Kim’s post has started an interesting conversation below. In the course of that conversation, our friend DH expresses confidence that the Biblical witness unequivocally supports ‘traditional’ evangelical belief: when you die you’ve had your last chance, if you believed in Jesus you get to go to heaven, if you didn’t you go to eternal torment. (I know that’s a simplification but not, I think, a misrepresentation)
There is no denying that Jesus says a fair bit about hell. And it is true that in what Jesus says about hell, the crucial issue appears to be how the individual stands in relation to God. Hell is a place of eternal punishment for those who “miss the mark”. However, this is by no means all that the New Testament has to say about final judgement. I would challenge anyone to construct the classic evangelical doctrine of salvation by faith using only the teachings of Jesus. If Jesus’ teaching about salvation is interpreted in the light of, for example, Paul’s (and it is, routinely) we cannot then say that what Jesus said about hell is not open to the same sort of interpretation. Not if we’re going to be consistent in our use of scripture, at any rate.
Let me give an example of what I mean. In Matthew 25, we read Jesus’ famous parable of the sheep and the goats which ends with the chilling
They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Explicit faith is nowhere to be seen here. Both the righteous and the unrighteous are surprised at their fate. It is an important parable, but it is not all that needs to be said. It does not trump Romans 5:1, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The reality of judgement is still present in Paul’s teaching, of course, but here the purpose of fire is not punitive but purative. So in 1 Corinthians 3 we have
For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
Of course, this is not the final word either, but it is surely an important passage in realtion to any genuinely scripture-based understanding of judgement.
The most important defect in the sort of understanding that DH has outlined is that it focusses entirely on salvation as an individual’s escape from a fiery eternity. There is more to salvation than this! In Paul’s teaching it is undeniable that the scope of salvation is not merely individuals, but the whole of creation. The mission of God is to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ, through whom he will reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven. The great hymn in Philippians 2 has Jesus established as King over all things, a glorious vision of a time when “at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow”. If “every tongue confesses him”, who can be lost? Returning to Romans 5, we find Paul declaring that “just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men”. If the scope of sin is universal, so the salvation envisaged by Paul must be at least as wide. If all are bound in sin, so all will be shown mercy.
Again, I’m not suggesting that any of these passages represents a ‘final word’ on the subject of judgement. All require interpretation in the light of the others. But it is important to remember that all that we know of God is revealed in Jesus. Whatever we say about the judgement of God must be consistent with what we know of God through his own revelation. Call me a horrid woolly liberal if you must, but nothing I’ve read of Jesus convinces me that he would be content with the endless unbearable torment of even one soul. What about you?
[tags]death, salvation, judgement, hell[/tags]
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
graham 07.14.06 at 12:03 am
Excellent post.
J 07.14.06 at 3:30 am
“Call me a horrid woolly liberal if you must, but nothing I’ve read of Jesus convinces me that he would be content with the endless unbearable torment of even one soul. What about you?”
I’d call you hopeful, and I agree that Jesus wants everyone saved. But in defense of DH, there doesn’t seem to be any question that we can be saved up to the moment of death, so it seems best (maybe “safest” is a better word) to operate on the assumption that death is where that opportunity ends. Obviously, God can do what He wants, but I’d hate to have led somebody to believe it’s never too late only to find out there’s a point where it is. Do we use the belief that all people will be saved as an excuse not to witness? I certainly have.
Finally, from http://holyoffice.livejournal.com/80073.html :
“Heaven
Heaven is a term referring to the ultimate destiny of a certain number of souls. Depending on who you listen to, heaven is either: where all of us will end up (Origen); where many of us will end up (St. Gregory of Nyssa); where some of us will end up (John Calvin); where a small portion of us have, in some sense, already ended up (John of Leyden); where precisely 144,000 of us will end up (Charles Taze Russell); or where Jack Chick will end up (Jack Chick). Theologian Belinda Carlisle once posited that “Ooh, baby, heaven is a place on earth,” but explorers combing the globe have yet to confirm this”
RTWT
Paul 07.14.06 at 8:21 am
See, there’s a huge assumption in all this that leads you down this track. You’ve assumed that heaven and hell are two different places. (Kim doesn’t seem to assume this.) Wasn’t it CS Lewis who pointed out that heaven and hell are a state of mind? And that two people can be in the same place, one being in heaven and the other hell? You can probably think of places here on earth like that - say an Iron Maiden concert, to pick one at random? Lewis says: suppose in the next world we go to be with God. Then those who have believed will be in heaven and those who have disobeyed Him will be in a hell of their own making. (I’ve simplified a bit.)
Pam 07.14.06 at 9:42 am
See, there’s a huge assumption in all this that leads you down this track. You’ve assumed that heaven and hell are two different places.
But that is the assumption of what Richard is calling “traditional evangelical belief”. As I paraphrased Garry Williams (sorry that particular book is in the loft ready for our move in August), he insists that God creates and sustains the hell to which he condemns each unbeliever and that hell is a place of punishment and torment.
I get the impression that such a hell is “needed”, 1) to satisfy “the” demand (whose demand would be my question) that a wrong-doer be punished and; 2) As J seems to indicate, as some sort of motivating factor to turn toward God in repentance.
but I’d hate to have led somebody to believe it’s never too late only to find out there’s a point where it is. Do we use the belief that all people will be saved as an excuse not to witness? I certainly have.
To this, I say that I guess that there must be some people for whom the idea “If you don’t love God here on earth, he’ll torture you for eternity” is a motivating factor. I can also honestly tell you that there are many sensitive people for whom this statement is an “un-witness” - if that is a concept.
I think I’ve got to a point in my life where I can honestly say that I take every opportunity to witness, but it depends what you mean by witness. If witness means “Here is my killer logic for why you should accept my ideas about God and, if you don’t accept my argument, you are a silly sausage”, then no, I don’t witness. I am not embarrassed, however, to say “Yes, I’ve been praying for discernment” if a non-Christian makes a remark about my “good luck”.
Kim 07.14.06 at 10:12 am
Hi Paul.
Interesting what you say about heaven and hell perhaps not being two different “places”. The American Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart observes that, “particularly in the East, there is a school of thought that wisely marks no distinction, essentially, between the fire of hell and the light of God’s glory, and that interprets damnation as the soul’s resistance to the beauty of God’s glory, its refusal to open itself before the divine love, which causes divine love to seem an exerior chastisement.”
As for our image of heaven, here is Robert Jenson: “The life of the Kingdom will thus little resemble the ‘heaven’ of popular imagination. Cartoons of identically clad and identically harp-equipped saints are of course intended mockingly, but in fact they betray a sense deeply ensconsed in piety, of ‘heaven’ as a place where nothing happens anymore, because there are no mutual differences and so no mutual challenges. On the contrary, the Kingdom will be a life of mutual and so differentiated challenge and of triumphantly differing achievement, in a way of which all the frenzies of this world can provide at most a pale negative image.”
David 07.14.06 at 2:36 pm
[I posted this in the earlier discussion thread, but it seems even more appropriate here.]
I am sad that it took so long for me to get into this discussion. Of course I side with Kim on every point, so I feel the need to weigh in here.
DH, as much as you like to toss out proof texts in favor of your position, you have not thought it through. By making OUR faith and OUR belief the necessary prerequisite for salvation, you have created an anthropocentric soteriology, one that locates the sine qua non of eternal life in the individual human person. In other words, contrary to the Reformers, you have made faith a work necessary for salvation. I will grant that there are passages in the NT that point in this direction, but a robust theology cannot sustain such a position. What you end up advocating is semi-Pelagianism or some version of it. Our faith is the work that earns God’s favor. This is a heresy greater than the church’s (unfortunate) condemnation of universalism.
There are only two positions capable of explaining the person and work of Christ: (1) limited atonement, and (2) universalism. Semi-Pelagianism is the faith of most evangelicals in America, but such a doctrine must be condemned. Christ is the center and basis for all things: election, creation, reconciliation, and redemption. In him all things cohere, and without him nothing is made that has been made (including the re-making of human persons in the imago dei). Unless you wish to go with the limited atonement — and thereby deny that Christ assumed humanity qua humanity — you must assert that God’s self-offering in Jesus Christ atoned for the sins of all persons.
Universalism flies in the face of all notions of human justice. The reality that Hitler, Pol Pot, and Stalin will worship the Lord for eternity — “every knee shall bend, in heaven and on earth” — is part of what makes God’s justice so mysterious and glorious. God judged the sins of all of us (since we are all the “worst of sinners”) in Jesus Christ. None of us deserves to be in the presence of the Lord. Our faith is nothing to a holy God. We are entirely thrust upon God’s mercy and grace, a mercy that judges and a grace that overpowers all opposition. That is the essence and heart of the gospel. There can be no other word after this.
We are left with these questions: Will sin, rather than God’s grace, have the last word in the eschaton? Is sin and judgment more universal than God’s abounding grace? Is the extent of the fall more universal than the extent of Christ’s atoning life, death, and resurrection?
If yes, then we have placed more value in our own lives and actions, and we have greatly devalued the life and work of our gracious triune God, who came to this world precisely to do what our faith and good deeds could never accomplish. Praise God!
David 07.14.06 at 2:38 pm
I should also add that there is significant scholarship clarifying the idea of an “eternal” punishment. The Greek word for eternal is more properly translated, “for an age.” It is the basis for our English word “eon” (or aeon). The assumption that judgment is eternal (i.e., without end) is a human imposition upon the text that we cannot infer from Scripture alone.
Richard 07.14.06 at 3:05 pm
Some good points there, David. I’d like to modify your statement “There are only two positions capable of explaining the person and work of Christ: (1) limited atonement, and (2) universalism” a bit though. For me, it is the doctrine of the Trinity which resolves this issue, as you allude to in your closing paragraph. In Jesus, not only does God come to us but, in his perfected humanity, Jesus takes our humanity back to God. Where we fail, Jesus makes the perfect response of faith and as “the second Adam” he acts on behalf of us all. So human response is still necessary for salvation but, crucially, that response is made for us. I wouldn’t call myself a universalist because I believe that human beings are created forever free to reject God (and partly because I’m forbidden to by the discipline of the Methodist Church!) But I don’t accept that death closes the door on salvation forever.
Your reminder about the translation of “eternal” is a helpful one. Many thanks!
J - I take your point. But I witness because I believe that God has the power to transform lives, to rescue us from selfishness and despair. A message that says, “God loves you, and he’ll torture you forever if you don’t receive him” is self-contradictory.
David 07.14.06 at 4:46 pm
Richard, very good point. That’s something we can learn from a theologian like Thomas F. Torrance. His fantastic book, The Mediation of Christ, makes precisely that claim: Jesus’ role of mediation involves not only the atoning death and resurrection but also his life of faithful response to the Father.
DH 07.14.06 at 6:02 pm
That “brings life to all men” is made available to all men. Also, it isn’t God that tortures forever it is people who choose to go there in light of John 3:36 in that they are already dead in their tresspass of sins and full redemption is by receiving the the Grace made available to all. I agree though that Salvation is more that ones individual Salvation but it doesn’t exclude that if that makes sense. God came to all of us by making it available and all we have to do is accept what is available to all.
“But I don’t accept that death closes the door on salvation forever.”For me “It is appointed unto man once to die and after this the judgement” in conjunction with no Scripture stating post-death conversions more than shows the stance I and God take in relation to one and the body of Christ’s redemption.
DH 07.14.06 at 6:07 pm
“If “every tongue confesses himâ€, who can be lost?” some of those who didn’t until after death because the confession is too late. Also, no statement is made on the heart of theconfession by these people as well. Are they confessing it because of impending judgement, etc.? It seems to me to say ALL of those who bow are saved seems strange in light of the explainations. I know many people who confess that Jesus is Lord but don’t have a relationship with Christ because they haven’t given their lives to Christ. For some it is a head knowledge not with all of their heart, soul and mind like the Bible says with regard to how one enters the Kingdom. The prooftext of ““at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow…†doesn’t work in light of SCripture and the explainations above.
Paul 07.14.06 at 7:01 pm
“It is appointed unto man once to die and after this the judgementâ€. Where is the word “immediately” in this statement? Do not attempt to put it in where you cannot prove it.
Richard 07.14.06 at 7:26 pm
David — you’re quite right. It was TF torrance who first put this notion in my head, though i can’t remember which work of his it was. I’m pretty sure it was in a collection of essays. I’ve just ordered “The Mediation of Christ” from Abebooks on your recommendation, so it’d better be good!
DH — the early church practised baptism for the dead, and paul does not disapprove. And 1 Peter says that that the gospel has been preached to the dead. It isn’t as clear-cut as you suggest.
(on a housekeeping note, do try to avoid multiple comments one after the other. It can make the conversation difficult to follow)
DH 07.14.06 at 7:44 pm
That was clearly referring to Spritually dead not physically dead. Being that we and even those asBelievers were once Spritually dead it is accurate that the Gospel has been preached to the dead.
It is my understanding that Paul DID disapprove the practice of baptizing the dead referring to it as “unnecessary”.
The immediately has no bearing on my view of “judgement and redemption. I’m not adding “immediately” in my posts nor is it implied. What it says is what it says and “once to die” is clearly physical death in light of the other passages mentioned from previous posts.
Richard 07.14.06 at 8:09 pm
>> It is my understanding that Paul DID disapprove the practice of baptizing the dead
On the contrary, DH. He uses it as part of his ‘proof’ of the necessity of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15: “Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptised for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptised for them?”
In 1 Peter there is no indication that it is the “spiritually dead” that are being refered to. The most natural reading of the text is the simplest - it means what it says, and clearly links back to 3:19-20. It is hard to understand and it doesn’t fit easily into our framework, but that isn’t a reason for changing the sense of it.
Just to be clear. I’m not using these as proof texts. A few scattered texts are insufficient foundation for a full-blown doctrine. I merely use them as indicators that a view that says “When you’re dead you’ve missed your chance” may need some modification.
David 07.15.06 at 1:16 am
DH,
Proof-texting is the inevitable result of trying to build doctrines out of single verses of Scripture, which is why I argue on my blog for universalism on entirely theological grounds. From what I can gather, I see no evidence to suggest that you believe in anything other than a semi-Pelagian version of salvation, in which we must “do” something to earn the right to be with God for eternity. Yes, there are verses that lean in this direction, but there is a way of accounting for them. What you need is a robust soteriology that differentiates between the past, present, and future. Objectively, in Christ, in the past ‘there and then,’ we were reconciled to God. Subjectively, in the present, we are justified and set on the path of sanctification through our life of faith. This is what Paul means when he speaks of salvation in the present continuous form of “being saved” (Acts 2:47). Finally, we have the future reality of resurrection, the redemption of our bodies and the restoration of all things in the new heavens and new earth. The parables of Jesus and the other pleas for present change fall in the subjective category, but objectively Christ died for all people, and that is something we cannot get past or lessen.
What you are prevented from doing from the outset is making our decision of faith more important than the objective reality of Jesus Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross. God determined in the Son to nullify all human efforts to justify themselves — but that is precisely what you think we must do! Now death is indeed the end. We cannot enter on the path of faithful discipleship after death. And yes, after death we do face judgment. But what kind of judgment is it? Who sits on the judgment seat? Jesus Christ does. And you should know that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If that is the case, then he will still bear the marks of the cross, the marks he bore in taking our sin upon himself. He will still be the same Jesus who tore down all barriers, who denied the works of the Pharisees, and who rose again “for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). You have a perverted notion of judgment, because you have subsumed Christ into your own picture of a vengeful God who is prepared to punish all who failed to “pray some prayer” or accomplish some other deed in life that would earn them a place in heaven. What you have lost is the cross. You have lost Christ.
Theological issues aside, I want to speak about something more personal. Your comments on here have displayed something that disturbs me greatly, as one who hopes that you truly are committed to the gospel. Even if you disagree with Barth, he was surely right when he said that a joyless theology is no theology at all. When we speak of God, we must do so with celebration and thanksgiving. But that is precisely what is absent from your comments. Your tone is one of anger, vindication (for yourself), vengeance, and human judgment. In short, you are cold and heartless. There is no mystery, no joy, no celebration, no marvel. From what I can tell, your gospel is without wonder — for the obvious reason: there is nothing left to wonder about. The end is clear and decided. People who “do something” that pleases God will be saved, and the rest will be viciously punished for all eternity (never mind that the Bible does not actually speak of an endless period of judgment, according to the Greek). You do not even hope for the salvation of all, which in my opinion, is the most stinging indictment of your theology that can possibly be found. Any person who does not hope for all to be saved cannot claim to know the boundless grace and love of our triune God. End of story.
(P.S. Would it be so hard for you to use proper English grammar? I have such a hard time reading what you write that your arguments are deflated even before I read them.)
J 07.15.06 at 3:57 am
“A message that says, “God loves you, and he’ll torture you forever if you don’t receive him†is self-contradictory”
That sounds dangerously close to saying you don’t want to believe God would really judge us - and I’m in full agreement with you if that’s what you mean. But it doesn’t matter what we want to believe. Either non-believers will be judged or they won’t. I’m operating on the assumption that they will be, just in case. But don’t confuse my stance with some sort of dogged insistence that you’re wrong - I hope you’re right and the arguments I read here are good ones (OK, some of Kim’s stuff goes over my head). But look how many posts here discuss the nature of Heaven and our life after this one. They’re all (informed) speculation. I don’t know that we can even begin to comprehend that experience, but I hope and pray everybody has it.
Richard 07.15.06 at 11:26 am
>> That sounds dangerously close to saying you don’t want to believe God would really judge us
As you say, what I want to believe is irrelevant in this context!
I’m not in any sense trying to deny the reality of judgement. I didn’t mean any more than I said. Just to repeat myself, surely the notion of etrnal torment without the possibility of escape goes against everything that we know about God as he is revealed in Jesus.
DH said “it isn’t God that tortures forever it is people who choose to go there”, but I fear that won’t wash. It suggests he believes there’s some power greater than God’s mercy and love. As David said above, it is surely God’s love which should have the final word.
DH 07.17.06 at 3:14 pm
There isn’t some power it is God’s Holiness. God can’t force people to go to heaven beyondtheir will so that is the explaination of what I’m talking about originally. John 3:36 seems clear that people CHOOSE to reject Christ and thus reject heaven in that if they wanted to be there they would have responded by Faith like it says to enter the Kingdom.
“never mind that the Bible does not actually speak of an endless period of judgment, according to the Greek.” Sorry the Bible mentions the lake of fire for eternity.
“You have a perverted notion of judgment, because you have subsumed Christ into your own picture of a vengeful God who is prepared to punish all who failed to “pray some prayer†or accomplish some other deed in life that would earn them a place in heaven. What you have lost is the cross. You have lost Christ.”
Sorry we all without Christ and the cross deserve death. It is by God’s Grace that He gives us the choiceto accept what Christ did on the cross or not. So IT IS all Christ and the cross. You are correct it is Jesus who judges and what does He say about those who aren’t written in the Lambs Book of Life?
It isn’t a “joyless theology” for it joy to escape what was orginally due us and to enter the Kingdom of God. It is Good News to accept the free gift made available to ALL people. It is Good News to by Faith receive the free gift.