The Call for Justice
Imagine you’re a kid at recess. There’s a big bully who beats you up every day, right in front of the teacher. The teacher does nothing, just smiles and is nice to both of you, and says she wants nothing but the best for both of you. Every day, something deep within you will cry out for relief, for justice, for a quelling and stopping of this oppressive person who is causing you so much pain. Or imagine that a lady comes and steals something valuable from your house every day at noon. First, she steals your wallet. Then, she steals a really nice appliance. Then, she steals a lawn mower. Then, she steals a car. You call the police and tell them each day, “Hey, every day this lady comes and steals something from my house at noon. Please come and arrest her!” And all they say is, “I’m sorry that’s happening to you. Maybe things will look up in the future.” And they do nothing, while this lady continues to take and take and take from you. You viscerally feel the desire for justice, for this situation to be made right.
There are a lot of things going on in the world today that make our hearts cry out for God to intervene, for God’s justice, for God to make things right. Mass shootings, wars in Sudan, Ukraine, and Israel/Palestine, domestic abuse, widespread deceit and slander, theft, bullying, pervasive sexual objectification of people, physical afflictions and diseases, traumatic losses, and more. There is much that can leave us crying out for God to rectify the situation. Yet, sometimes it seems that God is doing nothing, and God’s seeming inactivity can lead us to call out with the psalmist in Psalm 13:1, “How long, O Lord?” It can lead us to cry out in the words of Psalm 44:23, “Awake, Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?” It can lead us to ask, “God, do you care? Have you forgotten me? Do I matter and do you love me?”
God has two ways of dealing with the sin and evil that infect all of us. His first (and most desired way) is to heal us by his grace through the sacrifice of his Son Jesus applied by the Holy Spirit. In 2 Peter 3, Peter wants us to realize that it’s not because God is unjust, slow, or lazy that injustices and evils go on in our world. It is because God is loving, patient, and kind, wanting people to repent so he can save them and heal them rather than destroy them. This reveals the heart of God, the grace of God toward all of us. But if we will not receive his grace, he has another way of dealing with evil: through justice. If we will not be rescued by grace, then we will be disciplined and purged by God's wrath. God will deal with sin, but he gives us a choice as to how we want him to deal with the sin that plagues us. Grace or justice.
The remainder of this post is devoted to how we should think of that second way God deals with sin, particularly of final justice, judgment, and hell, as well as some questions we often wrestle with concerning hell. How should we understand hell? Is hell fair or cruel and unjust? What light does hell reflect on the character of God?
Three Views on Hell
Three views have been presented and debated amongst Christians throughout church history concerning hell.
The Traditional View/Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT for short)–People who reject Christ will suffer consciously forever. This has been the majority view throughout church history and is probably what most people think of when they think of Christianity's doctrine of hell.
Annihilationism/Conditionalism–You suffer what your sins deserve and are finally extinguished or annihilated for all eternity. Conditionalism gets at the idea that eternal life is only give on the condition of repentance and faith in Jesus. Eternal life is not granted to those who don't meet the conditions for eternal life.
Christian Universalism/Ultimate Reconciliation/Apokatastasis (Greek for Restoration)–Christians who believe in ultimate reconciliation do believe in hell and do hold to salvation being in Christ alone–they would not be like modern pluralists who say that all religions are equally valid pathways to salvation and truth. They would plant their feet down firmly in John 14:6, affirming that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through him. However, they believe that hell is temporary and remedial in purpose, and once you've suffered what you deserve for your sins, you will ultimately repent and be saved by the grace of Jesus.
I am pulling from three books for some of the content of this post:
- Four Views on Hell (2nd ed.), edited by Preston Sprinkle with contributions from Denny Burk (ECT), John Stackhouse (Annihilationism), Robin Parry (Universalism), and Jerry Walls (Purgatory).
- The Fire that Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment by Edward Fudge (a comprehensive book advocating for annihilationism. This is the classic text for annihilationism).
- That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation by David Bentley Hart (this book is of a more philosophical bent and advocates for Christian universalism. Hart is an American Orthodox theologian, and I'll refer to him as DBH below).
Areas of Agreement
There are several different images/metaphors used throughout Scripture to describe hell. These images probably aren't fully literal (after all, fire creates light, but hell is also described as darkness. How could you have fire and darkness at the same time?), but they symbolically and imaginatively point to an unpleasant reality of suffering. What follows are some areas of agreement the three camps share in common, with some supporting Scriptures as a point of reference.
Hell as Exclusion from God’s Presence and People–Matthew 7:21-23–“depart from me, I never knew you…”
Matthew 18:11-12–“thrown outside, into darkness…” (Darkness can be a picture of being away from the lights of home, of the feast/banquet hall, of the city, away from fellowship and kindness and safety).
Separation of the weeds from wheat (Matthew 13:37-43); wicked from the righteous (Matthew 13:47-50); sheep from goats (Matthew 25:32-33).
On the man without a wedding garment in parable of the wedding feast–“Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness…” Matthew 22:13
The third servant in parable of the talents is thrown outside into darkness, away from God's light and the lights of fellowship in the town in Matthew 25:30.
Luke 13:22-30 is the parable of the narrow door being shut, and even after people plead and knock to get in, the owner of the house keeps the door shut.
Hell as a Place of Punishment/Suffering–Fire connotes the idea of burning and suffering in Matthew 3:12; 13:30, 42, 49-50. A few passages speak of hell as a prison where someone is confined until they repay their debts (like Matthew 5:21-26 and Matthew 18:21-35). Many passages on hell speak of it as a place of "weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 13:42; 25:30; Luke 13:28). Weeping was a sign of deep mourning, sorrow, sadness, and despair. Gnashing of teeth, rather than being a sign of pain and agony, is actually a sign of rage in the Bible. It is mentioned in several places in the OT, but see Acts 7:54 where the members of the Sanhedrin become furious and gnash their teeth at Stephen as they begin to stone him. Have you ever been so angry you had a clenched jaw and starting bearing down on your teeth? That is the idea behind "gnashing of teeth." But it is a futile rage. There’s a devastating phrase that Edward Fudge quotes on p. 132 of his book from author Marius Reiser that describes what weeping and gnashing of teeth signifies: “despairing rage.” People both wracked by their sorrows and regrets, yet also defiant and furious about ending up in hell, but it's all futile in the face of a just God. Hell will be composed of sad and angry people.
Varying Degrees of Suffering–Some proponents of all three views on hell hold that there will be varying degrees of punishment/intensity of suffering in hell. ECT would hold that while hell is infinite in duration, the severity of the suffering varies based on your sins. Some annihilationists would say hell varies in length and severity based on your sins, but always ends in eternal extinction. Christian universalists would say something similar to what an annihilationist would say, though hell always ends in rescue and reconciliation with God. What follows are some Scriptures that seem to indicate the notion of varying degrees of punishment and suffering. 2 Peter 2:21–“It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to have known it and then turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.” This passage is about backslidden and apostate Christians, but it implies a more severe form of punishment awaiting the apostates than those who never followed Jesus to begin with. The same idea is present in Jesus’ teaching in Luke 12:47-48. One servant who sins in ignorance will be beaten with few blows, but another servant who rebels intentionally will be beaten with many blows. God repays people fairly according to what they have done. He knows things perfectly, is not swayed unduly by distraction or obfuscation. He is the perfect arbiter of justice, knowing all things and being of such character as to render perfect, impartial, fair judgment in our lives. Paul, as he speaks of final judgment in Romans 2:5-11, says in vs. 6 that, “God will repay each person according to what they have done” (see also 2 Cor. 5:10).
Exploring Annihilationism/Conditionalism
One question that both annihilationists and Christian universalists often ask of the traditional view (ECT) is this: is it just? If our sins and mistakes–even if they are many and have negative ripple effects down through many generations of history–only do a finite amount of damage for a finite amount of time, then how is it just for them to be punished for an infinite amount of time? Would a good and fair God do this? Eternal conscious torment seems to invalidate the justice, goodness, and love of God, making God appear unnecessarily cruel and sadistic. Some will retort that the severity of punishment anyone receives depends on the worth and status of the being you sin against. For instance, no one thinks twice if you squash a grasshopper. If you kill someone's dog, however, the authorities will probably be called and you'll have some sort of punishment or fine delivered to you. Even more, if you kill another person, you could be looking at many years or possibly life in prison. In each aforementioned scenario, the same action occurs–taking the life of another creature–but different degrees of punishment are doled out based on how valuable the slain being is. Now apply this line of thinking to God. Since God God is of infinite value and worth, rejecting and hurting him is worthy of an infinite punishment (Denny Burk makes this argument in his essay in the Four Views on Hell book).
This line of reasoning makes sense, but we need to acknowledge we’ve departed from biblical language when we start calling God "infinite" or saying that sinning against God deserves infinite punishment. One might ask, is God so preoccupied with his own glory that he is willing to torment people eternally who offend it to prove the point? What of Jesus laying aside his rights and privileges to serve, revealing that God’s ultimate glory is his humble, suffering love that seeks redemption? We also might wonder if we are strong enough to inflict against God something that would merit an infinite punishment. It doesn't seem like we have that kind of power to inflict that kind of damage. And we do see different gradations of punishment in Scripture based on different infractions–proportionality comes into play. Annihilationism maintains you suffer punishment from the hand of a just God in proportion to whatever debts you’ve accumulated, whatever your sins deserve. You do the crime, you do the time. The suffering is as long and as severe as God's fairness and justice requires, and then you are extinguished for eternity. You cease to exist as you have rejected the source of all life. Eternal life only comes under the condition of trusting in Jesus.
Ok, well and good, but can this be substantiated in Scripture?
There actually are a lot of references to the destruction of the wicked in the Old Testament (OT). I am not going to focus on them in this post, other than to give just one faint glimpse. Psalm 37 affirms that God allows the righteous and blameless to have an inheritance that “will endure forever” in verse 18, and that they will inherit the land and “dwell in it forever” in verse 29. Meanwhile, it repeatedly and with multiple images affirms the destruction and death of the wicked. Forever language gets applied to the life and dwelling of the righteous, punishment and death language is used to describe the fate of the wicked. I commend Fudge's book to those who want to see more OT passages that he believes inform how we should think of final judgment. I'll focus on the New Testament (NT) below.
There are several Scriptures that utilize the flood from the days of Noah and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as examples of what will happen in final judgment (Flood examples in Matthew 24:36-41; 1 Peter 3:18-22; 2 Peter 2:5; 3:4-7; Sodom and Gomorrah examples in 2 Peter 2:6; Jude 7). What's interesting is that both are widespread, cataclysmic judgments that result in the destruction of those who experience them. Those swept away by the deluge and those burned in Sodom and Gomorrah did not go on in a perpetual state of suffering (ECT), nor were they punished for a time and then eventually restored (universalism). They were destroyed.
Matthew 3:12–John the Baptist is speaking here of Jesus. “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire." For a fire to be quenched means that it will be stopped before it consumes what it is burning, much like firefighters dousing buildings with water to quench a raging fire. But for a fire to be described as unquenchable means it will not be stopped until it takes its full effect: namely, burning up and consuming what is on fire. Unquenchable fire is a picture of total destruction, of being incinerated.
Matthew 7:13-14–“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
There are several passages that use burned up fruitless trees/vines/weeds language. Matthew 7:19–“Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” See 13:30, 40-42 on the burning of the weeds; 13:49-50 on the burning of the bad fish; John 15:6–“If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” What happens to wood, weeds, fish, and vines in a fire? They are burned to ashes.
Matthew 10:28–“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.” Is there anything left of a person if God destroys both body and soul in hell?
Matthew 10:39–“Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”
John 3:16–“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” We see two options here–eternal life vs. perishing, not eternal life vs. eternal conscious suffering.
John 3:36–“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son shall not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.”
Galatians 6:8–“Whoever sows to please their flesh, from their flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”
Romans 6:23–“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (See also James 1:15 on sin, when it is fully grown, leading to death).
Romans 9:22–"What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath–prepared for destruction?"
Philippians 3:19 (Paul speaking of people who live as enemies of the cross of Christ)–“Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame."
2 Thessalonians 1:8-10a–“He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed.”
Hebrews 10:26-27–“If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.”
Hebrews 10:39–“But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.”
James 4:12–“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?”
James 5:19-20–“My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.” This must be about more than physical death, since everyone dies whether they are a faithful Christian or not. This death is probably referring to eradication as part of final judgment. See also 1 John 5:16-17–“If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that. All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.”
2 Peter 2:3, speaking of false teachers–“…Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.”
2 Peter 2:4-10. Example of angels held in hell and awaiting judgment (vs.4); Noah and the flood (vs. 5); Sodom and Gomorrah (vv. 6-8). Speaking of Sodom and Gomorrah, Peter says, “…if he condemned Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly…” Verse 9 pulls all these examples together with this summary statement: “if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.”
2 Peter 2:12–“[These false teachers] are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like animals they too will perish.
2 Peter 3:6-7–“By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”
Lake of fire in Revelation–Lake of fire language is used in Revelation 19:20; 20:10, 14-15; 21:8. There are probably some connections to the river of fire in Daniel 7:1-12. In Daniel 7:10, a river of fire is said to flow from the throne of the Ancient of Days, and in 7:11, a beast that represents an empire and leader is killed, destroyed, and thrown into that river of fire. It is a picture of death and destruction. Unlike Daniel’s vision, in John’s vision, the beast is thrown into the lake of fire while still alive, along with the false prophet.
Revelation 20:14-15–“Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.” See also Rev. 21:8–“But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars–they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” Second death in Revelation seems to imply that the unrighteous will die once before judgment, then die again after suffering whatever punishment and torment they've accumulated from their sins in final judgment. The second death refers to ceasing to exist.
The Argument from the Cross–In multiple places throughout Scripture, Jesus is said to take our sins upon himself, to go to the cross in our place, to die our death as our sin-bearer, to take our consequences upon himself as our substitute. This idea is referred to as substitutionary atonement. As Paul says in Romans 8:3-4–“What the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” He says of Jesus in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” In Galatians 3:13, Paul writes, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.’” The author of Hebrews writes in 9:26b-28, “But [Christ] has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.” Peter says in 1 Peter 2:24, “‘He himself bore our sins’ in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed.’”
And what happened to Jesus on the cross? He suffered for a while, then died. If eternal conscious torment is a just punishment for sin, then the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross seems insufficient to atone for our sins. If sinning against an infinitely valuable God deserves an infinite punishment, then shouldn't Jesus be suffering for all eternity in hell as our sin-bearer? This clearly is not the case. But if sin only warrants a finite amount of suffering, and culminates in death, then the cross is a sufficient work to atone for the sin of the whole world. As Stackhouse writes, "Just as Jesus did not suffer eternally, even for the sins of the whole world, so each person who makes atonement on his or her own will not suffer eternally, either" (Four Views on Hell, pp. 78-79).
Challenges to Annihilationism
What about "eternal punishment"? Here's Matthew 25:46–“Then they [the goats] will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” There is debate about the Greek word translated "eternal"–aionios in Greek–which will be revisited in the section on Christian universalism below. Fudge devotes a whole chapter to aionios in The Fire that Consumes, pp. 33-43 that I would commend to anyone interested. While aionios can have qualitative and quantitative connotations, he sees "eternal" as a fitting translation here. He highlights several times that the word aionios is paired with other words, like eternal judgment (Heb. 6:1-4); eternal redemption (Heb. 9:11-12); eternal salvation (Heb. 5:9-10); and eternal destruction (2 Thes. 1:9). Here is the crux of his argument:
Finally, when an adjective (including but not limited to aionios = "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 (Fudge, The Fire that Consumes, pp. 41-42).
In short, what is eternal about the punishment in Matthew 25:46 is not that it is an ongoing act of punishing (which is ECT's interpretation), but rather that the result of the punishment lasts forever. The result of extermination lasts for all eternity. Therefore annihilationism is still an eternal punishment.
Eternal, unquenchable fire, worms not dying–Matthew 18:8; 25:41; Mark 9:42-50; Jude 7. Unquenchable fire and undying worms are pulled forward from Isaiah 66:24, the very last verse in the book of Isaiah. In that passage, the ones who are being eaten by the worms and burned by the fire, however, are corpses, not people who are conscious. Unquenchable fire and undying worms could also get at the idea of “inescapable, irresistible, unavoidable, final.” In a way similar to what we've said about unquenchable fire above, if worms die or are squashed, you will no longer be eaten by them. The fact that the fire can’t be quenched and the worms can’t be killed implies that this punishment is final and irreversible. You can’t get out of it. There’s no escaping it. Rather that implying eternal conscious torture, these images could imply total destruction, total consumption, irreversible judgment. The consuming agents will not be stopped until all is consumed.
Interestingly, some theologians have speculated that these are ways of talking about God, whom the author of Hebrews calls a consuming fire in 12:29, and hell could be living in the presence of a holy God without having his grace to purify us. What is being described as eternal is the destroying agent (God himself), not people’s existence in the place of punishment. God is the eternal fire and the undying worm, and these descriptors show what it’s like to be in the presence of God’s holiness as a corrupted and sinful person without saving grace.
Similarly, in Jude 7, Sodom and Gomorrah serve as an example “of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.” This passage also has the possibility of referring to God’s holy presence, the permanence and eternality of the holy destroyer. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed in Genesis 19, they are not suffering forever. Fudge also comments that the punishment of eternal fire could relate to the cities’ permanent destruction as an “aftereffect and memorial of their punishment–rather than a continuing punishment of the people” (Fudge, The Fire that Consumes, p. 229), which seems more in line with what Fudge will say below about smoke rising up forever in Revelation 14:9-11.
Salted with Fire (Mark 9:49)–
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." [... However,] 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") (Fudge, The Fire that Consumes, p. 126).
Smoke of Torment Rising Forever–Revelation 14:9-11–“A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: ‘If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.’”
Here are few things from the OT background of Revelation 14:9-11 that can help us unpack what John might mean in this passage. 1.) In Jeremiah 25:15-27, the cup of God’s wrath leads to people’s death and destruction. 2.) “Burning sulfur,” connects back to God destroying Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19:24 by raining down “burning sulfur” on them. Sodom and Gomorrah were totally destroyed in Genesis 19. 3.) "Rising smoke" also connects with Sodom and Gomorrah story. The morning after burning sulfur rained down and destroyed these cities, Abraham gets up and sees "dense smoke" rising from that land in Genesis 19:28. 4.) Smoke rising “forever” and “there will be no rest night or day” language has its antecedent in Isaiah 34:9-10, which describes God’s judgment of the nation of Edom. The text reads: “Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch, her dust into burning sulfur; her land will become blazing pitch! It will not be quenched night or day; its smoke will rise forever." God's judgment eventually fell on Edom, and it no longer exists today. The smoke “rising forever” doesn’t mean the people or nation of Edom are suffering consciously forever, but probably is best interpreted to mean that the message and meaning of God's judgment of Edom persists forever. Edom has been extinguished, but the smoke, or the lesson and significance arising from its extinguishment, endures forever. The language of smoke rising forever is also used to describe the celebration of the downfall of Babylon in Revelation 19:3, with Babylon probably representing both the crooked Roman Empire of John's day but also any evil empire/system that persecutes and opposes God’s will. 5.) As for those who go into this fire not resting night or day, there are two ways you could interpret this. One is that it refers to a kind of time, the other is that it refers to a duration of time. Proponents of ECT maintain that it refers to a duration of time, maintaining that people will suffer perpetually, eternally, forever. The kind of time interpretation points to the idea that it showcases that their suffering is unrelenting, there is no break, it is uninterrupted. Unrelenting suffering can happen even if the duration of that unrelenting suffering is not eternal. In essence, there will be no rest, no breaks or relief, until the punishment is finished, and then the lesson of the punishment endures forever. The fact that the Isaiah passage this language is pulled from was used to describe Edom, which was destroyed and no longer exists, highlights that not resting night or day probably refers to a kind of time, specifically one that is unrelenting and gives no breaks, and not a duration of time, one that goes on forever and ever. (See Fudge pp. 238-246 for a fuller discussion).
Tormented Day and Night Forever and Ever–Revelation 20:10–“And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”
In my estimation, this verse poses the hardest challenge to annihilationism. There are several ways people proceed. Some take a metaphorical view of this, that this is referring to the torment/destruction of collectives that represent spiritual evil, government evil, and religious evil. The devil (also called the dragon elsewhere), the beast, and the false prophet are the unholy trinity of Revelation. The beast is introduced in Revelation 13, and it seems to represent the emperors of Rome and the Roman government in general, and then there is another beast later in Revelation 13 that represents crooked religion; probably those priests that were enforcing worship of the emperor throughout the Roman Empire and the cult that spread with it. This second beast gets relabeled “the false prophet” later in 16:13, once again implying crooked religious leadership, and is called by that name again in 19:20 and 20:10. Here is Fudge:
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. It is possible that even the picture of unending torment can symbolize everlasting extinction, if Stack and Billerbeck correctly interpret the pseudepigraphal literature (The Fire that Consumes, p. 247).
Going along with the idea that the false prophet and beast could represent corrupt institutions or concepts, Hades and death are thrown into the lake of fire in 20:14 to experience the second death.
...it is uncontroverted that Death and Hades are abstractions and not persons, and that the lake of fire here represents annihilation. [...] 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. 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 the new order of eternal life" (Fudge, The Fire that Consumes, p. 248).
Being tormented forever in the second death could just be a poetic and symbolic way of describing eternally being extinguished, and that they experience unrelenting, uninterrupted, final death. “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. 21:4), so after that death there is no more life” (Fudge, The Fire that Consumes, p. 251).
This gets at some of the main ideas and contentions around annihilationism. We'll save concluding remarks for the end of this post. Now let's look at another conception of hell, Christian universalism.
Exploring Christian Universalism/Ultimate Reconciliation
Origen is probably the first church father who explicitly articulated this view. Gregory of Nyssa did as well, along with some others throughout history. This view also seems to have gained more of a foothold in Eastern Orthodoxy (though it certainly isn't a universally held view within that branch of Christianity). Forms of it have been present in Catholicism and Protestantism through the years.
Christian universalism is firmly committed to salvation in Christ alone. Other religions are not legitimate pathways to God, and all people need to repent and put their trust in Christ to be saved. For those who do reject Christ, Christian universalists believe they will go to hell. However, they believe hell will be temporary and remedial in purpose, and eventually all will be saved. Universalists will lift up similar critiques of ECT as mentioned in the annihilationism section above, that ECT seems to contradict the love, justice, and goodness of God. Universalists would further contend that both ECT and annihilationism show God losing, God not getting what he wants. Why can't a supremely good, all powerful God who desires to save all creation get the job done? What stands in his way? Is the God of ECT and annihilationism too small? Annihilationism is a bit less appalling than ECT, but it still seems like a letdown in comparison to the possibility of the eventual redemption and salvation of everyone. Why would God settle for anything less than the ultimate salvation of all people? Do ECT and annihilationism settle for too little?
This position is probably one that most everyone would want to be true. However, I must confess that I see several exegetical problems with Christian universalism. Below I walk through some of the better arguments for this view and offer critique.
Hell as a Debtor's Prison–Jesus a couple of times speaks of hell as a prison for paying debts in Matthew 5:23-26 and 18:21-35. Both passages involve being willing to forgive and be reconciled with people with whom we are in conflict. If we don't, Jesus says we will be thrown intro prison and "won't get out until [we] pay the last penny" (5:26), and that we will be tortured until we pay back all we owe (18:34). The idea is that after you pay your debts, you get out of prison, and a Christian universalist will say that at that point, you are welcomed into eternal life and the blessedness of the redeemed. These passages never are explicit about what happens after the debts are paid, however. An annihilationist could also utilize these texts, but make the case that after the debts are paid, the person ceases to exist because they rejected the source of all life–God. Another critique would be that no biblical image of hell stands in total isolation from all the others, so we also need to grapple with other passages that portray hell as irreversible and destructive.
What does the Greek word aionios mean?–In Matthew 25:46, Jesus says that the wicked go to aionios punishment, but the righteous go to aionios life. This word often gets translated as "eternal," but is that the best sense of the term? Aionios is an adjectival form of the noun aion, which means something like age or era. According to BDAG, one of the most reputable Greek-to-English lexicons out there, aionios can have three senses: "1. pertaining to a long period of time, long ago... 2. pertaining to a period of time without beginning or end, eternal... 3. pertaining to a period of unending duration, without end" (p. 33). Most woodenly, the word could mean something like "in accordance with the age/era." Christian universalists argue that in Matthew 25:46, the life the sheep receive from Jesus is in accordance to the coming age (which gets specified elsewhere in Scripture as eternal life/imperishability/immortality in 1 Cor. 15:53-54), while the punishment the goats receive from Jesus will also be in accordance to the age (which a universalist will argue is temporary and remedial in purpose). Proponents of ECT would insist that aionios means "eternal" in the sense of an ongoing act of punishing, while annihilationists could probably go either way (if it means "eternal," then the result of the punishment is what is eternal, if it means "according to the age," then other data seems to indicate the age would bring a temporary punishment that ends in destruction). As mentioned above, Fudge devotes a whole chapter to the word in The Fire that Consumes, pp. 33-43 that I would commend to anyone interested, and he sees "eternal" as an appropriate translation here.
The Open Gates of the New Jerusalem–Revelation 21:24-26 says concerning the New Jerusalem, "The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it." This is usually coupled with Rev. 22:14-15–"Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood." Universalists usually see the open gates of the New Jerusalem as an invitation to salvation after final judgment for those who are in the lake of fire. They also see 22:14-15 addressed to those outside the city–those in the lake of fire–to wash their robes and come into the city at a future point after final judgment. Parry makes this argument in his essay in Four Views on Hell.
However, the gates being perpetually open do not have to signify the possibility of salvation after judgment, but rather can portray the absence of danger. Gates of cities would be closed when there was a threat to the their security or when they were under attack. They also were closed at night, and night and darkness can serve as a symbol for evil (see John 13:27-20; Rom. 13:12; Eph. 5:11). There's no need to close the gate to protect those inside the New Jerusalem because there will be no threats and nothing to fear. God's glory gives perpetual light to the city (Rev. 21:23), and as G. K. Beale writes, "The divine glory is now completely manifested, because there will be no more darkness or evil in the new world (cf. 22:5 for a fuller statement of the same truth)" (Revelation: A Shorter Commentary, p. 493). The passage also says that those whose names aren't written in the book of life won't be in the New Jerusalem (21:27). As 20:11-15 shows, not everyone's name is written in the book of life. The open gates in 21:24-26 are a picture of safety more than an invitation to salvation after Christ's verdict in final judgment.
Further, in Revelation 22:12-15, the call to enter the New Jerusalem is given to us now, in our current dispensation, by Jesus who is "coming soon" in v. 12. In essence, this invitation is given before final judgment (how else could Jesus say he is "coming soon?"), so that those who trust in Jesus "may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city" (v. 14). These are statements about the blessed future of those who trust Christ now. There is no invitation to enter the New Jerusalem after Jesus has meted out his final decree. Both DBH and Parry miss this in their writings.
All Die in Adam, All Made Alive in Christ–Here's Romans 5:18-19 (NIV)–
Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
Paul refers to all humanity being implicated and affected by humanity's original sin via our ancestors. Theologians debate how original sin works, but rest assured that Paul believed all people were sinners and were under sin's power (Rom. 3:9, 23). So does this passage imply that just as all are sinners without distinction, Jesus will make all people justified and righteous without distinction? While Romans 5:18 on the surface looks like it's saying that, such a notion would be stripped away from the larger context of what Paul says in this passage, as well as in the rest of Romans and the rest of his writings in the NT. In 5:17, Paul speaks about those "who receive God's abundant provision of grace" as the ones who will reign in life through Jesus. Life and justification must be received via faith in Christ and are not a blanket gift to all humanity. Paul also says in Romans 2:5-9 that those who persist in doing good receive eternal life, while those who reject the truth and follow evil will receive wrath and anger from God. There also is Romans 9:22-24, which mentions that some people will be objects of God's wrath, whom he bears with patience and who are prepared for destruction. DBH tries to dismiss Romans 9:22-24 as being purely a hypothetical theological exploration by Paul, since in Romans 11:32 Paul writes "For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all" (That All Shall Be Saved, pp. 73, 137). In essence, there won't be any destroyed vessels of wrath, because God will have mercy on all. I don't think this is what Paul means, nor does it observe the potentiality in "may have mercy" in 11:32. This potentiality in 11:32, rather than making an absolute statement, highlights the need for repentance and faith in Christ for receiving God's mercy. Paul applies his line of thinking in 9:22-24 to "even us," (v. 24) to Jews and Gentiles who are called to faith together in Jesus. In essence, Paul saw God's destroying wrath as currently relevant to himself and other Christians, that they would more deeply appreciate receiving his mercy and seeing his glory. It was not just conjecture or a thought experiment.
Human Freedom and Universal Salvation Not at Odds–Hart also critiques arguments that use human freedom as a reason to defend hell as eternal suffering or eternal extinguishment. Indeed, DBH believes in a measure of freedom and that misdirected, rebellious creaturely freedom is what lands creatures in hell. But he goes on to state all sensible free people will come over to God's light and love; they will not choose to resist him forever. He finds the notion of someone, after suffering for quite some time, perpetually digging their heels in and not coming to healing, joy, and light in God to be a hard sell. It would display a total irrationality on the part of the damned, and total irrationality would be a loss of an aspect of human personhood. Therefore universal salvation is not at odds with human freedom.
Hart (and Parry joins him in this) end up proposing into a view of human freedom and divine sovereignty known as compatibilism when it comes to final judgment (DBH prefers the title "intellectualist" for his view of freedom on p. 172, but at the very least it ends up becoming compatibilism). The name derives from seeing God's absolute determination of all things and human freedom as compatible. In compatibilism, God so shapes circumstances, thoughts, and desires that human beings always end up choosing his predetermined will. In this case, all human beings will eventually choose to repent and be saved by the grace of Jesus, for God has decided he will save all humanity. Here is DBH at a summary moment:
Hence, again, should God providentially arrange the contingencies of every life, and do so unremittingly till all evil has vanished altogether–in this world and in the world to come, even if needs by way of purgation–guiding every soul to the only final end it can ever truly freely desire, this would be no trespass upon the sanctity of the autonomous will. It would be, rather, the act of bringing about the soul's only possibly true liberation, the full flowering of true freedom in a nature that, till that point, has only ever partly known what it is to be at liberty. Only the Truth can make you free (John. 8:32) (That All Shall Be Saved, p. 186).
Roger Olson gave a brief review of Hart's book here and took issue with this view of God's providence and human freedom, which stimulated me on these matters. I'm more familiar with seeing Calvinists argue for a compatibilist view of freedom in describing their understanding of God's election and predestination of those who will be saved and those who will be damned. A Christian universalist form of compatibilism is not centered on the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election, however, but on the eventual salvation of all humanity. What's ironic is that Hart denounces Calvinism in several places in his book, yet seems to end up with the same view of freedom as a Calvinist. God has predestined that all be saved, so eventually they will, no matter their initial resistances and rebellions. God will eventually wear down all human wills and resistances so that all will be saved.
Olson writes in his review, "But what of 'in the meantime?' What of all the evil and innocent suffering that goes on in the world now? I don’t think Hart gets God 'off the hook,' so to speak, simply by deferring the justice of God to some future and ultimate salvation of all." I agree. If God can set things up so that we freely choose his will, then why has there ever been sin in the first place, unless God desired it? As Olson highlights, why do people do horrible, terrible things today when God could shape their hearts and circumstances now so they would love him and follow him? What's the holdup of God so shaping things now that people would come to him now? Unless God wills in some sense that they do evil for a time? Why do people need to go through a purgative process of punishment to be restored, unless God desires it? Could DBH be falling into the same trap that Wesleyan/Arminians accuse Calvinists of falling into, just with a nicer end result? Compatibilism seems to make God the author and purveyor of evil and suffering.
Exegetical Problems–DBH's second meditation in his book That All Shall Be Saved (pp. 92-129) focuses on how he believes Scripture supports Christian universalism. Most of his Scriptures cited focus on God's desire to save everyone and to draw everyone to faith in Christ (John 3:16-17; 12:32; Rom. 11:32; 1 Tim. 2:3-4 2 Pet. 3:9), the sufficiency of Jesus' sacrifice and work to save all (1 Tim. 2:6; 4:10; Titus 2:11; 1 John 2:2; 4:14), and how creation itself–things in heaven and on earth–will be healed and reconciled by Jesus (Eph. 1:9-10; Col. 1:19-20). All proponents of the different views of hell can affirm these things, so it seems a bit distracting to list them as supportive of Hart's view. What's at issue is is hell eternal and irreversible (ECT and annihilationism), or temporary and remedial (Christian universalism)? And none of the aforementioned passages DBH cites convincingly make this case.
Hart mistakenly maintains that Paul says nothing specific about what hell will be, other than generic words like wrath and punishment. As mentioned above, he unconvincingly tries to explain away Romans 9:22-24 in its mention of destruction of objects of wrath. He also totally ignores or doesn't seem aware of 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10, which has already been posted in the section on Annihilationism and mentions the eternal destruction of the ungodly. He interprets 1 Cor. 3:10-15 as teaching the possibility of postmortem salvation. It describes people whose work survives the fires of Judgement Day (gold, silver, costly stones), while others have their work burned up (wood, hay, straw), though they themselves are saved in the end, but only as someone "escaping through the flames." DBH sees this as describing "those saved in and through their works, and those saved by way of the fiery destruction of their works" (That All Shall Be Saved, p. 105).
What makes this interpretation difficult is that the people described in this passage are people who already have Jesus as their foundation–so Paul seems only to be addressing people who are already Christians in verses 11-13. People who are not Christians or who have not converted do not seem to be in view–how could they build on the foundation of a Jesus if they are not Christians? Further, this passage is addressed to a church that is divided into factions, with the various groups each claiming a different church leader as the face of their faction (see 1:10-17). Paul in 3:10-15 seems to address the testing of the quality of the disciples people are making for Christ. Those whose disciples persist in faithfully following Jesus represent building with good material (gold, silver, costly stones), while those whose disciples don't last, forsake Jesus, or fall into unfaithfulness represent those who build with weak material (wood, hay, straw), whose material is "burned up" (Richard Hays' 1 Corinthians commentary in the Interpretation series supports this interpretation on pp. 55-56). This burning up of weak material could, in fact, be a picture of destruction/annihilation of backslidden or apostate disciples, which would comport well with annihilationism. Through his teaching, Paul encourages the Corinthian church to be united under diverse leaders whom God is using to promote growth and maturity in the church, and not to harm and unnecessarily divide the church with factionalism, which could turn some people away from Christ altogether (which would be building with poor material that would be burned up). Unnecessary factionalism and division can be a way that some leaders in the church are building poorly on the foundation of Christ.
Conclusion
While I could be wrong, I find annihilationism to be the most convincing synthesis of all Scripture says about final judgment. It's most challenging passage to me is Rev. 20:10, where it seems to get a bit strained, but I do take comfort in knowing that Revelation is the most symbolic of all the NT books, and perhaps something symbolic or metaphorical could be intended there. ECT seems to struggle with many passages listed in the annihilation section that imply destruction (and there are a lot of them), the argument from Jesus' substitutionary atonement, and the argument of what seems to us to be an unfair, disproportionate punishment of eternal suffering (though God can certainly do what he wants as God). Christian universalism also struggles with the destruction passages. I can't find any Scriptures that convincingly indicate hell only destroys the flesh or the sinful part of the damned while preserving part of them that will be redeemed. If "body and soul" are destroyed by God in hell (Mat. 10:28), is there anything left of a human person to be redeemed? There are no explicit statements about a hope for salvation after final judgment in Scripture. There are, however, passages that indicate that hell is irrevocable. People bang on the door to try to get out of hell, but once the door is shut, it's immutably shut (Luke 13:22-30). There are some hard questions about human freedom and divine sovereignty and theodicy that I see in this view. It creates other problems as it tries to soften God's judgment. While proponents of the view are certainly sisters and brothers in Christ and this is a secondary issue, Christian universalism seems to rely more on creative reasoning from theological principles over a fully-orbed exegesis of the Bible.
You don't have to take my word for it. You can read the authors I mentioned at the beginning (and others) and wrestle through these things yourself if you're interested.
If I'm right, then hell will be the destination for all who have resisted and rejected Jesus after Christ returns and renders final judgment. It is exclusion from God and his people. Those who go to hell receive painful punishment, for whatever duration and with whatever intensity their sins deserve. After this, they will be destroyed, both body and soul, for eternity. This judgment is irrevocable. God doesn't want anyone to experience this fate, but for all to be saved by repenting of their sins and trusting in Jesus for their life and salvation, and making Jesus Lord of their lives. Yet he will bring justice, wrath, and destruction to those who don't want to be restored by his love. We can either be healed by grace for eternal joy or scorched by fire into eternal nothingness.
Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. But whatever hell is, I don't want to find out.
