accursed valley” (Gehenna) outside Jerusalem that is described as the place of judgment for sinners. “In the last days there will be upon them the spectacle of righteous judgment in the presence of the righteous forever” (1 En. 27:1–3). This might mean conscious pain that lasts forever, though it could also describe a judgment of everlasting destruction in the sense of irreversible extinction.

In another place Noah sees a river of fiery molten metal with the smell of sulfur, flowing together with a valley of streams of fire. There fallen angels await judgment. There also wicked kings are punished after death as “a testimony,” because “those waters will change and become a fire that burns forever” (1 En. 67:4–13). This passage does not tell us whether the fire will consume sinners or only torment them without end.

Finally, in what Charles calls an “independent addition” to the book, it is said that sinners “will cry and make lamentation in a place that is a chaotic wilderness, and in the fire they will burn; for there is no earth there.” An angel describes the scene as the place where “the spirits of sinners and blasphemers are discarded, and of those who work wickedness” (1 En. 108:3–6). The passage also has “their names . . . blotted out of the book of life,” “their posterity destroyed forever,” and “their spirits . . . slaughtered,” so its meaning is not totally clear.

Second Baruch / Syriac Baruch [38]

Except for a Greek fragment, this whole book is extant only in one Syriac manuscript. By general consent it is said to have been composed during the final decades of the first century after Christ, but its original language is still debated.

Some argue that this work teaches unending conscious torment. There will be a judgment according to sins and righteous deeds (2 Bar. 24:1–4) after the Messiah has an advent (back to heaven, Charles thinks) in glory (2 Bar.30:1). “Then all who have fallen asleep in hope of him will rise again . . . But the souls of the wicked, when they behold all these things, will then waste away the more. For they will know that their torment has come and their perdition has arrived” (2 Bar.30:2–5).

There is no question in 2 Baruch that the wicked will “depart to torment” (2 Bar. 44:12; 59:2; 64:7–10; 83:8) or that “the dwelling of . . . many will be in the fire” (2 Bar. 44:15). The earth will give up the sinners just as it received them, that they might “suffer torment.” They will see the righteous transformed into the splendor of angels; then they will “depart to be tormented” (2 Bar. 51:5, 6). The author does not say here if the torment ends in extinction, or if it continues in conscious pain.

However, Baruch elsewhere says clearly that “a fire will consume their thoughts” (2 Bar. 48:39). Sinners go “to corruption,” and there is no counting “those whom the fire devours” (2 Bar. 48:43). There will be no turning back then, no change of ways or place for prayer when the wicked come to judgment (2 Bar. 85:12). All that remains is “the sentence of corruption, the way of fire, and the path that brings to Gehenna” (2 Bar. 85:13). God will then “destroy those who are polluted with sins” (2 Bar. 85:15).

In one passage Baruch multiplies similies like those found in the Old Testament psalms. God’s enemies will “be like a vapor” (2 Bar. 82:3), “be made like a drop” (v. 4), “be accounted as spit” (v. 5). “Like smoke they will pass away” (v. 6), “they will fade away like grass that withers” (v. 7), “as a wave that passes they will be broken” (v. 8). They “will pass away as a passing cloud” (v. 9).

Unending Conscious Torment

Second Enoch / Slavonic Enoch [39]

Most scholars think this “Book of the Secrets of Enoch” was written in Greek, shortly before the destruction of the temple in AD 70, in either Palestine or Egypt. Like 1 (Ethiopic) Enoch, this Enoch sees angels (2 En. 7:1, 2) and men (2 En. 41:1) waiting in torment before the judgment. The wicked will “perish,” and they must anticipate “the limitless judgment” (2 En. 40:12).

Enoch sees a place where “murky fire constantly flames aloft, and a fiery river (comes) forth, and that whole place is everywhere fire, and everywhere frost and ice, thirst and shivering, while the bonds are very cruel, and the angels fearful and merciless, bearing angry weapons, merciless torture.” This, he is told, is prepared for sinners “for eternal inheritance” (2 En. 10:1–6). Every false speech (and speaker?) “will be cut with the blade of the sword of death, and thrown into the fire, and will burn for all time” (2 En. 63:4).

One wonders even here if “for all time” might describe the irremediable effect of the burning rather than conscious pain, especially since those thrown into the fire have already been “cut with the blade of the sword of death.” This example illustrates the difficulty modern interpreters face when grappling with particular terms used by pseudepigraphical advocates of both eternal extinction and everlasting torment. The same problem arises in later literature on the subject from the New Testament onward. Unless an author is explicit in his view, his language will likely be disputed, and readers of opposing convictions will jointly claim him for support.

Fourth Maccabees [40]

Eusebius and Jerome attributed this book to Flavius Josephus, but modern scholars regard it as the work of a Jew of Stoic leanings who had mastered both Greek thought and language. The hub of the book tells the story of a faithful mother and her seven sons, all martyred under the tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes (see 2 Macc 7:1–42). The author of 4 Maccabees uses their case to illustrate victory through “the supreme power of reason.”

The seven sons warn their wicked torturer of “torment by fire forever” (4 Macc. 9:9), “torments without end” (4 Macc. 10:11), and an “eternal doom” (4 Macc. 10:15). This will be “a more rapid and an eternal fire and torments which will not turn you loose to all eternity” (4 Macc. 12:12). Whoever transgresses God’s ordinances must also know that “a great struggle and peril of the soul awaits in eternal torment” (4 Macc. 13:15).

INTERACTION

Gregory K. Beale notes similarities of life situation (faithful martyrs persecuted by ungodly ruler) and vocabulary (“fire,” “eternal,” and “torment”) between 4 Macc. 9–10, 12–13 and Rev 14. He considers it a “strange omission” that I did not make the same connections.[41]

I did not mention the similarities between 4 Maccabees and Revelation details when discussing the Pseudepigrapha because my only purpose there was to document the diversity of eschatological expectations within Second Temple Judaism. I did not mention those details when discussing Rev 14 because there is no evidence that John depended on 4 Maccabees, and any linkage between the two texts is tenuous at best. Beale himself claims only that, “it is possible that John partially alludes to it”[42] (emphasis added). That is a reasonable claim, but it still leaves Dr. Beale three steps removed from any assertion of actual dependence.

Summary

There is no question that the traditionalist understanding of hell is very ancient—or that it finds expression in some parts of the Jewish intertestamental literature. But the literature of Second Temple Judaism also documents the continuation of the view we found throughout the Old Testament—the expectation of a future day when the wicked will cease to be. In fact, Strack and Billerbeck—leading authorities on Jewish rabbinical literature—suggest that whenever the Pseudepigrapha speaks of “eternal punishment,” it might intend for the phrase to mean everlasting annihilation.[43]

Because of this unquestionable range of documented opinion, we cannot read Jesus’ words or those of the New Testament writers, with any presuppositions supposedly based on a uniform intertestamental opinion. We are obligated to examine the teaching of the New Testament at face value and to determine the meaning of its terms according to the ordinary methods of proper biblical exegesis.

The literary and linguistic background for this exegesis includes the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. But rising high and towering over it all we see the inspired revelation contained in the Scriptures of the Old Testament.[44]

1. The books in the Apocrypha, the writings known as the Pseudepigrapha, and the Dead Sea Scrolls were traditionally grouped together under the label of “intertestamental” literature, referring to the period from approximately 400 BC to the birth of Jesus Christ. Today, many biblical scholars prefer to speak of these ancient writings as Second Temple Jewish literature, a phrase indicating the period of time from approximately 515 BC until AD 70. Because both terms are acceptable and both widely used, I will use them interchangeably.

2. David J. Powys urges caution, warning that “it would be easy to offer distorted findings by means of unwarranted generalization and lack of due regard for the diversity to be found within the documents. There was no single dominant form of hope which emerged in response to the politico-cultural challenges of the Greek and Hasmonean eras. Powys, “Hell,” 141.

3. Kendall S. Harmon specifically disavows this argument. “It is important to stress here that I am not saying . . . the intertestamental literature is . . . uniform in its support of the traditional view of hell, [a statement] which is not true” (Harmon, “The Case Against Conditionalism,” 208n43).

4. The Pseudepigrapha are an “indefinite category of works” that includes not only non-Christian Jewish writings, but also Christian writings and non-Christian Jewish writings with Christian additions and overlays. Bauckham, “The Continuing Quest,” 9–10.

5. Literally “false writings,” so called because authorship is attributed to Old Testament figures such as Moses, Baruch, Solomon, Enoch, the twelve patriarchs and others. Scholars who specialize in this genre urge against any modern connotation of fraud or deceit. “Rather than being spurious,” Charlesworth says, “the documents . . . are works written in honor of and inspired by Old Testament heroes. It is anachronistic and misrepresentative to suggest that there is anything innately fraudulent about the Pseudepigrapha” (Charlesworth, APOT, 25).

Charles suggests a very practical theological reason for this practice of attaching ancient names as authors of more recent works. By the third century BC, the Law had come to be regarded as God’s supreme and final revelation. On this view, the Law not only took the place of the pre-exilic prophets; it made any new word from God unthinkable. If anyone would gain a hearing for a new work, it must be in the name of an ancient worthy, when prophecy was still allowed to have taken place. Charles concludes: “All Jewish apocalypses, therefore, from 200 BC onwards were of necessity pseudonymous if they sought to exercise any real influence on the nation; for the Law was everything, belief in inspiration was dead amongst them, and their Canon was closed” (Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, 2:viii–ix). While this was probably one factor, other scholars caution that it was not the only one.

6. Charlesworth, The Pseudepigrapha and Modern Research, xi–xiv.

7. Bisset, “Eternal Fire,” 1:537.

8. Hooke, “Life after Death,” 274.

9. Fritsch, “Apocrypha,” I:164.

10. Green, Body, Soul, and Human Life, 158.

11. Ibid.

12. Sandmel, “Parallelomania,” 1.

13. Bauckham, “The Apocalypses in the New Pseudepigrapha,” 114.

14. Block, “The Old Testament on Hell,” 65. Block’s sentence continues: “particularly the images of perpetual suffering through maggots and unquenchable fire in Isaiah 66:24.” Of course I believe that Block and other traditionalists read “perpetual suffering” into Isaiah’s picture, which specifically involves “corpses of those whom the LORD has slain” [emphasis added].

15. Ellis, “New Testament Teaching on Hell,” 207.

16. Ibid.

17. Fudge, The Fire That Consumes (1982), 122.

18. Fudge, The Fire That Consumes (1994), 70. It is difficult to understand how any evangelical could insist that Jesus derived his teaching from the pseudepigraphal books between the Testaments. To do so would be to say that the Son of God received or based his teaching on the wisdom and speculations of men rather than on divine revelation.

19. Harmon, “The Case Against Conditionalism,” 206.

20. Ibid., 215.

21. Ibid., 209.

22. Ibid.

23. Gamble, “The Relationship Between Biblical Theology and Systematic Theology,” 214–15.

24. As C. H. Dodd has demonstrated, New Testament authors often quote the Old Testament with the larger, unquoted, Old Testament context in mind as well. Dodd, According to the Scriptures, 28–60.

25. In the present context, traditionalists have the burden of justifying new meanings that they assign to Old Testament language quoted in the New Testament—phraseology we have referred to as the vocabulary or lexicon of judgment.

26. Quotations in this chapter are from R. H. Charles’ edition of APOT 2, and are revised to reflect modern English (e.g., “had” for “hadst,” “come” for “cometh,” etc.). For introductory material regarding individual authors, times, and places of origin of the apocryphal books see IDB and Everett Ferguson, BEC. A few significant differences in translation, indicated by brackets, are from Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.

27. Knox, “Sibylline Oracles,” 4:343.

28. Betz, “Zadokite Fragments,” 4:929–32.

29. Winter, “Psalms of Solomon,” 3:958–60.

30. Turner, “Esdras, Books of,” 2:140–42.

31. Rist, “Assumption of Moses,” 3:450–51.

32. Smith, “Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,” 4:575–79.

33. Bamberger, “Adam, Books of,” 1:44–45.

34. Tedesche, “Jubilees, Book of,” 2:1002–3.

35. Rist, “Enoch, Book of,” 2:103–5.

36. Bruce, “Jewish Apocalyptic Literature,” 310–12.

37. Charles, APOT, 2:185.

38. Rist, “Apocalypse of Baruch,” 1:361–62.

39. Fritsch, “Pseudepigrapha,” 3:962; Ferguson, BEC, 454.

40. Brownlee, “Maccabees, Books of,” 3:212–15.

41. Beale, “The Revelation on Hell,” 117.

42. Ibid.

43. This remarkable suggestion comes from Str–B, who offer the possibility that the term “eternal punishment” in the Pseudepigrapha was simply another way of referring to everlasting annihilation. “The punishment of the godless, regardless if they were judged in the catastrophic judgment or the regular judgment, lasts forever. But the Pseudepigrapha also speaks about the destruction or the annihilation of the godless, so that one may be in doubt if to them the everlasting condemnation of the [judged] guilty simply had become synonymous with everlasting annihilation.”

The German text states: “Die Bestrafung der Gottlosen, gleichviel ob sie im Katastrophengericht oder im ordentlichen Gerichtsverfahren gerichtet sind, wahrt ewig. Daneben reden die Pseudepigraphen aber auch vom Untergang oder von der Vernichtung der Gottlosen, so daß man im Zweifel sein kann, ob ihnen die ewige Verdammnis der Gerichteten nicht vielfach gleichbedeuten gewesen ist mit deren ewiger Vernichtung” (Str–B, 4.2:1096).

44. Richard Bauckham considers it “a major strength” of the present work that it “takes full account of the Old Testament and the continuity in concepts and images of divine judgment between the two testaments.” The Old Testament “rarely speaks of judgment after death,” leading some to suppose that the Old Testament “is largely irrelevant to the issue of hell.” Yet such a view is “too simplistic,” he warns, because it “ignores the New Testament’s pervasive allusions to the Old Testament.” Bauckham urges us to remember both “the importance of Second Temple Judaism as the immediate context” of Jesus and the New Testament writers, and also to remember that whenever New Testament writers “reflect the Judaism of their time, they are engaged with it in reading and understanding the Old Testament Scriptures.” Bauckham, “Foreword,” ix.

11

Jesus: Fire (Gehenna)

JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF SAYS much about the ultimate end awaiting the wicked. More, in fact, than is often noted, because he uses metaphors and figures that we are not accustomed to hearing. Yet people have received Jesus’ teaching in many ways. As J. A. MacCulloch points out, “It has been taken with absolute literalness; it has been spiritualized; it has been regarded as subject to interpolation, greater or less; or its originality is admitted, but its expected fulfillment is regarded as a mistake and an illusion.”[1]

Some even deny that Jesus ever taught what Matthew reports, dismissing these statements as “bitter anti-Jewish sentiments” rising out of “a mutual escalation of hatred caused by a poaching of converts.”[2] Among preachers and scholars alike, Marius Reiser observes, “a remarkable silence regarding Jesus’ proclamation of judgment.”[3]

Jesus Taught about Final Punishment

Yet, try as one might, “it is impossible to eliminate sayings of Jesus which give terrible warning as to the possibility of loss and exclusion.”[4] Even a study of the goodness of God must include these facts if it is candid and true to Scripture. In his book of that title, John W. Wenham notes that Jesus “spoke often of hell . . . In sheer number these statements are inescapable. In intensity they are fearful . . . We cannot escape, for we know who said these things, we know his tenderness, we know the authority of his words and we know that this is the language (be it more or less symbolic) that he regarded as best fitted to describe the price of impenitence. It is Love who speaks like this, it is God himself.”[5] Knowing who speaks to us, let us pray our heavenly Father for open eyes, ears and hearts. We will meet Jesus’ words again on the last day (John 12:48).

Jesus taught about final punishment[6] using a variety of images. Some images include fire, others do not. Some images Jesus identifies with Gehenna, but not others. In this chapter we consider teachings of Jesus in which Gehenna is named. The next chapter will broaden our investigation to Jesus’ use of fiery images that do not specifically name Gehenna.

Gehenna: Its History and Reputation

By the birth of Jesus, the place-name Gehenna (usually translated as hell ) had become a more-or-less standard term in Second Temple Judaism for the fiery pit in which the godless will face divine justice. The word Gehenna was meaningless to non-Israeli Gentiles. It appears only once in the New Testament outside the Gospels, in the very Jewish book of James. It does not appear in pagan Greek literature, the Septuagint,[7] or in Josephus.[8] But to Jesus’ hearers, the word gehenna evoked ancient feelings, and none of them was good.

Old Testament Background

The Greek word gehenna stood for the Hebrew “Valley of (the sons of) Hinnom.” Several sites have been identified, but most authorities now locate it on the west and south of Jerusalem. A “deep and yawning gorge” that never contains water, the valley descends over six hundred feet from its original source. At the lower end are numerous rock tombs, indicating its possible use as a potter’s field.[9]

The valley bore this name at least as early as the writing of Joshua (Josh 15:8; 18:16), though nothing is known of its origin. It was the site of child-sacrifices to Moloch in the days of Ahaz and Manasseh (apparently in 2 Kgs 16:3; 21:6). This earned it the name “Topheth,” a place to be spit on or abhorred.[10] This “Topheth” may have become a gigantic pyre for burning corpses in the days of Hezekiah after God slew one hundred eighty-five thousand Assyrian soldiers in a night and saved Jerusalem (Isa 30:31–33; 37:36). Jeremiah predicted that it would be filled to overflowing with Israelite corpses when God judged them for their sins (Jer 7:31–33; 19:2–13). Josephus indicates that the same valley was heaped with dead bodies of the Jews following the Roman siege of Jerusalem about A.D. 69–70.[11]

In what is probably the classic Old Testament passage behind New Testament teaching on hell, Isaiah pictures the same kind of scene following the Lord’s slaughter of sinners at the end of the age (Isa 66:15–16, 24). Josiah desecrated the repugnant valley as part of his godly reform (2 Kgs 23:10). Long before the time of Jesus, the Valley of Hinnom had become crusted over with connotations of whatever is “condemned, useless, corrupt, and forever discarded.”[12]

Intertestamental Period

Between the Testaments a tendency arose in Jewish literature to relate visions of last things to names and persons from the Old Testament. Armageddon, Jerusalem, and the Garden of Eden all became stylized descriptions of things to come. So did the Valley of Hinnom—gehenna.[13] The picture of Gehenna as a place of eschatological punishment appears in intertestamental literature shortly before 100 B.C., though the actual place is unnamed.[14] It becomes “this accursed valley” (1 En. 27:2–3), the “station of vengeance” and “future torment” (2 Bar. 59:10–11), the “pit of destruction” (Pirke Aboth 5:19), the “furnace of Gehenna” and “pit of torment” (2 Esd. 7:36).

But although the imagery of Gehenna becomes commonplace during this period, its actual function remains a matter of dispute. A few passages in the Pseudepigrapha, as well as one verse in the Apocrypha, specifically anticipate everlasting torment of conscious bodies and/or souls. Many other intertestamental passages portray the consuming, unquenchable Old Testament fire that utterly destroys forever, leaving only smoke as a reminder of what once had been. To Jesus’ first audiences, the word Gehenna certainly conveyed a sense of horror and disgust, but beyond that we must speak with extreme caution.

It is commonly accepted that the literal valley served as Jerusalem’s garbage dump, “a necessary hygienic incinerator,”[15] though some have asked for more evidence.[16] One writer described that scene like this: “Here the fires burned day and night, destroying the garbage and purifying the atmosphere from the smell of rotten fish or decaying vegetation. In time of war the carcases [sic] of vanquished enemies might mingle with the refuse, thus furnishing patriotic writers with a clue as to the destiny of their own persecutors. They were destined to be destroyed in the fires that were never quenched.”[17]

Even if the literal valley of the sons of Hinnom was not used in Jesus’ day as a place to burn garbage, our references to it in the Old Testament alone (such as Isa 66:24) still would conjure the image of undying worm and irresistible fire, of an abhorrent site where crawling maggots and smoldering fire raced to consume the putrefying fare served to them each day.

Rabbinic Literature

Later rabbinic lore embellished Gehenna even more. Originally a place of punishment for Jews alone, it was broadened to include all sinners. From about the time of the apostle Paul, Gehenna became the rabbis’ general term for the intermediate state and, after that, a purgatory.[18]

Some of these developments show traces of foreign influence, perhaps by the Zoroastrian eschatology of Iran. There, fire is the means of testing at the last judgment. The mountains, which are made of metal, melt and flow over the earth like a river. As men pass into this molten metal, they are either purified or destroyed. In the end, everything, including hell itself, will be purified by fire.[19]

The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus of Ephesus, also taught that each world era ends with a great conflagration, returning everything to the primal fire, and from it then producing a new world. The Stoics later included some of these ideas in their concept of the end of the world by fire (called the ekpyrōsis).[20]

Later rabbinic tradition placed Gehenna in an enormous underground cavern beneath the earth with solid ground resting over it like the lid of a kettle over boiling water. Its entrance was narrow, located somewhere in the environs of Jerusalem. Abraham sat at its gate to ensure that no circumcised man entered. Some rabbis said the setting sun reflected the glare from the fires of Gehenna, others that Gehenna’s heat warmed the waters of the Sea of Tiberias.[21]

The Babylonian Talmud portrays the worst Jewish sinners being sentenced to Gehenna for twelve months, after which “their bodies are destroyed, their souls are burned, and the wind strews the ashes under the feet of the pious.” All others who enter Gehenna come out, except adulterers, and those who shamed or vilified their neighbor. In the end, God takes the sun from its case, and it heals the pious and punishes the sinners. There is no Gehenna in the future world.[22]

Rabbinical temperaments range from harsh to sympathetic. There are descriptions of torment by snow, smoke, thirst, and rebellious animals. Some passages speak of the righteous observing the torments of the damned, “tossing in their pain like the pieces of boiling meat in a cauldron.” Other rabbis, more benevolent, say that every Sabbath, God floods Gehenna with light and the wicked also observe a day of rest.[23]

Concerning the duration of Gehenna’s conscious punishment, rabbinical opinions are contradictory. Some say that pain continues forever, and others, that it ends at the last judgment. Whether this last view envisions a future life for the wicked or looks for their total annihilation cannot be determined conclusively.[24] Clearly, contradictory opinions existed.

In a charming tale from the later rabbis, those in Gehenna hear the worship in paradise. The sinners are so moved by its majesty that, at the end of a particular blessing, they all add their “amen.” God overhears the “amen” and asks about its origin. Someone explains that it came from the lost in Gehenna, and God, moved with pity, commands that they all be released to join the worship in paradise.

When Jesus came upon the scene, and during the century that followed, diverse, conflicting ideas circulated among the Jews.

Jesus’ Teachings that Name Gehenna

Matthew 5:21–26

Passing by all the hand-me-down teaching of the ancients (a common formula of scribal teaching began: “Rabbi X said that Rabbi Y said that Rabbi Z said thus-and-so”), Jesus taught as one who had authority (Matt 7:29). In God’s eyes, he said, not only is murder forbidden; the thought behind it is culpable as well: “Anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment . . . Anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” These three figures of punishment—judgment, Sanhedrin, and fire of hell—“are not ascending but rather parallel phrases, seen in the similarity of the cause of the judgment. There is little difference between being angry with one’s brother, insulting him, and calling him a fool.”[25] There is apparently no basis for the common explanation that Jesus here describes a succession of greater Jewish crimes with penalties correspondingly severe.”[26]

This is the Savior’s first specific reference to Gehenna, or hell, by that name. We have read its history, heard its reputation, and will return to it throughout this chapter. But first, look at a scenario about imprisonment and a debt far too large to repay.

IMPRISONMENT

“Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny” (Matt 5:25–26). Regardless of the precise nature of final punishment, the time to avoid it is the present. This is Jesus’ primary point here, although these words have been used in support of purgatory, universal restoration, and eternal conscious torment. Luke’s parallel is no clearer (Luke 12:58–59), nor is the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant (Matt 18:34–35).

Salmond advocated the traditionalist view of hell, but tempered his analysis of these verses.[27] He pointed to “the helplessness of the man when once in the prison, the finality of his condition there, the hopelessness of discharging his debt.” Our Lord speaks here, he continues, “of a justice which is inexorable, a law of retribution which [the victim] cannot avert, a peril which cannot be stayed.”[28]

Because the debtor will never come out of prison until he repays his debt in full, something that is impossible, some traditionalists argue that the person who goes to hell must suffer conscious torment forever. But such reasoning is misguided, as conditionalist author Guillebaud makes very clear: “A prisoner who never comes out of prison does not live there eternally. The slave who was delivered to the tormentors till he should pay two million pounds would not escape from them by payment, but he would assuredly die in the end: why should not the same result be at least a possibility in the application?”[29]

INTERACTION

Traditionalists sometimes point to the tormentors in Matt 18:34 as evidence of unending conscious torment. However, neither this text nor its setting suggests that Jesus is thinking about final punishment here.[30] The word “torment” (basanos) itself does not determine the duration of the torment. In Rev 9:5, the verb form of this same word involves torment that lasts for five months. The New Testament uses “torment” broadly—metaphorically and literally, physically and spiritually, in this age and in the age to come.[31]

Robert W. Yarbrough says that I “underinterpret Gehenna” by confusing the literal Valley of Hinnom with the “eschatological destiny” of the wicked.[32] I do not suggest that final punishment will occur in the literal valley outside Jerusalem. Nor does one under-interpret Gehenna who simply uses the symbol as Jesus did, although it probably appears so to the person accustomed to over-interpreting Gehenna by making it mean more than Jesus did.

The ultimate difference between the views of traditionalists and conditionalists becomes clear when one defines Gehenna. Gerstner speaks for traditionalists in saying that it is “a place of everlasting burning.”[33] I speak for conditionalists and for most other annihilationists in saying it is “a place of everlasting destruction.”

Matthew 5:27–30

Just as murder is rooted in hate, so adultery begins with unlawful desire. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’” says Jesus. “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt 5:27–28).

The end of sin is so terrible that it makes sense to discard a cherished body part to avoid hell. Loss of one limb now is far better than total loss hereafter. “If your right eye causes you to sin,” Jesus says, “gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell” (Matt 5:29–30).

Jesus uses a verb that emphasizes the sense of being rejected, banished, and expelled. “Throw away” (ballō ) eye or hand, he says—as men discard worthless salt (Matt 5:13), dead grass (Mat. 6:30) or inedible fish (Matt 13:48). That is far preferable to having one’s whole body “thrown away” on the day of judgment.

This verb, “to throw away,” has no inherent eschatological significance, but Matthew uses it often when speaking of the doom of the wicked.[34] The second comparison in the passage also stresses the idea of banishment: better to lose one part of the body than for the whole body to “go off away” into hell.

Again Jesus identifies Gehenna as the place of final punishment. Here he does not describe its destruction or duration, saying only that those who go there have been discarded and expelled by God. This is no gentle and passive death, but a fearful extinction wrought by potentially excruciating destruction in the fiery pit of the age to come.

Matthew 10:28

Little wonder that Jesus warned: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt 10:28). This teaching concludes our Lord’s discourse about persecution, a context that involves rejection and even killing, by humans and by God (Matt 10:24–31).

CHRIST’S CONTRASTS

Our Lord’s warning is plain. Man’s power to kill stops with the body and the horizons of the present age. The death that humans inflict is not final, for God will call forth the dead from the earth and give the righteous immortality. By contrast, God’s ability to kill and destroy is limitless. It reaches deeper than the physical and extends beyond the present. God can kill both soul and body, both now and hereafter. We see that in Matthew’s account, Jesus equates “kill” and “destroy,” making them interchangeable. That is not surprising to the ordinary person in normal discourse, but it flies in the face of traditionalists who always define “destroy” as alive but wishing not to be.

The “soul” is the “life,” the “person,” writes Alexander Sand, in the Expository Dictionary of the New Testament. In this passage, Matt 10:28, Jesus “juxtaposes God, who can destroy both [soul] and [body], and humans, who can destroy the body, but not the [soul]: God can destroy the entire person (‘the real Self,’ . . . not only the limited earthly existence, but also the entire, actual life God originally gives to a person).”[35]

Ulrich Luz, Professor of New Testament Studies at the University of Bern in Switzerland, writes: “The punishment for the wicked consists in their complete destruction, body and soul.[36] R. T. France, formerly Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, concurs. Hell is “a place of destruction, not of continuing punishment,” France says, “a sense which fits the origin of the term in the rubbish dumps of the Hinnom valley, where Jerusalem’s garbage was destroyed by incineration.”[37]

Robin E. Nixon writes: “The soul in biblical thought is not immortal, except when new life is conferred upon it through Christ . . . Hell is therefore the place of its destruction as Gehenna, the Valley of Hinnom, was of the rubbish of Jerusalem.”[38] Luz notes that “the Greek concept of the immortal soul is not taken over here. God can destroy the soul in hell.”[39]

Even if it should someday be shown that the Valley of Hinnom was not used as a garbage dump in the first century, the place still would carry connotations of things rejected, of total destruction and of disgusting sight and smells based on biblical comments, if only in Isaiah 66:24.

INTERACTION

Matthew 10:28 is a verse that ignites the traditionalist imagination like few others. How does one fit Jesus’ clear warning that God “is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna” into a thought-pattern of unending conscious torment? Of the seventeen contemporary traditionalists[40] in our conversation, Dr. Gerstner surely offers the most creative reply. He answers: “God has given the wicked resurrection bodies so that they cannot die.”[41]

Paul speaks of the redeemed when he promises resurrection bodies that are deathless (immortal), incorruptible, glorious, and so forth. Dr. Gerstner goes beyond Scripture when he explains: “There are blessed resurrection bodies for the saints in heaven, and cursed ones for those in hell.” He continues his theological construct. “Their bodies will, no doubt, be as hideous as their depraved souls and fitted by God for everlasting torment.”[42]

John Blanchard thinks that, by being resurrected, every human being becomes “indestructible” and thereafter “cannot be annihilated.”[43] Even unbelievers, he says, “will be reintegrated and possess material, physical bodies . . . dramatically changed to fit their ultimate environment.”[44] By such additions to Scripture’s revelation, the “indestructible” unbeliever begins to suspiciously resemble the “immortal” believer—contradicting Jesus’ statement that while all the dead will be raised, some will “rise to live” while others will “rise to be condemned” (John 5:28–29).

Robert Peterson includes Matt 10:28 among many New Testament statements that could mean extinction but that he concludes must mean “ruin” instead.[45] Dixon and Davies both say that “destroy” does not mean destroy here because it has other meanings in other passages.[46]

Yarbrough makes the same argument, based on the demons’ words in Mark 1:24 and Luke 4:34, although neither text mentions enduring torment and both are more naturally understood as protesting the demons’ premature demise. Yarbrough also argues that the death Jesus threatens in Matt 10:28 is “eternal,” and therefore must refer to everlasting torment.[47] I urge that it makes better sense to understand eternal death as death that is permanent and will never be reversed.

Peterson equates “destroy” in Matt 10:28 with “throw into hell” in Luke 12:5,[48] but then explains Matthew’s specific word “destroy” by Luke’s generic phrase “throw into hell.” Is it not more natural, appropriate, and helpful to explain Luke’s broader “throw into hell” by Matthew’s focused word “destroy”? Specific words clarify generalities.

Matthew 18:8–9

The setting for this teaching saw Jesus welcoming little children, and teaching his disciples to attend to God’s “little ones” of any age. The greatest in the kingdom of heaven is the person most like a little child, Jesus tells the competitive and ambitious disciples. And woe to any person who causes one of God’s little ones to sin! Jesus repeats in essence what he had said earlier about forfeiting a hand, foot or even an eye in order to escape Gehenna (Matt 5:29–30).

ETERNAL FIRE

Gehenna here is called the “eternal fire.” Millard J. Erickson reminds us that “the adjective aiōnios may refer simply to an age rather than having its customary meaning of eternity.”[49] Here the adjective translated “eternal” seems most naturally to have both meanings and not either exclusively.

In another place Jesus says the “eternal fire” was prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt 25:41). This is paralleled by reference to the kingdom that was “prepared since the creation of the world” (v. 34). The “fire” seems to be at least as old as creation in this language and it will extend beyond the present age. It is therefore “eternal,” since it neither begins nor ends with the present age.

The phrase itself does not explain what “eternal fire” will do to those thrown into it. Where Matthew has the “eternal fire,” Mark speaks simply of being “thrown/going into hell” (Mark 9:43, 45, 47). As in the matter of “eternal sin,” Mark uses the straightforward language of prose rather than apocalyptic symbolism.

There is general agreement that both these Evangelists record words spoken originally in Aramaic or, as some believe, in Hebrew. Matthew’s language might add flavor and force, but should not be interpreted in a vacuum to contradict Mark’s statements. Luke’s account of the incident stops short of this conversation (Luke 17:1–2).

UNDYING WORM, IRRESISTIBLE FIRE

Jesus quotes Isaiah and Mark records his words—“their worm” and “the fire” (Mark 9:48. Some manuscripts add the same words as vv. 44–45).

This “worm” is the kind that feeds on dead bodies (skōlēx) as we have seen before. There is no scriptural basis for making the worm a metaphor for remorse, a practice as ancient as Origen and now almost universal. This worm devours, and what it eats, in Isaiah’s picture that Jesus quotes here without amendment, is already dead. Assisting the consuming worm in this disintegration is a consuming, irresistible fire.[50]

Isaiah 66:24 speaks of “their worm” and “their” fire. The parallelism in the clauses indicates that what is said about their worm (it does not die) and what is said about their fire (it is not quenched) are synonymous. The fact that the fire is “not quenched” means that it keeps burning until nothing put in it finally remains. The fact that the worm does not die has the same significance—its work of devouring dead bodies is not cut short by the worm’s own demise. The two possessive pronouns in Isaiah thus emphasize the completion of the destruction.

By changing Isaiah’s “their fire” to “the fire,” Jesus also shows the possessive pronoun to be dispensable. In addition, Mark’s “their” confirms Matthew’s statement that the fire prepared for others will also become the fate of these.

SALTED WITH FIRE

Mark alone records the saying: “Everyone will be salted with fire” (Mark 9:49). Traditionalist A. H. Strong says: “Fire is usually destructive, but this unquenchable fire will act like salt, preserving instead of destroying.”[51] Conditionalist Edward White suggests that every person in hell “will be, like Lot’s wife, ‘salted with fire,’ preserved as a monument in death of the tremendous results of rebellion against the Omnipotent.”[52] Both interpretations are necessarily creative since the Bible suggests neither.

William L. Lane presents a more sober interpretation, having previously shown a close relation between Mark’s Gospel and the fires of persecution. In Lane’s view, Jesus offers his disciples a choice: the “fire” of persecution now or the “fire” of Gehenna later.[53]

Perhaps the most promising explanation of Mark 9:49 relates to the premise that Mark used a Hebrew source for this passage, which included Hebrew idiom lost on later Greek readers.[54] Weston W. Fields, Executive Director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation and a member of the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research, explains. Mark 9:49 can be translated literally from Greek into Hebrew word by word in order to yield: “Every man with fire will be salted.” The expression “to salt with fire” is an idiom, says Fields, for the practice of destroying a place and sowing it with salt to make its destruction permanent (Judg 9:45). This fits the context in Mark, in which Jesus declares it better to enter the kingdom with some body pieces missing, rather than to be thrown into hell with every body part intact (Mark 9:42-48). Fields thus translates verse 49 as “Everyone [who is sent to hell] will be completely destroyed” (“that is,” he explains, “destroyed by fire”).[55]

Fields’ explanation is consistent with the picture in Isa 66:24, with Jesus’ agreeable use of that picture in verse 48, and with Jesus’ regular teaching elsewhere that the wicked will be destroyed (Matt 10:28) and perish (John 3:16).

INTERACTION

A. W. Pink compares preservation by salt to God’s preserving the burning bush (Exod 3) and keeping the bodies of the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace (Dan 3).[56] We all agree that God is able to preserve the bodies of the wicked to endure eternal conscious torment. However, nothing in Scripture indicates that he will do that, and much indicates he will not.

Robert W. Yarbrough says that “Jesus speaks of people being cast into hell as closely parallel with ‘entering life’” (emphasis in original). Therefore, he reasons, if the duration of the experience of eternal life is “conscious and unending,” we must say that “‘the ‘life’ of those who enter Gehenna will be conscious and unending” as well.[57]

This proposal has two problems. First, Jesus does not speak of people being “cast into hell” as closely parallel with “entering life.” The exact opposite is true: Jesus contrasts these two final states. Second, “entering life” and “entering Gehenna” do not belong together. Indeed, in this very passage, “life” is the alternative to being thrown into Gehenna.

Dr. Yarbrough also claims that my statement that Gehenna “does not belong to time but to eternity” manifests “a timeless view of eternity, a Platonic understanding,” putting me in the same category with traditionalists who adopt a Platonic view of the immortality of the soul.[58] I thank Brother Yarbrough for the reminder that Plato did not view eternity as time extended endlessly, but as timelessness that is qualitatively different from time-bound.[59] However, I do not build a doctrine on Platonism, as traditionalists do, and if Yarbrough will agree to leave off using the phrase “immortality of the soul,” I will stop contrasting time and eternity.

Yarbrough accuses me of “equivocating” because I compare Gehenna to the Valley of Hinnom when discussing Matt 5:22, but, when discussing Matt 18:8, I point out that Gehenna will transcend the literal valley’s earthly limitations.[60] He also faults me for offering the Valley of Hinnom and Sodom as illustrative of Gehenna’s eschatological fire. However, I am only tracking the point made by the Matthean text in each instance. Finally, I am not the person whom Matthew is quoting in those texts.

Matthew 23:15, 33

The setting of this teaching, in which Gehenna is named, is a protracted series of Woes pronounced by Jesus over the Jewish sect known as the Pharisees (Matthew 23). A “woe” is not necessarily a curse or imprecation, as often thought, but can be a lament in view of impending tragedy. Accordingly, the chapter ends with Jesus weeping over the city filled with hypocritical religious leaders (Matt 23:37–39).

Midway through this lamentation, Jesus bemoans the “evangelistic” zeal of the Pharisees—and also its results. They wear themselves out in search of a single “convert,” whom they then transform into a two-fold “son of hell” (v. 15). Jesus matches this mention of hell at the end of the chapter with a rhetorical question to the Pharisees, “How will you escape being condemned to hell? (v. 33).

These are the canonical sayings of Jesus that specifically use the place name “Gehenna.” However, Jesus also speaks in other texts of punishment involving fire that might well be Gehenna, but for which he does not use that name. Those passages of Scripture are the subject of the next chapter, where they will be the object of our attention.

1. MacCulloch, “Eschatology,” 5:381–82. On modern approaches to Jesus’ eschatological message in general, see Kee, “The Development of Eschatology,” 187–93.

2. Whiteley, “Liberal Christianity,” 26.

3. Reiser, Jesus and Judgment, 1–2.

4. Ramsey, quoted by Fairhurst, “The Problem Posed by the Severe Sayings,” 79.

5. John W. Wenham, The Goodness of God, 20–21.

6. Andrew Perriman argues that Jesus said nothing about hell as place of individual final punishment, and that biblical passages thought to speak of such are instead “things that people said and wrote at particular moments in a historical narrative, in response to particular developments, drawing on particular memories and traditions, connecting particular misconceptions, encouraging particular attitudes and actions.” Perriman, The Coming of the Son of Man, 5–6.

7. Bietenhard, “Gehenna,” 2:208.

8. Jeremias, “Gehenna,” 1:658.

9. Robinson, “Gehenna,” 1:635–36. The valley’s modern name is Wadi al-Rababah (Hirsch, “Gehinnom,” JE, 5: 583).

10. “Hell,” PD, 287. See also Berkhof, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:344. Fausset derives the name “Tophet” from the drums (toph) used to drown out the screams and cries of children being offered to Moloch (Fausset, ECE, 281). I have not seen this mentioned elsewhere.

Moloch may be Melech, the “King-god,” vocalized with the vowels of bosheth (“shame”), perhaps the Baal (a Semitic word for “Lord”) of Tyre. So says Pilcher, The Hereafter in Jewish and Christian Thought, 83.

11. Josephus, J.W., 5.2.5; 5.12.3–4.

12. Linton, “The Sorrows of Hell,” 12.

13. Gaster, “Gehenna,” 2:362.

14. Str–B, 2:1029.

15. Dunning, “What Has Become of Heaven and Hell?” 353.

16. Shedd quotes Robinson that there is no evidence for a Gehenna garbage dump in Christ’s day (Shedd, The Doctrine of Endless Punishment, 43). However, the proximity of the Valley of Hinnom to the Dung Gate, the constant flow of carcasses and blood of sacrificial animals from the Temple, and the discovery of sewers and latrines at the site, all support the old tradition of the Valley of Hinnom as a place of burning garbage. Olds, “Was the Valley of Hinnom-Gehenna a Smoldering Rubbish Heap in the Time of Jesus? Online: http://fromdamascustoemmaus.com/was-the-valley-of-hinnom-gehenna-a-smoldering-rubbish-heap-in-the-time-of-jesus/.

17. Hoyles, “The Punishment of the Wicked,” 118.

18. Str–B, 2:1032–33; Bruce, “Paul on Immortality,” 459. See also Bruce, Paul, 302.

19. Scobie, John the Baptist, 68; H. Bietenhard, “Fire,” 1:653–54. Concerning probable Persian influence on Pharisaic doctrine, see Bruce, Paul, 47.

20. Bietenhard, “Fire,” 653–54.

21. Pilcher, Hereafter, 89.

22. “Ge-hinnom,” JE, vol. 5, cols. 581–83.

23. Str–B, 2:1076; Pilcher, Hereafter, 85–86, 91.

24. Forestell, “Christian Revelation and the Resurrection of the Wicked,” 176–77; Wahle, “Lehren des rabbinischen Judentums uber das Leben nach dem Tod,” 302–5, 308–9.

25. Baird, The Justice of God in the Teaching of Jesus, 226.

26. Davies, The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount, 235–39.

27. John Gerstner admits that the idea that people in hell will “increase in sinfulness and punishment is conjectural.” However, since he believes that “everything implies it and nothing prevents it,” Dr. Gerstner makes the traditionalist’s argument based on this particular notion, as follows: “That is, these unchanged sinners who hate God will hate and curse God for the punishing. That certainly increases their sin and incurs more punishment. Their guilt, in other words, is constantly increased and so is their deserved punishment.” (Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 74.)

Blanchard argues that those who are “sent into hell’s prison” would not get out until they had “paid in full the penalty their sins deserved,” which could never happen. (Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 223). We must beware of using uninspired logic in a way that contradicts Bible teaching. The fact is that the “penalty” for sin is death, the second death, a death without limitations (“infinite”) that encompasses the whole person (Matt 10:28) forever (2 Thess 1:8). One who “pays” that penalty does not “get out” of “hell’s prison,” but dies there and is dead forever.

28. Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality, 379.

29. Guillebaud, The Righteous Judge, 21.

30. Even if Jesus intended to teach here about final punishment, the mere presence of “tormentors” in the parable narrative would say nothing about the nature, duration, or result of the torment they inflicted.

31. Schneider, “Basanos,” 1:561–63.

32. Yarbrough, “Jesus on Hell,” 79.

33. Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 125.

34. Matt 3:10; 5:25; 7:19; 13:42, 50; 18:8–9, 30.

35. Sand, “psychē,” 3:500, 3:502.

36. Luz, Matthew 8–20, 101.

37. France, The Gospel of Matthew, 403.

38. Nixon, New Bible Commentary Revised, 829.

39. Luz, Matthew 8–20, 101.

40. This third edition retains the substance of the interactions in earlier editions, but also interacts with seventeen contemporary traditionalists represented by twelve separate books. The men are G. K. Beale, John Blanchard, Daniel I. Block, Eryl Davies, Larry Dixon, Sinclair B. Ferguson, John Gerstner, Kendall S. Harmon, Paul Helm, Bruce Milne, R. Albert Mohler, Douglas J. Moo, Christopher W. Morgan, J. I. Packer, Robert A. Peterson, Robert W. Yarbrough, and John Walvoord.

41. Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 140 (emphasis his).

42. Ibid., 142.

43. Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 69.

44. Ibid., 97.

45. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 44, 194.

46. Dixon cites Luke 15:1–7, 8–9, 24; John 11:50; Acts 5:37; 1 Cor 10:9-10; Jude 11 and John 17:12. Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News, 78; Davies cites Matt 2:13; 12:14; 27:4; and 2 Pet 3:6. Davies, An Angry God? 134.

47. Yarbrough, “Jesus on Hell,” 80–81.

48. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 44.

49. Erickson, “Principles, Permanence, and Future Divine Judgment,” 322.

50. Earlier we cited biblical references to “unquenchable fire,” always meaning fire that cannot be resisted and which therefore burns up completely whatever is put into it. The term has the same meaning in ecclesiastical Eusebius, who speaks of “unquenchable fire” that burns a martyr to ashes (Hist. Eccl. 6.41.15).

51. Strong, Systematic Theology, 3:1036.

52. White, Life in Christ, 409.

53. Lane, The Gospel according to Mark, 349.

54. Fields, “Salted With Fire,” no page numbers.

55 Ibid..

56. Pink, Eternal Punishment, 27. See also Strong, above.

57. Yarbrough, “Jesus on Hell,” 82.

58. Ibid., 81.

59. Augustine apparently followed Plato deliberately in distinguishing between time and eternity. According to Henry Chadwick, “[t]he relation of time to eternity is central both in Augustine’s theology and in his debate with Platonism . . . [According to Augustine] Plato saw rightly that eternity is not an infinite extension of time, but that ‘time is a moving image of eternity.’” Chadwick, Augustine of Hippo, 135.

60. Ibid., 81–82.

12

Jesus: Fire (Gehenna Not Named)

IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER, we examined each of the eleven passages in which Jesus uses the word Gehenna (“hell”) while teaching about the end of the wicked. Here we will look carefully at all the texts in which Jesus refers to fire in connection with final punishment, without specifically mentioning Gehenna.

Exposition of Passages

Matthew 3:10–12

John the Baptist picks up the thread of divine revelation where Malachi had laid it down. The last verses of the Old Testament promise that Elijah will come to prepare men for the day of the Lord. The Gospels open their door to greet us with Isaiah’s “voice in the wilderness.” Nazarite by commission and priest’s son by birth, he is also a prophet.

Messiah’s harbinger and martys in the sense of “witness,” he authenticated his message by a martyr’s death. He is John the Baptizer, whose austere diet and rugged wardrobe brought to mind critical times of spiritual decision and another prophet who also placed his life on the line by telling God’s truth. For John is also Malachi’s “Elijah,” through whom, after four centuries of silence, Israel’s sovereign God is speaking once again.

JUDGMENT

Like Habakkuk before him, John calls on men to run from imminent peril (Hab 2:2)—fiery judgment follows close on his heels. When the Pharisees come to size him up, John compares them to desert reptiles fleeing before a wilderness flame. John warns of coming wrath (Matt 3:7; Luke 3:7), a theme that continues through the New Testament.[1] People can escape this judgment only by repenting and believing on the Lamb of God, whom John identifies as his cousin Jesus of Nazareth.

“The ax is already at the root of the trees,” John announces, “and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt 3:10). Every orchard man recognizes this situation, one so familiar that Jesus will choose it for his Parable of the Fig Tree (Luke 13:6–9). Trees with bad fruit are burned (Matt 7:19), as are unfruitful vines (John 15:6) and useless weeds (Matt 13:40). In Jesus’ teaching, as in John’s, these figures from the land represent sinners in the end. They stand for false prophets, hypocritical hearers, or fruitless disciples. In each case they are burned up.

Jesus will “baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire,” John says (Matt 3:11). Luke records the same words, but Mark promises the Holy Spirit and stops, perhaps because his Christian readers in Rome already know a “fire” of persecution; Mark encourages now rather than warns (Mark 1:7–8).

This future baptism of fire is almost certainly to be understood alongside John’s other references to fire; it is the fire of judgment, the judgment that would break first over the head of Jesus himself, qualifying him in God’s program to then administer it to his enemies. Daniel had spoken of a river of fire flowing from the flaming throne of the Ancient of Days (Dan 7:9–10). As the Son of Man of the end-time, Jesus would be immersed in that river even as John baptized him in the waters of Jordan. Jesus’ own two baptisms—in water and in fire—signal the beginning and the accomplishment of his earthly ministry, the prerequisite for his baptizing in the Holy Spirit.[2]

The Son of Man suffers, the Lamb dies in silence, but this same one will come again as Judge. John proclaims that, too, as he introduces Jesus to Israel. “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering the wheat into his barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matt 3:12). “While John baptized in water, a symbol of the eschatological judgment and purification,” says M. Eugene Boring in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Jesus, “the one to come . . . would purify the righteous and burn up the unrighteous.”[3]

UNQUENCHABLE FIRE

To “quench” a fire is to put it out, to resist it successfully, to interrupt its progress and stop its normal course, to thwart its purpose—in short, to prevent it from burning up whatever is put into it (Heb 11:34). When a fire that is not resisted or quenched has completely consumed its fuel, it naturally goes out—but it is not “quenched,” for it has not been extinguished but has done what fire naturally does.

Throughout Scripture, the figure of “unquenchable fire” represents a fire of judgment that cannot be extinguished. On and on it comes, driven by the wind of God’s righteous fury—burning irresistibly, crackling, flaming, consuming—until nothing is left but smoke and silence.[4] There is no linguistic basis for interpreting the phrase “unquenchable fire” as fire that “never goes out.”[5] Throughout the Bible, from the first appearance of the phrase until its last, “unquenchable fire” always denotes fire that is not capable of being extinguished, and that is therefore irresistible. The language in this text reinforces and underscores that meaning by saying that Jesus will “burn up” the chaff with “unquenchable” fire. That is precisely what unquenchable fire does.

If we are willing to let the Bible define its own terms, the metaphor of unquenchable fire is easily recognized, immediately understood, and consistently used. No evangelical can logically or morally refuse to allow this of Scripture, for, as J. I. Packer points out, the presupposition that Scripture possesses an “inner coherence and consistency and power to elucidate its own teaching from within itself” is “a controlling principle in all interpretation.”[6]

GNASHING OF TEETH

The figure of people gnashing their teeth appears throughout the Bible and expresses rage (often defiant).[7] We see this, for example, in connection with the death of the martyr Stephen, whose murderers closed in for the kill while gnashing at him with their teeth (Acts 7:54). If we consider the seven times that Jesus uses the phrase in the Gospels, we discover that “weeping and gnashing of teeth”:

• accompanies “throw into darkness outside” (Matt 8:12; 22:13; 25:30);

• accompanies “you yourselves thrown out” (Luke 13:28);

• follows “assign him a place with the hypocrites” (Matt 24:51);

• modifies “weed out of his kingdom” and “throw away” (Matt 13:41–42);

• accompanies “separate the wicked from the righteous” (Matt 13:49–50).

In each instance those consigned to “weeping and grinding of teeth” are separated from others who are approved. Every time this double phase appears in the Gospels, the context first emphasizes banishment, expulsion or rejection. In five of the seven texts listed above, those who will gnash their teeth are banished from a scene of blessing and joy, but with no mention of fire. In two of the seven texts, they are thrown into the “fiery furnace.” When the picture includes fire, there is no indication that God will miraculously intervene to deliver from this furnace, as he once did for Daniel’s three friends. We may therefore suppose that this fiery furnace will do to its occupants precisely what the enemies of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego intended for their furnace to do to those three men.

Scripture says almost nothing about the weeping, and neither, to their credit, have most traditionalists. It seems reasonable and does no violence to the texts to understand weeping as the reaction of those who realize that God has expelled them from his presence, who sense even to a small degree the joys they have lost and the punishment they now face. Bruce Milne, a traditionalist, prudently describes the weeping as expressing “immense, almost unbearable regret. The persons so consigned will be conscious of their fate and will be overwhelmed by the contemplation of it.”[8] Similarly, Paul Helm speaks of “a time of wailing and of self-despair.”[9]

Marius Reiser says that the coupled phrase “weeping and gnashing of teeth” is found only in the New Testament, where it signifies “despairing rage.”[10] In that case we can safely conclude that “weeping and gnashing of teeth” sums up two attitudes of those whom God finally banishes. On the one hand, there is remorse and sorrow (expressed in weeping); on the other hand, there is rage (often defiant) (expressed in gnashing of teeth). Conspicuously absent from all our texts is the idea of people gnashing teeth in pain and agony—for whatever length of time.

INTERACTION

John the Baptist announces that Jesus will “burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matt 3:12). But rather than allowing the phrase “burn up” to mean “burn up,” Larry Dixon, a good and learned man, responds as traditionalists often have responded for centuries: he gives the words of Scripture a sense exactly opposite their essential content and plain meaning.

“Lest one think that the wicked will be consumed,” Dixon writes, “that fire is described as unquenchable, a Greek word from which we get our English word ‘asbestos,’ indicating ‘mineral supposed to be inextinguishable when set on fire.’”[11] Then, having stood both Scripture and Webster’s Dictionary on their heads, Dixon clinches his case by citing a fellow-traditionalist who solemnly and authoritatively states: “[I]t is my conviction that the figure of ‘unquenchable fire,’ in the light of other Scripture references, intends unending conscious misery.”[12]

To his credit, Robert A. Peterson, my coauthor of Two Views of Hell and a systematic theologian both skilled and pleasant, frankly admits that this text can be interpreted as teaching the annihilation of the wicked.[13] But it should not be so interpreted, he continues, because of the “abundant scriptural testimony that hell-fire speaks of the pain of the wicked, not their consumption.” And just what is that “abundant scriptural testimony?” I ask. It is the Parable of the Weeds, Peterson replies, in which our Lord compares the end of the wicked to weeds that are burned. But does not that parable itself prove that the wicked will be burned up? No, Peterson responds. For Jesus says that the wicked will be thrown into a fiery furnace “where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 13:40–42).[14] Although gnashing or grinding of teeth in Scripture regularly indicates rage (often defiant), Dr. Peterson routinely substitutes a meaning of his own. First he says that “gnashing of teeth” denotes pain, and then he says that the pain will continue forever.[15]

Matthew 7:15–20

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. (Matt 7:15–20)

As Jesus warns men of impending destruction, so had the prophets before him. Both he and they also confronted false prophets who lurked nearby, ready to usher the gullible through the broad gate onto the wide road. “Watch out for false prophets,” Jesus continues, you recognize them by their fruits. Then Jesus speaks of their end: “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt 7:19).

We have met this figure already, and we will see it again. J. Arthur Baird examines this saying as one in a series of “crisis contacts” in which Jesus contrasts the evil person and the person who belongs to God’s kingdom (Matt 7:13–27). Few find life—many end in destruction (vv. 13–14); doers enter the kingdom—evildoers must depart (vv. 21–23); the wise survive the storm—the foolish experience a great fall (vv. 24–27).

Now Jesus continues the contrasts. The good tree is not cut down—the bad tree will be cut down and thrown into the fire. Casting into the fire parallels destruction (v. 13), rejection (v. 23) and the ruin of a house (v. 27). Baird concludes: “If one carries out the logical imagery here, the fire would seem to refer to the destruction of a tree already dead,” similar to the picture in Luke 12:5 that we will note later.[16]

Matthew 13:30, 40–43

In the Parable of the Weeds the farmer tells his servants to let wheat and weeds grow together until the harvest. When harvest comes, he will tell the harvesters to gather the weeds first and bundle them for burning, then gather the crop and store it in the barn (Matt 13:30). Several agricultural illustrations involve burning what is useless but here Jesus gives his own interpretation.

Jesus specifically draws an unmistakable parallel between parabolic present and future reality. As the weeds are burned, so it will be at the end-time. As weeds are put in the fire, so evildoers will be thrown into “the fiery furnace” (v. 40–43). This is clearly a teaching about final judgment at “the end of the age.”

In addition, the Greek words “everything that causes sin and all who do evil,” appear in some Greek versions of Zeph 1:3, the beginning of a description of the “day of the Lord,” a standard prophetic phrase for an occasion of judgment.[17] Jesus borrows this generic language of judgment and applies it specifically to the final judgment—a clear emphasis to those who know the Jewish Scriptures.

Jesus’ promise that “the righteous will shine like the sun” seems to come from Dan 12:3, where the language immediately follows Daniel’s reference in 12:2 to the resurrection of both righteous and wicked. Jesus’ phrase is also reminiscent of Mal 4:1–3, where the “sun of righteousness arises” for the righteous, and the wicked become ashes under the soles of their feet. In the present parable the workers pull the weeds and burn them in the fire, a figure which, according to Jesus’ own “as . . . so,” portrays what the angels will do to sinners at the end of the world.

INTERACTION

Bruce Milne’s book, The Message of Heaven and Hell, noteworthy for its reserved manner, discusses the previous parable on pages 112–19. In keeping with the rest of his book, this section is edifying, largely unobjectionable to conditionalists or to traditionalists, and Milne repeatedly speaks of “fiery destruction,” the wicked being “burned,” and “the threat of being consumed in the fire.”[18] Milne never states that these words, which sound like extinction for the wicked, are to be taken literally, but, unlike most traditionalists, he never alleges that they are not.

We have discovered that Jesus spoke often about punishment under the symbol of fire—sometimes associated with the fire of Gehenna, the place name given to the site of apocalyptic punishment by fire, and sometimes detached from that specific name. He also says much about final punishment without using the imagery of fire at all. Before we look at those teachings, however, we look closely at two other word pictures of Jesus. The first, one of Jesus’ most familiar parables on any subject, involves a final separation of people that Jesus refers to as the “sheep” and the “goats.”

1. Rom 2:5, 8; 5:9; Eph 5:6; Col 3:6; 1 Thess 1:10; 5:9; Rev 6:16–17; 11:18; 19:15. On John the Baptist and his warnings see Scobie, John the Baptist, 68.

2. Davies, The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount, 235–39.

3. Boring, Matthew, 158.

4. See Isa 1:31; 34:10–11; Jer 4:4; 7:20; 17:27; 21:12; Ezek 20:47–48; Amos 5:6; contrast Ps 118:12; Heb 11:34.

5. Robert W. Yarbrough writes: “It requires a studied effort not to see eternal conscious punishment implied in the words [of Mark 9:43] ‘where the fire never goes out.’” Yarbrough, “Jesus on Hell,” 74. Dr. Yarbrough is momentarily confused. What requires “a studied effort” is seeing the words “where the fire never goes out” in the first place. That is not what Jesus says, in Mark 9 or anywhere else. Instead he speaks of “fire that is not quenched.”

6. Packer, “Evangelical Annihilationism in Review,” 44. Dr. Packer’s sentence goes on to argue that this consistency lies beyond conditionalism’s logical reach, a point disputed by his evangelical Anglican comrades John Stott, John Wenham, and Philip E. Hughes.

7. Outside the Gospels, “gnashing of teeth” is mentioned also in Job 16:9; Pss 35:16; 37:12; 112:10; Lam 2:16, and Acts 7:54. Traditionalists would do well on this point to heed one of their own authors, Larry Dixon, who points out that “gnashing of teeth” is associated in Rabbinic thought “almost always with anger (not, as generally supposed, with anguish).” Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News, 163.

8. Milne, The Message of Heaven and Hell, 118.

9. Helm, The Last Things, 71.

10. Reiser, Jesus and Judgment, 237–38.

11. Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News, 146.

12. Ibid.

13. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 166.

14. Ibid., 167.

15. Throughout his book, Hell on Trial, Peterson constantly repeats his extra-biblical definition of “gnashing of teeth,” making it a symbol of extreme suffering (ibid., 49), pain, horrible suffering (ibid., 50), untold grief and agony (ibid., 52), torment and regret (ibid., 54), extreme suffering and remorse (ibid., 164), terrible suffering (ibid., 189), and untold anguish (ibid., 191). Not once in scriptural usage does the expression clearly mean any of those things.

16. Baird, Justice of God, 225.

17. Standard English translations do not use those exact words in the text, although the RSV and NASB include them in a marginal note, the ESV and the NET Bible have “stumbling blocks” in a note and “the wicked” or “evil people” in the text.

18. Milne, The Message of Heaven and Hell, 118–19.

13

Jesus: Fire (Parable of the Sheep and the Goats)

PERHAPS THE MOST FAMOUS of all Jesus’ words concerning final punishment are found in the final two verses of the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matt 25:31–46). This parable concludes a series of three crisis parables in which Jesus exhorts the disciples to keep their eyes open and their hands busy and to try always to help others.[1] The three parables are our Lord’s rousing end to his fifth and last discourse in Matthew’s carefully-arranged material.[2]

Setting

Who are “all the nations” judged in this parable? Dispensationalists who agree with The New Scofield Reference Bible identify them as individual Gentiles alive at Christ’s second coming, who are judged for their treatment of Jews during the great tribulation just ended.[3] Most exegetes, however, agree with Jeremias and Hunter that this parable speaks of the great judgment at the end of the world,[4] although they disagree on the identity of “the least of these brothers,” whose treatment becomes the standard of judgment.[5]

The gathering of God’s scattered flock is a familiar feature of the messianic age.[6] In Ezek 34:17 God promises to “judge . . . between rams and goats.” According to Dalman, flocks in Palestine were often mixed. Shepherds separated sheep from goats each night, the goats requiring protection from the cold, the sheep preferring open air.[7] This is the setting of Jesus’ parable concerning judgment at the end of the world.

Key Words and Phrases

Inherit the Kingdom

Those on the right are told to “take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world” (v. 34). Jesus’ first discourse in Matthew has some receive the kingdom (Matt 5:3), and so does his last. In the first case they are the “poor in spirit”; here they are those who have been so generous to the needy. We think of the similar language used about the Macedonians, whose “extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity” (2 Cor 8:1–5).

Eternal Fire

To those on the left the Son of Man says: “Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (v. 41). Again Jesus connects banishment with the “eternal fire.” The fire is “eternal” because it belongs to the age to come, and also because, like the fire that obliterated Sodom, the destruction it accomplishes is everlasting (Jude 7). The contrasts are impressive: sheep and goats alike are sent to an appropriate destiny; in each case the destiny was “prepared” (see discussion on Matt 18:8–9); in each case it is described as “eternal.” The parallel language highlights the looming split of the flock in two and their being sent in opposite directions.

Cursed

The “cursed” are certainly under God’s imprecation, but the word itself says nothing of what it involves. It is the common word for human curses.[8] Sometimes it describes one who has died a horrible death or who has been executed.[9] The noun is used a few times in connection with fire. Worthless land is “cursed” and burned (Heb 6:8); Jotham’s curse is fulfilled when a tower of people are burned to death (Judg 9:50–57).

Eternal

Here the curse is banishment into the eternal fire. Apparently pre-existent (prepared for the devil and his angels), it is also the fire of the age to come. The adjective “eternal” (aiōnios) here has both qualitative (pertaining to the age to come) and quantitative (unending in time) meanings.[10]

Bligh says the parable’s flavor is that of contemporary Judaism and argues that “only the original twists”—from “the perspective of his contemporary patriots”—are original with Jesus. His opponents could have agreed wholeheartedly with every detail of this parable bar two—who goes each direction, and why. These two unique points, says Bligh, are the only points Jesus intends to make.[11] But there is more to the parable than that.

The life is “eternal” in quality and in quantity. Neither the fire nor the punishment is of this age—in origin or in quality. When the wicked have perished, it will be forever. Their destruction and punishment are unending and also qualitatively different from anything we now know. The fire is also “eternal” in the same sense that Sodom was destroyed by “eternal fire”—its results will last forever (Jude 7).

A. W. Argyle, former lecturer in Divinity at Regent’s Park College, Oxford, is forthright. Eternal punishment, he says, is “punishment characteristic of the Age to come, not meaning that it lasts for ever.”[12] Because both ideas fit the case so that we cannot choose one to the exclusion of the other, and because both “eternal” and “everlasting” tend to do this very thing, I repeat without embarrassment my earlier (unoriginal) invitation for a new English adjective—perhaps a neutral transliteration such as “aionic” or “aionion.”[13]

Punishment

The adjective “eternal” here modifies the noun “punishment.” The meaning of “punishment” (kolasis) is disputed with no signs of eventual resolution.

Moulton–Milligan[14] say that “cut short” seems to have been the original sense of the cognate verb, with “prune” or “cutting down” a derived but familiar meaning in the time of Jesus. The only other New Testament occurrence of this noun translated as “punishment” (kolasis) in 1 John 4:18 fits this definition, they say, for fear “checks development,” and in that sense it has to do with punishment (NIV, ESV, NET). Moulton–Milligan here see “the idea of ‘deprivation,’ and kind of poena damni.”

William Barclay says that kolasis “was not originally an ethical word at all. It originally meant the pruning of trees to make them grow better.” Barclay concludes that “in all Greek secular literature kolasis is never used of anything but remedial punishment.” However, he offers no evidence for his assertion.[15]

As to its purpose, is this punishment retributive, corrective, both, or something else? Those who argue for unending conscious torment and those who argue for total irreversible extinction say it is retributive and that is all. All those who argue for universal restoration say it is finally corrective, and some who argue for universal restoration say it is corrective and retributive as well.

According to Aristotle the word here translated “punishment” points to the one who suffers, while its synonym timōria points to the one who inflicts. Trench repeats this distinction in his New Testament Synonyms, according to Salmond, who cautions against overstatement. Salmond cites Plutarch for nonbiblical exceptions, as well as numerous references from Hellenistic and early Christian literature.[16] Kolasis denotes punishment inflicted as well as received; it is at home with concepts such as wrath, justice, or vengeance (Acts 4:21 has the verb). What is kolasis here is timōria in Heb 10:29. Synonyms by nature are agreeably interchangeable, but reserve the right at times to have their individual say.

Perhaps the best definition of “punishment” in this chapter under consideration is not based on etymology at all but on biblical usage[17] and sanctified common sense. As to usage, the Septuagint uses kolasis to describe the Egyptians’ plagues (Wis 11:13; 16:2, 24) but also to describe their deaths in the Red Sea (Wis 19:4). It refers to punishment by death in 2 Macc 4:38 (involving the execution of a murderer), and in 4 Macc 8:9 (concerning a martyr who is tortured to death).

As an example of sanctified common sense, I offer traditionalist author Bruce Milne on the meaning of “punishment” in this passage. Milne writes: “The fate which awaits those consigned to hell is ‘eternal punishment ’ (v. 46). In other words, hell is morally deserved. Hell is the judicial outworking of the wrath of God upon those who have, by their deeds of omission and commission, brought this judgment down upon their own heads.”[18]

Jesus and Daniel

It is interesting to compare Jesus’ statement of contrasting fates here with his statement in John 5:29, and both of those with Daniel’s statement (Dan 12:2). This is what we find:

Matthew: go away to eternal life / go away to eternal punishment.

John: rise to live / rise to be condemned.

Daniel: awake to everlasting life / awake to shame and everlasting contempt.

What is said of the righteous is in each case the same. They rise/go to everlasting (eternal) life. On the basis of this comparison, the “condemnation” of “shame and everlasting contempt” is the same as the “eternal punishment” awaiting the wicked. If we may take Isa 66:24 as a further inspired description of the “contempt” mentioned in Daniel, the picture clearly involves the total consumption of dead corpses by fire and worms. Forever after, these who died at the hand of God are held in contempt. It is truly “everlasting” contempt.

Is Irreversible Death Punishment?

Traditionalists sometimes object that irreversible (therefore endless or everlasting) extinction is actually no “punishment” at all.[19] Yet throughout human history men have willingly chosen the severest tortures, life imprisonment, or exile into intolerable circumstances and total isolation rather than face the final cutting off of their expected years of life. A. W. Pink argues for conscious torment, but he makes our point in explaining the reason behind the figure “second death” as a symbol of hell. “To the normal man death is the object he fears above all others,” he writes. “It is that from which he naturally shrinks. It is that which he most dreads.”[20]

Salmond, a defender of the traditional view, agrees with this innate dread of nonexistence, even among primitive peoples. “The idea of annihilation,” says Plutarch, “was intolerable to the Greek mind. If they had no choice left them between entire extinction and an eternity of torment in Hades, they would have chosen the latter; almost all, men and women both, would have surrendered themselves to the teeth of Cerberus, or the buckets of the Danaidae, rather than to nonentity.”[21] T. H. Huxley is reported to have said he would prefer the traditionalist’s hell to annihilation, as did Milton’s Belial in Paradise Lost.[22]

Herman Witsius, a shaper of seventeenth-century Reformed orthodoxy and professor of Divinity at the Universities of Franeker, Utrecht and Leyden, wrote The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man. Witsius asked: “May it not, in its measure, be reckoned an infinite punishment, should God please to doom man, who was by nature a candidate for immortality, to total annihilation, from whence he should never be suffered to return to life?”[23] Augustine made the same point in his book, The City of God. “Where a very serious crime is punished by death and the execution of the sentence takes only a minute, no laws consider that minute as the measure of the punishment, but rather the fact that the criminal is forever removed from the community of the living.” (See his statement in context in chapter 28.)

On this basis we regard a twenty-year prison sentence to be greater than a ten-year sentence, a fifty-year sentence worse than one for twenty years, and life imprisonment greater than these all. Yet, as Constable pointed out,

From the earliest records of our race capital punishment has been reckoned as not only the greatest but also the most lasting of all punishments; and it is only reckoned the greatest because it is the most lasting. A flogging, inflicted on a petty thief, inflicts more actual pain than decapitation or hanging inflicts upon a murderer. Why then is it greater and more lasting? Because it has deprived the sufferer of every hour of that life which but for it he would have had. Its duration is supposed co-existent with the period of his natural life.[24]

Indeed, “to cease to be is the final tragedy which can befall a living soul who is able to receive the gift of eternal life.”[25]

Imagine the case of two foreign ambassadors, both kidnapped by the same band of terrorists. The captors brutalize the first man for three days, then cut off one of his ears and return him to his family. They protect the second man from any harm for the same three days—even treat him kindly—but shoot him dead at the last minute on a sudden whim. Which man’s “punishment” is greater? Who suffers the greater loss?

One who protests that utter extinction is no punishment at all might imagine a village in North Africa. One night while the villagers sleep, mercenaries instantly strike them all dead and burn their village to the ground. Was the atrocity less heinous because the sleeping inhabitants felt no pain, or because the ashes of the villages still remain? Who would claim such a thing?

It is not surprising that Charles Spurgeon is reported to have said: “I have no quarrel with the Conditional Immortality doctrine.”[26] W. Graham Scroggie, widely-used devotional speaker and pastor for seven years of Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, also identified himself as “a believer in Conditionalism.”[27] This understanding of Scripture is neither novel nor new.

New International Commentary on the New Testament

In the New International Commentary on the New Testament, R. T. France, former Warden of Tyndale House (Cambridge), Principal of Wycliffe Hall (Oxford), and Senior Lecturer and Vice-Principal of London Bible College, weighs the significance of Matt 25:46 for the debate about hell. “In the debate among evangelical theologians on the issue of annihilation as against continuing punishment,” France begins, “the phrase ‘eternal punishment’ here in Matt 25:46 is commonly cited as a proof-text for the latter position.”[28] Traditionalists base this conclusion, first of all, on their interpretation of the adjective “eternal.” France calls that interpretation into question. The traditionalist conclusion “is usually on the assumption that ‘eternal’ is a synonym for ‘everlasting,’” France writes, but that is an assumption he does not find warranted. “That assumption depends more on modern English usage than on the meaning of aiōnios, which we have seen to be related to the concept of the two ages. ‘Eternal punishment,’ so understood, is punishment which relates to the age to come rather than punishment which continues forever, so that the term does not in itself favor one side or the other in the annihilationist debate.”[29]

Then France takes issue with the traditionalist interpretation of the symbol of fire.

Insofar as the metaphor of fire may be pressed, however, it suggests destruction rather than punishment, especially if the imagery of the incineration of rubbish is understood to underlie the idea of hell (see on 5:22); the fire of Gehenna goes on burning not because the rubbish is not destroyed by it, but because more is continually added. The imagery of incineration in relation to the final destiny of the wicked also occurs more explicitly in 13:41: the weeds are destroyed, not kept burning forever. We have also noted the use of the verb “destroy” in relation to hell in 10:28.[30]

Because Jesus uses both the word “eternal” and the symbol of fire, France concludes that Matt 25:46 teaches the total extinction of sinners in hell. His conclusion is that, “These pointers suggest that an annihilationist theology (sometimes described as ‘conditional immortality’) does more justice to Matthew’s language in general, and if so the sense of ‘eternal punishment’ here will not be ‘punishment which goes on forever’ but ‘punishment which has eternal consequences,’ the loss of eternal life through being destroyed by fire.”[31]

Two Attempted Syntheses

At least two evangelical scholars, N. T. Wright in Great Britain and Gregory A. Boyd in the United States, have attempted to use elements from traditionalism and from conditionalism to create a synthesis that they hope will prove more satisfying than either of those views. Wright sees the key in anthropology and the dehumanizing effect of sin; Boyd seeks a solution in epistemology and the necessity of relationality as a component of authentic personhood.

N. T. Wright

Wright begins with the generally-accepted understanding that sin, at its core, is idolatry, which involves refusal to accept one’s authentic humanness as an image-bearer of God. To engage persistently in such refusal results in one’s dehumanization, Wright says, and repeated acts of such idolatry and dehumanization can “become so endemic in the life and chosen behavior of an individual . . . that . . . those who persist are conniving at their own ultimate dehumanization.”[32]

This process, suggests Wright, has eternal consequences because “after death” such people “become at last, by their own effective choice, beings that once were human, but now are not, creatures that have ceased to bear the divine image at all.” For such beings, he continues, physical death means passing “not only beyond hope but also beyond pity.” Wright imagines that such creatures “still exist in an ex-human state,” presumably forever, but “no longer reflecting their maker in any meaningful sense,” they do not elicit “normal sympathy” from themselves or from others.[33]

Wright proposes this only as speculation for which he offers no specific biblical grounds, but explains that he feels “driven, by the New Testament and the sober realities of this world” to seek some kind of “resolution to one of the darkest theological mysteries.”[34]

Wright’s hypothesis is admirably inventive, but not without problems of its own. Is it really likely that many, if any, human beings could become so dehumanized during this lifetime that they fit the description Wright sets forth. If one answers “no” to that question, a covey of other questions take its place. Does God then fast-track their dehumanization to punish them in hell? Does he permit them to continue degrading themselves until no trace of the divine image remains? Would not such a process of dehumanization, based on the erasure of the image of God, result in non-existence before it produced a conscious ex-human to spend eternity in torment? Then there is the larger question, whether redeemed humans, who not only retain God’s image but in whom it is perfected in immortality, could possibly not feel pity for even these Gollum-like[35] beings—supposedly the purpose served by Wright’s hypothesis?

Gregory A. Boyd

Gregory A. Boyd begins with the perception of relationality as an element of personhood. But “beings need a neutral medium of relationality if they are to interact with each other,” Boyd reasons.[36] This, he believes, will not exist between the redeemed and the damned, once “God’s victory is fully and finally manifested.” As a consequence, he concludes, “those who have rejected God, and therefore reality, cease to exist to everyone except themselves.”[37]

However, the Bible speaks throughout of the destruction of the wicked. Therefore, appeals to ex-humans or sub-humans that remain conscious are finally unnecessary, and, if this book is correct, run counter to Scripture’s plain teaching. Both Wright and Boyd acknowledge that their proposals are based on speculation rather than exegesis.[38]

Summary

In this parable Jesus teaches an end-time judgment that divides men into two categories and sentences them to corresponding but opposite destinations. In this apocalyptic picture the wicked are banished into pre-existent, eschatological fire prepared for the satanic angels. There they finally are destroyed forever, both body and soul, as the divine penalty for sin.

Other passages seemingly imply some degree of conscious pain in the process, and there is scriptural and logical room for that, however God might determine. But the “eternal punishment” itself is the capital execution, the deprivation of an eternal life of joy and blessing in company with God and the redeemed. This is nothing less than everlasting forfeiture of existence as a human being, created in God’s image and intended for eternal fellowship with him.

Jude repeats his Master’s thought here when he gives Sodom and Gomorrah as the prototype of those “who suffer the punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 7), as does Peter in saying that God “made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly” by “burning them to ashes” (2 Pet 2:6).

Interaction

The Meaning of “Punishment”

Canadian evangelical theologian Larry Dixon insists that “punishment, per se, is conscious or it is not punishment. A punishment that is not felt is not a punishment.”[39] Similarly, Paul Helm equates “punishment” with “suffering” and naturally concludes that Matt 25:46 “explicitly teaches” that “the suffering . . . is everlasting.”[40]

Punishment can certainly include conscious pain but does not inherently require it. The verb related to the noun translated “punishment” here is also applied to an idol of wood or stone in Wis 14:10. Idols of wood and stone are “punished” but they feel no pain.

Our earthly penal systems illustrate the same truth. Depending upon the level of the offense, a law-breaker in the United States might be sentenced to pay a fine, to spend a night in jail or ten years in the penitentiary, or, in the very worst cases, to be executed. Those all are “punishments,” but what makes them so is not that they all involve conscious pain, but rather that they all are the penal consequences of wrongdoing as decreed by a judge with authority to impose a penal sentence. Traditionalist Bruce Milne correctly states: “The fate which awaits those consigned to hell is ‘eternal punishment’ (vs. 46). In other words, hell is morally deserved.”[41]

Capital punishment is the highest level of punishment possible in the USA (though it was abolished in Canada where Dixon teaches in 1976), but not because it ranks highest on a pain meter. The person who is executed suffers physical pain for only a few minutes at most, arguably far less than the cumulative pain sustained by a person who spends ten years in a penitentiary, where other inmates and rogue guards regularly harass, sometimes beat, and occasionally commit murder in a variety of ways designed to inflict maximum suffering.

The “second death” is indeed punishment. It is the punishment of everlasting destruction, the punishment only God can mete out, for he alone is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Who Receives Eternal Life?

Amazingly, the Scripture index in the multi-author volume Hell Under Fire contains only two references to the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Robert W. Yarbrough’s chapter titled “Jesus on Hell.” In the first, Dr. Yarbrough quotes Matt 25:46 and notes that “the symmetry is starkly simple,” since the word “eternal” is used both of reward and punishment.[42] This observation is accurate but does not take us anywhere in resolving the disagreement between traditionalists and conditionalists because neither side disputes this claim.

In his only other reference to this passage, Yarbrough miraculously gives eternal life to the damned as well as to the redeemed—a feat that even Jesus Christ himself did not attempt. Commenting on Matt 18:8–9, Brother Yarbrough says,

Persons appearing before that Judge enter eternal “life,” their final destination (cf. Matt. 25:31-46) [emphasis added]. That destination could be heaven, and if so, the duration of the experience will be conscious and unending. Fudge does not dispute that. There is no justification, then, to deny that by the same token, Jesus teaches here that the “life” of those who enter Gehenna will be conscious and unending [italics in original].[43]

Dr. Yarbrough is honorable and highly educated, the Chair of New Testament at a major evangelical seminary, with a PhD from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Yet somehow he apparently overlooked Jesus’ closing words in this parable—the climactic conclusion of the entire passage as reported in verse 46. There Jesus contrasted eternal life (given to those on his right hand) with eternal punishment (given to those on his left hand).

Neither Jesus nor any biblical author ever says that the wicked will receive eternal life, and there is no justification for anyone to suggest that they do. Jesus makes it too plain to misunderstand that eternal life is the opposite destiny of the destiny awaiting the wicked. “Jesus teaches” that the final options are eternal life or destruction (Matt 7:13–14), finding life or losing life (Matt 10:37–39), life or perish (John 3:16), eternal life or condemnation (John 3:36).

Yarbrough’s statement that “[p]ersons appearing before that Judge enter eternal ‘life’” is unsupportable. Only those on Jesus’ right hand enter eternal life. The rest go away into eternal punishment, which Revelation repeatedly identifies as the “second death.”

The Word Being Modified

Dixon also alleges that “the Bible uses the adjective ‘eternal’ to describe the punishment itself, not merely the result of the punishment.”[44]

We agree that “eternal” here modifies “punishment,” but it does not modify an action here for at least three reasons. First, Greek adjectives do not modify simple verbs.[45] Second, when we come to this adjective, there is no verb in sight. Third, the final letters of the noun that “eternal” does modify (English: -ment; Greek: -sis) remind us that this is a result-noun,[46] formed off the verb root that names the action (punish: kolazō) that produced it.[47] It is not wordplay but solid grammar to say that what is “eternal” here is not the punish-ing but the punish-ment.

Can Referents Stand in Line?

In a paper titled “The Case Against Conditionalism: A Response to Edward William Fudge,” presented at the Fourth Edinburgh Conference on Christian Dogmatics in 1991,[48] Kendall Harmon took issue with my handling of various New Testament images for the final doom of sinners. According to Harmon,

Fudge fails to understand that the apocalyptic images used for the final doom of the ungodly have a single referent, and instead claims that different images refer to differing aspects of the wicked’s final fate. C. S. Lewis’ literary sensitivity enabled him to see what many have missed, namely that the New Testament uses three images to portray hell, punishment, destruction, and “privation, exclusion, or banishment,” and that these three images point in the same direction . . . [S]ome texts speak of personal exclusion, some of punishment, and others of destruction, and these images need to be understood as giving us hints at the same eschatological reality.[49]

At first glance, this argument appears to wear a sophisticated air. However, closer examination finds it without substance and based on a misunderstanding of my case and of Scripture alike. But before I respond to Harmon’s criticism, I will begin by agreeing with him that some texts speak of personal exclusion, some of [conscious] punishment, and others of destruction. Indeed, I make that point throughout this book, as also in the first edition that Harmon read. For example, Jesus himself sometimes underscores the image of personal exclusion, in contrast to participation in the kingdom of heaven and a seat at the messianic banquet.[50] On other occasions, when Jesus wishes to make the point that actions have consequences, his imagery clearly emphasizes punishment.[51] Elsewhere, Jesus shines the spotlight on the image of destruction.[52]

Brother Harmon is apparently confused when he says that “Fudge fails to understand that the apocalyptic images used for the final doom of the ungodly have a single referent,” since I scrutinize all these images for one purpose only—to gain any light they might shed on the fate of the wicked in Gehenna.

Harmon is also confused when he denies that “different images refer to differing aspects of the wicked’s final fate.” Christopher Morgan, writing in defense of the traditional view, correctly notes that these various images “should . . . be viewed independently before synthetically” (an order I am careful to follow), but that “one must not assume that these three pictures of hell cannot stand together” (something Harmon appears at times to do).

The Matter of Sequence

Harmon continues: “For Fudge, God’s final sentence begins with banishment, continues with a period of conscious suffering, and ends with destruction. In fact, not a single New Testament passage teaches exactly this sequence. Instead, some texts speak of personal exclusion, some of punishment, and others of destruction, and these images need to be understood as giving us hints at the same eschatological reality.”[53]

The precise template of banishment, conscious suffering, and destruction is not my invention, in part because I am not that original, and in part because the idea naturally flows from a common-sense reading of Scripture that allows these three images to mean what they say. There are two reasons why traditionalists conclude that these three elements of doom “are not easily integrated into a simplified whole.”[54]

The first reason is that they always define the word “punishment” to mean “conscious suffering or pain.” The second reason is that whenever they read the words “die,” “perish,” and “destroy” in Scripture texts on this subject, they immediately reverse the plain sense of those words to mean “remaining alive in misery,” “not perishing but in a state of ruinous agony,” and “never destroyed but suffering torment forever.”

However, if we allow “destruction” its common meaning, there is no difficulty in integrating banishment, conscious suffering and destruction into a simplified whole. In that case, the sinner’s punishment or punitive consequences of wrong-doing, includes and incorporates banishment, destruction, and whatever sort, degree, and duration of conscious suffering God might see fit to impose in the process.

Advocates on both sides agree that, whether the imagery is understood literally or in some other manner, God will first judge the wicked, pronounce sentence, and then banish them from his presence. If “destruction” is allowed its ordinary meaning, it must of necessity come last. Conscious suffering in hell is not possible until one has arrived there (having been banished by God to that fate). And, because no one who is cut off entirely from God, the only source and ground of being, can continue to exist, conscious suffering will necessarily have reached its end when destruction is fully accomplished.

Harmon goes on to say: “Fudge not only chronologizes these images, but he also emphasizes one to the exclusion of the other two: destruction dominates while punishment and exclusion fall into the background. Indeed the latter image is hardly discussed.”[55] No one can read these chapters on the teaching of Jesus and fairly conclude that exclusion “is hardly discussed,” not to mention treatments of similar passages throughout the New Testament. Nor does punishment “fall into the background” because, rightly understood, all three images Harmon mentions are “punishment”—destruction being punishment of the most severe sort.

As I began by agreeing with Dr. Harmon on one point, I will end by agreeing with Dr. Morgan when he writes, “Next, the three pictures of hell should be held in balance. Those of us holding the historic view of hell should be careful not to allow the motif of [conscious] punishment to dominate our thoughts about hell. Conditionalists should make sure they are not stretching the destruction theme beyond what Scripture actually teaches. And most evangelicals need to guard against the tendency to view hell only in passive terms, like separation.”[56]

1. They are The Ten Virgins (Matt 25:1–13), The Talents (Matt 25:14–30) and this text. For a lively, practical discussion of their different emphases, see Eller, Most Revealing Book, 11–14, esp. 18.

2. Besides an introduction (Matt 1–4) and an epilogue (Matt 28), Matthew presents his material in five units, each consisting of a discourse by Jesus followed by a section of narrative. Each discourse stops with the same saying that Jesus had ended his teaching/parable (Matt 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1).

3. The New Scofield Reference Bible.

4. Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, 206ff; Hunter, The Parables Then and Now, 115ff.

5. Davies, Sermon on the Mount, 98–99. Davies argues that these “brothers” of Christ are his disciples among the nations. Hunter and Jeremias see them as simply the needy, whether disciples or not (Hunter, The Parables Then and Now, 115ff; Davies, Sermon on the Mount, 98–99). The context seems to support Davies, as does the use of “brothers” throughout Matthew; Hunter’s and Jeremias’ point is made in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, though without a specific judgment scene.

6. Isa 40:11; Ezek 34:11–31; John 10:1–16; 11:52.

7. Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte in Palastina, 6:99; cited by Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, 206.

8. In its verb form at Ps 62:4; Matt 5:44; Rom 12:14; Jas 3:9; as a noun in Judg 9:57.

9. Such as a hanged corpse in Deut 21:22–23; or Jezebel in 2 Kgs 9:34; or the exterminated Canaanites in Wis 12:11; Sir 41:9.

10. See detailed discussion of this word in chapter 3.

11. Bligh, “Eternal Fire,” 9–11. Bligh cites as other examples Matt 22:41–46; Luke 5:32; 18:11–12; and John 10:34f.

12. Argyle, The Gospel according to Matthew, 193.

13. In my article, “Putting Hell in Its Place,” 14–17. The suggestion has been made for centuries.

14. M–M, 352.

15. Barclay, A Spiritual Autobiography, 66.

16. Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality, 386.

17. Silva, Biblical Words and Their Meaning, 34–36.

18. Milne, The Message of Heaven and Hell, 127.

19. John Gerstner repeatedly insists, on almost every page, that total, irreversible death is not “punishment.” Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 66–187.

20. Pink, Eternal Punishment, 22.

21. Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality, 608–9. Salmond offers the data as evidence against extinction, but it seems to me to backfire.

22. According to Glasson, “Human Destiny,” 294.

23. Witsius, Economy of the Covenants, 1.5.XLII. For Witsius’ total argument in his own words and a summarization of it, see chapter 28 under “Anselm.”

24. Ibid., 12.

25. Strawson, Jesus and the Future Life, 155.

26. Froom cites Avary Holmes Forbes (The Last Enemy, 69), who quotes Charles Spurgeon. Froom, Conditionalist Faith, 2:797.

27. Ibid., 910–11. Froom says the meeting took place on Dec 22, 1957. He reports that Scroggie sat up in his sickbed, grasped Froom’s hand and said, “Brother Froom, I believe that God has raised you up for this great task. I am praying for you every day. You may quote me whenever and wherever you please as being a believer in Conditionalism.”

28. France, The Gospel of Matthew, 966.

29. Ibid., 966–67.

30. Ibid., 967.

31. Ibid., 966–67.

32. Wright, Surprised by Hope, 180.

33. Ibid., 182–83.

34. Ibid.

35. Gollum is a sub-human creature in the mythology of J. R. R. Tolkien.

36. Steve Motyer adds human physicality to relationality as an essential of personhood, particularly as seen in the letter to the Hebrews. Motyer, “‘Not apart from us’ (Hebrews 11:40),” 235–47.

37. Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil, 339. As this is being written, Boyd’s website includes an essay on annihilationism, in which he states that he is “not completely convinced” of that view, but that he considers it “worthy of serious consideration.” Boyd, “The Case for Annihilationism.” Online: http://www.gregboyd.org/essays/god-essays/judgement/the-case-for-annihilationism/

38. Tony Gray suggests that Scripture data might provide the basis for constructing “a third option” other than traditionalism or conditionalism, but he does not attempt the task of building one himself (Tony Gray, “The Nature of Hell,” 241). We believe that the case presented here for conditionalism is biblically solid and therefore no other option is needed.

39. Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News, 90.

40. Helm, The Last Things, 119.

41. Milne, The Message of Heaven and Hell, 127.

42. Yarbrough, “Jesus on Hell,” 76.

43. Ibid., 82.

44. Dixon, Whatever Happened to Hell? 91.

45. Although Greek adjectives also modify substantives, which at times include such verbal substantives as infinitives and participles (Online: http://www.ntgreek.org/learn_nt_greek/adjectiv.htm).

46. In Greek, “result” words often end with -ria (sōtēria), -ma (krima), or -sis (lutrōsis). In English, “result” words commonly end with -tion (salvation, redemption), or with -ment (judgment, punishment, atonement).

47. The same adjective aiōnios also modifies result-words in Heb 5:9; 6:2; 9:12 and 2 Thess 1:9.

48. Reprinted in Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell, 191–222.

49. Ibid., 213.

50. Matt 7:23; 8:11–12; 22:13; 25:30.

51. Matt 5:29–30; 7:19; 13:30, 40–43; 25:46. In Scripture as in daily life, “punishment” refers to any legal consequence of wrongdoing. Capital punishment is one form of punishment, reserved for the most serious crimes. Traditionalists do not allow for the possibility of eternal capital punishment, but limit “punishment” to conscious suffering. In fact, banishment from God is also punitive, the legal consequence of wrongdoing. Destruction in the “second death” is eternal capital punishment.

52. Matt 7:27; 10:28; 18:8–9.

53. Harmon, “The Case against Conditionalism,” 213.

54. Morgan, “Biblical Theology,” 149.

55. Harmon, “The Case against Conditionalism,” 213.

56. Morgan, “Biblical Theology,” 148.

14

Jesus: Fire (Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus)

IRONICALLY, JESUS’ STORY OF the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31), popularly thought to provide the New Testament’s most detailed vision of hell’s torments, likely was not intended to teach anything on that subject at all. However, because of its long public association with the topic of final punishment, it has a chapter of its own.

Subject

Expositors have traditionally read this teaching of Jesus as referring either to hell, as the final eternal destination of the wicked, or to hades, as a way-station (more aptly, a holding-tank) between death and the resurrection.[1] Larry Dixon devotes more space to this story than to all the rest of Jesus’ teaching combined, stretching the rules of biblical interpretation to their absolute limits in an effort to relate it to the final state of the damned.[2] Christopher Morgan and Sinclair Ferguson also see the rich man as going to hell,[3] while John Blanchard says he is in hades.[4]

Others advise caution in seeking information about post-mortem realities from this parable. Robert Peterson says that “we must be careful not to derive from this parable things that God never intended,”[5] urging his readers not to “press all the details of the parable, as if it were a detailed description of the afterlife.”[6] Similarly, Alan F. Johnson and Robert E. Webber explain that “it is probably better to see the story not as revealing details of life after death, but rather as giving a different twist to commonly held views about afterlife.”[7]

Today, a growing number of exegetes advise that we turn our attention away from the stage details of the parable’s narrative altogether, in order to discover its intended subject in context. Geldenhuys concludes that Jesus “related this parable not in order to satisfy our curiosity about life after death but to emphasize vividly the tremendous seriousness of life on this side of the grave.” The story is “a parable and not . . . a real occurrence from which various questions in connection with the hereafter may be answered.”[8]

N. T. Wright takes a similar view. “The story carries clear echoes of well-known folk tales,” he says, “to which Jesus is giving a fresh and startling twist. The emphasis falls at the same point that was made twice—i.e., with great stress—in the prodigal son: ‘resurrection,’ i.e. ‘return from exile,’ is happening all around, and the Pharisees cannot see it. The parable is not, as often supposed, a description of the afterlife, warning people to be sure of their ultimate destination.”[9]

Parable

Some protest the label “parable,” arguing that since Jesus’ opening words are: “There was a certain rich man,” what follows must be history and not parable. This argument fails, however, in light of other parables in Luke’s Gospel that began with identical or similar statements.[10]

Context

Traditionalists sometimes write as though the story of the rich man and Lazarus either had no context at all, or as if its primary point is unrelated to its context. Yet a close comparison of the parable to its immediate context reveals so many parallels that one marvels at the intricate connection. Any parable’s interpretation must include its context,[11] this one more than most. Nothing in the context remotely suggests that Jesus intends to teach about the final state of the wicked,[12] although the context contains numerous hints and clues that he intends to teach about other subjects.[13]

Jesus has been preaching on covetousness and stewardship (Luke 16:1–13); the rich man’s only implied sin is his totally selfish neglect of Lazarus.[14] When the Pharisees[15] sneer at Jesus’ teaching, he warns them against self-justification, reminding them that God knows their hearts and that what men highly value God often detests (vv. 14–15). The rich man and Lazarus provide perfect illustrations of this truth, too, as the parable twice contrasts them alongside each other—first showing man’s estimation and then showing God’s (vv. 19, 25).

Perhaps most important of all, the Pharisees are wasting every opportunity to hear and obey God, though they live in the most critical of times (vv. 16–17). This is the same mistake the rich man made on earth, a mistake his brothers continue to make after he is gone.[16] It is also the only conclusion Jesus specifically states in his punchline at the end of the story (v. 31).

The saying about divorce in verse 18 seems a misfit there, but it might reflect the arrangement of material in Deuteronomy 23–24, where Moses discusses selfishness (Deut 23:19–25), divorce (Deut 24:1–5), and concern for the poor (Deut 24:6–22).

Jeremias classes the parable with three others he calls “double-edged” (Matt 20:1–16; Matt 22:1–14; Luke 15:11–32). In each case Jesus wins his hearers’ attention with a familiar story, then inserts an “epilogue” containing his intended message. Each time the emphasis is on that second point—here the plight of five living brothers who are ignoring the Word of God. The parable should not be called The Rich Man and Lazarus, says Jeremias, but The Six Brothers.[17]

The Plot

The plot of the parable, the reversal of earthly fortunes after death, was familiar in popular Palestinian stories of Jesus’ time. Morey,[18] author of the traditionalist Death and the Afterlife, admirably acknowledges that Jesus borrowed the story of the rich man and Lazarus from a common rabbinical tale of the day, and that it does not provide a literal preview of the world to come.[19] Hugo Gressmann says there are at least seven versions of the story in Jewish literature. One of the most famous involved a poor student of the Law and a rich publican named Bar Ma’jan.[20] Jesus changes some details to reflect his own lessons, but the basic plot was well-known folklore.

Hades

Traditionalists generally begin their interpretation of the parable with the word “hades,” which they ordinarily regard as the place of punishment entered by the lost at death, to be changed at the last judgment only in intensity and permanence. This understanding became prominent in the High Middle Ages (as I will outline in chapter 29), and it was mediated into Protestantism largely through the influence of John Calvin (see chapters 3 and 30). It builds on the classical Hades in pagan Greek literature but gives short shrift to the word’s biblical usage in the Septuagint and the New Testament.

In Greek mythology hades was the god of the underworld, then the name of the nether world itself. Charon ferried the souls of the dead across the rivers Styx or Acheron into this abode, where the watchdog Cerberus guarded the gate so none might escape. The pagan myth contained all the elements for medieval eschatology: there was the pleasant Elysium, the gloomy and miserable Tartarus, and even the Plains of Asphodel, where ghosts could wander. Ruling beside the god was his queen Proserpine (or Persephone), whom he had raped from the world above.[21]

The word hades came into biblical usage when the Septuagint translators chose it to represent the Hebrew sheol, an Old Testament concept vastly different from the pagan Greek notions just outlined. Sheol, too, received all the dead, as noted in chapter 5, but the Old Testament presents no specific division there involving either punishment or reward. Intertestamental Judaism held at least two opinions on hades. Those who expected a partial resurrection (of the righteous only) saw hades as everlasting (for the wicked); those who looked for a general resurrection naturally thought of it as temporary.[22]

Rabbinic opinion was so varied, and terminology in such a state of flux, that both hades and gehenna are sometimes the abode of the dead, sometimes the place of final punishment, sometimes interchangeable, sometimes distinct. Modern scholars also disagree on the terms. Jeremias sees a sharp distinction between the two words in the New Testament,[23] while Hanhart argues that the New Testament usage of hades does not go beyond the Old Testament meaning of sheol.[24]

In all the confusion, we can best pin down something solid by looking at specific texts. Jesus’ statement that Capernaum will go down to hades (Matt 11:23; Luke 10:15) needs no pagan background; it finds ample precedent in both Isaiah (Isa 14:10–15) and Ezekiel (Ezek 32:17–32). “Sheol is the great leveller.”[25] The Lord’s confidence that the “gates of hades” will not prevail against his church (Matt 16:18)[26] is illuminated by other Jewish literature using the same expression, usually as a synonym for death itself.[27] Sheol’s gates are no longer one-directional, its fortress no longer impregnable, for Jesus has come in the power of God’s kingdom to destroy death’s hold—if he has to carry off the gates like Samson! In quoting Hosea 13:14, Paul substitutes “death” for “hades/sheol” (1 Cor 15:55), indicating the close relationship between the two. Jesus went to hades like all the dead, but unlike others he broke out in victory (Acts 2:27, 31). He now holds the keys to “death and hades” (Rev 1:18). Both will yield their dead when he comes again to judge, then will be cast into the “lake of fire” and be no more (Rev 20:13–15).

It is in keeping with the historical nature of biblical religion that the New Testament speaks this way of hades—not theoretically or systematically, but in terms of what has really happened in the case of Jesus Christ. We should not build a whole doctrine, therefore, on a single use of a word, even if it were not located in a parable on a different subject.

Summary

Hunter discerns the same emphasis and gives this summary of Jesus’ intended message: “If a man cannot be humane with the Old Testament in his hand and Lazarus on his doorstep, nothing—neither a visitant from the other world nor a revelation of the horrors of hell—will teach him otherwise.”[28] The Pharisees were at least consistent: they already ignore Moses and the prophets; when the apostles confront them with a risen Jesus, they will ignore that message as well.

This, then, is Jesus’ stated message. These are the points raised by the context and illustrated by the parable. The two-fold circumstances after death are a vehicle for the story and involve language familiar to Jesus’ hearers—language drawn, not from the divine revelation of the Old Testament, but from intertestamental and first-century folklore.

Even if that language teaches something of punishment after death, it occurs before the final judgment while others are still living on the earth, before the gospel becomes a reality and calls people to turn attention from Moses and the prophets to hear Jesus. There is no clear exegetical basis in Luke 16 for any conclusions concerning the final end of the wicked.[29]

Interaction

J. I. Packer, the well-nigh lone traditionalist among internationally-known evangelical Anglican authors of his generation, writes the chapter on universalism in the compendium volume Hell Under Fire. Along the way, this gracious scholar weighs in against the view espoused in The Fire That Consumes with an uncharacteristic finality noticeably disproportionate to the evidence he presents. Dr. Packer opines that “the theory of annihilation[30] (i.e., the idea that the fiery destruction that unbelievers will undergo ultimately will end in their non-existence)[31] . . . has to be read into the texts; it cannot be read out of them, since the fire is a picture not of destruction but of ongoing pain, as Luke 16:24 makes unambiguously clear.”[32]

We respectfully suggest that the preponderance of top-shelf scholarship rejects the idea that Jesus, merely by relating this revised rabbinical parable, thereby endorses any parabolic details concerning the state of the departed. Additionally, this parable never comes within viewing distance of gehenna (the rich man is in hades, which still exists; the brothers are living on earth; Moses is God’s premier prophet).

Moreover, no one can seriously claim that the details should be understood literally: a drop of water would provide no palliative benefit against hadean fire; the redeemed and unredeemed do not converse face to face across a literal chasm.

If we really wish to ascertain the purpose of fire as God’s agent of punishment, we must examine Scripture passages directly on point. When we do that, we will learn that the fire of the final judgment is intended to burn up (Matt 3:12), and to destroy both soul and body (Matt 10:28). I agree that Jesus provides us with an unambiguous picture of “the fiery destruction”—but wonder whether Dr. Packer might inadvertently be confusing drawings made by ancient ancestors with the picture drawn by Jesus.

The good professor seems also to have fixed within his mind a mistaken notion of the motivation[33] that compels many of us to say that perish, die, and destroy really do mean what ordinary people think they mean when they use those words. That misapprehension, in turn, seems to prevent Dr. Packer from considering fully and fairly[34] the mass of biblical evidence that already has persuaded so many of his peers[35] to abandon (and, in some cases, to zealously oppose) the view he still defends—for which they immediately paid a price for breaking march with the herd.[36] Clearly, none was simply taking an easy way out, and Dr. Packer, to his credit, specifically attributes them with pure motives.[37]

1. Because this is a topical book and not a commentary, most quotations come from other relevant topical works rather than from critical or other general commentaries.

2. Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News, 130–44.

3. Morgan, “Biblical Theology,” 139; Ferguson, “Pastoral Theology,”

4. Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 38.

5. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 66.

6. Ibid., 185. Peterson does believe the parable teaches “that after death and before the resurrection believers and unbelievers will experience blessing . . . and woe . . . respectively” (ibid.).

7. Johnson and Webber, What Christians Believe, 426.

8. Geldenhuys, The Gospel of Luke, 427; 429, note 10; see also notes 5, 6, 7, 12.

9. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 255.

10. Luke 12:16; 13:6; 14:16; 15:11; 16:1; 18:1–2; 18:9–10; 19:11–12; 20:9.

11. Hanhart notes several studies involving the context. (Hanhart, Intermediate State, 191–92).

12. Hanhart disagrees, claiming that “most recent commentators” hold the opposite view than here stated (Hamhart, Intermediate State, 190–91, 198).

13 George W. Knight writes: “The appeal of the story is not to satisfy curiosity concerning Hades, Hell, Heaven, the ‘intermediate state,’ nor any other fascinating esoteric topic related to life beyond death.” Knight, “Luke 16:19–31,” 281.

14. Hanhart disagrees again. He argues that the rich man’s distinction was not his character but his wealth. ‘While the sinner must seek this righteousness, the oppressed have it already” (ibid., 195–97). Blanchard says the opposite, calling Lazarus and Dives respectively: “a poor but good man” and “a rich but wicked man” (Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 38).

15. For some reason many modern commentators pass over the context entirely and say the parable was directed to the Sadducees. I cannot set aside biblical text on the basis of questionable critical methodology.

16. Verses 27–29. Even if the parable intends to teach about post-mortem affairs (which the context nowhere indicates), this point alone would identify the scene as contemporary with ongoing earth life.

17. Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, 186, 122.

18. John Gerstner lauds Robert Morey’s Death and the Afterlife as “a more-than-adequate reply” to this book, in which Gerstner says that Morey “mounts a cannon to shoot a fly” (Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 40, 41). However, Robert A. Peterson offers caveats instead. “[T]he quality of Morey’s argumentation is not always commensurate with its quantity. An example is his adducing seven reasons why Sheol ‘cannot mean the grave’ (75–77). Perhaps one or two of his seven arguments are cogent; certainly not the seventh which consists of twenty arguments from silence! He fails to work with up-to-date biblical authorities, commits linguistic fallacies (e.g., his generalizations about present and aorist tenses on pp. 86–87), and belittles his opponents’ views.” Peterson, “Repent or Perish,” 59.

19. Morey, Death and the Afterlife, 30f, 84f.

20. These stories found by Gressmann are cited in Hanhart, The Intermediate State in the New Testament, 192–93, who also refers to Bultmann, Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 212f, 221f; Reichenbach, Is Man the Phoenix? 184. For a summary of the tales, Reichenbach refers also to Creed, The Gospel according to St. Luke, 208–10.

21. BAG, 16; Pike, ERR, 170.

22. Jeremias, “Hades,” 1:147–48.

23. Ibid.

24. Hanhart, Intermediate State, 32, 35.

25. Strawson, Jesus and the Future Life, 138.

26. That Jesus speaks of the church (ekklesia) rather than his promise to build it is seen in his use of the feminine pronoun (“will not prevail against her”). The other fact is implied in this one.

27. The possible exception is Pss. Sol. 16:1–2, which associates the “gates of hades” with sinners. Even there, however, the phrase denotes death. But see Job 38:17; Isa 38:18; 3 Macc 5:51; Wis 16:13.

28. Hunter, Interpreting the Parables, 84.

29. “Although this text probably assumes an intermediate state,” says Joel B. Green, it shares with other Second Temple Jewish literature a “lack of precision in statements about the afterlife.” Green, The Gospel of Luke, 607–8.

30. Just as Christians who unite in affirming the necessity, uniqueness, and sufficiency of Christ’s atonement offer a variety of theories to explain precisely how that atonement was accomplished, so also those Christians who take at face value scriptural warnings that the wicked will die, perish, and be destroyed in hell offer more than one explanation of the theory underlying the destructive process. Strictly speaking, “annihilationism” is the broader term that includes all theories in which the unredeemed truly die, perish, and are destroyed as those terms are commonly used. One form of annihilationism is “conditional immortality,” which reasons that (1) God alone is inherently immortal; (2) human immortality is God’s gift reserved for the redeemed in the resurrection; and (3) unbelievers, lacking immortality—whether cut off entirely from God in hell, or standing unforgiven in the holy fire of his presence—will experience the second death and cease to exist.

Traditionalists seem to prefer the terms “annihilationist” and “annihilationism” because they provide a bridge to the argument, based on natural physics and the second law of thermodynamics, that nothing is either created or destroyed but only changes form. The argument is seen as worthless, however, as soon as one acknowledges that our discussion lies outside the laws of thermodynamics, but within the jurisdiction of God who alone is able both to create and to destroy.

31. Helm concludes from this parable that “the arguments for annihilationism are weak, even interpreted charitably,” since “it is impossible to suffer if one does not exist” (Helm, The Last Things, 119). He seems either to know only the annihilationism that equates hell with the grave, or he reads much into this parable, including the idea that the rich man in it must suffer forever.

32. Packer, “Universalism,” 185.

33. In a book foreword on this subject, Dr. Packer writes: “One particular present-day unhappiness is that the same ‘less terrible’ view that Spurgeon opposed in the era of late-Victorian sentimentalism, namely conditional immortality or annihilationism, is getting renewed exposure through the advocacy of some well-respected evangelical veterans” (Packer, Whatever Happened to Hell? 10). In a different book foreword, he said: “To believe what the Bible appears to say about [hell] is a bitter pill indeed, and no one should wonder that attempts are made to explore alternative understandings of God’s revelation on this topic” (Packer, The Other Side of the Good News, 7). And in a compendium volume, Packer concluded: “Both views [annihilationism and universalism] are speculations, seemingly driven by the same conviction that the idea of endless punishment is not acceptable, and hence by the same desire that hell should one way or another be emptied” (Packer, “Universalism,” 185).

34. John Wenham, who was a close colleague of Packer’s as early as the 1950s, in his autobiography expresses “disappointment” with his long-time and (in America) better-known friend. “With all his capacity for reading and digesting material and with his gift of lucid exposition, one hoped to see the conditionalist arguments carefully considered. He [Packer] had certainly read the slight treatments of Stott and Hughes and he was aware of Fudge’s work, but he shows no signs of having read Fudge, Froom, or Atkinson and provides no answers to their arguments but gives instead answers to argument which they do not use.” (Wenham, Facing Hell, 135.)

35. Packer wrote: “It is distasteful to argue in print against honored fellow-evangelicals, some of whom are good friends and others of whom (I mention [Basil] Atkinson, [John W.] Wenham, and [Philip E.] Hughes particularly) are now with Christ, so I stop right here” (Packer, “Evangelical Annihilationism,” 17–18).

36. Packer assessed the “herd mentality” within evangelical culture in a 1997 article in Reformation & Revival, titled “Evangelical Annihilationism in Review.” He wrote: “I note that in the West . . . evangelicalism . . . has a communal mindset of its own. Factors shaping that mindset during the past half-century include . . . an idealization of scholars and leaders as gurus, whence a sense of betrayal and outrage surfaces if any of these are felt to be stepping out of line. Within the distinctive corporate identity of evangelicalism an awareness of privilege and vocation, a siege mentality, a low flashpoint in debate, a certain verbal violence, and a tendency to shoot our own wounded—all obtrude.” (Packer, “Evangelical Annihilationism,” 37.)

37. In the same article, Dr. Packer states, concerning John Stott and John Wenham: “Both men adopted annihilationism . . . for the right reason—not because it fitted into their comfort zone . . . but because they thought they found it in the Bible” (ibid., 44, 47–48).

15

Jesus: Non-fire Images

WE HAVE NOW EXAMINED all of Jesus’ recorded teachings about the end of the wicked using images of fire. In this chapter, we will look closely at Jesus’ teaching about final punishment using images other than fire. These include pictures of rejection, expulsion and banishment, images of loss or forfeiture of life, and a few miscellaneous metaphors.

Exclusion from Kingdom of Heaven

Jesus frequently portrays God’s salvation in the age to come as participation in the kingdom of heaven. On the other hand, he warns that evildoers will be excluded from the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:17–20

If Jesus’ disciples are to obtain righteousness, God’s verdict of approval, it must be by a method superior to those used by the scribes and Pharisees. The scribes try to achieve righteousness through rationalization. In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus refutes their phony righteousness on six different counts (Matt 5:21, 27, 31, 33, 38, 43).

The Pharisees try to obtain righteousness based on external performance. In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus deflates pseudo-piety, as directed toward other people (Matt 6:3), God (6:5), and even self (6:16). Only the righteousness that God provides will see one safely into his kingdom (6:33). This righteousness freely awaits all who come with a pure heart, mourning for their sins, hungry for God’s approval, humble in heart, making no claims but receiving God’s gift as a beggar accepts alms (5:3–12; Isa 64:6; 61:10). These, of course, are the attitudes described in the beatitudes.

Matthew 7:21–23

Jesus looks for obedience, not mere profession. There will be hypocrites at the judgment, he says, who will claim that they have prophesied, exorcised demons, and performed miracles in Jesus’ name. He does not question deeds allegedly done in his name, but he denies any relationship with those claiming the deeds and expels them from his presence.

The Psalms regularly call hypocrites “workers of iniquity”; Jesus quotes Ps 6:8 in which the Psalmist refuses their company and sends them away. This teaching of Jesus brings to mind false prophets about whom God told Jeremiah, “I did not send them, though they prophesied in the name of the Lord” (Jer 14:14; 27:15). The person who does not know Jesus now will be turned away by him at the judgment. Here he portrays their punishment as exclusion from the kingdom of heaven (Matt 7:21).

Interaction

Eryl Davies argues that Jesus’ words of banishment do not mean that sinners in hell are really “banished from the presence of God, for God is omnipresent; it does mean, however, that they are separated from the presence of his love.”[1] This method of handling difficult Scriptures is as old as Tertullian and involves three steps. First, quote the biblical text; second, explain that the quoted words do not mean what they actually seem to say; third, assign the quoted words a meaning exactly opposite their most common and ordinary meaning. However, when all that has been done, Jesus’ command remains: “Depart from me . . .”

Larry Dixon takes Davies’ logic to the next stage. If someone is banished from Christ’s presence, Dixon reasons, that person must be somewhere else. But if someone is somewhere else, that person still exists, and therefore has not “ceased to be.”[2] However, this common traditionalist argument ignores the context. The picture here is of Jesus as all-powerful sovereign, pronouncing sentence on a deceitful citizen. His words, “depart from me,” are in fact the citizen’s death sentence. This is true ontologically as well as judicially, for to be cut off entirely from God (in whose stead Jesus is pictured as judge) is to be severed from the only source of existence and ground of being.

Professor Richard Bauckham, formerly of the University of St. Andrews and now at the University of Cambridge, explains:

The New Testament uses a variety of different pictures to describe hell: fire is one of them, destruction another, exclusion from the presence of God another. Burning in fire for eternity is the picture which got fixed in much traditional teaching about hell as though it were a literal description. The New Testament does not require us to think of hell in this way. Hell is not an eternal chamber of horrors across the way from heaven. Hell is the fate of those who reject God’s love. God’s love cannot compel them to find their fulfillment in God, but there is no other way they can find fulfillment. They exclude themselves from the Source of all being and life.[3]

Matthew 8:11–12

This teaching is Jesus’ response to an outstanding manifestation of faith by a Roman centurion who came to ask Jesus to heal a cherished servant. Here Jesus warns the Jewish leaders who oppose him that some who assume they have reserved seats at God’s banquet will be surprised to find themselves excluded when that time comes.

“Many will come from the east and the west,” Jesus says, “and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Those who come “from the east and the west” are certainly Gentiles. Both the hope and the language are straight from the Old Testament (Ps 107:3; Isa 49:12; 59:19; Mal 1:11). In place of Matthew’s “Jewish” phrase, “the subjects of the kingdom,” Luke personalizes the reference by saying “you yourselves,” those to whom Jesus was speaking (Luke 13:28).

REJECTION

Luke combines what Matthew records here and in Matt 7:23 (Luke 13:27–29). In Matthew, the false disciples report their miracles; in Luke, they remind Jesus that they ate with him in the streets of their village. But the Messianic banquet is reserved for those in relationship with God. Luke closes the episode with Jesus’ statement that “there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last” (Luke 13:30).

DARKNESS

Again, those rejected are “thrown outside” into the darkness. The familiar “outer darkness” of the older versions better conveys the extent of this “bouncing”—beyond the perimeter illuminated by lights inside the house. Both Matthew and Luke say that “there” (ekei, the adverb of place), in that outer darkness, will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

WEEPING

Weeping is a common Hebrew symbol for fear, misery or extreme grief. People weep when Jerusalem is destroyed (Isa 22:12), and when exiled from their homeland (Bar 4:11). James warns wealthy, exploitative land owners to weep for fear of God’s coming judgment (Jas 5:1). People sometimes weep over the death or destruction of others (Isa 16:9; Jer 9:1; 48:32; Rev 18:9)—the entire book of Lamentations is devoted to this activity.

We have already considered 4 Ezra 7:80–87, which pictures the damned weeping seven ways during their detention before the judgment. They weep in shame and remorse for the past, and in fear and dread of the future. Most of all, they weep as they catch a glimpse of the glory of God before whom they soon will be judged. This portrayal is in keeping with the biblical references already cited.

GNASHING OF TEETH

Throughout the Bible, gnashing of teeth expresses not pain but rage.[4] When directed against God and his people, it is a futile rage, as Ps 112 makes clear. The Psalmist first describes the blessed reward awaiting the righteous (Ps 112:2–9). Then comes the psalm’s final verse: “The wicked man will see and be vexed, he will gnash his teeth and waste away; the longings of the wicked will come to nothing” (v. 10). As always, gnashing of teeth expresses rage. But even while this wicked man grinds his teeth, he wastes away and comes to nothing.

If we consider the seven Gospel occurrences of “weeping and grinding of teeth,” we find that the expression:

• modifies “throw into darkness outside” (Matt 8:12; 22:13; 25:30);

• accompanies “you yourself thrown out” (Luke 13:28);

• follows “assign him a place with the hypocrites” (Matt 24:51);

• modifies “weed out of his kingdom” and “throw away” (Matt 13:41–42);

• accompanies “separate the wicked from the righteous” (Matt 13:49–50).

In each instance those consigned to “weeping and grinding of teeth” are separated from others who are approved. Each time that expression is used, it accompanies a specific act of banishment, expulsion, or rejection. In two of the seven passages, those excluded are thrown into “the fiery furnace,” a fact not necessary for “weeping and grinding of teeth,” as shown by the other five occurrences.

In scriptural usage the expression “weeping and grinding of teeth” expresses more than one attitude. Weeping indicates sorrow, as the doomed begin to realize that God has thrown them out as worthless and as they begin to recognize the immanence of their own upcoming permanent demise. Throughout the Bible, gnashing of teeth always expresses rage, here toward God who sentenced them, and toward the redeemed who forever will be blessed. There is no biblical basis for the common assumption that gnashing of teeth indicates the agony of souls in torment.

INTERACTION

Once again Robert Peterson attempts to make gnashing of teeth express pain and suffering.[5] Christopher Morgan joins in the effort with his reference to “the pain described as ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”[6] J. I. Packer talks about the “cries of agony and gnashing of teeth.”[7] All three of these good men need to hear their fellow-traditionalist Larry Dixon, who points out that Rabbinic thought associated “weeping” with sorrow, and “‘gnashing of teeth’ almost always with anger, not, as generally supposed, with anguish.”[8]

Matthew 22:1–14

This Parable of the Wedding Banquet involves an inappropriately dressed guest who attends the king’s wedding banquet for his son. The parable concludes with the statement that the king told the attendants, “Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 22:13).

EXPOSITION

This parable differs from Jesus’ other feast invitation parables, because the spotlight here is on the guest rather than on those who never made an appearance. It appears only in Matthew and it ends on a tragic note. In this text, the warning is addressed to those who do receive and accept God’s invitation.

There appears to be no historical support for the common statement that the Palestinian host provided guests with a wedding garment. Based on rabbinic and pseudepigraphal sources, Bauckham says the guest was expected only to wear a garment longer (therefore more formal) than ordinary daily work wear, that was clean and, if possible, white. By ignoring this minimal requirement, the guest in the parable showed contempt for the king and for the importance of the occasion, just as much as those did who were first invited. “They spurned the invitation to the feast; he disdains the feast while actually attending it.”[9]

Jeremias cites a similar parable from a first-century rabbi who identifies the clean garment as repentance. “But here,” Jeremias says, “we must choose between the rabbinic answer and the Gospel’s.” He then directs us to Isa 61:10 and Rev 22:14, where the robes are God’s forgiveness and imputed righteousness.[10] The contrast between Matthew and rabbi may not be accidental. “What has not been sufficiently recognized,” writes W. D. Davies, “is the extent to which . . . the period when Matthew emerged was one of the codification of Law in Judaism and of the reformulation or reformation of worship.”[11]

So far as final punishment, this parable provides nothing new. We have encountered its language already—the expulsion into the outside darkness and the weeping and grinding of teeth. It does underscore that those who respond to Christ’s invitation must come in garments woven by his faithfulness to the Father, or, to use a different metaphor, garments made spotless by Christ’s cleansing blood.[12]

INTERACTION

Peterson takes from this parable that the lost will experience “final banishment from the people of God” and “forced separation from the light and warmth of the [messianic] feast,” of course adding that “[m]ention of crying and grinding of teeth leaves no doubt as to the painfulness of this experience.”[13] Peterson repeats a persistent misperception; as used throughout Scripture, grinding of teeth signifies rage and not pain.

Dr. Packer argues that “[o]nly those who exist can weep and gnash their teeth, as those banished into the darkness are said to do.” Therefore, he concludes, “darkness signifies a state of deprivation and distress, but not of destruction in the sense of ceasing to exist.”[14] Those who are banished into this darkness do weep and gnash their teeth, just as Jesus says, but concerning the duration of that activity, our Lord reveals not even a clue.

Matthew 24:48–51

“But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, “My master is staying away a long time,” and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Jesus alternates his warnings—first to the self-righteous Pharisees, who presume from past privilege that they will inherit God’s kingdom—then to his own disciples, who are beginning to recognize the Pharisees’ error, but who stand in danger of repeating it themselves. The Lord exhorts us to watchfulness with this parable of a profligate servant whose conduct is exposed when his master returns unexpectedly. The servant is duly “cut to pieces” and placed “with the hypocrites” in a place where there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”[15]

Luke omits “weeping and gnashing of teeth” and says “unbelievers” instead of “hypocrites.” Both changes are easily explained in terms of intended audiences—Luke is writing for Gentiles and Matthew for Jews. Luke also continues quoting Jesus after Matthew stops, providing the parable’s only unique contribution: “That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (Luke 12:47–48).

These words clearly involve degrees of punishment and reward. Here traditionalists and conditionalists fully agree, though at times each camp has used the point as an argument against the other.[16] Bruce Milne, a traditionalist advocate, eloquently explains what we all believe, that “the final judgment . . . will be, and will be seen to be, perfectly right, utterly just, unequivocally proper, and receptive of the fullest approval of every conscience. No single human person will be dealt with in a manner that is even fractionally in diminution or in excess of what, in God’s loving and holy presence, will be seen to be just. If one may so put it, not one individual will spend one millisecond longer in hell than is their just desert.”[17]

Matthew 25:24–30

In this parable on stewardship, the landowner entrusts three servants with various sums of money to manage as fiduciaries in his indeterminate absence. Upon the master’s return, two servants give good account of their stewardship and are rewarded. The third servant is seen to be a different sort, as Jesus concludes the parable: “Then the man who had received the one talent came. ‘Master,’ he said . . . ‘I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground’ . . . His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! . . . [Y]ou should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. Take the talent from him . . . And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”

Today the “one-talent man” is an object of pity, but in Jesus’ parable he is “lazy” and “worthless.” In the end, he loses the little capital he had, and is thrown “outside, into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Peterson, as always, thinks this signifies “great pain.”[18] However, as we have already shown, in Scripture gnashing of teeth always expresses anger.

Mark summarizes the story as a lesson on vigilance but omits Matthew’s ending (Mark 13:32–36). Luke reports the parable in detail, also without Matthew’s ending, but he introduces a subplot and some new characters. Neither Mark nor Luke adds to our picture of final punishment.

Summary

At times Jesus describes final punishment using word-pictures involving banishment or exclusion from the eternal kingdom of God. Several such scenes present a festive celebration from which a guest is “bounced”—far away from the party venue in the darkness beyond the illumination of the lights in the house.

When this happens, some of these scenes portray the excluded person in the darkness weeping, for sorrows of many sorts, yet defiantly grinding his teeth in rage. Traditionalists have long interpreted gnashing of teeth as a symbol of pain, but that interpretation has no basis in Scripture. To be cut off entirely from God is the ultimate punishment, for God is the ground of our being and the only source of our existence.

Forfeiture of Life

In addition to scenes of banishment, expulsion, and exclusion, still with no mention of fire, Jesus also portrays final punishment as the loss or forfeiture of eternal life. Upon hearing those words, we most naturally envision the state of death. This is the wages of sin—the second death.

Matthew 7:13–14

Here our Lord shows us the kingdom of God in the shape of a city. It is surrounded by a wall with gates that are open by day but closed at night and in times of danger. When the gates are closed, one can enter only by the narrow gate—a small gate built into the main gate—so small it can admit but one person at a time. Through this narrow gate only those can enter whose names are properly recorded on the city’s role of inhabitants (its “book of life”).

This is the picture A. J. Mattill draws in a careful study of the passage. He argues convincingly that “life” here is the life of the kingdom of heaven; that the word translated “narrow” (a form of the word translated “distress” or “anguish” in Rom 2:9) refers to end-time tribulations that come on God’s people, and that Jesus’ tone is one of urgency.[19]

The emphasis here is not on the doom awaiting the many—“destruction”—but on the necessity for haste to avoid this imminent doom. Mattill paraphrases Jesus’ warning:

Hurry, before the eschatological storm breaks loose, to enter into the city of God through the narrow gate, that is wide enough to admit only one registered citizen at a time. For wide is the gate and broad is the road which is free of persecution, the comfortable way which leads to destruction in hell, and there are many who enter through this gate. Because narrow is the gate and great are the end-time tribulations and persecutions on the narrow way which leads to eternal life in the kingdom of heaven, and only a few people find it.[20]

The options here are clear—eternal life or destruction. The traditionalist must explain why “destruction” should not mean what the word most naturally brings to mind.[21] The conditionalist can read the verse and sit down. A simple sentence will suffice.

Matthew 10:37–39

Following Jesus sometimes leads to alienation from parent or child, and it always requires the disciple to take up a cross and go where Jesus leads. When self-interest and faithfulness conflict, the first must give way, but Jesus promises that “whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (v. 39). The saying that appears here in a context of the disciples’ suffering, appears in all the Synoptics in a discussion regarding Jesus’ own death (Matt 16:21–28; Mark 8:31—9:1; Luke 9:22–27).

The NIV sentimentally continues the KJV reading of “soul” in Matt 16:26, although it inconsistently translates the identical Greek word as “life” one verse earlier. Rather than “soul,” Luke says “himself” (“very self,” NIV), making it absolutely clear that Jesus used psychē (soul) in the holistic Hebraic sense, not in the dualistic sense of Greek philosophy (perpetuated still in much pietism and revivalism).

The context encourages the reader to understand the phrases “finding one’s life” and “losing one’s life” in their most ordinary senses. Jesus is discussing his own approaching death and resurrection to life (v. 21). He warns against attempting to save one’s own life and promises that whoever loses his life for the Lord will find it (v. 25). When Jesus comes in glory with the angels to reward each person, some will lose their life; others will find life.

We do not question that “life” includes more than mere existence—a point made as often by conditionalist writers as by traditionalists. Nor does anyone deny that “life” and “death” sometimes have figurative meanings in the Scriptures. However, since “life” can mean more than mere existence, but never means less, on what basis can “loss of life” mean less than the loss of existence, even though here it obviously implies the loss of far more? On what basis can anyone justify reading “lose one’s life” and “find one’s life” figuratively in verses 25–26 when the same thoughts are so obviously literal in all the surrounding verses?

John 3:16

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” In this favorite verse of so many believers, the choices are “eternal life” on the one hand and “perish” on the other. “Perish” is a common descriptive verb for the fate of the wicked throughout the Bible. The most natural interpretation sees it as the opposite of life which, in this case, is eternal.

John 3:36

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.” Again “eternal life” stands as an alternative, this time to “God’s wrath remaining.” Here Jesus emphasizes the realized aspect of both outcomes. Already eternal life is here for the believer; already God’s wrath rests (and continues to rest) on one who rejects the Son of God who is life. So long as one knowingly rejects Jesus, God’s wrath “remains.”

This verse is reminiscent of Deut 29:20, where all the curses of a broken covenant not only fall on the highhanded rebel, but “rest” (NASB) on him as well. Deuteronomy literally says the curses “lie down” on him, evoking an image of a beast of prey.[22]

INTERACTION

John Gerstner insists that “the unbelieving go on perishing as long as they go on unbelieving and that is forever. So far as John 3:16 is concerned, the unbelieving perish forever.”[23] Paul Helm reasons that if “perish” means ceasing to exist, and if unbelievers perish in hell, then “hell cannot exist.”[24]

Gerstner reads into Scripture the idea that the wicked “go on perishing” rather than “perish.” If the Gospel writer had wanted to say that, he could have. But he did not. He instead assures us that every person who believes in Jesus will not perish, but—the opposite situation—have eternal life.

Helm’s logic assumes that hell itself must exist forever, and that it would cease to exist if unbelievers truly died and became extinct. Traditionalists infer the eternality of hell from the biblical phrases “eternal fire” and “eternal judgment,” although there are at least two other explanations as detailed in chapter 4.

Although one assumes that fire goes out when its fuel source is exhausted, we need not think that the wicked are necessary for fuel to keep hell’s fire alive. In this Parable, hell seems to pre-exist humans’ entrance into it, and is therefore capable of burning independently. Of course, our reasoning about realities of the age to come is analogical and not literal; all aspects of the age to come might confound our best present logic.

John 5:28–29

The Sadducees denied a resurrection, but it was the strong hope of the Pharisees and many in Israel.[25] Jesus adds a new dimension to the conversation when he says: “A time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.”

Jesus’ words here resemble these words from the Old Testament: “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan 12:2). To be condemned is to be declared guilty by judicial fiat. However, that alone says nothing of the sentence or its execution. Again the emphasis is on the “already”—what will happen later is determined by our response to Jesus now (vv. 21–27).

Miscellaneous Metaphors

In the final section of this chapter, we will look at a few remaining teachings of Jesus about final punishment that use metaphors other than banishment or loss of life.

Matthew 7:24–27

This Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders concludes Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. The wise man’s house is well-founded and withstands the storm, which destroys the foolish man’s house erected on sand. Ben Sira also used a well-constructed house as a metaphor for wisdom. “As timber girt and fixed into the wall is not loosened by an earthquake, so a heart established on well-advised counsel will not be afraid in time of danger” (Sir 22:16).

The house without a foundation had a great fall, if we read Matthew’s Greek literally. Luke says it had a great “ruin” (Luke 6:49).[26] Luke also says the destruction came “immediately” (“the moment the torrent struck,” NIV). Anyone who has seen a house demolished by hurricane, tornado or flood can appreciate both the suddenness and the severity of such destruction. Jesus’ figure is forceful and almost universally understood.

Matthew 12:30–32

After Jesus heals a man who was blind, mute, and demon-possessed, the Pharisees attribute his astounding power to Beelzebub, the prince of demons. In response Jesus sternly warns of a sin that will never be forgiven, either in “this age” or “the age to come.”

Matthew uses the apocalyptic language of the two ages, but Mark compresses the same idea into an eschatological adjective. The person “will never be forgiven,” Mark says. “He is guilty of an eternal sin” (Mark 3:29). Luke eliminates end-time language altogether, stating simply that “he will not be forgiven” (Luke 12:10).

INTERACTION

A number of traditionalists interpret the “unpardonable sin” as a sin that is forever committed. Ongoing sin requires ongoing conscious torment, they say, which in turn leads to more sin that requires more punishment and leads to further sin. A. A. Hodge says: “The instant a soul sins it is cut off from the communion and life of God. As long as it continues in that state it will continue to sin. As long as it continues to sin, it will deserve his wrath and curse. It is obvious that the sinful tempers and conduct indulged in hell will deserve and receive punishment as strictly as those previously indulged in this life.”[27]

John Blanchard quotes John Gerstner to the same effect.[28] Larry D. Pettegrew makes the same argument,[29] as does J. I. Packer, although not relating it to this passage. [30] Augustus Hopkins Strong argues the same,[31] creating a moral dilemma without seeming to realize it. On the one hand, he says that “habit begets fixity of character, and in the spiritual world sinful acts . . . produce a permanent state of sin, which the soul, unaided, cannot change.”[32] On the other hand, he argues that “benevolence in God may to the end permit the existence of sin and may continue to punish the sinner . . . because [God] . . . provides for the highest possible freedom and holiness in the creature through eternity.”[33]

A close look at the Gospels here reveals that the different expressions in Matthew and Luke explain each other. The “eternal sin” is not a sin committed without end, as if sinners in hell forever continue to sin. It is a sin committed at a particular point in earthly history. It is “eternal” in its effects, because it rejects Jesus’ authority to forgive sin and thereby precludes the possibility of forgiveness. Scripture says repeatedly that eternal punishment will be for misdeeds done during this present life.

To say the sin is never forgiven does not require unending conscious torment for committing it. The sinner who is destroyed both soul and body in hell, and so experiences the second death, is never forgiven, even though he dies, perishes, and is destroyed—or, in other words, he ceases to exist. The wages of sin is the second death. This unforgiven sinner experiences the full penalty for his sin. He dies, perishes, and is destroyed—but he is never forgiven.

Matthew 26:24

As Jesus’ last supper with the disciples draws to a close, he tells them that one of them will betray him. For that man, said Jesus, it would have been better not to have been born. The statement appears in Matt 26:24 and Mark 14:21. Instead of scriptural prediction, Luke points to divine foreordination, and he stops short of the final sentence (Luke 22:22).

Jesus does not say that this is a fate worse than death, but a fate worse than non-birth. The language also occurs in a parable in pseudepigraphical 1 Enoch (Ethiopic). There it is said of sinners in judgment, “It had been good for them if they had not been born” (1 En. 38:2). In the verses following, the sinners are destroyed: “the kings and the mighty perish . . . and . . . none . . . seek . . . mercy . . . for their life is at an end” (vv. 5–6).

Is it not far worse to lose a cherished possession than never to have known it? Who is happier—the man born with empty eye-sockets and who never sees the sun, or the man whose sight is suddenly cut off in the middle of a busy life? Do we not regard the death of the young a special tragedy merely because of the expected years they lost?

Uniqueness of Jesus’ Teaching

When compared with teaching from his contemporaries, the teaching of Jesus concerning final punishment stands apart in several respects.

There is no suggestion that the righteous will gloat over the wicked. Jesus gives no idea that the delights of heaven are increased by contrast with the torments of hell. There is no levity in Jesus’ teaching on this subject. Rather, he uses what he says about Gehenna to reinforce his appeal for personal self-discipline and obedience. Jesus never talks about the danger of hell to people other than his listeners—his teaching always warns “you,” whether disciple, Pharisee or scribe.[34] There is no dwelling on torture, no stirring up nationalist feelings against the Romans, no mention of foreigners being consigned to hell. Contemporary Jewish literature illustrates exceptions at every point.[35]

Interaction

In the previous quotation, Strawson notes that Scripture never suggests that the righteous will gloat over the wicked in hell, or that somehow the delights of heaven will be increased by contrast with the torments of hell.

This is a necessary point, because through the centuries some traditionalists, usually Calvinistic, have taught that the redeemed will derive joy from watching the torments of the damned. Near the end of his scholarly career as an expert on Jonathan Edwards, John Gerstner joined the evangelical debate on hell with Repent or Perish, in which he said: “Heaven’s joy overflows as they see the wicked suffering their just desert . . . The just misery of hell serves its divine purpose of contributing to the happiness of the saints.”[36] Indeed, said Gerstner, true Christians should already be enjoying the thought of people in everlasting torment, as a sign that they are truly regenerate persons themselves. “Even now while the evangelical is singing the praises of his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, he knows that multitudes are suffering the torments of the damned . . . The true Christian, aware of this, is happily, exuberantly, gladly praising the Judge of the Last Day, Jesus Christ, who has sentenced to such merited damnation millions of souls.”[37]

Gerstner has in mind Isa 66:24, which pictures the saved going out of the New Jerusalem and seeing the corpses of evildoers that died in God’s judgment. These corpses are presumably in Gehenna, the eschatological place of punishment inspired by the literal Valley of Hinnom outside the historic Jerusalem—the city’s open-air garbage incinerator, smoldering with fires and crawling with maggots.

Although that is the historic reality to which Jesus compares Gehenna of the age to come, traditionalists have always changed the figure in every major respect. In place of corpses, they put live sinners. In place of a consuming fire, they substitute a tormenting fire. Instead of onlookers finding the sight repugnant (as in Isa 66:24), Gerstner’s onlookers take delight in what they see.

In fairness to Gerstner and others of his persuasion, they would say that the onlookers rejoice because God is holy and just, not because they enjoy watching others in misery. However, the whole enterprise is thoroughly unbiblical and is one of many elements in traditionalist thinking from which reverent and thoughtful evangelical believers are now turning away in ever-increasing numbers.

Summary

We have now examined Jesus’ teaching concerning final punishment and have found that he uses a variety of metaphors for the same complex reality. In one group of teachings, Jesus uses the analogy of exclusion. The persistently unrepentant will finally be banished from God’s presence, expelled from entering the kingdom of heaven, and excluded from participation in the great messianic banquet. Instead of entering the festive and well-lighted banquet hall, they will be thrown out into the darkness. There they will weep with sorrow but also gnash their teeth in rage.

In another group of teachings, Jesus uses fire as a symbol of painful destruction. The wicked will finally be thrown into a fiery furnace burning with eternal fire. They will be cast out like refuse into Gehenna, the eternal counterpart to the Jerusalem garbage dump—a disgusting site filled with putrid smells, sickening sights of devouring maggots, and consuming fires that smolder and smolder seemingly without end.

The wicked will become like weeds, straw, fruitless trees, all burned up with fire that is not resisted or thwarted in its task. In the end, says Jesus in another theme of teachings, the wicked lose their lives. They perish. They are destroyed.

However, Jesus’ greatest revelation comes not in his parables but in his history—at Golgotha and at the Garden Tomb. Nowhere in all of Scripture will we find clearer, more concrete pictures both of the victory of life and—its ultimate contrast—the reality and horror of hell.

1. Davies, An Angry God? 109.

2. Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News, 174. I mean no disrespect to Brother Dixon by saying it, but the logic in this common traditionalist argument appears in more familiar form in a skit by classic comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Costello titled “Abbott and Costello Don’t Know Where They Are,” presently online (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtOjUVyBl8A).

3. “Hell,” unpublished essay on Dr. Richard Bauckham’s Web site (http://richardbauckham.co.uk/index.php?page=short-essays).

4. Job 16:9; Pss 35:16; 37:12; 112:10; Lam 2:16; Acts 7:54.

5. Peterson, Hell On Trial, 189.

6. Morgan, “Biblical Theology,” 144.

7. Packer, “Universalism,” 184.

8. Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News, 163.

9. Bauckham, “Matt 22:1–14,” 485–87.

10. Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, 65, 188–89.

11. Davies, Sermon on the Mount, 300. He warns that his remarks concerning a possible relationship between rabbinic Judaism and Matthean Christianity are only “tentative and exploratory.”

12. Zech 3:1–8; Gal 3:27; Rev 3:18; 7:14. In Rev 19:8, the redeemed are dressed in “fine linen, bright and clean,” which “stands for the righteous acts of the saints.” This is spoken in a different form of reference from our passage in the Gospels or even Isa 64:6, where “all our righteous acts are like filthy [lit. “menstruous] rags.” On the paradox of grace and works in judgment see Mitton, “Present Justification and Final Judgment,” 46–50, and especially Ridderbos, Paul, 178–81.

13. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 189.

14. Packer, “Evangelical Annihilationism,” 44.

15. Peterson here mentions “the damned in hell crying and grinding their teeth in pain” (Peterson, Hell on Trial, 50).

16. Traditionalists: Berkhof (Reformed Dogmatics, 2:345); Hodge (Outlines of Theology, 580–81); Shedd (The Doctrine of Endless Punishment, 131n1); Pusey (What Is of Faith? 9–10). Pusey here even says that “we cannot tell how far the exposure of infants may be a sin in China . . . or cannibalism in a nation of cannibals.” Conditionalists: Constable (Future Punishment, 1–2); Froom (The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, 1:496).

17. Milne, The Message of Heaven and Hell, 157.

18. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 189. Morgan joins Peterson, saying that “the servant also suffers intensely—punishment!” (Morgan, “Biblical Theology,” 149).

19. Mattill, “The Way of Tribulation,” 531–46.

20. Ibid., 546.

21. This passage is one of very many that Peterson admits “could be interpreted” to mean the wicked will be obliterated, annihilated, or made extinct, except that in each instance Peterson says that another verse prevents his allowing that natural meaning (Peterson, Hell on Trial, 163).

22. We agree with Peterson’s comment on this passage that the wicked “will not know spiritual life in its qualitative or quantitative aspects” (ibid., 70). We add that just as darkness has no substantive independent reality, but is ultimately the absence of light, so death is the absence of life. To say that the wicked will not experience any aspect of life should lead one to conclude that the wicked will perish in the second death.

23. Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 158.

24. Helm, The Last Things, 118.

25. Acts 23:6; 24:20–21; 26:6–7; 28:20. Kepple, “The Hope of Israel,” 231–42.

26. This word stands for negeph in the Septuagint, a Hebrew term used most often for a divine judgment of destruction. See Exod 12:13; 30:12; Num 8:19; 16:46–47; Josh 22:17; Isa 8:14.

27. Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 584–85.

28. Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 225; quoting Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 61–62.

29. Pettegrew, “A Kinder, Gentler Theology of Hell?” 215.

30. Packer, “Evangelical Annihilationism,” 46.

31. Strong, Systematic Theology, 3:1048–49.

32. Ibid., 1049.

33. Ibid., 1053.

34. Jesus specifically mentions Gehenna eleven times in the Gospels (Matt 5:22; 5:29–30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Luke 12:5). He addresses two of these eleven warnings to the Pharisees, concerning their hypocrisy and its fruit (Matt 23:15, 33). Jesus directs all his other warnings to his own disciples. Twice he encourages them not to fear man but God (Matt 10:28; Luke 12:5). By far the most of Jesus’ teaching about hell occurs when he warns his own followers not to mistreat or to misuse vulnerable people, whether women (Matt 5:31–32), “little ones” (Matt.18:9; Mark 9:43, 45, 47) or one with whom they might be angry (Matt 5:22).

35. Strawson, Jesus and the Future Life, 147–50.

36. Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 191.

37. Ibid., 32, 151. Meanwhile, Paul Helm notes that “some warped individuals gloat over the fact of hell, savor it, embroider it and so corrupt both the Christian testimony and themselves” (Helm, The Last Things, 110).

16

Golgotha: Judgment Revealed (1)

ROBERT A. PETERSON WELL states: “The cross sheds light on the fate of the wicked, because on the cross the sinless Son of God suffered that fate.”[1] The New Testament states nothing more plainly, more emphatically, and more often than this: Jesus died because of sin and in the place of sinners. The death that Jesus died was the death required by the sinner’s sin. It was the death we all would have died, had Jesus not come as our representative, to live and to die in our name and in our stead. Yes, Brother Peterson tells the gospel truth when he says that “the cross sheds light on the fate of the wicked.”

The Testimony of Scripture

Jesus himself said that he came to give his life “as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45), and the apostles Peter and John, both principals in the bickering that stimulated the remark, remembered it and repeated it in their own ways. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,” wrote Peter (1 Pet 2:24). “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous” (1 Pet 3:18). John emphasized the same truth. “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world ” (1 John 2:2). “Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). The unknown author of Hebrews picked up the theme. Jesus “suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone” (Heb 2:9). “Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people” (Heb 9:28).

But it was Paul, the apostle whom Jesus called last and who saw himself as least, who developed this message in most detail. “Christ died for the ungodly” which means “for us,” he told the Romans (Rom 5:6, 8). To the Corinthians, Paul said: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us” (2 Cor 5:21). The Galatians heard the word that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Gal 3:13). Paul told the Colossians: “Once you were alienated from God . . . But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death” (Col 1:21–22). Paul taught his evangelistic protégés Timothy and Titus to see the large picture and the personal. “Christ Jesus . . . gave himself as a ransom for all people,” Paul tells Timothy (1 Tim 2:5–6), while to Titus he wrote that Christ “gave himself for us . . .” (Titus 2:14).

Eschatology Is an Aspect of Christology

Many New Testament scholars today are quick to point out how eschatology itself is essentially Christology. Jesus himself is the key to last things. This is in contrast to the view that defines last things as a series of events having no integral relation to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Those who take that second approach, says William C. Berkemeyer, believe “that God has lifted the veil so that his saints and prophets could see ahead of time when the end would come, what will happen in those last days, the series of cosmic events which will take place, what form judgment and eternal destiny will take.” In this view, “a careful deciphering and a logical, imaginative fitting together of the varied Bible pictures will produce the authentic answer,” though its proponents “may not agree upon the way to fit the puzzle together.”[2]

The New Testament pattern of interpretation points another direction. It explains prophecy, not by arranging isolated bits and looking to the future, but by reading it all in the light of the past, particularly that chain of events “when through the cross and resurrection Christ fought and won the decisive battle which makes the eventual victory sure.”[3] The future still holds many unanswered questions, but whatever those answers may be, they all will “be controlled by and consistent with this Christ-event of the past.”[4] F. F. Bruce suggests that perhaps “we should say that the New Testament reveals the ‘last thing’ to be really the ‘Last One,’ the Eschatos (‘the First and the Last’ is a title of Jesus in Rev 1:17, 2:8, 22:13).”[5] C. H. Dodd reminds us that “At the last frontier-post we shall encounter God in Christ.”[6]

Although New Testament writers interpret the gospel by a wide variety of figures and in many different frameworks, they “unite in affirming that with Jesus the New Age has dawned, but that the consummation of that Age awaits future realization.”[7] And they agree that the inauguration anticipates the consummation, or—to put it the other way—that the end will only complete and make evident what is already true in Jesus Christ.

With Christ’s death and resurrection, eschatology has already begun. On Pentecost Peter announced the beginning of the End. The details of that day were “last-times” details, whether we think of the announcement that the resurrection had begun, the outpouring of the Spirit, or the actual remission of sins. But “inauguration points on to the consummation,” and “this consummation, this goal, must be as truly bound up with [Jesus’] person as the inauguration was.[8]

This perspective guided the Reformers past whirlpools of prophetic speculation and held them steady through the rapids of imaginative interpretation. Holwerda regards such a Christ-centered understanding of prophecy as a fundamental part of Calvin’s heritage. For the Genevan Reformer, he says, almost all prophecies are fulfilled on a continuum rather than in a single moment of time. The reason for this is “the Christ who incorporates within himself both advent and return: both the fulfillment already completed and the fulfillment that will one day be fully revealed.”[9] For Calvin, a given prophecy “can contain only what as a matter of fact has happened and will happen in Christ. Thus every prophecy announcing final victory receives a twofold fulfillment in the advent and return of Christ.”[10]

Ridderbos exemplifies the same approach in contemporary Reformed theology. The “interdependence between the ‘eschatological’ and the ‘christological’ ground motif of Paul’s preaching . . . is determinative for insight into the real nature of Paul’s preaching of Christ,” he writes.[11] “Paul’s eschatology is not determined by any traditional eschatological schema, but by the actual acting of God in Christ.”[12]

George R. Beasley-Murray, a specialist in the field of apocalyptic, makes the same point. “Christ is the agent of God in that judgment on history which leads to its goal in the kingdom of God; and alike the judgments and the kingdom are the issue of the judgment and redemption wrought in and through the life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God.”[13]

Jesus not only inaugurates the end-time events; he also concludes them. He is the Last as well as the First in eschatology as well as in God’s saving purpose in general. This means that “for Christian faith eschatology is an aspect of Christology. Whether we are thinking in terms of the history of mankind, or the destiny of the individual, or the meaning of the universe, we are driven back ultimately to the significance of the incarnation and the redemption wrought by God in Christ.”[14]

Pannenberg is even more explicit. He insists that the end of history has erupted within history, particularly in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The gospel not only declares the past, it pronounces the future. Tupper summarizes Pannenberg’s thought like this: “As the pre-happening of the End of history, therefore, Jesus’ history and destiny constitute the final revelation of God. While God remains active in the events of history after Christ, the prolepsis of revelation in the eschatological history of Jesus precludes any distinctively new disclosure of God which will surpass the Christ event.”[15]

Jesus indeed says that “a time is coming” when all men will rise to be judged, then part company forever. But because he is “the Last,” eschatology is subsumed under Christology, and Jesus can say in the same passage that that time “has now come” (John 5:24–29).

Calvary Reveals God’s Final Judgment

The Old Testament prophets spoke of “the sufferings of Christ” and “the glories that would follow” (1 Pet 1:11), a point Jesus himself made more than once (Matt 16:21; Luke 18:31–33; 24:25–27, 44–48; John 17:1–5). Yet what is this suffering and this glory if not the eschatological judgment of God—seen both as divine vengeance on sin and the vindication and exaltation of righteousness?

In an exhaustive study of Jesus’ teachings concerning God’s justice, Baird finds that Jesus personified all that he taught on this subject, so that Jesus himself “was absolutely consumed by his involvement in the crisis of God.” Baird explains: “His life and message was a prism that brought the rays of God’s being and nature to flaming focus in himself. He saw his own mission and person as the symbol, the agent, and the very incarnation of the judgment of God.”[16] A little later Baird suggests the “very interesting possibility” that “Jesus went to the cross as the last great acted parable of his life, wherein he portrayed in ways beyond comprehension the justice of God and his own involvement therein.” In so doing, the cross became “Jesus’ creative extension of Moses’ great acted parable of judgment, Ebal and Gerizim.”[17]

Alan Richardson comes from a different direction to arrive at the same point. Jesus “clearly regards himself as related to orgē [wrath] and krisis [judgment] as he is related to basileia [kingdom], zoē [life] or doxa [glory].” More than that, Richardson says, “it is Christ himself who is the actual bearer of the divine orgē [wrath].” The outcome is that the cross of Christ “is the visible, historical manifestation of the orgē tou theou [wrath of God]: it is the supreme revelation of the wrath of God against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men (Rom 1:18; cf. 2 Cor 5:21; Mark 15:34).”[18]

C. K. Barrett agrees. Romans 1–3 reveals the fundamental pattern of Paul’s theology, Barrett writes. “Righteousness” and “wrath” are both eschatological words—words related to the effects of the last judgment. Yet the gospel proclaims that “both belong to the present” because of what has happened to Jesus of Nazareth.[19] This means “the last event has already begun, precipitated by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, who clearly is the central figure in the whole scheme.”[20] Ridderbos also acknowledges that in Christ’s death “God has sat in judgment, has judged sin, and in this way he has caused his eschatological judgment to be revealed in the present time.”[21] Hans Conzelmann writes that divine anger against sin has always been poured out but that the gospel shows us what it was. He continues: “The new element since Christ is that now, through the proclamation of the gospel, man can recognize what God’s judgment on sin always was . . . Thus, wrath is made visible to me by the preaching of the gospel.”[22]

These men represent a variety of theological perspectives, and they have their own distinctives on the fine points involved here. Yet they all agree (and we may join them, while reserving the right to differ also in certain details) that the Passion of Jesus Christ uniquely revealed God’s judgment against sin—the same judgment that those who knowingly and persistently reject Christ now will face at the end of the world.

The author of the epistle to the Hebrews drew Jesus’ experience and man’s final judgment along parallel lines. As it is ordained to man to be judged, he wrote, so it happened to Christ. What is more, he continues, Christ stood in the place of the sinner in judgment, since he died for sin (Heb 9:27–28).

Jesus Truly Died

The Bible exhausts the vocabulary of dying in speaking of what happened to Jesus. He “died for our sins” (1 Cor 15:3). He laid down his “life [ psychē ]” (John 10:15). He was destroyed (Matt 27:20, KJV) or killed (Acts 3:15). Jesus compared his own death to the dissolution of a kernel of wheat in the same passage that means losing one’s life ( psychē ) rather than loving it in order to find life eternal (John 12:23–26). Jesus “poured out his life ( psychē ) unto death” and in so doing was “numbered with the transgressors” (Isa 53:12).

Every scriptural implication is that if Jesus had not been raised, he—like those fallen asleep in him—would simply have perished (1 Cor 15:18). His resurrection reverses every such estimation of affairs, assuring us instead of the death of Death (2 Tim 1:10; Heb 2:14; Rev 20:14).

Jesus’ Death Was “For Sin”

The cross of Christ was no mere example of divine judgment; it was God’s judgment par excellence—the judgment withheld already for centuries from many to whom it was due (Rom 3:25; Heb 9:15, 26–28; cf. NIV footnote to Isa 53:8). This is the very essence of the gospel, and Sinclair B. Ferguson beautifully summarizes it like this: “Christ took our place, bearing our sin, tasting our judgment, dying our death—so that we might share his place, be made his righteousness, taste his vindication, and experience his life.”[23]

Milne discusses the atonement and concludes that Jesus suffered “hell on earth” for us on the cross, stating that “[Jesus’] substituting himself for us, bearing the full effects of God’s wrath implies that his substitutionary suffering must have included this hell-experiencing element . . . Only if Jesus’ death includes the equivalence of hell can it properly and effectually be the means of our salvation. Christ’s saving us through the cross must mean that he endured hell on the cross. The cross was ‘hell on earth.’”[24]

Jesus himself approached this death with “prayers and petitions,” with “loud cries and tears” (Heb 5:7). Though he moved resolutely toward it, it was as one “deeply distressed and troubled,” his soul “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Mark 14:33–34). He prayed “in anguish,” and his sweat “was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44). In the words of John Wenham, “There was something so solemn about the way that he spoke of his death that the disciples were afraid to ask him what he meant. There was something so frightening about his demeanor as he strode ahead of them that they were ‘filled with awe.’”[25]

Oscar Cullmann is well known for his appraisal of the horror with which Jesus viewed his death, a dread Cullmann attributes to Jesus’ understanding of death in general. But more is at stake here than anthropology, as Leon Morris reminds us: “It was not death as such that he feared. It was the particular death that he was to die, that death which is ‘the wages of sin’ as Paul puts it (Rom 6:23), the death in which he was at one with sinners, sharing their lot, bearing their sins, dying their death.”[26]

Yet this death, this death for sin, was why Jesus had come into this world. “What shall I say?” he had agonized on the way to Jerusalem. “Father, save me from this hour?” His answer was quick and firm. “No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” (John 12:27–28) For this hour, indeed, the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8). He is “Christ, our Passover Lamb” (1 Cor 5:7), “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

He is both scapegoat and sacrifice, “for atonement” and “for Azazel.” When Jesus finally makes atonement by his own blood, he also removes sin as far as east is from west (Ps 103:12). The Greek word for “forgive” used most often by the Evangelists in reporting what Jesus said has as its root two words that mean “to take away” ( aphiēmi ).

The Evangelists draw their picture of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection on top of a canvas already covered by another bold word. That word is “covenant.” When we look closely at the canvas, we see that this word too is adorned, like a colorful letter drawn by some medieval calligrapher, with scenes of Canaan and of Eden. Jesus was “born of a woman, born under law” (Gal 4:4). The first statement speaks of his humanity. He is the Second Adam, the second representative human. The latter term tells us that Jesus is a Son of the Torah—but even more. He is True Israel, the true Vine of God’s planting (John 15:1).

The two figures are but concentric circles picturing God’s covenant, and Jesus now encompasses them both. Integral to each is the recurring pattern of covenantal stipulations, covenantal blessings and covenantal curses. As Second Adam and True Israel, Jesus does what neither Adam nor Israel had ever been able to do. He keeps the stipulations, earns the blessings, then takes on himself all the curses of the broken covenant.[27]

Robert D. Brinsmead elaborates:

In Leviticus and Deuteronomy 28–30 these curses come in handfuls. They are awful threats which may first appear out of all proportion to the sins committed. But sin, being a breach of the covenant, is an affront to the covenant God and an insult to his infinite majesty . . . The curses included hunger and thirst (Deut 28:48; Isa 65:13), desolation (Isa 5:6; Zeph 1:15), poverty (Deut 28:31), the scorn of passers-by (Jer 19:8), darkness (Isa 13:10; Amos 5:18–20), earthquake (Isa 13:13; Amos 1:1), being “cut off” from among the people (Exod 12:15, 19; 31:14; Lev 7:25; Jer 44:7–11), death by hanging on a tree (Deut 21:23), a brass heaven (Deut 28:23) and no help when one cries for help (Deut 28:31; Isa 10:3).

Christ . . . was hungry (Matt. 4:2; 21:18). He was so poor he had no place to lay his head (Matt. 8:20). On the cross he cried, “I am thirsty!” (John 19:28). He was mocked and derided (Mark 15:29–31) and deserted by his friends (Matt 26:56, 69–75). He was hanged on a tree as a cursed man (Gal 3:13) and “cut off” from his people (Isa 53:8). As he hung on the cross, the heavens were as brass. He was as one who cries for help and receives none (Mark 15:34). He died as the great covenant breaker and endured the unabated fury of all the covenantal curses. The cosmic scope of the curses is portrayed in Matthew. As Christ bore the sins of the broken covenant, darkness descended over the land (Matt 27:45), the earth shook, and the rocks split (Matt 27:51). But by dying Jesus carried away the curses of the covenant.[28]

A man with only an Old Testament in his hand could view the scene of Good Friday and know that Jesus is “stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted” (Isa 53:4). The Law makes that plain enough. But the gospel tells us why the sinless one is so treated. Certain patristic and medieval theologians spun great arguments from human philosophies of justice to explain and justify everlasting punishment. The New Testament does not do that. It begins with God’s law, with God’s covenants, with the divine wrath that accompanies such covenants. Then it takes us by the hand and leads us through the winding streets to a place clearly outside the Holy City.[29] There it shows us the ultimate penalty for sin. This time it does not take us to the rocky Valley of Hinnom—the worst earthly symbol that intertestamental apocalyptists could imagine for Gehenna of the age to come. Instead, it takes us to a stone hill in the shape of a skull. There it points us to a wooden stake to which is nailed the lifeless body of a sinless man. Here, it says, is the greatest revelation of God’s wrath against all the ungodliness and wickedness of men.

This is no impersonal transaction, as if divine wrath were a matter of mere mechanics. Nor does it partake of any sinful vindictiveness as human wrath is so prone to do. We cannot begin to comprehend, far less express, what it meant that “God the mighty Maker died for man, the creature’s sin.” Righteousness and peace kissed that day (Ps 85:10). God became both “just and the justifier” (Rom 3:26). What transpired that day is so significant that human beings can look to it and receive in the empty hands of God-given faith the grace they so desperately need.

Markus Barth captures something of the sense of the cosmic judicial proceedings that occurred that Friday on Calvary.

With this the proceedings before God’s throne reach their most abysmal point. No wonder Jesus cries out to the Father who sent him, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” No wonder darkness shrouds the whole world. This is the horrible judgment of the living God. The words “anger,” “curse,” “sin,” “cross,” “crucified with him” cannot be sweetened. They cannot be relativized. They present an offense . . . that cannot be removed by any wisdom . . . In spite of Jesus’ truthfulness and love, all of God’s anger reigns here. Here is hellish thirst and torment, the Godforsakenness of God’s own child . . .

In the death of his Son, God does not merely make felt what it means to bear sins and die under the curse; he feels it himself. Sin and death are no longer alien to God. Now everything that has to do with the living, obeying, hoping, achieving, doing, suffering, and dying of men has been incorporated into the relation between Father and Son. As it is manifested, it cries out to heaven . . .

Here God openly stands against God, the Father against the Son, the benevolent, promising God addressed in prayers, against what God makes and allows in the world of facts and events. No theoretical or doctrinal theodicy is able to break in and save the day. Even the true and loving Son can only ask, “Why have you . . . ?”

The earth trembles. The sun fades away. This is the horror of the judgment: God is silent. An eclipse of the living God, a victory of death over life, the end of all religion, all law and justice, all morality—it is this that comes in at 3:00 p.m. on Good Friday. A Hell, deeper and hotter than anything one might imagine . . . has opened its maw, devoured God’s Son, and become all-victorious.

The one true God has let himself, for me, lost man and hopeless, be given unto death.

The judgment is adjourned at this time, to reconvene day after tomorrow at the crack of dawn.[30]

1. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 216. With this chapter we come into the Holy of Holies, traditionalists and conditionalists together, united in sinfulness and one in God’s grace. As a symbol of our unanimity in the most important elements of our faith, and especially as a sign of our unity in Jesus Christ in whom our faith is placed, this chapter includes a number of quotes from the traditionalist authors with whom I have been interacting—this time not to disagree, but to highlight what we have in common.

2. Berkemeyer, “The Eschatological Dilemma,” 234.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Bruce, “Eschatology,” 100.

6. Dodd, The Coming of Christ, 58, quoted by Bruce, “Eschatology,” 100. Dodd’s words quoted here are fully biblical, though in his earlier works he stressed the “already” aspect of eschatology at the expense of the “not yet.” In later works he corrected this imbalance.

7. Kee, “The Development of Eschatology in the New Testament,” 193.

8. Bruce, “Eschatology,” 103.

9. Holwerda, “Eschatology and History,” 125.

10. Ibid., 126.

11. Ridderbos, Paul, 49.

12. Ibid., 52.

13. Beasley-Murray, “New Testament Apocalyptic,” 330.

14. Ibid.

15. Tupper, “The Revival of Apocalyptic,” 296.

16. Baird, The Justice of God in the Teaching of Jesus, 237.

17. Ibid., 251.

18. Richardson, An Introduction to the Theology of the New Testament, 77.

19. Barrett, “New Testament Eschatology,” 147.

20. Ibid., 150.

21. Ridderbos, Paul, 168

22. Conzelmann, An Outline of the Theology of the New Testament, 241. Conzelmann says precious little in this Outline about God’s wrath, judgment, or hell. His remark here has obvious validity but should not detract from the uniqueness of the cross as God’s great judgment-event.

23. Ferguson, Hell Under Fire, 229.

24. Milne, The Message of Heaven and Hell, 177–78.

25. Wenham, The Goodness of God, 169.

26. Morris, The Cross in the New Testament, 47.

27. Fudge, The Divine Rescue, 129–38.

28. Brinsmead, Covenant, 81–83.

29. Dunning writes: “Hell, like Gehenna of old, is out of bounds to the Holy City. Hell’s deepest meaning is the loss of the divine presence, the complete absence of fellowship with God and a condition of final unalterable alienation from him” ( Dunning, “What Has Become of Heaven and Hell?” 357). This is precisely what we see at Calvary. Jesus was cast outside Jerusalem to die, God refused to come to his aid, and Jesus was never again to be known as he once had been known in the flesh (2 Cor 5:16, 19, 21). Jesus became a castaway from the covenant society of Yahweh, a man under God’s ban and curse, totally “cut off” from God and God’s people.

Yet in the light of Jesus’ subsequent resurrection, this exclusion from Jerusalem became a symbol of encouragement for the confused and forlorn recipients of Hebrews (Heb 13:12–14). When a city expels God from its midst (as the resurrection showed Jerusalem had done in excluding Jesus) and it is about to crumble, absence from it is no longer so bad.

30. Barth, Justification, 47–48.

17

Golgotha: Judgment Revealed (2)

NOT ONLY DID JESUS die, he died for sin. And not only did he die for sin, he died for our sin. But even that does not say it all. Jesus not only died for our sin, he died the death that we would have had to die, if he had not taken our place and died it in our stead.

Jesus Died the Sinner’s Death

By the grace of God, Jesus is not a third party in the matter of our salvation, not even a third party who acts for the benefit of others. He became human in order to be the first party, to “be made sin” or a “sin offering” (2 Cor 5:21), to “become a curse” (Gal 3:13). It is in his “physical body” that he reconciled us through death (Col 1:22). He bore our sins “in his body” on the cross (1 Pet 2:24). God gave Jesus a body in which to perform perfect human obedience, to “do the will of God,” and having done that will, Jesus sacrificed that body once for all (Heb 10:5–10).

He “took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows” (Isa 53:4). He “was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him” (Isa 53:5). “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa 53:6). Jesus bore his people’s iniquities and their sin—he took it all on himself, the single horrible mass viewed in general and all its specific manifestations (Isa 53:11–12). As Larry Dixon succinctly puts it, “Christ bore our hell on the cross.”[1] In the familiar language of the Apostles Creed, Jesus “descended into hell.”[2] John Blanchard provides more detail. “In his spiritual and physical dying,” he writes, “Jesus suffered everything the Bible means when it describes hell . . . and he felt in his own body and soul all of hell’s shame, contempt, punishment, banishment, separation, deprivation, torment and agony.”[3]

If Jesus was to save us from hell by dying as our representative, writes Bruce Milne, it was necessary for him to suffer hell in the course of that death. “Only if Jesus’ death includes the equivalence of hell can it properly and effectually be the means of our salvation. Christ’s saving us through the cross must mean that he endured hell on the cross. The cross was ‘hell on earth.’”[4]

This is what it means that Jesus Christ took our place, explains Berkhof: “that Christ as our substitute suffered the punishment due to us, and in our place met all the requirements of the law.”[5] Dunn believes that “substitution” is too narrow and individualistic here, arguing that “Jesus represents man, not just a man, on the cross.” He suggests that “representation” includes the positive sense of “substitution,” while avoiding its over-exclusiveness.[6]

The death that is the penalty for sin is truly death, as revealed in the death, burial and resurrection of the Son of God who became our Savior. J. Oliver Buswell insightfully notes that Jesus underwent the most severe punishment known to mankind, and that our redemption required his death as a man. This necessity grows out of the fact that the wages of sin is death, and that even in human society, capital punishment is the most severe punishment meted out by law. Writes Buswell:

It seems abundantly clear then that for the redemption of men our redeemer must be a man to represent us in the offering of the sacrifice upon the cross.

The necessity for his humanity, and so for his death as a man, is not merely incidental. In all human affairs in this world the death penalty is the extreme penalty. No other human penalty can be any more severe than this . . . It is also eminently appropriate that, for the redemption of lost humanity, Christ, as God and man, suffered physical death, the extreme punishment known in human affairs.”[7]

Jesus’ Death Involved Total Destruction

Here is the point to which we finally must come. If Jesus’ death “reveals” God’s last judgment, if his death was “for sin” and “instead of sinner,” if it entailed the penalty and curse and condemnation of sin pronounced throughout the Bible, what does the cross teach us about final punishment?

Sinclair B. Ferguson might not agree with us that the second death, or Jesus’ experience of it in our stead, involves total destruction, but we all can agree wholeheartedly with his statement that when Jesus died, “He entered territory unimaginable for a Jew—, exiled to a far country where the covenant of God no longer functions, where all appears to relapse into inexplicable chaos, a world of deep, unfathomable, unanswering disintegration.”[8]

James D. G. Dunn sees total disintegration as the essence of the Levitical sacrifices that foreshadowed Christ’s offering: “Paul saw the death of the sacrificial animal as the death of the sinner qua sinner, that is, the destruction of his sin. The manner in which the sin offering dealt with sin was by its death. The sacrificial animal, identified with the offerer in his sin, had to be destroyed in order to destroy the sin which it embodied. The sprinkling, smearing and pouring away of the sacrificial blood in the sight of God indicated that the life was wholly destroyed, and with it the sin of the sinner.”[9] Dunn continues: This is the just doom also of sinful humanity—utter destruction: “Had there been a way for fallen man to overcome his fallenness . . . Christ would not have died . . . But Christ, Man, died because there is no other way for man—any man. His death is an acknowledgement that there is no way out for fallen men except through death—no answer to sinful flesh except its destruction in death. “Man could not be helped other than through his annihilation.”[10]

This is the meaning of Jesus’ death, according to Dunn, as touching the consequences of sin. He takes issue with those who say Jesus’ death simply “turns away” God’s wrath. Jesus did not turn it away, Dunn argues. Rather, he accepted it fully on himself, draining it to the dregs until no drop or trickle is left for any whom he saves.

The destructive consequences of sin do not suddenly evaporate. On the contrary, they are focused in fuller intensity on the sin—that is, on fallen humanity in Jesus. In Jesus on the cross was focused not only man’s sin, but the wrath which follows upon that sin. The destructive consequences of sin are such that if they were allowed to work themselves out fully in man himself they would destroy him as a spiritual being. This process of destruction is speeded up in the case of Jesus, the representative man, the hilastērion, and destroys him. The wrath of God destroys the sin by letting the full destructive consequences of sin work themselves out and exhaust themselves in Jesus . . . If we have understood Paul’s theology of sacrifice aright the primary thought is the destruction of the malignant, poisonous organism of sin. Any thought of punishment is secondary.[11]

Oscar Cullman makes the same point in his well-known discussion of immortality and resurrection. Jesus, he writes,

can conquer death only by actually dying, by betaking himself to the sphere of death, the destroyer of life, to the sphere of “nothingness,” of abandonment by God . . . Whoever wants to conquer death must die; he must really cease to live—not simply live on as an immortal soul, but die in body and soul, lose life itself, the most precious good which God has given us . . . Furthermore, if life is to issue out of so genuine a death as this, a new divine act of creation is necessary. And this act of creation calls back to life not just a part of the man, but the whole man—all that God had created and death had annihilated.[12]

Some may object that the original curse entailed death forever, dissolution with no hope of a resurrection, and that this did not befall Jesus. The impossibility of such permanent destruction in Jesus’ case, says nineteenth-century conditionalist Edward White, lies in the reality of his divine nature.

If Jesus had been the Son of David only, he could not legally have risen from the dead . . . He must have suffered everlasting destruction. His human spirit must have passed away for ever. The humanity which had been “made under the law” must abide under that law; the representative of a guilty race could have trodden the path of life no more.

But the Savior was Divine. As man, identified with human nature, he died, and his death became a sin-offering; as God he could not die. As man he was “made under the law”; as God he was above the law laid on creatures. And therefore, when the curse had taken effect upon the manhood, it was still open to the Divine Inhabitant, absorbing the Spirit into his own essence, to restore the “destroyed Temple” from its ruins; and, taking possession of it, in virtue of his Divinity (not, legally, as a man), “to raise it up on the third day.” He arose, therefore, as the Divine Conqueror of death . . . and was thus “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom 1:4). He rose, not “in the likeness of sinful flesh”; not “under the law,” but in the character of the “Lord from Heaven,” “our Lord and our God” . . . having delivered us from wrath by the death of his humanity, to endow us with immortality through the life of his divinity.[13]

We naturally recoil from such a thought, that the Son of God could truly have perished—even for a moment. Yet is this not the same difficulty we face in accepting Jesus’ humiliation in becoming a man? (Phil 2:5–10). In the first century the Docetists tried to avoid the implications of saying that the incarnate God truly died, but the apostolic witnesses refused to yield an inch (1 John 5:6–10).

John Calvin objected in his Psychopannychia that it was unthinkable that Jesus’ “soul” truly died or even slept. But Calvin answered his own objection in the Institutes as he expounded on how Christ performed the office of Redeemer in procuring our salvation. “There is no reason,” Calvin writes, “why Christ’s weakness should alarm us. For he was not compelled by violence or necessity, but was induced purely by his love for us and by his mercy to submit to it. But all that he voluntarily suffered for us does not in the least detract from his power.[14]

We only bow the lower before such amazing grace, saying with John, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16), or with Paul, that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).

Medieval Jurisprudence and Divine Revelation

Some protest that Christ’s death was not a true pattern of the judgment awaiting sinners in hell, since Jesus was an infinite person and could absorb infinite punishment in a single moment. Finite sinners, this argument goes, will require conscious punishment of infinite duration for justice to have its way. This whole logic of “finite” and “infinite” punishment and victims is totally without biblical basis, springing instead from medieval speculation grounded in feudalistic canons of justice. The entire approach is protested today on philosophical grounds, which is proper since that was also its origin.[15] We should also add that the hell suffered by Christ has to be suffered in his humanity (on the grounds set out in this chapter and the previous one). However, Christ’s humanity is not infinite and cannot experience infinite punishment in a finite amount of time.

More than that, this philosophy itself leaves room for the question whether the “infinite” punishment of hell might not be defined in some terms other than conscious torment for endless time. If death is seen to be destruction without limitation (a premise that the traditional view has not allowed), then is not penal death itself an infinite punishment, especially if it is an eternal death that is forever irreversible? Karl Barth speaks, for example, of Christ “suffering the eternal wrath of God,” a phrase Stahlin quotes with apparent approval.[16]

Edward White considered the traditional line of thought concerning “infinite” and “finite” suffering and finally charged that it was unbiblical.

It does not, however, appear to be anywhere stated that the indwelling of the Divinity changed the character of the curse of the law, in the case of our Lord, from everlasting misery, into literal death. It will, therefore, be sufficient to receive the simpler representation, that the “man Christ Jesus” endured that curse. For aught that the Scripture reveals, Jesus, as a man, might as justly have been required to endure everlasting suffering—supposing this to have been the legal curse—as that shameful, painful death which he actually underwent. If it be asserted that it was the presence of the Godhead within which dispensed with the infliction of endless pains, through the substitution of an Infinite Majesty for the infinitely extended misery of a finite being, we reply, that this is an “afterthought of theology” which finds no place in the authoritative records.[17]

Summary

Strong writes, “Hell, as well as the cross, indicates God’s estimate of sin.”[18] In the light of the words of Isaiah and John, Peter and Paul, and Jesus himself, that sentence should be changed to read: “Hell, as revealed in the cross, indicates God’s estimate of sin.” Robert Peterson says it well: “At the cross, then, we catch a glimpse of the enormity of our sins’ offense to God. Here we learn about hell.”[19]

But the “mystery of godliness” did not end with the cross. Jesus was “vindicated by the Spirit” (1 Tim 3:16) and “was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom 1:4).

Interaction

Negative

Despite the lexicon of destruction that New Testament writers use in describing the death of Jesus, my friend Robert Peterson cannot believe that Jesus truly died, perished or was destroyed in the usual sense of those words. In this he is at least consistent, for as a traditionalist he also denies that the words die, perish and destroy possess their ordinary meanings when New Testament writers use them to describe what will happen to the wicked in hell.

To say otherwise, Peterson insists, would contradict “[t]he definitive statement on the Bible’s teaching concerning the person of Christ,” which is a confession of faith issued by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD to provide the church with a metaphysical explanation of the inner nature of Jesus Christ as both human and divine.[20] Specifically, Peterson points to the part of the Council’s decree that says that “as regards His manhood,” Jesus Christ was “made known in two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation . . . as the prophets of old and Jesus Christ Himself taught us about Him and the creed of our fathers has handed down.”[21]

Based on the Council’s definitions, Peterson thinks that I face a dilemma with two bad options. If Jesus truly died, perished or was destroyed (for which Peterson always uses the word “annihilated”), he did so either in his wholeness (two natures) or he did so in his human nature only. If Jesus died, perished and was destroyed in his wholeness, says Peterson, it would mean that the Trinity was reduced to a Binity for three days until the Resurrection. But if in his human nature alone Jesus died, perished and was destroyed, that would require that his two natures be divided for three days, which the definition given at Chalcedon says cannot happen. On a scale of one-to-five, Peterson ranks my supposed error as a four (“systemic error”), only one step removed from “heresy.”[22] I respectfully offer the following considerations in response.

Dr. Peterson believes (and I agree) that Jesus’ prayer request in Gethsemane was not to avoid death, but rather that God would raise him from the dead. Peterson further believes (and I agree) that Jesus considered it theoretically possible that God would not answer that prayer and that he would remain dead forever. [23] If that had happened, according to Peterson’s logic, either the Trinity would have become a Binity forever or Jesus’ two natures would have been forever divided.

While Christians may legitimately look to a variety of sources for assistance in understanding Scripture teaching and discerning its proper application, of which tradition is one, in the event of a clash, evangelicals should always receive Scripture as possessing greater authority than any other source of guidance. “There is, in many evangelical circles, an unfortunate and increasing tendency to put tradition (in the form of Confessions) on a par with Scripture,” observes the Honorary Professor of Reformed Doctrine at Aberdeen University, A. T. B. McGowan, “an error that evangelicals often impute to Catholic theologians.”[24] I am confident that Peterson agrees with that statement and that he intends to avoid the noted error. However, regarding the subject of hell, I fear that he does not.

For the advancement of the gospel and the glory of God, I respectfully plead with Christian brothers Beale, Blanchard, Block, Braun, Davies, Dixon, Ferguson, Harmon, Helm, Horton, Mohler, Moo, Morey, Morgan, Packer, Peterson, Yarbrough,[25] and all others who sincerely advocate the doctrine of unending conscious torment, urging them to continue to be open to the possibility that they presently are mistaken on this subject.

Although the statements crafted by early Councils that represented an undivided worldwide (“catholic”) church still serve an important purpose when properly used, that purpose involves the larger picture of Christian doctrine, not every individual detail. Roger E. Olson illustrates this principle in terms of the Council of Chalcedon:

Is there a basic, universal Christian belief about Jesus Christ . . . ? Is there a criterion by which newly-developed metaphors and models should be judged so there are not many Christs? There is. It is the one finally agreed on by the leaders of early, undivided Christendom that was simply an outworking in formal language of the apostolic witness itself: Jesus Christ as God incarnate; one unified person—the eternal Son of God equal with the Father; of two distinct but never separate natures, human and divine. This unified and unifying Christology is admittedly a mystery. It does not say everything about Christ that needs to be said in particular cultures and contexts. It merely rules out those models of Christology that would reduce Jesus Christ to something less or other than “truly human and truly divine”—the God-man who alone can be Savior of the world.[26]

Positive

“Interaction” does not mean disagreement only, and in at this point I wish vigorously to reaffirm the fundamental truths of ultimate importance that we all hold in common. Although conditionalists and traditionalists differ regarding what happens in hell, we agree wholeheartedly concerning how it can be avoided. We stand shoulder to shoulder before an unbelieving world, declaring without reservation that Jesus Christ offered himself as a ransom and an atoning sacrifice for sin. Together we announce that Jesus reconciled sinners (including every one of us) to a holy God. With one voice we affirm that because God loved the world and gave his Son, whoever believes in him will never perish but will have eternal life (John 3:16). For this eternal life—and for the divine grace that makes it ours, we can joyously say together: “Thanks be to God!”

1. Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News, 185.

2. The Apostles Creed says of Christ that “he descended into Hades,” a doctrine commonly known as the descensus ad infernos. The first appearance of this clause is evidently in the so-called Fourth Formula of Sirmium (AD 359), where it was proposed by the Syriac theologian, Markus of Arethusa. Originally it was intended to mean only that Jesus truly died. Rufinus, presbyter of Aquileia, said the phrase explained an old doctrine rather than adding a new one, and for that reason the Aquileian creed omitted the clause “was crucified, dead, and buried,” replacing it with the new expression “descendit in inferna.” Most medieval and modern forms of the Apostles’ Creed include the clause but also retain the original statement that Jesus “was crucified, dead, and buried.”

In the Latin church of the West a related doctrine evolved of a triumphal procession of Christ through the underworld, redeeming Old Testament saints and taking them with him in his ascension to heaven. This doctrine, known as “the harrowing of hell,” became a very popular theme in medieval literature and plays. Some later developments have Christ redeeming the souls of all men from hell at his second coming.

On the descensus clause of the creed see Moltmann, “Descent into Hell,” 117; Scharlemann, “He Descended into Hell,” 81–83; Shedd, The Doctrine of Endless Punishment, 70. On “the harrowing of hell” see MacCulloch, The Harrowing of Hell, and—what was probably its original seed—the third-century Gospel of Nicodemus (also known as The Acts of Pontius Pilate), especially chapters 15–19.

3. Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 277.

4. Milne, The Message of Heaven and Hell, 177–78.

5. Berkhof, Victorious Atonement through Christ, 111.

6. Dunn, “Paul’s Understanding of the Death of Jesus,” 140–41.

7. Buswell, A Systematic Theology, 2:90.

8. Ferguson, “Pastoral Theology,” 231.

9. Dunn, “Death of Jesus,” 136. Dunn is no universalist, as two quotations suffice to illustrate. On page 137 he writes: “But only those who, like the offerer of old, identify themselves with the sacrifice, may know the other half of the chiasmus, the life of Christ beyond the death of sin, the righteousness of God in Christ.” On pages 130–31 he writes of Christ: “In his risen life he represents only those who identify themselves with him, with his death (in baptism), only those who acknowledge the Risen One as Lord (2 Cor 5:15) . . . In short, as Last Adam Jesus represents only those who experience life-giving Spirit (1 Cor 15:45).”

10. Ibid. 130.

11. Ibid., 139.

12. Cullmann, Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? 25–26.

13. White, Life in Christ, 243–44.

14. Calvin, Institutes 2.16.12

15. One modern review of this medieval argument that is critical of it on philosophical grounds is that of Marilyn McCord Adams, “Hell and the God of Justice,” 433–47. Professor Adams also does away with infinite bliss on philosophical grounds. Her article therefore reaffirms the necessity of beginning with biblical exegesis and basing all reasoning on an authoritative Word of God, a sword which cuts two directions.

16. Stahlin, “Orgē,” 445.

17. White, Life in Christ, 241.

18. Strong, Systematic Theology, 3:1050.

19. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 214.

20. Peterson, Two Views of Hell, 177.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid., 178–79.

23. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 222n9

24. McGowan, “Introduction,” 15.

25. The persons named are all published traditionalists who have written in defense of hell as unending conscious torment.

26. Olson, The Mosaic of Christian Belief, 241–42.

18

Thessalonians

HARRY BUIS INTRODUCES PAUL’S teaching on final punishment with the comment that Paul says “much less” on the subject “than was revealed by Jesus.”[1] Douglas J. Moo provides a more accurate perspective, noting that “Paul never uses the Greek words usually translated ‘hell’ . . . But this book is not about the word ‘hell’ but about the doctrine of hell. If that doctrine is defined as teaching about the ultimate destiny of the wicked, then Paul says much about it.”[2]

We will examine Paul’s Epistles in the order they are usually thought to have been written, beginning with the Thessalonian correspondence, then the major Epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans, finally examining the so-called Prison Epistles to the Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians.[3]

Paul himself received an abundance of revelations over the years, through which the Holy Spirit gradually led him into the fullness of truth with which he was entrusted.[4] We should not “homogenize” words that express a rich variety of meaning, but be sensitive to any developments of doctrine as Scripture progressively unfolds.[5]

The Thessalonian Correspondence[6]

1 Thessalonians 1:9–10

Paul probably wrote the letter we call First Thessalonians to new converts at Thessalonica in AD 50–51 from Corinth. He reviews their reception of his preaching, how they had “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath” (1 Thess 1:9–10).

Within this sentence are four themes that regularly characterize Paul’s preaching about the end of the world: Jesus, the Messiah, has come and has made atonement for sin by his life freely offered on the cross. God has raised Jesus from the dead, so declaring him to be his Son. Jesus has gone back to the Father in heaven, and believers eagerly await his promised return. Jesus’ return will mark the end of the present world order, at which time God will pour out his wrath on the unrepentant and Jesus will save believers from that wrath.

WRATH A PAULINE THEME[7]

Wrath to come was no new theme with Paul. Already the gospel reveals this wrath of the end-time (Rom 1:18). Very soon, Jerusalem will be destroyed by the Romans, a partial and proleptic demonstration of the same wrath against unbelieving Israel, who rejected Jesus (Luke 21:23; 1 Thess 2:16).[8] Gordon D. Fee finds it most likely “that we are here dealing with a prophetic word on the part of the apostle. Thus, Paul is so certain of God’s soon-coming judgment on his ancient people that he speaks of it—future though it still is—as an event that has already taken place.”[9] We will examine Paul’s elaboration on eschatological wrath as we proceed.

There is a popular notion that the Old Testament reveals a God of wrath and justice but the New Testament a God of mercy and love. Nothing could be further from the truth. In his perceptive book, The Goodness of God (reprinted as The Enigma of Evil ), John W. Wenham shows how the theme of divine wrath runs through the entire Bible. Rather than omitting or softening the Old Testament wrath of God, Wenham concludes that the New Testament complements it, completes it, agrees with it, highlights and quotes it, and sometimes “outdoes” it.[10] Gustav Stahlin agrees. In no sense does the New Testament regard God’s wrath as “an inconsistent bit of OT religion which has been dragged in, as though reference to God’s wrath belonged only to the OT and reference to his love were confined to the NT.”[11]

Still less does the New Testament picture Jesus as a spineless figure who is indifferent to God’s law and honor, the author of a painless atonement who stands ready to bypass repentance, sweep all sin under a cosmic rug, and dispense cheap grace to one and all alike. Nor does Jesus reveal a God who stands over his people in spiked boots holding a whip in his hand, ready at the slightest slip to thrash them unmercifully and toss them into hell.

Mercy and wrath go together in the Bible, with each highlighting the other. As Stahlin observes:

Only he who knows the greatness of wrath will be mastered by the greatness of mercy. The converse is also true: Only he who has experienced the greatness of mercy can measure how great wrath must be. For the wrath of God arises from his love and mercy . . . In Christ mankind is divided into those who are freed from wrath inasmuch as they are ready to be saved by his mercy, and those who remain under wrath because they despise his mercy.[12]

Eternal judgment is a “first principle” of Christ (Heb 6:1–2). It is so fundamental to Christian teaching that the New Testament never feels a need to argue for it, though it feels perfectly free to argue from it.[13] Ridderbos can say that “God’s wrath is altogether determined by his righteousness and holiness.”[14] And Karl Barth is surely beyond dispute when he writes: “The wrath of God is to unbelief the discovery of His righteousness, for God is not mocked. The wrath of God is the righteousness of God—apart from and without Christ.”[15]

Destructive Force

We have already seen throughout the Old Testament that God’s wrath against sin results in the total destruction of the sinner. The Psalms and Proverbs repeatedly speak of a time when the wicked will be no more, their place will not be found, and even their name will be forgotten. The prophets contribute a vocabulary of divine wrath in scenarios where floods rise, storms destroy, swords slay, and blood flows. In this pictorial lexicon of judgment figures, moths and worms consume, fire devours and smoke ascends.

Poetry and prophecy alike build on God’s actual acts of past judgment within history. The Flood destroyed a world and all but eight members of its human race. A storm of fire and sulfur utterly obliterated Sodom and Gomorrah, leaving neither survivor nor even a trace of the cities forever. It should not surprise us to read, therefore, that in the Old Testament “the wrath of Yahweh aims at destruction, at full extirpation.”[16] Whenever God’s sovereign anger breaks forth, “the existence of those concerned is at stake.” And whenever his existence is at stake, “the man of the old covenant detects the wrath of his God.”[17] This is why the Old Testament’s metaphors and figures for judgment convey such “destructive power and irresistible force.”[18]

Personal or Impersonal?

Scholars still debate whether God’s wrath is the personal fury of an offended deity or the impersonal outworking of sin’s inbuilt self-destruction.[19] I agree with the first group that God’s wrath is as fully personal as his mercy, that one who views a wrath apart from the personal God very easily rationalizes an impersonal “God” without wrath.[20] At the same time, since sin at its root expresses rebellion against God who alone gives and sustains life, I also agree with James D. G. Dunn that “the outworking of the destructive consequences of sin” is “destructive for the wholeness of man in his relationships.”[21] God’s wrath is not capricious, nor is it vindictive in any way that is unjust.

When Paul reminds the Thessalonians that the Jesus for whom they wait will deliver them from the coming wrath, he writes as a Hebrew born of Hebrews, reared in the Old Testament Scriptures.

1 Thessalonians 4:6

Gentile converts faced special temptation to sexual immorality, for they lacked the disciplinary training the Jews had received from the Law. Paul urges holiness within the church, therefore, in matters of sexual purity. Fornication is forbidden, and “the Lord will punish men for all such sins.”

Literally, he writes that the “Lord is Avenger” concerning such matters. The same phrase appears in the Greek text of Ps 94:1. Neither that passage nor this context adds to the picture, stating only the implicit threat of punishment by God against sin.

1 Thessalonians 5:2–3

God will avenge in wrath on the day he has appointed (Acts 17:30–31), here called “the day of the Lord.” The later Old Testament prophets used the expression often for local, temporal judgments and also for the final, universal judgment yet to come. Identical language describes the effects in either situation.

Paul once contrasts God’s day with “human day,” the literal term translated “man’s judgment” in 1 Cor 4:3 (KJV). Today man has his say. Tomorrow God will have his. God’s present forbearance indicates merciful restraint, not ignorance or unconcern. Those who resist present mercy will discover that God has actually been “storing up” his wrath for them all the while (Rom 2:4–6).

Paul describes this day as “the day of the Lord” (1 Cor 5:5; 2 Pet 3:10, 12), the regular Old Testament term for a divine visitation that brings both wrath and salvation.[22] Paul speaks therefore of “the day of God’s wrath” (Rom 2:5) and also “the day of redemption” (Eph 4:30), but they are the same day. Both wrath and redemption manifest God’s righteousness, so this is also “the day [Christ] comes to be glorified . . . and to be marveled at” (2 Thess 1:10).

Since Jesus will be God’s Savior and Destroyer, this is also “the day of Christ” (Phil 2:16) or “the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 1:8; Rev 6:17). Peter also mentions “the day [God] visits us” (1 Pet 2:12). This will be “the great day” (Jude 6), “the last day” (John 6:39), “the day of judgment” (1 John 4:17). Whatever we call the day on which it occurs, the event of final judgment is most important, and it encompasses many important truths.

It stresses man’s accountability and the certainty that justice will finally triumph over all the wrongs which are part and parcel of life here and now . . . This doctrine gives meaning to life . . . The Christian view of judgment means that history moves to a goal . . . Judgment protects the idea of the triumph of God and of good. It is unthinkable that the present conflict between good and evil should last throughout eternity. Judgment means that evil will be disposed of authoritatively, decisively, finally. Judgment means that in the end God’s will will be perfectly done.[23]

The Bible insists that there will be a resurrection of the wicked as well as the good and that all people will stand before God to give account and to be judged. Scripture offers no basis for thinking that physical death is the end of the wicked. The wicked will be raised from physical death to encounter God as judge.[24]

Paul here says that God’s “day” will be unexpected (1 Thess 5:2), sudden (v. 3), and inescapable (v. 3). In all three respects it will resemble God’s previous judgments on sinners, particularly in the Flood (Matt 24:36–44; Luke 17:26–35). Although humans assure each other with words of “peace and safety,” Paul insists that “destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape” (v. 3).

The “destruction” (olethros) that is here “sudden” is later said to be “everlasting” (2 Thess 1:9). Only Paul uses this word in the New Testament. The sinful man at Corinth is to be delivered over to Satan for the “destruction” of the flesh (1 Cor 5:5), an ambiguous phrase that probably means physical death. The desire for riches may lead to “destruction” (“ruin,” NIV) even now (1 Tim 6:9), an example of this word used figuratively based on its primary and original meaning.

Paul uses a cognate noun for the destroyer that wiped out a generation of Israelites in the wilderness (1 Cor 10:10). The author of Hebrews uses a verb form for the destroyer who slaughtered the firstborn throughout Egypt (Heb 11:28). The last two passages clearly involve execution and extermination, though the meaning of the first is ambiguous and the second is metaphorical. Neither text hints at conscious unending torment. The description of God’s judgment in this passage brings to mind the Flood’s extinction of the wicked—a judgment they were unable to escape then or to reverse forever.

1 Thessalonians 5:9

Paul’s readers need not fear, however. “For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The Epistle closes as it opened, with the alternate fates of “wrath” from God and “salvation” through Jesus. The two stand side by side as opposing destinies. Verse 10 says the righteous will “live together with him,” an outcome exactly opposite the kind of “destruction” we have already suggested.

The phrase “eternal destruction” appears also in 4 Macc 10:15, but offers no insight into Paul’s meaning here.[25]

2 Thessalonians 1:5–10

LIFE SITUATION

Present persecution and trials inspire hope and joy when viewed in the larger balance of God’s coming judgment. The Thessalonian believers now experience “trouble,” then they will find “relief.” Those who now oppress will then receive “trouble” (thlipsis), literally “pressure.” The word seems clearly to involve conscious agony of some sort and duration. The destructive process that conditionalists believe the Bible envisions allows ample opportunity for that.

OLD TESTAMENT BACKGROUND

The entire passage contains conceptual points of contact and verbal parallels with Isaiah 66, an important apocalyptic passage that also contrasts judgment and hope. The Thessalonians are excluded by their fellow citizens, as were the faithful Israelites whom Isaiah comforted (1 Thess 2:14ff; Isa 66:5). In each scenario, the faithful can anticipate a day of divine intervention (2 Thess 1:5–7; Isa 66:6, 14). Both passages speak of “inflicting” or “repaying” “vengeance” (2 Thess 1:6, 8; Isa 66:7, 15).[26] Both passages have the Lord coming “in fire” (2 Thess 1:7; Isa 66:15).[27] Jesus will be “revealed” from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels.[28] But does the expression “in blazing fire” compound the glory of Jesus’ person, or does it explain the punishment he inflicts on the wicked?

God comes with fire in Isaiah to “rebuke” and to “execute judgment” (Isa 66:15–16). In this passage the rebuke and judgment of fire result in “many . . . slain by the Lord” (v. 16). The chapter ends with the “dead bodies” of the slain being given over to fire and worm so that they become “loathsome to all mankind.” We considered Isaiah 66 at length in chapter 8.

The same picture, drawn in vivid symbols of prophetic apocalypticism, reappears in Revelation (19:21; 20:9) where God’s foes are destroyed by sword and fire from heaven. Its echoes might be heard in 2 Pet 3:7, where Peter says the present heavens and earth “are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and for the destruction of ungodly men.”

Throughout Scripture, the fire that symbolizes God’s holiness destroys those who do not reverently respond to it. The fire that lit the altar incinerated Aaron’s irreverent sons (Lev 9:24—10:3). The God who is called “a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29) is jealous for his glory. Those who reject the sin offering he has provided are not only left without a sacrifice for sin, they also must anticipate “fearful . . . judgment” and the “raging fire that will consume the enemies of God” (Heb 10:26–27). An acceptable offering or the sinner himself: those are the only options still.

SOURCE OR SEPARATION?

The wicked are “punished[29] with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power” (2 Thess 1:9, KJV). This reading accurately reflects the ambiguity of the original Greek, which can be interpreted either as causal (the everlasting destruction issues from the presence of the Lord) or as separative (the “destruction” consists of exclusion from the presence of the Lord). The KJV suggests the first interpretation; the RSV, NASB, NIV, and ESV translate or punctuate to indicate the second meaning. Either interpretation is wholly consistent with our position that the wicked finally will die, perish, and be destroyed, entirely and without end.

Source

Conditionalist Petavel argues that the wicked are “consumed by the ‘fire of the face’ of the Lord,”[30] as does traditionalist Strong.[31] Thayer translates this part of the sentence as “destruction proceeding from the (incensed, wrathful) countenance of the Lord.”[32] Moffatt notes that the “overwhelming manifestation of the divine glory sweeps from before it . . . into endless ruin the disobedient.”[33]

Paul’s entire phrase, “from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power,” appears verbatim three times in the Greek text of Isa 2 (vv. 10, 19, 21), a context that also discusses the Lord’s exaltation and the destruction of the wicked in the last days.[34] The Hebrew text uses an idiom: “from the face (presence) of the fear of the Lord.” Standard English versions translate it various ways: “for fear of” (KJV), “from before the terror of” (RSV), “from dread of” (NIV). The Septuagint translators transposed the Hebrew word for word into Greek, and that is the phrase Paul quotes here (only dropping the word “fear”).

The same prepositional phrase designates source or origin in Acts 3:19 and in the Greek text of Jer 4:26, regarding cities burned with fire “from the face of the Lord” (apo prosōpou kyriou). Charles L. Quarles amasses considerable data from the New Testament, the Old Testament, and especially from the Pseudepigrapha, that support the causal sense of the preposition apo in 2 Thess 1:9.[35] His article was published fifteen years after the first edition of The Fire That Consumes and I find his reasoning to be persuasive.

Isaiah 66 first warns, then predicts, that men will flee to the rocks and caves because of fear when God appears to judge. They flee because of dread of the Lord (KJV, NIV) but also away from his approaching terror (RSV).[36] Isaiah exhorts sinners to hide “from” (apo) God’s presence if they do not wish to be destroyed by it. Paul uses Isaiah’s language to establish a similar theme but makes a different point. God’s presence still destroys sinners who, this time, have nowhere to flee and escape. The motif of destruction by God’s presence runs throughout the Old Testament.[37]

First Thessalonians 4:17–18 speaks of the Lord’s presence as a source of blessing for believers. Used as context for interpreting 2 Thess 1:8–9, it might suggest that absence from God’s presence is the source of punishment for unbelievers. However, our text is nearer in proximity to 2 Thess 2:8 and we probably should look to it, as the closer context, when interpreting 2 Thess 1:8–9. Both texts in 2 Thessalonians then portray the divine presence, which affects believers (with blessing) and unbelievers (with destruction) in opposite ways. Read this way, the preposition “from” (apo) in our text serves a causal function rather than a separative one.[38]

Quarles finds further support in Revelation (14:9–10), but most notably in pseudepigraphal 1 Enoch[39] and Psalms of Solomon,[40] which demonstrate the clear expectation of some writers within Second Temple Judaism that the final punishment of sinners will be effected by their confronting God’s presence rather than their being banished from that presence.[41] The pseudepigraphal texts are inconsistent as to the nature of the punishment; some indicate destruction, others ongoing torment.

Separation

Arndt and Gingrich think apo here means “away from the presence of,”[42] as do Malherbe[43] and Morris, who notes the contrast with the righteous who are forever “with the Lord” (1 Thess 4:17).[44] We have seen already that Isa 66 portrays people fleeing to the rocks and caves out of fear when God appears to judge. They flee away from his approaching terror (RSV). The original Greek can be interpreted as separative or as causal and the RSV, NASB, NIV, and ESV all translate or punctuate to indicate that preference.

Isaiah 66, which almost certainly provides the language and even the syntax for this Pauline passage, clearly uses apo (“from”) in the separative sense. And, as noted earlier, because Paul speaks of the Lord’s presence as a source of blessing for believers in his previous letter to the same audience (1 Thess 4:17–18), if we view that text as the natural context for understanding 2 Thess 1:8–9, symmetry could call for the interpretation that God’s absence is the source of punishment for unbelievers.

Gordon D. Fee notes that “for Paul the ultimate judgment . . . is not in this case some expression of ‘hell,’”[45] but rather is “total, irreparable exclusion from Christ.”[46] That language squarely fits conditionalism’s vision, for how can anyone continue to exist forever who is totally cut off from relationship and connection with the only source of life and ground of existence?

Whether one thinks of hell as the fire of divine holiness that emanates from the face/presence of the Lord, or as the place where the finally unrepentant are cut off entirely from the divine presence which is the only source of existence and ground of being for all created things, the result is the same. I agree with Fee’s conclusion (addressed to “e.g., E. Fudge”) that “it is hardly useful to try to draw significant eschatological data” from the single phrase “from the face of the Lord.”[47]

The godless die, perish, cease to be and are no more. And when the fire has consumed sinners and the earth has shaken from its place, there will be new heavens and a new earth—the unshakable kingdom of God in which righteousness will dwell forever (Rom 8:21; Heb 12:28–29; 2 Pet 3:13). The last word is that Jesus Christ will be glorified and marveled at among the believers (2 Thess. 1:10). This, too, was part of Isaiah’s vision of God’s great day.

They raise their voices, they shout for joy;

from the west they acclaim the Lord’s majesty.

Therefore in the east give glory to the Lord;

exalt the name of the Lord, the God of Israel,

in the islands of the sea.

From the ends of the earth we hear singing:

“Glory to the Righteous One.”

(Isa 24:14–16)

This is one of Paul’s most detailed descriptions of the end of the wicked, yet Morris quotes Neil’s remark that its “most notable feature is the reticence of the description. What in normal apocalyptic literature would have included a lurid picture of the tortures of the damned and the bliss of the righteous, in Paul’s hands becomes a restrained background of judgment with the light focused on the person of Christ as Judge.”[48]

Nothing in the language here requires conscious unending torment. The text plainly speaks of eternal destruction. Whether that destruction proceeds from the face of the Lord, or whether it is the consequence of irrevocable and total separation from him as source of life, the result is the same. Nor are inconsistent apocalyptic images problematic, since each image stands for its own intended reality and is expected to be understood in that light.[49]

INTERACTION

Traditionalist authors uniformly deny that “destruction” in this text means extinction. For example, Dr. Gerstner repeatedly denies that the word punishment can even mean anything other than conscious torment.[50] Most other traditionalists on our watch rely on the fact that “destruction” is modified by the word “eternal.”[51] Peterson also argues that the wicked will be separated from Christ and that “separation presupposes existence.”[52] Moo agrees,[53] then asks “how a destruction whose consequences last forever can be squared with annihilationism,”[54] insisting that “a punctiliar action, such as ‘annihilate,’ cannot be ‘eternal,’ and that “eternal consequences . . . demand an eternal existence.”[55] However, as we have argued already, the “destruction” of soul and body in hell is “eternal,” both because it belongs to the eternal age to come, and because it is irreversible and will remain forever. Separation is consistent with extinction so long as the person who is separated from Christ still exists when the separation takes place, regardless of how long that one continues to exist afterward.

This is not “a destruction whose consequences last forever” but a destruction which is itself the consequence of an act of destroying—a non-existence as eternal as the eternal existence of the redeemed to whom God gives immortality and eternal life. The adjective “eternal” does not describe the action of a verb. It modifies destruction—a noun that names the result of the action that the noun necessarily implies (“destroy”). The punctiliar action (annihilate) is not “eternal” but its consequence (non-existence) is, and Paul so states by using the phrase “eternal destruction.”

Dr. Moo further remarks that, “leaving aside for the moment judgment texts” [italics added], none of the “key words” that constitute Paul’s vocabulary of destruction usually means extinction in the Old or New Testaments.[56] It is precisely in judgment texts that biblical writers use words such as die/death, perish, destroy/destruction with all the force and color inherent in their original, primary, and literal meanings. The same words are used figuratively and metaphorically in contexts that have nothing to do with divine judgment.

1. Buis, The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, 43. Buis refers to only five Pauline texts (Rom 2:3–9; 1 Cor 3:17; 2 Cor 5:10; 1 Thess 5:3; 2 Thess 1:6–9.

2. Moo, “Paul on Hell,” 92.

3. There is no mention of final punishment in the Pastoral Epistles to Timothy and Titus. Hebrews is grouped with non-Pauline Epistles.

4. 2 Cor 12:1, 7; Gal 1:11–12; Eph 3:3–6, 9; 1 Tim 4:1.

5. Some prefer Clark Pinnock’s phrase “cumulative revelation,” by which he means to designate “the teleological direction of revelation with the emphasis on the building up of the total truth picture.” The pinnacle of divine revelation was the appearance of Jesus Christ, who also is himself the key to interpreting Scripture both before and after his coming (Pinnock, Biblical Revelation, 214).

6. Other than brief comments on God’s “wrath,” a word that does not favor either position regarding the nature of hell, current traditionalist authors do not discuss any of the texts from First Thessalonians that follow.

7. On the wrath of God in Paul, see Travis, Christ and the Judgement of God, 53–73.

8. Andrew Perriman is a scholarly voice for the view that New Testament texts traditionally understood as referring to the end of the age—including events such as the “second coming” of Jesus, the resurrection, judgment, hell and new heavens and new earth—all were fulfilled “spiritually” (or otherwise non-literally) in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. According to this view, says Perriman, “much of the imagery of ‘hell’ is seen to have historical rather than eternal application.” Perriman, Otherways, 91. N. T. Wright has been understood by some as saying this, leading him to exclaim: “Let me say it emphatically for the sake of those who are confused on the point (and to the amusement, no doubt, of those who are not): the second coming has not yet occurred.” Wright, Surprised by Hope, 117.

9. Fee, Thessalonians, 102. If the passage were in 2 Thess, he continues, scholars would argue that it was post-AD 70 and non-Pauline. Ibid.

10. Wenham, The Goodness of God, 16–23. Paul speaks of God’s eschatological “wrath” in Rom 1:18; 2:8; Eph 5:6; Col 3:6; 1 Thess 1:10; 5:9; he speaks of Jesus saving his people from that wrath in Phil 1:28; 3:20; 1 Thess 1:10.

11. Stahlin, “Orgē,” 5:422.

12. Ibid., 425.

13. Ibid., Morris’ observation.

14. Ridderbos, Paul, 109.

15. Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 43. Barth is commenting on Rom 1:18.

16. Fichtner, “orgē,” 5:400.

17. Ibid., 5:399.

18. Ibid.

19. Authors holding the personalized view include Stahlin, Tasker, and Morris. Authors holding the depersonalized view include Dodd, MacGregor, Hanson, and Whiteley.

20. Wenham writes: “It is uncomfortable to sinful people to live continually under the all-seeing eye of the all-knowing Judge. Therefore Christians have been tempted to soft-pedal the theme of judgment. The theme of hell has been quietly omitted, and the wrath of God has been de-personalized. The wrath of God is thought of as the outworking of a deistic machine, in which God is not immediately and personally involved. But it is because wrath is personal that mercy is personal” (ibid., 187).

21. Dunn, “Paul’s Understanding of the Death of Jesus,” 139. On this point Dunn refers “particularly” to Travis’ doctoral dissertation entitled “Divine Retribution in the Thought of Paul.”

22. For an excellent discussion of this point that is “meaty” and still understandable to the layman, see Brinsmead, Covenant, 41–55 and Brinsmead, The Pattern of Redemptive History, 135–52.

23. Morris, The Biblical Doctrine of Judgment, 72.

24. Dan 12:2; John 5:29; Acts 24:15; Rev 21:8.

25. The phrase in 4 Maccabees is spoken by one of seven Jewish brothers who are tortured to death for refusing to deny their faith: “No—by the blessed death of my brothers, by the eternal destruction of the tyrant, and by the everlasting life of the pious, I will not renounce our noble family ties” (RSV, NRSV). Taken alone, the phrase in 4 Maccabees favors conditionalism, but some claim that other statements there suggest a belief in unending conscious torment. However, 2 Maccabees far exceeds 4 Maccabees in historical reliability, and the brothers’ language in the story in 2 Maccabees 7 anticipates annihilation for the evil king. Most importantly, 4 Maccabees is a first-century Jewish work, perhaps even later than 2 Thessalonians, which there is no evidence that Paul ever saw, much less depended on.

26. The RSV and KJV correctly translate the phrase in verse eight as “inflicting” or “taking vengeance.” There appears to be no textual basis for the NIV’s “He will punish those.” Paul uses the participial phrase didontos ekdikēsin, and Isa 66:15 (LXX) had the infinitival phrase apodounai ekdikēsin. On the other hand, it is unfortunate that the English words “vengeance” and “revenge” have popularly taken on a tone of ungodly vindictiveness so that the NIV committees were somewhat limited in final options.

27. Isaiah has en phlogi pyros, and Paul has en pyri phlogos. Several lesser Greek manuscripts of Thessalonians have words identical to those found in Isaiah.

28. Morris, The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians, 202. One might question the propriety of the NIV translators here reversing the order of Paul’s last two prepositional phrases in the interest of their favored interpretation. The same meaning could be signified by merely adding a comma, as in the RSV and ESV.

29. Whether this “punishment” is a factor of retributive justice, or whether it serves some other purpose is a key question in the analysis of the doctrine of universal restoration, which we discuss in chapter 26. Sharon L. Baker states the issue like this: “Because God loves us, God serves justice, not by making us pay for all our shortcomings and sins, as in retributive justice, but by forgiving us with an eye and a heart toward reconciliation and restoration of our relationship to God and to all others” (Baker, Razing Hell, 147). I contend that the word “punishment” and the contexts of 2 Thessalonians 1 and also Isaiah 66 indicate a retributive purpose.

30. Petavel, The Problem of Immortality, 571.

31. Strong, Systematic Theology, 3:1034.

32. Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon, 59.

33. Moffatt. The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians, 4:46. Quarles, “The ‘APO ’ of 2 Thessalonians 1:9,” 201–11.

34. In each case the Septuagint of Isaiah has apo prosōpou tou phobou kyriou kai apo tēs doxēs tēs ischyos autou. Paul has the same words in the same order except he drops the single word phobou.

35. Both Quarles and Fee, who references him with apparent approval, mistake as endorsement my passing mention of a syllogism used by some conditionalists who reason as follows: God is present everywhere; the wicked will not be in his presence; therefore they will not exist (thus not be anywhere). Fee, Thessalonians, 259n60. Traditionalists counter with their own syllogism: The wicked are separated from Christ; they must be somewhere else if they are not where he is; therefore they continue to exist. We believe that the first argument is logically stronger; the second argument is doomed because it fails to take account of God’s omnipresence. However, at best, both syllogisms reflect only human wisdom and, while entertaining to those gifted with a particular bent of mind, they finally only distract and detract from more profitable exegesis.

36. The figure probably comes from actual practice, as when Israel fled from enemies to hide in rocks, holes and caves (Judg 6:2; 1 Sam 13:6; 14:11). The same picture reappears in Rev 6:15–16.

37. Exod 19:21; 33:20; 40:35; 2 Sam 6:7; 1 Kgs 19:13.

38. Quarles, “The ‘APO ’ of 2 Thessalonians 1:9,” 206.

39. 1 En. 27:2–3; 38:4; 48:9; 50:4; 53:2; 62:2; 69:29.

40. Pss. Sol. 15:4–5; 12:7.

41. Quarles, “The ‘APO’ of 2 Thessalonians 1:9,” 208–11.

42. BAG, “Apo,” 86.

43. Malherbe, Thessalonians, 402–3. “[M]ost important,” says Malherbe, “is that the special understanding of apo points to the contrast of those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel to those who believe, who will be with the Lord Jesus forever” (ibid., 403).

44. Morris, Thessalonians, 206.

45. Fee, Commentary on Epistles to the Thessalonians, 259.

46. Ibid.

47. Ibid, note 60.

48. Morris, Thessalonians, 202.

49. Speaking specifically of Revelation’s symbols, Richard Bauckham writes: “once we have seen how the imagery works to convey parallels and contrasts, there is no more need to read this imagery literally.” (Bauckham, “Judgment in the Book of Revelation,” 21.)

50. Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 165–68.

51. Davies, An Angry God? 108; Moo, “Paul on Hell,” 106; Peterson, Hell on Trial, 80.

52. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 81; underline in original.

53. Moo, “Paul on Hell,” 108.

54. Ibid., 106.

55. Ibid.

56. Ibid., 105. David George Moore makes all three arguments made by Peterson and by Moo (Moore, The Battle for Hell, 20–21).

19

Galatians and Corinthians

PAUL’S LETTERS TO THE Corinthians, the Galatians, and the Romans comprise his major known writings, both because of their extensive development of important themes and in view of their influence on the later Christian church. In all these letters, Paul touches on the final destiny of the wicked, and they exemplify his most detailed teaching during the prime of his ministry. In this chapter, we examine Paul’s epistles to the Galatians and to the Corinthians.

Exposition

Galatians 1:8–9

The gospel that Paul has preached is the only message worthy of that name, he tells the Galatians. Those troubling them are actually perverting the gospel of Christ. Then comes the double warning: “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” (Gal 1:8-9.)

The NIV translates Paul’s word anathema as “eternally condemned”; the KJV, RSV and ESV all use “accursed.” The word literally means something set up or laid by to be kept, as a votive offering might be hung on a temple wall after being devoted to a god. Because offerings devoted to the true God were commonly burnt in their entirety or otherwise destroyed, the word in biblical usage signifies something “accursed” or doomed to destruction.

Paul uses the word in that sense in two other Epistles. He tells the Romans that he would sacrifice himself as one marked for destruction (anathema) if by that he could save his Israelite brethren (Rom 9:3). Moses had made a similar offer to God for the people (Exod 32:32). Neither Moses nor Paul could fill such a function since they both were sinners themselves.

The Lord Jesus did bear the full penalty given one accursed by God, though Paul warns that it is blasphemy to say Jesus himself deserved what he received (1 Cor 12:3). What happened to Jesus on Golgotha was the proper fate of one made anathema, though the Holy Spirit reveals through the gospel that the innocent Jesus there stood in place of us sinners.

Death by execution was the sentence this word called for, as seen in the case of Jesus and in the Old Testament background we will shortly note. A verb form of the word appears four times in the New Testament, in each case meaning to swear an oath calling down God’s anathema curse if one is not telling the truth (Mark 14:71; Acts 23:12, 14, 21).

SEPTUAGINT/OLD TESTAMENT BACKGROUND

The Septuagint had ordinarily used anathema as the Greek translation of the Hebrew herem, the usual term for something “devoted” to God and therefore, under ordinary circumstances, to be totally destroyed. It is used of the Canaanites whom God tells Israel to “totally destroy” and whom they do “completely destroy” (Num 21:2–3; words in quotation marks represent herem, Hebrew; or anathema, Greek). An NIV footnote to this passage says the Hebrew word “refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them.”

The site of this destruction is called Hormah (from herem ), that the Greek text gives as Anathema. The same name is given the town of Zephath during the time of the Judges for the very same reason (Judg 1:17).[1] Zechariah later wishes to make it clear that glorified Jerusalem will always be inhabited, so he uses the same word, promising that it will never be anathema (“destroyed,” Zech 14:11, NIV).[2]

When the Canaanite spoils are “set apart for destruction,” the Septuagint uses anathema (Deut 7:26). The most famous incident involved Achan and Jericho. The city and all its spoils were anathema—“devoted to destruction”—and so would be any Israelite who took from its spoils for himself (Josh 6:17–18; 7:12). Achan did just that and paid the precise penalty the word demanded. He was utterly destroyed—in his case stoned to death, burned with fire, and covered with rocks (Josh 7:25–26).

No Israelite doubted that Achan was destroyed because there were physical remains. No one chortled that Achan was not literally annihilated. Nor did they think that “destruction” meant he should be fastened in a cage and tortured endlessly. They knew what it meant to be herem/anathema, and they carried that out.

This is the word’s meaning throughout the Scriptures. Because Paul refers to a punishment of the age to come, we need not automatically assign anathema a meaning it has never had before. The method of God’s punishment will surely be different, but the meaning of it will be the same. If even an angel from heaven preaches a different gospel, Paul says he comes under this sentence. He is anathema—herem—devoted to utter destruction.

INTERACTION

Dr. Douglas Moo notes that I infer extinction from “anathema,” which reflects the Hebrew/Old Testament concept “devoted to destruction,” saying that “Fudge errs in thinking that the original connotations of the imagery must be present in Paul.”[3]

However, the Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament states, concerning anathema, “Its NT use corresponds to its use in the LXX.”[4] Aside from that learned opinion, if words mean anything, and if we believe that Paul chose his words with the blessing of the Holy Spirit, why would we not begin to unpack this Hebrew/Old Testament technical theological term by calling attention to its original connotations? Of course, we leave room for Paul to change any of those connotations if he sees fit. But here we have no good reasons for thinking that he has modified the meaning from that found in the Jewish Scriptures.

Galatians 5:21

The Christian is not tied up by Law, but neither is he free to live out his sinful desires. The same Spirit who liberates from legalism also legislates against fleshly license (Gal 5:16–18). Believers must not give in to their sinful nature, and Paul regards it as obvious what kind of life that forbids (vv. 19–21). Those who “live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God” (v. 21). Paul makes a similar statement to the Ephesians (Eph 5:5) and to the Corinthians (1 Cor 6:9–10).

His words speak of exclusion rather than infliction; they describe what sinners will lose, not what they will find. Paul may well be echoing the Master in these pronouncements, for Jesus, too, spoke often of being thrown out of God’s kingdom and excluded from the eternal bliss God has prepared for the saved.[5] Paul here adds nothing to what Jesus already had said.

Galatians 6:8

The Epistle ends on a similar note. “The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”

CORRUPTION/DESTRUCTION

The NIV expands Paul’s “flesh” ( sarx—not sōma, “body”) to “sinful nature,” but we are more concerned here with the consequences than with the crime. However, one wonders why the NIV translators chose “destruction” instead of “corruption” to represent phthora, especially since the latter was already familiar through the KJV, RSV, and NASB, and was preferred by the NIV at least once elsewhere (2 Pet 1:4).

In ordinary Greek this word spoke of “ruin, destruction, dissolution, deterioration, corruption” according to Arndt and Gingrich.[6] Paul uses it of perishable food (Col 2:22) and the decaying world (Rom 8:21). Peter applies it to animals destined to be killed (2 Pet 2:12, NIV “destroyed”). Arndt and Gingrich cite non-biblical sources where the word refers to an abortion or a miscarriage; it had the same meaning in Christian literature of the second century. “You shall not murder a child by abortion” is the injunction of both Barnabas (19:5) and the Didache (2:2). “Abortion” is phthora, the word Paul uses here.

Metaphorically, the word could be used in a moral sense as in the “depravity” of wicked men (2 Pet 2:12). The verb ( phtheirō ) meant to “corrupt” or to “ruin” and can speak of destroying a house (1 Cor 3:17), seducing a virgin (2 Cor 11:3), ruining a man financially (2 Cor 7:2), or corrupting someone’s morals (1 Cor 15:33; Eph 4:22; Rev 19:2). The building is extinct as a building, the maiden’s virginity is forever gone, the man’s financial security is annihilated, and the good character that once existed now exists no more.

According to many traditionalists, these words cannot have their normal meaning when applied to final punishment because biblical figures of ashes under foot and rising smoke do not signify literal, chemical annihilation. Having ruled out this supposed literal sense of “destroy,” “ruin,” and “perish,” traditionalists conclude that these very words that, on their face, clearly speak of loss of life, must mean eternal conscious torment instead.

Salmond insists that death, destruction, perdition, and such terms do not mean what they seem when applied to future punishment, but he argues from man’s immortality. If these words “are used of objects whose nature it is to cease to be,” he writes, “they will have the literal sense. But if they are employed of objects whose nature is the opposite, they will have a larger meaning.”[7] He might better have said that they will have an opposite meaning, for that is really what he means. Immortal souls can never die, perish, or be destroyed, he is arguing. Therefore these words cannot have their common meaning when applied to future punishment.

Shedd stops short of Salmond’s argument, conceding that the same God who created man’s body and soul can also destroy both if he so chooses. But Shedd denies that God will do that:

Both matter and mind can be annihilated by the same Being who created them from nothing. Whether he will cease to uphold any particular work of his hand, can be known only by revelation. In the material world, we see no evidence of such an intention. We are told that “the elements shall melt with fervent heat,” but not that they shall be annihilated. And certainly, all that God has said in Revelation in regard to creation, redemption, and perdition, implies and teaches that he intends to uphold, and not to annihilate the human spirit; to perpetuate, and not extinguish its self-consciousness.[8]

THE ADJECTIVE

The adjective member of this family is phthartos, and all agree that it means something subject to corruption or decay. It occurs six times in the New Testament, four times in Paul’s writings, and twice in Peter’s. In every case it is used in a specific contrast between something that passes away (perishes or decays) and something that endures.

Paul contrasts “mortal” creatures and the immortal God (Rom 1:23), the crown that “will not last” and one that lasts forever (1 Cor 9:25). He contrasts our present body, that is “perishable,” with the glorified resurrection body, that will not be (1 Cor 15:53–54). Peter contrasts “perishable” silver and gold with the eternal redemptive blood of Jesus Christ (1 Pet 1:18), or “perishable” seed with the imperishable word of God (1 Pet 1:23). Paul’s statement in Gal 6:8 is also an explicit contrast between the issue of the flesh (“sinful nature,” sarx ) on the one hand and the harvest of the Spirit on the other. The first brings forth corruption. The second brings eternal life.

The most natural opposite of life is death or non-life. It is not life-in-misery. The fact that “eternal life” involves so much more than mere existence only increases Paul’s contrast of “life” and “corruption.” If ordinary life stands over against death, can the opposite of “eternal” life be any less drastic? By what means can “loss of life” be converted to a “life of loss”? If the “life” is of a more precious and enduring quality than any we now fully experience, that makes the loss of it all the more tragic, but it is more terrible precisely because it is loss.

THEOLOGY, NOT CHEMISTRY OR PHYSICS

Paul most often uses three words to describe the destiny of sinners: die, perish, and destroy. Traditionalists deny that those in hell will literally experience any of the three. Although they admit that many biblical texts seem to forecast consumption and extinction, traditionalists constantly point out that fire does not technically annihilate—so die, perish, and destroy really mean “ruin” and not what one first supposes.

Traditionalists who make this argument forget that the same law of thermodynamics that says nothing is destroyed also states that nothing is created. However, we all agree that God can both create and destroy. In this conversation, therefore, any arguments based on the supposed impossibility of annihilation are inappropriate, misleading and irrelevant. We do not read biblical statements concerning ashes underfoot or smoke rising forever as literal, physical descriptions. God uses these terms to convey feelings of dread, horror, and finality that the actual scene will elicit. The biblical portrayals are true but are not analytical (a point missed by many traditionalists). We must take them seriously but not literally (a point missed by many conditionalists).

We do not deny that all these key terms are used at times in a figurative or metaphorical sense. Yet the very fact that a word can have such an extended sense presupposes an ordinary and literal sense in the first place. Furthermore, the ordinary sense gives meaning to the figurative or extended usage, not the other way around.

There is every reason to take Paul’s primary words in their most ordinary and common senses. He says the wicked will “perish,” “die,” be “corrupted,” or be “destroyed.” Those terms have very definite connotations to the common person. We need not suddenly become technical physicists worrying about material “annihilation.” When we speak of final punishment, we are speaking of a realm that transcends all known laws of energy, matter, and thermodynamics. In short, we are in the realm of theology, not of chemistry or physics.

1 Corinthians 3:17 [9]

“If anyone destroys God’s temple,” Paul warns, “God will destroy him.” The context here concerns divisions in the church, and Paul adds: “You [plural] are that temple.” Dissensions and factions are among the obvious acts of the sinful nature that Paul has told the Galatians result in “destruction” or “corruption” (Gal 5:20; 6:8). Now he warns the Corinthians against the same sins. The verb he writes here ( phtheirō, “destroy”) is a cognate to the noun “corruption” or “destruction” that he used in Galatians.

The unity of God’s temple must be kept intact if there is truly to be a temple. A heap of broken blocks is no building, as witness the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem today. Such physical remains only increase the sense of loss felt by those who observe them. Even if the Old Testament pictures of corpses eaten by worms and fire or of rising smoke were intended to be literal, physical descriptions of the end of sinners (we do not believe they are), such material remains as ashes or smoke would not belie the threat of this passage that “God will destroy” the one who destroys his temple. As a matter of fact, we have considered Jesus’ statement more than once that God differs from humans in his ability to destroy soul and body—a point every traditionalist theologian concedes.

1 Corinthians 6:9–10

Again Paul says that the immoral will not inherit the kingdom of God. See the discussion on Galatians 5:21.

1 Corinthians 16:22

“If anyone does not love the Lord—a curse be on him.” The KJV says “let him be anathema”; the RSV says “Let him be accursed.” The word is the same one Paul used in Gal 1:8–9, for which, see discussion there.

1. The word is anathema in Codex Vaticanus. Codex Alexandrinus instead has exolethreusis, formed from the verb Peter uses in Acts 3:23. This apparent interchangeability is especially interesting since New Testament writers use both original words in connection with the fate of the wicked.

2. Zechariah’s words seem to be in view in Rev 22:3, where John uses katathema (“curse”), a slightly different form of the same noun.

3. Moo, “Paul on Hell,” 93n3.

4. Kuhn, “anathema,” I:81.

5. See comments earlier on Matt 5:20; 7:23; 8:11, 12; 13:40–43; 22:13; 25:31–46.

6. BAG, “phthora,” 865.

7. Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality, 615.

8. Shedd, The Doctrine of Endless Punishment, 94.

9. Our seventeen current traditionalist authors do not discuss any of the following texts that we include from 1 Corinthians.

20

Romans, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians

WE HAVE EXAMINED WHAT Paul said to the Thessalonians, Galatians, and Corinthians about the destiny of those who throughout this life reject the knowledge and love of God, however they might encounter it. We come now to Paul’s correspondence to the Romans and, from prison, to the Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians.

The Roman Correspondence[1]

Romans 1:18

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,” Paul declares. “Revealed” has eschatological overtones here and in the verse preceding. There Paul had said that “in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed” (Rom 1:17). Both times he uses the verb apokalyptō, which means “to uncover” or “to reveal.” From the stem of this word comes the name “Apocalypse” (Revelation), then the English adjective “apocalyptic” that describes it and other literature of the same kind. The last day will be a time for uncovering all that is now hidden. Jesus himself will then be revealed as he is (2 Thess 1:7; 1 Cor 4:5; 1 John 3:2).

The last day has not yet come, but already the gospel story of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection “reveals” its most important features: divine righteousness and divine wrath. The death of Jesus Christ “reveals” the divine wrath in a way no apocalyptic literature ever could, however powerful its imagination or picturesque its terms. We cannot possibly fathom all we see at Calvary, yet the scene is so important for understanding God’s wrath that it demands two chapters of its own in the present study.

Romans 1:32

It is “God’s righteous decree” that those who willingly ignore their knowledge of God and give themselves over to depravity with abandon “deserve death” (Rom 1:32). Twice more in Romans Paul says that sin leads to “death” (Rom 6:21, 23)—God’s sentence pronounced on Adam in the Garden (Gen 2:17). Plato would later teach the Greeks that death was a friend who separated the immortal soul from the imprisoning body. But no Hebrew prophet ever spoke in such terms, nor does any word of Scripture. Death is God’s punishment for sin, and in Rom 6:23 it stands in stark contrast to eternal “life.” See the further discussion on Gal 6:8.

Romans 2:6–11

Along with the major Thessalonian passage already examined (2 Thess 1:6–10), these verses contain Paul’s most detailed teaching concerning the fate of the lost. In both places the context concerns the justice of God’s judgment—as it involves suffering Christians and their persecutors (Thessalonians), and as it concerns the impenitent and the faithful (Romans). In Thessalonians God’s justice gives comfort and inspires hope; in Romans it warns against carelessness and calls indifference up short. Let us consider the pertinent phrases in order.

God “will give to each person according to what he has done.” To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism. (Rom 2:6–11)

Paul first states the principle that God will recompense every human being individually and fairly. He echoes David, who had used the same words in view of God’s strength and love (Ps 62:12; LXX, v. 13). Solomon had repeated the words in a warning against cowardice and moral neutrality (Prov 24:12). Both settings figure also in Paul’s discussion that follows.

Some individuals persistently do what is good, and by this demonstrate their search for glory, honor, and immortality. God will give these eternal life (Rom 2:7), a kind of sum-word that also includes “glory, honor, and immortality” (vv. 7, 10). For Paul, immortality is always God’s gift to the faithful, to be awarded in the resurrection. He never views it as a quality inherent to man, nor does he ever attribute it to the wicked. This fact bears repeating since it is so often overlooked. “Eternal life” is not mere existence—it is the deathless life of God’s glorified people, who share Christ’s own honor in the age to come.

Over against these (Paul uses the contrasting men/de construction in vv. 7–8) are other individuals who prefer evil to truth, pleasing themselves to pleasing God. God will give them an award also, but it will consist of “wrath and anger, trouble and distress.” The first pair (wrath and anger) describes the retribution from the standpoint of God’s displeasure and contrasts with the eternal life promised the righteous a verse earlier. The second pair (trouble and distress) describes the same punishment from the standpoint of its recipients in contrast to the bliss promised the righteous a verse later.[2]

‘Wrath” is orgē, a word often found in passages that speak of eschatological judgment (see comments on 1 Thess 1:10). When the synonym “anger” (thymos ) accompanies it, it is usually to strengthen or intensify the meaning. The pair occur together of man’s anger (Eph 4:31; Col 3:8) and of God’s (Rev 14:10; 16:19; 19:15). Righteous judgment does not exclude God’s personal fury against willful and unrepentant sinners. In fact, justice demands it.

Bruce Milne properly reminds us that “God’s wrath is not, as is sometimes alleged, a crude piece of anthropomorphism.”[3] Divine wrath is not “arbitrary, fitful, or subject to emotion,” as ours often is, but is “eternally consistent and unchangeable. God’s wrath is [quoting John Murray] ‘his holy hostility to evil, his refusal to condone it or come to terms with it, his just judgment upon it.’”[4]

The pair “trouble” (thlipsis ) and “distress” (stenochōria ) also appear in combination elsewhere in Paul’s Epistles. God’s people encounter the same opponents in the present world, but they cannot separate the believer from God’s love (Rom 8:35). Such “trouble and hardship” actually mark the faithful as God’s true servants (2 Cor 6:4). Paul is one of those “hard pressed . . . but not crushed,” and he uses these same two words in participle form to say so (2 Cor 4:8). This last translation is suggestive for our present verse. Judgment day will find the wicked “hard pressed”—to the point of being “crushed.”

Paul’s readers who knew the Greek Old Testament would likely remember Zephaniah 1:14–18 as they read his words here. Time and again Paul repeats in this gospel setting words and phrases used in this classic description of the great day of the Lord. Zephaniah spoke of “the day of the Lord’s wrath” (Zeph 1:18), and so did Paul (Rom 2:5).[5] Zephaniah pictured “wrath” ( orgē, v. 15) and “distress” (thlipsis, Zeph 1:15, 17; Paul’s “trouble”) as well as “trouble” (Rom 2:15, not Paul’s Greek word). If we read the prophet as a background to the apostle, Paul’s description pales by comparison. Romans emphasizes God’s justice (Rom 2:5–6, 11) and includes the wicked’s punishment under that. Zephaniah portrays a scene of unmixed terror as he describes the “day of wrath.” He mixes metaphors freely. First the prophet says that sinners’ “blood will be poured out like dust and their entrails like filth” (Zeph 1:17). Then he says God will “consume” the whole world in “the fire of his jealousy” (v. 18). Literalists could probably arrange a scenario, but Zephaniah does not. He is painting an abstract picture. Both scenes have a single meaning: God “will make a sudden end of all who live in the earth” (v. 18).

Is not Paul making the same point? Not once in this passage does he mention everlasting torment. Immortality for him is always God’s gift to the saved, as are incorruption, glory, honor and eternal life. Like Jesus before him, Paul freely borrows from the Old Testament’s prophetic vocabulary. Also like Jesus, he adds to the Old Testament picture—not gory details of unending tortures, as did some of his contemporaries and many of his successors, but the shining, single beam of the gospel. Illuminated most brightly in that light is the figure of Jesus himself. Jesus, not lurid details of conscious torment, is the contribution the New Testament makes to the Old Testament’s apocalyptic literature.

The cross has replaced the Valley of Hinnom as the best picture of God’s wrath. In advance of the cross, Jesus spoke of his death in guarded terms and used the intertestamental term “Gehenna” of the fate of the wicked. After the cross, however, and the descent of the Spirit on Pentecost, no New Testament writer ever again uses that phrase of final punishment.[6]

Paul, who says more on the subject by far than any of the others, points continually to Jesus’ death as its clearest revelation. With the death and resurrection of Jesus, judgment day has already begun. The gospel “reveals” it to men and women everywhere. It is God’s last call to repent!

INTERACTION

Larry Dixon cites this text among others with the comment that “Annihilationism fails to account for the biblical teaching concerning future degrees of punishment.”[7] To the contrary—when God destroys both soul and body in hell, the destructive act or process will be based on perfect divine justice in each individual case, and will allow infinite latitude for degrees of conscious punishment, whether differentiated by its kind, its intensity, or its duration.

Romans 2:12

God gave the Jews greater privileges than the Gentiles, but with them greater responsibilities. God will judge righteously in both cases. “All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law,” Paul writes here. John Murray comments: “The perishing referred to can be none other than that defined in the preceding verses as consisting in the infliction of God’s wrath and indignation and the endurance of tribulation and anguish in contrast with the glory, honor, incorruption, and peace bestowed upon the heirs of eternal life.”[8]

All would agree with Murray that Paul draws a contrast between those who “perish” and those who receive “immortality.” In Paul’s usage, “perishing” belongs with its companion word, mortality. That Paul always attributes immortality exclusively to the saved, while freely and frequently speaking of corruption, death, destruction, and perishing with regard to the wicked, strongly suggests that the wicked will be revived[9] in a mortal and corruptible body, finally to pass away and become extinct forever.

This “death,” not annihilation in some technical literal sense, is the penal consequence of wrong-doing committed during earthly life. We may be sure that the process of dying the second death will encompass whatever type, intensity, and duration of conscious torment divine justice might require. Traditionalist writers so often make the point that “perish” ( apollymi ) is used of ruined wineskins (Matt 9:17) and spoiled food (John 6:12) that casual readers tend to go away thinking the word’s primary meaning must be very mild indeed.

Most often apollymi refers to actual death. It appears ninety-two times in the New Testament, thirteen times in Paul’s letters. New Testament writers choose apollymi to say that:

- Herod tries to kill the infant Jesus (Matt 2:13);

- the disciples are about to perish in a storm (Matt 8:25);

- Pharisees conspire to destroy Jesus (Matt 12:14);

- one loses life trying to save it (Matt 16:25);

- a vineyard owner executes murderous tenants (Matt 21:41);

- a king sends troops to destroy murderers (Matt 22:7);

- one perishes by the sword (Matt 26:52);

- the crowd asks Pilate to destroy Jesus (Matt 27:20);

- it is better for one man to die than for whole nation to perish (John 11:50);

- an insurrectionist and false messiah perished at hands of Rome (Acts 5:37);

- Israelites perish in the wilderness (1 Cor 10:9–10), or were destroyed there (Jude 5);

- some perished in the rebellion of Korah (Jude 11).

Not surprisingly, this verb apollymi stands in contrast with enduring, eternal life.[10] It is the regular term for the spiritually “lost”—who are “perishing.”[11] Several times it describes the final state of the wicked in the age to come.[12] In view of its most frequent usage throughout the New Testament, there is every good reason to understand apollymi in its most natural sense when it describes the final fate of the wicked.

To those who are “perishing” the gospel has a “stench of death”—a fact in keeping with our earlier suggestion that they will be raised mortal, then return to corruption and final extinction in hell (2 Cor 2:15–16). Peter uses this word of the fate that befell the world before the Flood (2 Pet 3:6). Paul (1 Cor 10:9–10) and Jude (v. 5) use it to describe Israel’s destruction in the wilderness.

Jesus once draws a specific picture in which this word stands for one possibility and the resurrection to life represents the other (John 6:39). Along the same line, Paul says that if Christ has not been raised, then “those who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost ” (1 Cor 15:18; the same word). What would be the state of dead believers without Christ’s resurrection?

This picture, alongside the great Flood, Israelite corpses scattered across the desert, the “stench of death,” and the common use of this term to describe ordinary death, all make it plain that we should think of something more than burst wineskins or wasted food when we read it used of the doom of the ungodly. Taken literally, these various pictures contradict each other. Taken seriously, they paint a single picture of utter, shameful extinction.

Romans 6:21, 23

Twice Paul says that sin leads to “death,” which he places in opposition to “eternal life.” In our present experience, life and death are opposites—the dead no longer are among the living. Eternal life is the opposite of eternal death; the two stand in stark contrast to each other.

INTERACTION

In a provocative 1990 article titled “Will the Lost Suffer Forever?” distinguished theologian Harold O. J. Brown inquires whether the New Testament might speak of “immortality” in two senses, one sense including “eternal life” and the other not including it. Brown asks:

Eternal life, seen as positive participation in heavenly bliss, clearly is conditional. But is the only alternative to eternal life annihilation, cessation of existence? Is there such a thing as an “immortality” which is ongoing and conscious, but is so miserable in quality that it cannot be called “eternal life”? If we are unwilling to conceive of an “immortality” which is far less than eternal life, then “death” as the “wages of sin” in Rom 6:23 will be understood to mean mere extinction, and the “eternal life” which is the gift of God in Christ Jesus becomes the only immortality that there is. The “death” of Rom 6:23 is seen as equivalent to the “second death” of Rev 2:11; 20:6, 14, and both terms are understood to mean annihilation.[13]

Douglas J. Moo[14] and Harold O. J. Brown, who taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and at Reformed Theological Seminary, concede that Paul attributes immortality only to the redeemed. However, they say, that this immortality refers to a life filled with God’s blessings throughout eternity. Paul also envisions another kind of immortality, they suggest, which is less than the “eternal life” of the redeemed. Brown comes to the point. “Is there such a thing as an ‘immortality’ which is ongoing and conscious,” he asks, “but is so miserable in quality that it cannot be called ‘eternal life’?” [15]

In other words, Brown acknowledges that when Paul uses the word “immortality” of human beings, he always speaks of the saved and never of the lost. Nevertheless, Brown asks, might Paul not envision another variety of human immortality for the wicked—an immortality altogether different from the immortality that accompanies “eternal life”—in short, an immortality that describes eternal existence in unending conscious torment?

We agree that God could bestow two kinds of immortality, should he choose to do so, and that Paul and other New Testament writers could speak of both kinds if God did so choose. However, there is not a scintilla of evidence in Scripture that human immortality ever means anything other than the unending enjoyment of eternal life in the age to come, or that those who go to hell will be made immortal or put on immortality of any description or by any definition of immortality.

Brown prepared for such an answer and states the implications honestly, boldly and accurately: “If we are unwilling to conceive of an ‘immortality’ which is far less than eternal life, then ‘death’ as the ‘wages of sin’ in Rom 6:23 will be understood to mean mere extinction, and the ‘eternal life’ which is the gift of God in Christ Jesus becomes the only immortality that there is. The ‘death’ of Rom 6:23 is seen as equivalent to the ‘second death’ of Rev 2:11; 20:6, 14, and both terms are understood to mean annihilation.”[16] We respond with a hearty “Amen,” and wish that all traditionalists were as transparent and straightforward in their reasoning.

It is a creative proposal, to be sure, and one that highlights a gap in traditionalist logic. Paul never gives reason to suppose that eternal death is anything other than the absence of life—not merely the blessings of the age to come that are wrapped up in the phrase “eternal life,” but sentient, personal, embodied existence itself. To the contrary, Paul strengthens the connotations of “death” by using it interchangeably with “perish,” “destruction,” and “corruption.”

Indeed, Paul Helm expresses the universal human perception of the significance and meaning of “death” when he writes, concerning Romans 6:23, that, “The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). When we go down to the grave and our bodies are dissolved into the earth it seems that death and therefore sin has triumphed in a public and final way. For what could be more final than the dissolution of the body, its return to the dust?”[17] Helm is speaking intuitively, or, if he is not, he might as well be doing so, for his words express precisely what comes instinctively to mind with human beings around the world whenever they hear the word “death.”

No one considers whether death involves physical annihilation, no one philosophically contemplates the meaning of death as “separation.” Among humankind, the word “death” conjures images of bodies dissolved into the earth. The word “death” incites thoughts and feelings appropriate to the final earthly resolution of us all—the dissolution of the body, and its return to the dust (or, in oxidized form among some cultures, to ashes).

Significantly, Helm relates “death” in this native, fundamental sense to the “wages of sin,” and he speaks of it as a sign (though temporary and revocable) that death has triumphed over life. Surely that is the intent of the ultimate author of Scripture in describing the wages of sin as “death” and in choosing the symbol of “second death” to portray the reality of the final, eternal punishment awaiting the damned.

To the Ephesians

Ephesians 5:5–6 [18]

Paul warns against immorality and the deceitfulness of sin in these words. “For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person —such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.”

We have met both of Paul’s expressions already. On exclusion from the kingdom, see remarks on 1 Cor 6:9–10. On the wrath of God, see comments on Rom 2:8 and 1 Thess 1:10.

To the Philippians[19]

Philippians 1:28

Like their fellow Greeks at Thessalonica, the Philippian disciples met opposition from their neighbors. Paul encourages them with the prospect that their very persecution is a present sign of God’s impending judgment—and their full salvation! Do not be “frightened in any way by those who oppose you,” he says. “This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God.”

“Destruction” here is apōleia, from apollymi. John Reumann writes, in the Anchor Yale Bible Commentary on Philippians, “the destruction that one experiences, annihilation . . . ruin, in contrast to salvation.”[20] The Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament defines apōleia as “destruction, waste, annihilation.”[21] Paul, imitating Jesus himself, points believers to God, who is able to “save” and to “destroy” (Matt 10:28; James 4:12).

Philippians 3:19

Some “live as enemies of the cross of Christ,” Paul has just noted (Phil 3:18). Of such he now says: “Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things” (Phil 3:19).

The end (“destiny,” telos ) of such sinners is “destruction,” translated from apōleia, the same word used in Phil 1:28, from the verb apollymi (Rom 2:12). Here the apostle contrasts “destruction” with being immortalized in glory. “‘Destruction’ or ‘annihilation’ is the opposite of salvation,” notes Reumann.[22] Although believers suffer now, Paul assures, they can look forward to the coming of a Savior, the Lord Jesus (Phil 3:20). He will then “transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Phil 3:21).

Paul discusses this change in the bodies of the saved in his great resurrection chapter (1 Cor 15:42–54). Again we observe that, for Paul, immortality is God’s resurrection boon to the righteous. The wicked will also rise to face judgment, but their “destiny is destruction.” They have served their stomach (carnal appetites) as their god; it cannot give immortality but will perish itself (1 Cor 6:13; note contrast in v. 14).

Colossians 3:6 [23]

Sins of the earthly nature may give pleasure now, but because of them “the wrath of God is coming.” On the expression see previous comments (Rom 2:8; 1 Thess 1:10).

Paul’s Language in its Philosophical Context

Throughout the New Testament, apostles and their co-writers repeatedly affirm that sinners finally will die, perish, and be destroyed. Each time traditionalists encounter such statements, they reply that these verbs sometimes have figurative or secondary meanings. According to the traditionalist interpretation, die only means to separate; perish and destroy mean to ruin and nothing more.

However, when New Testament writers use these words to describe the final destiny of the wicked, they do not speak in a vacuum, but as part of an old and ongoing conversation in which these most significant words were regularly understood in their most basic and literal sense. The conversation goes back as early as Plato’s Phaedo, a dialogue written to advance the philosopher’s concept of the immortality of every soul.

The Phaedo tells the story of the martyrdom of Socrates, who, on the day he is to die, discourses with his friends about death and his expectation to survive it. Socrates’ hope is the immortality of the soul. He believes that a philosopher should welcome death, which, in his view, frees the immortal soul from its imprisonment in the mortal body.

At one point in the conversation, Socrates’ friend Cebes expresses disagreement with Socrates, suggesting that when one dies, the soul “may no longer exist anywhere, but that on the very day a man dies, it may be destroyed (diaphtheiretai ) and perish (apōllyetai); as soon as it’s separated from the body; and that as it goes out, it may be dispersed like breath or smoke, go flying off, and exist no longer anywhere at all.”[24] In making this statement, Cebes uses the very words that will later be Paul’s favorite words for describing the end of the wicked.

The implication for our study is astounding. Plato and Paul use the identical Greek words for death (thanatos), destruction (apōleia ), corruption ( phthora ), perish (olethros ), and die ( apothnēskō )—but with this difference: Plato says that because the soul is immortal, it is immune to all these things. Paul says these words best describe the final destiny of those who live and die rejecting God’s grace and presence.

Our concern here is not who or why, but what, and that is perfectly clear. As Cebes says in the Phaedo, when a soul has been destroyed and it perishes, that soul no longer exists. Plato was not using these words figuratively. There is no reason to suppose, against that background and in the same general conversation, that Paul intended anything other than the basic, literal meaning of those words as well. The burden of proof is on anyone who alleges otherwise.

Edward White states the matter bluntly: “In Plato’s dialogue these words stand for extinction of life, for that idea only, and in the strongest possible contrast to the idea of perpetuation of being. Our argument is that in the New Testament they signify precisely the same doom,—the final and absolute extinction of life in the case of the wicked.”[25]

In the face of such data, the traditionalists’ claim that all these words have figurative meanings when used in the New Testament about the lost, moved Greek scholar and New Testament translator R. F. Weymouth to exclaim, “My mind fails to conceive a grosser misinterpretation of language than when the five or six strongest words which the Greek tongue possesses, signifying ‘destroy,’ or ‘destruction,’ are explained to mean maintaining an everlasting but wretched existence. To translate black as white is nothing to this.”[26]

1. There is no mention of final punishment in the Pastoral Epistles to Timothy and Titus. Hebrews is grouped with non-Pauline epistles.

2. So also Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, 66.

3. Milne, The Message of Heaven and Hell, 215.

4. Ibid.

5. Zephaniah uses the Tetragrammaton, which is read Adonai and which the LXX translates as Kyrios. Paul omits kyriou in his expression “the day of wrath.” For Paul the title Kyrios now belongs to the exalted and glorified Jesus Christ.

6. The Gospels were written after the fact, of course, but they represent themselves as giving the words Jesus had spoken previously while on the earth.

7. Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News, 177.

8. Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, 70.

9. See the discussion on Matt 10:28 in chapter 11.

10. John 6:27; 10:28; 12:25; Heb 1:11; 1 Pet 1:7.

11. Matt 10:6; 15:24; 1 Cor 1:18–19; 2 Cor 2:15–16; 4:3; 2 Thess 2:10; etc.

12. Matt 5:29–30; 10:28; John 3:16; 17:11–12; 2 Pet 3:9.

13. Brown, “Will the Lost Suffer Forever? 277.

14. Moo, “Paul on Hell,” 108–9.

15. Brown, “Will the Lost Suffer Forever?” 277.

16. Ibid.

17. Helm, The Last Things, 57.

18. Our seventeen traditionalist authors do not discuss this text.

19. Our seventeen traditionalist authors do not discuss any of the following texts from Philippians.

20. Reumann, Philippians, 270.

21. Kretzer, “apōleia,” 1:135.

22. Ibid., 595.

23. The current traditionalist authors we are tracking do not discuss this text from Colossians.

24. Plato, Phaedo, 70(a).

25. White, Life in Christ, 361. White discusses the Greek words and their familiar usage in the philosophical dialogue concerning immortality on pages 362–64. Constable gives quotations from the same discourses in both Greek and English in his Future Punishment, 42–45.

26 As quoted by White, Life in Christ, 365, from a letter. Modern examples of the practice Weymouth denounced include Stahlin’s statement that “eschatological apōleia in its most terrible form is not, of course, annihilation or extinction of being; it is eternal basanismos [torment]” (Stahlin, “Orgē,” 5:444). Another is Oepke’s remark that “What is meant here [by ‘destruction’] is not a simple extinction of existence, but an everlasting state of torment and death” (Oepke, “apōleia,” 1:397). These are conclusions to be proved, not presuppositions from which to begin reading the Bible.

21

Hebrews, James, Acts

WE HAVE NOW EXAMINED everything Jesus said about final punishment and have considered his death in place of sinners, as well as what the apostle Paul said on the subject in his letters. In this chapter we will look closely at teaching about final punishment in Hebrews, James, and Acts.

Hebrews[1]

The authorship, audience, time and place of origin of Hebrews are all still in question.[2] The contents of this sermonic exhortation tell us that it was written for weary believers who, after an initial conversion and experience of the new life, are having second thoughts about the commitment they have made—and about what they have left behind.

The author constantly explains the new covenant in terms of the old one it has superseded. He uses Old Testament Scripture frequently (particularly the Psalms),[3] and he always points to Jesus Christ. In the matter of final punishment the book of Hebrews also speaks with Jesus Christ in view—in terms and pictures well familiar to all who have faithfully read the Old Testament.

Hebrews 2:2–3

Because Jesus is so much greater than the angels in his person and in his position, his hearers are under special responsibility. Moses’ law was mediated by angels (Acts 7:38; Gal 3:19), and its violators were punished by death. “How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation . . . announced by the Lord?” the writer here asks. The answer is obvious—there will be no escape. This passage gives no details of that terrible and certain punishment, but it does make those two points plain.

Such teaching is not purely theoretical but is pastoral and urgent. For, as Paul Helm observes in discussing this text Heb 2:2–3, “There is wrath to come. But the point of highlighting this fact, whether it is Christ who highlights it, or his faithful ministers two thousand years later, is to warn men and women of an impending fate so that, being warned, they will flee from it to Christ who is the only and all-sufficient conqueror of sin and death and hell.”[4]

Some have argued that punishment worse than the Old Testament death penalty must be everlasting conscious torment. The silence of this passage leaves that as one possibility—but not the only one. Jesus’ warning that God can destroy body and soul in hell reminds us that God is able to destroy totally and forever. Mosaic executioners could not do that. Even capital punishment will be as nothing compared to the horror of rising in the resurrection unto condemnation, then to perish forever in the second death.

Hebrews 6:1–2

The resurrection of the dead is a foundational teaching of Christianity, as is the doctrine of eternal judgment. Both resurrection and judgment are eschatological events—part of the end-time agenda. Yet both have begun already in the case of Jesus of Nazareth (Heb 9:27–28). A great day of reckoning is coming when all who have lived will rise to hear God’s final word of judgment on their lives. This point is so integral to Christianity that our author calls it “elementary.”[5]

Regardless of the precise nature of hell, there is absolutely no argument between conditionalists and traditionalists on this point.[6] Biblical orthodoxy requires a final, universal resurrection and judgment before God, and that judgment results in opposing verdicts of everlasting consequence. The Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed describe final judgment in no greater detail than that.

Judgment is “eternal” in quality since it belongs to the Age to Come. It is “eternal” in quantity since its results endure forever. On this point see the discussion regarding aiōnios and words of action in chapter 4.

Hebrews 6:8

The author urges readers who have tasted the new life in Christ to go on to maturity. Apostasy is nothing less than re-crucifying the Son of God (Heb 6:4–6). If Jesus is not all he claimed to be—and therefore worthy of worship and allegiance, even to death—he is neither a good man nor a person about whom one might choose to be indifferent, but rather a blasphemer to be denounced and condemned. The Jewish scribes demanded that Pilate officially charge Jesus with capital crime and sentence him to death, and weak-willed Pilate acquiesced to those demands. By walking away from Jesus, the apostate reaffirms Pilate’s sentence and joins the procurator in his guilt.

God blesses farmland when it is fruitful and will surely do no less for his people (vv. 7–10). But unproductive land also serves to warn professing believers. For “land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned” (v. 8). Thorns and thistles are directly related to sin, as is the “curse” (Gen 3:17–18). Can the land here be anything other than a figure of “worthless” disciples who claim to know Christ but bear no fruit? God used the figure before to warn his people, and there seems no reason why he is not doing it again here (Isa 5:1–7; Matt 21:33–46).

Hebrews 10:27–31

Christ’s atoning sacrifice was offered once for all time. Those who come to God on its basis and merit may therefore come boldly, confidently, and continually (Heb 10:12–14, 19–23). Embedded in that truth are both a promise and a warning. For if someone rejects this offering, nowhere in the universe or in all human history is there another one God will approve and accept. Any who “deliberately keep on sinning” therefore thrust away their only hope (Heb 10:26; Num 15:30–31). For such people there remains “only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God” (v. 27).

Now the author makes explicit what he hinted at earlier. Those who to the end brush off God’s offers of mercy will then find only judgment—and a raging, consuming fire. A. W. Pink, a prolific Calvinist author and commentator, says this term denotes “the resistless, tormenting, destroying efficacy of God’s terrible wrath, and emphasizes its dreadful fierceness.”[7]

We note that this fire consumes or devours God’s enemies, an allusion to the fate of Nadab and Abihu, who were similarly devoured by fire from God (Lev 10:2).[8] We met such a fire numerous places in the Old Testament as well as in the teaching of John the Baptist, Jesus and the apostle Paul.

Even before the fire there is the torture of awaiting sentence, already knowing the outcome; of being summoned with no hope of escape; of facing the righteous Judge with personal knowledge of willful rebellion and crimes. Earthly illustrations of such horror fill our literature. We remember the burdened criminal of Crime and Punishment, the runaway slave of Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Roots, who desperately flees from bloodthirsty hounds. We think of the fugitive of Hugo’s Les Miserables, with never a moment of rest without fear.

Who can imagine the dread the condemned murderer feels on the morning of his execution as he first wakes, then lies on his cot in anticipation like a man sunk in a silent pond, crushed beneath its stagnant weight? Or who can really describe the agony of the sentenced criminal lying strapped on the gurney, his heart pounding wildly? Such anticipation involves more conscious suffering than the act of dying itself.

Yet how much worse—how infinitely worse—to face the God whose love one has knowingly spurned time and time again, to hear his judgment sentence echo across the vast and stark silence of eternity, and to see the consuming flames just ahead? We should understand this imagery symbolically and not literally, although God’s symbols accurately portray the truth they express.[9]

Rebels who rejected the law of Moses “died without mercy” (v. 28). Again the author implies that a greater salvation carries greater responsibility, so those who reject it will be punished even “more severely” (v. 29). “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (v. 31).

Hebrews 10:39

Though the author warns his readers repeatedly against apostasy or unbelief, he also reassures them time and time again with expressions of confidence that they will do what is right. They are to persevere, for faith includes waiting on God (Hab 2:3–4). “But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed,” our author writes, “but of those who believe and are saved” (Heb 10:39). As we have seen other places already, “destruction” here also is opposed to being “saved.” This is the same word (apōleian ) that Paul so often used.

Hebrews 12:25, 29

Again the contrast is made between old and new covenants, again in terms of accountability and ultimate punishment. “If they did not escape,” the author asks, “how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven?” We heard similar questions in Heb 2:3 and again in 10:29. The answer plainly is that there is no escape.

Verse 29 amplifies a thought expressed two verses earlier in Heb 10:27, where the author had spoken of “raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.” Here he says “for our God is a consuming fire.” We have seen already the thought that God’s very holiness is a fire which consumes all that is not pure (Isa 33:14; 2 Thess 1:7–8). “As a fire consumes combustible matter cast into it, so God will destroy sinners,” writes A. W. Pink.[10]

The expression “consuming fire” ( pyr katanaliskon ) occurs twice in Deuteronomy (Deut 4:24; 9:3, LXX). Both verses have “your” God;[11] Hebrews has “our” God. Even the author takes this warning seriously. How dare we regard it less lightly than he?

James

James 1:15

Throughout his Epistle, James corrects and admonishes some who are long on words but short on work. If people today blame the devil for their sins, some known to James wanted to blame God. He corrects this error by fingering evil desire as the culprit. Desire, James says, conceives; then “it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” Evil Desire may be enticing, and its offspring, Sin, may appear charming indeed; but when Sin matures and bears its own natural child, that child will surely be Death.

The figure is akin to Paul’s when he says the one sowing to please the sinful nature will from it reap corruption/destruction (Gal 6:8), a word used among other things for a miscarriage or abortion. The contrast in James is with verse 18—God birthed us through the word of truth to be a firstfruit of his new creation yet to come in its fullness. The new creation stands over against death; they are the two alternatives when the present age has passed away.

James 4:12

Our responsibility toward God’s law ought to be obedience, not sitting in judgment. James both cautions and informs us when he writes “There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?”

Judging the neighbor—and the professing Christian brother and sister—is exactly what traditionalist Dr. John Gerstner does repeatedly throughout his tirade titled Repent or Perish. For example, Gerstner begins his chapter 9, titled “Who are Going to Hell and who to Heaven?” with the following paragraph: “People are going to eternal hell every day by the thousands. Once recently, when I was in the hospital, I was in a bed alongside a man in constant misery frequently shrieking in torment. I could do nothing for the poor fellow but pray. At last his screaming stopped. He had died and gone to hell.”[12] A page later, Gerstner broadens his gaze, and then proceeds to judge most of the world’s population in one fell swoop. “As we survey the whole Christian scene,” he says, “we see most ‘Christians’ on their way to hell. On the world scene, all non-Christians—no exceptions—are on their way to hell.”[13] James says we are not in position to make such statements. Since God gave the law, he alone has the right to call people to account regarding it. Only God can pass any judgment sentence. The contrast here is between “save” and “destroy,” and James likely remembers and reflects words of Jesus reported in Matt 10:28.[14]

James 5:1–6

“Misery” awaits the wicked rich. Corroded gold and silver will “eat your flesh like fire,” James warns. Like the rich man of Luke 16:19–31, those James rebukes “have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence.” Little did they know they were “fattening” themselves “in the day of slaughter.” The well-spread banquet table appears in a different light to the man who knows he will be executed tomorrow![15]

James 5:19–20

Christians have a mutual responsibility to watch for the welfare of one another. “Whoever turns a sinner away from his error will save him from death and cover a multitude of sins.” The NIV has “him” for psyche, a common biblical usage, correcting the KJV’s “soul,” which has been so long read in alien terms of Grecian dualism. “Salvation” is from “death.” James nowhere hints that he really means anything else. Four times James refers to the final outcome of sin. Twice it is “death,” one time misery followed by “slaughter,” once it is “destruction.”

Interaction

Current traditionalist authors do not discuss any of these texts from James. Instead, Christopher W. Morgan underplays James’ striking and important contribution to our subject with the comment: “The letter of James does not put much stress on the doctrine of hell, though it does offer some general thoughts concerning the future punishment of the wicked.”[16] Then, having prepared the reader to expect nothing of importance, Morgan summarizes James’ teaching that he has just minimized:

(1) Unbelievers are said to wither away/be destroyed (1:11). (2) James also asserts that sin produces the offspring of death (1:15). (3) He shows that God is the Lawgiver and Judge, who is able to save and destroy sinners (4:12; cf. Matt. 10:28). (4) James warns that the wicked deserve to be punished severely and that this suffering is indeed coming upon the wicked (Jas 5:1–5). To portray this graphically, James uses the prophetic judgment imagery of coming “misery,” “eating flesh with fire,” and the “day of slaughter.” James concludes by emphasizing that sinners need to be turned from impending “death” (5:20).

In reality, James is one of the strongest New Testament witnesses against the traditional view of conscious unending torment. It is no surprise that traditionalists prefer to say as little as possible about the Epistle of James.

Acts of the Apostles

Acts 3:23

In Acts 3:22–23, Peter paraphrases Deut 18:15, 19. Jesus is the Prophet of all prophets, and Moses had warned that if anyone does not listen to God’s prophet, God himself “will call him to account” (“will require it of him,” KJV, RSV, NASB, ESV). Peter changes the statement to the third person and uses a different, passive verb: such a one “will be completely cut off from among his people.” This word (exolothreuō ) means “to destroy utterly, to root out” according to Arndt and Gingrich.[17] A cognate word is translated as “the destroyer” two other places (1 Cor 10:10; Heb 11:28). Peter’s word is the ordinary translation in the Septuagint for the Hebrew karath (lit. “to cut off”), the usual Old Testament verb for capital punishment or total extermination. It is the fate prescribed for the man who refuses circumcision (Gen 17:14), for those who eat leaven during the Passover period (Exod 12:15, 19), and for whoever fails to bring his offering to the Tent of Meeting in the wilderness (Lev 17:4, 9). The Septuagint uses exolothreuō of God’s destruction in the Flood (Gen 9:11), and it describes the fate of evildoers in general in the Old Testament.[18] It is applied specifically to the Messiah, who would later suffer the fate due sinners (Dan 9:26).[19]

The verb appears only here in the New Testament, where it “signifies the utterness of the destruction from the people,” though not necessarily more than capital punishment. “If the word has any eschatological bearing,” observes The Expositor’s Greek Testament, “it would support the theory of annihilation more easily.”[20] Interestingly, Acts 3:23 is not even listed in the Scripture indexes in books by Peterson, Blanchard, Dixon, Davies, or the multi-author volume edited by Morgan and Peterson.

Interaction

Just as contemporary traditionalists understate the significance of James’ teaching on final punishment, they also grossly overstate the amount and substance of teaching to be found on this subject in the Book of Acts.

R. Albert Mohler Jr. says: “Following the example of Jesus, the early Christian evangelists and preachers called sinners to faith in Christ and warned of the sure reality of hell and the eternal punishment of the unrepentent.”[21] Robert W. Yarbrough writes: “Within the first decades of the early church, apostles and others were spreading this solemn message [that unbelievers would receive condemnation resulting in conscious unending torment] across the length and the breadth of the Roman world.”[22]

These statements suggest that the Book of Acts is filled with references to final punishment, or even with clear traditionalist descriptions of it, but that is not the case. David L. Larsen has surveyed preaching themes through the centuries and has shown that much Christian preaching emphasized hell from about the third century until the twentieth century, with a brief hiatus immediately after the birth of the Enlightenment.[23] However, the apostolic preaching as reported in the Book of Acts does not fit that description. Indeed, Luke’s summary of first-century evangelistic proclamation never uses the word “hell,” and specifically references final punishment only once (Acts 3:23).[24] None of the current traditionalist authors even mentions this text. For anyone who reads it thoughtfully, it is easy to understand why they do not.

1. Other than the comment by Peterson noted below at Heb 6:1–2, our list of current traditionalist authors do not discuss any of the following texts that we include from Hebrews.

2. Thompson, Hebrews, 4–10.

3. See Fudge, Hebrews, in which I show how the author of Hebrews tells the story of Jesus in four parts, based on cues taken from four Psalms.

4. Helm, The Last Things, 128.

5. Peterson emphasizes that this text “shows the importance of the doctrine of hell to the early church . . . [as] part of the foundational teaching given to new converts” (Peterson, Hell on Trial, 83). However, he then fails to discuss any of the texts in which the author of Hebrews sets out that important teaching—all of which sounds exactly like total destruction, consumption, and extinction, and none sounds like unending conscious torment.

6. The Seventh-day Adventists teach that the wicked will rise to face God in judgment and finally be exterminated in the lake of fire (Seventh-day Adventists Believe, 369–73). The Watchtower Society (aka “Jehovah’s Witnesses”) hold that the incorrigibly wicked who have died will never be resurrected at all; their only “hell” is the grave (Let God Be True, 283–91). Donald Bloesch overlooks this important distinction and makes Seventh-day Adventists of the Jehovah’s Witnesses; Jon Braun errs the other direction and implies that all but traditionalists hold the Jehovah’s Witness position (Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology, 2:219; Braun, Whatever Happened to Hell? 49).

So long as the confusion of positions remains, however, Froom’s historical technicality will do little to alleviate the common guilt by association. Prospects for this are not too bright since, according to Norman T. Burns, such confusion of resurrectionists and anti-resurrectionists has characterized much of the literature concerning mortalism for several centuries (Burns, Christian Mortalism, 13–14).

7. Pink, An Exposition of Hebrews, 613.

8. Pink says the term “consuming fire” probably alludes to the case of Nadab and Abihu, but he then quotes John Owen’s statement that “this fire shall ever prey upon them, and never utterly consumed them (ibid., 613). The result is an allusion that pictures the exact opposite of what Scripture uses it to illustrate!

9. Traditionalists who say such a view is an “easy way out” not only pass over such Scripture passages as this one; they also fail to consider seriously the very real torment involved in the case the passage describes.

10. Pink, An Exposition of Hebrews, 1102–3. Pink elsewhere denies what he states here and finally his dogmatic theology triumphs over his biblical exegesis. Like our seventeen contemporary traditionalists, earlier traditionalists Harry Buis and Jon Braun both completely ignore Heb 12:29 as well.

11. Both passages in Deuteronomy refer to the Canaanites, who were to be totally exterminated. Deut 9:3 says also that God will exolethreuō the Canaanites and the Israelites will apollymi them. New Testament writers use both verbs to portray the nature of final punishment.

12. Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 192.

13. Ibid., 193.

14. It is instructive to compare James’ teaching throughout the Epistle with the words of Jesus as reported in the Gospels, particularly in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount.

15. On the figure see Isa 3:11–26; Amos 4:1–3; especially Jude 10.

16. Morgan, “Biblical Theology,” 140.

17. BAG, 276.

18. In Pss 37:9, 22, 28, 34, 38 and Prov 2:22 among others.

19. The English text also says the Suffering Servant will be “cut off” (Isa 53:8), but that is a different Hebrew verb ( gazar ) from this.

20. The Expositor’s Greek Testament, 2:118. During the research and writing of the first edition of this book, I had the pleasure of visiting with native Greek New Testament scholar Spiros Zodhiates in his home, during which I commented concerning Acts 3:23 and Dr. Zodhiates made this same observation.

21. Mohler, “Modern Theology,” 17.

22. Yarbrough, “Jesus on Hell,” 76.

23. Larsen, “Heaven and Hell,” 237–58.

24. Luke reports Paul making two general references to God’s future judgment of the world in Acts (17:30–31; 24:25).

22

1–2 Peter, 1–3 John, Jude

ALTHOUGH PETER, JOHN, AND Jude were all Palestinian Jews, they address their Epistles to recipients who are either Gentiles and/or Diaspora Jews. The Epistles of 2 Peter and Jude are very much alike, and both use apocalyptic language as a vehicle for expression.

First Peter

The book of First Peter can be described as a handbook for Christian pilgrims who are passing through this world en route to their eternal home. Several passages suggest a connection between this Epistle and the Christian initiation rite of water baptism. Peter is especially concerned that the new believers live holy and fruitful lives before their pagan neighbors and that they be ready to endure suffering if God calls them to that. Repeatedly the book mentions “suffering” and “glory,” always in that order. The emphasis is on Christian faith and life; little is said about the end of the wicked. One passage touches on that at the close of chapter 4.

1 Peter 4:17–18 [1]

If you suffer for Christ’s sake, Peter urges, do not be ashamed but praise God for the privilege, a lesson he learned from Jesus (Matt 5:11-12). Peter cites Old Testament proverb and prophet, and makes Christian application: “For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And, ‘If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?’”

Again, great privilege brings great responsibility. In saying that judgment is about to begin with the house of God, Peter reflects an Old Testament incident. In the days of Judah’s captivity, Ezekiel saw a vision of idolatry in the very precincts of the temple (Ezekiel 8). God’s glory rose from above the cherubim and prepared to desert the premises (Ezek 9:3). All who grieved for the abominations received a mark on their foreheads for protection; all others were to be slaughtered without compassion or pity (Ezek 9:4–6). Then came the order: “Begin at My sanctuary” (Ezek 9:6).

The time has come again, Peter says, for judgment. Again it goes out from God’s house.[2] Persecution proves the faith of some, the essential unbelief of others. In either case it manifests the quality of the profession. It also serves as a warning to the persecutors, as Jeremiah, another Old Testament prophet of the Exile, also made clear.

Jeremiah reveals that the captivity will be for seventy years (Jer 25:1–11). At the end of that time, God says, he will utterly destroy Babylon forever, and then punish all the nations of the earth (Jer 25:12–14). If pagan kingdoms hesitate to receive this word of judgment, God points them to Israel’s own fate as proof that he is in earnest. “See,” he says, “I am beginning to bring disaster on the city that bears my Name, and will you indeed go unpunished?” (Jer 25:29). If God judges his own people, how certain that he will judge their enemies!

Peter now makes the same point. If judgment “begins with us,” he asks, viewing the tribulations through which believers must here pass, “what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” In context, God judges his family by present afflictions, though that judgment relates to the final judgment as we have already seen. Present judgments also come at times on the wicked (throughout the Old Testament are temporal judgments; we note the destruction of both Jerusalem and Rome in the New Testament), but these are also related to the issues of the last day. This passage should be included in our study, although it adds no additional content to our understanding of final doom.

Peter’s next statement indicates that he speaks of present troubles, though it might also suggest a final reckoning. He quotes a proverb to illustrate his point. “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” This is the Septuagint translation of Prov 11:31. Even the godly must pass along a rough and thorny trail on their way to final salvation, and they have the gift of faith to sustain them. How will those who do not know God ever make it through life? Even in this world, the implication is, God’s people are blessed in their suffering.

The Hebrew proverb was slightly different. The NIV translates it: “If the righteous receive their due on earth, how much more the ungodly and the sinner?” In light of the teaching of both Psalms and Proverbs concerning the end of the wicked, this statement may well point to future punishment. Surely the time is coming that the wicked will be recompensed—and in such a manifest way that faith in God’s justice will be thoroughly vindicated.

Second Peter

Peter responds to skeptics who scoff at Christ’s delayed return. He assures believers of the reliability of the apostles’ eyewitness testimony and of the divine origin of Scripture. And he assures them that licentious and spurious teachers will certainly come to a terrible but appropriate end. There is obvious correspondence between 2 Peter 2 and the Epistle of Jude in actual wording and in thought.

2 Peter 2:1–22

Pseudo-teachers bringing seductive heresies will finally meet swift destruction (v. 1) and condemnation (v. 3). Both “condemnation” and “destruction” are familiar New Testament words for the end of the lost. Each expresses an aspect of God’s sovereignty, who alone can recall even the dead to give account and who alone can totally and eternally destroy. Neither word carries any inherent meaning of everlasting conscious torment, although that meaning has been read into “destruction” since Tertullian and Augustine.

OLD TESTAMENT EXAMPLES

Peter gives three great examples to illustrate the certainty of his warning. We examined two of them while considering the Old Testament—namely, the Flood, which destroyed the old world (v. 5), and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire from heaven (v. 6). Throughout the Bible we have found these two events mentioned time after time, standard and favorite prototypes of God’s judgment against sin. Each case involved a total destruction that exterminated sinners and annihilated their sinful way of life. When evildoers obstinately refused to turn loose of their wickedness, even with God’s judgment beating at the door, sin and sinners perished together.

Peter particularly displays Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of final condemnation and the end of the wicked. God condemned the twin cities, he says, “by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly” (v. 6, NIV). The RSV says that “by turning . . . to ashes he condemned them to extinction”; the KJV says “turning . . . into ashes, condemned with an overthrow.”

Peter’s verb (tephroō) is a rare word found only here in the New Testament. Moulton–Milligan cite non-biblical sources where the word describes an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and they say the verb means either “cover with ashes” or “reduce to ashes.”[3] Thayer’s lexicon has “reduce to ashes,” and BAG suggests “cover with or reduce to ashes.” The Expositor’s Greek Testament prefers “cover up with” instead of “reduce to.”[4]

This is the same picture we met in Isa 66:24, Mal 4:1–3, Matt 3:10, 12 and other places in both Testaments. It portrays total destruction by fire from God, a scene strengthened by the adjectives “unquenchable” (it cannot be stopped in its destruction) and “eternal” (its effects will never be reversed). Peter’s language here is so clear and forceful that traditionalist authors are simply at a loss to comment on it at all.[5]

FALLEN ANGELS

As a third illustration of God’s ability to hold the ungodly for judgment, Peter cites the fallen angels. God sent even them to “hell,” where they are held in “gloomy dungeons” for judgment. These fallen angels held special fascination for certain apocalyptic writers between the Testaments; we observed several references to them in the books attributed to Enoch. Peter appears to reflect this literature more than once, and Jude quotes from Enoch by name (Jude 14–15). Peter probably has the fallen angels in mind when he writes of the “spirits in prison” in his first Epistle (1 Pet 3:19–20, 22).[6]

He literally says here that they are kept in Tartarus, for which most English versions strangely put “hell” (HCSB is an exception with “Tartarus”). The word appears only once in Scripture, here borrowed from the literature of classical Greek. In the Odyssey (11.575) Homer makes Tartarus the place where the Titans were enchained for endless punishment. Both Homer and Plato also call the place Hades, which is the Septuagint’s usual choice in translating the Hebrew word sheol.[7] Whatever one might make of this passage and the angels in Tartarus, it adds nothing to our understanding of the final doom of human sinners, since (1) it concerns angels, not men, and (2) it speaks of detention before the judgment rather than punishment following it.[8]

MORE DESCRIPTIVES

After a description of the pseudo-teachers’ crimes, Peter returns to their punishment. Like brute beasts “born only to be caught and destroyed,” these men too “will perish” (2 Pet 2:12). Both “destroy” and “perish” translate the same word ( phthora, see Gal 6:8). Peter pictures brute beasts and wicked men coming to the same final end, though the men must first face God’s judgment, sentence and consuming fire. This fate stands in sharpest contrast with the destiny of the faithful. For God’s children, the body that previously was buried perishable will be raised imperishable (1 Cor 15:42). “Perishability does, however, remain the ultimate fate of those who cast their lot with creaturely existence.”[9]

“Blackest darkness is reserved for them” (2 Pet 2:17). Jude completes the simile, comparing the spurious teachers to “wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever” ( Jude 13). Like the comparison with Sodom and the death of brute beasts, this figure also suggests and harmonizes with the idea of final, total extinction.

The apostate’s fate is worse than that of one who never knew the way of righteousness (2 Pet 2:20–22). We are reminded of similar comparative statements in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb 2:2–3; 10:27–31; 12:25). Traditionalists and conditionalists affirm together that there will be degrees of punishment—the first group, by varying external circumstances or internal sensitivity to them; the second group, by duration, type, or sensitivity to conscious pain during the process of the second death. Another interpretation of the passage sees an entirely different point: the difficulty or impossibility of reclaiming one who has rejected known truth (Heb 6:4–6; 12:16–17). It certainly does not require or even support eternal conscious torment.

INTERACTION

Interestingly, the power of plain speech appeals to Blanchard when refuting universalism from this text. He asks: “If Peter was a universalist, why did he warn people that when God ‘condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes’ He ‘made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly’? (2 Pet 2:6).”[10] We commend Brother Blanchard’s willingness to let Peter’s words mean what they say, and suggest that a second question should follow, namely: “If Peter was a traditionalist, why did he warn people that when God ‘condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes’ he ‘made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly’? (2 Pet 2:6).”

Perhaps Christopher W. Morgan was more helpful to traditionalism by paraphrasing the biblical text without explanation, saying that “Peter illustrates the future punishment by referring to the account of Sodom and Gomorrah burning to ashes (2 Pet 2:6).”[11]

2 Peter 3:6–9

Scoffers conclude that everything continues as it has been, and mock at Christ’s promised coming (v. 4). Peter reminds his readers that the same opinion was expressed by the generation that perished in the Flood and that God’s judgment again will crash into man’s comfortable and routine way of life. Once before, the world “was deluged and destroyed” by water at God’s command. By the same word “the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.” The implication here is that the fire which will melt the elements will also accomplish the destruction of ungodly men. “The ‘tares’ are to be ‘burned’ on the field where they grew.”[12]

Whether Peter speaks of the old world being “destroyed” or the future end of ungodly men (“destruction,” v. 7; “perish,” v. 9), he uses the same verb ( apollymi ) or noun ( apōleia ). Both words were among Paul’s most familiar terms for the end of the wicked.

Peter’s alternatives of repentance or perishing (v. 9) echo a similar warning from Jesus himself (Luke 13:3). The disciple remembers the Master’s words, and the Spirit leads him into further truth than Jesus had clearly spoken on earth (John 14:26; 16:12–14).

INTERACTION

Although Peter specifically compares the world’s destruction by Flood in the days of Noah to the future destruction of ungodly people by fire, Eryl Davies reverses Peter’s point of comparison to avoid the conclusion that the wicked will become extinct. “Peter says that ‘the world . . . being overflowed with water, perished ( apōleto),” Davies notes. “Rather than being made extinct, the world was in fact preserved and renewed by God (cf. Heb. 1:11-12).”[13] Are we to suppose, therefore, that the “destruction” of ungodly men will precede their preservation and renewal?

John Blanchard reissues the argument based on technical physical annihilation to urge that “destroy” and “destruction” should not be understood literally. “Where is there a shred of evidence in Scripture to suggest that God annihilated our planet and created another one to replace it?” he asks.[14]

Similarly, although Peter says that by “burning” Sodom and Gomorrah “to ashes,” God “made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly,” Blanchard can only remark that since the inhabitants of those cities will appear in judgment at the end of the world, “it is clear that when they were ‘destroyed’ they were not annihilated.”[15]

The objection that the “souls” of Sodom’s inhabitants continued to exist after their bodies were destroyed (arguing from the Christian traditionalist version of the immortality of the soul), presupposes the soul’s separability from the body and the soul’s conscious survival without the body. The argument that literal, physical annihilation is impossible, whether speaking of human beings (the implied application) or of the earth itself (which Blanchard specifically says), is irrelevant in light of a God who can create and can also destroy.

However, even if one conceded that the bodies of Sodom’s inhabitants were not technically annihilated when “destroyed” by fire, and that their “souls” somehow continue to exist without their bodies, it is still true that God “is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt 10:28). It therefore poses no problem for God, if need be, to reconstitute their bodies and/or their souls to face judgment, and then to annihilate them—both soul and body—their entire personhood, in hell.

Blanchard also cites several passages that speak of the “destruction” of sinners (Matt 7:13; Phil 3:19; 2 Pet 3:7), statements that “may seem to suggest annihilation,” he confesses, “but damaging cracks appear as soon as we notice that apollumi can have a number of very different meanings.”[16]

Again, there is no question that all of the New Testament’s verbs indicating extinction can have in other contexts a variety of secondary meanings—meanings dependent upon the fact that these verbs all have primary meanings from which the secondary meanings are derived. But what evidence can one present that “destroy,” “destruction,” or “perish” mean anything other than dissolution and extinction in this context that concerns final punishment?

Jude

Jude 4–7

We have noted already the great similarity between 2 Pet 2 and Jude. Spurred on by the infiltration of some “godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord” (Jude 4), Jude urges his readers everywhere to “contend for the faith that [God has] once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3). God will surely punish evildoers, and he is well able to guard all who abide in his love. Indeed, Sodom and Gomorrah “serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 7). The NIV interpolates the words “of those who,” which are not in the Greek text. The RSV and the ESV more closely follow the original, saying that the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah “serve as an example (deigma) by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire” (emphasis added).

Moulton-Milligan cite numerous references in non-biblical Greek where deigma is used of “samples of corn and produce.”[17] Though the precise word appears only here in the New Testament, several other forms of it are used elsewhere. Yet deigmatizō (Col 2:15), paradeigmatizō (Matt 1:19; Heb 9:9) and hypodeigma (John 13:15; Heb 4:11; 8:5; 9:23; Jas 5:10; 2 Pet 2:6) all speak of “examples,” whether of good or bad. Nor does Jude say that the people of Sodom are a vague and general example of those who actually will suffer the punishment of eternal fire, but that they themselves exemplify that very punishment.

There is no biblical hint that Sodom and Gomorrah’s inhabitants presently endure conscious torment; several passages, in fact, make a point of their abiding extinction. John Nolland comments: “Jude 7 speaks of ‘a punishment of eternal fire’ . . . but this could . . . relate to the permanent desolation of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah—as the aftereffect and memorial of their punishment—rather than to continuing punishment of the people.”[18]

In the end, Jude says just what he seems to say, and the KJV may translate it most faithfully after all. The sinners of Sodom are “set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” The passage defines “eternal fire.” It is a fire from God which destroys sinners totally and forever. The residents of Sodom illustrate it, and the ungodly had better take note of the warning.

Peter says the same thing in unequivocal language in his remark that God condemned these cities “by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly” (2 Pet 2:6). Jude will bring our thoughts back to Sodom’s fire a little later.

INTERACTION

Robert Peterson warns us that Jude does not mean that the wicked will be annihilated, but rather “that God’s judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah furnishes an earthly temporal example of the final fate of the damned.”[19] Either Sodom exemplifies something that will be true of sinners in the end or it does not. Peterson then adds that “British church historian Richard J. Bauckham concurs,” and quotes Bauckham as follows:

The idea is that the site of the cities . . . a scene of sulfurous devastation, provided ever-present evidence of the reality of divine judgment . . . According to Philo [a first-century Jewish writer] “even to this day the visible tokens of the indescribable disaster are pointed out in Syria—ruins, cinders, brimstone, smoke, and murky flames which continue to rise from the ground as from a fire still smoldering beneath” . . . Jude means that the still-burning site of the cities is a warning picture of the eternal fires of hell.[20]

Peterson’s footnote cites the quotation from page 55 of Bauckham’s commentary on Jude and 2 Peter. However, Peterson misunderstands Bauckham’s meaning, which Bauckham himself explains in more detail in a 2004 article in the British evangelical journal Ex Auditu. Bauckham writes:

It was believed that the fate of these Cities of the Plain continued to be in evidence in the form of the smoking wasteland to the south of the Dead Sea (Wis 10:7; Josephus, J.W. 4.483; Philo, Mos. 2.56). For this reason language indicating that the judgment continues forever could be used: “its smoke shall go up forever” (Isa 34:10); the cities “are exhibited as an example by undergoing the punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 7). This last example from Jude seems to mean that the still burning site of the cities is a warning picture of the eternal fires of hell. But we should note that in this whole tradition rooted in Genesis and the prophets the idea that the punishment is long-lasting or eternal refers to its finality. The still smoking site signifies that the cities will never be rebuilt. Their destruction lasts forever.[21]

Bauckham concurs with the explanation of Jude 7 that is presented in The Fire That Consumes and not with Peterson’s explanation. Professor Bauckham also concurs with the fundamental view of this book that those who go to hell do not suffer unending conscious torment but rather eventually cease to be. In an article on his website, Dr. Bauckham states:

The New Testament uses a variety of different pictures to describe hell: fire is one of them, destruction another, exclusion from the presence of God another. Burning in fire for eternity is the picture which got fixed in much traditional teaching about hell as though it were a literal description. The New Testament does not require us to think of hell in this way. Hell is not an eternal chamber of horrors across the way from heaven. Hell is the fate of those who reject God’s love. God’s love cannot compel them to find their fulfillment in God, but there is no other way they can find fulfillment. They exclude themselves from the Source of all being and life.[22]

To ensure that there was no misunderstanding, I wrote Dr. Bauckham an email as follows: “I think from this quote that we agree that for a person to be cut off entirely from God in hell would be to forfeit the only basis on which a created being could possibly continue to survive, and that to ‘go to hell’ necessarily means eventually to cease to exist. If I am reading you correctly, would you kindly confirm; if not, would you please clarify and correct?” He responded immediately and concisely in an email dated August 28, 2010 that stated: “I agree with your reading of my words!”

Jude 13

These wicked teachers are “wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.” See the remarks on 2 Pet 2:17.

Jude 23

God is able to keep his own people from falling, Jude says, and he urges his readers to build themselves up, pray in the Spirit, and keep themselves in God’s love (vv. 20–21). They are also to care for one another: be tender with some; “snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.”

The figure of being snatched from the fire comes from Amos 4:11. The prophet reminds a remnant: “You were like a burning stick snatched from the fire” when God overthrew some as he once had Sodom and Gomorrah. When total destruction and extinction came on some, Amos says to the survivors, you were snatched from the fire in the bare nick of time—like a stick already beginning to burn.

The same language reappears in Zech 3:2. God there says to Satan: “The Lord rebuke you! . . . Is not this man [Joshua the high priest] a burning stick snatched from the fire?” Here the “fire” was the Babylonian exile, from which many who entered never returned. Joshua had been spared, and Satan now seeks his destruction.

Jude’s statement concerning “the clothing stained by corrupted flesh” may well reflect this same passage in Zechariah. The next verses tell how Joshua stood dressed in filthy clothes before the angel. These are removed and replaced by rich garments and a clean turban. The angel tells Joshua: “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you” (Zech 3:3–5). There is an obvious connection between this symbolic incident and the New Testament teaching regarding being “clothed” with Christ and dressed in perfect righteousness to stand before God (Gal 3:27; Eph 4:22–24; Phil 3:8–9; Rev 3:18).

For Jude, those “snatched from the fire” are given “eternal life” (v. 21). To be sure, “life” means far more than mere existence, but it includes that as well; why should not its denial exclude everything “life” encompasses, existence included? Jude’s picture of contrasting fates portrays no survival whatsoever for those thrown into the fire. He has said earlier that “eternal fire” (the opposite of “eternal life”) is the punishment which befell Sodom and Gomorrah. It is everlasting destruction, blackest darkness forever. In this he agrees with Peter, Hebrews, James, Acts, Paul, Jesus, and the entire Old Testament.

First John

John says relatively little about final punishment in his Gospel,[23] as we noted earlier, and the same is true of his Epistles. Of the three letters, only the first touches on the subject, and it but once.

1 John 5:16–17

“There is a sin that leads to death,” John writes (v. 16), “and there is sin that does not lead to death” (v. 17). Whatever the distinction, the outcomes are made clear. They are “death” and “not death.” One is either dead or not dead—these are the alternatives. In our present experience there is no sharper contrast than life and death. God could not possibly use a clearer, more expressive word than “death,” or one grasped more easily by common people of all times and places. Paul spoke of “death” as the end of sin, and he colored that word with terms like “corruption” and “destruction.”

Even figurative usages depend on an actual, literal sense of words. Whenever someone uses “death” as a figure, it is because he wishes to convey the feelings conjured by our literal understanding of the term. The “death” in John’s phrase “sin unto death” seems to be figurative here: it refers not to direct physical death now but to the annihilating power of the second death to which this sin finally leads. In his article on thanatos (death) in The Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, Werner Bieder expresses it like this: “Even though the ‘sin unto death’ is originally sin that merits the bodily punishment of death ( Jub. 21:22), the sin mentioned in 1 John 5:16 is not a sin that directly brings about death. It is rather an offense in which the wrongdoer aligns himself by his deed with the futility of death ( pros thanaton) and thus already experiences death as an annihilating power by anticipation in the doing of the evil deed.”[24]

Nowhere does Scripture indicate that it uses these words in a figurative sense when it applies them to the end of the wicked. Few things are stated more often throughout the whole Bible than that the wicked will “die,” “perish,” “be destroyed,” pass away, be no more, and be forgotten forever.

The fact that we deal with the language of divine law and justice only strengthens the case for giving the words their most essential and ordinary meanings. Although he was a clergyman and not a lawyer,[25] Constable explains this point very well.

The accepted principle of interpretation among mankind is this: “that all language relative to law and jurisprudence, all language descriptive of the sanctions of government, all language setting forth the penalties of crime and disobedience, is to be accepted in its primary sense and in no other . . . Thus when death is announced as a penalty for crime, no controversy would for an instant be admitted as to its meaning. No lawyer, for or against the criminal, would search for dramatic or poetic secondary senses . . . A secondary sense may be more usual and more proper elsewhere, but not here. Poetry and the drama, the literature of passion, imagination, and feeling, may use these terms differently; but their use is not to affect in the smallest degree the interpretation of a law. Here we take our stand. Here we are on sure and steady ground. The terms we have been discussing are the terms of the Divine Law: the jurisprudence we have been discussing is God’s jurisprudence. The Great Governor is laying before his subjects the penalties which attach to sin. He speaks to them in the only language they can understand—their own language. He puts no new rules of interpretation upon it when he addresses them. He accepts, adopts, and uses the language of those to whom he speaks. We can then only interpret the divine penalty for sin in the sense which man has put upon all such penalties, viz. in the primary sense.”[26]

1. Our seventeen current traditionalist authors do not discuss any text from 1 Peter.

2. The Greek has oikos, by which Peter evidently refers to God’s family, the church. The NIV obscures the Old Testament background by interpreting (as “family”) instead of translating (“house” = “temple” in Ezekiel).

3. Moulton–Milligan, 632.

4. Thayer, 621; BAG, 821; Strachan, The Expositor’s Greek Testament, 5:135.

5. Traditionalists tend to ignore this powerful Scripture passage that contradicts their viewpoint, including Buis (The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment), Braun (Whatever Happened to Hell? ), Bloesch (“Heaven and Hell,” in Essentials of Evangelical Theology, vol. 2 ), and Lenski, whose exposition is frequently marked by the most minute detail (The Interpretation of the Epistles of St. Peter, St. John and St.Jude ).

6. This is R. T. France’s conclusion, following a thorough and critical examination of the passage, in “Exegesis in Practice,” 264–81.

7. Fausset, ECE, 281; Shedd, The Doctrine of Endless Punishment, 42.

8. Buis describes the language of this chapter as “very forceful” but makes almost no comment on it (Buis, The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, 45). Braun ignores everything in the chapter except the word “Tartarus,” which he calls “extremely illuminating on the subject of the judgment of God and ensuing punishment,” and on which he writes more than a page (Braun, Whatever Happened to Hell? 151–53).

9. Holtz, “phtheirō,” 3:423.

10. Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 196.

11. Morgan, “Biblical Theology,” 141.

12. White, Life in Christ, 352.

13. Davies, An Angry God? 134.

14. Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 238.

15. Ibid., 239.

16. Ibid., 237.

17. M–M, 137.

18. Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew, 437n96.

19. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 85.

20. Ibid.

21. Bauckham, “Judgment in the Book of Revelation,” 19.

22. Online: http://richardbauckham.co.uk/uploads/Accessible/Hell.pdf.

23. I presuppose, contrary to much current critical opinion, that John the Apostle wrote the Gospel of John, 1–3 John, and Revelation. Even if the Gospel of John were written from within a community with roots in John’s teaching, it would not be surprising to find particular themes and emphases present in or absent from the entire “Johannine” corpus.

24. Bieder, “thanatos,” 2:132.

25. As a practicing attorney for more than two decades, I attest to the ongoing validity and relevance of Constable’s remarks that follow. A core element in my three years of study leading to a doctorate in jurisprudence, and in each day’s practice of law, is skill development in communicating precisely through the use of specific, appropriate words.

26. Constable, Future Punishment, 54.

23

Revelation

THE REALITIES ASSOCIATED WITH the final punishment of rebellious and unrepentant sinners lie beyond the boundaries of our present experience. The end of the world—the visible appearance of Jesus Christ, judgment before Almighty God, the new heavens and earth, on one hand, and the lake of fire, on the other—transcends any categories our finite minds are presently able to comprehend.

Introduction to Revelation

Robert H. Mounce insists that “the essential question” in approaching a study of Revelation is the kind of literature we are dealing with, so that an “informed sensitivity to the thought forms and vocabulary of apocalyptic is the sine qua non of satisfactory exegesis.” Many contemporary writers have lacked that insight, Mounce charges, and as a result they have fallen into “either an indefensible literalism or a highly imaginative subjectivism.”[1]

Symbols

Gregory K. Beale wisely cautions that extracting doctrine from Revelation is a “complicated” matter, due to “figurative” and “pictorial” language, “metaphorical” speech, and “thorny questions” regarding the dating of the book.[2] Bruce Metzger of Princeton Theological Seminary explains: “This book contains a series of word pictures, as though a number of slides were being shown upon a great screen. As we watch we allow ourselves to be carried along by impressions created by these pictures. Many of the details of the pictures are intended to contribute to the total impression, and are not to be isolated and interpreted with wooden literalism.”[3]

This is not some external principle imposed upon the book from outside, Beale says; it is inherent in the book’s own character as explained in the opening verse of Revelation itself. The opening verse of the book states that its purpose is to “communicate by symbols” ( sēmainō ), as shown by the parallel use of deiknymi (“show”) in the opening clause, Beale writes. This bit of information determines our proper approach to interpreting Revelation.[4]

Literalists miss this point,[5] and “contend that one should interpret literally except where one is forced to interpret symbolically.” In fact, says Beale, Rev 1:1 tells us that “this rule should be turned on its head; . . . the essence of the book is figurative. Where there is lack of clarity about whether something is symbolic, the scale of judgment should be tilted in the direction of a non-literal analysis . . . Recognizing the predominant symbolic genre of Revelation is crucial as we approach the interpretation of the book.”[6]

Richard Bauckham of the University of Cambridge underscores Beale’s warning. The images in Revelation are not “timeless symbols,” he says, but neither are they literally “descriptive of the ‘real’ world.” Instead they “must be read for their theological meaning and their power to evoke response.”[7]

To say that Revelation uses sign language to tell its story does not detract from the seriousness of what it says. Liberals and literalists alike have misunderstood the evangelical’s approach at this point, according to Harry Buis.[8] But merely shunning literalism does not give us license to invent our own meanings for John’s graphic visions, however, as Mounce has reminded us already. John did not invent his symbols, nor were they original with the book of Revelation.

This vocabulary of “signs” belonged to what was almost a language of its own, drawn from an ancient tradition known as apocalyptic, that had thrived already for two centuries, with roots in biblical origins even more ancient. Beasley-Murray compares this “apocalyptic” imagery to the stereotypes of the modern political cartoon.[9] We will see that some images and meanings in Revelation come from non-biblical apocalyptic literature of the period, but that the major source by far is the Old Testament itself.

Apocalyptic Literature

In the nineteenth century, most critical scholars tried to decode Revelation on the basis of pagan mythologies, seeking parallels in the literature of Rome and Greece, of Persia and Babylon and Egypt. Today, scholars are taking a closer look at a special type of writing that thrived during the period of Second Temple Judaism, known as apocalyptic literature, and they are noting differences and similarities between it and the Revelation given to John.

OLD TESTAMENT SOURCES

For evangelical Christians, however, the greatest difference between Revelation and non-canonical apocalyptic literature is a matter of origin, for the Apocalypse written by John came from the Spirit of the living Lord, the same Spirit of prophecy that inspired the Old Testament penmen. And those Old Testament writings, more than any other literature of any description, are still our best guide to understanding the sometimes-bizarre characters and the often-puzzling events that this final book of Scripture lays before our blinking eyes. Evangelical scholars in particular are beginning to emphasize the predominant place the Old Testament holds in the symbols of Revelation.

Beasley-Murray notes that John’s portrayals of divine judgment “employ traditional images, above all those connected with the typology of the second exodus—hence his elaboration of the plagues of Egypt which fall on the kingdom of the new Pharaoh.” Sodom’s ancient fate is also reflected here. Sometimes the figures are literally inconsistent, Beasley-Murray observes, but even then “their use of the Scripture precedents for judgment is comprehensible.”[10] This is only true, however, in the light of the Old Testament.

As we move through the book of Revelation, remember first that it speaks to us in symbols. They are not given to satisfy our curiosity or to write history in advance. They grab our attention, stir our blood, and arouse our fervor. They challenge us, warn us and inspire us. While many of the same symbols also appeared in the non-canonical apocalyptic literature of Second Temple Judaism, their primary meaning will be learned from the prophetic literature of the Old Testament.

Keep in mind also the universally-accepted rule of interpretation to interpret obscure passages in the light of passages that are clear and not the other way around. Even our best efforts will not find all the answers. We probably will not make headlines or attract a great following. But in such a course we can surely have strong confidence that we are never far off the trail. If one cannot find understanding by searching the Scriptures, praying for wisdom and keeping one’s eyes on Jesus, surely understanding is not to be had.

Early Warnings

Revelation contains four judgment warnings in the first fourteen chapters, then a closing cluster of warnings at the end of the book. We first consider Jesus’ warnings to churches at Pergamum and Thyatira, to those destroying the earth, and to those who worship and follow the beast.

To Pergamum (Rev 2:16)

Some at Pergamum followed the errors of Balaam, and others held the teaching of the “Nicolaitans.” Unless these repent, Jesus warns, he will “come . . . and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth” (Rev 2:16).

To Thyatira (Rev 2:22–23)

At Thyatira, too, the false prophetess “Jezebel” led some into idolatry and sexual immorality. Seeing no repentance, Jesus warns that he is about to “cast her on a bed of suffering” (Rev 2:22), make those who commit adultery with her “suffer intensely,” and “strike her children dead” (Rev 2:23).

All these statements might refer to temporal judgments, perhaps to a lingering or even terminal disease. As Mounce points out, those on whom the judgments fall do not know whether there are other judgments remaining after these or not, since these judgments involve suffering that ends in death.[11]

To Earth-destroyers (Rev 11:18)

When the seventh trumpet sounds, John hears loud voices in heaven. They announce good news: God has triumphed gloriously over his enemies! The kingdom is the Lord’s! At this report, the twenty-four heavenly elders respond: “The time has come for judging the dead . . . and for destroying those who destroy the earth” (Rev 11:18).

For “destroy” John twice writes an intensive Greek verb (diaphtheirō ) with two layers of meaning, intentionally creating a play on words, as Professor Richard Bauckham details:

The correspondence of crime and punishment here depends on a wordplay, exploiting the double meaning of diaphtheirō, which can mean both “destroy,” in the sense of causing to perish, and “ruin,” in the sense of corrupting with evil. The destroyers of the earth are the powers of evil who are ruining God’s creation with their violence, oppression, and idolatrous religion (cf. 19:2). There is an allusion to the equivalent wordplay in the Genesis story of the flood (Gen 6:11–13, 17, where s-h-t has the same double meaning). In both cases God’s wholesale destruction of those who are ruining his creation is justified as necessary for the preservation of his creation and its salvation from the evil they are doing to it.[12]

In 1 Cor 3:17, Paul uses a weaker cognate verb ( phtheirō ) in a similar framework with a similar double meaning.

Theoretically, the destruction of a person might or might not involve conscious torment. Yet, as we have noted, the final dissolution, disintegration, extinguishing of the wicked allows opportunity for whatever kind, duration and degree of sentient torment that God might deem appropriate in each individual situation. As usual in Scripture, this text emphasizes the destruction rather than pain inflicted in the process.[13]

To Beast-followers and Worshippers (Rev 14:9–11)

Following the appearance of the sea-beast and the earth-beast, John receives a brief respite from the horrors. The scene changes to Mount Zion, where stands the Lamb, accompanied by one hundred forty-four thousand of the redeemed—firstfruits of God’s spiritual harvest (Rev 14:1–5). Three angels announce God’s impending judgment, in progressively stronger language. The third angel cries out with a loud voice:

If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night. (Rev 14:9–11)

WHO ARE THESE JUDGED?

But who are these people, and what is the meaning of their punishment? The recipients of this judgment described in 14:9–11 are those who worshipped the beast and who received its mark. They are the same people who constitute “Babylon” and who are symbolized by the great prostitute, for that woman and that city are interchangeable (17:5, 18). Whether identified with beast or with Babylon, the great prostitute provided wine of immoral passions (14:8; 18:3). The satanic power of the beast (13:1–9) and the punishment of those who follow it (14:9–11) both call for the patient endurance and faith of God’s people (13:10; 14:12).[14] Further, the judgment against those who worshipped the beast and who received its mark in chapter 14 is essentially synonymous with the judgment visited on the great prostitute and on “Babylon” in chapters 17–19, underscoring their common identity.

A CLUSTER OF JUDGMENT IMAGES

What is the meaning of the judgment as portrayed in John’s symbolic vision (14:9–11)? What do the symbols of judgment represent? We must know first that this is not an isolated picture, but “[l]ike all of Revelation, the passage is carefully composed.”[15]

Bauckham explains:

Reference to the worship of the beast both opens and closes the angel’s message, making it unequivocal that it is the fate of these sinners . . . who have thrown in their lot with the pretended divinity of the power that tries to rival God . . . Of course, it is appropriate that those who worship the beast . . . should share the beast’s judgment . . . Whereas the redeemed inherit the destiny designed for them, the damned share a fate . . . not their own true destiny but the result of culpably missing their true destiny.”[16]

The third angel’s announcement in Rev 14:9–11 includes four elements of punishment which, as portrayed in symbolic vision, are: drinking the wine of God’s fury poured out full strength into the cup of his wrath (Rev 14:10; 18:6); being tormented (Rev 14:10; 18:10, 15) with burning sulfur (Rev 14:10 and fire in Rev 17:16; 18:18) in the sight of the angels and of the Lamb (see martyrs’ reward in Rev 14:1; 19:19); the smoke of their torment rising forever and ever (14:11; 18:9, 18; 19:3); and having no rest day or night (contrast Rev 14:11 and 14:13).

When John sees a cluster of images together, Beale elsewhere explains,

some comparative figures of speech are intended as visual pictures needing interpretation while others are meant only to be perceived on a more abstract mental level. The latter usually occurs where a number of seemingly different visual pictures are combined. The collection of images makes visualization almost impossible or extremely awkward. The pictures are not to be mechanically harmonized into one big visual picture, but the interpretative ideas of each image are to be considered and related to one another. The purpose of the combination is to “overwhelm the imagination” and to express ideas that together transcend pictorial visualization.[17]

Let us turn to the earlier Scriptures as we “consider” these four elements and “relate” them to one another, remembering that we are not viewing a wrathful deity out of control. This is the sovereign God of the universe, whose character defines both justice and mercy and who will not be mocked. Professor Bauckham continues: “The exquisitely careful formulation of this passage . . . tying it into the contrast between true and false worship that runs through the whole book and is at the heart of its message, shows that this picture of the punishment of the worshippers of the beast is no impulsive outburst of hatred and anger on John’s part. On the contrary, it is very considered.”[18]

Again we need to recall that we are not viewing a newsreel from the archives of the History Channel, but a highly-symbolic vision that communicates its meaning through apocalyptic code-words and ciphers drawn primarily from the Old Testament, within the context of Second Temple Judaism.

That means, Bauckham continues, that “once we have seen how the imagery works to convey parallels and contrasts, there is no more need to read this imagery literally than there is to read literally the rest of the imagery of this exuberantly imaginative book. What is depicted is emphatically the outworking of God’s perfect justice, not only in this world but also in eternity.”[19] But while the details are not literal, they are highly significant, so we now inquire into the content of that significance.

Wine of God’s Wrath

The cup of God’s wrath is well-established in the Old Testament as a symbol of divine judgment.[20] God concocts this cup and he adjusts its potency as he pleases, whether diluting it (as with water) or strengthening it (as with spices or perhaps even poison). The cup’s strength reflects the measure of God’s wrath and the intensity of the punishment.

Sometimes the judgment is a stroke that sends its recipient reeling, but then God removes the cup and the recipient recovers (Isa 51:22—52:2). At other times, the judgment ends in total and irreversible extinction: “They will drink and drink and be as if they had never been” (Obad 16). They “drink, get drunk and vomit, and fall to rise no more” (Jer 25:27). Beale agrees that the cup stands for divine judgment, which he acknowledges “sometimes ends in physical death and destruction.”[21]

In Gethsemane, Jesus accepted the cup—the judgment he would absorb as representative of his people—but he prayed that God would then remove the cup and restore him again to life (Matt 26:39, 42, 44). Jesus drank the cup of wrath and died. His death was no pretense. God then took the cup back from Jesus’ hand and restored him to life. Because Jesus drank the cup of wrath, it will never be handed to those whom Jesus represented. Instead, Jesus gives them a cup of blessing that says he has taken their place (Matt 26:27–29).

Later in Revelation, God gives the cup to “Babylon,” imperial Rome and all the evil she personifies (Rev 16:19; 18:6). This judgment is said to occur within a single day (Rev 18:8), within a single hour (Rev 18:10, 17, 19). For Babylon, the cup of judgment means “torture and grief,” but it ends in death (or plague), mourning, famine, and consumption by fire (Rev 18:7–9). The people who constitute “Babylon” in the visions of Revelation 17–19 are the same people who give allegiance to the beast and wear its mark of ownership and protection in Revelation 14. The symbol of God’s cup of wrath signifies a judgment that is finally fatal.

Burning Sulfur

Some modern versions have “burning sulfur” in place of the familiar “fire and brimstone.” The symbol of fire and burning sulfur (brimstone) derives its biblical meaning from the annihilation of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19:24, 28), and it signifies a destruction resulting in unmitigated devastation. It signifies a “burning waste of salt and sulfur—nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it” (Deut 29:23). Throughout all of Scripture, the imagery of fire and brimstone signifies a complete destruction that leaves total desolation in its wake. [22]

The beast-worshippers in Rev 14:9–11 suffer in the presence of the angels and the Lamb. This is part of the symmetry of Revelation, in which the redeemed worship in God’s presence (Rev 7:15–17; 22:3–4).

Rising Smoke

The symbols of judgment often overlap. Just as the story of Sodom’s annihilation contributed the imagery of burning sulfur, so it also contributed the imagery of rising smoke. When Abraham went out the next morning to look on the scene, all he saw was “dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace” (Gen 19:28).

The smoke rising from Sodom did not indicate human suffering or people in pain. Like today’s symbol of a mushroom-shaped cloud, the rising smoke gave silent testimony to a destruction accomplished. Where Sodom and Gomorrah once existed, all was now silent. A day before, the cities had bustled with people. As Abraham views the smoke, the people are gone, dead, destroyed. If anyone was tempted to doubt it, the rising smoke gave proof.

Richard Bauckham, a specialist in apocalyptic literature, concurs:

It was believed that the fate of these Cities of the Plain continued to be in evidence in the form of the smoking wasteland to the south of the Dead Sea . . . For this reason language indicating that the judgment continues forever could be used: “its smoke shall go up forever” (Isa 34:10); the cities “are exhibited as an example by undergoing the punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 7) . . . But we should note that in this whole tradition rooted in Genesis and the prophets the idea that the punishment is long-lasting or eternal refers to its finality. The still smoking site signifies that the cities will never be rebuilt. Their destruction lasts forever.[23]

Bauckham refers to Isaiah’s description of Edom’s destruction. Edom’s dusty land will become “burning sulfur” and “blazing pitch” (Isa 34:9). The fire “will not be quenched night and day” and “its smoke will rise forever” (Isa 34:10). The unquenchable fire tells us that Edom’s fire will not be put out until it has destroyed completely (Isa 34:11). It consumes by night and by day until it has finished its work. Then the actual burning stops, but the smoke continues forever.

That the smoke lingers forever in the air means that the judgment’s message will never become out of date. “This is clearly the significance,” writes Bauckham, “when Revelation borrows this imagery to describe the fate of Babylon: ‘The smoke goes up from her forever and ever’ (19:3).”[24] Beale similarly says that Edom’s rising smoke gave testimony to its irreversible destruction. “Isaiah pictures the historical annihilation of Edom because of its sin. Once destroyed by God’s judgment, Edom would never rise again. Likewise, the judgment of unbelievers at the end of time will be as absolute and complete.”[25]

Although rising smoke tells us that the destruction is completed, the destructive process encompassed such conscious suffering as God saw fit to require. That was true of the temporal judgment against Sodom and Gomorrah. It was later true of God’s judgment against Rome. It will be true of the final judgment of the wicked in hell.

Later in Revelation, these symbols are combined again to describe the fall of Babylon. The wicked city—an amalgam of Old Testament cities Nineveh, Babylon, and Tyre—is given the cup, the symbol of divine judgment (Rev 18:6). In one day, in one hour, God sends death, mourning, and famine, and then consumes the city with fire (Rev 18:8, 10). Kings and merchants, Babylon’s former partners and suppliers in decadence and corruption, observe “the smoke of her burning” and lament their own future losses (Rev 18:9, 18). And when the destruction is fully accomplished, a heavenly multitude celebrates that “her smoke rises up forever and ever”—the regular biblical symbol of a completed destruction that will never be reversed (Rev 19:1–3).

No Rest Day or Night

John also says of the beast-worshippers that “there is no rest day or night.” This sentence might mean three different things in the Greek that John wrote, to be determined by the case-form of the words “day” and “night.” John could be speaking either of a kind [26] of time, a point [27] of time, or a duration [28] of time.

John here writes that these wicked people have no rest “day or night” in the genitive case, speaking of kind of time. They are not guaranteed rest during the day; there is no certain hope that relief will come at night. This does not say within itself that the suffering lasts all day and all night, although that may be true, but that in neither case are they immune to it. This stands in sharp contrast, for example, with the story two or three centuries later in the Gnostic Apocalypse of Paul, in when Paul the apostle and the archangel Michael persuade Jesus to stop the torments of those in hell for a day and a night.[29]

Blanchard dismisses this explanation of the Greek genitival construction as a “curious conclusion” and “surprisingly like special pleading.”[30] He is to be excused, however, because his gifting is as an evangelist and not as a Greek scholar. However, Beale is a Greek scholar and he concurs with our explanation of this symbol, saying “There will be no rest as long as the duration of the suffering continues.”[31] (Alas! Beale insists that the suffering continues forever, which is not our view.) John uses the same genitival “day and night” to describe the living creatures praising (Rev 4:8), the martyrs serving (Rev 7:15), Satan accusing (Rev 12:10), and the unholy trinity being tormented (Rev 20:10). In each case the thought is the same: the action described is not by nature a daytime action, nor is it a nighttime action. It happens either and both.

The same form of “night and day” is used in Isa 34:10, a context noted already for its description of burning sulfur and rising smoke. There Edom’s fire is not quenched “night and day,” with the same sentence concluding, “its smoke will rise forever.” Edom’s fire would not be limited to a day shift or a night shift; it burned in the daytime and in the nighttime. But when it had consumed all that was there, it went out; and then its smoke ascended as a memorial to God’s thorough destruction.

Homer Hailey notes Jesus’ parallel of “eternal punishment” and “eternal life” (Matt 25:46), and John’s parallel between service “day and night” (Rev 7:15) and no rest “day and night” (Rev 14:11). He then reasons: “The period of this torment, ‘for ever and ever,’ is the same in duration as God, for he lives ‘for ever and ever’ (Rev 4:9). If there shall be total annihilation of the devil and the wicked it is not revealed.”[32] Few teachers have equaled Homer Hailey in verse-by-verse explanation and application of the biblical text, but his expertise did not include the niceties of the Greek genitival construction.

SUMMARY

Revelation 14:9–11 combines four apocalyptic symbols (cup of wrath, fire and brimstone, rising smoke, and uninterrupted restlessness) to portray God’s judgment against the beast-worshippers, the smoke of whose torment rises forever and ever.

Not all commentators understand this passage as even referring to the final end of the wicked.[33] If it does, its symbols must be interpreted in the light of their prior biblical usage, unless it can be shown that John (or Jesus) changes those meanings in some way.

INTERACTION

Gregory Beale concludes his discussion of this passage of Scripture with the following excellent summary of my explanation of its terms:[34]

But there is theological debate about the nature of the final judgment. Does the portrayal mean that unbelievers are to be annihilated, so that their existence will be abolished forever? Or does this text refer to a destruction involving not absolute annihilation but the suffering of unbelievers for eternity? The OT context of Isa 34 could support the former view, since there the historical annihilation of Edom is portrayed. The image of continually ascending smoke in Isaiah 34 serves as a memorial of God’s annihilating punishment for sin, the message of which never goes out of date . . . Likewise, . . . in Jude 7 Sodom is set forth as an example of [others] undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. Accordingly, the lack of rest “night and day” also has its background in Isa 34:9, where, like the smoke, it refers to the enduring effects of the extinction of Edom. In particular, “day and night” . . . in 14:11 can be taken as a qualitative genitive construction indicating not duration of time . . . but kind of time, that is, time of ceaseless activity . . . The lack of rest will continue uninterrupted as long as the period of suffering lasts, though there will be an end to the period. Therefore, the imagery of Rev 14:10–11 could indicate a great judgment that will be remembered forever, not one that leads to eternal suffering.[35]

Beale then explains “two considerations” that cause him to hold to eternal conscious punishment rather than extinction. First, he sees Rev 14:9–11 as parallel with Rev 20:10, which pictures the devil, beast, and false prophet in the lake of fire and brimstone, tormented day and night forever and ever. Putting these two texts together, Beale concludes that the ungodly (beast-worshippers in 14:9–11) share the same fate as their satanic representatives, meaning, he concludes, that they also are tormented unceasingly without end. Second, Beale says the Greek word basanismos, translated “torment” in 14:10–11 never means extinction in biblical literature, and that in Revelation it always refers to conscious suffering.[36] Finally, Beale identifies parallels between this passage (Rev 14:9–11) and 4 Maccabees, in terms of life contexts (faithful martyrs persecuted by an ungodly ruler) and also Greek vocabulary (“fire,” “eternal,” and “torment”), and he considers it a “strange omission” that I did not make the same connections.

Let us consider the parallels with 4 Maccabees first. The similarities are interesting but that is all, absent any evidence of Johannine dependence on this non-canonical work. Even Beale says only that “it is possible that John partially alludes to it” (emphasis added). He also says that I make no evaluation of the 4 Maccabees material, a human oversight on his part since the material appeared in a subsection of my chapter clearly identified as pseudepigraphal excerpts that expect the wicked to suffer conscious pain forever.[37]

In response to Brother Beale’s commendable candor, I understand how one can view 14:9–11 and 20:10 as parallels and draw the conclusion that Beale draws. His argument regarding the “torment” family of words is also cogent and, considered apart from the overall teaching of Scripture on the subject, could be persuasive. However, the symbols of judgment named in 14:9–11, as used and defined elsewhere in the Bible, and the parallels between this judgment and the judgment described in chapters 17–19, all seem to me to point to a fatal judgment and not to unending conscious torment, whether that judgment be the temporal destruction of imperial Rome within history, or the final annihilation of the wicked in the age to come.

Final Images of Final Judgment

As we approach the close of the book of Revelation, a prophecy written to be read aloud to the churches, we encounter two major final images of final judgment that are explained to represent a single reality: “the lake of fire,” which is “the second death.”

The Lake of Fire

Here we come to the last picture-symbol for final punishment in the Bible. This place of judgment is called the fiery lake of burning sulfur, the lake of fire and brimstone—a name that takes us back to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Bible’s first book. The exact expression does not appear anywhere else in the Bible. Daniel’s dream of four beasts provides the Old Testament’s closest visual parallel (Dan 7:1–12).[38] There the Ancient of Days takes his seat on a throne that flames with fire (Dan 7:9). A river of fire flows from before him (Dan 7:10). The terrible fourth beast is “slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire.” This is in specific contrast to the other beasts, which are stripped of authority but allowed to exist for a period of time (Dan 7:11–12).

Unless this vision of world powers under the imagery of beasts sheds light on the lake of fire in Revelation, no light is to be had from the Old Testament. To the extent the lake of fire in Revelation does stem from Daniel 7, that background suggests a fiery destruction that is expressly contrasted with ongoing but diminished existence. Conditionalists and traditionalists agree that the lake of fire stands for the same ultimate destiny called Gehenna in the Gospels.

The pseudepigraphical book of 1 Enoch (Ethiopic) paints a similar picture of the place where fallen angels are punished (1 En. 18:11–16; 21:7–10) as well as wicked shepherds and apostates (1 En. 90:24–27), but with ambiguous results. One passage has them imprisoned forever (1 En. 21:10), while another strongly suggests that they are totally burned up (1 En. 90:27).

BEAST AND FALSE PROPHET (REV 19:20)

First to be tossed into the lake of fire in John’s symbolic visions are the beast and the false prophet. This is like Daniel’s vision in which the fourth beast is “thrown into the blazing fire” that flows like a river from God’s presence (Dan 7:10–11). Unlike Daniel’s vision (and Isa 66:24), in John’s vision, the beast is thrown—still alive—into the fire.

SATAN JOINS THE BEAST AND FALSE PROPHET (REV 20:10)

In Rev 20:7–10, John views Evil’s last great assault against Good, issuing in Evil’s final downfall and everlasting destruction. The picture is built on the imagery of Ezek 38 and 39, including the code names “Gog” and “Magog.” Satan’s hordes surround the camp of God’s people, but as in the days of Elijah (2 Kings 1), fire comes down from heaven and devours them.

Hanns Lilje, who finished his commentary while imprisoned under Hitler’s Gestapo, marvels that John gives no description here of any battle. “The very moment when this purpose of God is fulfilled,” he writes, “the mighty power of the beast shrivels up like a collapsed balloon, as if it had never been. It has been unmasked, and its true character revealed: it was empty, futile presumption.”[39] Lilje writes, “Fire from heaven falls upon these hosts, and annihilates Satan and his armies. God’s will has triumphed gloriously; the ‘lake of fire’ means no more than this.”[40]

Satan himself is reserved for more singular punishment. He is “thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown.” Together, the vision has these three—beast, false prophet, and the devil—“tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

This is clearly symbolic language. In the larger story-line of Revelation, the beast and false prophet represent persecuting civil government and its cohort, corrupt false religion. Neither institution can suffer conscious, sensible pain.

But suppose that Beale is correct that the unholy trio is so closely identified with the human followers that those followers also share the trio’s fate.[41] It is possible that even the picture of unending torment can symbolize everlasting extinction, if Strack and Billerbeck correctly interpret the pseudepigraphal literature.[42]

DEATH AND HADES (REV 20:14)

Earth and sky flee away as the dead assemble to be judged before the great white throne (Rev 20:11–13). “Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire” (v. 14). More than seven centuries earlier, Isaiah had looked to a time when God would “destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations,” when “he will swallow up death forever” (Isa 25:7–8). Paul had written, ‘The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15:26), and he had pictured the resurrection unto life when death would be “swallowed up” in victory (1 Cor 15:54). This is the consummation of God’s victory. Lilje exults: “Annihilation is itself annihilated. All that remains is the majesty of life, which is God himself. He will be all in all (1 Cor 15:23, 28).”[43]

Unlike the case of the beast and false prophet,[44] it is uncontroverted that Death and Hades are abstractions and not persons, and that the lake of fire here represents annihilation. In this passage, it can mean nothing else. Death will be no more—forever. Bauckham comments: “The second death is the death that ‘Death and Hades’ (the personified powers of death; cf. 6:8) themselves will die in the end.[45] Having surrendered all their dead, the dead they have held in safekeeping until the judgment (20:13), they have no further function in God’s purpose. It is in this ‘death of death’ that the wicked also die finally (20:15). They belong in the old order of things with its mortality rather than in the new order of eternal life.”[46] “It is clear,” Bauckham continues, that “these powers of death will be finally eliminated from God’s world (cf. 21:4).”[47] In fact, with that in mind he asks, “Is more than this meant when the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet—Revelation’s satanic trinity—are said to be ‘tormented day and night forever and ever’ in the lake of fire (20:10; cf. 19:20)?”[48]

UNREDEEMED SINNERS (REV 20:15; 21:8)

Only now do we find sinners included in this dreadful fate. “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Rev 20:15). In the following chapter, Jesus identifies the sinful character and conduct that brought about that end (Rev 21:8). The book of life is a registry of all the living. The destiny of those named in it—eternal life—is opposite to the fate of those not named in it, which is to be tossed into the lake of fire. What precisely is opposite eternal life ? The next sentence completes the thought.

The Second Death

John makes the identification absolutely clear. “The lake of fire is the second death” (Rev 20:14). In other such couplings throughout Revelation, the second term explains the first term. What are the bowls of incense in Rev 5:8? They are prayers of the saints. What is the fine linen of Rev 19:8? It is the righteous acts of the saints. What is the reigning a thousand years with Christ in Rev 20:5? It is the first resurrection. And what is the lake of fire? It is the second death (Rev. 20:14).

THE RHETORICAL DEVICE

On this pattern, “lake of fire” is the expression to be defined; “second death” is its clearer meaning. By this rhetorical device, commonly used in biblical literature,[49] John points to a meaning consistent with the teaching of the rest of Scripture.[50] Death itself will die. Then death itself will have passed away (Rev 21:4).

Traditionalist authors always read the equation the other direction, as if it said “the second death” (indefinite) is “the lake of fire” (clear). In fact, however, John says that “the lake of fire” (his symbol) is “the second death” (a clearer reality). Because John’s statement is so easily understood by ordinary people, writers who hold to everlasting conscious torment stretch their imaginations for ways to deny what it seems obviously to say.

The second death “does not mean that the soul or personality lapses into non-being,” writes one traditionalist, “but rather that it is ultimately and finally deprived of that presence of God, and fellowship with him which is the chief end of man and the essential condition of worthwhile existence.”[51] Another says “the second death” means “existence without the resurrection of life and the crown of life, the existence that is eternal loss and dying,” and he quotes Philo the Jew, who speaks of a “kind of death remaining deathless and dying.”[52]

This kind of language is everywhere in patristic literature from about the fourth century onward, but it is nowhere found in Scripture. Rather than the wicked experiencing a “deathless death,” John tells us that death itself will die and be no more.

CHRISTIAN AND JEWISH BACKGROUNDS

An extensive study of the phrase “second death” in Jewish and in Christian literature, published in the Netherlands by Alberdina Houtman and Magda Misset-van de Weg, concludes that although the exact term “second death” occurs only in Revelation in the Bible, “the authors of the Gospels may have been familiar with the concept as such and it is even quite possible that John used or was inspired by . . . Matt 10:28 and Luke 12:4–5 where the . . . concept might be presupposed.”[53] Taken at face value, both Gospel texts warn that unqualified extinction is within the purview of God’s power. In Revelation, say Houtman and van de Weg, the term “second death” also threatens “death and annihilation for the weak and unbeliever.”[54] In non-Christian Jewish literature, Houtman and van de Weg found the expression “second death” in six official Targums (Aramaic paraphrases/commentaries used in synagogue),[55] where it sometimes refers to “a refusal of resurrection, which means annihilation,”[56] and sometimes to resurrection “followed by the decision about who will live for eternal life and who will die an eternal death.”[57]

MEANING IN CONTEXT OF PERSECUTION

This “second death,” writes Bruce M. Metzger, “is absolute unmitigated death.” It is “final and complete separation from God, the source of life (see Matt 10:28; Luke 12:4–5).”[58] Bauckham points out the “special appropriateness” of the image of the second death for Revelation’s first readers, who were tempted to abandon faith in Jesus Christ for fear of the first death. “That [first] death, ordinary death in this world, they must be prepared to suffer at the hands of the beast for their loyalty to God and in imitation of Jesus Christ . . . What is to be feared is not this first death, but the second, the death that all those not raised to eternal life must die (cf. 20:6, 14–15).”[59]

Jesus sheds light on the ultimate fate of the unfaithful, a reality now still future and mysterious, by purposefully contrasting it with the first death, something known and familiar. He chooses death for a reason, and we must not explain it away. Bauckham continues: “The first death is the opposite only of mortal life . . . But the second death is the opposite of eternal life. It is what must happen when God leaves the finally unrepentant to the evil they have chosen. Without the life which only God can give they perish eternally.”[60]

Henri J. M. Nouwen sums up the obvious meaning of this clear symbol in a devotional titled “A Second Death?” The significance of this phrase in Revelation, says Nouwen, is to make plain that

Hell is a second death. This is what the Book of Revelation says (see Rev 21:8). Just as there is an eternal life, there is an eternal death. Eternal life is a second life; eternal death is a second death. Our first death can be a passage not only to eternal life but also to eternal death.

Looking at hell as a second death takes away the images of eternal suffering and torture that are so prevalent in medieval art and literature. It defines hell more as the refusal to choose life than as a punishment for wrongdoing. In fact, the sins that the book of Revelation mentions as leading to eternal death are choices for death: murdering, worshipping obscenities, sexual immorality, lying, and so on (see Rev 21:8). When we sow death we will reap death. But when we sow life we will reap life. It is we who do the sowing![61]

END OF “THE POWER OF NOTHINGNESS”

The penultimate chapter of Revelation opens with a new heaven and a new earth, but there is no more sea. This brief statement—“the sea was no more”—is packed with meaning, and it powerfully illustrates the power of symbol which this last book of the Bible borrows from Genesis, the Bible’s first book.

The “sea” from which the beast emerges in John’s vision, takes its meaning from the waters of the Genesis Flood. In the case of the Flood, Bauckham writes, the waters

symbolize the power of nothingness to undo creation, a destructive potential which remains to threaten the created universe with reversion to chaos . . . These waters of chaos are the sea, from which the beast . . . arises (Rev 13:1; cf. Dan 7:23) . . . Following the destruction of the devil, death, and Hades (20:10, 14) . . . “the sea was no more” . . . The waters of the primeval abyss, that represent the source of destructive evil, the possibility of the reversion of creation to chaos, are finally no more.[62]

The second death marks the end of all that stands opposed to life. It finalizes and certifies the unassailability of everything and everyone redeemed by God. Perhaps Alford says it best: “As there is a second and higher life, so there is also a second and deeper death. And as after that life there is no more death (ch. xi. 4), so after that death there is no more life.”[63]

The Hermeneutical Choice

Literalists approach Revelation with the premise that everything should be interpreted literally except where that is impossible. Beale advises exactly the opposite. “Where there is lack of clarity about whether something is symbolic,” he urges, “the scale of judgment should be tilted in the direction of a non-literal analysis.”[64] Richard Bauckham says that the symbols in Revelation are not to be read literally, but “for their theological meaning and their power to evoke response.”[65]

Perhaps this brings us to the crux of the debate over the nature of final punishment, which finally involves a hermeneutical dilemma. Do scores (if not hundreds) of straightforward declarative statements throughout the whole Bible finally have to be filtered through two highly-symbolic passages in Revelation, or should we read those two symbolic texts in the Apocalypse in light of pages of straightforward declarations, promises and warnings from Genesis through Jude?

Throughout this study, we have watched as traditionalist authors repeatedly read straightforward, non-symbolic texts, commenting that such texts, if taken alone, certainly teach extinction, but that Rev 14:9–11 and Rev 20:10 do not allow that result.[66] I cannot blame traditionalist advocates for wanting to do that, since these two Revelation texts contain the strongest biblical statements that seemingly favor unending conscious torment.

The fact remains, however, that symbolic language should always be interpreted in light of plain language, and not the other way around. “It has been a common hermeneutical principle,” Thomas Johnson rightly observes, “to let didactic passages establish teachings and then find them illustrated or fleshed out in symbolic passages.”[67]

With that in mind, and considering the overwhelming weight of Scripture teaching in favor of everlasting extinction, I am compelled to go with the preponderance of the evidence and say that not only wicked humans, but also wicked angels and (most probably) even the devil himself, will finally be wiped out and be no more. “To allow this one set of passages from an apocalypse to dictate the teaching of the rest of Scripture is unwise and improper when seeking to form a sound and faithful biblical eschatology.”[68]

The last book of the Bible begins and ends with the victory of the victorious Jesus Christ, assuring his persecuted people in every generation that evil will not have the last word. In the end, there will be new heavens and a new earth—but no more sin and only redeemed sinners. John communicates this message through symbols. Those symbols, rightly interpreted, will be consistent with the intended message.

1. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, 12. John Wenham reminds us: ‘Twentieth-century man does not and cannot come to the Bible with an empty mind. The very word ‘hell’ comes to us laden with literary and artistic associations of many centuries. Platonic philosophy clearly had a great influence on Christian thought and Greek mythology on Christian art” (Wenham, The Goodness of God, 27–28).

2. Beale, “The Revelation on Hell,” 112.

3. Metzger, Breaking the Code, 11.

4. Beale notes that the clauses in Rev 1—“revelation . . . God showed . . . what must come to pass . . . and he made known ( sēmainō )—occur together only here and in Dan 2:28–30, 45, where the verb clearly refers to ‘symbolic communication’” (Beale, The Book of Revelation, 50–51).

The implications are methodological but more importantly, Beale explains, they are moral. John uses symbols for the same reason the Old Testament prophets had used symbolic actions, parables and words, and that Jesus had used parables—to communicate a message of impending judgment in a manner that would “sedate” the unbelieving and “shock” the believing remnant (Isa 6:9–10; Ezek 12:2; Jer 5:21; Matt 13:10–17). This is confirmed by the warning stated seven times in Rev 2–3 to “hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches,” and it is a divine warning to us every time we encounter God’s word (Beale, “The Purpose of Symbolism,” 53–66).

5. John Walvoord’s “Response to Clark H. Pinnock,” in Four Views of Hell, names, as the second of six charges against conditional immortality (“C.I.”) that substitute for exegesis, that C.I. does not interpret Scripture literally (Walvoord, Four Views of Hell, 168). One of Walvoord’s six charges (“The Fact that Unbelievers Challenge the Doctrine of Eternal Punishment Does not Change the Situation”) is true, but it is prejudicial as guilt by association (169). Another charge (“C. I. Challenges the Doctrine of Scriptural Inerrancy”) is denounced by leading traditionalists as patently false (167). Dr. Walvoord’s other three charges assume as truth what he is obliged to prove (C. I. “Interprets Passages . . . Inaccurately and Ignores Passages” 168; C.I. “Ignores Scriptural Evidence of . . . Continued Sufferings . . . in the Lake of Fire” 169; and C.I. “. . . Ignores the Word ‘Eternal’” 170).

6. Beale, The Book of Revelation, 52. This massive volume in NIGTC series is more than 1200 pages in length.

7. Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, 19–20.

8. Buis, The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, 131.

9. Beasley-Murray, “The Contribution of the Book of Revelation,” 78.

10. Ibid., 92.

11. Mounce gives this explanation, noting that the expression “to ‘kill with death’ is a Hebraism that means ‘to slay utterly’ . . . or (preferably) ‘to kill by pestilence.’”At the same time, he believes that such a judgment would have been viewed by those visited as also the second or final coming of Jesus (Mounce, The Book of Revelation, 99, 105).

12. Bauckham, “Judgment in the Book of Revelation,” 2.

13. The most detailed New Testament passage concerning pain and anguish accompanying final destruction is probably Rom 2:8–9, closely followed by 2 Thess 1:7–10. Both passages end with destruction, as does the “painful” text found in Heb 10:26–31.

14. Perhaps the crux of the book of Revelation comes in 13:10 when the church proclaims without fear: “‘If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity they will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword they will be killed.’ This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people.” The judgment passage, Rev 14:9–11, describes those who do not endure, those who choose not to repent and instead choose destruction. This kind of permanent destruction is not the same as simply dying by the sword, even because of one’s enduring faith in Jesus. Immediately following such grim images, the church restates the central teaching in 14:12: “This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus.”

15. Bauckham, “Judgment in the Book of Revelation,” 20.

16. Ibid.

17. Beale, The Book of Revelation, 57.

18. Ibid., 21.

19. Bauckham, “Judgment in the Book of Revelation,” 21.

20. This figure is used in poetry books (Job 21:20; Ps 60:3; 75:8) and in prophetic books (Isa 51:17, 22: Jer 25:15–38; Obad 16). The imagery sometimes highlights God, who mixes the drink (Ps 75:8; Jer 25:15–38), and sometimes it highlights the staggering effect the potion has on those who quaff (Ps 60:3; Isa 51:17, 22).

21. Beale, The Book of Revelation, 759.

22. See the imagery of fire and brimstone also in Job 18:15; Ps 11:6; Isa 30:27–33; 34:9; and Ezek 38:22. This is contrary to Beale, who sees “suffering” as this symbol’s meaning. However, Sodom’s destruction was notable for its rapidity, among other details, and neither Genesis nor any later biblical text makes a point of actual suffering involved.

23. Bauckham, “Judgment in the Book of Revelation,” 19.

24. Ibid.

25. Beale, The Book of Revelation, 761.

26. “The genitive implies nothing as to duration.” Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament, 495; Dana and Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, 77. The expression “day and night” (or “night and day”) appears with this genitival construction outside Revelation in Mark 5:5; Luke 18:7; Acts 9:24; 1 Thess 2:9; 3:10; 2 Thess 3:8; 1 Tim 5:5; 2 Tim 1:3; in the Septuagint in Pss 1:2; 32:4 (31:4, LXX); 42:3 (41:4, LXX); 55:10 (54:11, LXX); Isa 34:10; 60:11; Jer 9:1 (8:23, LXX); 14:17; Lam 2:18. There appears to be no significance in the word order since John has “day and night” while Isa 34:10, which he seems to build on, has “night and day.”

27. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament, 522–23; Dana and Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, 87. I could not find a biblical example of “day and night” in this dative case form. Evidently the locative point-of-time does not consistently call for such a usage.

28. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament, 469–71; Dana and Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, 93. The “day and night” expression appears with the accusative sense of duration-of-time in Mark 4:27; Luke 2:37; Acts 20:31; 26:7; Isa 62:6. The first and last passages both seem literal; the rest appear to be hyperbole based on the literal meaning.

29. Hennecke, “Apocalypse of Paul,” 2:788–89. The story is said to be based on the Apocalypse of Zephaniah, and, before that, from 2 En. 17–36. Frankfurter, The Jewish Apocalyptic Heritage, 191, chapter 44. Online: http://www.interfaith.org/christianity/apocrypha/new-testament-apocrypha/4/5.php.

30. Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 245.

31. Beale, “The Revelation on Hell,” 118. Beale explains the qualitative genitive construction that yields this interpretation in The Book of Revelation, 762.

32. Hailey, Revelation, 398–99. However, Brother Hailey (as his students called him) changed his mind on this subject before he died. Hailey’s Commentary on Revelation was published in 1979 when he was 76 years old. He retired from college teaching but continued studying, writing, and preaching for many more years. He died in 2000, still active at age ninety-seven.

Shortly before his death, Hailey undertook a thorough restudy of Bible teaching concerning the final destiny of the lost. Decades earlier, I had given him a copy of the first edition of The Fire That Consumes, but he never read it. Days before his death, Hailey told me why he had not. “I decided some time ago not to read what others said on the subject,” he wrote in a personal letter, “but to make an examination of God’s word so I could base my conclusions on what God said and did not say.”

He made his personal examination, and he concluded that the Bible does not teach that God will forever keep the wicked alive to suffer unending conscious torment. The “second death” means what it says. He stated his findings in the last book manuscript he ever wrote, fully intending to publish it before he died. He told me the following in a lengthy telephone conversation.

When his manuscript became widely known, some friends persuaded him not to publish it, telling him that no respected scholar believed as he did, and that publishing this book would destroy his life-long reputation. Under such “pressure” (Hailey’s word to me), Hailey reluctantly gave his word not to publish his manuscript, although he and his friends all knew that such a promise was inconsistent with his entire lifetime of scholarly integrity and independent thought. Hailey told me that he immediately regretted having made such a promise, but he then felt bound to honor it.

Upon Hailey’s death, his longtime secretary inherited the rights to his publications. Since she had made no promises herself, and having long been indignant about the circumstances surrounding Hailey’s promise, she arranged for publication of his study of hell as part of a larger work entitled God’s Judgements & Punishments published in 2003.

33. Homer Hailey says the picture is “in harmony with Jesus’ teaching” concerning final punishment, but he does not believe Revelation describes the End until later. Hailey regards this as a judgment against imperial Rome with its emperor cult (Hailey, Revelation, 310).

Beale is uncertain whether the picture involves the final generation of beast-worshipers or all those throughout history who have given support to the ungodly world system in its diverse forms (Beale, The Book of Revelation, 761). The dispensational interpretation given by The New Scofield Reference Bible sees this as a picture of suffering encountered by the wicked during the great tribulation.

34. Beale identifies The Fire That Consumes as the source of these arguments he summarizes (Beale, The Book of Revelation, 762n449).

35. Beale, The Book of Revelation, 761–62.

36. Ibid., 762.

37. Beale, “The Revelation on Hell,” 117. My brief discussion of 4 Maccabees in the first edition of The Fire That Consumes is on page 153, and the heading referred to above is on page 152.

38. Beale has shown, contrary to some scholarly opinion, that John in Revelation uses Old Testament quotations and imagery purposefully and with reference to the Old Testament contexts (Beale, John’s Use of the Old Testament in Revelation). He has explored the Book of Daniel in particular as the background for reading the last book of the Bible, pointing to the large number of Danielic allusions, the “three dominant themes” the two books share, and even a common vision-driven structure of the two books (Beale, “The Influence of Daniel.”) His otherwise-excellent article does not identify Daniel 7 as a likely source for the opening (vision of the Almighty) and the closing (the river/lake of fire in which evil and evil persons are finally annihilated) of the last book in the Bible.

39. Lilje, The Last Book of the Bible, 246.

40. Ibid., 254.

41. Beale, The Book of Revelation, 762.

42. Str–B, 2:1096.

43. Lilje, Last Book, 256.

44. Conceding that the human beings, who operate the impersonal institutions I believe they represent, might also be in view here.

45. Rev 20:14; 21:4; Isa 25:8; 1 Cor 15:54–55.

46. Bauckham, “Judgment in the Book of Revelation,” 18.

47. Ibid., 19.

48. Ibid.

49. Dan 7:17; Dan 8:20–21; Zech 5:3, 6–7. I am grateful to Ronnie Demler for pointing out this broader usage.

50. Guillebaud notes this structure in Righteous Judge, 14. Blanchard concludes that hades finally will exist no more because it is cast into the lake of fire (Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 40, 139). Dixon says the same about Death (Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News, 119).

51. Nicole, “The Punishment of the Wicked,” 13.

52. Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality, 428–29.

53. Houtman and van de Weg, “The Fate of the Wicked,” 410.

54. Ibid., 412–13. See Rev 2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:8.

55. These are in the official Targums Onqelos and Jonathan, on Deut 33:6; Isa 22:14; 65:6, 15; and Jer 51:39, 57.

56. Ibid., 418.

57. Ibid., 421.

58. Metzger, Breaking the Code, 96–97.

59. Bauckham, “Judgment in the Book of Revelation,” 18.

60. Ibid.

61. Nouwen, “A Second Death,” 17.

62. Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, 53.

63. Quoted by Mounce (The Book of Revelation, 367) and by Hailey (Revelation, 403). Mounce comments: “The grim simplicity of the narrative stands in contrast with the lurid descriptions found in Jewish apocalypticism.” This is no mere slipping into oblivion, as Bernard emphasizes: “Things do not melt quietly into the peace of the kingdom of God. There is a crash of ruin, and a winepress of the wrath of Almighty God, and a lake that burns with fire and brimstone. And this judgment falls, not only on principles and powers of evil, but on nations of men; and not only on nations, but on separate persons, even on ‘every one who is not found written in the book of life’” (Bernard, The Progress of Doctrine, 205).

64. Beale, The Book of Revelation, 52.

65. Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, 19–20.

66. Among the passages that traditionalist authors concede as seeming to teach conditionalism are Matt 3:10, 12; 7:19; 10:28; 13:30; 13:40–42; John 10:28; 15:6; 17:17; Rom 2:12; 9:22; Phil 2:28; 3:19; 1 Thess 5:3; Heb 10:27; 12:29; Jas 4:12; and 2 Pet 3:7, 9 (Peterson, Hell on Trial, 163).

67. Johnson, “A Wideness in God’s Mercy,” 96.

68. Ibid., 97.

24

Apostolic Fathers and Their Successors

WE HAVE NOW WORKED our way through the entire Bible with this question in hand: What does Scripture reveal about the final destiny of the wicked—those persons who throughout life willingly ignore or repel God’s person and grace, in whatever manner and form they encounter it along the way, and finally arrive, unrepentant, at the end of their earthly sojourn?

Throughout the Scriptures, our question has drawn forth a simple and straightforward answer: Those who reject God’s grace and companionship will die, perish, and be destroyed. The Bible pictures that now as darkness, then as fire. Sometimes the scene features exclusion, at other times agony, on yet another, destruction.

A few times Scripture pictures this demise occurring in a place symbolically called the Lake of Fire. More often it is portrayed under the representational place-name Gehenna, which most English Bibles translate as “hell.” But whatever it is called and however it is described, the reality, inevitability, and finality of this destiny awaiting the damned is encapsulated in a phrase found in both Old and New Testaments: “a consuming fire.” For the first century-and-a-half of the Christian era, this remained the view of the early church fathers whose writings remain.

Although not canonical, the writings of those fathers of the church are worth our reading, for these are men who were taught by the apostles, or by those whom the apostles had taught. Their writings offer a window into some of the thinking of some leaders of that early generation of believers. If we find among the apostolic fathers some unanimity of opinion, it is not to be taken for granted. For, as Brian Daley notes,

Eschatological emphases in the early church varied, apocalyptic hopes died and were revived, and individual or cosmic or ecclesiological or mystical perspectives succeeded one another, not so much in a direct line of development as in response to the social and ecclesial challenges met by Christian communities in each generation, and as an outgrowth of the personal theological interests and allegiances of individual writers.[1]

But there was another force stronger than all the diverse emphases, hopes, perspectives, interests, and allegiances, and that was “the witness of the first disciples of Jesus that ‘the Lord is truly risen, and has appeared’ (Lk 24.34), and . . . the conviction . . . that the Kingdom of God . . . had actually begun to be a world-transforming reality in the new, transformed life of Jesus.”[2] This was all “according to the Scriptures.” As the Scriptures pointed to Jesus for their fulfillment, so Jesus pointed to the Scriptures—read in light of that fulfillment—for understanding. When the apostolic fathers spoke about final punishment, they spoke largely in biblical language. As a result, they are claimed by traditionalists and conditionalists alike, just as both groups claim to represent the Bible’s own teaching.

The Apostolic Fathers

Constable[3] and Froom[4] claim that all the apostolic fathers support the views of conditional immortality: that immortality is God’s gift through the redemption of Jesus, only the saved will live forever, and the damned eventually will exist no more.

Traditionalist advocate S. D. F. Salmond objects strenuously, dismissing all conditionalist statements from the apostolic fathers as “either incidental statements which have to be balanced by others that are at once more definite and more continuous; or they are popular statements and simple repetitions of the terms of Scripture; or they mean that the soul is not absolutely self-subsistent, but depends for its existence and its survival on God; or they have in view only the sensitive soul as distinguished from the rational soul or responsible spirit.”[5]

Edward Beecher, no friend to the traditional doctrine, also believed that Constable overstated his case regarding the apostolic fathers. Beecher acknowledged that “some of these witnesses do undeniably testify as alleged,” but insisted that “a large number do not definitely testify to any view except the general one of future retribution, because the subject had never been up as a controverted question, and the end at which they were aiming did not call for it.”[6] J. Terence Forestell, a modern Roman Catholic scholar whose tradition is thoroughly on the side of unending conscious torment, also believes the apostolic fathers’ statements leave unanswered questions. He sees there “traces of a full understanding of NT revelation” (by which he means the traditionalist position) adding his opinion that “we can also detect the same lack of precision regarding the fate of the wicked which we discovered in Jewish and NT sources.”[7]

Salmond’s complaint, that the conditionalist statements of the fathers are but “simple repetitions of the terms of Scripture,” actually might prove advantageous to conditionalists if “simple repetitions of the terms of Scripture” more naturally support conditionalism than they do the traditionalist position. Conditionalists Constable and White had objected that precise expression of the traditionalist view requires language that Scripture never uses, and that traditionalism consistently denies what Scripture seems regularly to affirm, when taken at face value and giving words their ordinary meanings.

Conditionalists would counter Beecher’s objections by agreeing that “future retribution” is indeed the “general” and apostolic view, to which they also agree, but that the traditional doctrine goes far beyond any teaching found in Scripture. If Beecher says “the subject had never been up as a controverted question,” Constable would respond that he expected as much since everyone at that time held the conditionalist view.

And Forestell’s “lack of precision” would be interpreted by any conditionalist to mean only that the evidence did not support the view he expected to find and was therefore, from his point of view, “lacking” in precision. To any who do not defend the traditionalist view, the fact that Forestell only found “traces” in the apostolic fathers of what he considered the “full understanding” would probably be more significant than the evidence he did find, for if the traditional doctrine was ever held clearly and without confusion, it should have been in the writings of the apostolic fathers.

We also need to point out the absence in the apostolic fathers of any unequivocal affirmation of eternal torment. E. B. Pusey, who defended unending conscious torment against criticism from F. W. Farrar, claimed the apostolic fathers in support of the traditional doctrine. Yet a careful look at Pusey’s evidence shows few if any statements that could not be made by the staunchest conditionalist. Expressions such as “unquenchable fire,” “eternal fire,” “grievous torments,” “punishment,” or “falling into the fire and burning” all can be reconciled with total extinction so long as they permit some degree of conscious suffering in the process. Pusey even appeals to such expressions as “death,” “eternal death,” “condemned to death,” “utterly perish” and “die for ever”—statements that seem to prove the exact opposite of Pusey’s own viewpoint.[8]

Let us take a look for ourselves at the writings of the apostolic fathers.[9]

The Didache

This early Christian handbook from the late first or early second century begins by warning that there are “two ways”—the way of “life” and the way of “death.”[10] Near the end, it says, “the creation of men will enter into the fire of testing and many will fall away and perish.”[11] There is no mention of unending conscious torment. There is no pretense that “perish” means continued existence, though in a state of ruin. The author seems to use “perish” with its ordinary meaning of die.

Clement of Rome

The so-called First Epistle of Clement is regarded as an authentic work, written about 95–97 AD by a bishop of Rome to the church at Corinth. Clement urges his readers to obey God, forsaking evil attitudes “that lead to death.”[12]

The author of the so-called Second Epistle of Clement probably wrote about AD 150–60. He extols Jesus, who came to save us when we were perishing and rushing toward destruction.[13] He recalls that Jesus said he will tell some to “go away from me, I do not know you.”[14] He quotes Jesus’ warning to “fear him who, after killing you, has power to throw soul and body into the gehenna of fire.”[15] Clement warns that “nothing can deliver us from the eternal punishment if we disobey his commands.”[16] He quotes Isaiah’s statement concerning the wicked, that “their worm will not die and their fire will not be quenched”; but where most stop at that, he continues with the prophet that “they will be a spectacle to all flesh.”[17]

Finally, he comments on words he has quoted from Isaiah 66. “He speaks of that day of judgment, when . . . the righteous . . . will . . . see how those who . . . denied Jesus through their words or through their works are punished with terrible torture in unquenchable fire.”[18] Traditionalists interpret this to mean unending conscious torment. Conditionalists understand the author of 2 Clement to affirm horrible pains from a fire that cannot be extinguished.

Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch

Perhaps about AD 110, Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, was convicted as a Christian and was escorted by soldiers to Rome for execution. Along the way he encouraged other Christians who came out to comfort him. He also wrote letters to seven churches, of which four contain references to our subject.

Ignatius exhorted the Ephesians: “These are the last times . . . Let us fear the long-suffering of God that it may not be for our condemnation. For let us either fear the coming wrath, or let us love the present grace.”[19]

The false teacher is “filthy” and “will go into the unquenchable fire, as also will the one who listens to him.”[20] Both the coming wrath and unquenchable fire are prominent expressions from Scripture which Ignatius does not further explain.

God will call all created beings into account, according to Ignatius. He warns: “Let no one be deceived! Even the heavenly beings and the glory of the angels, and the visible and invisible rulers, unless they believe in the blood of Christ, judgment is also for them.”[21]

He tells the Magnesians that “two things lie before us, life and death, and each person is about to go to his own place.”[22] He reminds the Trallians that “Jesus Christ died for us, that by believing in his death you might escape death.”[23] The contrasting picture of life and death also occurs frequently in Scripture. Ignatius speaks of Jesus’ death and the sinner’s final death in the same sentence, with no indication that the word has more than one meaning.

Polycarp

Polycarp lived and died around the early part of the second century. Perhaps the best-known of the ancient post-apostolic martyrs, he has inspired millions by his steadfast testimony unto death. He knew the apostle John, and he reflected John’s words as he spoke of some Christian fundamentals. “For everyone who does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is antichrist. And whoever does not confess the testimony of the cross is of the devil. And whoever . . . says there is neither resurrection nor judgment, this one is Satan’s firstborn.”[24]

A later work, entitled The Martyrdom of Polycarp, is of lesser value because its authenticity is not so well established. It reports Polycarp’s words of praise as he recollects martyrs who preceded him. He says “the fire of their inhuman tormentors was cold to them, for they had before their eyes escaping the eternal and never-to-be-quenched [fire].”[25] In the arena Polycarp addresses the governor with the words: “You threaten me with fire which burns for an hour and after a little while is quenched. For you are ignorant of that fire of the coming judgment and eternal punishment, kept for the wicked.”[26]

Polycarp clearly intends to contrast man’s fire with God’s fire. Since he describes God’s fire both as “eternal” and also “never-to-be-quenched,” he seemingly intends to denote two different aspects of it. Does he think in terms of its other-age quality (eternal) and its unendingness (unquenchable)? Does he think of its unendingness (eternal) and its irresistibility (unquenchable)? Or does he think of its other-age quality (eternal) and its irresistibility (unquenchable)? Authors will argue, but we will probably have to wait for the age to come to know for sure.

Whatever its precise nature or end, the fire of God’s punishment will be far worse than any man can kindle, and the prospects of avoiding it inspire martyrs now to go to the stake with a heart full of joy. Polycarp knew what the Master had meant when he warned to fear God and not man. May we learn the same lesson today.

The Epistle of Barnabas

This “Barnabas” almost certainly is not Paul’s associate known to us from Acts, and his epistle comes from early in the second century. “The Lord will judge the world impartially,” the author warns. “Each one will receive just as he has done . . . If one is evil, the reward of evildoing is before him.”[27] Behind sin is one whose road “is crooked and full of cursing. For it is a road of eternal death with punishment, and in it are things that destroy men’s souls.”[28]

Whoever chooses evil things “will perish together with his works. For this reason is resurrection; for this reason recompense.” [29] Finally, Barnabas writes that the day “is near in which all things will perish with evil [one].”[30] Barnabas clearly teaches future judgment, retribution for both good and evil, and divine punishment for all who follow wickedness.

Like the Didache, Barnabas uses these scriptural terms with no explanation. There are three possible explanations for that. It seems most likely that Barnabas knows what Scripture means, and that he intends to convey the same thing. Or, it is possible that he knows what Scripture means, but he uses its language intentionally to be ambiguous. Or, less likely, Barnabas might not know what Scripture means on this subject, but choose to use scriptural terminology to be safe. Taken at face value, his words suggest the final extinction of sinners after some righteous recompense that involves “suffering.”

The Epistle to Diognetus

This short letter from an unknown second-century author includes one of the most eloquent descriptions of the lifestyle of early Christians. It is addressed to a pagan ruler named Diognetus, who does not understand how Christians so easily face death for their faith. The author tells Diognetus that he also will learn to despise what now seems to be death “when you fear the real death, which is reserved for those who will be condemned to the eternal fire which will punish to the end [mechri telous] those delivered over to it. Then you will marvel at those who for righteousness endure the temporary fire, and you will call them blessed when you understand that fire.”[31]

The fact that the “eternal fire” will “punish to the end” seems to indicate a destroying fire that burns until all is consumed, although by contrasting this with “temporary fire,” the author might believe the “eternal fire” keeps burning forever after its victims are consumed.

Conclusion

The apostolic fathers speak clearly on some points and less clearly on others. They agree with Scripture and with each other that the wicked will be raised to face God in judgment. They nowhere indicate that the wicked will be immortal, and they strongly suggest in a number of places that they will not.

There is a “way of life” and a “way of death.” God’s punishment for the wicked will be terrible, and it will involve fire. That fire is eternal and unquenchable, just as Isaiah and Jesus had said. Nowhere do the apostolic fathers indicate that it will preserve the wicked alive or that they will endure it in conscious agony forever. They affirm, on the other hand, that the wicked will “perish,” be “destroyed,” and “die.” Just as the biblical phraseology about the final destiny of the wicked is disputed, so the debate continues regarding the meaning of biblical phrases as repeated throughout the apostolic fathers.

Next Generation

At this point we move from the apostolic fathers, whose lives intersected with some of the apostles, to the next generation of Christian writers whose works remain through the centuries.

Justin Martyr

Justin, who was martyred in AD 165, is best known for his two Apologies defending the Christian faith and for his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. Both of Justin’s Apologies abound with references to the punishment by fire awaiting the wicked, that Justin regularly calls “eternal punishment” or “eternal fire.”[32] Both expressions are biblical, of course, and are claimed and used by proponents of conditionalism and traditionalism alike. Justin was a philosopher before he was a Christian, and Eusebius says that he preferred to wear his philosopher’s garb when he preached.

Because we do not know exactly what Justin’s opponents were saying, or the precise point that Justin hopes to prove or dispute, it is sometimes difficult to know for certain what he means. We will look at some of his statements that traditionalists claim in support of eternal torment, and we will also examine some of Justin’s major pronouncements that conditionalists use in defense of total destruction. Along the way, we will suggest the response each side might make to the other.

TRADITIONALIST JUSTIN

Traditionalists such as Pusey point particularly to three passages in Justin’s First Apology. In chapter 18 he argues that death is not the end of man, that there will be a resurrection and immortality. Justin speaks of earlier kings who he said “died the death common to all, which, if it issued in insensibility, would be a godsend to all the wicked. But since sensation remains to all who have ever lived, and eternal punishment is laid up [i.e., for the wicked], see that ye neglect not to be convinced.”[33]

In chapter 20, he says again that, “we affirm that the souls of the wicked, being endowed with sensation even after death, are punished.”[34] When Justin says the wicked will be “endowed with sensation” or that “sensation remains” for the wicked after death, traditionalists understand him to mean that the wicked will forever be conscious of pain and that the “eternal fire” will torment them always. In chapter 28, Justin speaks of Satan as he writes: “That he would be sent into the fire with his host, and the men who follow him, and would be punished for an endless duration, Christ foretold.”[35]

Justin’s most “traditionalist” statement appears in chapter 52 of his First Apology. There he describes the second coming of Christ and the events that will then take place.

He shall come from heaven with glory, accompanied by his angelic host, when also he shall raise the bodies of all men who have lived, and shall clothe those of the worthy with immortality, and shall send those of the wicked, endued with wicked sensibility, into everlasting fire with the wicked devils . . . And in what kind of sensation and punishment the wicked are to be, hear from what was said in like manner with reference to this; it is as follows: “Their worm shall not rest, and their fire shall not be quenched”; and then shall they repent, when it profits them not.[36]

This quotation, traditionalists insist, unquestionably aligns Justin Martyr on their side of this debate. Conditionalists, however, do not concede the point. When Justin speaks of sensibility for the wicked after death in chapters 18 and 20, they say, he is refuting those who say death is the end of all men. He is not denying the final, penal, eternal extinction of the wicked, nor is he affirming the nature of the punishment appointed for the wicked. He simply insists that the first death is not the end of the wicked—they will once again be given sensibility, and they will suffer the judgment to which God sentences them in the eternal fire. How long they will suffer in that fire and whether or not they can endure it forever is not in Justin’s mind at all, conditionalists affirm.

When he describes that punishment in the worm-and-fire words from Isaiah 66, Justin still does not necessarily teach eternal torment, conditionalists would say. For although he adds to Isaiah’s words the statement that “then shall they repent, when it profits them not” (Isaiah had viewed corpses lying amidst fire and worms, where no repentance would ever occur), he still does not say how long they will continue to suffer. He might only be saying that the wicked will find the fire inescapable and that they will surely be consumed by it in spite of every attempt at repentance.

Constable gives what he obviously regards as the final answer to Justin’s “traditionalist” quotations. According to him, Justin held a philosophical doctrine, then common, concerning “secret fire” which renewed or regenerated whatever it consumed. According to Constable, Justin only meant that the wicked, who were dead, would “remain immortal” inasmuch as their members would be physically “renewed” by this “secret fire” which consumed and renewed together.[37] They would therefore be a spectacle to all onlookers even though they were not alive or conscious of the burning. Yet my own perusal of Justin Martyr’s major works did not uncover such a notion, which in Constable’s view was not only present but clearly discernible.

CONDITIONALIST JUSTIN

Constable and other conditionalists also have a list of proof texts from Justin Martyr. In a number of places Justin seems to teach that the wicked will be raised in their old mortal bodies. The righteous will be given immortality, but the wicked will not. Conditionalists see this as proof that Justin understood the punishment in “eternal fire” to result in the eternal extinction of the wicked.

In the Dialogue with Trypho, Justin tells how he had encountered a certain old man, evidently a Christian, as he once walked in solitude. Justin uses their conversation to express his own ideas. The old man agrees that not all souls die, “for that were truly a piece of good fortune to the evil.” Those “which have appeared worthy of God never die; but others are punished so long as God wills them to exist and to be punished.” Justin agrees that only God is truly incorruptible and that all creatures can and will die. “For those things which exist after God . . . have the nature of decay, and are such as may be blotted out and cease to exist; for God alone is unbegotten and incorruptible, and therefore he is God, but all other things after him are created and corruptible. For this reason souls both die and are punished” (Ch. 5).[38]

The old man continues:

Now, that the soul lives, no one would deny. But if it lives, it lives not as being life, but as the partaker of life . . . Now the soul partakes of life, since God wills it to live. Thus, then, it will not even partake [of life] when God does not will it to live. For to live is not its attribute, as it is God’s; but as . . . the soul leaves the body, and the man exists no longer; even so, whenever the soul must cease to exist, the spirit of life is removed from it, and there is no more soul, but it goes back to the place from whence it was taken.[39]

Justin believed the soul was mortal, that it would suffer only as long as God willed, and that finally it would pass out of existence. It is clear, conditionalists conclude, that Justin believed the soul was mortal, that it would suffer only as long as God willed, and that finally it would pass out of existence.

Conditionalists also introduce a second line of argument. In more passages than one, they say, Justin explicitly says that the wicked will finally pass away. One example is found in Justin’s explanation of a biblical warning of destruction by sword. Justin is explaining the biblical warning of destruction by sword: “And that expression, ‘The sword shall devour you,’ does not mean that the disobedient shall be slain by the sword, but the sword of God is fire, of which they who choose to do wickedly become the fuel. Wherefore he says, ‘The sword shall devour you: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.’ And if he had spoken concerning a sword that cuts and at once dispatches, he would not have said, shall devour.”[40]

In his Second Apology, Justin contrasts this fire of God to the Stoics’ age-ending conflagration.

Wherefore God delays causing the confusion and destruction of the whole world, by which the wicked angels and demons and men shall cease to exist, because of the seed of the Christians . . . If it were not so . . . the fire of judgment would descend and utterly destroy all things, even as formerly the flood left no one but . . . Noah . . . For so we say that there will be the conflagration, but not as the Stoics, according to their doctrine of all things being changed into one another, which seems most degrading . . . But since God in the beginning made the race of angels and men with freewill, they will justly suffer in eternal fire the punishment of whatever sins they have committed.[41]

Conditionalists proudly point to Justin, therefore, as an early supporter of their view that the wicked will rise, be judged, be expelled into hell, suffer according to the measure ordained by divine justice, and finally pass away forever.

Traditionalists naturally disagree but here seem at their weakest. They might say that Justin’s remarks concerning immortality only qualify his concept by giving God inherent immortality while man’s is derived, but Justin’s other declarations that the wicked will perish as in the Flood deaden the impact of that argument. Pusey says that those statements cannot mean what conditionalists make of them because of Justin’s other statements which seem to teach eternal torment. He cites the same text listed just now as favoring conditional immortality, in support of the traditionalist view, in which Justin distinguishes between his teaching and Plato’s. The wicked will undergo “everlasting punishment,” Justin had said, contrary to Plato, who taught punishment was “for a period of a thousand years.”

But conditionalists respond that Pusey misunderstands the error Justin is refuting. Plato believed there would be a thousand-year punishment followed by transmigration of the soul to a fresh cycle of life in a new body. Justin denies this. The wicked will suffer, he agrees, but they will undergo everlasting punishment. Conditionalists say this means eternal extinction.

Round and round they have gone over Justin—who, were he living to hear the question point-blank, might quell the whole storm in a single sentence. But then, we remember, so might Paul or Peter or Jesus! In the end, most non-biblical references are of little help except for refuting the dogmatic extremes too commonly found on both sides. We need someone to explain the explainers. Better to read them quickly, and turn our attention back to Scripture.

Very soon come the Apologists, converted Greek philosophers who brought into the Christian church the Greek dogma of the immortality of the soul. It is a modified doctrine, to be sure, for these Christian writers do not claim that the soul was eternally pre-existent or that its immortality is inherent to its own nature. But these Christian philosophers did bring in the Platonic notion that the soul will consciously survive the death of the body, and that it is “immortal” in the sense that it is indestructible. True, the Apologists admitted that God is able to destroy even the soul. However, having said that, when they came to discuss final punishment, they reason just as if they had never made that admission. Souls are immortal, we will hear them say, which means that they are never destroyed. That being the case, they continued to reason, hell must mean unending conscious torment.

1. Daley, The Hope of the Early Church, 3.

2. Ibid., 4.

3. Constable, Duration and Nature, 167–70. Constable singles out Clement of Rome for examination, regarding him as typical of the apostolic fathers. Although Constable’s identification of this author with the friend of the apostle Paul (Phil 4:3) is now thought highly improbable, that does not detract from the value of Clement’s testimony as an early witness on this subject.

4. Froom, The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, 1:757–802.

5. Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality, 593–94.

6. Beecher, History of Opinions, 122.

7. Forestell, “Christian Revelation,” 187–88. Forestell’s own examination of the apostolic fathers leads him to conclude that the Didache, Polycarp, and Clement of Rome give a conditionalist witness; Ignatius is conditionalist at times and at times unclear; Barnabas and 2 Clement are less clear.

8. Pusey, What Is of Faith? 172–77.

9. Unless otherwise specified, all following quotations from the apostolic fathers are my translation of the Greek text edited by Karl Bihlmeyer, Die Apostolischen Vater. Citations are to chapters and verses in Bihlmeyer’s Greek text, and to volumes and pages in the ANCL. Popular English translations include The Apostolic Fathers, translated by J. B. Lightfoot, and a work of the same name, translated by Edgar J. Goodspeed. An interesting and helpful summary of Christian faith and life in the first three centuries is Everett Ferguson’s Early Christians Speak. Unfortunately, Dr. Ferguson does not include immortality or final punishment among the subjects he treats. However, he does provide important background information on Platonism, Middle Platonism, and the patristic authors in his larger work, BEC.

10. Did. 1:1; not included in ANCL.

11. Did. 16:5; not included in ANCL.

12. 1 Clem. 9:1; ANCL 1:13.

13. 2 Clem. 2:7; ANCL 1:56

14. 2 Clem. 4:5; ANCL 1:57.

15. 2 Clem. 5:4; ANCL 1:58.

16. 2 Clem. 6:7; ANCL 1:59.

17. 2 Clem. 7:6; ANCL 1:60.

18. 2 Clem. 17:6–7; ANCL stops abruptly with 12:5.

19. Ign. Eph. 11:1; ANCL 1:159.

20. Ign. Eph. 16:2; ANCL 1:163–64.

21. Ign. Smyrn. 6:1; ANCL 1:246.

22. Ign. Magn. 5:1; ANCL 1:176.

23. Ign. Trall. 2:1; ANCL 1:190–91.

24. Pol. Phil. 7:1; ANCL 1:73.

25. Mart. Pol. 2:3; ANCL 1:84.

26. Mart. Pol. 11:2; ANCL 1:89.

27. Barn. 4:12; ANCL 1:107.

28. Barn. 20:1; ANCL 1:133.

29. Barn. 21:1; ANCL 1:134.

30. Barn. 21:3; ANCL 1:134.

31. Diogn. 10:7–8; ANCL 1:314.

32. Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. 12 (ANCL 2:15); 17 (ANCL 2:21); 45 (ANCL 2:46); 2 Apol. 1 (ANCL 2:71); 8 (ANCL 2:78); 9 (ANCL 2:79).

33. 1 Apol. 18; ANCL 2:22. This quotation and those following are taken from the translations in ANCL. The references include chapter numbers within the respective works, followed by the ANCL volume number and page number.

34. 1 Apol. 20; ANCL 2:24–25.

35. 1 Apol. 28; ANCL 2:31.

36. 1 Apol. 52; ANCL 2:51.

37. Constable, Future Punishment, 174–77. Constable quotes Tertullian as saying that this “secret fire” was a common notion in his time, and suggests that it is “not unreasonable” to assume Justin also held such a view.

38. Justin Martyr, Dial. 5; ANCL 2:93–94.

39. Dial. 6; ANCL 2:95.

40. 1 Apol. 44.

41. 2 Apol. 7.

25

The Apologists: A Fire That Torments

IT IS MISLEADING TO speak of the Apologists as a group, if by that term one supposes that these men lived in close proximity or even were personal acquaintances. Tatian lived in Mesopotamia, was a contemporary of Athenagoras of Alexandria, Theophilus of Antioch, and Irenaeus of Gaul, and overlapped by a few years Tertullian of Carthage. Their world presented a potpourri of ideas, and, as Brian E. Daley notes, “their works . . . often mingle the eschatological expectations of apocalyptic Judaeo-Christianity with mythical and philosophical speculation on the rewards and punishments that can be justly expected to follow this life.”[1]

Tatian (died AD 180)

As the best-known student of Justin Martyr, and with the possible exception of his teacher, Tatian was the first Christian writer to explicitly teach the immortality of all persons both redeemed and unredeemed. Tatian explains and defends his faith in Address to the Greeks : Christians believe “that there will be a resurrection of bodies after the consummation of all things; . . . a resurrection once for all . . . for the purpose of passing judgment.”[2]

Tatian denies that the soul is itself immortal, probably meaning that, contrary to the Platonists, the soul’s immortality is neither inherent nor pre-existent. Like other Christian apologists of the first few centuries, Tatian believed that God created the soul and that it continues only at his pleasure. However, unless Tatian’s words are misleading, he believed that God will give immortality to the wicked in the resurrection, for eternal conscious torment and not blissful reward. “The soul is not itself immortal, O Greeks, but mortal. Yet it is possible for it not to die. If, indeed, it knows not the truth, it dies, and is dissolved with the body, but rises again at last at the end of the world with the body, receiving death by punishment in immortality. But, again, if it acquires the knowledge of God, it dies not, although for a time it be dissolved.”[3]

Slightly later, he says that, “as we . . . afterwards receive the immortal with enjoyment, or the painful with immortality, so the demons . . . will have hereafter the same immortality.”[4] If he means what his words seem to say, he probably also gives a new meaning to “fuel” when he later says that a certain Greek philosopher “will be delivered up in the day of consummation as fuel for the eternal fire” (ch. 17). Unlike the fuel consumed by ordinary fire and in the biblical pictures, this “fuel” will never burn up though it continues to burn forever.

Athenagoras (AD 127–190)

Everett Ferguson, an expert in early Christianity and patristic literature, notes that during the period of Middle Platonism, “from the first century B.C. to the second century A.D. . . . [t]he idea of the soul as distinguished from the body reappeared and became the basis of patristic and medieval philosophy.”[5] That is nowhere better illustrated than in the writings of Athenagoras, Tertullian, and other church fathers of the mid-second century to the third century, to whose works we now turn. The more closely we look, the clearer it becomes that “patristic theology took shape largely in the framework of Platonic philosophy.”[6]

Athenagoras was born in Athens and trained in Platonic philosophy, then became a Christian and settled at Alexandria. In his writings, he explicitly denies the annihilation of the wicked and is, according to conditionalist Constable, the first explicit advocate of the traditionalist view. In A Plea for the Christians, Athenagoras writes: “We are persuaded that when we are removed from the present life we shall live another life, better than the present one, and heavenly, not earthly . . . or, falling with the rest, a worse one and in fire; for God has not made us as sheep or beasts of burden, a mere by-work, and that we should perish and be annihilated.”[7] Rather than beginning with the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and reasoning from that point concerning human immortality as Paul does in 1 Cor 15, Athenagoras begins with the immortal soul and reasons his way to the necessity of a resurrection. God made the human creature to exist forever, Athenagoras says, and therefore humans will never cease to exist.[8] Because people die, the resurrection is necessary in order for humankind’s created purpose to be fulfilled. Athenagoras explains:

[R]eflecting on our own natures . . . we steadfastly hope for a continuance of being in immortality; and this . . . belief rests on a most infallible guarantee—the purpose of him who fashioned us, according to which he made man of an immortal soul and a body; . . . for we know well that he would not have fashioned such a being, and furnished him with everything belonging to perpetuity, had he not intended that what was so created should continue in perpetuity . . . [T]he cause of his creation is a pledge of his continuance for ever, and this continuance is a pledge of the resurrection, without which man could not continue. So . . . it is quite clear that the resurrection is plainly proved by the cause of man’s creation, and the purpose of him who made him.[9]

Athenagoras disconnects the resurrection from the story of Jesus Christ and connects it to the fulfillment of human nature in general. He says the resurrection is significant for only half of human nature, the body, because the soul is already immortal. “[M]en, in respect of the soul, have from their first origin an unchangeable continuance, but in respect of the body obtain immortality by means of change. This is what is meant by the doctrine of the resurrection.”[10]

Along the way, Athenagoras freely extends to all humans, whether redeemed or unredeemed, Paul’s description of the glorified and immortal resurrection body that God will give to the redeemed. He argues for the necessity of resurrection for the completion of justice:

[M]an becomes accountable for all his actions, and receives for them either reward or punishment. Now if the righteous judgment awards to both [soul and body] together its retribution for the deeds wrought; and if reason does not find this happening either in this life . . . or after death . . . the result of all this is very plain to every one—namely, that, in the language of the apostle, “this corruptible (and dissoluble) must put on incorruption,” in order that those who were dead, having been made alive by the resurrection, and the parts that were separated . . . having been again united, each one may, in accordance with justice, receive what he has done by the body, whether it be good or bad.[11]

Athenagoras does not specifically discuss the doctrine of final punishment in this connection, but sets the stage for Tertullian, who does discuss it. When we come to Tertullian’s writings, we appreciate all the more Constable’s reference to “the marvelous power which the introduction of the Platonic dogma of the soul’s immortality had upon the doctrine of punishment.”[12] But between Athenagoras and Tertullian we find Irenaeus, Bishop of Gaul.

Irenaeus (AD 130–202)

Both sides in our controversy claim Irenaeus, Bishop of Gaul. Traditionalist Edward B. Pusey devotes five pages to the writings of Irenaeus, quoting references to fire that is “perpetual,” “everlasting” and “eternal,” and people who are “forever condemned.” Pusey’s longest quotation from Irenaeus defines death as separation from God.

Now separation from God is Death; and separation from light is darkness, and separation from God is casting away all the good things which come from him . . . For though God punish them not by express dispensation, yet . . . they are deprived of all good things; and the good things from God being eternal and endless, the privation of them also is, of course, eternal and endless. Just as light being perpetual, those who have blinded themselves or have been blinded by others, are in perpetuity deprived of the enjoyment of light.[13]

Conditionalists accept all these expressions and recall Irenaeus to the witness stand for cross-examination. Does this explanation of deprivation really support the extinction of the wicked? Surely being itself—as well as a blessed life—is a good gift from God, for which mankind must depend entirely upon God. Utter deprivation of every godly blessing would therefore include the loss of existence itself, since human beings, being created, did not exist until God willed to give them existence.

Conditionalist Henry Constable calls on Irenaeus as a witness for his position. He introduces the Bishop of Gaul with these words: “No one of the fathers recurs more perpetually to this subject than Iranaeus does . . . Nor is there one of the fathers who gives fuller descriptions of it. He evidently brought it forward in all the terrors he supposed to belong to it as a warning to escape from it. Yet, in all his allusions to and descriptions of it, there cannot be found a parallel to numberless passages which we might quote readily from Hippolytus, Tertullian, Augustine, and others.”[14]

Constable cites, as typical expressions of Irenaeus, references to sinners “who shall be burned up as were Nadab and Abihu” by fire from the Lord, souls that perish, “punished with everlasting death,” those who “pass away” and “will not endure for ever,” and the wicked who will be “deprived of continuance for ever and ever.”[15]

Tertullian (c. AD 155–c. 222)

Tertullian was born at Carthage in North Africa to heathen parents. His father, a centurion in the Roman proconsular service, named his son Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus. Tertullian was educated in law and rhetoric and gained a mastery of Greek. As a young man he went to Rome, where he earned a reputation as a jurist.

About the year AD 196, Tertullian accepted Christianity and returned to Carthage. There he exchanged his Roman toga for the philosopher’s pallium and undertook the lifelong advocacy of what he now considered his ultimate cause. The rigorous moralistic system propagated by the Montanists appealed to Tertullian, and about AD 207 he joined an African branch of the sectarian movement. He died at Carthage sometime around the year 220.[16]

Tertullian was a man of extremes. “His passionate temperament knew no half-measures or hesitations,” according to Bardy, a Catholic reviewer of the Latin fathers. He “had always been an enemy of the golden mean,” Bardy continues, “and even in his youth his temperament had led him into the worst excesses.” As Tertullian grows older, “his gloomy pessimism increases and his exaggerations pass all bounds.”[17]

F. L. Cross described the man and his influence like this.

Of a fiery and rugged temperament, he was by nature a rebel and would hardly have fitted happily into any milieu . . . But he was destined to exercise a remarkable influence on Western Christendom . . . Besides being the first considerable Christian Latin writer, he was also the first great Latin thinker. His theological perception was so sharp and his range so wide that he created at one stroke the theological vocabulary of the Western Church . . . Almost all his writing is controversial; . . . he became a master of invective . . . His argumentation too often resembles a display of fireworks.[18]

Tertullian also accepted the Platonic doctrine of the immortality of the soul, with modifications made through the years by Aristotle, the Stoics, and especially by Christian philosophers such as Athenagoras who defined the soul to allow for its creation by God. But the most powerful element of Plato’s doctrine continued unabated, and that was the idea that the soul is ultimately indestructible.

With the exception of his treatise, Against Marcion, Tertullian’s longest work was De Anima (Concerning the Soul). Cross says this treatise contained “the first extended discussion of the soul in Christian literature.” In it Tertullian discourses on the nature and the origin of the soul, and on such related topics as death, sleep, dreams, and the resting place of the soul after death.[19]

Tertullian supports his doctrine of the immortal soul from the creation of man, when God breathed into him the breath of life. Tertullian did not consider it important that the same Genesis story also calls the brute animals “living souls” (Gen 1:20–21).

In addition to philosophical arguments and the creation story, Tertullian offers empirical testimony concerning the soul and its attributes. In his assembly, he says, is “a sister, whose lot it has been to be favored with sundry gifts of revelation.” Among the visions she reported to the people after the sacred services were dismissed, Tertullian tells of one in which she saw a soul.

“Amongst other things,” says she, “there has been shown to me a soul in bodily shape, and a spirit has been in the habit of appearing to me; not, however, a void and empty illusion, but such as would offer itself to be even grasped by the hand, soft and transparent, and of an ethereal color, and in form resembling that of a human being in every respect.” This was her vision, and for her witness there was God.[20]

To this philosophical belief in the immortality of the soul, Tertullian brought the zeal and passion of his Latin legal training and heart. Where the Greek fathers had “virtually ignored” the biblical theme of judgment (though they were clear on its certainty and on penal retribution), Gatch says the Latin mind “was deeply concerned with the processes of history and with the moral implications of action within history.”[21]

The Western, Latin Church began about this time to be marked by a strong sense of law and order, and this “growing tendency to set forth the relations of God and man under the general categories of politics led to emphasis upon punishment in hell.”[22] Since the flesh had participated in sin, it must justly share also in the penalty for sin.

Instead of showing the sovereignty of God, who has the last word, a sense of proper and exact justice became the dominant theme underlying the doctrine of the resurrection. This led to the doctrine that the soul begins to be punished immediately after death. If the body were prompted to sin by the soul, it is only fair that the soul should be held somewhat more liable than the body and should therefore endure an additional measure of punishment. This reasoning, would receive additional impetus from Augustine, and from him its conclusions would finally pass through Calvin into the mainstream of Reformed theology.

If the souls of even wicked people are immortal and are destined to live forever, and if earthly sin will be punished by what the Bible calls “eternal fire,” the only conclusion Tertullian can reach is that the wicked will endure conscious unending torment. When the Bible speaks of “destruction,” therefore, it does not mean what it sounds like. We should think of the soul of the wicked, he says, as “‘lost,’ not in the sense of destruction but of punishment, that is, in hell.”[23]

This means that Jesus’ warning, in Matt 10:28, to fear God who is able to destroy both soul and body is not to be taken literally.

If, therefore, any one shall violently suppose that the destruction of the soul and the flesh in hell amounts to a final annihilation of the two substances, and not to their penal treatment (as if they were to be consumed, not punished), let him recollect that the fire of hell is eternal—expressly announced as an everlasting penalty; and let him then admit that it is from this circumstance that this never-ending killing is more formidable than a merely human murder, which is only temporal.[24]

For Tertullian, Daley observes, the fire of hell is “paradoxical . . . in that it ‘kills’ without annihilating” either soul or body.[25]

Because the soul is created immortal, Tertullian reasons, it does not even need a Savior. Indeed, salvation is God’s provision for the body. Thus, “it is not the soul which salvation will affect, since it is ‘safe’ already in its own nature by reason of its immortality, but rather the flesh, which, as all readily allow, is subject to destruction.” The result will be “the restoration of the entire man, inasmuch as the Lord purposes to save that part of him which perishes [the body], whilst he will not of course lose that portion which cannot be lost [the soul].”[26]

Conditionalists will not let such interpretations and language pass unhindered. Tertullian and others of his view, charges Constable,

introduce a language which, to say the least of it, is absent from Scripture. When they mean to set forth beyond mistake what they hold, they tell us that the soul is immortal and cannot die, that the bodies of the wicked will be raised incorruptible and immortal, that the wicked will never die, never perish, never be consumed, never be destroyed, etc. To appearance, this language contradicts that of Scripture: at all events this language is never applied in Scripture to the wicked. What does it arise from? Surely the language of Scripture is sufficient to express the doctrine of Scripture.[27]

To many who take seriously the authority of Scripture, such hedging and equivocation is unconscionable. Both Old and New Testaments are filled with metaphors and symbols for final punishment that suggest the total and utter destruction of things that perish. Yet from Tertullian to the present, traditionalists not only ignore biblical illustrations, but also manufacture new ones of their own—unbiblical figures that illustrate the exact opposite!

Constable can scarcely find words adequate to describe the perfidy of the traditionalist who does such a thing:

He finds it said that the wicked shall be like the beasts that perish, that they shall consume like thorns; that they shall be burnt up like chaff; that they shall be reduced to ashes like a dry branch! What is his comment on these vivid emblems? He tells us that they are strong poetic figures! We see nothing to object to this, and merely ask him of what are they strong poetic figures? After an immensity of talk, we find him replying that they are poetical figures representative of the very opposite to that which they teach. The wicked perishing like beasts means that they are never to perish, and are exceedingly unlike beasts; the wicked consuming like thorns means that they will never consume at all, and will never bear the remotest resemblance to thorns which have been consumed; the wicked being burnt up like chaff means that they are never to be burnt up, and that they will never be like chaff that has been burnt up; and their being reduced to ashes like a dry branch means that they cannot by any possibility be reduced to ashes, or bear the faintest likeness to a dry branch which has been thoroughly consumed! Whether such a handling of God’s Word as this is deceitful or not, let our readers and our opponents judge.[28]

Readers are indeed judging this reasoning and are finding it wanting. However, if Constable’s opponents have reached a judgment, they have not yet made it public. Instead, they continue to make the same arguments and repeat the same conclusions more than a century later. For the most part, they continue to ignore the enormous mound of evidence that weighs against their traditionalist view, substituting for argument the fact that almost all of Christendom has held the traditionalist view since at least the time of Augustine.

Meanwhile, the understanding of hell as unending conscious torment continues to generate widespread reaction and outright dismissal. Some who conclude that the traditionalist interpretation is unbiblical are choosing another explanation formulated by Tertullian’s fellow-African, Origen of Alexandria, twenty-five years his junior. According to Origen’s interpretation, hell will be the fire that purifies.

1. Daley, The Hope of the Early Church, 20.

2. Tatian, Address 6; ANCL 3:10.

3. Address 13; ANCL 3:18.

4. Address 14; ANCL 3:20.

5. Ferguson, BEC, 387.

6. Ibid., 335.

7. Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians 31; ANCL 2:416.

8. Resurrection of the Dead 12; ANCL 2:438–39. Because the cause of man’s creation “is seen to lie in perpetual existence,” Athenagoras reasons, it follows that “the being so created must be preserved forever.”

9. Resurrection of the Dead 13; ANCL 2:439–40.

10. Resurrection of the Dead 16; ANCL 2:444.

11. Resurrection of the Dead 18; ANCL 447–48.

12. Constable, Future Punishment, 204.

13. Pusey, What Is of Faith? 182–86. The quotation is from Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 5, ch. 27 (ANCL, 9:129–30). Froom gives the same quotation as evidence that Irenaeus taught conditionalism (Froom, Conditionalist Faith, 1:900).

14. Constable, Future Punishment, 187.

15. Ibid., 188. Constable argues that Irenaeus thinks that future punishment is “eternal” because “it is the loss of blessing which is eternal. It does not consist in eternally inflicting new misery, but in the eternal loss of what might have been eternally enjoyed.” We note elsewhere that both Augustine and Jonathan Edwards conceded that such a situation would satisfy the expression “eternal punishment,” although both those men insisted that unending conscious torment is the biblical view.

16. Cross, The Early Christian Fathers, 135–36; Bardy, The Christian Latin Literature, 28–32.

17. Bardy, Christian Latin Literature, 29–30.

18. Cross,The Early Christian Fathers, 135–37.

19. Ibid., 143.

20. Tertullian, De Anima 9 (ANCL 15:428). Tertullian’s sentence continues: “and the apostle most assuredly foretold that there were to be ‘spiritual gifts’ in the church.” Earlier he had said of the sister that “all her communications are examined with the most scrupulous care, in order that their truth may be probed.” One wonders how the examiners proceeded with this communication since Scripture is totally silent on the subject and Tertullian makes no mention of an inspired confirmation.

21. Gatch, Death, 65.

22. Mathews, “Future Punishment,” 178.

23. Tertullian, Resurrection of the Flesh (ANCL 15:273).

24. Resurrection of the Flesh, 35 ( ANCL 15:276). Tertullian goes on to make the argument, still heard today, that if the second death were annihilation rather than everlasting conscious torment, God would have wasted his time in raising the wicked since they had perished already. Both Scripture and reason answer the argument. Scripture makes it superfluous by declaring more than once that the wicked will be raised and judged before undergoing final punishment. Human reason dismisses the argument as well, for every evil unpunished in this life calls out for a final reckoning and retribution based on perfect justice. Our own system of law provides medical care at great expense to prevent a murderer’s death before he stands trial even though the court is expected to sentence him to death. Why should we suppose that God’s justice should be cheated more easily? Traditionalists make the same point all the time in support of final judgment—and with good cause.

25. Daley, The Hope of the Early Church, 36.

26. ANCL 15: 274.

27. Constable, Future Punishment, 215.

28. Ibid., 75–76. Constable misreads Augustine’s analogies of worms that live in hot springs, flame-resistant salamanders, and volcanoes that burn but do not consume (Ibid., 71–72). Augustine does not say these things prove the nature of hell or even that hell is like all these things (though he believes that). Rather, he uses these illustrations, which his opponents regard as authentic, to show that they are inconsistent in calling his teaching unreasonable and impossible.

26

Apokatastasis : A Fire That Purifies

WE HAVE SEEN IN Scripture the portrayal of hell as the fire that consumes. Based on his belief that souls are immortal, at least in the future sense of being indestructible, Tertullian reasoned that the wicked will therefore suffer unending conscious torment in hell. In Tertullian’s teaching, hell became the fire that torments forever.

A Third View Emerges

The decade after Tertullian was born saw the birth of another future theologian in a different part of Africa. Clement of Alexandria would lay the foundation for his successor, Origen, to propose a new view of hell that countered and perhaps reacted to the interpretation that Tertullian had advanced a few years before. This third view saw hell as the fire that purifies.

Clement of Alexandria (c. AD 150–c. 215)

At some point, it seems[1] that Clement of Alexandria shared Tertullian’s view of unending conscious torment. For example, he writes: “But if any persist in impiety till the end of life, then as soon as the soul, which is immortal, departs, it shall pay the penalty of its persistence in impiety. For even the souls of the impious are immortal, though perhaps they themselves would wish them to end with their bodies. But it is not so; for they endure without end the torments of eternal fire, and to their destruction they have not the quality of mortality.”[2]

However, in a work called The Miscellanies, Clement says that, “punishments after death . . . and penal retribution by fire, were pilfered from the Barbarian philosophy both by all the poetic Muses and by the Hellenic philosophy.” He quotes Plato’s Republic concerning torment in the afterlife, relates it to Ps 104:4 which calls God’s angels “flaming fire,” and offers it all as proof that the soul is immortal and survives bodily death. Then he asks, “Did not Plato know of the rivers of fire and the depth of the earth, and Tartarus, called by the Barbarians Gehenna . . . introducing such corrective tortures for discipline?”[3]

The “Barbarians” here are the Hebrews as viewed by Clement’s Greek audience, though Clement argues that the noblest concepts of Greek philosophy were actually “pilfered” from the Hebrews (and Scripture), who had them first. The last sentence matters most to us, where Clement refers to Gehenna or Tartarus as “corrective tortures” intended “for discipline.”

Athenagoras and Tertullian had redefined the biblical figure of fire already, changing Scripture’s consuming, devouring, irreversible fire that cannot be extinguished, resisted or escaped, into a tormenting fire that never consumes or devours but that, according to some writers, miraculously reconstitutes as it burns to extend its painful torture forever.

But where Tertullian the Latin lawyer pored over tomes of justice, Clement the Alexandrian considered the rational purpose of discipline. Surely it is educative and corrective, he surmised. Although Clement did not develop this idea fully in terms of final punishment, he set the stage for his successor at Alexandria to do exactly that.

Origen of Alexandria (AD 185–250)

Origen followed Clement as the great schoolmaster of Alexandria, leaving as his heritage an enormous influence on later theology, as well as a particular method of allegorical interpretation identified by that city’s name.

A man of great devotion, he endured imprisonment and torture for his faith. And although he was condemned as heretical by later councils, many modern scholars of early church history regard Origen as the foremost Pre-Nicene father.[4]

ORIGEN’S SPECULATIONS

In his writings, Origen speculates that the fire of hell is a purifying and refining fire. It involves punishment, he says, but the punishment is remedial in its intent and effect, and it results in the ultimate salvation of every person. Paul had said that, in the resurrection, God will give immortal and incorruptible bodies to the redeemed. Origen surmises that the unredeemed will receive such a body as well:[5] “for God’s command . . . there is yet given . . . a glory and dignity of body . . . in such a way, that even the body which rises again of those who are to be destined to everlasting fire or to severe punishments, is by the very change of the resurrection so incorruptible, that it cannot be corrupted and dissolved even by severe punishments.”[6]

The great theologian of Alexandria bolsters his hypothesis with an analogy from third century medicine and by appeal to Old Testament Scripture. Just as someone might have a disease that is not cured by drugs or surgery, and “the evil has at last to be burned out by fire; how much more is it to be understood that God our Physician, desiring to remove the defects of our souls . . . should apply . . . the punishment of fire to those who have lost their soundness of mind.”[7]

Origen then quotes Isa 4:4 as confirmation that “the punishment . . . applied by fire . . . is . . . applied with the object of healing.” The passage speaks of a time when “the Lord will wash away the filth of the sons or daughters of Zion and shall purge away the blood from the midst of them by the spirit of judgment, and the spirit of burning.”

Origen agrees that God is a consuming fire, but he asks what, exactly, the fire consumes? “The divine word says that our God is ‘a consuming fire’ [Deut 4:24; 9:3], and that . . . he even enters in as “a refiner’s fire” . . . to purify his own people. But . . . we inquire what are the things which are appropriate to be consumed by God. And we assert that they are wickedness, and the works which result from it, and which, being figuratively called ‘wood, hay, stubble’ [1 Cor 3:12], God consumes as a fire.”[8]

According to D. P. Walker, Origen based his speculations on elements of human nature and the divine nature. The all-powerful Creator is absolutely just and good, and every rational being has absolute free will.[9] Rational beings include humans, but also include demons, angels, and even stars. In his books, Origen assumes the pre-existence of souls, who pass through an eternal series of aeons, each having its own creation and last judgment, and each ending with a great purgation that prepares the way for the next. In such a system the same soul can move up or down the ladder of rational beings, from the lowest demon to the highest angel. The series of ages might end, suggested Origen, when every soul (perhaps including Satan’s) has been cleansed of sin and has freely united with God. This will be the great restoration or apokatastasis.

The three major views of final punishment can be identified and distinguished by the purpose that one ascribes to the fire of hell: whether the fire is consuming (conditionalist), torturing (traditionalist), or purifying (restorationist).

Clement of Alexandria has hinted already at final restoration from hell; Gregory of Nyssa will express and defend the position at length a century later. But Origen is the first Christian writer to give the concept clear form,[10] and it bears his name and theological label: apokatastasis—a borrowed Greek word meaning “restoration”—to this day.

ORIGEN’S DEFENDERS

Origen’s defenders insist that he offered his ideas as mere speculations or possibilities, not as matters of settled doctrine. The attitude of other church fathers toward Origen continues to be disputed, as does the specific reason he was condemned by later church councils.

When Farrar appealed to Origen in support of his “larger hope” (for the salvation of some beyond this life), Pusey denied Farrar’s interpretation but defended Origen himself. According to Pusey, Origen’s De Principiis (or Peri Archon), the work containing most of his “heresies,” was unknown to the church until Rufinus translated it in AD 398. Origen had written it while still a young man, when he had just “emerged from the philosophical schools” and was not yet settled in his own opinions. At the time, Pusey says, Origen indignantly denied in a public letter the restoration of Satan as a thought which no one could accept, “not even of unsound mind.” In his popular writings Origen taught the accepted beliefs on the subject, Pusey says (citing some references), and he laid down as a rule of faith that nothing should be received as truth which was “out of harmony with the ecclesiastical and apostolic tradition.”

Pusey repeats Jerome’s quotation of Origen that these matters “are not dogmas, but only matters of enquiry put forth lest they should seem altogether unconsidered.” Jerome also says that Origen expressed regret for writing such things, blaming Ambrose, who made private matters public.

Pusey notes that throughout Origen’s restorationist speculations, he uses such words as “suppose,” “opine,” and “think.”[11] Others defend Origen as simply overreacting to the pagan Celsus, who had taunted Christians, saying that their God has kindled a fire to burn all but their own kind. Origen responds that the fire will have a purifying quality that proves to be a painful blessing.

CONDEMNATION BY CHURCH COUNCILS

It is not clear from history that any church council ever definitely condemned the doctrine of universal restoration. According to Farrar, “none of the first four General Councils lay down any doctrine whatever concerning the everlasting misery of the wicked, or directly or indirectly give any interpretation of the Scriptural expressions which describe their condition.” The question had indeed “been most vehemently disputed and discussed, yet the Church was wisely silent, and allowed various mutually irreconcilable opinions to be held by her sons without rebuke. Neither at Nicea (AD 325), nor at Constantinople (AD 381), nor at Ephesus (AD 431), nor at Chalcedon (AD 451), was any special doctrine laid down respecting the future rewards and punishments, nor were the opinions of Origen and his followers on that subject condemned, or even alluded to.”[12]

Although the fifth ecumenical council held at Constantinople in 553 condemned Origen by name, it did not specifically condemn him for teaching universal restoration. Instead, says Gregory MacDonald, “it is clear that when apokatastasis is condemned . . . it is always done so in association with other, problematic, ideas such as the preexistence of souls, pantheistic eschatology, or deviant Christology.”[13]

Farrar says Athanasius spoke of Origen “tenderly and admiringly as ‘the marvellous and indefatigable Origen,’” and he recalls that even Augustine referred to Origen’s followers as “our party of pity” and admits that “not only some, but very many” held such a merciful view.[14]

Pusey is dogmatic in the other direction. He insists that Origen’s restorationism was condemned in the East by synods convened by Theophilus at Alexandria and by Epiphanius at Cyprus. It was condemned in the West, he says, by Anastasius of Rome, with many bishops of the West. As for the silence on this topic at the earlier councils, Pusey says that they were too concerned with other topics to speak on this one. Furthermore, he says, final punishment “was not a question for a General Council; for the Church was not disturbed.”[15]

Blame on All Sides

Ironically, some of the most ardent critics of the doctrine of universal restoration have actually contributed to its popularity, says G. C. Berkouwer, in his book, The Return of Christ. Berkouwer devotes one chapter in this book to the question of apokatastasis, or universal restorationism,[16] in which he attempts to examine the subject critically in the light of the gospel as a whole.

Divorcing Hell from the Gospel

When our speech about hell and salvation is divorced from the gospel itself, our discourse inevitably lacks a strong foundation. Some universalists do this, Berkouwer charges, when they begin with the unconquerable love of God and reason from there.

Essentially universalism looks at salvation as eschaton outside the realm of proclamation. Apocatastasis—in spite of the doxological context in which it is set—becomes a conclusion that precedes the dynamics and the appeal of the proclamation and is established by it. The love of God becomes the point of departure for this reasoning; any connection with the preaching of salvation and judgment is lost . . . In this way it becomes obvious that the doctrine of apocatastasis is a static, timeless, unkerygmatic doctrine, a form of gnostic thought over against God and his love.

In contrast the biblical witness to the love of God always treats it in a kerygmatic context and never announces it as a “fact” that goes over the heads of those to whom it is addressed and refers to a static eschatological fact . . . Outside of this correlative application of the seriousness of the gospel, nothing can be said about the future that would make one any the wiser. If one tries to concern himself with it objectively, he finds himself ending up in a certain coldness, able to draw conclusions, but conclusions that have lost their comforting and admonishing character.[17]

However, Berkouwer also charges that some of those who oppose the idea of universal restoration most vehemently have actually helped to bring it about. One great reason for universalism’s development, he says, is the “intemperate and unbiblical” preaching of the church on hell which also separates it from the gospel. This happens whenever final punishment is preached as a topic of mere intellectual interest. It occurs whenever hell is used merely to intimidate or threaten.[18]

Such preaching actually detracts from the seriousness of the gospel, Berkouwer says. For the true seriousness of the gospel is that it tells man indiscriminately (not only the elect) what God has done in Christ for sinners, calls for repentance and faith, and warns of the dreadful fate awaiting those who reject such a great salvation. Whenever one preaches hell outside this setting—or forgets that “judgment begins with the house of God”—one loses its biblical character.

Divorcing Election from the Gospel

Another error to which Berkouwer believes universalism reacts[19] is a scholastic understanding of election which causes some Calvinists to weaken the genuine offer of the gospel. “When the Bible talks about salvation, it does so in a way that calls up the idea of a truly overflowing abundance,” writes Berkouwer, who believes that the church throughout history has often failed to take these passages seriously. “Time and again this abundance leads to doxology, to exclamations of praise.”[20]

Just as preachers sometimes divorce hell from the context of the gospel, says Berkouwer, so they also sometimes separate election from the gospel as well—and with the same bad results. “The doctrine of apocatastasis . . . has often flourished in reaction against the frequent failure of the church throughout history to take seriously the ‘universal’ passages of Scripture. The depreciation of these passages has sometimes followed from a particular doctrine of election that leaves no room for the universal invitation to salvation.”[21]

The Bible calls us to preach the gospel to every human being without distinction. The proclamation of salvation is not some kind of game, some cruel charade that has God saying one thing and meaning something altogether different. Berkouwer stresses the need to be faithful in preaching the gospel, leaving the unanswerable questions of election in the hands of the sovereign God.

It is impossible that the proclamation of salvation should go out to all, but be “actually” intended not for all but only for the elect, and that the rest would be called to acts of repentance and faith that had no real and present object anyway. This would certainly be a devaluation of the word “gospel” . . . It is impossible to sum the whole thing up by telling everyone, “Honestly, whoever comes to Christ will be saved,” as if the whole gospel were defined by this kind of maxim. The true preaching of the gospel does use very nearly the same words . . .

This is something more than the announcement of a general maxim. It is preaching in earnest, with promise and comfort and encouragement.[22]

Accomplishment, Not Scope

If anyone rushes to grab the Canons of Dort, Berkouwer anticipates the move in advance. He calls the Calvinist theologian, Herman Bavinck, as witness. Bavinck made the “profound analysis,” Berkouwer says, “that the authors of the Canons of Dort did not proceed in response to an ‘all or not all’ dilemma.” The real issue involved at Dort, says Bavinck, was not whether God loves all men or only a few, or whether the gospel call to salvation is seriously intended for all. It was rather whether Christ’s atoning work only made salvation possible or whether it made it accomplished fact. The Arminian party held the first view, the party of Dort contended for the second. Berkouwer summarizes Bavinck in these words: “The objection to the Arminian Remonstrants was directed against their idea that the sense of ‘Christ’s sacrifice for all’ was that the possibility of salvation was obtained for all through him. The objection of the Canons of Dort was to the doctrine of potential reconciliation, according to which human decision must lead to the realization of this possibility.”[23] Berkouwer quotes Bavinck concerning the gospel’s call—that the call keeps its meaning even for those who reject it, because it is “the proof of God’s unending love for all sinners without distinction and seals the word that he has no pleasure in the death of a sinner.”[24] Berkouwer would urge those who treasure the doctrines expressed by the Canons of Dort not to minimize the seriousness of the gospel’s proclamation or to abbreviate God’s genuine offer in the name of a “logical” but unscriptural doctrine. Regardless of where one begins, Berkouwer warns, problems will always arise whenever one tries to deduce answers to questions on hell apart from the proclamation of the gospel.

Only at the cross of Jesus can one truly read Scripture in the light of God’s judgment—whether one seeks to know of divine mercy or divine wrath. Questions not answered there must remain unanswered in this life. It cannot be said too strongly, clearly, or often: Jesus did not come to satisfy our curiosity or to make us as wise as God. He came to reveal God—and to call men and women to faith and obedience.

Many Faces of Universalism

The doctrine of universal restoration has proved to be a persistent minority view. Well-known universalists have included Church “fathers” Origen of Alexandria born and Gregory of Nyssa, but also mystical “mothers” Julian of Norwich and Hannah Whitall Smith. Among “those with universalist inclinations of some variety or other,” diverse in time and place, denominational origin, and internal temperament, are John Scotus Eriugena, William Law, Charles Chauncy, Johann Christoph Blumhardt, Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Andrew Jukes, Samuel Cox, Karl Rahner, and Marilyn McCord Adams.[25]

These have disagreed among themselves in matters other than universalism, on issues of biblical interpretation; exclusivism/inclusivism/pluralism, nature of the atonement, nature of punishment, nature of human freedom, certainty of universalism—plus a host of other issues about which non-universalist Christians also differ among themselves. This diversity defies easy analysis, but continues to be explored.[26]

Liberal Universalism

During the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, the term “universalism” came to be associated primarily with the liberal Protestant idea that God is “too good” to “send anyone to hell” and that, consequently, everyone will finally be redeemed. That is the universalism most evangelicals have opposed—and have done so with ease—for such a universalism ignored sin, dismissed the atonement, overlooked judgment, and denied hell.

Romanticized doctrine invites dismissal, and R. C. Sproul obliges: “A prevailing notion is that all we have to do to enter the kingdom of God is to die. God is viewed as so ‘loving’ that he really doesn’t care too much if we don’t keep his law. The law is there to guide us, but if we stumble and fall, our celestial grandfather will merely wink and say, ‘Boys will be boys.’”[27]

Evangelical Universalism

The years from 1998 through 2011 saw the appearance of a new kind of universalism[28] from among evangelicals themselves. This evangelical universalism cannot be so easily dismissed, for it affirms the awfulness of sin, the requirement of atonement, the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, the reality of final judgment and the necessity of hell. Advocates hold a high view of Scripture and appeal to the Bible for their ultimate support.[29] In short, the familiar, traditional arguments against universalism based on its denial of orthodox Christian distinctives no longer apply, for the simple reason that proponents of this new species of universalism are themselves evangelical believers. As such, they are fully as adverse to the old, liberal universalism as are the non-universalist evangelicals who now oppose both kinds of universalist theory.

Among those advocating this evangelical variety of universalism are Jan Bonda, a retired Dutch Reformed pastor in the Netherlands, who wrote The One Purpose of God (1998); Thomas Talbott, author of The Inescapable Love of God (1999) and retired Professor of Philosophy at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon; Gregory MacDonald, the pseudonym of Robin Parry, a British evangelical scholar, teacher, and author of The Evangelical Universalist (2006); and Sharon L. Baker, who teaches religion and theology at Messiah College near Philadelphia, whose book is titled Razing Hell (2010).

BONDA: ROOM FOR “NO”

Bonda builds his case exegetically from throughout the Bible, focusing on Rom 9–11 as a paradigm for God’s universal plan of salvation. However, while Bonda thinks that the Bible provides good grounds for the hope that all will be saved, he does not deny the possibility that some may ultimately refuse forever God’s forgiveness and be annihilated. He reasons that, “God has given each human being the free choice to say No to him. But even . . . this would not mean endless punishment . . . Could this No result in nothingness—annihilation? Surely that is possible . . . Scripture does not allow us to affirm that this will not happen. We do not know everything! Nor does Scripture, however, allow us to affirm that this indeed will happen, namely, that part of humanity will wind up in nothingness.”[30]

TALBOTT: CONVINCED UNIVERSALIST

Talbott[31] grew up in a conservative evangelical home, and he first began to entertain universalist ideas while trying to sort out issues that separate Augustinians (Calvinists) and Arminians. Augustinians teach that God’s sovereignty guarantees the accomplishment of whatever he wishes; Arminians teach that God desires the salvation of all. In the end, both schools of thought offer a limited atonement: Augustinians say it is limited in intent or purpose (Christ died only for the elect), and Arminians say it is limited in accomplishment (some people refuse to be saved).[32]

Both sides claim theirs is the biblical position, but the two viewpoints are seemingly incompatible. But just what if both are right? “If you simply take the Augustinian idea of God’s sovereignty,” Talbott reasons, that God’s saving purpose “cannot be defeated forever—and put it together with the Arminian idea that God at least wills or desires the salvation of all, then you get universalism, plain and simple.”[33] The evangelical world does not dismiss either the Augustinian or the Arminian position as heretical, argues Talbott. Therefore, he insists, anyone affiliated with either of those schools of thought should eschew labeling universalism as heretical, since it represents the sum of those two non-heretical views added together.[34]

Talbott sets forward his biblical case, as he sees it, from Paul’s teaching about the two Adams (Romans 5; 1 Corinthians 15),[35] God’s reconciliation of all things (Colossians 1),[36] and (from throughout the Bible) justice as an expression of mercy, and not its opposing alternative.[37] I. Howard Marshall sums up Talbott’s final point as follows: “Judgment is seen as redemptive and restorative, a painful process that leads to final salvation. Retribution can have a redemptive purpose.”[38]

In the book Universal Salvation? The Current Debate, after Talbott has presented his case, respondents critique it from a variety of perspectives: biblical (I. Howard Marshall and Thomas Johnson), philosophical (Jerry Walls and Eric Reitan), theological (Daniel Strange and John Sanders), and historical (Morwenna Ludlow and David Hilborn/Don Horrocks). In a closing chapter, Talbott replies to his co-author critics.

MACDONALD: HOPEFULLY DOGMATIC

Gregory MacDonald, a.k.a. Robin Parry, calls himself “a hopeful, dogmatic universalist,” which he explains to mean that he espouses “a dogmatic universalism” although he is not “100% certain that it is correct.”[39] Beginning with the Christ-hymn recorded in Col 1:15–20, MacDonald notes that “the poem is emphatic in its claim that everything that exists (God excluded) was created ‘in Christ.’”[40] It then says that everything is reconciled in Christ, and “[t]he ‘all things’ that are reconciled in v. 20 are, without any doubt, the same ‘all things’ that are created in v. 16.” In every event, peace is made through the blood of Jesus’ cross, and “[t]he church . . . is a present sign of the reconciliation that the whole creation will one day experience.” [41]

In both Old and New Testaments, MacDonald says, God’s wrath is included in his love, and therefore his love “is perfectly compatible with divine wrath and punishment.” However, the last word is never wrath, but is always grace. This all happens because “in Jesus Christ God has acted to save Israel and, thus, to save the world.” Undergirding this salvific achievement, MacDonald insists, is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is “on the one hand, the Messiah representing the nation of Israel and, on the other, the second Adam representing the whole of humanity.”[42]

BAKER: FIERY FINAL CHOICE

Meanwhile, Sharon L. Baker, a religion and theology professor at Messiah College near Philadelphia, combines potential annihilationism and potential universalism in her book Razing Hell. In her view, those who enter the age to come will stand in the presence of God, whose presence is holy fire. There they freely choose whether to be purified by the fire and be redeemed, or, rejecting that option, to be consumed by it and be annihilated.[43] Baker builds her case on the foundation that final punishment is not about retribution, or people “getting what they deserve,” but that it instead serves a positive purpose, ending in reformation and restoration.

However, as I read the Scriptures, punishment does seem clearly to involve retribution, in the case of temporal judgments involving cities and individuals, and also in the case of the eschatological judgment yet to come.[44] Deeds have consequences, and consequences have causes. Divine punishment is part of a moral symmetry, a divine quid pro quo.[45]

However, the ultimate extinction of those who reject God is understandable, even without any idea of retribution. The destruction, disintegration, disappearance of those who reject fellowship with God can also be explained ontologically or existentially. Humans are creatures, totally dependent on the Creator for existence itself (Acts 17:25). To walk away from life-giving relationship with God, the only source of life, guarantees ultimate cessation of existence, for God is the only source of being.

PUNT: UNIVERSAL EXCEPT . . .

Since the publication in 1980 of Unconditional Good News,[46] retired Reformed Church pastor Neal Punt has been an advocate for what he calls “evangelical inclusivism”—not universalism as later envisioned by Talbott, Bonda, MacDonald, and Baker, but universalism with a specific stated exception. Beginning with passages of Scripture that speak of salvation or the atonement in terms of all persons, the whole world, or every individual, Punt argues that all humankind is elect in Christ, except those persons whom the Bible specifically says will be lost.[47]

Punt attempts to take more seriously than most Calvinists the passages of Scripture that refer in “universal” terms to the elect or to those whom God reconciled to himself in Christ. At the same time, he attempts to take more seriously than most non-Calvinists the passages of Scripture that say that Jesus’ atonement actually saved those who finally are saved, rather than merely making their salvation a possibility.[48]

Because of Jesus’ accomplishments as the Second Adam, Punt believes that no one will finally be consigned to hell “solely on the basis of their sin in Adam apart from actual, willful and persistent sin on the part of the person so consigned.”[49]

As a result, says Punt, we are enabled to regard every person we meet as among the elect—until the last day when Jesus will separate the sheep from the goats. Punt thus recognizes what we believe to be the scriptural teaching that at least some persons finally will perish and be no more.[50]

Wishing it True

We must say in the beginning that every sensitive Christian probably wishes that universalism could be true—if at the same time it could satisfy the moral hunger for justice, while not slighting the bedrock doctrines of sin, redemption, the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and his atoning work, the necessity of final judgment, and the reality of hell. Kenneth Kantzer, former editor of Christianity Today, once wrote: “I would like to believe that hell can only be the anteroom to heaven, a temporary and frightful discipline to bring the unregenerate to final moral perfection.”[51] J. I. Packer, a highly-respected advocate of traditionalism, says: “No evangelical, I think, need hesitate to admit that in his heart of hearts, he would like universalism to be true. Who can take pleasure in the thought of people being eternally lost? If you want to see folks damned, there is something wrong with you.”[52] The Bible says that God wishes for all to be saved, and surely we should be like God in that respect as well (1 Tim 2:3–4).

Traditionalism’s Albatross

Whether we like it or not, universalism is an albatross wrapped firmly around traditionalism’s neck. Indeed, traditionalism provides an environment, an incentive, and a theological foundation that are all conducive to universalism.

Environment

If one rejects conditionalism, and insists that unending conscious torment best represents biblical teaching, universal restorationism always crouches at the door. For if the wicked are not consumed and destroyed—if they do not truly perish, die, and cease to be—the thought will always linger that they might eventually find their way to salvation. If the damned do not really die in the second death, but are somehow alive throughout eternity, the innate desire for universal restoration will regularly reappear, for where there is life there is hope.

Incentive

Perceptive traditionalists understand and candid traditionalists admit:

- God alone possesses inherent immortality (deathlessness);

- Scripture promises immortality only to the redeemed;

- Scripture always ascribes human immortality to a whole embodied person, never to a disembodied soul or spirit; and

- Scripture always speaks of human immortality as God’s gift in the resurrection, never as the result of creation, or even of regeneration in the present age.

This is the conceptual environment in which the doctrine of unending conscious torment must exist. Further, according to traditionalists themselves, God not only permits human creatures made in his own image to suffer forever; he positively and actively causes that result. Not only does he cause it, he goes out of his way to bring it about, since those who suffer this fate are not inherently deathless, and it is necessary for God to make them immortal so they can continue to live and suffer without end.

In addition, Calvinist traditionalists must say that God planned this outcome from before the Creation of the world, and that he brings it about through his own decree of reprobation, implemented by his sovereign power. Because such a premeditated, calculated scheme of infinite and everlasting torment seems so patently contrary to the character of God, as revealed in Scripture and in the person of Jesus Christ, it has often served as an excuse for atheism and a stumbling-block to faith.

If the doctrine of unending conscious torment were true, none of that would matter, nor would all those baleful effects combined provide sufficient basis for rejecting or even criticizing it. If it is not true, as we believe that we have established from the word of God, then every one of those indictments is wholly justified.

Moreover, if the traditional theory of hell is not supported by Scripture, it is and always has been a horrible slander against the character of God himself. If that is the case, as we believe it to be, that fact alone is answer enough to the question why this book exists—to promote the honor of Almighty God, a goal expressed by the Reformation slogan Soli Deo Gloria (“To God only be glory!”). Meanwhile, the traditional theory of unending conscious torment continues as a major incentive driving believers to universalism and potential believers to unbelief.

Theological Foundation

As often presented, traditionalism also contributes a foundation for universalism to build upon. That is the premise which says that those who go to hell can, by their attitudes and actions in hell, change their future conditions. We refer to the argument advanced by many traditionalists,[53] that those in hell will continue to sin, both inwardly (by defiant and rebellious attitudes) and outwardly (by uttering blasphemy and curses), and that, for this sinning that occurs in hell, they will receive additional punishment throughout eternity.

But if the state of those in hell can be altered by evil that they commit there, it should also be possible to alter their circumstances by doing good (such as repenting) there. Some Calvinist traditionalists argue that that is impossible because the depraved character of the damned cannot even desire to do anything good. However, that rationale is not persuasive to non-Calvinists, who presuppose freedom of choice. That aside, Calvinists must ask themselves, Why could not a sovereign and loving God overcome this hurdle also, if that were what he willed?

Conditionalism Precludes Universalism

The only absolute answer to universalism is conditionalism, or some other variety of biblical annihilationism.[54] If the case presented in this book is valid, the fire of God’s judgment does not torment without end, and it does not purify and restore. Because the positive case for annihilationism eliminates the possibility of universalism, we will respond no further to arguments advanced on universalism’s behalf.[55]

Based on the atonement made by Jesus Christ, whoever believes in him can begin now to enjoy eternal life, and can expect, following the resurrection, to enjoy its fullness forever in a glorified and immortal body.

As to who will go to hell, Jesus warns us to see to ourselves, and he forbids us to judge others. Jesus specifically mentions hell (gehenna) by name eleven times in the Gospels.[56] Twice he addresses the Pharisees. All else that Jesus says about hell is directed to his own disciples. He never uses hell as a club or threat to those the religious establishment considered “sinners.”

As we resume our journey along the trail of historical development, we look next to a period of about one hundred years between the death of Origen and the birth of Augustine.

1. “Seems” because the following quotations may also be interpreted to mean extinction. Clement may use “immortality” of the soul, as some other apologists do, to mean it survives the death of the body and will therefore stand judgment. To “endure without end” may mean there is no relief of pain so long as one exists. And “to their destruction” might signify that the wicked are finally destroyed completely. In saying there will be no repentance in hell, he might expect hell to finally destroy the sinner—therefore no exit from it by repentance. On the other hand, his choice of the word “correction” in this regard opens the door for Origen’s teaching of restorationism a generation later.

2. Clement of Alexandria, Recognitions 5:28; ANCL 3:320.

3. Miscellanies 5:14; ANCL 12:275.

4. Cross speaks of Origen’s “supreme place among the Pre-Nicenes” in The Early Christian Fathers, 134. Everett Ferguson (under whom I was privileged to study Patristic Greek) calls Origen “the greatest scholar and most prolific author of the early church . . . a profound thinker . . . deeply spiritual and a loyal churchman” (Dowley, Eerdmans’ Handbook to the History of Christianity, 104).

5. Although most traditionalists through the centuries have focused on an immortal soul, Origen (who rejects traditionalism) assigns immortality to the resurrection body.

6. Origen, De Principiis 2:10:3; ANCL 10:140. This quotation begins in the middle of a very long and complex sentence that starts on page 139.

7. Ibid., 2:10:6; ANCL 10:142.

8. Against Celsus 4:13; ANCL 23:173.

9. Walker, The Decline of Hell, 12–13. Walker notes a revival of interest in Origen during the Renaissance, when Erasmus even used Origen’s exegesis of Romans 9 against Luther’s doctrine of the bondage of the will. Through Erasmus, Walker says, Origen became one strand in “the liberal Arminian tradition.”

10. Origen discusses this subject in many places, among them: De Principiis 2:10; ANCL 136–44; Against Celsus 4:13; ANCL 23:172–73; Ibid., 6:25–26; ANCL 23:363–65.

11. Pusey, What Is of Faith? 129–33. The question of how Jerome viewed Origen—and why—illustrates the intricacy and elusiveness of this historical debate. Farrar said that Jerome lauded Origen as a great and good man. Walker concedes that point but says Jerome later repudiated Origen in no uncertain terms. Beecher agrees with both but insists that Jerome “weasled” in self-defense when he denounced Origen in a desperate attempt to save his own reputation after a critic had accused him of holding Origen’s views. A reader picking up either man’s book alone would be impressed by the dogmatism of all these pronouncements but would have no way of knowing that others had responding explanations.

12. Farrar, Eternal Hope, 167. These four earliest councils are called “ecumenical” (universal or general) councils, and their conclusions are considered as expressions of Christian orthodoxy by historic churchmen of every persuasion. Not until much later did an ecclesiastical council speak specifically on final punishment; therefore the controversy regarding Origen’s orthodoxy. One could wholeheartedly confess the formulations of Nicaea and Chalcedon as well as the Apostles’ Creed, for example, and hold to either traditionalist or conditionalist views on the nature of eternal punishment.

13. MacDonald, All Shall Be Well, 8.

14. Ibid., 163–64.

15. Pusey, What Is of Faith? 136–37.

16. Berkouwer, The Return of Christ, 387–423.

17. Ibid., 412–13.

18. Harry Buis chides Origen for teaching eternal damnation to the masses as a deterrent to sin while privately believing in universalism. Buis calls this “an admission of the fact that the denial of eternal punishment undermines morals” (Buis, The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, 57). I agree with this assessment. Origen, however, has not been alone in using hell as a means of intimidation. Pusey speaks of one of Tertullian’s hellish descriptions “which he probably uttered to scare the heathen” (Pusey, What Is of Faith? 11). Pusey himself said that “neither the Church nor any portion of it has so laid down any doctrine in regard to [corporeal sufferings] as to make the acceptance of them an integral part of the doctrine itself” (18), yet he comments without hesitation that “dread of hell peoples heaven; perhaps millions have been scared back from sin by the dread of it” (19). Later he remarks concerning terrifying, literalistic sermons on hell: “In the early part of this century such sermons were favorite sermons with the poor, because they were stirred up by them to reverent and awe-stricken thoughts” (263). Is Pusey more righteous than Origen if he preaches literal suffering to scare the poor while admitting to his sophisticated readers that corporeal suffering is not essential to the doctrine? Berkouwer believes that when hell is spoken of “more for its psychological effect than out of truly evangelical concern,” the preaching lacks the gospel’s sound and is ineffectual in the end (Berkouwer, The Return of Christ, 420).

19. Of course this statement by definition is limited to post-seventeenth century forms of universalism.

20. Berkouwer, The Return of Christ, 395–96.

21. Ibid., 408.

22. Ibid., 409–10.

23. Ibid., 410–11.

24. Ibid., 411. Bloesch discusses Karl Barth’s views on hell, as does Berkouwer. Both men see Barth’s concern growing out of the desire to overcome the tension between the “universal” and “particular” aspects of Christ’s gospel. Bloesch says, “The logic of [Barth’s] theology drives him toward an ultimate universalism, though his intention is to transcend the polarity between universalism and particularism” (Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology, 2:224). Berkouwer denies that Barth was a universalist, however, noting that he emphatically rejected the doctrine numerous times (Berkouwer, The Return of Christ, 399).

25. MacDonald, All Shall Be Well, 23–24.

26. Ibid., 19–23.

27. Sproul, Reason to Believe, 99–100.

28. This does not suggest that “liberal universalism” and “evangelical universalism” exhaust the possible descriptives, or that these two are “next-door neighbors” on the theological village map.

29. This is acknowledged by several evangelical critics, including Jerry Walls (Walls, “A Philosophical Critique,” 106), Daniel Strange (Strange, “A Calvinistic Response,” 145–46), and John Sanders (Sanders, “A Freewill Theist’s Response,” 169).

30. Bonda, The One Purpose of God, 259. On the same page, Bonda references The Fire That Consumes, unfortunately concluding that “Fudge . . . believes that only the few will escape destruction” (ibid., note 1). That is a misunderstanding on his part, since I concur with the great nineteenth century traditionalist E. B. Pusey in saying that “We know absolutely nothing of the proportion of the saved to the lost . . . but . . . we do know . . . that none will be lost, who do not obstinately to the end and in the end refuse God” (Pusey, What Is Of Faith? 23). Undergirding that conviction is another truth, well-expressed by Thomas Johnson: “The reconciling love and mercy of God for all people has been accomplished in the atoning death and life-giving resurrection of Christ (Johnson, “A Wideness in God’s Mercy,” 99n2).

31. I am summarizing Talbott’s position from his own condensed version of it, in chapters 1–3, 12 of Parry and Partridge, eds., Universal Salvation?

32. Talbott, “Towards a Better Understanding,” 3–14.

33. Ibid., 7.

34. Ibid., 11–13. Arminian Jerry Walls responds, in essence, that because most Augustinians and Arminians, while differing with each other, mutually agree that it is heretical to teach that universalism is a necessity (as opposed to a possibility), Walls says that Talbott’s logic here is concocted in a vacuum and does not follow. At the least, Walls argues, universalists bear the burden of proof. (Walls, “A Philosophical Critique,” 108–9.) One senses that Talbott, Bond, MacDonald, and Baker are willing to accept that responsibility.

35. Ibid., 18–22.

36. Ibid., 22–28.

37. Ibid., 32–52.

38. Marshall, “The NT Does Not Teach Universal Salvation,” 55–56.

39. MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist, 4.

40. Ibid., 43.

41. Ibid., 45–46, 51.

42. Ibid., 101–5.

43. Baker, Razing Hell, 111–49.

44. Examples involving cities and nations include Sodom (Gen 19:24–29), Nineveh (Nah 3:1–4), Tyre (Ezek 27–28), Jerusalem (1 Thess 2:14–16), and Rome(?) (Rev 19:1–4). Retributive judgments against individuals (that often also acted as deterrents for others) include Nadab and Abihu (Lev 10:1–11), Achan (Josh 7:10–26), Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1–11), and Elymas the Sorcerer (Acts 13:6–11). Some texts also highlight the retributive purpose of the final judgment of the age to come (Isa 66:15–16; Matt 25:31–46; Rom 2:5–11; 2 Thess 1:6–10; Rev 6:9–11).

45. “This for that.” For an analysis of this moral symmetry in the book of Revelation, see Bauckham, “Judgment in the Book of Revelation,” 1–24.

46. Punt has since authored What’s Good About the Good News? (1988, to which I contributed the Foreword), So Also in Christ (2002), and A Theology of Inclusivism (2008), all advancing the same understanding but addressed to different demographic audiences.

47. Set forth most clearly in A Theology of Inclusivism (2008). Punt cites numerous biblical “universal declarations” to which Scripture itself identifies exceptions, thus making them “generalizations” instead of absolute universals: 1 Cor 15:27a and 1 Cor 15:27b; Matt 19:26 and 2 Tim 2:13; 1 Cor 15:22 and 2 Thess 1:10; 1 Tim 2:1 and 1 John 5:16; etc. MacDonald expressly rejects Punt’s fundamental thesis, stating: “The word ‘all’ only has one meaning in Greek, as in English, and that is ‘all without exception’” (MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist, 82).

48. Punt, A Theology of Inclusion, 12–19.

49. Ibid., 20–38.

50. Ibid., 240–45.

51. Kantzer, “Troublesome Questions,” 45.

52. Packer, “Evangelicals and the Way of Salvation,” 117.

53. Hodge, Outlnes of Theology, 584–85; Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? 225; Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 61–62; Pettegrew, “A Kinder, Gentler Theology of Hell? 216; Packer, “Evangelical Annihilationism,” 46; Strong, Systematic Theology, 3:1048–49.

54. Annihilationist explanations are biblical that include a general resurrection followed by the destruction of the wicked, whether one explains that in terms of unforgiven mortals who are not given immortality (our view), or in terms of persons created immortal by God, who finally also destroys them soul and body.

55. If one rejects conditional immortality, and every other form of annihilationism, that one will likely ask whether universal restorationism can claim greater support from Scripture than can the traditional doctrine of unending conscious torment.

56. Matt 5:22; 5:29–30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Luke 12:5.

27

Arnobius to Augustine

WE WILL BETTER UNDERSTAND the evolution of the traditional doctrine of unending conscious torment during the eventful fourth and fifth centuries if we first get a sense of the philosophical climate of those years. As it happens, that is the very purpose of a scholarly work by R. A. Norris, Jr., entitled Manhood and Christ: The Christology of Theodore of Mopsuestia. In the next few pages, we will summarize several of Norris’ most significant thoughts.

What began as rather unified schools of Greek philosophy had divided into a multiplicity of sects and schools. By the time of the Council of Nicea in AD 325, this splintered scene had itself passed away. In its place, according to Norris, there stood “a revived, eclectic Platonism” that became “the philosophy of the late Roman Empire.” Scholars sometimes divide this movement into a period of “Middle Platonism” and a later one of “Neo-Platonism.”

Yet, Norris says, “there remains a fundamental unity of outlook which characterizes the whole sweep of late imperial Platonism.” One of the fundamental concerns of the “prevailingly Neo-Platonic” fourth century was the nature and destiny of man. Whoever then wished to reason on that subject talked in terms of the soul—“its nature, its connexion with the visible world, and its ultimate destiny.”[1]

Within this period of Platonic revival, many philosophers consciously tried to reconcile Aristotle’s teaching with Plato’s. By and large, Norris says, they believed that the two great thinkers were in basic accord. These philosophers often retained Aristotle’s method of reasoning (by syllogisms), but, more importantly, his concept of God. To Aristotle, God was transcendent and supreme, but the philosopher conceived of God primarily as “self-thinking Intellect,” the “unmoved Source of cosmic motion.”[2] Yet Aristotle’s ideas actually rode piggyback on Neo-Platonic philosophy. Even Aristotle was interpreted in the light of Neo-Platonic presuppositions.

Middle Platonism

Stoicism also entered the picture. The apostle Paul had faced this philosophy in the first century, and at times its influence rose to practically rule the Greco-Roman world. Norris acknowledges that Stoicism was “one of the ingredients in the highly diversified movement called Middle Platonism.” But where Platonism absorbed and preserved certain of Aristotle’s thoughts, Stoic elements rather “hung on,” like a former coat of paint, in what Norris calls “an after-effect of their former currency in the Hellenistic world and that of the early empire.”[3] In either case, Norris says, “it is to the philosophy of late Platonism itself that we must turn to define the shape of the problem of man as that was conceived in the era of the great christological debates.”[4]

Even at this late date, according to Norris, the doctrine of the soul was developed against the background of Plato’s classical contrast between the realm of “Being” and the realm of “Becoming.” Plato explained this fundamental way of viewing all reality in the Timaeus, which Norris calls “a virtual textbook for the philosophy of the imperial age.”[5]

Where the Old and New Testament Scriptures of Jews and Christians view reality—seen or unseen—as a single universe under the personal, living, covenant-making God, Plato and his followers had two universes and no true God. Where the Bible introduces mankind as a creature formed from dust and enlivened by the breath of God, this human philosophy introduces man as an eternal, immortal, incorporeal, and indivisible “soul” trapped for a time in a temporal, mortal, corporeal, and divisible “body.” So defined, man is involved in both of Plato’s realms of reality. The philosopher’s problem is to determine the extent and manner of each involvement.

The same tension also arose when the Neo-Platonist viewed the material world. “From the point of view of ontology or theodicy,” Norris states, “matter appears as a neutral factor and body as the lowest work of a benign Providence; but where questions of ethics or of the nature of the soul’s blessedness are at stake, the dualistic outlook reasserts itself, and the fundamental contrariety of Matter and Spirit is, as it were, rediscovered.”[6]

Traditionalism’s historic presupposition that the soul is indestructible makes its view of hell all but inevitable. For if every human being possesses immortality (whether inherently, by God’s creation, or by resurrection), it would appear that the wicked will either suffer unending conscious torment or at some point leave hell and be restored to God. Since the Scriptures seem to disallow restorationism, and because Augustine endorsed unending conscious torment, the view of Tertullian and Augustine has long been the traditional orthodoxy.

Unfortunately, the other alternative of total, irreversible extinction, which offers ample room during the process of destruction for any range of degrees of conscious suffering divine justice might require, was ruled out during the fourth and fifth centuries on the basis of philosophical presuppositions.

Philosophers and Theologians

Arnobius the Anti-Platonist (died c. AD 330)

Traditionalists identify Arnobius of Sicca as the first conditionalist, but he is more accurately described as one of the earliest church fathers to wage a philosophic attack against the Platonic doctrine of the immortality of souls, and, that done, against the notion of unending conscious torment which sprang from that doctrine. In fact, Arnobius’ comments on the end of the wicked are sparse, and they are the natural understanding of scriptural language when read without the philosophical presupposition of the immortality of the soul.

A pagan rhetorician of Sicca Veneria in Africa Proconsularis, Arnobius did not seek admission to the church until late in his life. When the bishop hesitated to admit this former adversary, Arnobius wrote his Adversus Gentes (or Adversus Nationes [ Against the Heathen ]) in an attempt to prove his sincerity, pouring out his heart for the faith he wished to espouse.

This was a philosophical apologia, not a scriptural one. When he wrote it, Arnobius was not yet baptized, still untaught in the Scriptures, and a would-be convert to Christianity.[7] “Was it not enough,” Abbe Bardy asks, “to set forth the vanity of idols and to be impressed by the splendor of Christian life?”[8] Although Arnobius did not make the biblical case for the destruction of the wicked in hell, his critique of the Platonic foundation beneath the theory of unending conscious torment was devastating.

ARNOBIUS’ ARGUMENT

Arnobius begins by pointing out that many Christian doctrines that were ridiculed by the heathen were also held by the philosophers: specifically the worship of one God and a resurrection of the dead.[9] The philosophers also spoke of quenchless fires of punishment.[10] This means that man’s true death does not occur at the soul’s separation from the body but afterward. With this, Arnobius begins to discuss the nature of the soul, and he continues this discussion through chapter 53.[11]

The soul is neither inherently immortal nor divine, Arnobius argues, else men would be pure, holy, and of a common opinion.[12] Men are no different from brutes in body, maintenance of life, or reproduction of the race. If the philosophers hold out man’s reason as proof of an immortal soul, Arnobius replies that not all men behave rationally.[13] Besides, he says, men acquire both intelligence and skill after years of living under the pressure of necessity.[14] In the same way, they have to learn the arts, grammar, music, oratory, and geometry. Arnobius therefore rejects Plato’s theory of reminiscence—that what men consider “learning” is actually a recollection from the soul’s past experiences during previous incarnations.

A COUNTER TO PLATO’S PROPOSED EXPERIMENT

As a test of his theories, Plato had proposed that a boy be reared wholly apart from human society until he was grown, then be quizzed to see what he knew without being taught. Arnobius issues the same challenge to his opponents.[15] He gives a list of topics on which the lad should be tested. The Creator will triumph, he concludes, because a man untaught will be as ignorant as a stick or stone, while even animals may be taught to learn.[16]

The soul does not have a separate, incorporeal existence from the body, Arnobius says, and therefore it cannot be immortal as the pagan philosophers asserted.[17] To say that it is immortal leads men to be immoral and makes void both ethics and philosophy in general.[18]

ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS

Arnobius concludes that the soul is neither mortal nor immortal of itself, so men ought to welcome a Savior.[19] Christian and pagan are alike in this regard; only through God’s goodness can any spirit become immortal.[20] Arnobius argues that the soul is not divine in its nature and that its precise origin is beyond our ability to know.[21] There is nothing wrong with such ignorance, as even Plato seemed to admit, and no harm is done by such an opinion.[22]

For man to claim an immortal nature within himself is to reveal the greatest vanity and pride, Arnobius says. For “if men either knew themselves thoroughly, or had the slightest knowledge of God, they would never claim as their own a divine and immortal nature.”[23] Nor, “carried away by pride and arrogance, would they believe themselves to be deities of the first rank, and fellows of the highest in his exaltation.”[24]

Arnobius echoed Paul, if perhaps unknowingly, that only God possesses immortality. “None but the Almighty God can preserve souls,” he wrote, “nor is there any one besides who can give them length of days, and grant to them also a spirit which shall never die, except he who alone is immortal and everlasting, and restricted by no limit of time.”[25]

A WARNING

Having denounced man’s claim to immortality as gross hubris, and having answered the Platonists’ arguments to his own satisfaction, Arnobius warns them concerning the death that only God can inflict and of which their pride stands them in danger.

Do you dare to laugh at us when we speak of hell, and fires which cannot be quenched, into which we have learned that souls are cast by their foes and enemies? What, does not your Plato also, in the book which he wrote on the immortality of the soul, name the rivers Acheron, Styx, Cocytus, and Pyriphlegethon, and assert that in them souls are rolled along, engulfed, and burned up? But though a man of no little wisdom, and of accurate judgment and discernment, he essays a problem which cannot be solved . . .

And yet his opinion is not very far from the truth. For although the gentle and kindly disposed man thought it inhuman cruelty to condemn souls to death, he yet not unreasonably supposed that they are cast into rivers blazing with masses of flame, and loathsome from their foul abysses. For they are cast in, and being annihilated, pass away vainly in everlasting destruction.[26]

This, not physical death, is true death, Arnobius said earlier. “And . . . this is man’s real death, this which leaves nothing behind. For that which is seen by the eyes is a separation of soul from body,[27] not the last end—annihilation: this, I say, is man’s real death, when souls which know not God shall be consumed in long-protracted torment with raging fire, into which certain fiercely cruel beings shall cast them, who were unknown before Christ, and brought to light only by his wisdom.”[28]

The pagans have made themselves too wise in their assertions concerning man’s immortality, Arnobius charges. Only God is capable of such wisdom, and they are in danger of his ultimate punishment, that is the total death of body and soul alike.

Leave these things to God, and allow him to know what it is, wherefore, or whence; whether it must have been or not; whether something always existed, or whether it was produced at the first; whether it should be annihilated or preserved, consumed, destroyed, or restored in fresh vigor. Your reason is not permitted to involve you in such questions, and to be bruised to no purpose about things so much out of reach. Your interests are in jeopardy—the salvation, I mean, of your souls—and unless you give yourselves to seek to know the Supreme God, a cruel death awaits you when freed from the bonds of body, not bringing sudden annihilation,[29] but destroying by the bitterness of its grievous and long-protracted punishment.[30]

SUMMATION

In this treatise against pagan philosophy, Arnobius does not begin with the subject of final punishment, nor does he seem particularly concerned to prove or even to make his point about it. His great ambition is to refute the Platonic system as a whole—and particularly its arguments and claims concerning man’s immortal soul.

Having rejected that philosophical dogma, Arnobius seems to move almost unconsciously to his understanding and statements about the punishment awaiting the wicked. If God is the only source of life, and if one does not assume the soul’s indestructibility as a governing principle, the final extinction of the wicked seems as natural as night following day.

It is an irony of theology that a modern student who searches out Arnobius’ Adversus Nationes, to see how it advocated the extinction of the wicked, should discover that Arnobius began at the very place to which an increasing number of thoughtful evangelicals (including numerous top-drawer scholars whose devotion to Scripture and academic excellence are well-known and above question) are now moving.

The mainstream of traditionalist thought has long flowed down riverbeds dug by Platonic philosophy. Arnobius rejected the riverbed, and the stream of tradition passed him by. God is using today’s theological engineers again to turn the river’s course so that it finally waters the land he homesteaded so long ago.

A View Hardens into Orthodoxy

Though history would prove that the die was already cast in favor of unending conscious torment, some prominent fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries nevertheless followed Origen in expecting an ultimate restoration of the wicked even from hell.

Gregory of Nyssa (c. AD 335–c. 385)

Gregory of Nyssa reasoned that the soul, having a natural affinity to God, must ultimately return to God. Any suffering it encounters first is educational, purgatorial, and remedial. Farrar later gave a prominent place to the writings of this father “as proving the permissibility” of a larger hope for the wicked beyond the grave. He calls Gregory “a great and persecuted champion of the Nicene faith” whose “orthodoxy was so unimpeachable that he was one of the most prominent figures at the Council of Constantinople.”[31] Gregory of Nazianzus also wondered whether unending torment was worthy of God. J. N. D. Kelly gives references for the views of both these fathers in his well-known book, Early Christian Doctrines.[32]

Whether or not the opinion of the two Gregorys was “permissible” in their own time, there is no question about its status in the years and centuries to come. The “consuming” fire and the “refining” fire both gave way to the tormenting fire that Tertullian had described. Much of the biblical language concerning final punishment would be little used in the public conversation on that topic during the next thousand years.

More and more, orators and authors alike waxed eloquent in terminology found nowhere in the Bible. Some stressed literal, corporeal pain; many did not. But there was no question as to their belief in the everlasting conscious torment of the wicked—the interpretation of hell that emerged as the orthodox position of the medieval church.

Ambrose (c. AD 340–c. 397)

Ambrose interpreted hell’s fire and worm as spiritual or psychological torment. Pusey quotes Ambrose that the “fire is that which the sadness over transgressions generates, because the sins pierce with compunction the mind and sense of the irrational soul of the guilty, and eat out the, as it were, bowels of conscience; which sins are generated like worms out of each, as it were from the body of the sinner.”[33]

Chrysostom (AD 349–407)

For John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, as for Athenagoras and Tertullian before him, serious thinking included belief in the immortality of the soul. The soul was also near the center of thinking for Chrysostom’s contemporary in the West, Augustine, and for influential traditionalists in years to come. Chrysostom considered the immortality of the soul to be so central to Christian thought that he spoke of it as an element in the Christian gospel. In a sermon on John 1:14, Chrysostom said, “[H]aving filled his eleven disciples with his mighty power, he sent them to men throughout all the world, to . . . spread through every part of the earth the knowledge of their heavenly doctrines, to break down the tyranny of devils, to teach those great and ineffable blessings, to bring to us the glad tidings of the soul’s immortality, and the eternal life of the body, and rewards which are beyond conception, and shall never have an end” (emphasis added).[34]

Chrysostom (a nickname, meaning “Golden Mouth”) of Constantinople used his oratorical powers to the fullest, fleshing out biblical metaphors and creating new ones of his own imagination. He preached about “the sea of the bottomless pit, where the punishment is not accompanied with insensibility, where there is no suffocation to end all, but in ever-lengthened torture, in burning, in strangling, they are consumed there.”[35] He talked about “the venomous worm.”[36] Chrysostom warned of a fate worse than Job’s, whose corruption had an end. But “to be ever burning and not burnt up, ever wasted by the worm, is corruption incorruptible.”[37] The damned, said Chrysostom, “must not only be led into darkness, but must be burned continually, and waste away, and gnash his teeth, and suffer ten thousand other dreadful things.”[38]

Such language is patently unscriptural on its face. It introduces a “venomous worm” found nowhere in the Bible, changes the fire that consumes to a fire that never consumes, and creates the contradictory and nonsensical spectacle of “corruption incorruptible.” By applying to the wicked the immortality and incorruptibility that Scripture associates only with the righteous, Chrysostom and other traditionalists before and after, pass lightly over biblical language on the subject, and replace it with a self-contradictory terminology that neither Old nor New Testament Scriptures ever use even once. If Chrysostom made such preaching popular, the great Augustine would make it permanent.

Augustine of Hippo (c. AD 354–430)

PERSONAL LIFE

Born to a pagan father and a Christian mother, Augustine enjoyed the advantages of education in rhetoric, philosophy, and law, and also the short-lived pleasures of sin. For nine years he belonged to the sect of the Manichaeans, but grew restless and increasingly dissatisfied. He turned to the books of the Neo-Platonists in 385, through whose eyes he learned to perceive the existence of the spiritual world and solved to his own satisfaction the philosophical problem of evil. In time, Augustine became a Christian and, in the year 387, was baptized by Bishop Ambrose in Milan.

Immediately he started for Africa with his devout mother and a company of friends. His beloved mother died en route, and Augustine settled for three years at Tagaste in a kind of monastic life. In 391 he made his way to Hippo and became a priest the year following. In 396 Augustine succeeded Bishop Valerius, and he served in that office until his death on August 28, 430.

Deeply conscious of his own sinful nature, Augustine was also compassionate of the faults of others. He was overwhelmed by the total moral inability of humankind and the unutterable power of divine grace. Deeply spiritual after his conversion, Augustine’s character and his genius left an indelible stamp on Roman Christianity.[39]

AUGUSTINE’S THINKING

Augustine saw two great commonwealths or communities—the City of this World and the City of God. This focus has a judicial element, but it is not as exaggerated as in Tertullian. Augustine is not gleeful about the fate of the lost, nor does he show a spirit of vindictiveness. Yet he does not hesitate to argue that since hell is sin’s proper punishment, it is itself a “good” thing and not evil. This was how he answered the charge that unending torment made evil (as well as good) eternal—a doctrine he strongly opposed in his dualistic Manichaean adversaries.[40]

Augustine, as all mortals, was a man of his own age, in his case an age of Neo-Platonism, from which he derived a bias that directed if not presupposed his thinking about hell. In his classic biography of Augustine, Henry Chadwick of Oxford quotes Augustine’s appraisal in book 8, chapter 5 of The City of God that “no philosophers are nearer to us Christians than the Platonists.”[41]

Augustine differs with Plato’s teaching that the soul is “coeternal with God himself and of the same substance as its Creator,” but he accepts without question Plato’s dogma that the soul is immortal.[42] This teaching, as E. Earle Ellis observes, was foundational for Augustine’s understanding of hell. Ellis explains:

Augustine, appealing largely to Matt 25:41–46 and opposing Origen’s interpretation, argues that the destiny of the wicked is an everlasting process of suffering of both body and soul. He bases his argument on an initial assumption, following the Platonists, that the human soul is immortal by nature. As a previous adherent of Manicheism and then of Platonism, he regarded Neo-Platonism as the philosophy closest to Christianity. With his great influence the Augustinian view became dominant throughout the western church.[43]

Since Augustine was certain that Scripture excluded the possibility of universal restoration, he sided with fiery Tertullian and endorsed unending conscious torment.

Augustine allowed that some scriptural terms describing final punishment might be understood metaphorically and that the pain suffered would vary in its severity in proportion to the sinner’s guilt—infants who died unbaptized suffering least of all—but he insisted that all human beings will live forever, even those in hell. He warned against the false confidence of some who placed security in the fact that they were once baptized or belonged to the church and received its sacraments.

Augustine reasoned at some length against those who taught restorationism. Yet he allowed that certain sinners, Christians at heart but entangled in earthly loves, would be cleansed by a purgatorial fire and finally be saved.[44] Gregory the Great, a pope at the end of the sixth century, was a great mediator of Augustine’s theology. Gregory is often considered the originator of the Western church’s doctrine of purgatory.[45]

AUGUSTINE’S INFLUENCE

By the fifth century, Kelly says, Augustine’s views already were “everywhere paramount.”[46] Supported by his endorsement, the common view quickly moved from the status of popular opinion to become unquestioned orthodoxy. Augustine’s role in the development of Christian thought was so crucial, says Gatch, “that no survey can do justice to his achievement.”[47]

Although some of Augustine’s ideas have been “tacitly dropped,” Pusey writes, he “has, more than any other, formed the mind of our Western Christendom.”[48] Regarding the traditionalist interpretation of final punishment, Harry Buis acknowledges, Augustine’s “advocacy of this position tended to cause it to become the accepted doctrine of the church for the centuries that followed.”[49] Augustine’s influence extended to medieval scholasticism, to Calvin and Reformed Protestantism, and to Tridentine Roman Catholicism alike. Indeed, from his time forward, one would be hard pressed to find a major break between Augustinian thinking and the teaching of the magisterial churches of the Reformation or of the post-Reformation Roman Catholic Church.

Yet Augustine himself once urged: “Do not follow my writings as Holy Scripture. When you find in Holy Scripture anything you did not believe before, believe it without doubt; but in my writings, you should hold nothing for certain.”[50] We express respect for Augustine’s true greatness by heeding his humble advice, as we next examine Augustine’s greatest treatise on the subject of final punishment, Book 21 of his work The City of God.

1. Norris, Manhood and Christ, 3–4.

2. Ibid., 5–6.

3. Ibid., 6–9.

4. Ibid., 9.

5. Ibid., 10–11.

6. Ibid., 17.

7. Cross, The Early Christian Fathers, 184. The following quotations from Adv. Gen. are from ANCL. Citations designate the internal book and chapter numbers, then the volume and page numbers in ANCL.

8. Bardy, The Christian Latin Literature, 56.

9. Arnobius, Adv. Gen. 2:13; ANCL 19:77–79.

10. Adv. Gen. 2:14; ANCL 19:79–81.

11. Adv. Gen. 2:14–53; ANCL 19:79–129.

12. Adv. Gen. 2:15–16; ANCL 19:81–83.

13. Adv. Gen. 2:17; ANCL 19:83–84.

14. Adv. Gen. 2:18; ANCL 19:84–85.

15. Adv. Gen. 2:20–24; ANCL 19:86–91.

16. Adv. Gen. 2:25; ANCL 19:91–92.

17. Adv. Gen. 2:26–28; ANCL 19:92–95.

18. Adv. Gen. 2:29–30; ANCL 19:95–98.

19. Adv. Gen. 2:31–33; ANCL 19:98–100.

20. Adv. Gen. 2:34–36; ANCL 19:100–4.

21. Adv. Gen. 2:37–48; ANCL 19:104–16.

22. Adv. Gen. 2:49–53; ANCL 19:116–21.

23. Adv. Gen. 2:19; ANCL 19:85.

24. Adv. Gen. 2:19; ANCL 19:85.

25. Adv. Gen. 2:62; ANCL 19:131.

26. Adv. Gen. 2:14; ANCL 19:79–80.

27 Arnobius here uses (and seemingly accepts) the language of the philosophy he is denying. The definition of death as “separation of soul from body” is straight from Plato’s Phaedo and the dying conversation of Socrates with his friends. There Socrates asks Simmias concerning death: “And is it just this that is named ‘death’—a release and a parting of soul from body?” “Indeed it is.” “And . . . the occupation of philosophers is just this, isn’t it–a release and a parting of soul from body?” “It seems so.” Plato, Phaedo, 10(d).

28. Arnobius, Adv. Gen. 2:14; ANCL 19:81.

29. Arnobius is not denying the ultimate extinction of the wicked. He is saying it will not come suddenly, but by the process of “grievous and long-protracted punishment.” This allows for great degrees of punishment according to the exact measure of divine justice. “Eternal punishment” is the (capital) punishment of “eternal destruction,” brought about through a destructive process that allows for whatever degrees of conscious agony God might require in each individual case. Whatever one might wish to say about the conscious suffering involved, Scripture writers focus on the end result—the final, ultimate, irreversible extinction of the whole person in the unquenchable (irresistible) and consuming (thoroughly destructive) fire of hell.

30. Arnobius, Adv. Gen. 2:61; ANCL 19:130.

31. Farrar, Eternal Hope, 160.

32. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 483.

33. Quoted by Pusey, What Is of Faith? 20, who cites Ambrose, S. Luc., C.vii. nn. 205–6.

34. Chrysostom, “Homily 14 on John 1:14.”

35. Chrysostom, “Homily 12 on Acts 4:36–37.”

36. Chrysostom, “Homily 25 on Romans 14:1–2.”

37. Chrysostom, “Homily 24 on Ephesians 6:14–17.”

38. Chrysostom, “Homily 14 on John 1:14.”

39. Bardy, Christian Latin Literature, 130–35.

40. Wenham, The Goodness of God, 30. Norman L. Geisler repeats Augustine’s argument that hell is actually a philosophical “good” in his Philosophy of Religion, 374. Although conditionalists and restorationists stand at opposite poles and could not be further apart, they often agree in charging traditionalists with the eternity of evil and thus with unbiblical dualism.

41. Chadwick, Augustine of Hippo, 132.

42. Ibid., 134.

43. Ellis, “New Testament Teaching on Hell,” 201.

44. Kelly gives references in his Early Christian Doctrines, 484–85.

45. Gatch, Death, 73.

46. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 484.

47. Gatch, Death, 70.

48. Pusey, What Is of Faith? 172–73.

49. Buis, The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, 61.

50. Augustine, “Preface to the Treatise on the Trinity,” quoted by Boice, Does Inerrancy Matter? 22.

28

Augustine’s Case for Unending Torment [1]

THROUGHOUT SCRIPTURE, GOD WARNS the wicked of final punishment in the fire that consumes. During the second century AD, Tertullian and other fathers introduced the understanding of hell as the fire that torments forever. And, a century later, Origen introduced the interpretation of hell as the fire that purifies and results in universal reconciliation. But the two men most responsible for the present popularity of the doctrine of unending conscious torment are Augustine (fifth century), through whose influence Tertullian’s view became Catholic orthodoxy, and John Calvin (sixteenth century), whose influence was largely responsible for bringing Roman Catholic traditionalism on hell into Protestant orthodoxy. We will examine the major work of both men on the subject in this chapter and in chapter 29.

Introduction

In book 21 of The City of God, Augustine answers pagan critics who scoff at his preaching of the last things. Although he touches on the resurrection and the last judgment, his greatest concern is final punishment. Augustine has taught that those who go to hell will be immortal, just as those who inherit eternal life.

As we move through Augustine’s discussion of hell, we will pay close attention to his opponents and their authority, Augustine’s own view of humanity and immortality, and his use of Scripture.

Augustine’s Opponents and Their Authority

Because “it seems harder to believe that the bodies of the damned are to remain in endless torment than to believe that the bodies of the saints are to continue without pain in everlasting felicity,” Augustine first sets himself to prove “the possibility of eternal pain.” Once this is established, it also “will greatly help to show how relatively easy it is to believe in the utterly unperturbed immortality of the bodies of the saints” (339).[2] He clarifies his aim in chapter 2. “It is not easy to find a proof,” he says, “that will convince unbelievers of the possibility of human bodies remaining not merely active, alive, and uncorrupted after death, but also of continuing forever in the torments of fire” (340). Augustine builds his case carefully.

First, he points out, there are many wonders in nature which the pagans themselves cannot explain. In chapters 2–7, Augustine enumerates several of the more fantastic. It is reported, he says, that certain animals live in fire and never burn, that certain worms live in springs too hot for man to endure (340). Volcanoes in Sicily have always burned, but the mountains remain intact (345).

And what of straw, which keeps snow cold but fruits warm? Or fire, which blackens logs but brightens stones? (345–46). Then there is the diamond, “so marvelously hard that neither iron nor fire can crack it. Only goat’s blood, so they say, is potent enough for that” (347). There is a salt in Sicily which flows like water when thrown on a fire but crackles as if burning when pitched into water (349)

A well in another place issues water by day too cold to drink but by night too hot to touch (350). Another well is said to have water which puts out a burning taper but lights it again after it has been extinguished (350). And in the land of Sodom there are fabled apples which grow to maturity but crumble like dust and disappear into smoke when touched by man (350). Besides these things are the well-known marvels of charcoal (346), lime (346), and the lodestone or magnet (348).

It is important to note that Augustine himself does not personally believe all these wonders. “I would not want anyone to be rash enough to believe all the wonders I have mentioned,” he says. “I am not myself completely convinced, except where I have had personal experience and where verification is easy for anyone” (357). He names these things only to show that man’s reason is no less baffled by many marvels of nature than it is by the mysteries of faith (352).

The same skeptics who accept these tales charge Christians with insincerity for speaking incredible things about the life to come. Augustine insists this is not fair. “The skeptics . . . charge us with insincerity when we say that there have been (and will be) divine miracles which we cannot parallel in their personal experience. So long, at least, as they are convinced that there are natural wonders which are humanly inexplicable, they have no right to argue that this or that fact never has occurred or ever will occur, merely because no rational explanation can be given” (349).

If they accept things in the natural realm which are greater than reason, “why should God be unable to raise bodies from the dead and allow the bodies of the damned to suffer in eternal fire, seeing that he made a universe filled with uncounted miracles?” (355). The critics’ own skepticism witnesses against them. For the very “God who is to do the things which seem impossible is the . . . same God who made the promise . . . that incredible things would be accepted as credible by incredulous people” (358).

Comment

Augustine does not believe all these wonders he cites. He is simply making an argument ad hominem, turning the logic of his opponents around on them. In view of the “natural” marvels that they accept without question, the pagans have no right to object to Augustine’s doctrine that the wicked will be immortalized to burn forever. We must give him the point entirely. In matters relating to God, human reason cannot be the criterion for acceptance or rejection.

Larry Dixon makes the same point today. “If God can use a burning bush to communicate to his chosen person in Exod 3 without consuming it,” Dixon notes, “who is to say that his fire of judgment cannot punish those who refuse to believe the gospel without consuming them? (cf. Dan 3:19–27)”[3] And, of course, he is correct that God is able to do that very thing. But where, we should ask, does God ever indicate that he intends to do such a thing?

To this point, Augustine has not attempted to prove his doctrine from Scripture, only to take away a rational objection made by his humanistic opponents. Since that is his stated purpose in this section, he should not be criticized for doing no more. Nor should we think he bases his doctrine on the “marvels” he cites from nature and reject it for that reason. He does not name these things as proof of his doctrine but as an answer to a particular objection of his opponents.

Augustine’s View of Humans and Immortality

Augustine’s critics have also objected “that no body that can suffer pain can escape death” (341). Augustine seeks to answer this by showing that pain and life can coexist forever. Here he is forced to revert to the Platonic mentality. Scripture had not dealt with such an objection since Scripture is not cast in terms of philosophy, but the philosophers had. So Augustine becomes the philosopher.

He points to physical death to make his argument clear. ‘The reason why a soul succumbs to pain and leaves the body is that, in this life, the link between our bodily members and the principle of their life is so weak that this link cannot stand the strain of any force that brings about very great or excessive pain. But in the world to come, the soul and body will be so united that a bond between them can be broken neither by the power of pain nor by the passing of time” (342).

Man will have a different kind of flesh then as well, he says, and “there will be a different kind of death from the death of the body” (342). Once “the soul is without God,” he explains, “it will be incapable of escaping the pains of the body. The first kind of death drives an unwilling soul out of the body; the second death holds an unwilling soul in the body. What is common to both deaths is that it is the soul that must reluctantly suffer what the body inflicts” (342).

Augustine refers to this “different flesh” again in chapter 8. Skeptics say, “it is simply not in the nature of human flesh to remain unconsumed in fire” (358). But they must speak of human flesh as they have known it in their own experience. And, Augustine points out, that is not even now the same kind of human flesh man once had. “For, this very human flesh . . . by its nature before the fall . . . could never suffer death,” but since the fall it has “been so constituted that . . . as things now are, it must suffer death.” It is permissible to argue, therefore, “that in the resurrection it will once more be differently constituted from what it is now” (358).

Augustine the philosopher speaks from the viewpoint of Plato, who took for granted the maxim that “all souls are immortal.” Augustine accepts Plato’s axiom with the common Christian qualifications that souls had a beginning because God created them and that they were not so inherently immortal that God could not destroy them. He states this presupposition twice in chapter 3.

First he charges that the pagans overlook the fact that man has a reality higher than the body. “That reality is the soul, without whose presence there would be neither life nor movement in the body. What is more, it is a reality that is susceptible of pain and not susceptible of death. Here, in fact, we have the reality which, conscious as it is of pain, is immortal. And it is this capacity for immortality (already, as we know, inherent in everybody’s soul) which, in the world to come, will be present in the bodies of the damned” (342–43).

If then, there is any genuine argument connecting pain and death . . . this argument would apply, if at all, to the death of the soul, since it is to the soul rather than to the body that pain pertains. But the fact is that the soul which more truly feels pain than the body, cannot die. What follows is that there is no basis whatever for arguing that . . . because bodies in the future life are to be in pain, we therefore must believe that even in the future life they will die.” (343)

Comment

Augustine’s dialogue with his critics here comes strictly under “philosophy” and not under “Scripture.” He does not pretend otherwise but attempts to meet and better his adversaries on their own ground. For his valiant efforts to do this we may give him (and other apologists before and since) due appreciation and honest respect.

Yet it is equally clear from Augustine’s answer concerning pain and the body that he reasons from the Platonic presupposition of the immortality of the soul. He explicitly states this assumption twice. In the end, he makes this presupposition a fundamental basis for rejecting what otherwise sounds convincing—that the soul, being in pain, would finally succumb and die. Augustine assumes the immortality of the soul, so he is forced to reject that conclusion. He must conclude instead that souls entering into final punishment will never die.

Here Augustine, like Calvin after him, is inconsistent. When speaking of man before God, he insists that man’s immortality is derived from and dependent on the grace of God. But when speaking of final punishment, he argues from the immortality of the soul as if that were a fixed point not subject to criticism or dispute.

Immortality of the soul is for him, as it is for Calvin, a kind of secondary influence. He does not begin with it, but in the matter of final punishment it always crops up, diverting him from his original view of man under God to a course based instead on Platonic theory. His conscious anthropology attempted to be biblical. His unconscious anthropology was not, and it finally determined his exegesis.

We also observe that Augustine’s language regarding immortality differs from Scripture’s in at least three important points. Augustine attributes immortality to souls of the wicked by creation. Scripture speaks always of human immortality in terms of the redeemed, never of the wicked; always of an embodied holistic person, never of a disembodied soul; and as a gift bestowed to the saved in the resurrection, never something inherent in humankind from creation. One might wish to argue for the immortalization of the wicked as well as the righteous in the resurrection, but it will have to be on some basis other than scriptural revelation.

Augustine’s Use of Scripture

Robert Peterson defends Augustine’s use of the Bible, even saying that “[w]e would do well to imitate his esteem for Holy Scripture, his toiling to understand its meaning, and his willingness to submit his mind and heart to its teachings.”[4] As we now examine Augustine’s actual use of the Bible in this section of The City of God, we will find that Dr. Peterson’s tribute to the great Augustine is a little overdone.

A fair critique of Augustine’s use of Scripture will recognize two unique qualities of this work. This book in The City of God is (1) primarily polemic, not didactic, and Augustine’s discussion is (2) more philosophical than scriptural. It would be unfair to note that he speaks philosophically, and then to charge him for that reason with being unscriptural. Philosophers are not bound to use Scripture. Augustine is not attempting to teach the Scriptures but to counter his opponents.

However, when Augustine uses Scripture, it is appropriate for us to look carefully at how he uses Scripture. We might observe, for example, that although Augustine speaks freely of unquenchable fire, undying worm, and ascending smoke, he shows no awareness of the biblical meanings of those symbols. He simply uses these phrases—by now familiar stock in the Christian vocabulary—as they have come to be used and interpreted in the light of the Platonic “immortality of the soul.”

We can illustrate what he says Scripture teaches, therefore, but we will search here in vain for any exegetical basis for that teaching. He addresses unbelievers in the name of the church. What he says is held without question to be also the teaching of Scripture.

Augustine begins chapter 9, for example, with this statement: “One thing that will happen, and most certainly happen, is what God, through his prophet, said concerning the punishment of hell being eternal: ‘Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched’” (363, quoting Isa 66:24). Later he quotes Jesus’ words of warning from Mark 9:42–48 about forfeiting hand, foot, or eye in order to escape “the unquenchable fire, where the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched.” No one could dare disagree with Augustine’s observation that “that repetition and that emphatic warning, coming from divine lips, are enough to make any man tremble” (364).

He can cite Scripture for his denial “that bodies in hell will be such that they will be unaffected by the pains inflicted by fire” (366), for Jesus speaks of penal suffering as well. Augustine is not sure whether the “worm” is literal or a figurative torment of the soul, though he prefers to say that both fire and worm apply to the body alike (365). The fire, however, “will be material and it will torment” the bodies of damned men as well as demon-spirits who are either in or out of a body (368).

Augustine believes that Scripture teaches gradations of suffering for the wicked, in keeping with divine justice. The eternal fire “will undoubtedly affect people differently according to their deserts and the pain will be made slight or serious either, by varying the degree of intensity of the fire itself, according to the guilt of the sufferers, or by varying the sensitivity of the sinners to a hell that is the same for all” (377–78).

Augustine’s lack of exegesis in the first section is all the more striking by contrast with the second. Almost the entire last half of the book is devoted to refuting assorted views of those who hold out hope for restoration, remission or escape for those thrown into hell. There Augustine uses many passages in context as he examines the texts advanced by his adversaries.

Augustine believes in purgatorial suffering in the present life and after death. But all purging will be over when one enters the eternal fire (377). He examines the Lord’s words: “Depart from me, accursed ones, into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels.” He argues from the Apocalypse with its “pool of fire and brimstone.” Here his appeal is clear. “It is Scripture, infallible Scripture, which declares that God has not spared them” (386–87).

He analyzes Christ’s words in Matthew 25, where the Lord speaks in “clear but contrasting declarations” of the righteous and the wicked (389). There is no hint anywhere, he says, of future mercy after death, of escape from hell, of restoration from damnation, or of the wicked overpowering their final sentence through either human might or divine grace. Rather, there are clear and unequivocal statements from the mouth of even Jesus himself which speak of irreversible and everlasting doom.

It is sometimes argued that this irrevocable doom cannot be eternal extinction because such execution would not be “eternal punishment.” One would search the literature in vain for a better refutation of this objection than he finds in chapter 11 of book 21 of The City of God. Augustine is speaking against “some who think it unjust that anyone should be condemned to eternal punishment for sins, however great, committed during a period of time that was relatively short” (368). This contention contradicts the civil code of every judicial system, he says. Other than the possible use of precise retaliation (an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth), Augustine points out, legal punishment is almost never so proportioned to the crime “that the length of the punishment equals the time spent in perpetrating the crime” (368). Take the case of kissing another man’s wife, he suggests, and suppose the legal punishment is scourging. “The offender who took only a moment for the injury done is rightly scourged for an incomparably longer time; however short his pleasure, he suffers a protracted pain” (369).

Then Augustine turns to capital punishment as his greatest illustration. He is showing the rightfulness of an eternal punishment for sins committed during a short period of time. He understands “eternal punishment” to be conscious everlasting torment. But his words could well be used by one arguing the case for eternal extinction—divine “capital punishment.” At the very least, Augustine refutes the argument that eternal extinction could not qualify as “eternal punishment.” These are his words:

Where a very serious crime is punished by death and the execution of the sentence takes only a minute, no laws consider that minute as the measure of the punishment, but rather the fact that the criminal is forever removed from the community of the living. And, in fact, this removal of men from mortal society by the penalty of the first death is the nearest parallel we have to the removal of men from the immortal communion of saints by the penalty of the second death. For, just as the laws of temporal society make no provision for recalling a man to that society, once he is dead in body, so the justice of the eternal communion makes no provision for recalling a man to eternal life, once he has been condemned to the death of his soul. (369–70)

Comment

When Augustine refutes the arguments advanced for a restoration from hell, he reasons on the basis of scriptural exegesis. He shows himself well able to let Scripture speak on its own terms and in each context to make its message clear. He convinces with the authority of a truly biblical theologian in opposing the possibility of escape from hell and in affirming that its doors open only in one direction—admitting to its terrible domain the wretched doomed who will never return or leave it forever.

The skill with which he so uses Scripture in the latter half of this book contrasts sharply with his practical non-use of Scripture in the first part. Although he wears a philosopher’s hat there, his appeals to Scripture are circuitous. He assumes what he would prove and quotes biblical phrases with his own interpretation.

Throughout the work he shows clear evidence from Scripture that final punishment will be final: irremediable and irreversible. But not once does he even attempt to show that the scriptural language requires perpetual conscious torment rather than an irreversible punishment of everlasting destruction resulting in total extinction.

He does not exegete the texts to obtain his interpretation. He passes over the Old Testament language completely, with the barest exception of a passing reference. He makes no reference to the prophetic background of Jesus’ symbolic language. He does not consider that the words used by Paul—terms like “death,” “destruction,” and “perish”—have any significance or bearing on the subject, or that they had a long and rather common usage in philosophical discussions when Paul wrote them. Although he is a philosopher himself, he makes no mention of Plato’s use of this vocabulary, specifically when speaking of the soul.

Augustine never mentions the possibility of the extinction of the wicked in hell. One interpretation for this is that he knew no one who suggested that possibility. Yet Froom shows that the view had advocates long before Augustine and even during his century. It seems at least as likely (and probably far more so) that Augustine simply has nothing to say against the view.

Augustine does state one presupposition, however, that prevents his considering the case for the extermination of the wicked in hell. That is the philosophical doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Even though he differs from his Platonic opponents in some particulars, he clings to the immortality of every soul in the sense of its indestructibility, and, in the end, this overpowering premise makes annihilation impossible for Augustine to accept.

Augustine’s philosophy erects a barricade to his exegesis. In this he sets the pace for the Western church, which for the most part has followed his thinking to this day. The sixteenth century brought Protestantism’s new beginning to a crossroads on the matter. Tyndale, Luther, and the Anabaptists leaned another direction. But the influence of Calvin would tilt the Reformation into Augustine’s path, and so it would remain until the twentieth century.

1. Walsh and Honan, The Fathers of the Church, 339–413.

2. Citations indicate page numbers in The Fathers of the Church, cited above.

3. Dixon, Whatever Happened to Hell? 81.

4. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 108.

29

Middle Ages to Reformation

WITH THE DECLINE OF Rome, Europe’s intellectual center gradually moved northwest, away from the ancient Mediterranean basin to the newer Germanic kingdoms. Although doctrinal surveys sometimes omit the six or seven centuries from Augustine to Anselm and Aquinas, Gatch insists that the period be paid its due. These centuries are not noted for original thought, he says, but for “a passion to collect, preserve, and transmit the teaching of the Fathers.”[1]

Middle Ages

They were followed, however, by the High Middle Ages, and Gatch does see there a turning-point in Christian thinking concerning death and its meaning. In this period, he says, “the soul’s immortality and its adventures after the separation of body and soul came to occupy the center of attention at the expense of the heroic picture of resurrection.”[2]

Along with this emphasis on the individual, there came what Gatch calls “a new sense of tenderness,” seen in theology in the cult of the Virgin Mary and in literature by the courtly romance. The general resurrection and cosmic judgment remained, but attention turned to the individual judgment believed to occur at the hour of each person’s death.

Logic became the theologian’s basic tool, writes Gatch, and the final measure for determining authority as well.[3] The two best-known theologians of the era also clearly illustrate these developments. They are Anselm (died 1117) and Thomas Aquinas (died 1274).

Anselm (Died AD 1117)

Like Tertullian so many years earlier, Anselm argued for unending torment on the basis of philosophy and law. In his Cur Deus Homo (book 1) and also his Proslogion (chapters 8–11), this philosopher-theologian set forth his traditional case. He did not attempt to exegete Scripture but instead defended the teaching that he had received. Where Tertullian thought in terms of Latin law and justice, Anselm reasoned within the framework of medieval feudal society.

In that structure, punishment was determined not only by the offense committed but also by the relative worthiness of the offended party. An act that the king might commit with impunity could cost a nobleman a reprimand or even time in jail. Committed by a serf, it might well mean instant death. Since God is worthy of infinite honor, Anselm reasoned, crime against him (sin) deserves infinite punishment. But since man is a finite being, the only way he can pay an infinite penalty is to suffer for an infinite period of time. Therefore sinners must endure conscious torment forever.

It is immediately evident that Anselm does not base his strongest appeal on scriptural evidence. He neither explains the many passages that seem to teach that sinners will become extinct, nor does he interpret the more popular phrases such as “unquenchable fire,” “the worm that dies not,” or “fire and brimstone” in the light of their common biblical usage. He reasons from philosophy—and some modern philosophers argue that even that is fallacious.[4]

More impressive is the little-known fact that Herman Witsius (1636–1708), a shaper of Reformed High Orthodoxy and professor of Divinity at the Universities of Franeker, Utrecht, and Leyden, demonstrated that, even using Anselm’s own logic, annihilation and unending conscious torment provide equally satisfactory conclusions to the problem of sin and punishment.

First, Witsius acknowledges that sin against an infinite God is infinite in malignity and deserves infinite punishment.[5] However, Scripture recognizes degrees of sins, which proves that sins are not infinite in an absolute sense, otherwise they would all be equal in degree. Furthermore, finite humans cannot produce any act that is infinite in intensity.[6]

Because sins are infinite in malignity but not in intensity, they deserve punishment infinite in measure but not infinite in intensity. Indeed, finite humans are no more capable of suffering infinitely intense punishment that they are able to perform an infinitely intense act.[7]

Punishment that is infinite in measure will have two characteristics, said Witsius: It will deprive sinners of the enjoyment of infinite good, namely God himself; and it will do that forever. That is all we can know for sure, according to Witsius. Such punishment could consist of unending conscious torment, or it could consist of everlasting annihilation.[8]

Thomas Aquinas (Died AD 1274)

As it had been nearly a millennium earlier, the problem of the soul was again debated hotly in the thirteenth century. Thomas Aquinas built on an Aristotelian base. The idea of the soul’s existence apart from the body concerned him less than it did others who reasoned from the more Platonic tradition. I. C. Brady opines that Thomas greatly improved on the philosophical proofs for the soul’s immortality, arguing as he did from its supposed spirituality and substantiality. Man’s “intellectual operations” prove the soul is a spiritual subsistent being, reasoned Aquinas, so that it is subject to no corruptibility.[9]

Aquinas argued that the resurrection is necessary because of “the natural desire of man to tend to happiness,” Gatch says. In the same way, ultimate punishment requires the reunion of soul and body. Whether good or bad, in this thinking, man will be “immortal, animal, and incorruptible.”[10] As a follower of Aristotle, Aquinas also viewed the soul as the “form” of the body and as incomplete without it. For this reason, too, the resurrection was a philosophical necessity, and in this he differed from the Platonists. Even though Aquinas believed that the resurrection and final judgment were needed as salvation’s consummation and history’s goal, in his understanding these central events of biblical eschatology lost their place of emphasis to the individual soul and its destiny immediately after death.[11]

Since the soul “had priority in the fault or merit” during its sojourn in the body, Aquinas also thought it proper that it should “have priority also in being punished or rewarded.” He therefore concluded that a double retribution begins at the point of death for what man has done in life. The righteous then begin to see God; the wicked begin to suffer torment. Because even the righteous are tainted by sin’s impurity, their souls must first be purged. “This is made by punishments,” said Aquinas. “And this is the reason we hold that there is a purgatory.”[12]

In his Summa Contra Gentiles, Aquinas defended the justice of eternal torment by five arguments. In one he argued that to will a thing is as bad as to actually do it. A man who rejected his ultimate end for the sake of a temporal good, when he might have enjoyed his proper end throughout eternity, shows he preferred temporal good even through eternity. God is therefore just, Aquinas reasoned, to punish that man in the same way as if he had sinned eternally—with eternal punishment.

And because pleasure is increased by contrast with its opposite, Aquinas reasoned that the damned would suffer forever in the plain sight of the redeemed.[13] As with the arguments of Anselm, so Aquinas’ philosophical arguments also are disputed today totally apart from their scriptural merits.[14] Still, Aquinas’ influence on Western theology is undisputed, especially within Roman Catholicism. On the subject of hell, Aquinas’ ideas still appear prominently within traditionalist literature.

Anselm and Aquinas typify the main current of Western thought in the official medieval church. It was a theology cast in the mold of philosophy; tradition rather than exegesis filled in its details. As time passed, the tradition hardened and the distance from Scripture increased. The Bible’s view of last things was largely lost, though such outstanding events as the resurrection, final judgment, and heaven and hell remained like some honored pieces of furniture preserved for posterity from a house that no longer existed. One writer gave this contrast: “If primitive Christian eschatology was futurist in its orientation and at once personal, social, and cosmic in its scope, the traditional eschatology of the classical period was on the whole presentist in orientation and individualistic in scope.”[15]

Events of the sixteenth century would shake the traditional system to its roots, and it would never again be the same. But almost of necessity the embattled Reformers would take first things first. And to them that would mean such pressing concerns as justification and the church. “First things” would not include last things.

The Sixteenth-century Reformers

“Augustine,” writes H. Quistorp, “as the father of Western mediaeval theology, is also the real founder of the eschatology of the medieval church, in which that of Calvin is in many respects rooted.”[16] Luther and Calvin alike gave the greatest attention to those doctrines that they felt most threatened by contemporary Catholicism, specifically the authority of the Scriptures and justification by faith. Other doctrines that lay outside these bounds were not points of special controversy and did not receive the Reformers’ careful, specific attention. Most elements of eschatology came in this latter category.

Martin Luther

If Calvin was more the exegete, Luther was more the preacher—from the pulpit and also in his writings. Luther’s ideas about the soul and immortality are not found in a single major work, but are scattered throughout his varied body of literature.

REGARDING THE SOUL AND IMMORTALITY

Martin Luther said little about man’s supposed natural immortality or about his “soul” as a separable part of his being. He wrote on many occasions of death as a “sleep.” Between death and resurrection, Luther pictured the deceased as having no consciousness of anything—although this sleep was sweet and peaceful for the righteous. In the resurrection, believers would hear Christ’s gentle voice calling them and arise. Their period of death would then seem only a moment, as when one falls asleep at night and “instantly” wakes to find the morning. For example, Luther wrote, “We should learn to view our death [as] . . . a fine, sweet and brief sleep, which brings us release from . . . all the misfortunes of this life, and we shall be secure and without care, rest sweetly and gently for a brief moment, as on a sofa, until the time when he shall call and awaken us together with all his dear children to his eternal glory and joy.”[17] Or again, “We Christians . . . should train and accustom ourselves in faith to despise death and regard it as a deep, strong, sweet, sleep; to consider the coffin as nothing other than a soft couch of ease or rest.”[18]

This was not mere theory or doctrine for Luther. It represented the substance of his personal hope, as seen in this tender statement of faith: “For just as one who falls asleep and reaches morning unexpectedly when he awakes, without knowing what has happened to him, so we shall suddenly rise on the last day without knowing how we have come into death and through death . . . We shall sleep until he comes and knocks on the little grave and says, Doctor Martin, get up! Then I shall rise in a moment and be happy with him forever.”[19]

In keeping with this view of man—totally dependent on God for his existence day by day—Luther rejected the philosophical doctrine of the soul’s innate immortality. In one vehement outburst against Roman traditions, following a public burning of his books, Luther classed the immortality of the soul among the “monstrous fables that form part of the Roman dunghill of decretals.”[20]

At first Luther accepted purgatory, though he vigorously protested the doctrine’s horrendous abuses associated, for example, with the sale of indulgences.[21] It is important to note that Luther did not reject purgatory because of a thorough exegetical study of last things; he rejected it because he saw that it conflicted with the evangelical doctrine of justification.

REGARDING HELL

Luther knew that most hell-language was pictorial in character and did not intend to give literal, physical descriptions. Yet this very fact required him to use the pictures when talking about hell. The most excruciating torments, Luther said, will be spiritual and not physical. “The torment of hell is fear, terror, horror, fleeing, and despairing.”[22] The damned will constantly “suffer pain, and constantly they will be a fiery oven.” But the fiery oven means bearing God’s appearance, which will endure forever. Luther’s larger statement went like this:

The fiery oven is ignited merely by the unbearable appearance of God and endures eternally. For the Day of Judgment will last for a moment only but will stand throughout eternity and will thereafter never come to an end.[23] Constantly the damned will be judged, constantly they will suffer pain, and constantly they will be a fiery oven, that is, they will be tortured within by supreme distress and tribulation. Not as though the ungodly see God and his appearance as the godly will see him; but they will feel the power of his presence, which they will not be able to bear and yet will be forced to bear.[24]

Luther expressed the same point in terms of outer darkness, wailing and gnashing of teeth, and burning forever without a drop of water to refresh.[25]

Luther clearly believed that the wicked would suffer conscious torment forever, although he understood most of the biblical language to describe spiritual suffering rather than physical. He did not examine the conditionalist language of Scripture nor interpret the New Testament language on final punishment in the light of its Old Testament background. On this subject, as on others, he was more a preacher than a teacher, more a debater than a systematic theologian.

He began with the medieval understanding of last things, purged purgatory in the light of justification by faith, and purified the ordinary language of the gross literalism with which it was often used. It is no harsh criticism to say that this is as far as he went. We best respect his memory and devotion to Scripture by continuing to reform Christian doctrine and life while seeking an ever purer understanding of the infallible Word of God.

Tyndale

When Sir Thomas More attacked Luther’s teaching of “soul-sleeping,” William Tyndale came to the Reformer’s defense in England. Said Tyndale:

The true faith putteth the resurrection, which we be warned to look for every hour. The heathen philosophers, denying that, did put that the souls did ever live. And the pope joineth the spiritual doctrine of Christ and the fleshly doctrine of philosophers together; things so contrary that they cannot agree, no more than the Spirit and the flesh do in a Christian man. And because the fleshly-minded pope consenteth unto heathen doctrine, therefore he corrupteth the scripture to stablish it.[26]

Although the moderate reforms of the English church left much of the Roman doctrine untouched, including the immortality of the soul, Christian mortalism was preached to the people of Protestant England from the earliest times. Although established churchmen denounced this teaching, they “rarely examined the concept on its theological merits and only occasionally and superficially considered the scriptural arguments on which it was based.”[27]

Anabaptists

The term “Anabaptist” is a very general description that is applied to a wide diversity of Reformation Christians who rejected the state churches of Luther and Calvin. Modern descendants of these Anabaptists include Mennonites, the Amish, Hutterites, some Brethren churches, and still other smaller groups. The designation “Anabaptists” was given by their opponents and meant “rebaptizers,” based on the practice of establishing churches of believers who were baptized (sometimes but not always by immersion) upon a profession of faith.

The Anabaptists differed from the Lutherans and Calvinists also in their attitude toward the state (taxes and war) and the relationship the church should have to both government and society in general. It is not surprising that these Anabaptists should be more open to new ideas—and to question the established doctrines of those around them. They stressed the authority of the Word of God apart from creeds and confessions of faith. They also championed the right of each individual to study the Scriptures personally, relying on the Holy Spirit to guide and to give understanding.

Whatever the benefits or abuses attached to these views, they nevertheless encouraged a willingness to question the established ideas. One of the inherited views they commonly questioned was the immortality of the soul.[28] Along with this, many Anabaptists held conditionalist views about final punishment. These minority ideas were perpetuated in England in the seventeenth century by many of the General (Arminian) Baptists. Yet while “the soul-sleeping view was reasonably common in sectarian circles during the first century of the English Reformation, it remained a decidedly minority view which most churchmen . . . did not examine on its own merits.”[29]

John Calvin

REGARDING THE SOUL AND IMMORTALITY

Calvin’s first theological treatise was a work entitled Psychopannychia,[30] and it was a vehement attack on the doctrine (which he ascribed to the detested Anabaptists) that man’s “soul” either died with the body or slept until the Day of Judgment. Because the hated Anabaptists were associated with this doctrine, Calvin’s opposition to it increased all the more. And even though Luther and Tyndale had both expressed the same mortalist views as the Anabaptists, the intense opposition of Calvin and Bullinger to the doctrine led the other leaders to drop the subject rather than to chance dividing the whole Reformation over what seemed to be a minor point.

Heinrich Quistorp almost understates the case in saying that this essay “is distinguished by the special acrimony of his polemic against the Anabaptists.”[31] Calvin outlined this work in 1534 and published it in 1542. Because of the influence of Calvin’s position in the Protestant church, and because his Psychopannychia reveals so much of his mind on the matter, we will examine that work in detail in the next chapter.

In his commentary on Ps 103:15ff, Calvin said: “Although the soul after it has departed from the prison of the body remains alive, yet its so doing does not arise from any inherent power of its own. Were God to withdraw his grace, the soul would be nothing more than a puff or a blast, even as the body is dust; and thus there would doubtless be found in the whole man nothing but mere vanity.”[32] In a sermon on 1 Tim 1:17–19, Calvin urged: “It behoves us to understand that our souls are not immortal of their own power, nor is the life in them enclosed in themselves, as though it had its roots there. Where is there life then? In God.”[33] The soul’s immortality, Calvin said in another sermon, is “not natural. For whatsoever had a beginning may have an end, and may come to decay, and even perish utterly.[34]

Calvin scholars call attention to this point in the Reformer’s understanding. Torrance notes that Calvin taught that the “soul survives the death of the body only at the mercy of God, and has no durability in itself.”[35] He cites commentaries, sermons, and other works in which Calvin stresses that the soul is as much a creature as the body and that both depend for their being “entirely on the grace of God.”[36] According to T. F. Torrance, Calvin’s view means that if God were to withdraw for even an instant the presence of his Spirit, “we would drop into the nothingness from which we are called into being.” So far as Calvin is concerned, Torrance says that is “just as true of the soul of man as of his body.”[37]

Although Calvin and Luther differed on the soul’s state after death, Calvin’s intense zeal outweighed Luther’s depth of commitment. It is the distinct contribution of Norman T. Burns that he has detailed the way Luther’s opinion was conceded, in the interests of Reformed unity, to the hated Anabaptists. As a result, Calvin’s view took the match by default to become first the dominant and then the orthodox doctrine of most established Protestant churches everywhere.[38]

The doctrine of Christian mortalism, held by Luther in Germany and Tyndale in England, finally was rejected out of hand because of its association in the popular mind with the despised Anabaptists. Norman T. Burns writes, “When the Lutheran reformers failed to give vigorous support to psychopannychism, soul sleeping lost what small chance it might have had to be considered a debatable doctrine, a thing indifferent. Once it was identified solely with the Anabaptists, there was no hope for a hearing before respectable Protestants . . . Unchallenged by the doctrine of a Reformation church of comparable stature, the view of the churches of Geneva and Zurich (and of Rome) on the nature of the soul had to prevail in England.”[39]

Heinrich Bullinger, the gifted pastor of Zurich and a man of enormous influence, linked Calvin’s view with the later orthodoxy. Because of his friendship with British exiles during Mary’s Catholic reign, Bullinger’s translated works carried much weight in England. Through the enormous influence of the Second Helvetic Confession of 1566 (that Schaff says Bullinger wrote almost single-handedly), Calvin’s view was widely adopted as the authoritative standard for Reformed churches throughout the world.”[40]

REGARDING HELL

Like Luther, Calvin also wanted to avoid popular extremes on last things. Quistorp notes that in Calvin’s treatment of eschatological subjects he “expressed himself somewhat sketchily; only in one instance does he make an exception—in regard to the doctrine of the immortality of the discarnate soul in the interval between death and the Last Judgment.”[41]

Compared to his discussion of the eternal salvation of the elect, Calvin’s descriptions of the final doom of the godless “are only brief in comparison.”[42] The Reformer would “leave it to the foolish curiosity of others to brood over the exact nature of [hell] fire,” he once wrote. “It suffices me to maintain what Paul also in this connexion insists on, viz. that Christ will be a severe recompenser of the godless.” The only specific point Calvin wished to make was that, “like the glory promised to believers, the fire will last eternally.”[43]

Like Luther, Calvin regarded the eternal torment itself as primarily (but not exclusively) spiritual. God’s majesty and endless wrath will deprive the godless torment itself of all peace and itself torture them forever, Calvin believed. “Thus these unhappy consciences find no peace but are painfully caught up in terrible whirlwinds, they feel how the angry God tortures them, they are pierced and mangled by death-dealing arrows, cower in terror before the thunderbolt of God and are crushed by the pressure of his hand so that it would be easier to be swallowed up by some abyss or gulf rather than endure for a moment such terrors.”[44] Throughout his commentaries on the Gospels, Calvin stressed the symbolic nature of Christ’s language on hell as also in the Institutes.[45]

Calvin was an exegete, but he did not build his case for final punishment on an exegetical basis. Even though he could write in the Institutes that God’s wrath “is a raging fire devouring and engulfing everything it touches,”[46] his philosophical presupposition concerning the immortality of the human soul prevented him from taking such language seriously in the matter of final punishment. Like Luther, Calvin largely began with the Augustinian theology.

He constantly sought to correct the received doctrines in the light of Jesus Christ and the gospel of justification by faith. But he did not shine the light of the cross and the empty tomb on his doctrine of man nor his theology of the sinner’s final end. Calvin did not interpret popular traditionalist proof-texts in the light of their prophetic background and prior scriptural usage. In addition, as so many traditionalists have done, he largely ignored the conditionalist passages altogether.

In his Psychopannychia,[47] as in his later writings, Calvin conceded that the God who created the soul could also destroy it entirely if he wished. Yet Calvin’s philosophical mind was programmed in terms of the immortality of the soul, and this predisposition always prevented his considering the total extinction of sinners as a serious possibility. It would not be fair to say that Calvin was a thoroughgoing Platonist—he denied man’s inherent immortality, he affirmed that the soul had been created, and he insisted that God could destroy it if he wished.

Calvin’s doctrine of the immortality (more specifically, the indestructibility) of the soul was, rather, a hindrance that prevented Calvin from following ordinary biblical exegesis through to a logical end. Through his primary influence, Protestantism included the traditional view of final punishment. “In the work of Luther and even more clearly in Calvin’s Institutes, the basic shape of expectations for man after death remained that propounded by scholastic theology in the thirteenth century.”[48]

As Augustine had fixed the tradition for later Catholicism, so Calvin sealed it with the Protestant stamp of approval eleven hundred years later. The understanding of Tertullian and Augustine, of Chrysostom and Anselm and Aquinas, of Calvin and Bullinger, would receive official status in many Protestant creeds.[49]

Yet Calvin and Luther, like Augustine and even the apostle Paul, urged that men follow them only as they followed Christ. Not one of the great Reformers would discourage the most careful scrutiny of whatever they taught in the light of Jesus Christ and the sacred Scriptures of both Testaments. Quistorp puts the challenge plainly: “If we would understand [Calvin] rightly we must not be afraid constantly to test his teaching by the norm of all Christian teaching which he restored to a place of honor—the Bible itself. We shall have to examine critically his special eschatology by its degree of correspondence with Scripture.”[50] Let us remember to do that, as we next critique Calvin’s greatest work on the soul and its indestructibility, a book titled Psychopannychia.

1. Gatch, Death, 79.

2. Ibid., 94.

3. Ibid., 94–95.

4. Adams, “Hell and the God of Justice,” 433–47.

5. Witsius, Economy of the Covenants, 1.5. XL. Witsius says: “I now presuppose there is in sin committed against the infinite majesty of God, a malignity in its measure infinite, and therefore a demerit of punishment in its measure infinite also. I say, there is in sin a malignity only, in its measure infinite.”

6. Ibid. “I say, there is in sin a malignity only, in its measure infinite. For it cannot be called infinite in an absolute sense: if we consider the entity of the act in itself, an act infinitely intense cannot be produced by a finite creature; if the irregularity, and the privation of moral good, adhering to the act, it is a privation of a finite rectitude, which is all that can be found in a creature: if, in fine, we consider the whole complex, namely sin, in the concrete, as they speak; neither in that case will its malignity be absolutely infinite. For neither are all acts of sin equally vicious, there being a great difference among them, which could not be if they were infinite.”

7. Ibid. “However, the malignity of sin is in its measure infinite: 1st. Objectively, because committed against an infinite good. 2dly. Extensively, in respect of duration, because the blot or stain of sin endures forever, unless purged away by the blood of Christ. There is not therefore in sin a desert of punishment absolutely infinite as to intenseness of torments. 1. Because such a punishment is absolutely impossible; for, a finite creature is not capable of infinite torments. 2. Because it would follow, that God could never satisfy his justice by inflicting condign punishment on the wicked, because they are incapable of this punishment. It is then absurd to say, that any punishment is of right due to sin, which God can never inflict. 3. Because it would follow, an equal punishment was due to all sins, or that all in fact were to be punished alike, which is an absurdity, and against Matt xi. 22, 24. The reason of this consequence is, because there neither is, nor can be, any disparity between infinites.”

8. Ibid. 1.5. XL–XLII. “Nevertheless, there is in sin a desert of punishment in its measure infinite: namely, in the same manner that the malignity of it is infinite. That is, 1st. Objectively, so as to deprive man of the enjoyment of the infinite good, which is God. 2dly. Extensively, so that the punishment shall last forever. And thus I consider this desert of eternal punishment, so far only as to conclude, that God does nothing contrary to equity and justice, when he punishes the sins of men with eternal torments, both of soul and body. Which the event shews, as I have made appear § XVII.

XLI. But I know not if it can be determined whether this eternity ought necessarily to consist in the punishment of sense, or whether the justice of God may be satisfied by the eternal punishment of loss, in the annihilation of the sinful creature. This, I apprehend, may be said with sufficient probability and sobriety: if God should be pleased to continue forever in existence the sinner, it is necessary (without a satisfaction) that he forever inflict punishment on him, not only the punishment of loss, but likewise that of sense. The reason is, because not only the guilt of sin always remains, but also the stain with which sin, once committed, infects the soul, and which can never be purged out, but by the blood of Christ. But it is impossible, as we proved, § XXII, XXIII, XXIV, that God should admit man, stained with sin, to communion with himself: and it cannot he that a rational creature, excluded the enjoyment of the divine favor, should not feel this indignation of God with the deepest anguish. Conscience most severely lashes the wretches for having deprived themselves of the chief good. Which with no small care we have also shewn, § XIII. and the following sections.

XLII. But whether it be necessary that God should condone forever the sinful creature in a state of existence, I own I am ignorant. May it not, in its measure, be reckoned an infinite punishment, should God please to doom man, who was by nature a candidate for eternity, to total annihilation, from whence he should never be suffered to return to life? I know, God has now determined otherwise, and that with the highest justice. But it is queried, whether agreeably to his justice, he might not have settled it in this manner: If thou, O man, sinnest, I will frustrate thy desire of eternal happiness, and of a blessed eternity; and on the contrary, give thee up to eternal annihilation. Here at least let us hesitate, and suspend our judgment.”

9. Brady, “Immortality of Human Soul,” 13:465.

10. Gatch, Death, 99.

11. Ibid., 99.

12. Ibid., 97–98.

13. Wenham quotes from Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, 107, in The Goodness of God, 31.

14. Adams, “God of Justice.”

15. Lotz, “Heaven and Hell,” 81.

16. Quistorp, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Last Things, 193n.1.

17. A Compend of Luther’s Theology, 242; quoted by Froom, Conditionalist Faith, 2:74–77.

18. Works of Martin Luther, 6:287–88; quoted by Froom, Conditionalist Faith, 2:74–77.

19. Quoted by Kantonen, The Christian Hope, 37.

20. On June 15, 1520, Pope Leo X issued the bull entitled Exsurge Domine, condemning forty-one theses from Luther’s writings as “heretical or scandalous or false, or offensive to pious ears, or dangerous to simple minds, or subversive of catholic truth.” The document was published in Germany that September, and Luther was given sixty days to recant under threat of excommunication. When Aleander and Eck, prominent Catholic adversaries, ceremoniously burned Luther’s offending works, the Reformer replied in kind. He burned the papal bull outside the gates of Wittenberg on December 10, 1520 and issued four works (two in Latin, two in German) defending his condemned propositions. This quotation is taken from the Latin reply of November 29, 1520, entitled “Assertion of All Articles Wrongly Condemned in the Roman Bull.” The actual Latin said: “omnia illa infinita portenta in romano sterquilinio Decretorum,” as quoted by Petavel, The Problem of Immortality, 255. The historical account and a translation of one of the German responses are found in Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, vol. 32, Career of the Reformer, II.

21. In a March 1521 response in German to Leo X’s papal bull condemning 41 theses from Luther’s writings, the Reformer wrote: “The existence of a purgatory I have never denied. I still hold that it exists, as I have written and admitted many times, though I have found no way of proving it incontrovertibly from Scripture or reason . . . I myself have come to the conclusion that there is a purgatory, but I cannot force anybody else to come to the same result” (Luther, “Defense and Explanation of All the Articles,” Luther’s Works, 32:95).

22. Plass, What Luther Says, 2:626, #1916.

23. Luther here refers to the fact that though judgment “will last for a moment only,” its results “will stand throughout eternity.” This is the same understanding we have of “eternal punishment” and “eternal destruction”—the action involved will occur and end, but its results will last forever. So also with Christ’s “eternal redemption” and “eternal salvation.”

24. Plass, What Luther Says, 2:627, #1919.

25. Ibid., #1920, #1921.

26. Quoted by Burns, Christian Mortalism, 101; Froom, Conditionalist Faith, 2:94.

27. Burns, Christian Mortalism, 99.

28. Finger, A Contemporary Anabaptist Theology, 42; Snyder, The Life and Thought of Michael Sattler, 130.

29. Burns, Christian Mortalism, 192.

30. The title comes from a Greek word meaning “to be awake [or watchful] the whole night through,” that represented Calvin’s position against those who taught “soul-sleeping.”

31. Quistorp, Calvin’s Doctrine, 55.

32. Quoted in Torrance, Calvin’s Doctrine of Man, 27.

33. Ibid.

34. Ibid., n. 5. From a sermon on 1 Tim 6:15–16.

35. Ibid., 26–27.

36. Ibid., 26.

37. Ibid., 29.

38. Burns, Christian Mortalism, 31–33.

39. Ibid., 32–33.

40. Ibid., 25.

41. Quistorp, Calvin’s Doctrine, 55.

42. Ibid.,191.

43. Ibid., 187–88. Calvin’s comments are on Matt 25:41 and 2 Thess 1:7.

44. Ibid., 189, quoting Calvin, Institutes 3.25.12.

45. Calvin, Institutes 3.25.12

46. Calvin, Institutes 3.25.12.

47. We will examine Calvin’s Psychopannychia in detail in the next chapter, which will substantiate the conclusory statements made in the following paragraphs.

48. Gatch, Death, 133–34.

49. Buis (The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, 82) and Braun (Whatever Happened to Hell? 112–14) both quote from these and later confessional statements. Several of these confine themselves to biblical terminology. Others go beyond the language of Scripture in explicit declarations that the wicked will “burn forever” (Second Helvetic Confession, 1566—one of the earlier and probably the most influential of all Protestant confessions) or be “tormented without end” (Augsburg Confession, 1530), or that the wicked, like the righteous, will be “immortal” (Belgic Confession of Faith, 1561). Such affirmations also go beyond such generally-acknowledged statements of faith as the Apostles Creed (Christ “shall come to judge the quick and the dead,” and there will be a “resurrection of the body”) and the Nicene Creed (Christ will “judge the living and the dead,” and there will be a “resurrection of the dead”).

Though contained in later creeds, these explicitly traditionalist statements are found nowhere in the Bible, and they fail the test, proposed by Vincent of Lerins in the fifth century, that the church should hold what has been believed “everywhere and always and by all.” The conditionalist position, on the other hand, can be expressed by verbatim quotations of many passages of Scripture throughout the entire Bible, and it is in complete accord with the ancient and universal creeds.

50. Quistorp, Calvin’s Doctrine, 54.

30

John Calvin: Psychopannychia

OTHER THAN A TREATISE on Seneca’s De Clementia, the book titled Psychopannychia [1] is Calvin’s first known work and his first theological writing. He composed it in 1534 in Orleans, France, and carried it to Basel, Switzerland, where he added a second preface and finally published it in 1542.

The occasion of Psychopannychia was the progress made by certain Anabaptists whose entry into France was hindering Calvin’s own reformation. He published another work against the Anabaptists in 1544, entitled A Short Instruction Guarding the Faithful against the Errors of the Common Sect of the Anabaptists.

Because of Calvin’s intense dislike of the Anabaptists, one can only wonder whether and how much his views on the soul might have differed had the Anabaptists not been his principal opponents on the subject. In keeping with the custom of his day, Calvin was unrestrained in describing the presumed wickedness of his adversaries and what he held to be their heterodox views.

Calvin’s first preface (Orleans, 1534) begins by speaking of “that absurd dogma” which he is about to attack. It is “their insanity,” “the evil, which makes far too much progress” and which is “eating in like a cancer.” He has heard but “murmurs and hoarse sounds” of it so far, but he notes that while it “lay smoldering for some ages,” it “has lately begun to send forth sparks, being stirred up by some dregs of Anabaptists” who, “spread abroad far and wide, have kindled torches” (414–15).

In his later preface from Basel in 1536, Calvin confesses that in the heat of argument he has used “some rather severe and harsh expressions” which might “give offence to delicate ears.” For the sake of “some good men,” he says, whose error is due to “excessive credulity or ignorance of Scripture” rather than perversity or maliciousness, he adds this explanatory second preface.

Such people (who, though unnamed, certainly would have included Luther and many Lutherans) are to understand that whenever Calvin uses “some freedom of speech,” he means them no offense but is always “referring to the nefarious herd of Anabaptists, from whose fountain this noxious stream did . . . first flow, and against whom,” he emphasizes, “nothing I have said equals their deserts” (416).

The treatise closes with a warning regarding the Anabaptist source of the embattled doctrine. Calvin’s final words are: “I again desire all my readers, if I shall have any, to remember that the Catabaptists (whom, as embodying all kinds of abominations, it is sufficient to have named) are the authors of this famous dogma. Well may we suspect anything that proceeds from such a forge—a forge which has already fabricated, and is daily fabricating, so many monsters” (490).

The Point in Issue

And what is this “absurd dogma,” this “insanity,” this “evil like a cancer,” this Catabaptist monster now noxiously spewed forth? Calvin states his proposition very clearly.

Our controversy, then, relates to THE HUMAN SOUL. Some, while admitting it to have a real existence, imagine that it sleeps in a state of insensibility from death to the Judgment Day, when it will awake from its sleep; while others will sooner admit anything than its real existence, maintaining that it is merely a vital power . . . and being unable to exist without body, perishes along with the body, and vanishes away and becomes evanescent till the period when the whole man shall be raised again. We, on the other hand, maintain both that it is a substance, and after the death of the body truly lives, being endued both with sense and understanding. Both these points we undertake to prove by clear passages of Scripture. (419–20)

Calvin sets himself to prove two things regarding the human soul: that it “is a substance,” and that it continues to live after the body dies, possessing both “sense and understanding.” His opponents deny both of these things, saying either that the soul is merely a “vital power” which has no existence apart from the body, or that the soul has specific identity separate from the body but that it dies with the body, having no continuing sense or understanding.

Temporal death, they say, affects the whole man in his entirety so that no part of him is immune to it or continues to live. Calvin’s title, Psychopannychia, states the doctrine he is affirming and comes from the Greek noun for “soul” and a verb which means “to be awake the whole night through.” Calvin affirms that of the soul, and denies that it truly “sleeps.”

Calvin’s stated authority is Scripture. He appeals to his readers to seek only the Lord’s wisdom in determining truth on the subject. In the second preface he urges: “Let us shew ourselves to be such disciples as our Lord wishes to have—poor, empty, and void of self-wisdom; eager to learn but knowing nothing, and even wishing to know nothing but what he has taught; shunning everything of foreign growth as the deadliest poison” (418). No true evangelical could ask for more, and few could express it as beautifully or humbly. Calvin does not always meet this high standard but we must credit him with pure motives and noble intentions for raising it. No one is spiritually qualified to take issue with anything he says who cannot profess the same aspirations.

Calvin reissues this appeal to measure all things by the Word of God as he opens the formal argument.

Here let human wisdom give place; for though it thinks much about the soul it perceives no certainty with regard to it. Here, too, let Philosophers give place, since on almost all subjects their regular practice is to put neither end nor measure to their dissensions, while on this subject in particular they quarrel, so that you will scarcely find two of them agreed on any single point! Plato, in some passages, talks nobly of the faculties of the soul, and Aristotle, in discoursing of it, has surpassed all in acuteness.[2] But what the soul is, and whence it is, it is vain to ask at them, or indeed at the whole body of Sages, though they certainly thought more purely and wisely on the subject than some amongst ourselves, who boast that they are the disciples of Christ. (420)

Again we may applaud Calvin’s desire that human wisdom should give place to divine revelation. But like all of us, the Reformer was a man of his age, and even the greatest men of his age failed to practice all they preached about the authority of Scripture, particularly in the matter of eschatology.[3] The medieval tradition they inherited was very strong. Stamped with the approval of the great Augustine and hallowed by centuries, traditional teaching on the soul was also the authoritative doctrine of the Roman Church.[4]

For all Calvin’s intention to shun everything “of foreign growth,” even Reformed scholars are questioning his success here. Increasingly, the suspicion is being voiced that the potion Calvin so innocently quaffed (and bottled for his children) was actually pressed from the grapes of Greek philosophy, slightly diluted and gently flavored by the apologists, then passed down the table by the Fathers who received it from them.

Calvin’s success at filtering foreign philosophy may be questioned even on grounds of his quotation above. At least once in the heart and heat of his argument, Calvin suddenly switches tracks, so that a point that begins in Philippians ends in Plato’s Phaedo. Calvin writes:

The body which decays, weighs down the soul, and confining it within an earthly habitation, greatly limits its perceptions. If the body is the prison of the soul, if the earthly habitation is a kind of fetters, what is the state of the soul when set free from this prison, when loosed from these fetters? Is it not restored to itself, and as it were made complete, so that we may truly say, that all which it gains is so much lost to the body? . . . For then the soul, having shaken off all kinds of pollution, is truly spiritual, so that it consents to the will of God, and is no longer subjected to the tyranny of the flesh; thus dwelling in tranquility, with all its thoughts fixed on God. (443–44)

The hands are the hands of Calvin, but the voice is that of Plato. Let us look more closely at the reasoning throughout Psychopannychia to discover how Calvin accomplishes the goals he so forcefully proposes in the beginning of this work.

Calvin States the Argument

Calvin’s first proposition is that the soul is itself a substance separable from the body. Scripture uses “soul” and “spirit” in various ways, Calvin notes, and he enumerates many of them. He does not make any clear distinction between “soul” and “spirit” here but uses the two terms almost interchangeably throughout the discussion (420–22).

Calvin turns first to man’s creation in the image of God (Gen 1:26). The image cannot be in the flesh, he says; therefore it is found in the “soul” or “spirit” which God breathed into man from his own being. The soul, Calvin concludes, is therefore a substance separate from the flesh or body. “Let that which has sprung of earth be resolved to earth,” he offers. “But the soul of man is not of the earth. It was made by the mouth of the Lord, i.e., by his secret power” (423). Few biblical scholars today would wish to argue that the “image of God” is a separable soul in the body, or that the breath of God in Genesis transmitted a soul to man’s body.

Calvin next appeals to scattered phrases such as “the salvation of the soul” or Peter’s remark that he must “put off” his “tabernacle” (425–27). The soul must be a separate substance, Calvin infers, if it can be saved; the real person of Peter must have been his soul if he could speak of “putting off” his body.

Finally, Calvin claims the support of history as he quotes from Polycarp, Melito of Sardis, and Tertullian. The soul’s separate identity was well known in antiquity, Calvin says, “and so much did this belief prevail in a better age, that Tertullian places it among the common and primary conceptions of the mind which are commonly apprehended by nature” (427).

The immortality of the soul was also a fundamental doctrine of the “natural religion” championed by deists of the eighteenth century and liberals of the nineteenth. Its position in “natural religion” has aroused more suspicion than support among biblical scholars in the twentieth century, however. These include both Calvinists and Catholics, whose houses have chiefly nurtured the doctrine through the centuries.[5]

Calvin defines his second proposition like this: “THAT THE SOUL, AFTER THE DEATH OF THE BODY, STILL SURVIVES, ENDUED WITH SENSE AND INTELLECT. And it is a mistake to suppose that I am here affirming anything else than THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL” (427).

As evidence for the soul’s immortality, Calvin turns first to the various texts of Scripture commonly used by those making his point. These include Ps 31:5, Matt 10:28, Luke 23:46, John 2:19, John 19:30, and Acts 7:59. He then comments on Christ’s preaching to the spirits in prison (1 Pet 3:19; 4:6) and a few texts from the Apocrypha. Next he treats the rich man and Lazarus. The text is controversial, he acknowledges, but advises his opponents to “consult common sense, if they have any, and they will easily perceive the nature and force of the parable” (432).

Having argued his two propositions at some length, Calvin turns to the common expression “sleep” or “rest,” by which Scripture so often describes death, but which Calvin argues does not refer to the soul. The soul, he insists, remains “awake” through the long night of death, and is even “endued with sense and intellect.” Calvin writes: “First, we give the name of ‘rest’ to that which our opponents call ‘sleep’ . . . Secondly, by ‘rest’ we understand, not sloth, or lethargy, or anything like the drowsiness of ebriety which they attribute to the soul; but tranquility of conscience and security, which always accompanies faith, but is never complete in all its parts till after death” (432). “How often does the Spirit make mention of this peace in Scripture, and use the figure of ‘sleeping’ and ‘resting’ so familiarly, that the use of no figure is more frequent!” (434).

Calvin attempts to ground his argument in the person and work of Jesus in at least two ways. First, he argues, the divine person of Jesus could not die in the sense Calvin’s opponents use the term. For

though as God he had life in himself, yet when he assumed human nature, he received from the Father the gift of having life in himself in that nature also. These things give us the fullest assurance that Christ could not be extinguished by death, even in respect of his human nature; and that although he was truly and naturally delivered to the death which we all undergo, he, however, always retained the gift of the Father. True! Death was a separation of soul and body. But the soul never lost its life. Having been commended to the Father it could not but be safe. (437)

However, one might wish to argue that a complete death magnifies the willing humiliation and condescension Jesus underwent on behalf of sinners. Calvin himself made this point regarding Christ’s dread of death and other such “infirmities,” saying: “But all that he voluntarily suffered for us does not in the least detract from his power.”[6]

In his second christological argument, Calvin appeals to the union between the believer and his Lord as a basis for his definition of the “sleep” of death. The believer’s life is hid with Christ in God, Calvin notes. Christ is also said to live in the believer (Gal 2:20; Col 3:3). “What remains for our opponents but to cry with open mouth that Christ sleeps in sleeping souls? For if Christ lives in them he also dies in them. If, therefore, the life of Christ is ours, let him who insists that our life is ended by death, pull Christ down from the right hand of the Father and consign him to the second death. If he can die, our death is certain; if he has no end of life, neither can our souls ingrafted in him be ended by any death!” (440.)

Jesus’ promise in John 5:24 speaks to the same point, Calvin says. “If an entrance has been given into eternal life, why do they interrupt it by death?” (440). “Christ is our clothing, and our armor is that which the apostle puts upon us” (442). But does not Calvin here forget, in one important respect, the great principle of sola fide—“faith alone”? No one can quarrel with Calvin that the believer’s union with Christ is important to New Testament writers. But New Testament writers place the greater emphasis on the resurrection, not on the intermediate state.

Union with Christ is important, most of all, because it means that as surely as he is risen, so will be his people! His resurrection, already accomplished, is the guarantee of their own. If they truly die in soul and body, that does not detract at all from Christ’s position in heaven or from his power to raise them in the end. Rather, Paul affirms that if Christ himself has not been raised, then believers who have “fallen asleep” in Christ have perished! (1 Cor 15:18.) In spite of his diligent concern for redemption’s great culmination at Christ’s second coming, Calvin frequently turned his gaze from that eschaton to the nearer “intermediate state,” a fact his friendliest critics have noted more than once.

The biblical hope promises a genuine resurrection at the hands of God, who gives life to the dead. Plato’s hope dims by comparison, promising only that one part of man survives the death of his other part by slipping under the door to safety at the last minute. This is especially important in the case of Jesus. To suggest that his soul “showed only a semblance of dying” seems at least to court the error of those ancient Docetists, who skirted the true death of the Son of God by also entering a plea of appearances.

Calvin stands squarely in the tradition of Augustine, and nowhere more than in his views of humankind, death, and immortality. I do not take a hard stand in the present work on the intermediate state for several reasons. Although it seems to me that the bulk of scriptural teaching weighs against conscious awareness between death and resurrection, I do not find the Bible so unambiguous on the topic as to permit absolute dogmatism on the point. More important here, is that this is a secondary issue for the purposes of this book. Finally, one can consistently hold that the believer is either awake or asleep between temporal death and the resurrection, while insisting on the final extinction of the perpetually unrepentant as the biblical view.

Opposing Arguments Rebutted

In the final section of Psychopannychia, Calvin undertakes to answer five Anabaptist arguments.

First Argument

“They insist, first, that God did not infuse into man any other soul than that which is common to him with the brutes; for Scripture ascribes the name ‘living soul’ to all alike . . . (Gen 1:21; 7:15).”

Calvin begins his reply with a concession but makes his own distinction.

I admit that a living soul is repeatedly attributed to the brutes, because they, too, have their own life, but they live after one way, man after another. Man has a living soul by which he knows and understands; they have a living soul which gives their body sense and motion. Seeing, then, that the soul of man possesses reason, intellect and will—qualities which are not annexed to the body—it is not wonderful that it subsists without the body, and does not perish like the brutes, which have nothing more than their bodily sense. (450–451)

Calvin then quotes Tertullian and Augustine for additional weight to his point.

Little can be said here except that Calvin consistently thinks and speaks of the soul and its attributes in terms refined by and inherited from pagan philosophy. In this he has been far surpassed by Calvinist scholars today who begin with the Old Testament view of man as God’s holistic creation. Like the brutes, he is a “living soul”; unlike them, he stands before God in a moral relationship and bears his image.[7]

Second Argument

“Their second objection is that the Soul, though endowed with immortality, lapsed into sin, and thereby sunk and destroyed its immortality. This was the appointed punishment for sin” (citing Gen 2:17; Ezek 18:4; Rom 6:23) (453).

Calvin draws an analogy with Satan. Were the same “wages of sin” not paid to the devil as well as to man? he asks. And “yet his death was not such as to prevent him from being always awake, going about seeking whom he may devour, and working in the children of disobedience” (453). Furthermore, will there “be any end to that death” in Satan’s case? Certainly not! he answers, proving that the wicked too, “although dead . . . shall still feel eternal fire and the worm which dieth not” (453).

More important, for Calvin, the sinner’s banishment to dust applies only to his body, not to his soul, which had a different origin.

When God pronounces this sentence against man as a sinner, “Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return,” does he say more than that that which has been taken from the earth shall return to the earth? Whither then does the soul go? . . . We have heard that that which is of the earth is to be returned to the earth. Why do we plunge the spirit of man under the earth? He says not that man will return to the earth, but that he who is dust will return to dust. But dust is that which was formed out of clay. It returns to dust, but not the spirit, which God derived from another quarter, and gave to man. (453–540)

As further proof, Calvin offers the words of Job 10:9: “remember how thou hast made me of clay, and will reduce me to dust.” This, he declares, “is said of the body.” In verse 12 Job speaks of his “life” and “spirit” which God has given and preserved. “That life, then,” Calvin distinguishes, “was not to return to dust.”

If man’s first death affects only the body, of what does that second death consist, which indisputably concerns also the soul? Here “death” does not really mean death, Calvin argues, as advocates of the traditional view of hell have done before and since. For the body, death means returning to its source in the dust. For the soul, death is something else entirely. “THE DEATH OF THE SOUL is very different. It is the judgment of God, the weight of which the wretched soul cannot bear without being wholly confounded, crushed, and desperate, as both the Scriptures teach us, and experience has taught those whom God has once smitten with his terrors” (454). “Would you know what the death of the soul is? It is to be without God—to be abandoned by God, and left to itself: for if God is its life, it loses its life when it loses the presence of God . . . [It] is blind . . . is deaf . . . is lame . . . unable to support itself . . . In short, it performs no one function of life” (454–55).

How the soul, so cut off from God and all his benefits, performing “no one function of life,” can continue to exist is an obvious question. Calvin follows Augustine in his answer: Because the soul is immortal! Here Plato “talks nobly,” Calvin had said earlier. But did the soul have a beginning? Indeed—it was created out of the breath of God. Here Calvin and Augustine disagree with the Platonists. And must the soul continue forever? Not if God wills to destroy it; for, being its Creator, he is able to do so. But will he will to do so? No, answer Calvin and his patristic predecessors. For Scripture speaks of the “undying worm” and the “unquenchable fire.”

Calvin and Augustine both say the soul had a beginning and that God can destroy it in the future. Yet both men are so programmed in the presumed immortality of the soul (in the sense of its indestructibility) that the notion always colors their interpretation of Scripture. Although they concede, when speaking of the soul, that God both created and can destroy the soul, yet, when speaking of hell, they inconsistently reason that the soul cannot be destroyed.

Calvin closes his answer to the objection that the wages of sin is death by looking at the respective works of Adam and Jesus. Some of Calvin’s opponents have argued that man, if he had not fallen, would have been immortal. Calvin sees Christ’s work as restoring the immortality once lost. For “sin is absorbed by grace . . . and hence we conclude that the elect now are such as Adam was before his sin; and as he was created inexterminable, so now have those become who have been renewed by Christ to a better nature” (457).

Calvin does not regard the fact that this argument gains immortality only for the redeemed. He quotes Paul that “death has been swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor. 15:54), but he seems not to notice the first part of the same sentence that tells when that saying will be fulfilled—namely, at the resurrection-transformation of the righteous.

Even limited to the redeemed, Paul stresses a sequence in man’s glorification which Calvin altogether missed. Humankind is first mortal, in the image of Adam; only at the end are the redeemed made immortal, in the image of the heavenly Christ. To their credit, many of Calvin’s staunchest descendants today are surpassing their noble ancestor in this particular exegetical insight.

Third Argument

“Their third argument, is, that those who have died are in many places said to SLEEP” (457).

Calvin does not dispute the frequency of this expression in Scripture; he has already said there is none more frequent (434). But “nothing so mean and abject” can be imagined in regard to Christ’s soul, which also truly slept, he declares (458). And as for the wicked man’s “sleeping” soul, “it cannot have a worse executioner to torment it than an evil conscience. How can there be sleep amid such anguish?” (458). Even the ancient pagans prove as much, he says, who name their burial grounds “cemeteries” (Greek: koimētērion—“sleeping place”). Since they described in “many monstrous fictions” the “affections and feelings of the dead,” it is evident that they understood the body to “sleep” in the cemetery, not the soul.

Fourth Argument

The fourth argument which they urge against us, as their most powerful battering ram, is the passage in which Solomon thus writes in his Ecclesiastes (Eccl 3:18–21), “I said in my heart of the children of men that God would prove them to shew that they were like the brutes. As man dies, so do they also die. In like manner all things breathe, and man has no more than a beast of burden. All things are subject to vanity, and hasten to one place. Of earth have they been made, and to earth do they equally return. Who knows whether the spirit of the sons of Adam ascends upwards, and the spirit of beasts descends downwards?” (459–60)

Solomon himself expels such reasoning, Calvin declares, by terming it all “vanity.” With the eyes of flesh this is only “the mind of man, this his reason, this his intellect!” (460). Solomon therefore adds the phrase, “Who knows whether the spirit of the sons of Adam ascends upwards?” By this Solomon tells us, Calvin says, that “human nature . . . comprehends nothing distinctly or clearly by studying, meditating, and reasoning” (460). But what “exceeds the capacity and little measure of the human mind, the wisdom of God explains, assuring us that the spirit of the sons of Adam ascends upwards.”

Fifth Argument

Their fifth argument they thunder forth with so much noise, that it might arouse the sleeping out of the deepest sleep. They place their greatest hope of victory in it, and, when they would gloss over matters to their neophytes, place most dependence upon it as a means of shaking their faith and overcoming their good sense. There is one judgment, they say, which will render to all their reward—to the pious, glory—to the impious, hell-fire. No blessedness or misery is fixed before that day. (462)

Calvin does not deny that the judgment leads into the peak of perfection. “It is admitted by all,” he says, “that perfection of blessedness or glory nowhere exists except in perfect union with God” (463). But that will be the perfection of man’s blessedness, not its beginning, according to Calvin (464).

The creed also, Calvin notes, confesses the resurrection—“not of the soul, but of the body.” And he insists that there is no room here “for the cavil, that by ‘body’ is meant the whole man. We admit that it sometimes has this signification, but we cannot admit it here, where significant and simple expressions are used, in accommodation to the illiterate” (470).[8]

Last of all, Calvin brings together a broad array of texts his opponents have offered which together declare that man cut off from God is as nothing, passes away, is not, cannot be found, and other such expressions. Calvin dismisses some of these as poetic or the expressions of emotional intensity. Largely, however, he says they are simply “irrelevant,” for the language is metaphorical and symbolic. He concludes:

The expression “not to be,” is equivalent to being estranged from God. For if he is the only being who truly is, those truly are not who are not in him; because they are perpetually cast down and discarded from his presence. Then . . . they are not said to be absolutely dead, but dead only with reference to men. For they are no longer with men, nor in the presence of men, but only with God. Thus (to explain in one word) “not to be” is not to be visibly existing, as expressed in the passage of Jeremiah . . . “Rachel weeping for her children . . . for they are not” (Jer 31:15; Matt 2:18). (486–87)

In the equation “a equals b,” it is equally true that “b equals a.” We can therefore take Calvin’s explanation that “not to be” is equivalent to “being estranged from God” and turn it the other direction. Then being “estranged from God” is equivalent to “not to be.” Because of Calvin’s belief in the immortality of the soul—which at times he limits to its consciousness after the death of the body but at other times carries over beyond the resurrection—he can state the equation the first direction but not the second.

If we come at the matter without this presupposition of the soul’s immortality, beginning instead with Genesis 1–2, we may ask why the second form of the equation is not the truly biblical one. For if nothing existed besides the triune God until God created it, and if nothing can continue to exist without God’s constant provision of being, Calvin’s own formula would seem to demand the end of the sinner’s existence in hell. How, we might ask, could one “perpetually cast down and discarded from [God’s] presence,” ultimately and irrevocably “estranged from God,” possibly continue to exist—even for a moment, far less forever? Because of his philosophical predisposition, Calvin cannot consider this question. But we can—and we must if we are to deal fairly and thoroughly with the material at hand.

Conclusion

Throughout the Psychopannychia, Calvin never refers to Luther by name, although Luther more than once expressed views which corresponded to those of Calvin’s opponents. Far more important to Calvin than Luther’s position was the fact that this was the position of the Anabaptists, the “nefarious herd” whose name as author of a dogma was sufficient evidence for its condemnation. The Anabaptist threat fired Calvin’s emotions; his philosophical tradition molded his mind.

Neither Calvin nor his theological forebears were fully comfortable with the doctrine of the soul’s immortality, nor did they ever state it with great consistency. When speaking of man before God, Calvin and the church fathers defended the exclusive immortality of God. Even man’s soul had a beginning, and it could perish before the wrath of God, who created it. But when they spoke of final punishment, Calvin and his patristic ancestors took on a different color. The soul is immortal, they argued. That means it can never die. And that, in turn, determined their interpretations of phrases such as “unquenchable fire” and the “undying worm,” phrases that they finally explained in light of their philosophy and not based on biblical usage or ordinary exegesis.

The Platonic doctrine of immortal souls was not a consistently held conviction, therefore, for Calvin (or the fathers). It was more a shadowy ghost. Like some apparition of the nether world, it disappeared whenever they looked for it in the light, only to haunt them again when they expected it least.

On this point Calvin bridged the gap between the tradition of Rome and the fresh planting of the Reformation. More than any other person, Calvin put the Protestant stamp of approval on the traditional understanding of unending conscious torment and indestructible souls. But although Calvin’s views became the tradition of the overwhelming majority, there were always some to whom, in the light of Scripture, those views simply never made sense.

1. Calvin, Tracts and Treatises in Defense of the Reformed Faith, Vol. 3. Subtitled: Or a Refutation of the Error Entertained by Some Unskilful Persons Who Ignorantly Imagine That in the Interval Between Death and the Judgment the Soul Sleeps, Together with an Explanation of the Condition and Life of the Soul after This Present Life. Calvin’s Psychopannychia is not listed in the topical index of any of the current traditionalist books with which we are interacting. Robert Peterson devotes three pages to a discussion of Calvin, but he never mentions Psychopannychia in that discussion (Peterson, Hell on Trial, 112–14).

2. Froom misunderstands this sentence and thinks that Calvin is here appealing to Plato as authority. Read in context, Calvin is actually disparaging philosophy as a reliable source of information. Whether his reasoning is consistent with this elsewhere in Psychopannychia is quite another question. Froom, The Conditionalist Faith, 2:122.

3. Quistorp says that “Augustine, as the father of Western mediaeval theology, is also the real founder of the eschatology of the medieval church, in which that of Calvin is in many respects rooted” (Quistorp, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Last Things, 193n1). Another writer says that in the eschatology of both Luther and Calvin “the basic shape of expectations for man after death remained that propounded by scholastic theology in the thirteenth century” (Gatch, Death, 134). James P. Martin makes the same criticisms in The Last Judgment in Protestant Theology, 2–5.

4. The Fifth Lateran Council (1512–1517), among other things, condemned the doctrine that the intellectual soul is mortal or is only one in all men. Luther sarcastically responded that the council’s decrees “are, indeed, most appropriate to the papal church, for they make it possible for them to hold fast to human dreams and the doctrines of devils while they trample upon and destroy faith and the teaching of Christ” (Luther, Luther’s Works, 32:77–78). Burns gives this quote with the comment that while it does not prove that Luther regarded the continuing consciousness of the soul after death “to be a false conclusion of unreliable philosophy,” the statement “does suggest that he thought that in this matter Christians were bound not by philosophy or conciliar decree” (Burns, Christian Mortalism, 28–29).

5. See quotations and references in chapter 4.

6. Calvin, Institutes 2.16.12. See “Interaction: Negative” in chapter 17.

7. Long-held ideas often change slowly even when newer information is accepted. J. O. Buswell, Jr., venerable author of one of my seminary textbooks ( A Systematic Theology ), notes that the “image of God” is primarily moral, that the word “soul” is generally relational, that “spirit” is functional, and that “neither the phrase ‘breath of life’ nor ‘living soul,’ distinguishes man from the animals”—then adds that “man is created in the image of God and is destined to live forever, whereas the beasts are not created in the image of God, and there is no reason to suppose that they have any kind of immortality” (Buswell, A Systematic Theology, 242). Many writers on the larger spectrum regard this as an unnecessary inconsistency especially common within the Calvinistic heritage.

8. Calvin made the same point in the Institutes 3.25.6. The statement in the creed originally “sought to call a halt to any abstraction of the resurrection from the total concrete reality of man’s existence as created by God. In its best sense it meant that when man is raised . . . nothing of the totality of his created existence is left out by a process of abstraction” (Boliek, The Resurrection of the Flesh, 141).

Many Reformed scholars now differ with Calvin on this point. Anthony A. Hoekema notes the biblical emphasis on resurrection of the body and says there “is here no hint of the immortality of the soul” Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, 88). Herman Ridderbos says “it is of paramount importance that ‘body’ in this context, too, does not denote the material ‘part’ of man, to be distinguished from the ‘soul’ or the ‘spirit,’ in the sense of the Greek dichotomy, but rather man’s whole mode of existence, before as well as after the resurrection” (Ridderbos, Paul, 549). Such testimony could be multiplied even more from non-Calvinist scholars.

31

An Old Tradition Questioned

ONCE STAMPED WITH AUGUSTINE’S endorsement and defense, Tertullian’s view of hell as conscious unending torment was destined to become the fixed orthodoxy of the Roman Catholic Church. A millennium later, the backing of Calvin and Luther, but especially that of the creed writers Bullinger and Melanchthon, secured an early and fixed place for Tertullian’s explanation in Protestant doctrine as well.

Until the Protestants formulated their own creeds, conditionalist views were not seen as challenges to any official orthodoxy, since the two universally-accepted ancient creeds allowed space for both traditionalist and conditionalist views.[1] However, with the formation and declaration of official Protestant creeds that specifically affirmed unending conscious torment and sometimes specifically denounced belief in the final destruction of the wicked, the minority understanding was seen in a different light. What had been merely an unpopular view was now regarded as heterodox, or even as heretical.

The Seventeenth Century

From patristic times to the present, traditionalists have confessed that human immortality is God’s gift (by creation or by resurrection), rather than an inherent quality of humankind (as if the soul were eternal and pre-existent). They have acknowledged that God, who created the soul, is able also to destroy both soul and body in hell.[2]

Yet traditionalists also insist that in the age to come, immortality (deathlessness) will be a human trait universally shared by redeemed and damned alike. And, although most traditionalists acknowledge that New Testament references to human immortality all speak of the redeemed, they insist nevertheless that every man or woman will be indestructible throughout the never-ending age to come.

From Augustine forward, this has been Roman Catholic orthodoxy; from Bullinger and Melanchthon forward, it has been the orthodoxy of much of Protestantism as well. But there have always been some who charged that this particular orthodoxy was misguided and unscriptural.

John Milton

One early objector to traditionalism was John Milton (1608–74). An Anglican with Puritan leanings, Milton later became an independent. Best known for his poetic saga, Paradise Lost, Milton expressed his mortalist views in that work and also through his prose. In Paradise Lost, for example, Milton wrote:

It was but breath

Of life that sinned; what dies but what had life

And sin? The body properly had neither.

All of me then shall die: let this appease

The doubt, since human reach no further knows.[3]

Milton’s prose works contain the same thought. “What could be more just,” Milton inquired, “than that he who had sinned in his whole person, should die in his whole person?” And “it is evident,” he continued, “that the saints and believers of old, the patriarchs, prophets and apostles, without exception, held this doctrine.”[4]

In another place Milton concluded: “It may be inferred, unless we had rather take the heathen writers for our teachers respecting the nature of the soul, that man is a living being, intrinsically and properly one and individual not compounded or separable, not—according to the common opinion—made up and formed of two distinct and separate natures as of soul and body; but that the whole man is soul, and the soul man.”[5]

Traditionalist authors sometimes quote Paradise Lost to illustrate Milton’s imaginative description of hell’s severity, noting that he wrote as a poet and not as a systematic theologian.[6] This very use of Milton is itself an outstanding practical illustration of the fact that the terrors of the lake of fire are lessened not one whit by mortalist convictions regarding man’s natural state in the present life.

Milton based his convictions on Scripture, of which he was a diligent and earnest student, and “his religious views underwent a continual process of revision over a period of years.”[7] He was neither the first man nor the last to change his mind when confronted with additional evidence, and the drift of his thought seems to have been toward a consistent conditionalism.

John Locke

An influential philosopher and ardent advocate of unhampered thought, John Locke rejected ecclesiastic authority as a sufficient ground for religious conviction. Since his great philosophical work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, attacked Platonism’s fundamental approach to knowledge, it is not surprising that Locke should finally differ from basic Platonic conclusions as well, particularly the innate immortality of the soul.

In his last work, On the Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), Locke applied his mortalist views to the subject of final punishment. “By death, some men understand endless torments in hell fire,” he remarked, “but it seems a strange way understanding a law which requires the plainest and directest of words, that by death should be meant eternal life in misery.”[8] Locke was an outspoken defender of the divine origin of Scripture, which he once said had “God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture of error for its matter.”[9] He was also convinced that the Bible taught the wicked will finally become extinct and be no more.

Samuel Richardson

The year 1658 saw the publication of a work bearing the imposing title: Of the Torments of Hell: The Foundations Thereof Discover’d, Search’d, Shaken and Remov’d, with Many Infallible Proofs That There Is Not to Be a Punishment after This Life for Any to Endure That Shall Never End. The author was Samuel Richardson, pastor of London’s first Particular (Calvinist) Baptist church, established in 1633.[10] A signatory to three editions of the confession of faith of London’s seven Particular Baptist churches, Richardson presented both negative and positive arguments for the conditionalist position he espoused.[11]

Twenty years later John Brandon responded to Richardson’s treatise with his own work entitled Everlasting Fire No Fancy: Being an Answer to a Late Pestilent Pamphlet; Entitled The Foundations of Hell-Torments Shaken and Removed. Another answer came in 1720 from John Lewis. We need not agree with the wording of Richardson’s title since the consuming fire of hell will constitute an everlasting destruction “that shall never end,” but his work shows that the traditional doctrine’s critics were found also in the mainstream of respectable Protestant churches.

General Baptist Confession[12]

Shortly after Richardson published his conditionalist work, some forty-one General (Arminian) Baptist “elders, deacons and brethren” met at London in 1660 and presented Charles II with A Brief Confession or Declaration of Faith. It represented the beliefs, they said, of more than twenty thousand others besides themselves. While clearly affirming the resurrection of the wicked as well as the righteous in Article 21, the next Article affirmed that their final end will be utter extinction.

The original document italicized the statement of Article 22 that “The triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the Hypocrite but for a moment; though his Excellency mount up to the Heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds, yet shall hee perish for ever, like his own dung; they which have seen him, shall say, where is hee?” The Confession also affirmed the Holy Scriptures as the rule of faith and practice, and set forth normal Baptistic distinctives as “the apostolical way.”

The Heretical Socinians

Besides these conditionalists who espoused a high view of Scripture, the full divinity of Jesus Christ, and the resurrection of the wicked unto condemnation, the traditional doctrine of hell had other critics who were no asset to any honorable cause. Chief among these were the Socinians, probably best remembered today for their denial that the Son is consubstantial with the Father.

The group originated from the work of Fausto Socinius and flourished in Poland during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Walker says that no adversaries can quote any published writings of Socinius denying either the resurrection of the wicked or eternal torment, but that they can produce passages in which he implies such denials.[13]

Because the Socinians, like today’s Jehovah’s Witnesses, denied Christ’s deity and (at least some of them) the resurrection of the wicked, as well as the traditionalist doctrine of everlasting conscious torment, their heretical reputation smeared the latter view with the same undesirable scent as the first two opinions.

Just as Calvin weighted the scales of public opinion against Christian mortalism by unfairly ascribing its source to the despised Anabaptists of the sixteenth century, so Protestants of the seventeenth century hesitated to attack the received doctrine of final punishment lest they be associated in the public mind with the heretical Socinians.[14] Today, a careful, unbiased study of final punishment is stifled among many evangelicals because the Jehovah’s Witnesses also deny unending conscious torment.

The Eighteenth Century

The eighteenth century surely was one of history’s most eventful centuries, in thought as well as action. Revolution swept France in Europe and the British colonies in America. Many who prided themselves as intellectuals dismissed organized religion as an authority unsuitable for a modern and enlightened age. Dogma and tradition alike were lined up to be measured by the rule of reason.

Interestingly enough, in this expectant climate the doctrine of man’s inherent immortality found a warm welcome among rationalists and traditional Christians alike. But controversy hovered over the doctrine of hell, which, as Rowell notes, “apart from anything else, was so grossly offensive to the optimism characteristic of eighteenth-century natural religion.”[15]

Many popular attacks on the traditional doctrine of hell sprang from its seeming incompatibility with human hope rather than from concern for actual Bible teaching. This helped to create an apparent choice between the two sources of authority and falsely aligned the traditionalist and conditionalist positions on hell with those two alternatives. As a result, many Bible believers were hardened in their traditionalist view of hell, and a calm study of the subject became even more unlikely than it already was.

Isaac Watts

But not all who questioned the received doctrine did so in the name of Reason. The famous hymn writer, Isaac Watts (1674–1748), who had defended the traditionalist view of final punishment in his younger life,[16]in later years wrote The Ruine and Recovery of Mankind, in which he raised serious questions concerning some popular assumptions of that position.

More than one conditionalist author has pointed with pleasure at the pious Watts’ comment that, “There is not one Place of Scripture that occurs to me, where the word Death, as it was first threatned in the Law of Innocency, necessarily signifies a certain miserable Immortality of the Soul, either to Adam, the actual Sinner, or to his Posterity . . . That the resurrection of the body to a state of misery is threatned [ sic ] in the Bible for the punishment of Adam’s first sin is what I cannot prove, nor do I know in what text of Scripture to find it.”[17]

Arthur Paul Davis, a biographer and scholar of Watts, describes him as “by nature charitable” and “intelligent enough to grow.” This means his “views changed as opponents convinced him, and he confessed his convictions and stated his doubts with equal honesty.”

Because Watts held to Scripture as his authoritative source, he would not blindly accept even ecclesiastical tradition without comparing it for himself with the Bible. “With reason and Scripture as his pilots,” says Davis, “he was from his youth to his grave an open-minded and undogmatic searcher after religious truth.”[18]

Robert Hall

A prominent English Baptist preacher of Bristol, Hall (1764–1831) was known in his day for his clear style, which he left for posterity in six volumes of his Works. Although not a conditionalist himself, Hall allowed room for the view under the umbrella of sound Christian faith. He wrote:

I would only add that in my humble opinion the doctrine of the eternal duration of future misery, metaphysically considered, is not an essential article of faith, nor is the belief of it ever proposed as a term of salvation; that if we really flee from the wrath to come, by truly repenting of our sins, and laying hold of the mercy of God through Christ by a lively faith, our salvation is perfectly secure, whichever hypothesis we embrace on this most mysterious subject. The evidence accompanying the popular interpretation [of the doctrine of eternal suffering] is by no means to be compared to that which establishes our common Christianity: and therefore the fate of the Christian religion is not to be considered as implicated in the belief or disbelief of the popular doctrine.[19]

English Arians

Among the more influential questioners of the traditional doctrine of hell in eighteenth-century England were John Locke, Isaac Newton, Samuel Clarke, and William Whiston. These all knew each other, according to D. P. Walker, and all were Arians.[20] Only Whiston defended his beliefs openly, publishing in 1740 The Eternity of Hell Torments Considered. Some have simply associated these English Arians with the Socinians of earlier times and dismissed them both together. Such a response is most unfair, as Walker goes on to show.

Wrong as it was, these men’s Arianism grew out of an attempt to restore primitive Christian doctrine. It was not the result of an effort, such as the Socinians had made, to make the Scriptures fit a humanistic, rationalistic mould.[21] To the same end of recovering ancient Christianity, Whiston in 1715 started A Society for Promoting Primitive Christianity, an organization which still publishes works today as the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (S.P.C.K.).

His rejection of the traditional doctrine of hell, says Walker, was “based almost solely on Scriptural and early patristic authority.”[22] Whiston indicated this even in the subtitle he chose: A Collection of Texts of Scripture, and Testimonies of the First Three Centuries, Relating to Them. I am not so concerned with Whiston’s specific arguments or views as with the fact that he approached his study with the desire to represent the pure teaching of Scripture and the earliest church.

Matthew Horber responded to Whiston’s book with his own, An Enquiry into the Scripture-Doctrine concerning the Duration of Future Punishment (1744), as had William Dodwell in his The Eternity of Future Punishment Asserted and Vindicated—In Answer to Mr. Whiston’s Late Treatise on That Subject: In Two Sermons (1743).

The Nineteenth Century

If revolution marked the eighteenth century, grand visions of progress sparked the life of the one which followed. Darwin declared man to be the noble result of a natural selection which always rewarded the fittest. Marx applied dialectical philosophy to economics and envisioned the utopian state.

In Germany a different breed of biblical critics were saying the Scriptures themselves came by a long process of man’s reaching upward. In America and Great Britain sophisticated liberals and hard-working millennialists anticipated the imminent arrival of God’s kingdom. Churches that had been established on strict Reformed principles were abandoning classic doctrines as out of step with the spirit of the day. Liberal preachers welcomed the new directions, conservative clergymen lamented them, and a great general populace who did not know where they were headed found comfortable pews in which to sit and watch the ride. In it all, writes Geoffrey Rowell, the “flames of hell illuminated vividly the tensions of an age in which men felt that old certainties were being eroded by new knowledge, and in which an optimistic faith in progress co-existed uneasily with forebodings of the consequences of increasingly rapid social change.”[23]

It was an age of theological debate. Few subjects figured more prominently overall than final punishment and the related doctrine of the immortality of the soul. By the time Harvard University Divinity School professor, Ezra Abbot, published The Literature of the Doctrine of a Future Life in 1880, an annotated bibliography of books on these subjects, he could list no fewer than 4,977 titles.[24] More often than not, the subject was discussed on other than an exegetical basis.

Changing penal theories in society made many uneasy about a view of hell that seemed wholly based on retribution; others who had discovered a personal aspect of Christianity reacted against a background which sometimes made hell the final point of a mechanical process. The debate raged especially during the half century 1830–80.[25]

To raise questions about the accepted view of hell in such a climate easily became tantamount to denying the deity of Jesus, as well as to being placed by the public mind in company with heretical Arians and Socinians. Unending conscious torment must be accepted, traditional advocates began to say, simply because God reveals it. They did not back this claim with a thorough presentation of scriptural teaching or a critical weighing of their own presuppositions and arguments. They simply affirmed it—again and again—until most people on both sides came to accept that it was so. But there were exceptions—inside mainstream evangelicalism as well as without.

Advent Christian Church[26]

The year 1860 saw the formation of the Advent Christian Church, a Sunday-observing, mainstream evangelical body which grew out of the same mid-century millennial expectancy that also spawned a dozen other American church bodies. The Advent Christian group taught that the dead are unconscious until the resurrection, and that the wicked will ultimately become extinct in hell. They based these views on Scripture and regarded them as the biblical alternative to the philosophical doctrine of the immortality of the soul, which they rejected.

Church of God (General Conference) [27]

The outgrowth of several local groups of kindred spirit, this church began in the early nineteenth century, though its present General Conference was formed in 1921. Holding the Bible as the supreme source of teaching, it believes that humans are mortal and that the wicked will become extinct in the second death.

Seventh-day Adventist Church [28]

The interchurch Millerite revival and advent movement of the mid-nineteenth century also produced the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Although its pioneer, William Miller, “disclaimed” sympathy with conditionalism, by the time the Seventh-day Adventists organized under that name in 1860, its leaders were solidly conditionalist and today its members hold to a literalistic premillennial eschatology that ends for the wicked in death by actual fire.

Seventh-day Adventist scholar/author LeRoy Edwin Froom produced The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers,[29] a cyclopedia historical, biographical, and bibliographical survey of conditionalism without which no student or scholar of the subject is fully-informed. This two-volume treatise destroys many popular misconceptions about conditionalism and contributes a few new ones of its own.

Jehovah’s Witnesses[30]

First known as Russellites, Millennial Dawnists, or International Bible Students, this group was incorporated in 1884 by its “general organizer,” Charles Taze Russell. It claims to be the only religious organization with God’s sanction. The Witnesses deny the deity of Jesus and also deny that the willfully wicked will ever rise from their graves, which they equate with “hell.”

Just as the Socinians of the seventeenth century and the Arians of the eighteenth were an embarrassment to all other opponents of the traditionalist views, so the Jehovah’s Witnesses have often served as an excuse to avoid study of the subject today.[31]

British Controversy

Controversy over final punishment raged in England and through Europe as well as in America. F. D. Maurice[32] of King’s College in London expressed a “larger hope” in Theological Essays in 1853. He denied that the Greek adjective translated “eternal” had any temporal sense at all, being entirely qualitative in meaning. For these views he was dismissed from his post at the college.

In 1860 a former Oxford professor by the name of H. B. Wilson[33] published Essays and Reviews, expressing hope for the salvation of all men, especially of infants. He was tried in Anglican church court, which rendered an adverse judgment against him in 1862. Two years later the higher Judicial Committee of the Privy Council reversed that decision, and the case was “dismissed without costs” to Wilson. The whole affair was surrounded by great popular controversy, and critics of the decision charged that hell had been “dismissed without costs.”

Although the Church of England’s official Articles originally included a traditionalist statement probably aimed at the Anabaptists, it was dropped when the Forty-Two Articles were later reduced to Thirty-Nine. Anglicanism therefore has no official position on eschatology, and its members have ranged in opinion from Pusey’s ecclesiastic traditionalism to John A. T. Robinson’s universalism. Many notable Anglicans, evangelical as well as otherwise, have occupied conditionalist ground in the past as well as today.

In 1877, Canon F. W. Farrar[34] preached a series of sermons in Westminster Abbey against what he considered the popular opinions on final punishment. After these were taken down in shorthand and then published, without Farrar’s knowledge and against his will, in what he said were careless and inaccurate editions, he published the sermons himself “in reluctant self-defense against utter misstatements.” Farrar called the book Eternal Hope (1879).

The next year, E. B. Pusey[35] responded to Farrar with his What Is of Faith as to Everlasting Punishment? Farrar replied to Pusey with Mercy and Judgment in 1881. Although Farrar denied the literalistic, traditionalist view of hell, he also rejected both universalism and the conditionalist interpretation. His primary interest seems to have been to relax dogmatism and leave room for possible repentance beyond the grave.

Pusey, a High-Churchman with leanings toward Rome, was much concerned with the “Faith” of ecclesiastic tradition, less with scriptural exegesis. Farrar had cited many rabbinic sources as evidence that the “Jewish view” included a larger hope beyond the grave; Pusey countered with other material which nullified much of Farrar’s proof. Their controversy largely concerned the possibility of salvation after the present life, and statements of both men should be read in this light. Farrar was not advancing conditionalism, and Pusey was not particularly opposing it.

Some years earlier the Baptist scholar and Expositor editor, Samuel Cox, argued for universalism in his Salvator Mundi (1877). A few years later the Methodist, Dr. Agar Beet, questioned the traditionalist view in The Last Things (1879), though he concluded that the Bible itself is ambiguous regarding the final destiny of the lost.

Notable Conditionalists

The nineteenth century saw a revival of conditionalism that swept across national, linguistic, and denominational lines. We merely mention a few of the more notable authors. Richard Whately, Anglican archbishop of Dublin, published in 1829 A View of the Scripture Revelations concerning a Future State. He was a thoroughgoing conditionalist.

Congregationalist minister Edward White[36] published his conditionalist convictions in 1846 under the title, Life in Christ. The work cost him his pulpit, so he moved to London and began anew in a deserted meeting place he was able to acquire. In the new, independent Hawley Road Chapel, White exercised an influential career of preaching, lecturing, and writing. In the process he so regained the respect and esteem of his erstwhile Congregational brethren that in 1887 they elected him chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales.

Probably the conditionalist work best known today from the period is Henry Constable’s[37] Duration and Nature of Future Punishment (1868). An Anglican priest, Constable later served as prebendary or canon of Desertmore. His book went through at least six printings and exercised an influence worldwide.

Another outstanding conditionalist was Joseph B. Rotherham, who made a translation of the New Testament. In a letter published in the conditionalist Christian World of June 19, 1874, Rotherham said that he was “constrained to disbelieve the theological dogma of man’s natural and unconditional immortality” and that, as a result, he was “free to accept the everlasting punishment of the incorrigible as their everlasting destruction.”[38]

Emmanuel Petavel-Olliff was a leading conditionalist on the Continent. Following the pastorate of a Swiss Church of London from 1863–1866, Petavel returned to Neuchatel in Switzerland. There he published a defense of conditionalism titled in the English translation, The Problem of Immortality (1891).

A man of his times, Petavel regarded conditionalism as “the meeting-point . . . of biblical Christianity, rationalist Christianity, Kantism, and evangelical transform-ism.” He was an evolutionist and later expressed the opinion that the stress should be put on philosophy rather than Scripture “owing to the changed attitudes to the Bible.”[39] Evangelicals will learn little of substance from Petavel, therefore, if their interest is to determine the teaching of the authoritative Word of God.

These men were in company with many others who shared their conditionalist understanding. They held conferences, started papers, and engaged series of lectures. They differed among themselves on some points, as also traditionalists did and do. Some, like White and Constable, appealed primarily to the Scriptures; others, like Petavel, leaned heavily on philosophy.

Largely, however, the established churches simply looked the other way. In spite of much conditionalist activity and not a little heated controversy, therefore, the nineteenth century left settled opinions much as it had found them. Traditionalists generally ignored conditionalist arguments, and conditionalists lacked a recognized forum for careful and thorough dialogue with those who simply denounced their views.

Not until the final quarter of the twentieth century would mainline American evangelicals begin in large numbers to examine seriously the traditionalist doctrine in the full light of Scripture. The process began slowly and involved a few brave people who led the way. In the next two chapters, we will review the beginning of that story that is now underway and is still taking shape.

1. The Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed, which Catholics and Protestants alike approved, used language acceptable to both traditionalists and conditionalists.

2. Although traditionalists formally concede that God is able to kill the entire person, soul and body alike, they interpret the many Scripture passages which say that that the wicked will die, perish, and be destroyed as if it were impossible and unthinkable. There is ample evidence that one can officially deny the philosophic view of immortal souls (Platonic or otherwise), yet still maintain a subconscious presupposition that souls cannot be destroyed.

3. Milton, Paradise Lost, 10:789–93.

4. Quoted by Froom, Conditionalist Faith, 2:154.

5. Ibid., 153.

6. Buis, The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, 84–85; Braun, Whatever Happened to Hell? 18, 72–73.

7. Sewell, A Study in Milton’s Christian Doctrine, 1.

8. Locke, On The Reasonableness of Christianity, quoted by Froom, Conditionalist Faith, 2:190.

9. Quoted by Froom, Conditionalist Faith, 2:188.

10. Rickey Harrol Willis concludes, in his Ph.D. dissertation on the subject at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, that Richardson is the only seventeenth-century English Baptist who “can be regarded unequivocally as a proponent of the theory of conditional immortality” (Willis, “Torments of Hell,” 206–7). Willis believes that “at most, the theory had an isolated and relatively short-lived impact on the emerging Baptist movement” (ibid., 214–15), but he acknowledges that conditionalism might have been more widespread than the documentary evidence extant today reveals “[h]ad Restoration England provided a more secure atmosphere for dissent” (ibid., 215).

11. Froom, Conditionalist Faith, 183–85.

12. Ibid., 141–42. Italics in original.

13. Walker, Decline of Hell, 73–92.

14. Ibid., 8–9.

15. Geoffrey Rowell, Hell and the Victorians, 28–29.

16. In 1818, Isaac Watts published his The World to Come, in which he argued for a separate state of souls following death and the traditional understanding of hell along with “a plain answer to all the most plausible Objections.”

17. Watts, The Ruine and Recovery of Mankind, 228, 230, quoted by Froom, Conditionalist Faith, 2:220. The first part of this quotation clearly opens the conditionalist door, but the latter part may regard the federal theology which makes Adam’s posterity suffer for the original sin rather than eternal torment as such.

18. Davis, Isaac Watts, 103.

19. Hall, Works, 5:529, quoted in Froom, Conditionalist Faith, 2:259.

20. Walker, Decline of Hell, 93.

21. Ibid., 16. Walker says that Whiston “believed that his theology would be generally accepted if he could persuade people to read the Scriptures in the light of primitive Christian literature” (ibid., 97).

22. Ibid., 97. Walker notes that the Reformation had denied the Catholic claim to infallibility but then went no further back on some subjects than Augustine. Sooner or later, he observes, some who rejected the medieval tradition were bound to question the validity of doctrines not found in the earliest Christian literature.

23. Rowell, Hell and the Victorians, vii. Common arguments raised by liberal preachers of the day reflect the same spirit of the age. The first two arguments listed in The Religious Encyclopaedia (published in 1883) are that hell is said to be unjust and that it is said to conflict with God’s infinite goodness ( Patton, “Future Punishment,” 3:1972–73).

24. Abbot, “The Literature of the Doctrine of a Future Life,” appendix to The Destiny of the Soul, by William R. Alger.

25. Rowell, Hell and the Victorians, 17.

26. Mead, Handbook of Denominations, 21–22.

27. Ibid., 22–23.

28. Ibid., 19–21. Froom gives a detailed look at conditionalism in the “Adventist” movement at large (including but not limited to the Seventh-day observers) in Conditionalist Faith, 2:646–50, 668–701.

29. Froom, Conditionalist Faith, 2 vols. (1965). This work came after Harry Buis’ traditionalist book and all earlier ones. Jon Braun does not acknowledge its existence in Whatever Happened to Hell? (1979), but John W. Wenham refers to it as a “vast work . . . of well-organized, lucid exposition” in The Goodness of God (1974), 40.

30. Mead, Handbook of Denominations, 153–57.

31. Froom, Conditionalist Faith, 2:663–67.

32. Cupitt, “The Language of Eschatology,” 305–17.

33. T. F. Glasson outlines several nineteenth-century critics and their views in his article, “Human Destiny,” 284–98. Froom discusses the Wilson case in Conditionalist Faith, 2:394–95.

34. Frederick W. Farrar (1831–1903) was an important Anglican preacher and author who wrote widely on biblical themes, including a well-known life of Christ.

35. Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800–1882) taught Hebrew at Oxford and was a leader in the “Oxford Movement” that urged a greater appreciation of the values of Catholic tradition and a more open posture toward the Roman Catholic Church.

36. For a biographical sketch and brief history of White’s work, see Froom, Conditionalist Faith, 2:322–36.

37. Ibid., 337–54.

38. Ibid., 435.

39. Quoted by Rowell, Hell and the Victorians, 210–11.

32

Roots of the Current Recovery

IN THIS CHAPTER, WE will meet some of the people, books, and events in the story of the evangelical recovery of a more fully biblical picture of hell. This drama is still being written, and the paragraphs that follow provide only a very early report.

This story also involves a twentieth-century theological battle that left many people with minds completely closed to any re-examination of the doctrine of final punishment. Yet, before the century reached its end, God had already stimulated many minds to investigate from the Bible’s very beginning all that it might say concerning what surely is the most contended aspect of this most contentious Christian doctrine.

This story also reminds us just how easily we forsake critical thinking and slide into tradition mode—exchanging the thrill of new discovery and adventure for the comfortable but deadening assurance of standing with a formidable majority.

The Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy[1]

According to the guiding principle of nineteenth-century science, every phenomenon represents some universal and impersonal law of cause and effect. Philosophy also regarded the thought of any supernatural interruption of the natural order as absurd. The “new” kind of thinkers worked through evolutionary concepts for solutions to scientific, philosophical, and societal problems of every sort.

Religious liberalism interpreted Christianity in the same light. At its core, it depended on subjective intuition, experience, or feeling for authority, and it rejected the objective standard of Holy Scripture as the true Word of God. In the words of J. I. Packer, liberalism “reduced grace to nature, divine revelation to human reflection, faith in Christ to following his example, and receiving new life to turning over a new leaf; it turned supernatural Christianity into one more form of natural religion, a thin mixture of morals and mysticism.”[2] Orthodox Christians, of course, were appalled by liberalism’s philosophy and tenets, which they vigorously opposed with commendable zeal.

Modernism

“Modernism” is the name that identifies this particular stream of liberalism. The term probably originated with a papal encyclical titled Pascendi, issued by Pope Pius X and dated September 8, 1907. In the encyclical, the pontiff stigmatized the new aberration as a “synthesis of all heresies.”

The words “modernism” and “modernist” slipped easily into Protestant polemics and were soon a regular part of fundamentalist discourse. Both words still do active duty today. In America, “modernism” shared a bed with the “social gospel” as its disciples began both to do and to teach. The twentieth century was still in its infancy, but the stage was thoroughly set in the United States for a battle royal.

Fundamentalism

“Fundamentalism” was born and christened in the year 1909, when it made a literary debut in the first of twelve volumes entitled The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth. Devoted to the exposition and defense of evangelical faith, the books were sponsored by two wealthy California laymen who distributed them without cost to more than three million church leaders and students around the world.

Authors represented all major branches of historic Protestantism, including such men as James Orr, B. B. Warfield, Sir Robert Anderson, H. C. G. Moule, W. H. Griffith-Thomas, R. A. Torrey, Dyson Hague, A. T. Pierson and G. Campbell Morgan. The “fundamentals” involved the Bible (its inspiration and authority), Jesus Christ (his deity, virgin conception, miracles, substitutionary atoning death, bodily resurrection, and personal return), and such topics as the reality of sin, the necessity for personal regeneration by the Holy Spirit, the power of prayer, and the obligation to evangelize.

In 1910 the General Assembly of the Northern Presbyterian Church listed five specific items as “the fundamentals of faith and of evangelical Christianity.” These included the inspiration and infallibility of Scripture, the deity of Jesus Christ, his virgin birth and supernatural miracles, his substitutionary death for sins, and his physical resurrection and personal return.

Hell Off Limits

This checklist of fundamentalist beliefs caught on. Others adopted the list drawn up by the General Assembly of the Northern Presbyterian Church with little or no alteration, and it still serves a broad range of evangelical institutions today. In May of 1919, a conference convened in Philadelphia and created The World’s Christian Fundamentals Association. Membership in the association required agreement with a nine-point statement of beliefs. The ninth point slightly exceeded some earlier lists by specifying the resurrection and final disposition of all men to either eternal blessedness or eternal woe.

Meanwhile, the modernists continued to advance their own brand of Christianity, often summarized as “the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.” God is pure benevolence, they affirmed—certainly too good to consign anyone to the traditional hell. Every human has a divine spark; and Jesus is the perfect teacher and example who brings us all to our full potential. Because we all are God’s children by nature, neither Jesus nor Christianity is unique, according to modernist orthodoxy.

These were the doctrines that elicited The Fundamentals and that segregated some Christians into a family known as “fundamentalists.” The ensuing controversy affected the Baptists and Presbyterians most, followed closely by the Methodists and Disciples of Christ. Truly, the fundamentals of Christianity were at stake, and emotions rightfully ran high.

Anything remotely associated with modernism became a fundamentalist taboo. For example: modernists denied that anyone would burn forever in conscious torment; ergo, anyone who suggested that the traditionalist hell should undergo biblical critique became immediately suspect as a quasi-or-closet modernist.

It was not uncommon, and in certain circles it is not unusual today, to encounter a list of doctrinal questions created to aid in identifying persons suspected of modernism. The doctrine of unending conscious torment is a staple on such lists, which often specify literal fire as well. Professional academicians might scoff at the notion, but they need not drive far off the campuses to find this kind of “orthodoxy” very much alive and well.

Such reactionary theology is entirely understandable, and I sympathize with its intentions. However, without positive grounding in the person and accomplishments of Jesus Christ, it finally does not work, and it has greatly hindered the exercise of Protestantism’s anti-tradition principle.

More important, orthodoxy based on presumption rather than specific biblical exegesis thwarts the scriptural admonition to “test everything” and to “hold fast what is good” (1 Thess 5:21). Nevertheless, for most of the twentieth century, American evangelicals in general avoided questions regarding final punishment, neither entering the study themselves nor allowing others to enter.

The British Climate

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic in Great Britain, German critical methods and liberal social dogma had never been as naively received as they had been in America. It is unclear whether this was due to some inherent English conservatism, to American softness for anything novel, or to the presence of an established English church of such doctrinal elasticity that all manner of theological birds and beasts could coexist under its shade and within its branches.

Whatever the cause, British evangelicals in general experienced neither the American fear of the modernist disease that threatened orthodox belief, nor the reactionary fundamentalism that many Americans considered its only cure.[3] As a result, British evangelicals both within and without the state church have been more willing to consider the biblical evidence for the final extinction of the wicked. In the providence of God, a movement that began in England would eventually cross the ocean and help to initiate the American evangelical recovery of hell.

The twentieth-century story of this re-examination of scriptural teaching begins with three British scholars, two born before 1900, and the third shortly thereafter. Each was firmly committed to the inspiration and authority of Scripture. Each clearly explained his scriptural basis for rejecting unending conscious torment, having concluded that it was not found in the Scriptures.

Harold Ernest Guillebaud

Born in 1888, Guillebaud served as rector of St. Michael’s Anglican Church in Bath, leaving that post in 1925 to go to Africa under the auspices of the Church Missionary Society. He returned home to England in 1933, went back to Ruanda (now Rwanda) three year later and there resumed translation work, eventually completing much of the Bible, the Prayer Book, a hymnal, and Bunyan’s classic, Pilgrim’s Progress.

Guillebaud later returned to Cambridge as curate of St. Paul’s, during which period he wrote several books, including a popular work on the atonement entitled Why the Cross? He accepted without question the traditional view of hell.

A few years later the Inter-Varsity Fellowship asked Guillebaud to write a book on some moral difficulties of the Bible, including a final chapter on the doctrine of everlasting punishment. When he came to that chapter, he could not answer the question to his own satisfaction and the chapter was omitted from the book (The Moral Difficulties of the Bible, 1941).

Guillebaud then undertook an intensive personal study of the subject, resulting in his writing The Righteous Judge. This book set forth the conditionalist views to which Guillebaud’s personal study had led. When no publisher would accept the book, it sat on the shelf until 1964 and was published privately after the author’s death. The Righteous Judge contained thirteen chapters under two major headings. The first eight chapters asked and answered the question, “What does the Bible teach?”

Chapters 9–13 responded to common objections against conditionalism. Guillebaud stated on the first page of his introduction that his book was “written in the firm conviction that any valid doctrine of future punishment must rest upon the Word of God at every point,” and that was his appeal throughout all the chapters that followed.

Basil F. C. Atkinson

Born in 1895, Atkinson completed his education at Magdalene College, Cambridge, then served as Under Librarian of the University Library from 1925–60. He is remembered as a “remarkable man” and a “brilliant linguist,” who would “learn the language before visiting a new country.”[4] A prolific author, Atkinson’s books include The Greek Language, Is the Bible True?, The War with Satan, and The Christian’s Use of the Old Testament.

Atkinson also wrote a book entitled Life and Immortality, which he subtitled An Examination of the Nature and Meaning of Life and Death As They Are Revealed in the Scriptures. His appeal throughout is to the authority of Scripture and that alone. He holds a unitary view of man, a universal resurrection and judgment, everlasting life for believers, and “complete extinction and destruction out of the creation of God” for all “unrepentant sinners, the devil, evil angels, sin and death and evil of all kinds.” Like Guillebaud’s book, Atkinson’s was published privately.

For all his scholarly temperament, say those who knew him, Basil Atkinson was “a great man of the Word and of prayer and of witness . . . always ready to put in a word for Jesus.”[5] Atkinson’s reverence for the Scriptures was obvious when he taught the Bible, and it made an indelible positive impression on a young J. I. Packer, not long after his conversion. “I can still remember the feeling of surprise—and gladness—as I left the meeting,” Packer says, “because I knew that I knew that the Bible is the Word of God.”[6]

On Sunday afternoons, Atkinson and his sister, both unmarried, would open their home to students for tea, and Atkinson would discourse informally on some theological topic. Through the years, Atkinson explained conditional immortality from the Bible. Among the students attending Cambridge during those years were two young men, each wearing the name of “John.” Their surnames were Wenham and Stott. [7]

John W. Wenham

Although understandably less well known in the United States than at home, John W. Wenham is remembered and respected in his native England as a scholar of the first order, who devoted six decades of his life to the advancement of respect for biblical authority and then studying the Bible as having something important to say.

A pioneer leader in twentieth-century British evangelicalism, Wenham was co-founder (with J. I. Packer) and Warden of Latimer House, Oxford, Vice-Principal of Tyndale Hall, Bristol, and the author of numerous books including The Elements of New Testament Greek, for many years the most widely-used textbook on the subject in the English-speaking world. His legacy to the world also includes four notable sons in Christian service. Two sons, David and Gordon, are scholars of international reputation. Two sons, Michael and Peter (formerly a surgeon), are Anglican priests.

John Wenham served as role model, teacher, mentor and positive influence for many who later made important contributions of their own. It is quite likely that Wenham, as Curate at St. Matthew’s Church, Cambridge, helped to plant the seeds of a lifelong passion for world missions in the heart of then-Cambridge student John Stott, by introducing him to Hudson Taylor’s two-volume biography.[8]

Sunday afternoons during 1934–35, Wenham’s third year at Cambridge, often found him attending the student tea hosted by Dr. Basil Atkinson and his sister. “Sometimes when tea was over,” Wenham later recalls, “Basil would expound in an informal way some topic of interest. It was on one such occasion that I heard him talk about conditional immortality and the ultimate destruction of all evil.”[9]

At first Wenham “felt deflated” by the teaching, thinking that it had cost him some of his evangelistic zeal. But as he prayed about it, he “realized that rescue from torment was not a primary motive for evangelism, rather one wished to see God glorified through the loving response of a sinner to the one who loved him.”[10] In retrospect, Wenham says that “[f]rom this point onwards I found I had a new freedom to teach the awesome judgments of God and the perfection of his love without having to represent him as the everlasting torturer.”[11]

From England to America

Forty years after Cambridge student John W. Wenham had sat listening to Basil Atkinson expound the Scriptures about the end of the wicked, God used veteran Oxford scholar John W. Wenham to help initiate a recovery of hell among American evangelicals, and then, in ever-enlarging circles, among evangelicals around the world.

The Goodness of God

In 1974, InterVarsity Press released The Goodness of God, by John W. Wenham. In the book, Wenham encourages readers to consider the evidence for hell as a place of total, everlasting destruction, while being slow to abandon the traditional interpretation of hell as unending conscious torment.

Two years after Wenham’s book appeared, Christianity Today published my largely non-controversial article, “Putting Hell in Its Place.”[12] The article summarized Old Testament and intertestamental backgrounds of the word gehenna (hell), then surveyed statements from throughout the New Testament that contrast the destiny of the redeemed and the unredeemed, highlighting the constant biblical contrast between the enjoyment of eternal life (God’s gift to the redeemed) and to die, perish, and be destroyed (the most common New Testament terms for the end of the damned).

A Research Project

About that time, Robert D. Brinsmead, an Australian theologian, former Seventh-day Adventist, and editor of a Reformation-centered theological magazine with international, cross-denominational distribution, was seeking an evangelical scholar to research the Bible’s teaching on final punishment for his personal use. Brinsmead read my Christianity Today article and traveled to our home in Athens, Alabama[13] to offer me the research project.

I accepted the offer and undertook the year-long project. During the course of the research, the material required me to abandon a life-long belief in unending conscious torment, and I asked the sponsor’s permission to write a book. Brinsmead not only consented, but produced and published the original edition of The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment (1982). Throughout the entire research and writing, I drew regular encouragement from the words of Rev. John W. Wenham of Oxford, England, author of The Goodness of God.

Watershed Events

The publication by InterVarsity Press in 1974 of The Goodness of God was a watershed event within American evangelicalism, marking for the first time the willingness of a major evangelical publishing house to produce a thorough and even-handed examination of Scripture on the topic of final punishment.

A second watershed event occurred eight years later, when the Evangelical Book Club selected The Fire That Consumes as a 1982 Alternate Selection. That same year, Zondervan, an American evangelical powerhouse, issued Four Views of Hell. One of the four views is conditional immortality, passionately presented by the well-known Canadian scholar Clark H. Pinnock.

Eight years later, in 2000, InterVarsity Press released Two Views of Hell, which contains my presentation as advocate for conditional immortality, alongside the presentation of traditionalist advocate Robert A. Peterson championing unending conscious torment. The book also includes each man’s response to the presentation of the other.

The publisher described Two Views as “an irenic yet frank debate between two evangelical theologians who present strong scriptural and theological evidence for and against each view.”[14] Although not widely known until now, Two Views of Hell also was fruit borne from the dedicated efforts of John W. Wenham of Oxford.

We Meet John Wenham in Person

After the 1974 publication of The Goodness of God, Wenham became progressively more outspoken against the traditionalist doctrine of unending conscious torment. In 1991, he presented “The Case for Conditional Immortality” at the Fourth Edinburgh Conference on Christian Dogmatics (reprinted in Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell ). In that paper, he boldly stated, “I believe that endless torment is a hideous and unscriptural doctrine which has been a terrible burden on the mind of the church for many centuries and a terrible blot on her presentation of the gospel. I should indeed be happy if, before I die, I could help in sweeping it away.”[15]

During the Spring of 1992, my wife and I visited England to celebrate our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and we were privileged to spend a full Sunday in Oxford with the godly clergyman and mature scholar, Rev. John W. Wenham. We began the day as Wenham’s guests at his parish congregation, St. Margaret’s Anglican Church. We lunched together at the neighborhood pub, and then followed as Rev. Wenham led us on a personal walking tour of Oxford’s sites both famous and obscure. The day closed with tea in Wenham’s living quarters, located in the home of one of his sons. Finally, our new friend, John W. Wenham, embraced us and sent us on our way with a prayer.

Wenham’s Continued Influence

Shortly afterward, Paternoster Press, a leading British evangelical publishing house, asked Wenham to write a book setting forth the biblical case for conditional immortality. Wenham considered doing so, but remembered that each of his serious theological works had required about ten years of research and writing. He told the publisher that the book they were looking for existed already, and he referred them to The Fire That Consumes.

In 1994, Paternoster published an Anglicized second edition of The Fire That Consumes, revised and condensed by Peter Cousins, to which John W. Wenham generously contributed a foreword. Paternoster invited InterVarsity (USA) to join them as co-publisher in America. InterVarsity Press declined, but agreed to publish a two-sided treatment of the subject. InterVarsity Press fulfilled that agreement in 2000 by publishing Two Views of Hell: A Biblical and Theological Dialogue, co-authored by Robert A. Peterson (traditionalist) and myself (conditionalist).

John W. Wenham died in 1996. Paternoster posthumously published his autobiography, Facing Hell, in which he details the growth of his conditionalist convictions over a period of sixty years. The back cover of Facing Hell includes a quotation from Michael Green, Advisor in Evangelism to the Archbishop of Canterbury and York. In it, Green describes Wenham as “[o]ne of the most gracious Christian scholars I have ever met.”[16]

The process by which the view of hell as a place of total, irreversible extinction gained first an evangelical hearing, then a growing acceptance, is ongoing. In the next chapter we will meet some of many individuals, books, and events through which God continues to move that story forward.

1. In this section, I have relied on J. I. Packer’s “Fundamentalism” and the Word of God, 24–40, topical articles in Baker’s Dictionary of Theology, and articles in the Encyclopaedia of Religion.

2. Packer, “Fundamentalism,” 27.

3. Ibid., 24, 29; Bruce, Answers to Questions, 206–7; Dudley-Smith, John Stott: The Early Years, 345–51.

4. Wenham, Facing Hell, 67.

5. Ibid., 68.

6. McGrath, J. I. Packer, 19.

7. Ibid., 68. Wenham, as we will see, learned much from Atkinson, whom thereafter he always admired. Stott told his biographer that he did not remember ever hearing Atkinson teach on the subject of hell. Dudley-Smith, John Stott: A Global Ministry, 495n93.

8. Dudley-Smith, John Stott: The Early Years, 133.

9. Wenham, Facing Hell, 68.

10. Ibid., 69.

11. Ibid.

12. Fudge, “Putting Hell in its Place,” 14–17.

13. My family moved to Houston, Texas mid-1982, where I had accepted the position of founding editor of an interdenominational Christian newspaper. Three years later I entered law school, graduating three years afterward with a doctorate in jurisprudence, to begin more than two decades as a practicing attorney while continuing an active ministry in speaking and writing.

14. From the back cover of Two Views of Hell, by Fudge and Peterson.

15. Wenham, Facing Hell, vii.

16. Green, Facing Hell, back cover.

33

The Evangelical Recovery Continues

THE VIEW OF HELL as a place of everlasting total destruction is as old as the Bible, but since the time of Augustine, it has regularly been denounced, reviled, and repressed.[1] Today this view enjoys increasingly-broad respect among mainstream evangelicals. It already has won the minds and hearts of thousands,[2] and it now appears poised to enjoy exponential growth for many years to come.

Prominent Commonwealth Conditionalists

Leading the way in the recovery of the biblical doctrine of hell is a veritable Who’s Who of scholars, pastors, and teachers from throughout the former British Commonwealth. Among those in Great Britain who have publicly rejected traditionalism’s doctrine of unending conscious torment are F. F. Bruce,[3] John W. Wenham,[4] Stephen Travis,[5] Michael Green,[6] Richard Bauckham,[7] N. T. Wright,[8] I. Howard Marshall,[9] and John R. W. Stott.[10]

Canadian theologian Clark H. Pinnock,[11] long one of evangelicalism’s more creative and influential thinkers, carried considerable weight in the United States when he denounced traditionalism’s unending conscious torment and advocated conditional immortality. Dr. John G. Stackhouse Jr., is now Sangwoo Youtong Chee Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, B.C., the position previously held by J. I. Packer. Stackhouse is a declared conditionalist, which he explains in his lecture titled “Hell and the Goodness of God.” A recording is available through the Regent College bookstore.[12]

Also influential early in the rethinking of hell were Australians Philip E. Hughes,[13] for a time guest professor at Westminster Theological Seminary, and, a bit later, David J. Powys.[14] These more visible leaders made the headlines, but they were not nearly alone.

Some Prominent American Counterparts

Based on their personal experience, readers for whom this is a new subject might suppose that “everyone,” or at least anyone whom they would be likely to respect, still maintains allegiance to the ancient majority-tradition of unending conscious torment. While truth is not determined by either the number or the names of those who accept it, that would be a false impression. Consider these highly-respectable figures for starters.

From the Reformed side of the Christian family is John Franke (DPhil, Oxford), who invites me to list him as one of many who have rejected the traditional doctrine of unending conscious torment.[15] Franke taught for eighteen years at Biblical Seminary and is now Theologian in Residence at First Presbyterian Church of Allentown, Pennsylvania (PCUSA). His books include Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context (with Stanley J. Grenz); The Character of Theology: An Introduction to its Nature, Task, and Purpose; Manifold Witness: The Plurality of Truth; and Missional Theology: Christianity for the Sake of the World.

Thomas F. Johnson, retired Presbyterian minister and former faculty/administrator at University of Sioux Falls (SD), Sioux Falls Seminary, George Fox University and Seminary (OR), and Mars Hill Graduate School (Seattle), currently adjunct faculty for George Fox University, Fuller Theological Seminary, and KOINOS, and author of the New International Biblical Commentary on the Epistles of John, writes: “We are given [immortality] as a gift in Christ . . . Others who lack it perish and are destroyed.”[16]

Christian Reformed Church retired pastor Neal Punt’s openness to conditionalism is seen in the fact that he asked me to write the chapter on hell for his book, A Theology of Inclusivism.[17] Punt reports that “a considerable number of Christian Reformed pastors have expressed their appreciation for this chapter instead of an iteration of the traditional view.”[18]

From the Arminian side, Gregory A. Boyd, professor of theology for sixteen years at Bethel University (St. Paul, MN), now senior pastor of the evangelical Woodland Hills mega-church in St. Paul, Minnesota, writes, concerning annihilationism: “While I am not completely convinced of this position, I think it is worthy of serious consideration.”[19] Among Boyd’s books are Present Perfect: Finding God in the Now; A Biblical Introduction to the Open View of God ; and Satan & the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy.

Prolific author and New Testament scholar Ben Witherington III of Asbury Theological Seminary calls annihilationism “exegetically defensible” and “theologically coherent,” probably the view “closer to the truth,” based on God’s self-revelation in Christ.[20] Unfortunately, not all are so open-minded. When my nephew, Aaron Fudge (M.Div., Multnomah Biblical Seminary), applied for admission to a Master of Theology program at the California seminary affiliated with his undergraduate alma mater, the seminary explicitly told him that he was rejected because he believed in conditional immortality, and that the school did not want such persons credentialed with its graduate degrees.

Southern Baptist Seminary Professors

Years before the appearance of Wenham’s book in 1974, Dale Moody[21] was teaching the destruction of the wicked to his students at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. And E. Earle Ellis,[22] a conditionalist respected as a “scholar’s scholar,” served at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas from 1975–2010.

Roger E. Olson, professor of theology at George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University,[23] sees annihilationism “as simply a reinterpretation of hell” within the acceptable “mosaic of Christian belief,” and urges that “its harsh condemnation by a few fundamentalists should not deter Christians from accepting one another as equally believers in the gospel of Jesus Christ.”[24]

Olson is author of many books, including The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform, The Mosaic of Christian Belief: Twenty Centuries of Unity & Diversity, Reformed and Always Reforming: The Postconservative Approach to Evangelical Theology, and (co-author of) 20th-Century Theology.

Churches of Christ and Independent Christian Churches

Although I minister in churches, schools, and retreats across the Christian spectrum, my upbringing and ongoing home base is among the Churches of Christ, an officially creedless fellowship of autonomous congregations.[25] Before the 1982 publication of The Fire That Consumes, these believers were almost wholly traditionalist in belief and often stridently so.[26]

The appearance of The Fire That Consumes in 1982 stimulated an extensive grassroots restudy of the subject within the Churches of Christ. Since its debut, a number of well-known leaders have published and/or publicly taught their rejection of traditionalism and/or their conviction in favor of total everlasting destruction.[27] Among these are Tony Coffey[28] (Irish church leader, author, and evangelist in Dublin), Douglas Jacoby[29] (international apologist, teacher, and executive director of Athens Institute), Jim McGuiggan[30] (Irish theologian, author, and preacher in Belfast), Al Maxey[31] (author, Preaching Minister and elder, Cuba Avenue Church of Christ, Alamogordo, New Mexico), Matt Soper[32] (Senior Minister, West Houston Church of Christ, Houston, Texas), Jeff Christian[33] (Preaching Minister, Bering Drive Church of Christ, Houston), and F. LaGard Smith[34] (popular author/speaker, Special Assistant to the President of C. S. Lewis Foundation).

This number also includes Lynn Mitchell (a professor at the University of Houston and minister of Heights Church of Christ in Houston),[35] Jimmy Allen[36] (retired evangelist and professor at Harding University, Searcy, Arkansas), Homer Hailey[37] (long-time Bible professor and biblical commentator), Rob McRay (inner-city church planter and adjunct Instructor in Bible at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee), Patrick Mead[38] (Minister of the Word, Rochester Church of Christ, Rochester Hills, Michigan and teacher in research psychology and psychoneuroimmunology at The Ohio State University), and David R. Reagan[39] (former university administrator, professor, and founder and director of Lamb & Lion Ministries). A growing multitude of professors, preachers, elders, and other leaders among Churches of Christ have told me personally that they no longer advocate conscious unending torment, but for various good reasons they decline to be identified in this chapter.

The Independent Christian Churches share common origins with the Churches of Christ but, unlike Churches of Christ of years past, do not share an exclusively a cappella worship music tradition. College Press, which primarily serves Independent Christian Churches, published at least two books during the 1980s expressing some degree of conditionalist conviction. The authors were Fred Thompson[40] (who opens the door for conditionalism) and Russell Boatman[41] (a staunch advocate of conditional immortality). Both were professors at Independent Christian Churches-related colleges or seminaries, and Thompson was a contributing editor to Christianity Today.

Response from Evangelical Scholars

The Preface of the original edition of The Fire That Consumes closed with the following invitation:

This book is written to be read—and argued with! I have no ax to grind and no cause to champion; I have tried to follow the ordinary methods of sound, biblical exegesis. Competent scholars and serious students are cordially invited to enter into dialogue. Check the statements made here. Weigh the evidence. Examine the arguments. Measure this work by every proper standard. All that matters is that we seek God’s truth for his glory and the salvation of sinners! (xv)

The Conversation Widens

Almost immediately, traditionalists representing a range of attitudes and of expertise began to do just that, increasing in number and intensity as a succession of highly-respected evangelical scholars publicly abandoned the traditionalist view. Stephen Travis declared himself a conditionalist in 1982, the same year that The Fire That Consumes was published. Two years later, Robert A. Morey defended unending conscious torment in his book, Death and the Afterlife (1984).[42]

Each of the next three years saw a major traditionalist defection. In rapid succession and one year apart, came the declarations of Clark H. Pinnock (1987), John R. W. Stott (1988, but “tentatively”),[43] and Philip E. Hughes (1989). That third year, Paul Helm returned the ball from the traditionalist court with his 1989 book, The Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell.

The 1989 Deerfield Meeting

In May of 1989, the National Association of Evangelicals and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois co-sponsored a four-day conference at the school, for the purpose of attempting to define the essentials of evangelical conviction. Some 350 theologians and other interested persons attended the meetings, which considered issues such as salvation, biblical authority, personal and social ethics, black evangelical theology, the church, modern science, and religious liberty.

J. I. Packer’s paper was titled “Evangelicals and the Way of Salvation: New Challenges to the Gospel: Universalism, and Justification by Faith.”[44] As it happened, John Stott and Philip E. Hughes, two of Packer’s close and long-time fellow-Anglican friends, had recently announced their rejection of unending conscious torment on biblical grounds. Whether feeling burdened or from some sense of duty, Dr. Packer proceeded to repeat the self-declarations of both Hughes and Stott, accusing all conditionalists of manifesting what he called an “assumption of superior sensitivity.” Then, in a move completely out of character with his usually-analytical approach, James Innell Packer summarily dismissed John R. W. Stott’s biblically-based case as nothing but “flimsy special pleading.”[45]

Dr. Packer’s entire rebuttal required only seven paragraphs, and it scarcely touched the real issues involved. Dr. Packer began with the unbelievable comment that “Conditionalism is never advocated as expressing the obvious meaning of Scripture, for this it does not do” (emphasis added).[46] In so saying, Dr. Packer not only denies that conditionalism expresses the obvious meaning of Scripture (a subjective matter, about which each person will make an individual judgment). He also denies that conditionalists claim, when presenting their case, to express the obvious meaning of Scripture. The second denial is so blatantly contrary to reality that one wonders if the good professor’s mind momentarily wandered and he did not realize what he was saying.

But Professor Packer continued with another denial equally as incredible. Although his fellow-traditionalists regularly admit that Scripture verses which say the wicked will die, perish, and be destroyed, if taken alone, would certainly point toward extinction or annihilation, but that other passages lead to a different result, Dr. Packer’s next statement was this: “First, it is said that the New Testament terms for the fate of the lost—destruction and death, corruption and punishment, the worm and the fire—might mean annihilation. So they might,[47] but this possible meaning is not the natural meaning. In all the contexts cited, the natural meaning of the phrases in which these words appear is ruin and distress, not entry upon non-existence.”[48]

Following Dr. Packer’s remarks, television talk-show host John Ankerberg read a response denouncing conditionalism as a “doctrine of demons” and as emotionalism “contaminated by secularist and humanistic thinking.”[49] Despite Ankerberg’s incendiary remarks, the convocation finally voted by a slim majority not to include a renunciation of conditionalism in its final report.

Had conferees voted to include such a renunciation, it would have been tantamount to declaring further Bible study on the topic unnecessary, based on the official fiat of an evangelical Protestant council.[50] It is unclear whether participants observed the obvious irony. Interestingly, the conference’s conveners stated, in the preface to the published proceedings, that the Affirmations decided by the meeting “do not represent requirements for membership in the church or for ordination to . . . Christian ministry. They are not intended to be a confession of faith . . . to set forth a short creed . . . or to be a short confession of faith.”[51]

Gerstner’s Repent or Perish

After the conference, John H. White, then-President of the National Association of Evangelicals,[52] asked Dr. John Gerstner, a strident Calvinist of the strictest variety and a biographer of Jonathan Edwards, to write a book in response to John Stott and Philip E. Hughes. Gerstner complied with Repent or Perish (1990). However, other than engaging in a bit of general name-calling and other sarcastic remarks,[53] Dr. Gerstner devoted very little attention to his two assigned targets, both men of solid reputation and great influence among the book’s intended Reformed audience. Instead, Dr. Gerstner focused on “Edward William Fudge’s The Fire That Consumes (1982),” which, he said, “[i]f . . . not the start of the current conservative attack on hell . . . at least has a central role.”[54] Two long chapters include me in the titles,[55] and the next two chapters, supposedly discussing “Jesus’ Teaching About Hell” and “Paul’s Teaching About Hell” mention me by name on every page opening but one.[56]

Books and More Books

The year 1991 saw the issuance of Eryl Davies’ An Angry God? The Biblical Doctrine of Wrath, Final Judgment, and Hell, published by the Evangelical Press of Wales.

Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell appeared in 1992, being a compilation of papers presented at the Fourth Edinburgh Conference on Christian Dogmatics in 1991, edited by Nigel M. de S. Cameron and published in the United States by Baker and in Europe by Paternoster. The book includes five papers on aspects of universalism by Trevor Hart, Frederick W. Norris, Daniel A. du Toit, David J. Powys, and John Colwell; two papers directly on conditionalism: John W. Wenham’s “The Case for Conditional Immortality,” and Kendall S. Harmon’s “The Case Against Conditionalism: A Response to Edward William Fudge”; as well as Thomas F. Torrance on the Atonement and the Moral Order, Paul Helm on the number of the saved, and Henri Blocher on everlasting punishment and the problem of evil.

Also in 1992, BridgePoint published Larry Dixon’s The Other Side of the Good News: Confronting the Contemporary Challenges to Jesus’ Teaching on Hell, Zondervan produced Four Views of Hell, edited by William V. Crockett and including presentations by John F. Walvoord (literal view), William V. Crockett (metaphorical view), Zachary J. Hayes (purgatorial view), and Clark H. Pinnock (conditionalist view). Following each presentation, the three other co-authors responded briefly.

That same year also brought Resurrection Hope by David A. Dean, long-time professor of Advent Christian Studies at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, which presented the biblical case for conditional immortality in its relations to life, death, “intermediate state,” resurrection, and final judgment.

The next year it was back to Great Britain for John Blanchard’s 1993 book, Whatever Happened to Hell? In 1994, Paternoster Press in Great Britain published the second (British, abridged) edition of The Fire That Consumes, due in large measure to the influence of John W. Wenham, as described in the previous chapter. The traditionalist response resumed in 1995 with Robert A. Peterson’s Hell on Trial: The Case for Eternal Punishment.

In 1996, D. A. Carson briefly entered the conversation with chapter 13 of his book, The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism. The chapter, “On Banishing the Lake of Fire,” comprises twenty-two pages—less than 4 percent of the entire book. Dr. Carson honestly warns readers that, “certain elements of the topic will be skipped over lightly or entirely ignored.” He then fulfills his promise with parts of three pages devoted to a thumbnail summary of annihilationist arguments.

The summation is fair in what it actually says, but its subtitle is overly-ambitious to the point of audacity: “The Case for Conditional Immortality.”[57] The remainder of the chapter gives standard traditionalist responses but does not advance the discussion. Some responses are copied from earlier advocates and attributed to them.[58] At least once, Carson (no doubt unconsciously) repeats the novel language of an earlier advocate without attribution.[59] Some of his traditionalist responses have been rejected already by fellow-traditionalists.[60]

Brother Carson repeatedly excoriates conditionalists for referring to conscious unending torment as harsh and cruel, but ends his own remarks with the indirect but unmistakable suggestion that those who oppose his viewpoint on hell have succumbed to pluralism, having found it too difficult to remain faithful to Scripture.[61]

Various scholars have noted Carson’s apparent tendency to charge fellow-theologians with “post-modernism” or “pluralism” when in fact they merely studied the Bible and reached a conclusion different from his.[62] For example, in an otherwise very positive review of The Gagging of God, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary Professor E. Earle Ellis points out that “the conditional immortality of Ignatius (+ c. 110) or of John Stott is hardly the product of contemporary relativism.”[63]

Meanwhile, in 1997[64] Paternoster Press produced the rewritten doctoral dissertation of Australian conditionalist scholar David J. Powys, titled “Hell”: A Hard Look at a Hard Question: The Fate of the Unrighteous in New Testament Thought.

The publication in 2000 of The Nature of Hell marked a new milestone in the evangelical recovery of hell in the UK. Subtitled A Report by the Evangelical Alliance Commission on Unity and Truth Among Evangelicals (ACUTE) and edited by David Hilborn, this book offered an official statement from the primary UK pan-evangelical organization, explicitly declaring annihilationism an evangelical option. The importance of that action is difficult to overestimate. Already in the UK, various evangelical doctrinal bases of faith have been altered to allow for annihilationism.

ACUTE had been formed in 1995 by the Evangelical Alliance (EA). In addition to EA members, ACUTE’s Steering Group included persons from the British Evangelical Council and the Evangelical Movement of Wales.[65] After prayer and reflection, ACUTE named a working group of scholars, whom it commissioned to carry out a two-year study of the subject and to issue their findings in a report. That final report was published as The Nature of Hell.

In the USA, the year 2000 also brought Two Views of Hell: A Biblical and Theological Dialogue from InterVarsity Press, in which I advocated total everlasting destruction as the final fate of the damned, and Robert A. Peterson made the case for unending conscious torment. Each presentation was followed by a response from the opposite side.

Bruce Milne then wrote The Message of Heaven and Hell: Grace and Destiny, and InterVarsity Press released it in 2002. Two years later, Zondervan published Hell Under Fire, edited by Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson, with chapters by R. Albert Mohler, Daniel J. Block, Robert W. Yarbrough, Douglas J. Moo, Gregory K. Beale, Christopher W. Morgan, Robert A. Peterson, J. I. Packer, and Sinclair B. Ferguson. Also in 2004, Morgan’s Jonathan Edwards and Hell was released by Christian Focus Publications in Scotland. In 2010, Presbyterian & Reformed released What is Hell? (Basics of the Faith ), a thirty-six-page booklet by Morgan and Peterson.[66] The pair also edited Zondervan’s multi-author Hell Under Fire—at this writing, the most recent major traditionalist work in the ongoing evangelical debate.[67]

Less well-known but worthy conditionalist books self-published throughout these same years include Immortality or Resurrection (1997), by Seventh-day Adventist scholar Samuele Bacchiocchi with foreword by Clark H. Pinnock; Life, Death and Destiny (1998), by Warren Prestidge, a Baptist pastor in Auckland, New Zealand; Dead Men Talking (2005), by Advent Christian pastor Thomas S. Warren II (with foreword by me); The Gospel according to the Scriptures (2009), by Australian holiness author Andrew Pritchard; and Dead Soul Syndrome: A Biblical Alternative to the Nature of the Afterlife (2010), by Jay Altieri, a studious layman who attends a Full Gospel church in rural Texas. These are in addition to books by authors from Churches of Christ and Christian Churches identified earlier.

Evangelicals can rejoice that, in the providence of our gracious and sovereign God, the recovery of a more biblical understanding of hell is well underway. As this unfinished element in the work of reformation continues, let us be diligent to share the incredibly good news that, although the wages of sin is death, the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 6:23).

1. In the opinion of Roger Olson, a professor of theology at George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University, “the present traditionalist temperament of many conservative evangelical theologians leads them to seek rapid closure to any theological discussion of new proposals; they tend to reject any innovative interpretations of Scripture and constructive theological ideas as heterodox . . . Since most evangelicals have always believed in the eternal suffering of the wicked, conservative evangelical theologians tend to react negatively to any suggestion of annihilationism.” Olson, Reformed and Always Reforming, 187.

2. The supporting roster for the traditional view includes major names from the past 1600 years—the label of “traditionalist” is not quickly earned! On the other hand, evangelicals who have rejected the traditional view are not lacking in either personal piety or mental muscle themselves.

3. Bruce, The Fire That Consumes, 1st ed., vii; reprinted in front matter of this book. Bruce, born in Scotland but whose career was primarily in England, later wrote to his friend John Stott: “Annihilation is certainly an acceptable interpretation of the relevant New Testament passages . . . For myself, I remain agnostic. Eternal conscious torment is incompatible with the revealed character of God. I’d like to be a universalist, and Paul sometimes encourages me in this (cf. Rom 11:32; 1 Cor 15:22, but only (I fear) when he is read out of context.” Quoted by Timothy Dudley-Smith, John Stott: A Global Ministry, 354.

4. Wenham, “The Case for Conditional Immortality,” 161–91; Wenham, Facing Hell, 229–64.

5. Travis, I Believe in the Second Coming of Jesus, 118.

6. Green, Evangelism through the Local Church, 69ff.

7. Bauckham, “Hell,” no pages. Online: http://richardbauckham.co.uk/uploads/Accessible/Hell.pdf

8. Wright, Surprised by Hope, 175–83.

9. Marshall, “The NT Does Not Teach Universal Salvation,” 75n.12.

10. Edwards and Stott, Evangelical Essentials, 314–20; Dudley-Smith, John Stott: A Global Ministry, 351–55.

11. Pinnock, “Fire Then Nothing,” 40–41.

12. Online: http://www.regentaudio.com/RGDL4102K.

13. Hughes, The True Image, 398–407.

14. Powys, “Hell.”

15. Personal email from John Franke to this author, dated October 28, 2010. Franke studied under traditionalist Robert A. Peterson at Biblical Seminary, and was friends with Kendall S. Harmon during their overlapping doctoral programs at Oxford.

16. Johnson, “A Wideness in God’s Mercy,” 101n38.

17. Fudge, “Restoring Hell,” 190–97. Punt’s version of “evangelical inclusivism” expressed in his several books, is discussed in chapter 26.

18. Personal email from Neal Punt to Edward Fudge on November 21, 2010.

19. Online: http://www.gregboyd.org/essays/god-essays/judgement/the-case-for-annihilationism/.

20. Online: http://www.patheos.com/community/bibleandculture/2011/03/19/and-now-the-case-for-permanent-residence-in-hell/.

21. In a personal telephone conversation in either 1991 or 1992, Dr. Moody told me that he had taught conditional immortality and the destruction of the wicked in hell at The Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky “for nearly forty years.”

22. Ellis, “New Testament Teaching on Hell,” 199–219.

23. Truett Theological Seminary is affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. It is part of independent Baylor University, the largest Baptist university in America, located in Waco, Texas.

24. Olson, The Mosaic of Christian Belief, 329.

25. This fellowship had its historic origins in the nineteenth century, back-to-the-Bible, “restoration” movement led by Thomas and Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone.

26. There were occasional individual spokespersons within this fellowship who taught conditional immortality, and who usually encountered opposition, abuse, and other forms of resistance for doing so. One such person was Curtis Dickinson, who served faithfully for many lonely years during which he suffered much abuse.

27. Not all of these changed due to the direct influence of The Fire That Consumes. Hailey intentionally did not read The Fire That Consumes because he wanted his own study of Scripture to be as objective as possible.

28. Personal email from Tony Coffey to Edward Fudge on November 21, 2010.

29. Jacoby, “Heaven and Hell,” 1–18.

30. McGuiggan, “Hell, a mercy killing?” no page numbers.

31. Maxey, The Maxey–Thrasher Debate.

32. Soper, Raising Up A Testimony, 88–90.

33. Christian, “Dust in the Space Between,” 169–74; Christian, “Apocalypse Now,” no page numbers.

34. Smith, “The Tormenting Conundrum of Hell,” AfterLife, 165–97.

35. As told to me in personal conversation with this close, valued and long-time friend.

36. Allen, Fire In My Bones, 220–25. Although Allen is no longer committed to an unqualified traditionalism, he does not identify himself as a conditionalist either. In his autobiography, Allen specifically states that he was not influenced by The Fire That Consumes.

37. Hailey, God’s Judgements and Punishments, 135–99.

38. Mead, “About Hell (parts 1–6),” no page numbers.

39. Reagan, “Is Hell for Real?” 101–18.

40. Thompson, What The Bible Says about Heaven and Hell. See especially chapter 12, titled “Hell—Annihilation?” (ibid., 330–61). Dr. Thompson was a contributing editor to Christianity Today.

41. Boatman, What the Bible Says about the End Time. See especially the final chapter.

42. See my review of Morey’s book online at http://www.EdwardFudge.com/morey.html/.

43. This was no new opinion for Stott, who said in a personal statement to critics, “my position has been the same for about fifty years.” Dudley-Smith, John Stott: The Later Years, 354.

44. Ibid., 107–36.

45. Packer, In Evangelical Affirmations, 124, 125, and 126.

46. Ibid., 124. In fact, the first edition of The Fire That Consumes consisted of 500 pages in which I advocated that very thing.

47. Professor Packer admits that the New Testament’s regular words for the end of the wicked “might mean annihilation.” He really has no choice, for it cannot be denied that in ordinary discourse words such as die, death, perish, destroy, and destruction normally refer to the cessation of life or to the disintegration and cessation of existence of inanimate objects. However, this admission leaves Professor Packer in a position even more obviously difficult, since his only defense now is to allege that cessation of existence is not the “most natural” meaning of die, death, perish, destroy, and destruction. Would even a most dedicated traditionalist dare say that?

48. Ibid., 124–25. Although someone might make a conscious decision (based on personal preference, ecclesiastical tradition, or some other grounds) to interpret death, perish, and destroy as “ruin and distress,” it strains the imagination to call that “their natural meaning.” Such a meaning appears even more unnatural “in all the contexts cited,” which present, as opposite alternatives, eternal life and death (Rom 6:23) or eternal life and perish (John 3:16), and that warn of God’s ability to destroy both soul and body in hell (Matt 10:28).

When John the Baptist says of Jesus, in a context of divine judgment, that “he will burn up the chaff” (Matt 3:12), what meaning could possibly be more “natural” than that the wicked will indeed be burned up? When Scripture portrays corpses being consumed by maggots and fire (Isa 66:24), on what basis is the more “natural meaning” that the wicked will never be corpses at all but will be alive forever in torment that never ends? What is “natural” about reading that the wicked will be “set ablaze” and “left neither root nor branch,” but be “ashes under the soles of the feet” (Mal 4:1-4) and saying that it means the wicked will not be set ablaze but will always exist in their entirety, and will never become ashes whether underfoot or not?

49. Ibid., 138, 140. Ankerberg’s denunciation reached a crescendo with his declaration that “when a conditional immortalist text, such as Edward Fudge’s The Fire That Consumes, is chosen as an alternate selection by the Evangelical Book Club, and when some of our most respected evangelical voices are denying the doctrine of eternal punishment, my fellow colleagues, we are in serious trouble” (ibid., 138). In reality, conditionalism does not “deny” eternal punishment at all, but only defines it, based on the apparently plain meaning of scriptural terms, as divine capital punishment that will never be reversed.

50. Of this convocation Olson says: “Most of the speakers and writers decried . . . a supposed widespread deviation from evangelical orthodoxy, and attempted to clarify essential evangelical beliefs. For them, ‘evangelical integrity’ is at stake in identifying who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ of the evangelical club. The goal of the conference was the establishment of firm evangelical boundaries. In identifying these boundaries, appeal was often made to what evangelicals have always believed . . . Although most evangelicals do adhere to the nine affirmations to some degree, the attempt to invest them with authority based on traditional interpretation and historical evangelical consensus is . . . functionally to place a set of human statements on the same plane with Scripture; they become a written magisterium placed on a pedestal above question or reconsideration even on the basis of fresh and faithful biblical scholarship.” Olson, Reformed and Always Reforming, 18–19.

51. Kantzer and Henry, Evangelical Affirmations, 14.

52. This represented a radical change in the attitude of NAE leadership since its founding in 1942. See the account by Howard W. Ferrin near the end of chapter 2.

53. Such as calling John Stott the “Pope of the Evangelicals” (Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 206).

54. Ibid., 64.

55. They are chapter 4, “Edward William Fudge’s Particular Revolt” (ibid., 66–99), and chapter 5, “Fudge on the Old Testament” (ibid., 100–24).

56. In all, specifically focusing on me for 119 of the book’s 218 pages.

57. Carson, The Gagging of God, 516, 518–20. “Audacity” because “The Case” that he purports to state in less than three full pages required 226 pages to present in the second (British) edition of The Fire That Consumes that Carson quotes, which was an abbreviated version of the unabridged, 500-page, first edition.

58. e.g., Harmon’s objection to what he considers my serialization of stages of punishment in hell. Carson, The Gagging of God, 526.

59. Ibid. Carson dismisses my explanation of the Greek genitival construction behind the phrase “day and night” in Rev 14:11 as “special pleading,” John Blanchard’s words in 1993.

60. E.g., Carson claims, contra Harmon, that the view of hell as unending conscious torment was so standardized in first-century Palestinian Judaism that we can presuppose Jesus’ view to be the same (ibid., 529). Or, contra Beale, Carson denies my assertion that the Greek genitival phrase “day and night” in Rev 14:11 refers to “kind” of time rather than “duration” of time (ibid., 526).

61. Carson’s words are: “Despite the sincerity of their motives, one wonders more than a little to what extent the growing popularity of various forms of annihilationism and conditional immortality are a reflection of this age of pluralism. It is getting harder and harder to be faithful to the ‘hard’ lines of Scripture” (ibid., 536).

62. Olson, Reformed and Always Reforming, 24–25, 39–44, 62, 74–75, 104, 185, 196.

63. Ellis, “Review: The Gagging of God,” 95.

64. The year 1998 saw the first of a series of books by evangelicals affirming universalism or “universal restoration,” that by 2011 included works by Bonda, Talbott, MacDonald [aka Robin Parry], and Baker. These are discussed in chapter 26 and are not included in the present chapter. Arguably, the fact that these authors claim and appeal to Scripture as their authority decreases the number of evangelical conversations from two to one, and increases the number of voices in the larger conversation from two to three.

65. ACUTE, The Nature of Hell, ix.

66. In my opinion, this is the best presentation of the traditionalist interpretation I have seen, of any length, as I write in February 2011. The best short case for annihilationism, in my opinion, is Clark Pinnock’s article on “Annihilationism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology, edited by Jerry L. Walls, 462–75.

67. However, traditionalist Todd L. Miles devotes seventeen pages of his book to the discussion of hell and conditional immortality. Miles, A God of Many Understandings? 120–36.

34

A Kinder and Gentler Traditionalism

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO HELL? I do not mean “out there” in a secular and profane world, nor am I inquiring regarding conditionalists who believe firmly in hell, although not the traditionalist kind. I am asking rather what happened to old-fashioned hell-fire preaching by those who say that they believe in unending conscious torment?

If one reads sermons on hell by the old masters—Wesley, Edwards, Spurgeon, and the like—and compares that preaching with the offerings of any well-known traditionalist today, the difference is more than striking. The irony is that many of today’s traditionalists accuse conditionalists of having “gone soft.”

One might suppose it a simple matter to read traditionalism’s major works, to distill from the chief elements a straightforward definition, then clearly and succinctly to set forth the arguments thought to support the doctrine of eternal conscious torment. Instead, the person who goes online and types the words “hell” and “final punishment” into the search engine quickly identifies with Alice in Wonderland, that unsuspecting lass who followed the white rabbit into a world where words conveyed their opposite meaning, and nothing was what it seemed.

Traditionalism’s Pain

The borders of traditionalist orthodoxy are sprawling, blurry, and unfixed. Within these borders one finds such High-Church ecclesiastics as the nineteenth century’s aged E. B. Pusey, who found strength beyond his years to hold up the standard as he perceived it. Yet many today who quote Pusey with approval would risk a general uprising if they told their audiences everything that Pusey affirmed on this subject with absolute conviction.

One also finds conservative fundamentalists who consider belief in literal fire as important as the deity of Jesus. Some traditionalist advocates think Jonathan Edwards should be the measure of preaching today while others cower in embarrassment at his name.

Traditionalists agree that the wicked will remain alive forever in sensible punishment of some description, and that neither they nor it will ever pass away. However, they disagree among themselves about a number of details: for example, how anyone can exist forever when totally cut off from God; the relative number of the lost; the fate of deceased infants and the unevangelized dead; the nature and degree of the future punishment; and the possibility of opportunity for salvation beyond the present life.

At the end of the nineteenth century, Farrar criticized “the common opinions respecting Hell,” that he summarized in four parts: (1) “The physical torments, the material agonies of eternal punishment”; (2) “the supposition of its necessarily endless duration for all who incur it”; (3) “the opinion that it is thus incurred by the vast mass of mankind”; and (4) “that it is a doom passed irreversibly at the moment of death on all who die in a state of sin.”[1]

Pusey responded that one need not think of hell in terms of physical pains or torments beyond those caused by the deprivation of all good, and that the number of those finally lost will probably be relatively few. As for Farrar’s four representations of traditionalism, Pusey replied: “Of these the third has no solid foundation whatever; it exists, probably, only in the rigid Calvinistic school, in which Dr. Farrar was educated, and from which his present opinions are a reaction . . . The fourth is probably a misconception . . . The first is a point, not declared to be essential to the belief in Hell.”[2]

Pusey insisted only on Farrar’s second point: “the supposition of its necessarily endless duration for all who incur it.” However, he weakened that point considerably by allowing for minimal pain, perhaps limited to pain caused by the deprivation of everything good. Pusey’s “orthodoxy” therefore reduces to this single point: endless conscious existence for the relatively small number of the human race who are damned, who will be cut off from all association with God, and who will suffer whatever torments that reality inspires.

Although Pusey felt that “perhaps millions have been scared back from sin” by the dread and fear of hell (noting elsewhere that the poor were particularly susceptible to such motivation), he finally stated concerning physical sufferings that “the Church has no where laid down as a matter of faith, the material character of the worm and the fire, or that they denote more than the gnawing of remorse. Although then it would be very rash to lay down dogmatically, that the ‘fire’ is not to be understood literally, as it has been understood almost universally by Christians, yet no one has a right to urge those representations, from which the imagination so shrinks as a ground for refusing to believe in hell, since he is left free not to believe them.”[3]

If Spurgeon or others can scare the poor by preaching hellfire, Pusey seems to say, more power to them—perhaps a certain class of people is motivated best by fear. But if a more intellectual chap begins to question the Christian faith on such a basis, why, it is really not a matter of faith anyway, even though such pain “has been understood almost universally by Christians” as being physical and very real!

Is such reasoning truly fair? What has become of the common argument that places so much emphasis on what so many people have believed for so long? The subject is far too serious to play such games with the emotions of common people, and neither Jesus nor his apostles ever did.

Even A. H. Strong joins Pusey in conceding “1. that future punishment does not necessarily consist of physical torments—it may be wholly internal and spiritual; 2. that the pain and suffering of the future are not necessarily due to positive inflictions of God—they may result entirely from the soul’s sense of loss, and from the accusations of conscience; and [even] 3. that eternal punishment does not necessarily involve endless successions of suffering—as God’s eternity is not mere endlessness so we may not be forever subject to the law of time.”[4] Meanwhile, across the Calvinistic fence, Berkhof says it “is impossible to determine precisely what will constitute the eternal punishment of the wicked, and it behooves us to speak very cautiously on the subject.”[5]

In spite of such protests from Pusey and Strong, in popular traditionalist preaching and writing, hell “is almost invariably understood as a real, material, inextinguishable fire, ceaselessly tormenting the damned.”[6] And, if that is what Scripture teaches, no one who believes the Bible has any right to object. If “the plain meaning of Scripture, after all, is the old doctrine of the ecclesiastical symbols,”[7] as traditionalists maintain, all true believers should preach the pains of hell with clarity and power—not only to the poor (who have more to worry about already than other people), but also to the middle-class and to the rich. If God’s Word teaches that hell will be the scene of unending conscious torment, it should be preached as a terrible place of unimaginable pain and horror. If the traditionalist view of hell is correct, most of its modern advocates owe their fire-and-brimstone ancestors a profound apology. The fundamental issue is not whether the pain is physical or spiritual, literal or metaphorical. The issue is whether Scripture intends to denote conscious suffering that never ends, of whatever sort or description.

Scaring the Poor and the Little Children

Traditionalists believe that Jesus taught about hell to scare people from it, and that everyone who follows him ought to do the same. In this day, therefore, when many traditionalists work so hard to minimize the gross horror of their own doctrine, preaching samples of traditionalists from an earlier age are in order.

“Rev. J. Furniss” minced no words in the following excerpt from his traditionalist (Catholic) tract “for children and young persons,” The Sight of Hell.

See on the middle of that red-hot floor stands a girl: she looks about sixteen years old. Her feet are bare. Listen; she speaks. “I have been standing on this red-hot floor for years! Look at my burnt and bleeding feet! Let me go off this burning floor for one moment!” The fifth dungeon is the red-hot oven. The little child is in the red-hot oven. Hear how it screams to come out; see how it turns and twists itself about in the fire. It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its little feet on the floor. God was very good to this little child. Very likely God saw it would get worse and worse, and would never repent, and so it would have to be punished more severely in hell. So God in his mercy called it out of the world in early childhood.[8]

Or hear Protestant Spurgeon, who probably embarrassed Pusey as much as he horrified Farrar.

When thou diest thy soul will be tormented alone—that will be a hell for it—but at the day of judgement thy body will join thy soul, and then thou wilt have twin hells, body and soul shall be together, each brimfull of pain, thy soul sweating in its inmost pore drops of blood and thy body from head to foot suffused with agony; conscience, judgement, memory, all tortured . . . Thine heart beating high with fever, thy pulse rattling at an enormous rate in agony, thy limbs cracking like the martyrs in the fire and yet unburnt, thyself put in a vessel of hot oil, pained yet coming out undestroyed, all thy veins becoming a road for the hot feet of pain to travel on, every nerve a string on which the devil shall ever play his diabolical tune . . . Fictions, sir! Again I say they are no fictions, but solid, stern truth. If God be true, and this Bible be true, what I have said is the truth, and you will find it one day to be so.[9]

Or again:

Only conceive that poor wretch in the flames, who is saying, “O for one drop of water to cool my parched tongue!” See how his tongue hangs from between his blistered lips! How it excoriates and burns the roof of his mouth as if it were a firebrand! Behold him crying for a drop of water. I will not picture the scene. Suffice it for me to close up by saying, that the hell of hells will be to thee, poor sinner, the thought that it is to be for ever. Thou wilt look up there on the throne of God,—and on it shall be written, “For ever!” When the damned jingle the burning irons of their torments, they shall say, “For ever!” When they howl, echo cries, “For ever!”

“For ever” is written on their racks, “For ever” on their chains; “For ever” burneth in the fire, “For ever” ever reigns.[10]

So that non-Calvinists do not feel left out, and lest we unduly credit the Reformed side of the house with such courageous and straightforward preaching, I cite one example also from John Wesley, who wrote: “There is no business, but one uninterrupted scene of horror, to which they must be all attention. They have no interval of inattention or stupidity; they are all eye, all ear, all sense. Every instant of their duration, it may be said of their whole frame that they are ‘—trembling alive all o’er, and smart and agonize at every pore.’”[11]

But the most enduring example of severe preaching on hell probably remains Jonathan Edwards, the seventeenth-century academician/pastor, less well known as grandfather of Aaron Burr. That is ironic because Edwards’ most famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” was almost dull and boring by comparison with the sermons from Spurgeon and Wesley excerpted above.

Some recent traditionalists find Edwards’ sermons “appalling”;[12] others feel a need to apologize for his language, explaining that he intended to be understood figuratively.[13] Others quote Edwards with head held high, convinced that traditionalism is true and that it must be declared clearly and without compromise.

A. W. Pink exemplifies this latter group, and he quotes with approval Edwards’ description of the soul as it finally sinks terribly into the “second death” of endless torment:

So it will be with the soul in Hell; it will have no strength or power to deliver itself; and its torment and horror will be so great, so mighty, so vastly disproportioned to its strength, that having no strength in the least to support itself, although it be infinitely contrary to the nature and inclination of the soul utterly to sink; yet it will sink, it will utterly and totally sink, without the least degree of remaining comfort, or strength, or courage, or hope. And though it will never be annihilated, its being and perception will never be abolished: yet such will be the infinite depth of gloominess that it will sink into, that it will be in a state of death, eternal death . . .

To help your conception, imagine yourself to be cast into a fiery oven, all of a glowing heat, or into the midst of a blowing brick-kiln, or of a great furnace, where your pain would be as much greater than that occasioned by accidentally touching a coal of fire, as the heat is greater. Imagine also that your body were to lie there for a quarter of an hour, full of fire, as full within and without as a bright coal of fire, all the while full of quick sense; what horror would you feel at the entrance of such a furnace! And how long would that quarter of an hour seem to you! . . . And how much greater would be the effect, if you knew you must endure it for a whole year, and how vastly greater still, if you knew you must endure it for a thousand years! O then, how would your heart sink, if you thought, if you knew, that you must bear it forever and ever! . . . That after millions of millions of ages, your torment would be no nearer to an end, than ever it was; and that you never, never should be delivered! But your torment in Hell will be immeasurably greater than this illustration represents. How then will the heart of a poor creature sink under it! How utterly inexpressible and inconceivable must the sinking of the soul be in such a case.[14]

Gerstner Continues the Tradition

Through the centuries, outstanding traditionalists have interpreted Isa 66:24 to mean that part of the pleasure of the redeemed will be watching the agonies of the damned. Today’s traditionalists have adopted a “kinder and gentler” attitude than many of their predecessors, but John Gerstner will have none of that.

A purist whose life’s work centered around the study of Jonathan Edwards, Gerstner stands squarely within the stream of historic traditionalism when he writes: “Heaven’s joy overflows as they see the wicked suffering their just desert from which the saints had so earnestly tried to save them in this world by begging them to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved (Rev 18:20). The just misery of hell serves its divine purpose of contributing to the happiness of the saints.”[15]

Indeed, Gerstner says that believers ought to be celebrating the torments of the lost already, and that such joy identifies one as a true Christian: “Even now while the evangelical is singing the praises of his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, he knows that multitudes are suffering the torments of the damned . . . The true Christian, aware of this, is happily, exuberantly, gladly praising the Judge of the Last Day, Jesus Christ, who has sentenced to such merited damnation millions of souls” (underline in original).[16]

Unsympathetic or Unscriptural?

Rather than make apologies for such vivid and earthy descriptions of unending torment, traditionalists ought to emulate them all the more. If the wicked are to be made immortal for the purpose of enduring everlasting torture in agony, writers like Pink and preachers like Spurgeon do sinners an inestimable favor by making that very, very plain.

Since eternal torment cannot be stated clearly in scriptural language anyway, why fault the eloquence of those who strain their imaginations to get the point across? If the whole point is to scare the poor and the little children, why not give them a fright they will never forget?

We ought not to retreat from the language of Furniss and Spurgeon and Edwards on grounds that it is unduly harsh, out of step with postmodern sentiment, or that it is intolerant or politically incorrect. We should instead reject all such statements because they are unscriptural, lack any biblical basis, and represent a theological dogma whose history we can trace back through the centuries to its first explicit pronouncement among Christians more than a hundred years after Jesus. Traditionalism did not originate in an exegesis of Scripture, and its advocates admit that it contradicts what the Bible repeatedly appears to say. Traditionalism’s problem is not that it is unsympathetic but that it is unscriptural. Scripture—not sympathy—provides its only cure.

1. Farrar, Eternal Hope, quoted by Pusey, What Is of Faith? 5–6.

2. Pusey, What Is of Faith? 6–7.

3. Ibid., 18.

4. Strong, Systematic Theology, 3:1035.

5. Berkhof, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:345.

6. Lotz, “Heaven and Hell,” 85.

7. Patton, “Future Punishment,” 1974.

8. Furniss, The Sight of Hell ; quoted by White from a Mr. Lecky’s History of European Morals, in White, Life in Christ, 60. Admittedly this is a rather round-about quotation, but it is offered only for illustrative value and not to establish a crucial or disputed point.

9. Spurgeon, “Sermon No. 66,” New Park Street Pulpit, 2:105; quoted by Petavel, The Problem of Immortality, 266. Petavel cites a Spurgeon article titled “The Christian Hell” (Nineteenth Century, 1891, 712) as evidence that Spurgeon probably would not use this same language in his later years.

10. From a sermon preached in 1855; quoted by White, Life in Christ, 59.

11. Wesley, “Sermon 78”; quoted by Constable, Future Punishment, 99.

12. Orr’s term in The Progress of Dogma, 347, quoted with apparent approval by Buis, The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, 91.

13. Strong says this in his Systematic Theology, 3:1035; Buis quotes Strong with approval in The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, 91–92.

14. Pink, Eternal Punishment, 29–30.

15. Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 191. Gerstner does not speak for all traditionalists in these sentiments. Robert Peterson asked, in reviewing Gerstner’s book, “Further, where does Scripture teach [this statement]?” Peterson, “Repent or Perish,” 59.

16. Ibid., 32.

35

Refreshing the Memory

ANYONE DIVING INTO THE literature on final punishment quickly realizes that these are troubled waters, churning with many contradictory currents. For centuries the understanding of hell as unending conscious torment has been the prevailing, although not uncontested, undercurrent. Today many who venture into the stream of conversation on this topic find themselves pulled toward an understanding of hell as the place of total, irreversible, destruction and extinction.

Goal of Chapter

In this chapter we look back over the ground we have covered, as we recall and briefly respond to some of the sidetracks, arguments, and objections that have appeared along the way.

Sidetracks

The topic of final punishment touches on numerous other subjects that at times appear to affect one’s view of the central issue, but which in reality need not determine the position one holds on those subjects.

HELL’S SIZE AND LOCATION

Hell’s size and location are beside the point here. Such details fascinated certain rabbinic theorists and medieval speculators, but participants in today’s conversation about the nature of final punishment do not consider size and location worth discussing.

WHO GOES TO HELL

The final destiny of deceased infants, incompetent persons, and unevangelized adults has nothing to do with the nature of final punishment. The relative number of the lost also lies beyond our sphere of interest, although most fundamentalists would likely be surprised to hear how some traditionalist heroes have responded to that question.[1]

POST-MORTEM REPENTANCE

Whether there is opportunity for repentance after death (often referred to as the “larger hope,”) is crucial when weighing the universalist option, but so long as hope stops before entering hell itself, that question does not determine whether one is a traditionalist or a conditionalist.

PAINS OF HELL

Whether one views the pains of hell as spiritual, physical, or some combination of the two, is also unimportant here. The same can be said for degrees of punishment, a point on which traditionalists and conditionalists agree, though they differ in how they express it.

CALVINISM/ARMINIANISM

Calvinists and Arminians alike are free to choose between eternal extinction and unending conscious torment. Some Calvinists claim that freewill requires the eternal possibility of restoration (universalism), but at least one Arminian traditionalist argues that freewill proves eternal torment.

MONISM/DUALISM

The nature of the human creature does not determine the outcome in our debate. Dualists, who teach that the soul consciously survives the death of the body (dualism), acknowledge that God is able to destroy both soul and body in hell if he so desires. Monists, who deny that a disembodied soul consciously survives physical death, acknowledge that God is able to resurrect the wicked in immortality if he so desires.

LIBELS AND SLANDERS

Conditionalists are not so because of cowardice, liberalism, or wishful thinking. Such charges add pepper to a sermon, but they are unbecoming, uninformed and unfair.

Traditionalist Arguments

Traditionalist arguments much resemble the basement or attic of an old family homestead whose inhabitants were hoarders who threw nothing away. Most traditionalist arguments have been advanced since Aquinas. Not every traditional writer makes all the following argument, but someone who reads three or four traditionalist books is likely to encounter most of them.

INFINITE PUNISHMENT

To sin against God is to offend an infinite Person, Anselm argued, and infinite sin requires infinite penalty. For finite humans, that means suffering for an infinite period of time. The argument is based on notions of feudalistic law that contradicted Old Testament revelation and that enlightened people reject today.

INTUITION

Some traditionalists argue that a sense of moral rightness demands unending conscious torment. In fact, traditional doctrine has repelled countless numbers who thought it immoral, but that is a pointless argument in either direction. If the Genesis story of the first sin teaches anything, it teaches that our sense of moral rightness can be a deceitful guide, and that we must listen to God’s voice instead.

TRADITION

Traditionalist authors almost always point to the popularity of their view through many centuries, as if the majority view could not possibly be mistaken. Both the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed are silent on the nature of hell, and no recognized council of the first five centuries addressed the specific subject. The greatest theologians have always urged us to measure their teaching by the Scriptures. One does the universal, historic church no disservice and shows its theologians no disrespect by following that godly advice.

JEWISH VIEW

Some traditionalists still argue that during the intertestamental period, the doctrine of unending conscious torment became “the Jewish view” of hell, and that we should interpret Jesus’ words on the assumption that he held to that view. However, as we have seen in the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, and Dead Sea Scrolls, there was a broad diversity of thought on this subject, and any assumption of a uniform view would be misguided. We must let Jesus speak for himself, and interpret his teaching by prayerful, careful exegesis.

UNSCRIPTURAL

Traditionalists read passages that mention “eternal” or “unquenchable” fire, smoke that ascends, or a worm that does not die, and say that they all describe unending conscious torment.

Eternal Fire

“Eternal fire” certainly does not refer to some temporary punishment, but it fits very well everlasting extinction such as befell the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The phrase is wholly consistent with conditionalism.

Eternal Punishment

All agree that Jesus speaks of “eternal punishment.” The question is whether that punishment consists of unending conscious pain or irreversible everlasting extinction. Throughout the New Testament, whenever the adjective “eternal” is joined to nouns signifying the result of an action—i.e., “eternal judgment,” “eternal redemption,” “eternal destruction,” and “eternal salvation”—it is the result (identified in the noun being modified) which is “eternal” and not the action that produces that result. The same analysis is appropriate in the case of “eternal punishment” as well. The adjective modifies the stated noun (not a verb). This interpretation represents the fair, ordinary, and most natural understanding of the noun being modified.

Gnashing of Teeth

Although most traditionalists interpret this phrase to mean torment and pain, that is not the normal biblical usage. Throughout Scripture, gnashing of teeth always portrays rage. (See also “weeping.”)

Lake of Fire

This figure, found explicitly only in Revelation, might come from the vision of Dan 7, which portrays a river of fire coming from God’s throne, into which the body of his beastly enemies are thrown and consumed. In the case of Death and Hades, the lake of fire clearly means their annihilation; the beast and false prophet likely represent impersonal, institutional systems of persecuting governments and false religions incapable of sentient pain. Each time wicked human beings are said to be thrown into the lake of fire, John always explains it as the “second death.” The only other inhabitant of the lake of fire is the devil himself, and his demise is necessary for God’s final triumph in a universe purged of all sin.

Outer Darkness

In Scripture usage, the term symbolizes rejection, expulsion, exclusion. The picture is that of a feast or party in a lighted house, from which someone is expelled outside beyond the lighted perimeter.

Smoke Ascending

The figure comes from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, after which Abraham went out and observed the site where the cities had been. All he saw was rising smoke—the ancient equivalent of the mushroom-shaped cloud. Thereafter in Scripture, rising smoke symbolizes a destruction resulting from divine judgment.

Smoke Ascending Forever

This symbol comes from Isa 34 concerning the destruction of Edom. It compounds the previous symbol of rising smoke, adding to the finished destruction the point that the destruction will be irreversible.

Unquenchable Fire

“Unquenchable fire” is said to refer to perpetual pain. However, the phrase appears often in the earlier Scriptures of the Old Testament, where it regularly indicates to a divine judgment that cannot be stopped or slowed until its destruction is complete.

Weeping

Traditionalists interpret this phrase to mean torment and pain, but there are other biblical meanings also. Weeping is also caused by anticipation of judgment, loss, regret, smitten conscience and remorse. (See “gnashing of teeth.”)

Worm and Fire

The figure of these twin agents of destruction comes from Isa 66, where both consume the dead and discarded corpses of God’s enemies. The scene elicits disgust but not pity. Application of these words to physical and mental pain is a later invention with no biblical support whatsoever.

Wrath Remains

Jesus speaks of some on whom God’s wrath “remains.” That seems to exclude restoration, and utter destruction is far from a sign of forgiveness or renewed love. Traditionalists, not conditionalists, are continually haunted by the specter of universalism. God is love, but he is also a consuming fire. Only final extinction allows that fact its full force.

FIGURATIVE MEANINGS

We grant to traditionalists the fact that words like “perish,” “destroy,” “die,” and “corrupt” all can have metaphorical usages. However, figurative meanings are possible only because of primary meanings. It is an accepted principle of interpretation that words in non-apocalyptic or poetic literature have their primary meaning unless the context indicates otherwise. Conditionalists take the words at face value regarding final punishment; traditionalists need to show good cause for explaining them all away.

FINALITY

Traditionalists speak of hell’s finality—and so do conditionalists. Only universalists argue otherwise.

Traditionalist Objections

TEMPORARY

Some say everlasting extinction would not be “forever,” but Augustine and Jonathan Edwards both conceded that it would be. We measure capital punishment by its permanency, not by the time required for its execution. The permanence of the second death is not minimized by the duration of conscious suffering that it encompasses, a matter entirely in the hands of God.

IMPOSSIBLE

Some have objected that “annihilation” is physically impossible because even when something is burned, its smoke and ashes remain. No martyr approaching the stake ever took comfort by such a thought as that. The events of the age to come are not subject to physicists’ inductive generalizations drawn from experience now. The same law of thermodynamics that says nothing is destroyed also says nothing is created. God is greater than either part of the statement, and is fully able to destroy both body and soul in hell.

DANGEROUS

Some charge that viewing hell as a place of total, irreversible extinction endangers the faith. As yet, however, no one has shown how this understanding endangers any vital point of Christian faith—unless one arbitrarily defines “the faith” so narrowly that it excludes annihilationism a priori. Plainly stated, to do that is no more than to declare one’s theological system to be beyond biblical critique.

In truth, it is the doctrine of unending conscious torment that has made shipwreck of faith for multitudes, by representing God as boundless in injustice, cruelty, and caprice. I do not base my view on this argument, but merely urge that this traditionalist criticism can cut both ways and that it fails to invalidate conditionalism.

UNDERVALUES HUMANKIND

It is said that extinction contradicts the “great value” of each individual. Is that value better honored by preserving someone alive forever in unspeakable torment?

IMMORAL

Someone objects that eternal extinction removes the fear of hell and encourages sin. But, we might ask, in whom? Skeptics make fun of the idea or use it as an excuse to charge God with injustice. Even those who say they believe the doctrine usually think it is for someone else, and their lives remain unchanged as a result.

The pragmatic argument based on supposed results cannot settle the issue since it begins with human response rather than with divine revelation. If the Bible teaches unending conscious torment, human reaction does not annul what it teaches. If the Bible teaches everlasting extinction, no practical objection can make that less true. Evangelicals, remember, profess to derive final authority from the Word of God.

UNREASONABLE

Some object that it would be an act of unbelievable severity to raise the wicked for judgment, only to destroy them eternally. Conditionalists scratch their heads that advocates of eternal torment should raise the question of severity. Yet modern legal systems expend great sums of money, if necessary, to keep a capital criminal alive until his execution.

SOFT

Those who teach that the wicked will be punished with everlasting destruction are sometimes accused of doing so because they have lost their spiritual backbone and seek a “kinder and gentler” doctrine. However, it is traditionalists who have gentrified the hellfire-and-brimstone stance of their predecessors on this topic.

“ETERNAL LIFE”

Advocates of eternal torment frequently argue that eternal life means more than “mere existence.” The implication is that “mere existence” continues even after the second death. Surely the non sequitur is obvious. A king may announce that he will come on a certain day and give abundant life to his supporters but death to his enemies. “Abundant” life would mean more than “mere existence” in that case, but death would still be death. There is much to consider, but how confident must one be to warrant a change of mind?

The Only Issue

One issue alone divides traditionalists and conditionalists: Does Scripture teach that God will make the wicked immortal, to suffer unending conscious torment in hell? Or does the Bible teach that the wicked will finally and truly die, perish, and become extinct forever, through a destructive process that encompasses whatever degree and duration of conscious torment God might sovereignly and justly impose in each individual case?

The issue is that simple. The evidence is also clear and uncomplicated. It points away from the first view just described, to the second view, an understanding that evangelicals (and others) in increasing numbers already have come to consider more fully biblical, and also more consistent with the character of God as we see him revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.

1. E. B. Pusey, a leading nineteenth-century British traditionalist, said that F. W. Farrar’s opinion that “the vast mass of mankind” will finally be lost “has no solid foundation whatever; it exists, probably, only in the rigid Calvinistic school, in which Dr. Farrar was educated, and from which his present opinions are a reaction.” Pusey, What Is of Faith? 6–7. Charles Hodge, American Reformed theological icon, wrote: “All the descendants of Adam, except those of whom it is expressly revealed that they cannot inherit the kingdom of God, are saved.” Hodge, Systematic Theology, I: 26.

36

Afterword

THE QUESTION ADDRESSED IN this book is simple and single: Will God forever keep alive in endless conscious torment those who are condemned to hell, or will all who go there finally die, perish, be destroyed, and forever cease to be? Our answer must come from the canonical Scriptures, the authoritative Word of God and faithful witness to Jesus Christ—through whom the Father is perfectly revealed in human form.

The Picture that Emerges

We have examined, in context, biblical passages from Genesis to Revelation that speak to this subject. Throughout the course of our journey, a clear and consistent picture has emerged.[1] According to the Scriptures, the redeemed will be raised immortal, receive God’s public acknowledgment and verdict of acquittal, and live forever with God in new heavens and new earth.

The wicked also will be raised, but “unto condemnation” and not unto “eternal life.” They are not immortal by nature, and God does not give them immortality in the resurrection. Instead, God expels them from his presence to a place where there is weeping and grinding of teeth. Scripture calls this place hell and the lake of fire. It is the site of the second death, that ultimate, infinite capital punishment that destroys the whole person forever. Here Jesus’ warning becomes reality: God indeed destroys both soul and body in hell.

Degrees of Punishment

The Bible tells us that God is infinitely just in punishing the wicked. We certainly do not know everything that God knows—how could finite beings fully understand the infinite? His justice will likely unfold in ways that we cannot now imagine and will never fully understand. Traditionalist Larry Dixon expresses the opinion that the “Achilles heel” of conditional immortality “appears to be the issue of degrees of punishment.”[2] To the contrary, if divine justice calls for varying degrees of sentient pain and suffering, as I also suppose it will, the destructive process easily encompasses it all, whether such pain be differentiated by intensity, duration, or by kind.

The Bible does not reveal details on this point. Instead, the emphasis throughout Scripture is on the conclusion of the process, which is eternal destruction. In the end, the wicked are extinct, extinguished, terminated—totally and forever—with no hope of resurrection, restoration or recovery.

The Standard of Proof

For many who read this book, these are new truths, and perhaps somewhat disturbing ones as well. How certain must one become in order to take a position? What level of persuasion warrants a change of mind? What degree of commitment requires such a change? These are practical questions that reasonable people will wish to consider. Two traditionalist authors serve as examples, first of a wrong approach, and then of an approach that works.

Throughout his book, Hell on Trial, Dr. Robert Peterson[3] repeatedly encounters passages of Scripture that speak so strongly and clearly of destruction that even he can offer no other explanation. To his credit, he admits this more than once, even listing other texts that do not seem to fit with his interpretation of hell.[4] But although Peterson concedes that there are “many passages” of this sort, he does not abandon his traditionalist belief.

How can this be? The answer is that he gives more weight to some Scriptures than to others.[5] Although Dr. Peterson never explains his measuring system or the criteria that make it run, anyone who reads Hell on Trial can quickly observe an interesting phenomenon. When Dr. Peterson considers a text favorable to his position, he gives it great weight and authority, but when he finds a verse unhelpful to his cause, he dismisses it as inconclusive. By the end of Peterson’s book, three passages are carrying most of the weight, and two of those are in the Book of Revelation.[6]

However, when the time comes for the conditionalist to take a turn, Peterson raises the bar much higher than he requires for traditional interpretations—so high, in fact, that the conditionalist is not allowed even one unexplained verse. “The fact that many passages could be interpreted as teaching annihilationism does not prove that doctrine,” Peterson insists. “In order to be true, annihilationism has to account for all of the passages” (emphasis added).[7]

Dr. Larry Dixon proposes a standard far more realistic and reasonable—the same standard we all normally use to decide our position on the host of biblical topics about which Christians do not yet see eye to eye. According to Dixon, we need to answer just one question, and it is the same question for everyone around the table. That question, says Dixon, is this: “is annihilationism more consistent with the biblical material, or is the traditional view of eternal conscious punishment” (emphasis added)?[8] This approach is even-handed, understandable, and it already works in our daily experience. Dixon illustrates this approach by applying it to himself: “Our position,” Dixon says, “is that the traditional doctrine . . . makes more sense with the biblical data” (emphasis added).[9]

We do not live our lives waiting for theories or answers that resolve every potential problem. Most often, we operate on a level that will make sense to anyone who ever has served on a civil jury: not proof beyond a reasonable doubt (the standard in a criminal trial, which is essentially what Peterson demands), but proof by the greater weight and preponderance of the evidence. This standard of judgment weighs the evidence to determine which alternative view, if either, is shown to be more likely.

Issues and People who Discuss Them

Whenever a new generation of believers discovers truth from God’s Word that has been there all the time, and they do not all immediately understand that truth alike, there is always the temptation to divide into warring sides, to think of one’s own view as a badge of faithfulness to God, and to demonize any who differ.

The Sectarian Spirit

However, these baleful things do not happen unless Christians choose to follow the sectarian impulse instead of following the Spirit of Christ. The sectarian impulse is small-minded and mean-spirited, and it often reveals itself in comments like these:

The problem is not a scriptural issue but an emotional issue, contaminated by secularist and humanistic thinking.[10]

[This is a truth] too often made murky by critics and so-called scholars who find ways to manipulate the text rather than letting the Bible speak plainly for itself . . . [Opponents are] currently poisoning evangelicalism with unbelief . . . [and are engaged in a] frightening corruption of divinely-revealed truth.[11]

Upon consideration, fair-minded people will realize that the differences between evangelical traditionalists and conditionalists regarding hell are miniscule by comparison with the first-level truths that they hold in common. J. I. Packer is an ardent traditionalist, who wisely and correctly counsels that “it would be wrong for differences of opinion on this matter to lead to breaches of fellowship, though it would be a very happy thing for the Christian world if the differences could be resolved.”[12]

Before this book was published, I summarized its content in personal conversation with Carl F. H. Henry. The jovial co-founder of Fuller Theological Seminary and founding editor of Christianity Today smiled and replied, with a twinkle in his eye: “Unfortunately, I have already written on this subject in my systematic theology, and I came down against your view, though not with a sharp sword.”

In his fascinating, incisive, and practical book, The Mosaic of Christian Belief: Twenty Centuries of Unity & Diversity, Truett Seminary Professor Roger E. Olson describes the tensions that presently exist on this topic: “The rise of interest in and affirmation of annihilationism has predictably given rise to a reaction; many conservative evangelical theologians have resurrected the old polemical labels of heresy and aberrational teaching to marginalize those evangelicals who would dare to embrace a belief that was once relegated to the sectarian margins of Protestantism.”

Olson then points out the potential divisiveness associated with the ongoing evangelical debate, and the attitudes that cause division. He continues, “Annihilationism does not strike at the heart of the gospel or even deny any major Christian belief; it is simply a reinterpretation of hell. More importantly, its harsh condemnation by a few fundamentalists should not deter Christians from accepting one another as equally believers in the gospel of Jesus Christ in spite of differences of opinion about the nature of hell. Contrary to what some fundamentalist critics have charged, annihilationism is not tantamount to universalism or apokatastasis. It is simply a minority view of the nature of hell, not a denial of hell.”[13]

A British Model

This debate began much earlier in Great Britain than it did in the United States. Perhaps partly for that reason, British evangelicals are ahead of Americans in working out ways to stimulate healthy discussion among believers holding different views, while at the same time guarding the unity they share in Christ.

One important British proposal is contained in a book titled The Nature of Hell, which is the Report of a select working-group of scholars who had been commissioned by the Evangelical Alliance Commission on Unity and Truth Among Evangelicals (ACUTE) to make a two-year study of hell. The Report includes twenty-two “Conclusions and Recommendations” (C&R), from which the nineteenth C&R bears repeating here:

19. We recognize that the interpretation of hell in terms of conditional immortality is a significant minority evangelical view. Furthermore, we believe that the traditionalist-conditionalist debate on hell should be regarded as a secondary rather than a primary issue for evangelical theology. Although hell is a profoundly serious matter, we view the holding of either one of these two views of it over against the other to be neither essential in respect of Christian doctrine, nor finally definitive of what it means to be an evangelical Christian.[14]

Important Subject to be Taught

The message of final punishment is not the gospel. However, it is a shadow message that accompanies the gospel whenever the gospel light is obstructed by sinful unbelief. Hell is the consequence of rejecting God’s undeserved mercy in Jesus Christ. It is the alternative to eternal life. Hell is not the most important doctrine of Scripture by any means, but it is certainly not unimportant.

We disagree with Christopher Morgan and Robert Peterson about what happens to those who go to hell. But we are in hearty agreement with these traditionalist brothers when they say that “Christians . . . must . . . teach the doctrine of hell because of its prominent place in the biblical worldview. Although hell is not a doctrine on which the church stands or falls, it is inexorably linked to the doctrines of God, sin, and the atonement.”[15]

Again, I commend our evangelical brothers and sisters in the Evangelical Alliance, UK, who in Conclusion and Recommendation 22 chart a careful path that includes vigorous and respectful debate, conducted within the context of fraternal relationships.

22. We encourage traditionalist and conditionalist evangelicals to pursue agreement on the matter of hell, rather than merely acquiescing in their disagreement. As they do so, we call upon them to maintain constructive dialogue and respectful relationships, even when their differences seem intractable. To those ends, we commend our report for consideration, discussion, and implementation.[16]

Speaking only for myself, to “pursue agreement” in this context means trying to show the other side that their position is wrong, but to do so with sincere humility, with genuine respect for the other person, and with the honest recognition that God’s truth is bigger than any of us and that we all yet have very much to learn.

Tradition and Courage

Faithfulness as stewards of God’s Word requires commitment, vigilance, and great effort. Sometimes it demands extra sacrifice, moving against a majority view or even standing alone. To a great extent, we all are children of tradition, a reality that imposes fearful responsibility. J. I. Packer described that responsibility in 1958, in words that continue to challenge us every one—and never more than on this subject of hell:

[W]e approach Scripture with minds already formed by the mass of accepted opinions and viewpoints. [I]t is hard even to begin to realize how profoundly tradition in this sense has molded us. But we are forbidden to become enslaved to human tradition, either secular or Christian, whether it be “catholic” tradition, or “critical” tradition, or “ecumenical” tradition, or even “evangelical” tradition. We may never assume the complete rightness of our own established ways of thought and practice and excuse ourselves the duty of testing and reforming them by Scripture.[17]

Does the Word of God teach the eternal conscious torment of the lost? Our modest study fails to show that it does. Mere assertions and denunciations will not refute the evidence presented here, nor will a recital of ecclesiastical tradition. This case rests finally on Scripture. Only Scripture can prove it wrong.

1. There are approximately one thousand verses in the Bible from Genesis through Revelation that relate, in varying degrees of clarity, intensity, and certitude, to the final extinction of the wicked. If we are willing to define biblical figures and ciphers by their biblical usage, I believe that there are only two passages that are difficult to reconcile with extinction. Both texts are in Revelation (14:9–11; 20:10) and both are heavily symbolic. Of course, the advocates of unending conscious torment do not share my evaluation.

2. Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News, 95.

3. Peterson has emerged as perhaps the most prolific contemporary advocate of traditionalism, having written Hell on Trial (1995), co-authored (with me) Two Views of Hell (2000), co-edited (with Christopher W. Morgan) and contributed to Hell Under Fire (2004), co-authored (with Morgan) What Is Hell? (2010), and authored articles on hell in several journals.

4. Peterson, Hell on Trial, 163 (see also 44, 164, 166).

5. This is only an observation, not a fatal criticism. We agree with Jerry Walls when he says “that there are exegetical difficulties for all sides in this debate and that all sides must make exegetical decisions based on what seems most clear to them. No one involved in this debate can fairly pronounce their view the biblical view if by that they mean to imply that the other positions have nothing going for them in the way of textual support that, at least prima facie, seems to favor them” (Walls, “A Philosophical Critique,” 107).

6. Peterson’s three major proof-texts are Matt 25:31–46; Rev 14:9–11; and Rev 20:10. He cites one or both Revelation texts to explain other Scriptures in Hell on Trial on pages 46, 61, 164, 165, 168, 191, 194, 196, and 212.

7. Ibid., 166.

8. Dixon, Whatever Happened to Hell? 74.

9. Ibid.

10. Ankerberg, “Response to J. I. Packer,” 140.

11. MacArthur, Jr., Hell on Trial, vii.

12. Packer, “Evangelical Annihilationism,” 48.

13. Olson, The Mosaic of Christian Belief, 329.

14. ACUTE, The Nature of Hell, 134.

15. Morgan and Peterson, Hell Under Fire, 239.

16. ACUTE, The Nature of Hell, 135.

17. Packer, “Fundamentalism” and the Word of God, 69–70.

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Swete, Henry Barclay. The Life of the World to Come. New York: Macmillan, 1917.

Talbott, Thomas. The Inescapable Love of God. Boca Raton, FL: Universal, 1999.

Taylor, Vincent. “Life after Death: The Modern Situation.” ExpTim (Dec 1964) 76–78.

Tedesche, Sidney S. “Baruch.” In IDB 1:362–63.

———. “Esdras, Books of.” In IDB 2:140–42.

———. “Jubilees, Book of.” In IDB 2:1002–3.

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Thayer, Joseph Henry. “Apo.” In TGW, 59.

———. “Tephroō.” In TGW, 621.

Thielicke, Helmut. Death and Life. Translated by Edward H. Schroeder. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970.

Thompson, Fred P. What the Bible Says about Heaven and Hell. Joplin, MO: College, 1983.

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Thomson, J. G. S. “Death and Immortality (Basic Christian Doctrines: 40).” ChrTod (3 Aug 1962) 18–19.

Tiessen, Terrance L. Who Can Be Saved?: Reassessing Salvation in Christ. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004.

Toon, Peter. Heaven and Hell: A Biblical and Theological Overview. Nashville: Nelson, 1986.

Torrance, Thomas F. Calvin’s Doctrine of Man. London: Lutterworth, 1949.

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Travis, Stephen H. Christ and the Judgement of God: The Limits of Divine Retribution in the New Testament. 2nd ed. Peabody, MA.: Hendrickson, 2009.

Tupper, E. Frank. “The Revival of Apocalyptic in Biblical and Theological Studies.” RevExp 72 (1975) 279–304.

Turner, N. “Antiochus.” In IDB 1:150–51.

Vawter, Bruce. “Intimations of Immortality and the Old Testament.” JBL 91 (1972) 158–71.

Vos, Geerhardus. The Pauline Eschatology. 1953. Reprint. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961.

Wahle, Hedwig. “Die Lehren des rabbinischen Judentums fiber das Leben nach dem Tod.” Kairos 14 (1972) 291–309.

Walls, Jerry. “A Philosophical Critique of Talbott’s Universalism.” In Universal Salvation?: The Current Debate, edited by Robin A. Parry and Christopher H. Partridge, 106–24. Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 2003.

Walsh, Gerald C., and Daniel J. Honan, translators. The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation. New York: Fathers of the Church, 1954.

Walker, D. P. The Decline of Hell: Seventeenth-Century Discussions of Eternal Torment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964.

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———. The Enigma of Evil. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1985.

———. Facing Hell: An Autobiography (1913–1996). Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 1998.

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Wikgren, A. “Tobit.” In IDB 4:658–62.

Wilcox, Max. “On Investigating the Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament.” In Text and Interpretation: Studies in the New Testament Presented to Matthew Black, edited by Ernest Best and R. McL. Wilson, 231–43. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.

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Williams, M. E. “Immortality of Human Soul.” NCE 122:468–69.

Willis, Rickey Harrol. “‘Torments of Hell’: Conditional Immortality and the Doctrine of Final Punishment among Seventeenth-Century English Baptists.” PhD diss. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1995.

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———. “Psalms of Solomon.” In IDB 3:958–60.

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———. “Notes on Patristic Philosophy.” HTR 57 (1964) 119–32.

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Index of Authors

Abbot, Ezra, 335

ACUTE, 358–59, 377

Adams, Marilyn McCord, 183, 279, 306, 308

Alger, William Rounseville, 335

Allen, Jimmy, 33, 353

Altieri, Jay, 359

Argyle, A. W., 137

Arndt, William F., xvii, 151, 196, 202, 221

Aristotle, 19, 138, 268, 287–88, 308, 319

Arnobius, viii, 21, 289–93, 295

Athenagoras, 264–66, 268, 293

Atkinson, Basil F. C., 26, 45, 154, 344–45

Attwater, Donald, xvii

Augustine, Saint, vi, viii, 3, 21, 32, 34, 39, 80, 127, 139, 225, 267, 269, 271, 276, 286–89, 291–305, 309, 315–16, 319, 322–24, 329–30, 335, 349, 371

Bacchiocchi, Samuele, 359

Baird, Joseph Art, 37, 120, 133, 173

Baker, Charles F., 34

Baker, Sharon L., 74, 194, 280, 282–83, 358

Bamberger, B. J., 107

Barclay, William, 137–38

Bardy, Abbe, 268, 289, 294

Barr, James, 39

Barrett, C. K., 174

Barth, Karl, 183, 189, 279

Barth, Markus, 177–78

Bauckham, Richard, iv, vii, x, xvi, xxiii, 65, 71, 99–100, 115, 156–57, 159, 197, 230–31, 235, 237–42, 248, 250–51, 283, 350

Beale, Gregory K., 30, 62, 66, 69, 71, 77, 81, 114, 124, 185, 234–35, 239–47, 251, 358–59

Beardslee, William E., 87

Beasley-Murray, G. R., 25, 172, 236

Beecher, Edward, 14, 35, 254–55, 275

Berkemeyer, William C., 171

Berkhof, Louis, 14–15, 23, 117, 161, 180, 362

Berkouwer, G. C., 23, 276–79

Bernard, Thomas Dehany, 251

Betz, O., 104

Bieder, W., 232–33

Bietenhard, H., 117, 119

Bihlmeyer, Karl, 255

Billerbeck, Paul, xix, 115, 247

Bisset, Archibald, 37, 99

Black, J. Sutherland, xviii

Black, Matthew, xviii, 97

Blanchard, John, 1, 30, 42, 49, 57–58, 61, 64, 69–70, 73, 80, 85, 121, 124, 148, 150, 166, 179–80, 185, 222, 227–28, 243, 249, 286, 357–58

Blenkinsopp, Joseph, 24

Bligh, P. H., 137

Block, Daniel J., 30, 50–51, 57, 62, 75, 77, 80–81, 100, 124, 185, 359

Bloesch, Donald G., 28, 37, 216, 226, 279

Boatman, Russell E., 353

Boliek, Lynn, 326

Bonda, Jan, 280–81, 283, 358

Boring, M. Eugene, 130

Boyd, Gregory A., 141–43, 351

Brady, J. C., 19–20, 307

Brandon, John, 331

Brandon, S. G. F., 46

Braun, Jon E., 7, 17–18, 30, 34, 38, 44–45, 49–50, 80–81, 185, 216, 219, 226, 315, 330, 337

Bremmer, Jan H., 19, 26

Brinsmead, Robert D., xv, 176, 191, 346

Brown, Colin, xviii

Brown, Harold O. J., 210–11

Brownlee, W. H., 90–91, 114

Bruce, F. F., iv, vii, xii, xv, xxiii, 2, 28, 34–35, 85–86, 94, 110, 119, 171–72, 343, 349

Buis, Harry, 23, 30, 37–38, 50, 81, 85, 187, 219, 226, 235, 277, 296, 315, 330, 337, 364

Burkill, T. A., 88

Burns, John Barclay, 46

Burns, Norman T., 216, 311–14, 319

Buswell, James Oliver, Jr., 180, 323

Calvin, John, viii, 13–15, 22–23, 29, 80, 151, 172, 183, 269, 296–97, 300–301, 304, 309, 312–29, 332

Cameron, Nigel M. de S., 357

Carson, D. A., 3, 31, 35, 357–58

Carnell, Edward John, 29

Cebes, 213–14

Chadwick, Henry, 10, 127, 295

Charles, R. H., xvii, 87, 89, 93, 99, 103, 106, 111–13

Charlesworth, James H., 93, 99, 103, 105–6

Cheyne, T. K., xviii

Christian, Jeff M., 353

Chrysostom, John, 293–94, 315

Clement of Alexandria, 272–73, 275

Coffey, Tony, 352

Constable, Henry, 6, 63, 140, 161, 214, 233, 254–55, 261, 265–67, 270, 271, 339, 364

Conzelmann, Hans, 174

Crockett, William, 357

Cross, F. L., 268, 273, 289

Cullmann, Oscar, 24, 39, 175, 182

Cupitt, Don, 34, 337

Daley, Brian E., 253, 264, 270

Dana, H. E., xvii, 243

Darby, J. N., 24–25

Davies, Eryl, 30, 49, 57, 61, 64, 69, 78–79, 81, 124, 130, 135, 156, 159, 185, 197, 222, 228, 357

Davies, W. D., 120

Davis, Arthur Paul, 333–34

Dean, David A., 357

Dixon, Larry, 30, 58, 61, 64, 75, 81, 83, 124, 131–32, 143–45, 148, 156, 159, 179, 185, 208, 222, 249, 299, 357, 374–75

Dodd, C. H., 103, 171, 190

Donaldson, James, xvii

Douglas, J. D., xviii

Dowley, Tim, 273

Dudley-Smith, Timothy, 343–45, 349–50, 354

Dunning, T. G., 118, 177

Dunn, James D. G., 180–81, 190

Dupont-Sommer, Andre, 96

Dyson, W. H., 34, 36–37

Edwards, David L., 2, 350

Edwards, Jonathan, 39, 167, 267, 356, 359, 360, 364, 365, 371

Eller, Vernard, 68, 135

Ellis, E. Earle, 2, 100, 102, 295, 352, 358

Erickson, Millard J., 37, 125

Fairhurst, Alan M., 116

Farrar, Frederick W., 34, 38, 255, 275–76, 292–93, 338, 361, 363, 367

Fee, Gordon D., 188, 195–96

Ferguson, Everett, xvii, 19–20, 92, 103, 113, 255, 265, 273

Ferguson, Sinclair, 30, 62, 124, 148, 175, 181, 185, 359

Ferm, Vergilius, xviii

Fernando, Ajith, 90

Ferrin, Howard W., 16

Fichtner, J., 190

Fields, Weston, 126–27

Finger, Thomas N., 312

Forestell, J. Terence, 120, 254–55

Forsyth, P. T., 83

France, R. T., 123, 140–41, 226

Franke, John R., 10, 12–13, 350

Fritsch, C. T., 92, 99, 101, 113

Froom, LeRoy Edwin, 21, 27, 35, 39, 45, 51–52, 140, 154, 161, 216, 254, 267, 304, 309, 311, 319, 330–31, 333, 336–38

Fudge, Edward William, ix–xi, xiii, xvi, xxiv, 17, 42–44, 65, 73, 79, 86, 90, 101–2, 144–47, 154, 176, 196, 201, 215, 281, 345, 347, 351–52, 354–57

Gamble, Richard C., 102

Gaster, Theodore H., 44–45, 118

Gatch, Milton McC., 20–21, 269, 296, 305, 308, 315, 319

Geisler, Norman L., 295

Geldenhuys, Norval, 149

Gerstner, John, 17, 30, 53, 57, 61, 65, 73–74, 76, 80, 121–22, 124, 139, 150, 164, 166–78, 197, 219–20, 286, 356, 365

Gingrich, F. Wilbur, xvii, 151, 196, 202, 221

Glasson, T. F., 139, 337

Gomes, Alan W., 3, 18

Goodspeed, Edgar J., 255

Gray, Tony, 143

Green, Joel, 25, 99, 102, 153

Green, Michael, 348, 350

Greenberg, Moshe, 76

Grenz, Stanley J., 12, 350

Guillebaud, Harold E., 18, 26, 38–39, 121, 249, 343–44

Gundry, D. W., 23–24

Hadab, M., 92

Hailey, Homer, 2, 244, 251, 352–53

Hanhart, Karel, 26, 149–52

Harmon, Kendall S., 30, 42–43, 85–86, 98, 100–102, 124, 145–47, 185, 350, 357–58

Harrison, Everett F., xvii

Harris, Murray J., 24

Harris, Randy, 15

Hastings, James, xvii–xviii

Hatcher, Brian A., 7

Heller, James J., 24, 27

Helm, Paul, 3, 30, 57, 124, 132, 143, 153, 164, 168, 185, 211–12, 216, 354, 357

Helyer, Larry R., 90

Hendriksen, William, 36

Hennecke, Edgar, 243

Henry, Carl F. H., 356, 376

Herhold, Robert M., 24

Hirsch, Emil G., 117

Hodge, Archibald Alexander, 12, 23, 161, 166, 286

Hodge, Charles, 12, 367

Hoekema, Anthony A., 19, 23, 28, 326

Hofmann, Hans, 24

Holwerda, David E., 172

Holtz, Traugott, 226

Hooke, S. H., 45, 86, 99

Horton, Michael, 17, 185

Houtman, Alberdina, 249–50

Hoyles, J. Arthur, 119

Hughes, Philip Edgcumbe, 2, 17, 131, 154, 350, 354, 356

Hunter, Archibald M., 15, 135, 152

Ignatius of Antioch, xxi, 21, 255–57, 358

Irenaeus, 21, 264, 266, 267

Jackson, Samuel Macauley, xviii

Jacoby, Douglas, 352

Jeremias, Joachim, 39, 117, 135–36, 150–51, 159

Johnson, Alan F., 148–49

Johnson, Thomas F., 252, 281–82, 351

Johnston, Philip S., 45–46

Josephus, Flavius, 65, 85, 94, 96, 114, 117–18, 230

Justin Martyr, 21, 259–63

Kantzer, Kenneth, 284, 356

Kee, Howard C., 116, 172

Kelly, J. N. D., 293, 296

Kennedy, H. A. A., 38

Kepple, Robert J., 164

Kevan, Ernest F., 14

Kittel, Gerhard, xix

Kittel, Rudolph, xvii

Knight, G. A. F., 149

Knox, J., 103

Kretzer, A., 212

Kuhn, H.–W., 201

Ladd, George Eldon, 27, 47

Lane, William L., xv, 126

Lard, Moses, 33

Larsen, David L., 222

Laurin, Robert B., 44

Lenski, R. C. H., 226

Lilje, Hanns, 247–48

Linton, Calvin D., 118

Lodge, David, 1

Lotz, David W., 309, 362

Luther, Martin, 13–14, 22, 29, 80, 274, 304, 309–16, 318–19, 327, 329

Luz, Ulrich, 123

MacArthur, John F., Jr., 17, 376

MacCulloch, J. A., 116, 180

MacDonald, Gregory, 276, 279–80, 282–84, 358

McGowan, A. T. B., 11–12, 18, 185

McGrath, Alister E., 9–12, 18, 344, 387

McGuiggan, Jim, 352

McRay, Rob, 353

Malherbe, Abraham J., 196

Mantey, Julius R., xvii, 243

Marshall, I. Howard, 72, 282, 350

Martin-Achard, Robert, 46–47

Martinez, Florentino Garcia, 93, 97

Martin, James P., 13–14, 319

Marty, Martin E., 1

Mathews, Shailer, xvii, 269

Mattill, A. J., Jr., 162

Maurice, F. D., 34, 38, 337

Maxey, Al, 352

Mead, Patrick, 353

Metzger, Bruce M., 234, 250

Miles, Todd L., 359

Milligan, George, xviii, 34, 137, 225

Milne, Bruce, 30, 37, 124, 132, 134, 138, 144, 161, 175, 180, 207, 359

Misset-van de Weg, Magda, 249

Mitton, C. Leslie, 160

Mohler, R. Albert, Jr., 2, 7, 30, 62, 124, 185, 222, 359

Moltmann, Jurgen, 180

Moo, Douglas J., 30, 62, 124, 185, 187, 197–98, 201, 210, 359

Moore, David George, 198

Morey, Robert A., 17, 30–31, 150–51, 185, 354

Morgan, Christopher W., 1, 30, 42–43, 62, 64–65, 77, 124, 146–48, 158–59, 161, 185, 220, 222, 227, 359, 374, 377

Morris, Leon, 83, 175, 189–91, 193, 196–97

Motyer, Steve, 48, 142

Moulton, James Hope, xviii, 34, 137, 225

Mounce, Robert H., 234–35, 237, 251

Murray, John, 207–8

Nash, Ronald, 20

Nickelsburg, George W. E., Jr., 87, 92, 94

Nicole, Roger, 35, 249

Nixon, Robin E., 123

Nolland, John, 229

Norris, Frederick W., 357

Norris, R. A., Jr., 21, 287–88

Oepke, Otto, 214

Olson, Roger E., 4–5, 13, 186, 349, 352, 356, 358, 376

Origen, 21, 125, 271–77, 279, 286, 292, 295, 297

Orr, James, 24, 26

Packer, J. I., 2, 9, 16–17, 30, 42, 62, 124, 131, 153–54, 159–60, 166, 185, 284, 286, 340–41, 344, 350, 354–55, 359, 376, 378

Parry, Robin, xvi, 280–82, 358

Patton, Francis L., 335, 362

Pelikan, Jaroslav, 21

Petavel, Emmanuel, 25, 35, 39, 45, 52, 64, 76, 194, 310, 339, 363

Peterson, Robert A., 1, 3, 5, 22, 30–32, 42, 50, 53, 57, 62, 65, 75, 79, 81, 102, 124–25, 132–33, 148, 150, 158, 160–61, 163–64, 170, 184–85, 197–98, 215–16, 222, 230, 252, 301, 317, 346–47, 350, 357, 359, 365, 374–75, 377

Perriman, Andrew, 117, 188

Pettegrew, Larry D., 23, 166, 286

Philo, 20, 65, 230, 249

Pike, E. Royston, xviii, 151

Pilcher, Charles Venn, 117, 119–20

Pink, Arthur W., 30, 127, 139, 217, 219, 364–65

Pinnock, Clark H., xv, 2, 11, 187, 235, 346, 350, 354, 357, 359

Plass, Ewald M., 310–11

Plato, xi, 19–22, 24–25, 30–32, 47, 94, 127, 206, 213–14, 226, 262–63, 268, 273, 287–88, 291–92, 295, 300, 304, 319–20, 322, 324

Powys, David J., 44, 94, 98, 350, 357–58

Prestidge, Warren, 359

Pritchard, Andrew, xvi, 359

Pritchard, James B., 45

Punt, Neal, 283–84, 351

Pusey, Edward Bouverie, 30, 32, 85, 161, 255, 260, 262–63, 266–67, 275–77, 281, 293, 296, 338, 360–63, 367

Quarles, Charles L., 194–95

Quistorp, Heinrich, 15, 309, 313–14, 316, 319

Reagan, David R., 353

Reichenbach, Bruce R., 24, 28, 151

Reiser, Marius, 116, 132

Reumann, John, 212–13

Reymond, Robert L., 16

Richardson, Alan, 37, 173–74

Richardson, Samuel, 331–32

Ridderbos, Herman N., 160, 172, 174, 189, 326

Ridenhour, Thomas E., 26, 47–48, 80

Rist, M., 106, 110, 113

Roberts, Alexander, xvii

Roberts, J. W., 36

Robertson, A. T., 38, 243

Robinson, H. Wheeler, 21

Robinson, George L., 117–18

Rowell, Geoffrey, 333, 335–36, 339

Rowley, H. H., 47, 80

Sand, A., 123

Sandmel, Samuel, 100, 102

Salmond, Steward D. F., 24, 30, 36, 76, 80, 85, 121, 138–39, 202, 249, 254,

Sanders, John, 280, 282

Schaff, Philip, xviii, xix, 314

Scharlemann, Martin H., 180

Schneider, Johannes, 122

Scobie, Charles H. H., 119, 129

Scott, J. Julius, 7

Selwyn, E. G., 20

Sewell, Arthur, 330

Shedd, William G. T., 22–23, 30, 32, 34, 37–38, 45, 85, 118, 161, 180, 202–3, 226

Silva, Moises, 35, 138

Singer, Isodore, xviii

Smith, F. LaGard, 353

Smith, Gerald Birney, xvii

Smith, Hannah Whitall, 279

Smith, M., 106

Smith, William, xvii

Snaith, Norman, 27

Snyder, C. Arnold, 312

Socrates, 213, 291

Soper, Matt, 353

Sproul, R. C., 280

Stahlin, G., 183, 189–90, 214

Strachan, R. H., 225

Strack, Hermann L., xix, 115, 247

Stott, John R. W., 2, 7, 16–17, 131, 154, 343–45, 349–50, 354, 356, 358

Strange, Daniel, 280, 282

Strauss, Lehman, 22–23, 30

Strawson, William, 140, 152, 167

Strong, Augustus Hopkins, 126–27, 166, 184, 194, 286, 362, 364

Studer, Gerald C., 9–10

Suchocki, Marjorie, 21

Swete, Henry Barclay, 22, 30

Talbott, Thomas, 280–83, 358

Tedesche, S., 89, 107

Tenney, Merrill C., xix

Tertullian, 21, 30, 32, 80, 156, 225, 261, 264–73, 277, 288, 293, 295, 297, 305–6, 315, 320, 323, 329

Thayer, Joseph Henry, xix, 194, 225

Thielicke, Helmut, 24, 28–29, 48–49

Thompson, Fred P., 353

Thompson, James W., 215

Tigchelaar, Eibert J. C., 93, 97

Tiessen, Terrance L., 350

Torrance, T. F., 313, 357

Travis, Stephen H., 188, 190, 349, 354

Tupper, E. Frank, 173

Turner, N., 87, 105

Vawter, Bruce, 48

Von Rad, Gerhard, 47

Vos, Geerhardus, 36–38

Wace, Henry, xvii

Wahle, Hedwig, 120

Walls, Jerry, 280–82, 359, 374

Walsh, Gerald C., and Daniel J. Honan, 297

Walker, D. P., 274–75, 332, 334

Warren, Thomas S., II, 359

Watts, Isaac, 80, 333–34

Webber, Robert E., 7, 10, 149

Wenham, John W., iv, vii, xiii, xv, xxiii, 2, 16–17, 42–43, 116, 131, 154, 175, 188–90, 234, 295, 308, 337, 344–49, 351, 357

Westcott, Brooke Foss, 24, 37

Whately, Richard, 6, 338

Whiston, William, 334–35

White, Edward, 6, 49, 126, 182–84, 214, 227, 255, 338–39, 363

White, John, 356

Whiteley, D. E. H., 36, 116, 190

Wikgren, A., 88

Wilken, Robert L., 21

Willis, Rickey Harrol, 331

Winter, P., 89, 104

Witsius, Hermann, 73, 139, 306–7

Wolff, Hans Walter, 27, 47–48

Wolfson, Harry A., 20–21, 36

Wright, C. H. H., xix

Wright, N. T., 11, 25, 141–43, 149, 188, 350

Yarbrough, Robert W., 30, 62, 77, 79, 90, 122, 124, 127, 131, 144–45, 185, 222, 359

Yarnold, E. J., 10

Zens, Jon, 37

Zerwick, Maximilian, 38

Ancient Document Index

OLD TESTAMENT / HEBREW BIBLE

Genesis

1–4 107

1–2 47, 327

1:20–21 268

1:21 323

1:26 320

1:27 25

2:7 27, 47

2:17 206, 323

2:19 26, 27

3:17–18 217

3:19 52

5:3 26

6–9 60

6:5 60

6:7 60

6:11–13 238

6:13 60

6:17 27, 60, 238

7:4 60

7:15 323

7:21–23 60

7:22 27

8:21 60

9:5 27

9:11 60, 221

9:12 26

17:14 221

18:16–33 62

19:1–11 62

19:12–17 62

19:18–23 62

19:24–29 62–63, 283

19:24 53, 241

19:25 53

19:28–29 53

19:28 241

37:35 44

38:24 76

42:38 44

44:29 44

44:31 44

Exodus

3 127, 299

12:13 165

12:15 176, 221

12:19 176, 221

12:24 35

14:30 78

19:21 195

21:23–25 73

22:20 52

29:9 35

30:12 165

31:14 176

32:32 199

33:20 195

40:15 35

40:35 195

Leviticus

3:17 35

7:25 176

9:24—10:3 193

10:1–11 283

10:2 217

17:4 221

17:9 221

20:14 76

21:9 76

24:18–20 73

24:18 27

Numbers

8:19 165

15:30–31 217

16:46–47 165

19:13 27

21:2–3 200

23:10 27

Deuteronomy

4:24 74, 219, 274

7:26 200

9:3 219, 274

15:17 35

18:15 221

18:19 221

21:22–23 136

21:23 176

23–24 150

23:3 36

23:6 36

23:19–25 150

24:1–5 150

24:6–22 150

28–30 176

28:23 176

28:31 176

28:48 176

29:10–15 65

29:16–18 65

29:18–29 65–66

29:18 66

29:20–21 66

29:20 164

29:23–25 66

29:23 63–64, 66, 241

32:22 45

32:32 62

33:6 250

Joshua

6:17–18 200

7:10–26 283

7:12 200

7:25–26 200

7:25 76

14:9 35

15:8 117

18:16 117

22:17 165

Judges

1:17 200

6:2 195

9:45 126

9:50–57 136

9:57 136

16:9 88

16:30 27

1 Samuel

2:6 46

13:6 195

14:11 195

21:10–15 54

2 Samuel

6:7 195

1 Kings

8:12–13 35

19:13 195

2 Kings

1 247

5:27 35

9:10 75

9:34 136

16:3 117

19:30 82

21:6 117

22:17 77

23:10 118

Job

7:5 76

10:9 324

10:12 324

10:21–22 46

11:20 27

14:13 44

14:14–15 47

16:9 131, 158

17:14 76

18:15 63, 241

21:20 240

26:5 46

26:6 46

30:30 83

34:15 48

38:17 152

Psalms

1 73, 95

1:2 243

1:3–6 72

1:3 72

1:4–6 72

2 73–74, 95

2:9–12 73

Psalms (continued )

2:9 73

2:12 73

6:8 156

10 53

10:4–6 53

11:1–7 53

11:1 53

11:2 53

11:3 53

11:4–5 53

11:6 53, 63, 241

11:7 53

16:10 45

16:9–11 26, 46

23:6 28

31:5 321

32:4 243

34:5 54

34:8–22 53

34:8 54

34:9–10 54

34:12–16a 54

34:12–14 54

34:15 54

34:16 54

34:17 54

34:18 54

34:19 54

34:21 54

34:22 54

35:16 131, 158

37 57, 95

37:1–40 54

37:2 54

37:7 55

37:9 221

37:10 54–55

37:11 54

37:12 131, 158

37:13 55

37:15 55

37:17 55

37:20 55

37:22 55, 221

37:28 55, 221

37:34 55, 221

37:35–36 54

37:38 55, 221

42:3 243

49:15 26, 44

50 55, 69

50:3–6 55

50:15 55

50:16 55

50:22 55

55:10 243

55:23 52

58 55

58:6 55

58:7 55

58:8 55

58:10 55, 78

58:11 55

60:3 240

60:12 52

62:4 136

62:12 206

68:20 46

69:9 56

69:21 56

69:22–28 56

69:22–23 56

69:24 56

69:25 56

69:27 56

69:28 56

69:32–33 56

69:34–36 56

73:24 26

75:3 52

75:8 240

85:10 46, 177

88:12 46

91:7–8 78

94:1 191

94:23 52

103:12 175

103:15ff 313

104:4 273

104:29–30 48

104:35 52

107:3 157

112 158

112:2–9 158

112:10 131, 158

118:12 52, 130

119:119 52

139:19 52

145 56–57

145:8–13 56

145:17 56

145:20 56

Proverbs

2:18 46

2:22 221

9:18 46

11:31 224

13:9 52

21:16 46

24:12 206

Ecclesiastes

3:18–21 325

6:3 76

Isaiah

1:4–6 67

1:7–9 67

1:9 63, 67

1:10 62

1:25–26 67

1:27–31 67

1:27–28 67

1:30–31 67

1:31 77, 88, 130

2 194

2:1–4 75

2:10 194

2:19 194

2:21 194

3:9 62

3:11–26 220

4:4 274

5:1–7 217

5:6 176

5:9 67

5:13 67

5:19–21 67

5:24–25 67–68

5:24 74

5:25 74

6:9–10 235

8:14 165

10:3 176

10:16–18 74

11:1 82

11:1–5 74

11:4 74

11:6–9 74

11:10 74

13:10 176

13:13 176

13:19–22 64, 89

14:9–18 46

14:9 46

14:10–15 152

14:11 76

16:9 157

22:12 157

22:14 250

24:14–16 197

25:7–8 248

25:8 248

26:19 46

30:27–33 241

30:31–33 117

30:33 63

33:10–24 74

33:10 74

33:11–12 74

33:11 74

33:12 74

33:14 74, 219

33:17–24 74

33:17 74

33:20 74

33:24 74

34 245, 370

34:9 63, 241–42, 245

34:10–11 130

34:10 64, 230, 242–43

34:11 242

37:36 78, 117

38:11 46

38:18–19 46

38:18 152

40:11 136

40:24 52

43:17 52

47:14 74

49:12 157

50:4–10 75

51:3–11 75

51:3 75

51:4–6 75

51:8 75

51:17 240

51:22—52:2 240

51:22 240

52:13—53:12 75

53:2 82

53:4–5 66

53:4 176, 179

53:5 179

53:6 179

Isaiah (continued )

53:8 175–76, 221

53:11–12 179

53:12 174

54:9 61

59:19 157

60:11 243

61:10 155, 159

62:6 243

64:6 155, 160

65:6 250

65:13 176

65:15 193, 250

66 75, 78, 80, 193–96, 256, 261, 370

66:2 75

66:5 193

66:6 193

66:7 193

66:12–14 75

66:14 193

66:15–17 75

66:15–16 118, 193, 283

66:15 193

66:16 193

66:18–23 75

66:22 75

66:24 75, 77–81, 89–90, 100, 107, 118–19, 123, 126– 27, 139, 160, 168, 225, 247, 302, 355, 365

Jeremiah

4:4 77, 130

4:26 194

5:21 235

7:20 130

7:31–33 117

9:1 157, 243

14:14 156

14:17 243

17:27 130

19:2–13 117

19:8 176

21:12 77, 130

23:14 62

25:1–11 224

25:12–14 224

25:15–38 240

25:27 240

25:29 224

25:33 76

27:15 156

31:15 327

44:7–11 176

48:32 157

49:18 64

50:40 64

51:39 250

51:57 250

51:58 89

51:62–64 89

Lamentations

2:16 131, 158

2:18 243

4:6 64

Ezekiel

8 224

9:3 224

9:4–6 224

9:6 224

12:2 235

14:14 61

14:20 61

16:46–56 62

18:4 52, 323

18:20 52

20:47–48 77, 130

22:25 27

22:27 27

27–28 283

32:17–32 152

34:11–31 136

34:17 136

38 247

38:22 63, 241

39 247

39:9–22 78

Daniel

2:28–30 235

2:45 235

3 127

3:19–27 299

7 246, 369

7:1–12 246

7:9–10 130

7:9 246

7:10–11 247

7:10 246

7:11–12 246

7:17 249

7:23 251

8:20–21 249

9:26 221

11:31 87

12:2–3 77, 80

12:2 78, 80–81, 90, 107, 134, 138, 165, 191

12:3 134

Hosea

13:14 152

Amos

1:1 176

2:1 76

4:1–3 220

4:11 63, 231

5:5–6 77, 130

5:18–20 176

9:2 46

Obadiah

1 68

3–4 68

8–11 68

12–14 68

15–21 68

15 68

16 68–69, 240

18 68

21 68

Nahum

1:1 69

1:2–15 69

1:3–6 69

1:6 69

1:8 69

1:9 69

1:10 69

1:12 69

1:14–15 69

2:3–10 69

3:1–4 283

3:1–3 69

Habakkuk

2:2 129

2:3–4 218

Zephaniah

1:3 134

1:14–18 70, 207

1:15 176, 207

1:17 207

1:18 207

2:9 64

Zechariah

3:1–8 160

3:2 231

3:3–5 232

5:3 249

5:6–7 249

14:11 200

Malachi

1:11 157

4:1–6 82

4:1–4 355

4:1–3 78, 83, 134, 225

4:1 82

4:2 82

4:3 82

4.5 82

APOCRYPHA / DEUTEROCANONICAL BOOKS

Baruch

4:11 157

4:25 89

4:32–35 89

4 Ezra

6:25–28 105

7:26–31 105

7:32–33 105

7:36 105, 118

7:61 105

7:78–87 105

7:80–87 158

5 Ezra

1–2 105

6 Ezra

15–16 105

Judith

16:17 80, 90. See also: 86, 93, 109

1 Maccabees

2:62–64 91

2 Maccabees

4:38 138

6:26 91

7 91, 192

7:1–42 114

7:9 91

7:14 91

7:17 91

7:19 91

7:31 91

7:36 91

7:37 91

4:38 138

Sirach

7:17 89

16:6 88

19:2–3 88

21:9 88

21:10 88

22:16 165

36:7–10 88

41:9 136

Tobit

14:6–8 88

Wisdom

2:21–3:9 92

4:18–19 92

5:14–15 92

10:7 65, 230

11:13 138

12:11 136

14:10 143

16:2 138

16:13 152

16:24 138

19:4 138

PSEUDEPIGRAPHA

Assumption of Moses

10:7 106

10:10 106

2 Baruch

24:1–4 113

30:1 113

30:2–5 113

44:12 113

44:15 113

48:39 113

48:43 113

51:5–6 113

59:2 113

59:10–11 118

64:7–10 113

82:3–9 113

83:8 113

85:12–13 113

85:15 113

Testaments of The Twelve Patriarchs

T. Ash.

6:5 106

7:1 106

T. Benj.

10:7–8 107

T. Dan

2:1 106

5:10 106

T. Levi

3:2 106

5:6 106

T. Reu.

5:5 106

1 Enoch

18:11–16 246

19:1–2 111

21:1–10 111, 247

21:7–10 246

21:10 247

22:11–13 111

27:1–3 112

27:2–3 118, 195

38:1 111

38:2 111, 167

38:4 195

38:5–6 167

38:5 111, 167

38:6 111, 167

45:1–2 111

45:4–6 111

46:4 111

48:8–9 112

48:9 195

50:4 111, 195

53:2 111, 195

53:3–5 111

62:2 195

62:11–13 111

67:4–13 112

69:29 195

81:7–8 111

90:24–27 246

90:25–27 111

90:27 247

92:5 111

92:9 112

97:1 112

98:3 112

98:10 112

98:16 112

99:1–2 112

99:11 112

99:12 112

100:9 112

103:5–8 111

108:3–6 112

2 Enoch

7:1–2 113

10:1–6 114

17–36 243

40:12 113

41:1 113

63:4 114

Jubilees

21:22 108, 233

22:22 108

23:29–31 108

24:30 109

24:32–33 109

26:34 108

30:4–6 110

30:17 110

31:16–17 108

31:20 108

32:19 108

33:13–14 108

36:9–11 109

Life of Adam and Eve

29:7–9 107

3 Maccabees

5:51 152

4 Maccabees

7:1–42 114

8:9 138

On 9–13, see 245

9–10 114

9:9 114

10:11 114

10:15 114, 192

12–13 114

12:12 114

13:15 114

Psalms of Solomon

2:31 104

2:34 104

3:10–12 104

12:4–5 105

12:6 105

12:7 195

13:11 105

15:4–5 195

15:10 105

15:12–13 105

16:1–2 152

Sibylline Oracles

3:307–10 103

3:504–7 103

3:761 103

4:176–90 104

5:207–13 104

5:298–305 104

RABBINIC WRITINGS

Pirke Aboth

5:19 118

NEW TESTAMENT

Matthew

1–4 135

1:19 229

2:13 124, 209

2:18 327

3:7–12 82

3:7 129

Matthew (continued )

3:10–12 129

3:10 122, 130, 225, 252

3:11 130

3:12 77, 82, 130, 132, 154, 225, 252, 355

3:16 74

3:17 73

4:2 176

5 155

5:3–12 155

5:3 136

5:5 54

5:11–12 223

5:13 122

5:17–20 155

5:20 201

5:21–26 120

5:21 155

5:22 127, 141, 167, 286

5:25–26 121

5:25 122

5:27–30 122

5:27–28 122

5:27 155

5:29–30 122, 125, 146, 167, 209, 286

5:31–32 167

5:31 155

5:33 155

5:38 155

5:43 155

5:44 136

6 155

6:3 155

6:5 155

6:16 155

6:30 122

6:33 155

7:13–27 133

7:13–14 133, 145, 162

7:13 133, 228

7:15–20 133

7:19 122, 130, 133, 146, 252

7:21–23 133, 156

7:21 156

7:23 133, 146, 157, 201

7:24–27 133, 165

7:27 133, 146

7:28 135

7:29 120

8:11–12 146, 157

8:11 201

8:12 131, 158, 201

8:20 176

8:25 209

9:17 209

10:6 209

10:15 62

10:24–31 123

10:28 39, 79, 121, 123–25, 127, 141, 146, 154, 167, 209, 212, 220–21, 228, 249–50, 252, 269, 286, 321, 355

10:37–39 145, 163

10:39 163

11:1 135

11:14 82

11:22 307

11:23–24 62

11:23 152

11:24 307

12:14 124, 209

12:30–32 165

12:32 36

13:10–17 235

13:22 36

13:30 133–34, 146, 252

13:39–40 36

13:40–43 133–34, 146, 201

13:40–42 133, 252

13:40 130

13:41–42 131, 158

13:41 141

13:42 122

13:48 122

13:49–50 131, 158

13:50 122

13:53 135

15:24 209

16:18 152

16:21–28 163

16:21 163, 173

16:25–26 163

16:25 163, 209

16:26 163

17:5 73

18:8–9 122, 125, 136, 144, 146

18:8 127

18:9 167, 286

18:30 122

18:34–35 121

18:34 121

19:1 135

19:16–17 36

19:23 36

19:26 283

20:1–16 150

21:18 176

21:33–46 217

21:41 209

22:1–14 150, 159

22:7 209

22:13 131, 146, 158–59, 201

22:32 26

22:41–46 137

22:43 55

23 128

23:15 128, 167, 286

23:33 128, 167, 286

23:37–39 128

24:3 36

24:36–44 192

24:38–39 61

24:48–51 160

24:51 131, 158

25 302

25:1–13 135

25:14–30 135

25:24–30 161

25:30 131, 146, 158

25:31–46 39, 135, 144, 201, 283, 295, 375

25:34 36, 125, 136

25:41–46 295

25:41 125, 136, 314,

25:46 34, 36, 38, 40, 46, 62, 140–41, 143–46, 244

26:1 135

26:24 166

26:27–29 241

26:39 240

26:42 240

26:44 240

26:52 209

26:56 176

26:69–75 176

27:4 124

27:20 174, 209

27:45 176

27:51 176

28 135

28:20 36

Mark

1:7–8 130

1:24 124

3:29 36, 165

4:19 36

4:27 243

5:5 243

8:31—9:1 163

8:35–37 26

9 131

9:11–13 82

9:42–48 126, 302

9:43 77, 125, 131, 167, 286

9:44–45 125

9:45 36, 125, 167, 286

9:47 36, 125, 167, 286

9:48 77–78, 125, 127

9:49 126

10:37–39 163

10:45 170

13:32–36 161

14:21 166

14:33–34 175

14:71 200

15:34 174, 176

15:29–31 176

Luke

1:17 82

2:37 243

3:7 129

4:34 124

5:32 137

6:49 165

9:22–27 163

10:12 62

10:15 152

12:4–5 249–50

12:5 125, 133, 167, 286

12:10 165

12:16 149

12:47–48 161

12:58–59 121

13:3 228

13:6–9 130

13:6 149

13:27–29 157

13:28 131, 157–58

13:30 157

14:16 149

15:1–7 124

15:8–9 124

Luke (continued )

15:11–32 150

15:11 149

15:24 124

16 153

16:1–13 150

16:1 149

16:8 36

16:9 38

16:14–15 150

16:16–17 150

16:18 150

16:19–31 19, 148–49, 220

16:19 150

16:24 153

16:25 150

16:27–29 150

16:31 150

17:1–2 125

17:26–35 192

17:26–33 63

17:26–27 61

18:1–2 149

18:7 243

18:9–10 149

18:11–12 137

18:31–33 173

19:11–12 149

20:9 149

20:34–35 36

20:37–38 26

21:23 188

22:22 166

22:44 175

23:46 28, 321

24:25–27 173

24:34 254

24:44–48 173

John

1:14 293

1:29 175

2:17 56

2:19 321

2:25 74

3:3 36

3:5 36

3:15 36

3:16 36, 127, 145, 163–64, 186, 209, 355

3:36 66, 145, 164

5:21–27 165

5:24–29 173

5:24 322

5:28–29 124, 164

5:29 138, 191

6:12 209

6:27 209

6:39 191, 210

7:24 74

9:2 85

10:1–16 136

10:15 174

10:28 209, 252

10:34f. 137

11:50 124, 209

11:52 136

12:23–26 174

12:27–28 175

12:25 209

12:48 116

13:15 229

14:26 228

15:1 176

15:6 130, 252

16:12–14 228

17:1–5 173

17:17 252

17:11–12 209

17:12 124

19:28–30 56

19:28 176

19:30 321

Acts

1:20 56

2:24–31 45

2:27 152

2:29–30 55

2:31 152

3:15 174

3:19 194

3:22–23 221

3:23 200, 221–22

4:21 138

4:26 73

5:1–11 283

5:37 124, 209

7:38 215

7:54 131, 158

7:59 28, 321

9:24 243

12:23 76

13:6–11 283

13:23 74

13:33 73

17:18 19

17:25 283

17:30–31 191, 222

17:31 40

20:31 243

23:6 164

23:12 200

23:14 200

23:21 200

24:15 191

24:20–21 164

24:25 222

26:6–7 164

26:7 243

28:20 164

Romans

1—3 174

1:4 182, 184

1:17 205

1:18 174, 188–89, 205

1:23 203

1:32 206

2:3–9 187

2:4–6 191

2:5–11 283

2:5–9 70

2:5–6 207

2:5 129, 191, 207

2:6–11 206

2:7–8 206

2:7 206

2:8–9 238

2:8 129, 189, 212–13

2:9 162

2:10 206

2:11 207

2:12 208, 213, 252

2:15 207

2:16 40

3:10 29

3:25 175

3:26 177

4:17 28

5 282

5:6 171

5:8 171, 183

5:9 129

5:21 48

6:21 206, 210

6:23 175, 206, 210–11, 323, 355, 359

7:10 48

8:16–23 41

8:21 196, 202

8:35 207

8:38–39 37

9—11 281

9 274

9:3 199

9:22 252

9:29 63

11:9–10 56

11:32 349

12:14 136

14:1–2 294

15:3 56

15:12 74

1 Corinthians

1:8 191

1:18–19 209

1:19—2:5 20

1:20 36

2:6 36

2:8 36

2:14–15 28

3:12 274

3:17 187, 202, 204, 238

3:18 36

4:3 70, 191

4:5 205

5:5 191–92

5:7 175

6:9–10 201, 204, 212

6:13 213

6:14 213

9:25 203

10:9–10 124, 209–10

10:10 192, 221

12:3 66, 200

14:24–25 41

14:29 8

15 31, 265, 282

15:3 174

15:18 174, 210, 322

15:22 283, 349

15:23 248

15:26 248

15:27a 283

15:27b 283

15:28 248

1 Corinthians (continued )

15:33 202

15:42–54 213

15:42 226

15:44 28

15:45 181

15:53–54 37, 203

15:53 31

15:54–55 248

15:54 248, 325

15:55 152

16:22 204

2 Corinthians

2:15–16 209

4:3 209

4:4 36

4:8 207

4:17—5:4 38

5:4–5 41

5:5 28

5:10 187

5:15 181

5:16 177

5:19 177

5:21 171, 174, 177, 179

6:4 207

7:2 202

8:1–5 136

11:3 202

12:1 187

12:7 187

Galatians

1:4 36

1:8–9 199, 204

1:11–12 187

2:16 66

2:20 66, 332

3:13 66, 171, 176, 179

3:19 215

3:27 160, 232

4:4 176

5:16–18 201

5:19–21 201

5:20 204

5:21 201, 204

6:8 201, 203–4, 206, 219, 226

Ephesians

1:13–14 41

1:17–18 5

1:21 36

2:2 36

2:5 48

2:6–7 41

3:3–6 187

3:9 187

3:16 41

3:20 41

4:22–24 232

4:22 202

4:30 191

4:31 207

5:5–6 212

5:5 201

5:6 129, 189

6:12 36

6:14 74

Philippians

1:18–21 213

1:28 189, 212–13

2:5–10 183

2:16 191

2:28 252

3:8–9 232

3:18 213

3:19 213, 228, 252

3:20 189, 213

3:21 213

4:3 254

Colossians

1 282

1:15–20 282

1:16 282

1:20 282

1:21–22 171

1:22 179

2:1–10 20

2:15 229

2:22 202

3:3 322

3:6 129, 189, 213

3:8 207

1 Thessalonians

1:9–10 188

1:10 129, 189, 207, 212–13

2:9 243

2:14–16 283

2:14ff 193

2:16 188

3:10 243

4:6 190

4:17–18 195–96

4:17 37, 196

5:2–3 191

5:2 192

5:3 187, 192, 252

5:9 129, 189, 192

5:10 192

5:20–21 8

5:21 342

2 Thessalonians

1 194

1:5–10 192

1:5–7 193

1:6–10 206, 283

1:6–9 187

1:6 193

1:7–10 238

1:7–8 219

1:7 193, 205, 314

1:8–9 195–96

1:8 121, 193

1:9 38–40, 145, 192, 194– 95

1:10 41, 191–92, 196, 212, 283

2:8 74, 195

2:10 209

3:8 243

1 Timothy

1:3 243

1:17–19 313

2:1 283

2:3–4 284

2:5–6 171

3:16 184

4:1 187

5:5 243

6:9 192

6:15–16 313

6:16 22

6:17 36

2 Timothy

1:3 243

1:10 174

1:12 28

2:13 283

4:8 40

Titus

2:14 171

Hebrews

1:5 73

1:11–12 228

1:11 209

2:2–3 215–16, 227

2:3 218

2:5 54

2:9 170

2:14 174

3:2 66

3:6 66

4:11 229

4:12–13 101

5:5 73

5:7 175

5:9–10 40

5:9 38, 145

5:10 40

6:1–4 39

6:1–2 189, 215–16

6:2 38, 145

6:4–8 66

6:4–6 217, 227

6:5 41

6:7–10 217

6:8 136, 217

8:5 229

9:9 229

9:11–12 40

9:12 38, 145

9:15 175

9:23 229

9:26–28 175

9:26 40

9:27–28 174, 216

9:28 170

10:5–10 179

10:12–14 217

10:19–23 217

10:26–31 238

10:26–27 193

10:20 218

10:26 217

10:27–31 217, 227

10:27 217, 219, 252

10:28 218

10:29 138, 218–19

10:31 218

10:39 26, 218

11:7 61

Hebrews (continued )

11:8–16 54

11:28 192, 221

11:34 130

11:40 48, 142

12:15 66

12:16–17 227

12:25 218, 227

12:28–29 196

12:29 74, 193, 218, 252

13:12–14 177

James

1:5–7 5

1:11 221

1:15 219, 221

1:18 219

3:1 5, 101

3:9 136

4:12 212, 219, 221, 252

5:1–6 220

5:1–5 221

5:1 157

5:10 229

5:19–20 220

5:20 221

1 Peter

1:7 209

1:9 26

1:11 173

1:18 203

1:21 28

1:23 203

2:3 54

2:12 191

2:24 170, 179

3:10–12 54

3:18 170

3:19–20 226

3:19 321

3:20 61

3:22 226

4:6 321

4:17–18 223

4:19 28

2 Peter

1:4 202

2 225, 229

2:1–22 225

2:1 225

2:3 225

2:5 61, 225

2:6 64–65, 143, 225, 227, 229–30

2:7–9 62

2:9 61

2:12 202, 226

2:17 227, 231

2:20–22 227

3:3–7 61

3:4–6 61

3:4 227

3:6–9 227

3:6–7 61

3:6 61, 124, 210

3:7 193, 228, 252

3:9 209, 228, 252

3:10 191

3:12 191

3:13 54, 196

1 John

2:2 170

3:2 205

3:14–15 48

3:16 170, 183, 186

4:1 8

4:17 40, 191

4:18 137

5:6–10 183

5:16–17 232

5:16 232–33, 283

5:17 232

Jude

3 229

4–7 229

4 229

5 209–10

6 191

7 64–65, 136–37, 143, 229–30, 242, 245

10 220

11 124, 209

13 227, 231

14–15 226

20–21 231

21 232

23 63, 231

Revelation

1 235

1:1 235

1:17 171

1:18 152

2—3 235

2:8 171

2:11 210–11, 250

2:16 237

2:22–23 237

2:22 237

2:23 237

2:26–27 73

3:18 160, 232

4:8 243

4:9 244

5:8 248

6:8 248

6:9–11 283

6:15–16 195

6:16–17 129

6:17 191

7:14 160

7:15–17 241

7:15 243–44

9:5 121

11:4 251

11:8 62

11:18 129, 237

12:5 73

12:10 243

13:1–9 238

13:1 251

13:8 175

13:10 238

14 114, 239, 241

14:1–5 238

14:1 239

14:8 238

14:10–14 83

14:10–11 83, 245

14:9–11 66, 68–69, 238–39, 241, 244–46, 252, 373, 375

14:9–10 195

14:10 63, 207, 239

14:11 64, 239, 244–45, 358

14:12 239

14:13 239

16:19 207, 241

17—19 239, 241, 246

17:5 238

17:16 239

17:18 238

18:3 238

18:6 239, 241–42

18:7–9 241

18:8 241–42

18:9 157, 239, 242

18:10 239, 241–42

18:15 239

18:17 241

18:18 239, 242

18:19 241

18:20 365

19:1–4 283

19:1–3 242

19:2 202, 238

19:3 64, 239, 242

19:8 160, 249

19:15 73, 129, 207

19:19 239

19:20 63, 247–48

19:21 193

20:5 249

20:6 210–11, 250

20:7–10 247

20:9 193

20:10 63, 83, 243, 245–48, 251–52, 373, 375

20:11–13 247

20:13–15 152

20:13 248

20:14–15 250

20:14 174, 210–11, 247–51

20:15 248

21 251

21:4 248–49

21:8 64, 191, 248, 250–51

22:3–4 241

22:3 200

22:13 171

22:14 159

DEAD SEA SCROLLS

1QH 3.28–31 96

1QH 3.35–36 96

1QH 6.29–30, 32 96

1Qp Hab 10.3–5 96

1QS 104

1QS 2.4–8 95

1QS 4.11–14 95

1QM 1.5–7 95

1QM 3.9 95

Dead Sea Scrolls (continued )

1QM 11.9–11 95

4Qp Ps 37.1.3–4 95

4Qp Ps 1.6–8 96

4Qp Ps 2.8 96

CD 1.11–12 94

CD 2.6–7 95

CD 2.20 95

CD 2:4–5 104

CD 9:12–13 104

CD 9:49 104

GRECO-ROMAN WRITINGS

Josephus

Antiquities of the Jews

18.1.3 85

Jewish Wars

2.8.14 85

4.483 65, 230

5.2.5 118

5.12.3–4 118

Philo

Moses

2:56 65, 230

EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITINGS

Apostolic Fathers

Barnabas

4:12 258

20:1 258

21:1 258

21:3 258

1 Clement

9:1 256

2 Clement

2:7 256

4:5 256

5:4 256

6:7 256

7:6 256

17:6–7 256

Didache

1:1 256

16:5 256

Epistles of Ignatius

Ign. Trall.

11:1 257

16:2 257

Ign. Smyrn.

6:1 257

Ign. Magn.

5:1 257

Ign. Trall.

2:1 257

Polycarp

Pol. Phil.

7:1 257

Mart. Pol.

2:3 257

11:2 257

Ante-Nicene Fathers

Arnobius

Against the Heathen

2:13 289

2:14–53 289

2:14 289, 291

2:15–16 289

2:17 289

2:18 290

2:19 290

2:20–24 290

2:25 290

2:26–28 290

2:29–30 290

2:31–33 290

2:34–48 290

2:49–53 290

2:61 292

2:62 291

Athenagoras

Plea for the Christians

31 265

Resurrection of the Dead

12 265

13 266

16 266

18 266

Clement of Alexandria

Miscellanies

5:14 273

Recognitions

5:28 272

Irenaeus

Against Heresies

5:27 267

Justin Martyr

(First) Apologia

12 259

17 259

45 259

18 260

20 260

28 260

44 262

52 260

(Second) Apologia

1 259

7 262

8–9 259

Dialogue With Trypho

5 261

6 262

Origen of Alexandria

Against Celsus

4:13 274–75

Principles

2:10 274–75

Tatian

Address to the Greeks

6 264

13 264

14 265

Tertullian

Resurrection of the Flesh

34 269–70

35 269

The Soul

9 269

Post-Nicene Fathers

Chrysostom

Homilies

On Acts 4:36–37 294

(#25)

On Eph 6:14–17 294

(#24)

On John 1:14 293, 294

(#14)

On Rom 14:1–2 294

(#25)

Table of Contents

Title—The Fire That Consumes

Foreword to Third Edition—Richard Bauckham

Foreword to First Edition—F. F. Bruce

Foreword to Second Edition—John W. Wenham

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

1 Rethinking Hell: Apostasy or New Reformation?

2 Back to the Bible: The Protestant Principle

3 Souls: Immortal or Otherwise

4 Aiōnios: Duration, Quality, or Both?

5 Sheol/Hades: Gravedom?

6 Divine Justice: When?

7 Divine Justice: Historical Examples

8 Divine Justice: Messiah and the End

9 Diversity: Apocrypha and Dead Sea Scrolls

10 Diversity: Pseudepigrapha

11 Jesus: Fire (Gehenna)

12 Jesus: Fire (Gehenna Not Named)

13 Jesus: Fire (Parable of the Sheep and the Goats)

14 Jesus: Fire (Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus)

15 Jesus: Non-fire Images

16 Golgotha: Judgment Revealed (1)

17 Golgotha: Judgment Revealed (2)

18 Thessalonians

19 Galatians and Corinthians

20 Romans, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians

21 Hebrews, James, Acts

22 1–2 Peter, 1–3 John, Jude

23 Revelation

24 Apostolic Fathers and Their Successors

25 The Apologists: A Fire That Torments

26 Apokatastasis : A Fire That Purifies

27 Arnobius to Augustine

28 Augustine’s Case for Unending Torment 1

29 Middle Ages to Reformation

30 John Calvin: Psychopannychia

31 An Old Tradition Questioned

32 Roots of the Current Recovery

33 The Evangelical Recovery Continues

34 A Kinder and Gentler Traditionalism

35 Refreshing the Memory

36 Afterword

Bibliography

Index of Authors

Ancient Document Index

Table of Contents

Title—The Fire That Consumes

Foreword to Third Edition—Richard Bauckham

Foreword to First Edition—F. F. Bruce

Foreword to Second Edition—John W. Wenham

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

1 Rethinking Hell: Apostasy or New Reformation?

2 Back to the Bible: The Protestant Principle

3 Souls: Immortal or Otherwise

4 Aiōnios: Duration, Quality, or Both?

5 Sheol/Hades: Gravedom?

6 Divine Justice: When?

7 Divine Justice: Historical Examples

8 Divine Justice: Messiah and the End

9 Diversity: Apocrypha and Dead Sea Scrolls

10 Diversity: Pseudepigrapha

11 Jesus: Fire (Gehenna)

12 Jesus: Fire (Gehenna Not Named)

13 Jesus: Fire (Parable of the Sheep and the Goats)

14 Jesus: Fire (Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus)

15 Jesus: Non-fire Images

16 Golgotha: Judgment Revealed (1)

17 Golgotha: Judgment Revealed (2)

18 Thessalonians

19 Galatians and Corinthians

20 Romans, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians

21 Hebrews, James, Acts

22 1–2 Peter, 1–3 John, Jude

23 Revelation

24 Apostolic Fathers and Their Successors

25 The Apologists: A Fire That Torments

26 Apokatastasis : A Fire That Purifies

27 Arnobius to Augustine

28 Augustine’s Case for Unending Torment 1

29 Middle Ages to Reformation

30 John Calvin: Psychopannychia

31 An Old Tradition Questioned

32 Roots of the Current Recovery

33 The Evangelical Recovery Continues

34 A Kinder and Gentler Traditionalism

35 Refreshing the Memory

36 Afterword

Bibliography

Index of Authors

Ancient Document Index