Nice effort, more polite than I would have done it. Not that I would have exactly the same outcome.
‘doomed to an eternity of evil and suffering. It’s that simple.’
Yes I know that’s a typical ‘Christian’ thing but it doesn’t fit the biblical narrative when we include some significant details like the second resurrection which is part of the salvation plan, and the second death, which explicitly trumps the eternal torment idea.
What is hell? The eternal suffering kind of hell is a figment of imagination and totally unbiblical! Only the righteous get eternal life, not the unrepentant sinner. No one has an immortal soul, that bs too.
Can you show me Biblically that hell exists? I grew up to fear hell, but the more I study the more I believe that the afterlife is not how the broader church defines it.
I don't speak greek or hebrew, but when I investigated translations I discovered a couple things:
1) Hell is usually—if not always— a mistranslation of "the grave," which meant death of the current body, but was not a reference to anything after death.
2) Likewise—and I'm much more sure of this one—"eternal" is a mistranslation of "for an age". (An age can be anywhere from one year to more than a thousand years, but is definitely not forever.)
3) I believe that we make assumptions about words like "Life" and "Salvation." I think we generally assume that these are in contrast to hell, but I think that in most cases this isn't supported by the text itself.
The more I look into it the more that hell seems to be an inferred construct that been reinforced for hundreds of years through confirmation bias.
Open to hearing about where you all define hell based on Biblical passages.
Thanks for your comment, Greg. Lots of people struggle with the existence of hell. I don't have time to write a full defense of hell's existence. Maybe I'll get to that some day. Google is your friend here. You might start here:
Any good concordance can point out the places where hell is mentioned and you can go read each of them in the English and Greek/Hebrew. One thing I would caution you about, however, is that many times hell is referred to as something like gehenna or Hades, and you have to understand the cultural context of what that meant to Jews and Greeks to understand how it should be translated.
Further, while I respect your question, I'm always a bit skeptical when people tell me that the Bible is "mistranslated," particularly when they self-admit to not knowing Greek or Hebrew. The Bible is the most studied book in the world, by far. It has been gone over, word by word, verse by verse, by scholars for thousands of years. There is literally no part of it that hasn't been examined with a microscope and any vague passages argued about for centuries. While that doesn't mean that the scholars agree on everything, to suggest that those scholars just got it wrong is a bit presumptuous, I think. If you want to make a scholarly argument based on the Greek or Hebrew, that would be interesting, but that's a tough hill to climb.
"Mistranslation" is not the best word for what I was getting at. What I am sure of is that we bring the weight of our current understanding to the text.
For instance: in our modern understanding, "atonement" means to take an action or accept a punishment to make up for a failure. Ex: "To atone for your sins". Compare this to the original Biblical meaning which simply meant "At one," or to be in harmony with, which does not bring the weight of action or punishment.
This is according to scholars, and it's not very disputed. Despite that fact, we continue to labor under our current understanding of "atone" with all it's baggage.
This is my concern with words like geenna. That we take the context of a modern understanding of one part of the Bible and apply it to others. Because this is something that is done, and it is documented by scholars. To dismiss it simply because I am not a scholar myself, but have read others can be applied to your understanding as much as it can to mine.
Yes, scholars have gone over the Bible. And there have been many disagreements. What has become the Christian consensus as to the interpretation is not necessarily correct, and have many dissections among scholars today and throughout history.
Anyways, thank you again for the response and link! I will take a deeper look as I study further.
Which scholars are these that you listening to? Do they have names? Because they seem like the progressive kind that are leading folks down the broad road to destruction. I assure you that the atonement for sin does involve a punishment/payment. The price can either be paid by you or Christ. Just a tip: anybody who says that they have come upon a new or reinterpreted version of Christianity is just leading you astray. Such “scholars” are mentioned in 2 Tim 4:3. Watch out!
Excuse me my friend, I mean this out of kindness. I came with an honest question, and what I feel now is lectured. I suppose that is your right since this is your feed, but I did hope for better.
I will make two points and then let it rest.
1: I have shown that atonement is not our modern interpretation, and you have no rebuttal except to say "I assure you my friend." Are you a scholar who speaks greek? Have you carefully examined the scholarly texts on this? It appears to me that I have done more research than you have.
Matt 7: Jesus said something along the lines of "Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye but fail to notice the beam in your own eye?" He also said, "the way that you judge others will be the way that you will be judged."
2: Regarding the quote from Tim 2:4, it also says to "encourage—with great patience and careful instruction".
I'm uncomfortable with all of these quotes because neither you or I have properly studied the surrounding context, but it's my attempt to meet you where you are.
I will leave your blog alone from here on out. Thanks for the conversation, and I wish you the very best!
I apologize that I made you felt lectured. That was not my intent. I can appreciate the challenge of embracing theology deeply, and I applaud your desire for engaging in that process. I would simply leave you with a verse and a statement to ponder:
In Galations 1:8, Paul says, "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed."
There is a reason that classical interpretations of the Bible have survived and been the dominant theology of Christianity worldwide.
Good luck in your search. I hope I didn't discourage you.
I think you did a very good job explaining the attributes of God that, when taken in combination, result in eternal damnation. But I think you need to be clearer on the part about "accepting the free gift." You didn't focus on repentance at all. Accepting the free gift doesn't mean that you mechanically repeat words like "I recognize I am a sinner and that Jesus died for me. I accept His sacrifice on my behalf for forgiveness of my sins."
There has to be a true conversion. I feel the same way about my sins as God does. I recognize that His ways are best. I give up control of my life to Him. I am willing to die to self. Salvation is not a transaction between a person and God - I do this, you do that. It is like a marriage is supposed to be (and even God uses that analogy) in that we give ourselves over completely to the other person, and no longer belong to ourselves.
I guess you kind of touched on this when you said, "The gift is simple to receive, free, and available to everybody. Nobody who is sincerely interested in receiving it is turned down." The part I added fleshes out the "sincerely interested in receiving it." If a person is just looking for a ticket out of hell instead of longing for a relationship with his Creator, I don't think he is sincere.
Yes, I agree that sincerity is required. But formal knowledge about dying to self and other things isn’t required up front. Yes, those are important later, but those come with spiritual maturity. Many people come to salvation with nothing more than a hunger to be saved, an acceptance that they are inadequate, and a recognition that Jesus is The Way. That’s as true in the gospel accounts as it is today. Does discipleship demand more? Ultimately, yes.
God doesn’t send anyone to hell. He gives all of us the free will to make our own decision; choose Him and gain eternal life or choose satan and get eternal damnation.
God IS all-loving but Hd is also holy and just. Hd gave people the greatest gift — life! And He made them in His image, and gave them the powerful blessing of choice — a total free will, the freedom and power to choose who they would serve, God or “self”. Hell is God’s holding zone that was designed for Satan and his fallen armies, but sadly, if people refuse to acknowledge God, eternal life with Him in Heaven is not possible. Jesus said, I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through me.
This is a difficult one for me. I was raised conditionalist, and I can't unsee what I have seen, although I can see both sides of the argument (but neither "wins" for me). It's what I get for having a mother who was involved with a cult, one that made "The Kingdom of the Cults" in its day. If everything they taught had proved wrong it would have been easier, but it turns out they were pretty good at pinpointing weaknesses and errors of evangelicalism (and they knew their Greek). So it's been a huge learning exercise across a lifetime to sort through it all, but one that involved reading the entire Bible numerous times.
I can see how many words it takes to explain this particular teaching, and I don't see here the words "immortal soul" that lie behind it. That doesn't usually come up, though. I'm aware that it has an early origin (and so does gnosticism).
I don't have a fixed position in this matter. I'm willing to see how it turns out. And I'm blessed with belonging to a church where I can mention the issue without being condemned.
Please note that I am not a part of the movement or whatever it is represented by that website, and I am not advocating for it. I have other priorities specifically mentioned in scripture.
There is also Zondervan's book, _Four Views of Hell_, (Second Edition) that also includes universalism and purgatory. I've read that one -- interesting book, conservative publisher.
Hey, I wanted to thank you for recommending the book, Four Views of Hell. I'm about halfway through, and it's certainly an interesting read. In the end, I don't think it's changing my mind (I still find annihilationism to be weak sauce, fraught with issues), but I'm far more educated about the argument and the controversy. So, thanks for recommending. Much appreciated. Please keep recommending things in the future.
Great, that's what I had hoped! I think there is a comment somewhere near the end of that book suggesting that the book might not change most people' views.
I don't use ECT in my own outreach, but I do recognize it as a possibility, and I can talk about it if it comes up. As such, it joins my list of "not sure about" things. But then "we know in part", so I think that's OK.
One thing I've learned recently is that the Pharisees had their version of ECT. I don't remember if that was in the book or not, but I was able to locate independent confirmation. It's not exactly support for the idea of ECT, but I did find it interesting.
I think the debate between ECT and annihilationism (I'll ignore Universality and Purgatory because I think those are on even thinner ice than annihilationism) is a secondary issue. In the spirit of "major on the majors and minor on the minors," if we can all agree that heaven is good and hell is most definitely bad, even if it ultimately results in annihilation, then we (the larger Christian community) can move forward. I would note that Stackhouse, the guy arguing the case for annihilationism, seems to have a position that splits the baby. He does NOT argue for immediate annihilation after judgement. Rather, he seems to think one goes to hell for a limited time, proportional to ones sins (whatever that might mean, which is one of my objections, because I don't think we have any true understanding of the seriousness or depth of sin), where there is conscious torment, and then annihilation. It might more rightly be called "limited conscious torment" (LCT vs. ECT). I assume that there are other annihilationists that think that being thrown into the lake of fire immediately results in a puff of smoke and annihilation. Stackhouse is able to walk the line a bit with some of the verses which more clearly say that torment will happen but are perhaps ambiguous about whether that torment goes on forever. That actually brings up the point of whether we even understand a notion of time in heaven or hell. Does time exist? Anyway, thanks for the recommendation.
"Time" is an important consideration. It doesn't fit neatly with "eternity", but we have passages like Is. 66:22-23 “For just as the new heavens and the new earth, Which I make, will endure before Me, declares the LORD, So will your descendants and your name endure. And it shall be from new moon to new moon And from Sabbath to Sabbath, All mankind will come to bow down before Me, says the LORD."
Time (here, markers of the month and week) could be around for a long while. And if that's not enough of a head scratcher, there are the immortal worms in v. 24, munching on burning corpses. I'm not going to try to figure that one out. I do note that the reference in Mark 9:48 omits the corpse part, and therefore is what gets quoted.
I don't know what else there is to do but focus upon the work at hand.
OK, thanks. I'll read it later. It's a LONG web page with lots of detail. I did read the first section and skimmed a couple more, so I can comment on that. Overall, it strikes me that somebody felt a need to try to prove an esoteric doctrinal point that didn't need to be proved. I will say that I believe God is the only inherently eternal being, by right of his sovereignty. He simply exists (hence "I AM"). Everything else is created and exists at his pleasure. I believe he could completely snuff out a person's soul if he wanted to, being omnipotent and sovereign. Does he do that to people who go to hell? I think your reference to 1 Thess 2:9, suggests that is not so: "9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from[b] the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might..." So, the question is, what does "eternal destruction" mean? Is that being snuffed out of existence, or is that an eternal state of torment? I think the second half of the verse tells us: "away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might..." So, in hell, you're "away." That suggests that the "destruction" in the first half of the verse is not a final end-state of non-existence, but something more akin to a "calamity," or a really bad state of existence. But again, I sort of throw up my hands at these esoteric arguments. Theologians seem to have too much time on their hands and love to argue about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Does any of this matter to the average person, trying to understand Christianity or make a decision? I don't think so. The big takeaway from the Bible is that heaven is a really good place to end up, and you definitely don't want to land in the other place. So, choose heaven, by way of God's free gift.
That web page is shorter than the book, with its four authors and three rebuttals to each essay. But yes, there is more detail on the web page than should strictly be necessary. I found the key verses early in the list, and skimmed through the rest. Some familiar names are also mentioned at the bottom of the page. Some are cited regularly in my commentaries.
The matter is not as esoteric as you might think. I was talking about this subject with one of the Bible teachers at my church, and she responded in a way similar to what I have heard from pastors (elsewhere) as well, asking what, then, did Jesus come to save us from? I find it peculiar that protection from hell would come to mind first as a purpose, rather than something like Revelation 21:3-4.
Apart from the conditionalist apologists, it seems like conditionalists tend to stay pretty quiet, or else it can easily jump from conditional immortality to conditional friendship. And I didn't find the names of any of the owners of the website on the website.
My day has been fragmented, making it kind o hard to think, and I'm not clear about where to go from here. I was trying to clarify, because you asked, but it doesn't seem to be working. It sounds like this is new to you, and the ECT (eternal conscious torment)/immortal soul tradition is very strong. That can make a different tradition difficult to comprehend.
All I can really say in a short space is that the issue is more than esoteric, but that there are other issues within the church that are more important. Like getting the gospel straight.
I'm Protestant, but all Protestant accounts of "how do you get to Heaven?" suffer from the same contradiction:
A: I am not holy. My sins are "paid for" (I hate that language) by Christ, but as a person ("oh wretched man that I am") I still chose sin far too often.
B: God can not be in the presence of sin.
C: So how can God ever be in my presence?
The Orthodox solution to this is the nous. The Catholic solution is Purgatory. Protestants are all-in for sola fide and refuse to accept either of these, but the problem of "how to get rid of man's sinful nature at the point of death" still exists. The Protestant answer boils down to some form of "God snaps his fingers and you're magically made holy at the moment you die", which, while preserving a God's grace alone sacramental framework, is deeply unsatisfying to the vast majority of people. Because if it's that easy to "make someone holy" and it's done entirely by God's choice, the universalist question "why doesn't God just make everyone holy?" is entirely reasonable. All of John Calvin's many labors don't solve this problem.
This is where the Orthodox concept of the nous can be really helpful: your sins are forgiven, but your time on Earth is to learn to gradually conform your will to God's. The idea is directly out of the Lord's Prayer. Protestants can think of this as "learning to listen to the Holy Spirit" if they want to, but honestly, I prefer the direct Orthodox concept. The Catholic doctrine of purgatory also can help, but most Protestants will REALLY rebel against that one. In truth though, both doctrines are ancient and were, in some form, the common teaching of Christ's Church for 1500 years.
In terms of Hell, the philosopher / theologian Peter Kreeft summed it up well: "In the end, everyone gets what he most loves, either God or something else." The question is entirely "what do you most love"?
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. Yes, there is a lot more that we could unpack here. This is the way I think about it...
1. We, in our own selves, in a physical sense, are not holy. We never are in this life, before or after conversion. We don't lose our sin nature in these earthly bodies. We're holy only in the sense that God declares us so because of Christ's sacrifice. IMO, this is similar to how God credits Abraham's faith as righteousness long before Christ is born. We're holy because God's sense of justice has been satisfied and he credits Christ's righteousness to us. In other words, because God said so. Jesus makes clear that the trinity will actually live in us here on earth after conversion, if we're obedient. So, even after conversion, we still sin, but every sin has already been dealt with on the cross, so we're still holy, per God's declaration. As Paul makes clear, that's the "freedom in Christ" that we now have.
2. When we die, it's clear that we're given new bodies in heaven. From what I can tell, reading between the lines, those bodies don't have the same sin nature that our earthly bodies do and at that point we don't have a desire to sin. How does that happen? I have no idea. The Bible doesn't say.
3. And I don't think that's a problem that the Bible is silent on some of these topics. We don't need to explain it. We just need to trust that God does it somehow. Specifically, I don't believe that correct doctrine has to explain every last detail in order to be correct. Some things God has not chosen to reveal. Sometimes God reveals the WHAT, but not the HOW (such and such happens; how does it happen? we're not give that answer).
4. I think we open ourselves up to bad doctrine when we try to explain everything in detail when God hasn't given us the detail. Then we start making up concepts like purgatory to fill in holes that we think we see. And then we've got a whole new can of worms and questions ("Who goes to purgatory?" "How long does one spend in purgatory?" "What are all the rules for purgatory?" Etc.). Then, we're getting way ahead of anything God said and I think we do ourselves a huge disservice. Instead, we should just say, "The Bible is silent on that point and we don't really know the answer."
5. As for God being "with" us or in our presence, once we've been declared holy by him, there is no issue. We are, in fact, holy, because he said so. Again, Jesus makes it clear that the trinity actually resides inside obedient believers. How does that happen? I don't know.
6. Before conversion, God is present, but not as intimately close as he could be. He doesn't interact directly with almost anybody except Moses and Isaiah. Most of the time it's the "angel of the Lord" (a pre-incarnate Jesus?), prophetic dreams, or something like Moses's burning bush. The closest people get are Moses after the Exodus (Exodus 33:11, where is says that God would talk to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to a friend) and Isaiah (Isaiah 6:5, where Isaiah talks about being a man of unclean lips who has "seen the King, the Lord of hosts (ESV)). But those two people fall into that same category as Abraham, where their faith is credited as righteousness, I think. When people report being visited by God in dreams today (e.g., in places like Iran where Muslims are dreaming very interesting dreams), often it's Jesus speaking.
7. So, what distance does God need to keep from sin, exactly? What are the rules? I don't know. Another good question that can't be answered is how God putting sin in hell makes it somehow away from him. We're temporal, corporeal beings living in a 4D universe. If God told us, we probably couldn't understand the answer.
In the end, I think it's best to focus on exactly what you said in your last couple sentences. The Bible makes it crystal clear that if you love God and you accept Jesus as your savior, you'll spent eternity with God. So, choose that. Everything else is at best a crap shoot.
Your #1 is essentially exactly what I said: "God snaps his fingers and magically makes us holy". If you're OK with that though, I won't argue. You can have Calvin and Wesley; give me Blaise Pascal and Thomas Merton. Thanks for the reply though. Too many Christians are unwilling to seriously consider this stuff.
BTW: I assigned your "Whoever wins, Christ is King" post to my civics students for homework the Monday before the election. Thanks for that.
Now someday, you and I have to talk about spiritual warfare. :-)
Thanks for all your great comments. I really appreciate your perspective. Yea, I think at some point there are things that either our minds can't comprehend or God simply doesn't want to reveal to us. Rather than make up stuff to try to fill in the blanks, I think we're better off just saying, "We don't know how it works, but God says it's true, so we trust him." To be clear, I'm not anti-science or logic. I'm an engineer, so I love science and logic. It would be wonderfully satisfying for me if we had all the answers. But I think science and logic have their limits when trying to analyze God. That's not to say that God is illogical, but rather to say that we only know what God wants to reveal about himself and some things may be outside our understanding completely, at least here in this creation. A simple example is the concept of the trinity. From a science and logic perspective, it doesn't compute. It seems contradictory. And yet, the Bible is pretty clear that God is both three and one. Maybe when we get to heaven God will reveal how that works, or maybe when we're in heaven it'll just be obvious because heaven is somehow different than Earth is now.
I’m sure glad He tells us everything: “my ways are higher than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thoughts”.
I take this as a reminder to stop playing God and trying to understand that which He did not explain and just have faith that, God said, so I trust what I do not understand!
Exactly David, hell is a place of constant suffering and no hope. Many NDE'ers have stated this, they say there are people there just screaming in torment constantly and the demons have free reign to torture you. There is no hope because God is not present, it is not a sinners party. People really need to take this serious.
Yea not into that purgatory thing. Catholics always cite Macabees as "proof" which I think Protestant Bibles don't include. Good article. We do choose hell or not. There is a current thinking among many that everyone goes to heaven and you just have to be "nice" etc. Hell is not a popular concept. Used to get bullied on fb about this....and some were Christians! They think Jesus died for our sins so automatic free pass to heaven for ALL. Doesn't help when the Pope says he likes to envision hell as empty!!!! He should be trying to save souls not promoting crazy stuff and the environment etc. Well I wrote some about his nonsense....
“ 13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy[a] that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”
Just add, something like purgatory, which Orthodox believe in as well, just in different form, would actually compliment this article, because nothing sinful and not pure can enter heaven. It is believed, by some in the early church as well, that a soul goes through purification as we are still full of sin when we die, but how that purification goes or happens is another discussion.
Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad it resonated with you. Yep, you're right. Orthodox also have a purgatory-like concept, too. And as you say, the idea of purgatory is not diametrically opposed to orthodox (lowercase "O") thinking on this issue. But I think the Bible is pretty clear that (1) nothing more is strictly required of us (Ephesians 2:9, not by works so that none can boast), and (2) our bringing our lives into alignment with Jesus through perfect obedience (sanctification) is a process, not an event. When we accept the free gift, God says, "You are holy." How that happens, I have no idea, because nobody feels very holy the moment after choosing Jesus. We often feel MORE yucky because we're suddenly aware of so much more of our sin. And obedience is hard and we all struggle with it. So, yes, there is definitely a process that ALSO happens.
Well done. Talked about hell here: https://doctor-is-in.org/christianity/death-afterlife/death-of-hell/ and https://doctor-is-in.org/christianity/temperature-of-hell/. Same conclusion. CS Lewis wrote: In the end, we will say to God, ‘Thy will be done’ or God will say to us, ‘thy will be done.’
Those are both well written. Thanks for posting!
thank you, this encouraged me 🥰
Nice effort, more polite than I would have done it. Not that I would have exactly the same outcome.
‘doomed to an eternity of evil and suffering. It’s that simple.’
Yes I know that’s a typical ‘Christian’ thing but it doesn’t fit the biblical narrative when we include some significant details like the second resurrection which is part of the salvation plan, and the second death, which explicitly trumps the eternal torment idea.
What is hell? The eternal suffering kind of hell is a figment of imagination and totally unbiblical! Only the righteous get eternal life, not the unrepentant sinner. No one has an immortal soul, that bs too.
Can you show me Biblically that hell exists? I grew up to fear hell, but the more I study the more I believe that the afterlife is not how the broader church defines it.
I don't speak greek or hebrew, but when I investigated translations I discovered a couple things:
1) Hell is usually—if not always— a mistranslation of "the grave," which meant death of the current body, but was not a reference to anything after death.
2) Likewise—and I'm much more sure of this one—"eternal" is a mistranslation of "for an age". (An age can be anywhere from one year to more than a thousand years, but is definitely not forever.)
3) I believe that we make assumptions about words like "Life" and "Salvation." I think we generally assume that these are in contrast to hell, but I think that in most cases this isn't supported by the text itself.
The more I look into it the more that hell seems to be an inferred construct that been reinforced for hundreds of years through confirmation bias.
Open to hearing about where you all define hell based on Biblical passages.
Thanks for your comment, Greg. Lots of people struggle with the existence of hell. I don't have time to write a full defense of hell's existence. Maybe I'll get to that some day. Google is your friend here. You might start here:
https://biblehub.com/greek/1067.htm
Any good concordance can point out the places where hell is mentioned and you can go read each of them in the English and Greek/Hebrew. One thing I would caution you about, however, is that many times hell is referred to as something like gehenna or Hades, and you have to understand the cultural context of what that meant to Jews and Greeks to understand how it should be translated.
Further, while I respect your question, I'm always a bit skeptical when people tell me that the Bible is "mistranslated," particularly when they self-admit to not knowing Greek or Hebrew. The Bible is the most studied book in the world, by far. It has been gone over, word by word, verse by verse, by scholars for thousands of years. There is literally no part of it that hasn't been examined with a microscope and any vague passages argued about for centuries. While that doesn't mean that the scholars agree on everything, to suggest that those scholars just got it wrong is a bit presumptuous, I think. If you want to make a scholarly argument based on the Greek or Hebrew, that would be interesting, but that's a tough hill to climb.
Good luck in your search.
Thanks for the response, and for the link!
"Mistranslation" is not the best word for what I was getting at. What I am sure of is that we bring the weight of our current understanding to the text.
For instance: in our modern understanding, "atonement" means to take an action or accept a punishment to make up for a failure. Ex: "To atone for your sins". Compare this to the original Biblical meaning which simply meant "At one," or to be in harmony with, which does not bring the weight of action or punishment.
This is according to scholars, and it's not very disputed. Despite that fact, we continue to labor under our current understanding of "atone" with all it's baggage.
This is my concern with words like geenna. That we take the context of a modern understanding of one part of the Bible and apply it to others. Because this is something that is done, and it is documented by scholars. To dismiss it simply because I am not a scholar myself, but have read others can be applied to your understanding as much as it can to mine.
Yes, scholars have gone over the Bible. And there have been many disagreements. What has become the Christian consensus as to the interpretation is not necessarily correct, and have many dissections among scholars today and throughout history.
Anyways, thank you again for the response and link! I will take a deeper look as I study further.
Which scholars are these that you listening to? Do they have names? Because they seem like the progressive kind that are leading folks down the broad road to destruction. I assure you that the atonement for sin does involve a punishment/payment. The price can either be paid by you or Christ. Just a tip: anybody who says that they have come upon a new or reinterpreted version of Christianity is just leading you astray. Such “scholars” are mentioned in 2 Tim 4:3. Watch out!
Excuse me my friend, I mean this out of kindness. I came with an honest question, and what I feel now is lectured. I suppose that is your right since this is your feed, but I did hope for better.
I will make two points and then let it rest.
1: I have shown that atonement is not our modern interpretation, and you have no rebuttal except to say "I assure you my friend." Are you a scholar who speaks greek? Have you carefully examined the scholarly texts on this? It appears to me that I have done more research than you have.
Matt 7: Jesus said something along the lines of "Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye but fail to notice the beam in your own eye?" He also said, "the way that you judge others will be the way that you will be judged."
2: Regarding the quote from Tim 2:4, it also says to "encourage—with great patience and careful instruction".
I'm uncomfortable with all of these quotes because neither you or I have properly studied the surrounding context, but it's my attempt to meet you where you are.
I will leave your blog alone from here on out. Thanks for the conversation, and I wish you the very best!
I apologize that I made you felt lectured. That was not my intent. I can appreciate the challenge of embracing theology deeply, and I applaud your desire for engaging in that process. I would simply leave you with a verse and a statement to ponder:
In Galations 1:8, Paul says, "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed."
There is a reason that classical interpretations of the Bible have survived and been the dominant theology of Christianity worldwide.
Good luck in your search. I hope I didn't discourage you.
I think you did a very good job explaining the attributes of God that, when taken in combination, result in eternal damnation. But I think you need to be clearer on the part about "accepting the free gift." You didn't focus on repentance at all. Accepting the free gift doesn't mean that you mechanically repeat words like "I recognize I am a sinner and that Jesus died for me. I accept His sacrifice on my behalf for forgiveness of my sins."
There has to be a true conversion. I feel the same way about my sins as God does. I recognize that His ways are best. I give up control of my life to Him. I am willing to die to self. Salvation is not a transaction between a person and God - I do this, you do that. It is like a marriage is supposed to be (and even God uses that analogy) in that we give ourselves over completely to the other person, and no longer belong to ourselves.
I guess you kind of touched on this when you said, "The gift is simple to receive, free, and available to everybody. Nobody who is sincerely interested in receiving it is turned down." The part I added fleshes out the "sincerely interested in receiving it." If a person is just looking for a ticket out of hell instead of longing for a relationship with his Creator, I don't think he is sincere.
Yes, I agree that sincerity is required. But formal knowledge about dying to self and other things isn’t required up front. Yes, those are important later, but those come with spiritual maturity. Many people come to salvation with nothing more than a hunger to be saved, an acceptance that they are inadequate, and a recognition that Jesus is The Way. That’s as true in the gospel accounts as it is today. Does discipleship demand more? Ultimately, yes.
God doesn’t send anyone to hell. He gives all of us the free will to make our own decision; choose Him and gain eternal life or choose satan and get eternal damnation.
God IS all-loving but Hd is also holy and just. Hd gave people the greatest gift — life! And He made them in His image, and gave them the powerful blessing of choice — a total free will, the freedom and power to choose who they would serve, God or “self”. Hell is God’s holding zone that was designed for Satan and his fallen armies, but sadly, if people refuse to acknowledge God, eternal life with Him in Heaven is not possible. Jesus said, I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through me.
Scripture references:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua%2024:15&version=KJV
https://www.openbible.info/topics/hell_is_created_for_the_devil_and_his_angels
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%2014:6&version=NIV
Thanks for your comment. This is a great way to put it. God gave us
"the freedom and power to choose who they would serve, God or self"
This is a difficult one for me. I was raised conditionalist, and I can't unsee what I have seen, although I can see both sides of the argument (but neither "wins" for me). It's what I get for having a mother who was involved with a cult, one that made "The Kingdom of the Cults" in its day. If everything they taught had proved wrong it would have been easier, but it turns out they were pretty good at pinpointing weaknesses and errors of evangelicalism (and they knew their Greek). So it's been a huge learning exercise across a lifetime to sort through it all, but one that involved reading the entire Bible numerous times.
I can see how many words it takes to explain this particular teaching, and I don't see here the words "immortal soul" that lie behind it. That doesn't usually come up, though. I'm aware that it has an early origin (and so does gnosticism).
I don't have a fixed position in this matter. I'm willing to see how it turns out. And I'm blessed with belonging to a church where I can mention the issue without being condemned.
I'm not sure I understand your comment. Can you elaborate a bit?
Would this help? It's well written, discussing conditionalism vs. ECT.
https://rethinkinghell.com/explore/
Please note that I am not a part of the movement or whatever it is represented by that website, and I am not advocating for it. I have other priorities specifically mentioned in scripture.
There is also Zondervan's book, _Four Views of Hell_, (Second Edition) that also includes universalism and purgatory. I've read that one -- interesting book, conservative publisher.
Hey, I wanted to thank you for recommending the book, Four Views of Hell. I'm about halfway through, and it's certainly an interesting read. In the end, I don't think it's changing my mind (I still find annihilationism to be weak sauce, fraught with issues), but I'm far more educated about the argument and the controversy. So, thanks for recommending. Much appreciated. Please keep recommending things in the future.
Great, that's what I had hoped! I think there is a comment somewhere near the end of that book suggesting that the book might not change most people' views.
I don't use ECT in my own outreach, but I do recognize it as a possibility, and I can talk about it if it comes up. As such, it joins my list of "not sure about" things. But then "we know in part", so I think that's OK.
One thing I've learned recently is that the Pharisees had their version of ECT. I don't remember if that was in the book or not, but I was able to locate independent confirmation. It's not exactly support for the idea of ECT, but I did find it interesting.
I think the debate between ECT and annihilationism (I'll ignore Universality and Purgatory because I think those are on even thinner ice than annihilationism) is a secondary issue. In the spirit of "major on the majors and minor on the minors," if we can all agree that heaven is good and hell is most definitely bad, even if it ultimately results in annihilation, then we (the larger Christian community) can move forward. I would note that Stackhouse, the guy arguing the case for annihilationism, seems to have a position that splits the baby. He does NOT argue for immediate annihilation after judgement. Rather, he seems to think one goes to hell for a limited time, proportional to ones sins (whatever that might mean, which is one of my objections, because I don't think we have any true understanding of the seriousness or depth of sin), where there is conscious torment, and then annihilation. It might more rightly be called "limited conscious torment" (LCT vs. ECT). I assume that there are other annihilationists that think that being thrown into the lake of fire immediately results in a puff of smoke and annihilation. Stackhouse is able to walk the line a bit with some of the verses which more clearly say that torment will happen but are perhaps ambiguous about whether that torment goes on forever. That actually brings up the point of whether we even understand a notion of time in heaven or hell. Does time exist? Anyway, thanks for the recommendation.
"Time" is an important consideration. It doesn't fit neatly with "eternity", but we have passages like Is. 66:22-23 “For just as the new heavens and the new earth, Which I make, will endure before Me, declares the LORD, So will your descendants and your name endure. And it shall be from new moon to new moon And from Sabbath to Sabbath, All mankind will come to bow down before Me, says the LORD."
Time (here, markers of the month and week) could be around for a long while. And if that's not enough of a head scratcher, there are the immortal worms in v. 24, munching on burning corpses. I'm not going to try to figure that one out. I do note that the reference in Mark 9:48 omits the corpse part, and therefore is what gets quoted.
I don't know what else there is to do but focus upon the work at hand.
OK, thanks. I'll read it later. It's a LONG web page with lots of detail. I did read the first section and skimmed a couple more, so I can comment on that. Overall, it strikes me that somebody felt a need to try to prove an esoteric doctrinal point that didn't need to be proved. I will say that I believe God is the only inherently eternal being, by right of his sovereignty. He simply exists (hence "I AM"). Everything else is created and exists at his pleasure. I believe he could completely snuff out a person's soul if he wanted to, being omnipotent and sovereign. Does he do that to people who go to hell? I think your reference to 1 Thess 2:9, suggests that is not so: "9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from[b] the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might..." So, the question is, what does "eternal destruction" mean? Is that being snuffed out of existence, or is that an eternal state of torment? I think the second half of the verse tells us: "away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might..." So, in hell, you're "away." That suggests that the "destruction" in the first half of the verse is not a final end-state of non-existence, but something more akin to a "calamity," or a really bad state of existence. But again, I sort of throw up my hands at these esoteric arguments. Theologians seem to have too much time on their hands and love to argue about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Does any of this matter to the average person, trying to understand Christianity or make a decision? I don't think so. The big takeaway from the Bible is that heaven is a really good place to end up, and you definitely don't want to land in the other place. So, choose heaven, by way of God's free gift.
That web page is shorter than the book, with its four authors and three rebuttals to each essay. But yes, there is more detail on the web page than should strictly be necessary. I found the key verses early in the list, and skimmed through the rest. Some familiar names are also mentioned at the bottom of the page. Some are cited regularly in my commentaries.
The matter is not as esoteric as you might think. I was talking about this subject with one of the Bible teachers at my church, and she responded in a way similar to what I have heard from pastors (elsewhere) as well, asking what, then, did Jesus come to save us from? I find it peculiar that protection from hell would come to mind first as a purpose, rather than something like Revelation 21:3-4.
Apart from the conditionalist apologists, it seems like conditionalists tend to stay pretty quiet, or else it can easily jump from conditional immortality to conditional friendship. And I didn't find the names of any of the owners of the website on the website.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say.
My day has been fragmented, making it kind o hard to think, and I'm not clear about where to go from here. I was trying to clarify, because you asked, but it doesn't seem to be working. It sounds like this is new to you, and the ECT (eternal conscious torment)/immortal soul tradition is very strong. That can make a different tradition difficult to comprehend.
All I can really say in a short space is that the issue is more than esoteric, but that there are other issues within the church that are more important. Like getting the gospel straight.
I think you missed an opportunity here, David.
I'm Protestant, but all Protestant accounts of "how do you get to Heaven?" suffer from the same contradiction:
A: I am not holy. My sins are "paid for" (I hate that language) by Christ, but as a person ("oh wretched man that I am") I still chose sin far too often.
B: God can not be in the presence of sin.
C: So how can God ever be in my presence?
The Orthodox solution to this is the nous. The Catholic solution is Purgatory. Protestants are all-in for sola fide and refuse to accept either of these, but the problem of "how to get rid of man's sinful nature at the point of death" still exists. The Protestant answer boils down to some form of "God snaps his fingers and you're magically made holy at the moment you die", which, while preserving a God's grace alone sacramental framework, is deeply unsatisfying to the vast majority of people. Because if it's that easy to "make someone holy" and it's done entirely by God's choice, the universalist question "why doesn't God just make everyone holy?" is entirely reasonable. All of John Calvin's many labors don't solve this problem.
This is where the Orthodox concept of the nous can be really helpful: your sins are forgiven, but your time on Earth is to learn to gradually conform your will to God's. The idea is directly out of the Lord's Prayer. Protestants can think of this as "learning to listen to the Holy Spirit" if they want to, but honestly, I prefer the direct Orthodox concept. The Catholic doctrine of purgatory also can help, but most Protestants will REALLY rebel against that one. In truth though, both doctrines are ancient and were, in some form, the common teaching of Christ's Church for 1500 years.
In terms of Hell, the philosopher / theologian Peter Kreeft summed it up well: "In the end, everyone gets what he most loves, either God or something else." The question is entirely "what do you most love"?
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. Yes, there is a lot more that we could unpack here. This is the way I think about it...
1. We, in our own selves, in a physical sense, are not holy. We never are in this life, before or after conversion. We don't lose our sin nature in these earthly bodies. We're holy only in the sense that God declares us so because of Christ's sacrifice. IMO, this is similar to how God credits Abraham's faith as righteousness long before Christ is born. We're holy because God's sense of justice has been satisfied and he credits Christ's righteousness to us. In other words, because God said so. Jesus makes clear that the trinity will actually live in us here on earth after conversion, if we're obedient. So, even after conversion, we still sin, but every sin has already been dealt with on the cross, so we're still holy, per God's declaration. As Paul makes clear, that's the "freedom in Christ" that we now have.
2. When we die, it's clear that we're given new bodies in heaven. From what I can tell, reading between the lines, those bodies don't have the same sin nature that our earthly bodies do and at that point we don't have a desire to sin. How does that happen? I have no idea. The Bible doesn't say.
3. And I don't think that's a problem that the Bible is silent on some of these topics. We don't need to explain it. We just need to trust that God does it somehow. Specifically, I don't believe that correct doctrine has to explain every last detail in order to be correct. Some things God has not chosen to reveal. Sometimes God reveals the WHAT, but not the HOW (such and such happens; how does it happen? we're not give that answer).
4. I think we open ourselves up to bad doctrine when we try to explain everything in detail when God hasn't given us the detail. Then we start making up concepts like purgatory to fill in holes that we think we see. And then we've got a whole new can of worms and questions ("Who goes to purgatory?" "How long does one spend in purgatory?" "What are all the rules for purgatory?" Etc.). Then, we're getting way ahead of anything God said and I think we do ourselves a huge disservice. Instead, we should just say, "The Bible is silent on that point and we don't really know the answer."
5. As for God being "with" us or in our presence, once we've been declared holy by him, there is no issue. We are, in fact, holy, because he said so. Again, Jesus makes it clear that the trinity actually resides inside obedient believers. How does that happen? I don't know.
6. Before conversion, God is present, but not as intimately close as he could be. He doesn't interact directly with almost anybody except Moses and Isaiah. Most of the time it's the "angel of the Lord" (a pre-incarnate Jesus?), prophetic dreams, or something like Moses's burning bush. The closest people get are Moses after the Exodus (Exodus 33:11, where is says that God would talk to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to a friend) and Isaiah (Isaiah 6:5, where Isaiah talks about being a man of unclean lips who has "seen the King, the Lord of hosts (ESV)). But those two people fall into that same category as Abraham, where their faith is credited as righteousness, I think. When people report being visited by God in dreams today (e.g., in places like Iran where Muslims are dreaming very interesting dreams), often it's Jesus speaking.
7. So, what distance does God need to keep from sin, exactly? What are the rules? I don't know. Another good question that can't be answered is how God putting sin in hell makes it somehow away from him. We're temporal, corporeal beings living in a 4D universe. If God told us, we probably couldn't understand the answer.
In the end, I think it's best to focus on exactly what you said in your last couple sentences. The Bible makes it crystal clear that if you love God and you accept Jesus as your savior, you'll spent eternity with God. So, choose that. Everything else is at best a crap shoot.
Again, thanks for your comment. That was great.
Your #1 is essentially exactly what I said: "God snaps his fingers and magically makes us holy". If you're OK with that though, I won't argue. You can have Calvin and Wesley; give me Blaise Pascal and Thomas Merton. Thanks for the reply though. Too many Christians are unwilling to seriously consider this stuff.
BTW: I assigned your "Whoever wins, Christ is King" post to my civics students for homework the Monday before the election. Thanks for that.
Now someday, you and I have to talk about spiritual warfare. :-)
Thanks for all your great comments. I really appreciate your perspective. Yea, I think at some point there are things that either our minds can't comprehend or God simply doesn't want to reveal to us. Rather than make up stuff to try to fill in the blanks, I think we're better off just saying, "We don't know how it works, but God says it's true, so we trust him." To be clear, I'm not anti-science or logic. I'm an engineer, so I love science and logic. It would be wonderfully satisfying for me if we had all the answers. But I think science and logic have their limits when trying to analyze God. That's not to say that God is illogical, but rather to say that we only know what God wants to reveal about himself and some things may be outside our understanding completely, at least here in this creation. A simple example is the concept of the trinity. From a science and logic perspective, it doesn't compute. It seems contradictory. And yet, the Bible is pretty clear that God is both three and one. Maybe when we get to heaven God will reveal how that works, or maybe when we're in heaven it'll just be obvious because heaven is somehow different than Earth is now.
I love “because God said”!
I’m sure glad He tells us everything: “my ways are higher than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thoughts”.
I take this as a reminder to stop playing God and trying to understand that which He did not explain and just have faith that, God said, so I trust what I do not understand!
Thank you David. Sharing. 🙏🙏🙏
Exactly David, hell is a place of constant suffering and no hope. Many NDE'ers have stated this, they say there are people there just screaming in torment constantly and the demons have free reign to torture you. There is no hope because God is not present, it is not a sinners party. People really need to take this serious.
Yea not into that purgatory thing. Catholics always cite Macabees as "proof" which I think Protestant Bibles don't include. Good article. We do choose hell or not. There is a current thinking among many that everyone goes to heaven and you just have to be "nice" etc. Hell is not a popular concept. Used to get bullied on fb about this....and some were Christians! They think Jesus died for our sins so automatic free pass to heaven for ALL. Doesn't help when the Pope says he likes to envision hell as empty!!!! He should be trying to save souls not promoting crazy stuff and the environment etc. Well I wrote some about his nonsense....
Agreed. People forget Matthew 7:13-14:
“ 13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy[a] that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”
On the "pro" side, I prefer 2 Thes 1:9. It bites.
Great article, loved it.
Just add, something like purgatory, which Orthodox believe in as well, just in different form, would actually compliment this article, because nothing sinful and not pure can enter heaven. It is believed, by some in the early church as well, that a soul goes through purification as we are still full of sin when we die, but how that purification goes or happens is another discussion.
Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad it resonated with you. Yep, you're right. Orthodox also have a purgatory-like concept, too. And as you say, the idea of purgatory is not diametrically opposed to orthodox (lowercase "O") thinking on this issue. But I think the Bible is pretty clear that (1) nothing more is strictly required of us (Ephesians 2:9, not by works so that none can boast), and (2) our bringing our lives into alignment with Jesus through perfect obedience (sanctification) is a process, not an event. When we accept the free gift, God says, "You are holy." How that happens, I have no idea, because nobody feels very holy the moment after choosing Jesus. We often feel MORE yucky because we're suddenly aware of so much more of our sin. And obedience is hard and we all struggle with it. So, yes, there is definitely a process that ALSO happens.
Very interesting subject for sure, I might do an article on this as well, thank you!