exploring the faith

Hell in the Bible: Understanding the biblical words

Hell in the early church: What did early church leaders believe about hell?

Is there a biblical case for universal salvation? The Old Testament pattern

Is there a biblical case for universal salvation? New Testament passages

Considering the theological case for eternal conscious torment

Considering the theological case for universal salvation

What about annihilationism?

December 4, 2021March 22, 2023 / Curt Parton

This is part of a series on the nature of hell. See below for the rest of the series.

Some of you may have noticed I haven’t spent much time directly addressing the view of annihilationism or conditionalism. This isn’t because of a lack of respect for those who hold this view or because I don’t include it as a view that sincere, faithful evangelicals Christians can follow. I would certainly agree there were Christian leaders and thinkers who held this view in the early church. While I’m not able to comprehensively address the arguments for this view—whole books have been written propounding this belief—I do want to offer some general thoughts and responses, especially in the context of this blog series on the nature of hell.

Terminology

First, let me comment on terminology. Many who hold this view refer to it as “conditionalism” because of the necessity of also holding to belief in conditional immortality. The idea here is that human beings are not intrinsically immortal as the creation of God. Our immortality is only in Christ. So our immortality—our ability to exist eternally—is only for those who are in Christ, not for the lost in hell. Consequently the judgment of hell actually brings about their death in the sense that it causes them to cease to exist. They are annihilated.

The problem is that people who hold the other views of hell, whether eternal conscious torment or universal restoration, can also believe in conditional immortality; they can believe that humans aren’t inherently immortal but only receive their immortality from God. Certainly this would make eternal torment more gruesome because God would then be actively sustaining the lost in eternal torment, but there’s nothing incompatible about these beliefs. And there’s nothing preventing a Christian universalist from believing in conditional immortality, indeed many seem to believe this very thing. So the term conditionalism is fitting but it doesn’t adequately distinguish this view from the others. This is why I prefer to use the description annihilationism, because it communicates more clearly the distinguishing aspect of this view.

Already covered (albeit briefly)

You’ve probably noticed that I actually have mentioned the annihilation view in many of my previous posts. I’ve often been focusing on the question: “Will anyone be eternally lost?” The way we answer this question distinguishes universal salvation from both eternal conscious torment and annihilationism. Many of the challenges to the eternal conscious torment view are also challenging to annihilationism, and I’ve included both views in many of my comments.

We noted that love is an essential aspect of the character of God, that God can no more be unloving than he can be unholy. We can ask in what sense hell is loving, how would it be in the best interest of the lost. We can equally ask the same thing of annihilationism. Is killing people for all eternity a loving act? Is it in their best interest? How can it be what’s best for them when they were created for loving relationship with God for all eternity just as we were? How can it be loving—in their best interest—to snuff them out of existence? How can heaven be truly heaven for us if our dearly loved spouses, parents, siblings, children have been annihilated, ceasing to exist forever? How can we grieve but with hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13) if we’ll never see these loved ones again? How can God claim to love me if he doesn’t also love my spouse or parent or sibling or child?¹ Does God not love the lost enough to save them? Or is he unable to save them? These challenges apply to both eternal conscious torment and annihilationism.

If God’s desire is to save everyone (1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9), in what way is he victorious if a great many, possibly the vast majority, of his creation will never be saved? If the lost are lost to God, and he wishes to restore to himself what he has lost (Luke 15),² how is he victorious if he never restores to himself many or most of what he has lost? In what way has he made “everything new” (Revelation 21:5)? If many or most of God’s creation will remain dead for all eternity, in what way has God been victorious over death? In what sense has he destroyed his last enemy, death (1 Corinthians 15:26)? How is not the triumphant challenge, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55) not an empty boast if death can respond: “Right here! in the countless billions of your precious creation who I will hold in my clutches for all eternity!”

How is God victorious if he is doing to his own creation what the enemy wants done to God’s creation—killing and destroying them (John 10:10)? How is the universal praise and worship of God we see in passages such as Isaiah 45:22-24, Philippians 2:9-11 and Revelation 5:13 not hollow and artificial when it’s only accomplished by killing all of those who refuse to praise and worship him? Isn’t this like a president boasting of unanimous support when they’ve silenced or eliminated anyone who would oppose them?³ Is this truly the glorious victory of God? Is the God of the Bible truly a God who achieves universal worship by exterminating anyone who resists worshiping him—and then triumphantly exults in his “victory”?

Which view is most consistent with both the biblical character of God and with the gospel? Is the gospel about the salvation of a few and the extermination of most? Is God a God who permanently terminates his enemies,⁴ or one who transforms his enemies (Romans 5:10), making peace with them and reconciling them to himself (Colossians 1:20), making them righteous (Romans 5:18-19), and even adopting them as his children (Romans 8:15-17)? Which one is most consistent with the entire biblical story of a creation perfectly created, ruined and then restored?

In his response to the terminal punishment view (i.e. annihilationism), Robin Parry addresses this:

The problem is that God’s answer to evil here is not a gospel solution (i.e. to eradicate sin from the sinners), but a terminator solution (i.e. to eradicate the sinners themselves). This is a drastic way of winning creation — like winning all the votes in an election by killing those who would have voted differently. Hypothetically, God could annihilate the vast majority of human beings and then claim to have won a glorious triumph in a universe filled with creatures that love him. But is this not a pyrrhic victory? The cost of winning was so very high. And given that this was a cost that God really did not want to pay, then it is as much a failure as a victory. It looks to me as if on this view sin and death have their wicked way in the end — forcing God to abandon and obliterate many of those he loves [emphasis in original].⁵

Dependent on over-interpretation of key words

Many observe that this view relies to a great degree on a particular understanding of certain words in Scripture, what many of us would see as over-interpretation of these words. This is a bit ironic because we’ve seen that the eternal conscious torment view rests essentially on the misinterpretation of one word. Just as—once we understand the meaning of aionios—we see no place where Scripture describes eternal conscious torment, so we find no passage of Scripture that clearly and unambiguously describes the lost as ceasing to exist. But we do hear many proponents of this view emphasizing certain key words. Let’s briefly look at some of these words.

It’s common for annihilationists to summarize their belief by calling our focus to all the places in Scripture that describe the ultimate fate of the lost as death (such as Romans 6:23), and then stressing: dead means dead. It doesn’t make any sense, we’re told, for “death” to mean anything other than actual death, as in ceasing to exist. And this sounds simple and compelling, honoring the wording of Scripture. The problem is that the Bible often uses the word death in ways that obviously do not mean annihilation. Let’s look at one example in Ephesians 2:1-5:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

We see here that we were previously living in a state of death, existing but needing to be made alive. This is common language in the Bible, a common way to speak of death. So it is not all nonsensical to speak of people existing in a state of death when we speak of the judgment of hell. Some will go so far as to argue that death in the Bible primarily (or often) explicitly means a total cessation of existence. I can’t find even one place in Scripture where the word death unambiguously connotes such an idea. Since death can be used in very different ways—often meaning to exist in a state of death spiritually and other times meaning simply the end of one’s physical life—to argue that “dead means dead in the sense of ceasing to exist” is circular reasoning, assuming one’s point to make one’s point.

Some argue that the Greek word translated “perish” in verses such as John 3:16 (apollumi) actually means to die in the sense of ceasing to exist. This word most often means to be lost (see for instance throughout Luke 15), and also frequently conveys the similar meanings of to perish or to be ruined or destroyed. (At least three translations render John 3:16 as should “not be lost but have eternal life” ISV, NCV and Phillips.)

So let’s think about the word “perish.” What does it mean to perish (especially taking into consideration how frequently this Greek word is similarly rendered to be “ruined” or “destroyed”)? When we say something is “perishable,” what do we mean? If you leave something that’s perishable indefinitely in your refrigerator, does it cease to exist? We’d probably wish it would cease to exist! What does it do? It decays, it rots. It might even decay to the point we no longer know what it is! But it doesn’t cease to exist. It actually continues to exist but in a ruined state.

It’s surprising to me how many of those who hold this view refer to the ruined wineskin Jesus spoke of in Matthew 9:17 to support the idea of annihilation. The point often made is that the ruined wineskin would have to be discarded. The problem is that the text doesn’t say anything about discarding the wineskin. The ruined wineskin does not cease to exist, it continues in a state of ruin. Now, someone could subsequently discard the ruined wineskin, but they also may not. To discard the wineskin would be a separate act. The fact that the wineskin is ruined does not mean or require that it ceases to exist. (Actually, even if it’s discarded, it doesn’t cease to exist.)

We have the same problem with the word “destroy.” This sounds very extreme, no doubt, but it doesn’t require a cessation of existence. One can easily think of a car, a building or a city that is destroyed but continues to exist in a ruined state. We even refer to a destroyed city or building as “ruins.” And we also can’t forget the pattern we saw in Scripture that what God destroys he also restores.

It’s often emphasized that fire consumes things. That’s what it does, this is true. But we all know that Scripture also speaks of fire as something that purifies instead of destroying. Actually fire often destroys and purifies at the same time, burning away the dross and leaving the purified silver or gold. We can’t simply assume a particular connotation for fire. Fire does consume, but it doesn’t only consume and it doesn’t always consume.

My point here is that there is no lexical or textual basis for claiming that the words “death,” “destroy,” “perish,” “ruin” or “fire” in Scripture require or even suggest that anyone ceases to exist. And it’s inappropriate to assume this meaning, and then use this assumed meaning as a basis on which to establish this belief. This is going beyond the meaning of the text and reading into it something that’s not explicitly and unambiguously there.

Theological inconsistencies

Many annihilationists rightly stress that they, too, believe in God’s judgment of the lost in hell. They point out that their belief includes the suffering of unrepentant sinners in hell, in a way that corresponds to the individual’s sins. They’re clear that the unsaved will suffer to a greater or lesser extent depending on their actual sins. In a chapter on “terminal punishment” (i.e. annihilationism), John Stackhouse Jr explains repeatedly that the unsaved must suffer in hell in order to “make their own atonement” for their sins.⁶

But wait a minute. Hasn’t Jesus already atoned for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2; John 1:29)? One might respond, “Yes, but if people don’t accept Christ’s atonement for them, then they must atone for their own sins.” [And, yes, I do understand that many Calvinists would not agree that Christ atoned for the sins of the world, although that seems to directly contradict the Scriptures I referenced.] Fair enough. So they must atone for their own sins. And according to annihilationists such as Stackhouse, the lost do this by suffering in hell.

But this begs an important question: If the lost reach a point in their suffering when they have atoned for their own sins, why are they then annihilated? If they’ve actually atoned for their own sins—atoning for their sin that separated them from God—why are they not restored to God? Isn’t this the very essence of the word atonement, intentionally combining the words at-one-ment? If they’ve atoned for their own sins, why are they not then at one with God as the word requires? This seems to me confusingly inconsistent theologically.

(Please understand, Christian universalists aren’t arguing that the the lost actually do atone for their sins by suffering in hell. I’m simply responding to an annihiliationist argument, and showing where I think it’s theologically problematic.)

Some annihilationists don’t believe that people will atone for their sins by suffering in hell. Some believe that hell is simply the means of execution; it’s the way God brings their life to an end. They are cast into hell and they die because, we’re reminded, humans are not intrinsically immortal. If we don’t have eternal life in Christ, then we will naturally die in hell and cease to exist.

But this brings up more questions. If “dead is dead,” what is the state of the lost when they die in this lifetime? Do they cease to exist? How could they not, since the human soul is not immortal? Or is the soul not immortal . . . but it’s a bit more immortal than the body? Does the soul have a slightly longer shelf-life? Is God sustaining the souls of the lost for some reason? Or does the lost person actually cease to exist, and then when God resurrects the lost (Daniel 12:2; Revelation 20:11-13), he’s actually re-creating them? But then why would God re-create someone who had ceased to exist . . . just to painfully exterminate them again? That seems pretty chilling! But if the soul does live on beyond the body . . . just how much fire does it take to consume a soul? The more we actually think this through, the more confusing and theologically problematic it becomes.

The strong case for universal reconciliation and restoration

When annihilationism was beginning to be increasingly considered and discussed back in the 1980s and 90s, few were including Christian universalism in the broader discussion. What’s interesting is that when we go back and read many of the cases for annihilationism at that time, they were using many of the passages and challenges to eternal conscious torment that evangelical universalists now use. It makes us ask: Doesn’t universal reconciliation and restoration fit these passages even better? Doesn’t it challenge eternal conscious torment even more effectively? And isn’t annihilationism actually vulnerable to many of the same challenges?

Clark Pinnock challenged eternal conscious torment by writing:

What purpose of God would be served by the unending torture of the wicked except sheer vengeance and vindictiveness? Such a fate would spell endless and totally unredemptive suffering, punishment just for its own sake. But unending torment would be the kind of utterly pointless and wasted suffering which could never lead to anything good beyond it.⁷

And John Wenham agrees:

Whatever anyone says, unending torment speaks to me of sadism, not justice.⁸

But couldn’t the same challenges be made of annihilationism? Doesn’t this challenge any punishment that is purely retributive, punishment for punishment’s sake, any punishment that isn’t loving and redemptive? What if we use the same quotes above, but replace the words “endless” and “unending” with purely retributive punishment followed by complete annihilation?

What purpose of God would be served by the purely retributive torture of the wicked followed by complete annihilation except sheer vengeance and vindictiveness? Such a fate would spell purely retributive and totally unredemptive suffering, punishment just for its own sake. But purely retributive torment followed by complete annihilation would be the kind of utterly pointless and wasted suffering which could never lead to anything good beyond it.
Whatever anyone says, purely retributive torment followed by complete annihilation speaks to me of sadism, not justice.

Don’t these challenges apply just as well to annihilationism? We can find many arguments for annihilationism that present it as merciful. But the absolute annihilation of human beings, causing them to completely cease to exist, can only be considered merciful when compared to the horror of endless, hopeless torment. When we add biblical universalism to the discussion, annihilation doesn’t seem so merciful anymore. It’s only slightly less horrific than the traditional view.

We see the same kind of thing in even more recent works. In Four Views on Hell, John Stackhouse Jr ends his response to eternal conscious torment⁹ by quoting Psalm 30:5 from the NRSV:

For his anger is but for a moment;
his favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may linger for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.

But you can see how we might read this and think, “Doesn’t this passage fit biblical universalism even better?” If God is—in his wrath—permanently and eternally annihilating people, causing them to cease to exist, how is anger only lasting for a moment? The effects of his anger will certainly continue for all eternity. And, from the annihilationist view, is the weeping during the night truly replaced by joy in the morning? Isn’t this torment replaced by extermination? That may give a sense of relief, in some sense, to someone being tormented—but could we, with a straight face, call this joy? When someone is on death row and their final appeal is denied, is that the time they rejoice? Would joy come with their execution, especially if there was absolutely no hope for anything past this death, only completely ceasing to even exist?

Even compared to eternal conscious torment, this is still horrific, just a little less intolerable. When we include Christian universalism in the discussion, the reference to these kinds of passages from annihilationists seems more than a little ironic. In a similar way, the frequent references to the utter destruction of Sodom don’t have the desired impact to evangelical universalists, not only because this destruction was not the same as cessation of existence, but because God tells us explicitly in Scripture that he will restore the Sodom he utterly destroyed (Ezekiel 16:46-63)!

Because for most of us eternal conscious torment has been, by far, the dominant view, annihilationists and conditionalists have welcomed evangelical universalists somewhat as allies. This makes sense, and I certainly appreciate it. I have deep respect and admiration for a great many annihilationist leaders and scholars. But, as Christian universalism has been increasingly discussed and its influence has been growing, I’ve heard from an annihilationist friend frustration that relatively few (from his perspective) are considering conditionalism but seem to be leapfrogging immediately to the universal restoration view. Why is that?

The process of reexamining my views of hell and the bases for the view I once held reminds me a great deal of a much earlier process I went through of reexamining my eschatological view and bases for it. When I examined the foundational claims of my classic dispensational view, I found them wanting. When I examined the foundational claims for eternal conscious torment, I had a very similar result.

But there’s another interesting similarity here. When I first decided to reexamine my eschatological views, it seemed I had to weigh through a number of possible views. But I quickly realized that the primary question I had to answer was: Does the Bible present the rapture and the return of Christ as separate events or as aspects of the same event? When I looked at it this way, the choice was between historic premillennialism (a posttribulational rapture) and all the other views. I had known about the midtribulational view, of course. I knew a few people who held this view. They tended to be very intelligent students of Scripture, and they had their arguments focusing on what they thought to be key details in Scripture. But I quickly came to see this view as a variation on a theme, an adjustment of the classic pretrib view.

When I eventually came to reject the classic dispensational view in which I had been brought up, I went right to historic premillennialism. Others leaving classic dispensationalism have moved to an amillennial view. But I don’t know anyone who has moved away from classic dispensationalism to the midtrib view. That’s because it’s simply a variation on the same theme, it’s a modification of the classic pretrib view. Even if you completely disagree with my conclusions, hopefully you can understand the thought process. And I think you can see where I’m going with this.

When I decided to reexamine what I believed about hell and why, it seemed I would need to sort through extensive arguments for all the different views. And I did read a great deal from annihilationist scholars. But I quickly began to focus on one key question: Does the Bible teach that anyone will be eternally lost? In much the same way as before, when we look at the issue in this light, it distinguishes biblical universalism from all other views. Annihilationism answers this question in the same way that eternal conscious torment does. It’s still a variation on the same theme.

Ultimately the answer to the question I and others have received: Why aren’t you more seriously considering anniliationism? is that I’m already thoroughly convinced that God does love everyone and intends for everyone to be reconciled to him and completely restored, that he is more than able to accomplish everything he intends, and that he has planned for all of this from the very beginning, that this very outcome was woven all through his creation from the very beginning. I don’t see any clear passages of Scripture explicitly telling us the lost will suffer eternal conscious torment or that they will ultimately be annihilated. But I do see in Scripture that nothing is lost or destroyed or ruined beyond God’s ability to heal and restore, and that he restores everything he judges and destroys. I find a great many passages clearly and explicitly telling us that God will reconcile and restore all of his creation, that everyone will come to him and worship him.

I find the theological arguments for both eternal conscious torment and annihilationism to be problematic and unconvincing (often in the exact same ways). But the more I study the Scriptures and the more I consider these things in a more broadly theological way, the more I’m convinced that, of course God will save all of those he has created! I respect and love my brothers and sisters who see this differently. But I’m not only confident of this biblical truth and hope, it fills me with overwhelming praise and worship for our glorious God who, alone, could accomplish this perfect outcome to his perfect plan! Because of this surpassingly, gloriously perfect ending to God’s perfect plan, I’m driven to the same kind of worship as the apostle Paul for the same reasons:

For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he might have mercy on them all.
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?
Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay them?
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
Romans 11:32-36

Thomas B. Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God, 2nd ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2014), 126-129.
Steve Gregg, All You Want to Know about Hell (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2013), 57.
Robin A. Parry, “A Universalist Response” in Four Views on Hell, 2nd ed., ed. Preston Sprinkle (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016), 91.
Parry, Four Views on Hell, 89-92.
Parry, Four Views on Hell, 91.
John G. Stackhouse Jr, “Terminal Punishment” in Four Views on Hell, 61-79.
Clark Pinnock, cited by Gregg, All You Want to Know about Hell, 210.
John Wenham, cited by Gregg, All You Want to Know about Hell, 210.
Stackhouse, “A Terminal Punishment Response” in Four Views on Hell, 47.

Exploring Hell series:

Hell in the Bible: Understanding the biblical words

Hell in the early church: What did early church leaders believe about hell?

Is there a biblical case for universal salvation? The Old Testament pattern

Is there a biblical case for universal salvation? New Testament passages

Considering the theological case for eternal conscious torment

Considering the theological case for universal salvation

Theological challenges to universal salvation

November 23, 2021March 22, 2023 / Curt Parton / 9 Comments

This is part of a series on the nature of hell. See below for the rest of the series.

In the last post, we looked at the theological case for universal salvation. So now we’re going to consider the theological challenges to this view. Here are the most common questions and challenges I’ve heard in response to a belief in universal reconciliation and restoration.

Then why even get saved now?

This is often the first response to this belief and, in some ways, it’s a logical response. If everyone is going to ultimately be reconciled to God anyway, why not just live my life and let God save me whenever? But this is actually the saddest challenge for a follower of Christ to make. The idea underlying this question is that we’re only saved to escape hell. So if that doesn’t seem as big a motivation, then why get saved? That’s a tragic attitude for a Christian. What’s our motivation for living a life in Christ? It’s living life in Christ! We aren’t just saved to escape hell and go to heaven—although this is true—but for so much more. We begin to know God now, to experience life in his presence now, to live life in the Spirit now, freedom from sin, spiritual growth and maturity, the life of the body, etc. We don’t experience this life in its fullness yet, but we do experience it genuinely here and now. We never want to think lightly of the life Christ brings us into, his life. He sacrificed everything to give us this life. We must never diminish it this way.

But what’s the big deal going to hell if you’re going to get out eventually anyway?

This is often the followup question to the first challenge above. But this doesn’t really make sense either when we think about it. When faced with a 40-year term in a maximum security prison, would we shrug our shoulders and say, “What’s the big deal? I’m going to get out eventually anyway?” If you had a choice between (a) suffering for a very long time fighting cancer, coming close to death over and over again, going through operations and radiation and chemotherapy and losing your hair, but ultimately surviving; or (b) not dealing with cancer at all—would you shrug your shoulders and say what’s the big deal? If you knew your child could either spend much of their life bound in drug addiction and all the destruction that comes with that, but ultimately survive—or never struggle with drugs at all—would that maybe be a big deal to you?

If everyone receives God’s grace, then it’s no longer a gift, it’s something God owes us.

I’m surprised by how often I hear this because this, too, doesn’t make sense if we just stop and think about it. If you have four children and you give them all Christmas gifts, does that mean they’re no longer gifts? Because you gave them to all your kids, do they somehow become something you owe your children? If your boss gives you a bonus of a million dollars, that would be an incredibly gracious gift, wouldn’t it? And if they decided to bless all of their employees with a bonus of a million dollars each, does that make this gift to you any less gracious? Is it now something your boss owed you? Of course not.

Yes, God is loving, but don’t forget he’s also holy.

Robin Parry shares how people will tell him this as if it’s something he hasn’t thought of. Oh, yeah, that’s right! How could I forget that God’s also holy? Yes, we know that God is not only loving, but also holy and just. But we must be careful to never think of his holiness as somehow in conflict with his love, or his mercy as contending against his justice. There is no such conflict within God, no struggle within his character. Everything he does is both holy and loving. Everything he does is both merciful and just.

This view doesn’t take sin or hell seriously.

The person making this claim hasn’t read very many Christian universalist theologians. Because those who believe in universal reconciliation and restoration take sin and hell just as seriously as do other believers. They believe in and emphasize the same vileness of sin, the same wrath of God toward sin, and the same judgment of those who persist in unrepentance. Ironically, it’s some who believe in eternal conscious torment who try to find a way to soften the harshness of hell, saying that hell won’t be all that bad for some of the people there, and they may even be almost happy in hell. ¹ The evangelical universalist doesn’t have to jump through these hoops to try to make hell tolerable. We can teach that hell is torment, isolation, a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. It is a “big deal” (see the challenge above). It’s the ultimately harsh judgment of God, more extreme than the other examples of God’s harsh judgment we see in Scripture. And just as the pattern we previously observed in Scripture, God’s judgment has an ultimately loving purpose, however harsh it is, leading to change of heart, repentance, reconciliation and restoration. Those who believe in universal restoration can be downright exclusivist in their understanding of salvation—insisting that people must be saved by knowingly placing their faith in Jesus Christ—because the opportunity for salvation doesn’t somehow disappear after they die.

But God destroyed people in the flood, and in Sodom and Gomorrah.

Some people will bring up examples of judgment in the Bible, such as when God destroyed most of humanity in the flood or his destruction of the entire cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. If God was willing to destroy them, they suggest, then he’ll have no problem destroying people in hell. And these are serious, sobering examples of God’s judgment, no doubt about it. But was this eternal destruction? These people lost their physical lives here on earth, but did they cease to exist completely? Remember, evangelical universalists believe in judgment, even in the extreme judgment of hell. What they don’t believe is that this judgment is never-ending without any hope of reconciliation and restoration. Because these examples deal with judgment in this life only—leading to physical death—this is really comparing apples and oranges. It would be like saying, “Well, our parents disciplined us harshly, so that means they would have no problem killing us.” It’s simply not the same thing. (And don’t forget that God says he will restore Sodom [Ezekiel 16:53-55].)

The wrath of God is necessary for God to be glorified.

In the book Four Views on Hell, Robin Parry wrote the chapter on evangelical universalism. In Denny Burk’s response to Parry’s chapter, Burk takes issue with Parry’s understanding that God’s wrath is a manifestation of his love. To Burk, wrath seems to be a part of God’s character in the same way that love or holiness or justice are. ² But this isn’t a biblical understanding of God. Is God perpetually angry? Has he always been angry? Will he be angry for all eternity? Burk seems to think so:

God does not love those who are put in hell. On the contrary, his wrath means that he is angry at them forever (Rom. 2:8). ³

Notice that Burk references Romans 2:8 to support the claim that God is angry with the lost forever. Take the time to look up that verse for yourself. Does it say that God is angry with anyone forever? This is a good example of why I always encourage people to look up Scripture references to make sure it says what they’re saying it says! In this case it doesn’t say what Burk is saying at all. So what do we see in Scripture:

For his anger lasts only a moment,
but his favor lasts a lifetime;
Psalm 30:5

You do not stay angry forever
but delight to show mercy.
Micah 7:18

How many places do we read that God is “slow to anger”? How can God be slow to anger if wrath is an essential part of his character? Is he slow to be holy? Is he slow to love? Instead, we read that God’s anger is a temporary response for a specific purpose:

The anger of the LORD will not turn back
until he fully accomplishes
the purposes of his heart.
Jeremiah 23:20

No, Parry’s view of God is much more biblical, and Burk’s is disturbingly similar to the capricious, irritable gods of paganism.

Remember what we saw in the first chapter of Colossians that just as “all things” were created in Christ, these same “all things” God has reconciled to himself through Christ, “making peace through his blood, shed on the cross [1:20].” You don’t remain eternally angry with those whom you have reconciled to yourself, those with whom you have made peace through your own blood. God reconciled us to him through Christ’s death while we were still his enemies (Romans 5:10). This is the God who chose to be crucified in order to reconcile all of his creation to himself. Would it bring him most glory to be unceasingly angry toward much of his creation for all eternity, subjecting them to endless torment to appease his wrath? Does this picture of God really glorify him, or does it actually diminish his glory? Would it not bring much more glory for him to thoroughly defeat his enemies by transforming them into his friends, even bringing them into his family as his children, so he has no more need to be angry toward his creation? Isn’t this much more glorifying of God?

Universal salvation is a man-centered theology.

A sometimes effective way to scare people away from a theological belief is to accuse it of being a “man-centered” idea. But let’s stop and actually compare beliefs. Some claim that God desires to save everyone, but that he is ultimately, eternally stymied by the stubborn rebellion of human beings. He wants to save them, but they say, “No!” Their hearts are simply too hard for God’s love and grace to overcome. This actually seems to be a bit “man-centered,” because it’s fallen humans who have the final word contrary to God’s will.

Now let’s look at the other belief. According to this view, God’s love is unconquerable and can overcome the hardest heart (compare this with Romans 8:38-39). God’s grace is always greater than sin, more powerful than sin, always surpassing sin (Romans 5:15, 20). God will not stop until he has restored to himself everything that was lost to him (Luke 15). ⁴ God’s truth will overcome everything false; God’s light will drive out all darkness (Revelation 22:5). God will be completely victorious over all of his enemies, even destroying death itself (1 Corinthians 15:26). Show me again how this is “man-centered”?

But what about free will? Does God force people to repent?

This is the most thoughtful challenge to Christian universalism. What if people don’t want to be reconciled and restored? I want us to take some time to really think about this. Let’s begin by assuming—for the sake of discussion—that some people just won’t stop rejecting God. I’ll explain later why I don’t believe this is true, but let’s assume for now that it is. Does this mean that God’s hands are tied, that there’s nothing he can do? Is the free will of humanity somehow the most sacred, inviolate virtue above everything else? And where exactly do we go in Scripture to see that human freedom is the one principle that overrides all others?

If your two-year-old is running headlong straight into a busy street, do you place their free will above all other concerns? Or do you take immediate, decisive action to prevent them from being destroyed? (“No!”) We do allow children to experience the consequences of their actions when it doesn’t actually destroy them. We allow them to pay the price for their free will choices so they can learn what is beneficial and what is dangerous. We may let them touch something that’s hot, for instance, so they learn that hot things burn. But there’s a limit to how much free will we allow them, isn’t there? It’s one thing touching something hot; it’s something else entirely to stick their arm in the fire. From God’s perspective, how much different are we than a two-year-old?

It’s common for evangelical Christians to say things without realizing how contradictory they are. For instance, we frequently say that “God is always a gentleman,” that God won’t force himself onto anyone. And then, virtually in the same breath, we can talk about God as the “Hound of Heaven” who aggressively pursued us unrelentingly until we surrendered. And we never stop to realize that these descriptions of God contradict one another. If God is always a gentleman, someone needs to explain that to Paul who was knocked to the ground and blinded on the road to Damascus. Or to C.S. Lewis, who describes himself as being brought in “kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape.” (He goes on to say of God, “His compulsion is our liberation.”) ⁵ That doesn’t sound like a gentleman to me, but it does sound like a very focused parent intent on doing what is best for their child. The Calvinist understanding of compatibilism is only a problem if God doesn’t compatibilistically save everyone.

(It’s also a little ironic that many of the same people who insist that passages such as Philippians 2:9-11 can’t be voluntary worship—that these people are being forced to acknowledge God—will then turn around and question how God could be forcing people to repent! Apparently it’s okay for God to force people to confess Jesus Christ as Lord as long as he doesn’t actually save them! This also makes me think of debates between Calvinists and non-Calvinists. Arminians and other non-Calvinists are quick to say their problem with Calvinism isn’t the issue of free will but one of honoring the biblical, loving character of God. Some have even said the only way they could be a Calvinist is if they were a universalist. But then, when presented with a biblical, evangelical universalism, they reject it because they think it doesn’t preserve their concept of libertarian free will. Maybe their focus on free will is greater than they thought!)

So am I saying that God doesn’t respect the free will of the lost but forces them to repent? Not at all. But we need to think about what we mean by a “free choice.” As many Arminians will clarify, they don’t so much believe in free will, but in freed will. We were bound in sin and rebellion and our fallen sin nature, but God freed us, enabling us to choose, so that we could embrace him, placing our faith in Christ. For a choice to be free, it has to be . . . free.

Let me illustrate. Suppose someone is under the influence of a powerful drug and they attack someone else. Are they responsible for their actions? Maybe, especially if they knew the dangers of the drug before taking it. But what if someone put the drug in their food or drink, and they consumed it without knowing? If they had no control over their behavior, then they would be deemed as not responsible for what happened. Their actions were not done by way of a free choice.

If we walked into a room and saw a young man holding his hand in a fire without pulling it out, ⁶ even though it was being burned, what’s the first thought that would go through our minds? “There’s something wrong with that guy,” right? Why? Because people don’t do that—not freely. If we’re doing something that painful, that self-destructive, our action itself is evidence that something is wrong with us. This isn’t a choice we’re making freely; there is something else causing us to act in this manner.

Now let’s think about salvation. We were created to live in relationship with God. Even in our fallen state we long for that connection. This is why throughout history humans have been drawn to religion of some kind. As Christians, we know that all of our most intense longings and yearnings, the deepest questions, even the ones we can’t express—all of this only finds satisfaction in Christ. We only find ultimate fulfillment and purpose in Christ. We even only really come to truly know ourselves in him.

Do people reject God? Of course. (We did ourselves at one time.) Why do people reject God? We could make a list of reasons, couldn’t we? Some don’t believe that God exists; some resist authority; some don’t like religion or have been hurt by Christians; some feel they’d be giving up too much control. So people do have reasons for rejecting God. But are they good reasons? Would we say that any of these are sound, logical reasons why someone should reject God? No, not at all. In fact, we’d try to help the person see that these “reasons” for rejecting God are illusions, they’re fairy tales. God does exist; Jesus is very different from religion; we don’t really have control over our own lives, etc, etc.

So there is no sound, rational reason for rejecting Christ, and every reason to receive him. Anyone who rejects Christ, especially in hell, is not doing this freely. To refuse what you were created for and what will satisfy every longing and desire put within us by God, but to instead “choose” to remain in a state of torment and ongoing death, is not a free choice. It’s an insane one, one devoid of rational thought, just like the young man holding his hand in the fire. Just as Scripture describes the lost in this life, such a person is bound in deception and darkness. The question is what does God do with this person? Does he bring the young man to the point of clarity so he understands the insanity of holding his hand in the fire and can then make a free choice? Or does he say to the young man who is bound in delusion and completely irrational, “You want to hold your hand in the fire? Fine! I’ll make sure you hold it there forever!”

But some will say, “Yes, it’s insane and they’re deceived, but that’s just their nature! It’s their nature to reject God; that’s why they’re in hell!” But wait a minute. Let’s think about that. Yes, we all have a fallen, sinful nature, but did we choose to have that nature? Did you choose to be born into a sinful, rebellious race? No, the Scriptures are clear about this: “For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all [Romans 11:32].” Now, we all do subsequently sin by our own volition, so we all stand guilty before God. But we didn’t choose our sinful nature. All of us were subjected to this sinful nature (so that God could have mercy on all of us). God brought each of us to the point of clarity and freedom where we knew the incomparable greatness of knowing Christ our Lord. That’s the only way we could be saved! Otherwise we remain bound in sin, rebellion, darkness and death—not by free choice but because this was part of God’s plan. We were bound in disobedience. God freed us so that we could make a free choice, and we chose life in him.

The very same thing is still true of the lost person in hell. They’re not able to make a free choice until God brings them to this point of clarity and freedom. Until then, they remain bound in sin, rebellion, darkness and death—not by free choice but because it’s part of God’s plan. He has bound us all in disobedience so that he could have mercy on us all. And, just as with many of us, it can be a long, drawn out process to bring us to that point of clarity, freedom and surrender. God will use anything in our lives to bring us to this point of freedom of choice—even hell.

But isn’t this torturing people until they give in? Isn’t this forcing them to believe? Not at all. Most evangelical Christians are quick to describe hell as the absence of God. (This doesn’t necessarily mean that God can’t be active in hell. People are experiencing ultimate alienation from God in a way that’s analogous to a child experiencing alienation from their parent while on time out. They are strongly experiencing, from their perspective, the absence of their parent.) People insist on an existence without him, and so God complies, giving them what they think they want. The difference is that the Christian universalist doesn’t believe that God unlovingly binds the lost eternally in their state of deception and delusion. He gives them what they think they want in order to show them it’s not really what they want! This isn’t torture, it’s punishment intended to bring clarity leading to repentance.

Anyone who has struggled with addictions, or who has worked with those bound in addiction, has seen that some people have to hit absolute rock bottom before they come to a sense of clarity about their own problem. We see something similar in the story of the prodigal son and his father. The father gives the son his inheritance, strengthening him in his resolve and ability to pursue his self-destructive path, a path that would end in a pigpen—a horrible end that brings perfect clarity to this prodigal son. The universal reconciliation and restoration view is that, for many, hell is the pigpen. Hell is where many will come to that place of clarity and repentance. It’s the tough love of God, allowing his strong-willed, rebellious children to get exactly what they think they want, to show them what they really need and want. God will use anything—even our own rebellion—to bring the very last of his sheep back to him.

So is this just wishful thinking? Are we just making this up? What did we see when we searched the Scriptures (here and here)? God desires to save everyone. We see this clearly in Scripture. We also see in Scripture that some people will be lost when they die and will experience hell. But we also saw passage after passage that tell us that God will ultimately reconcile and restore everyone, all of his creation. And we saw in Revelation that even the evil, rebellious kings of the earth—who were cast into the lake of fire—eventually come into the city, the new Jerusalem, the heaven-on-earth church of God. ⁷ This is God’s plan. He has bound everyone over to disobedience that he might have mercy on everyone.

The alternative is that either God doesn’t love some people and desire for them to be saved, or that he’s not able to save them. But we don’t see either of these in Scripture. We believe that God desires and intends to save everyone he has created, and that he is well able to accomplish everything he desires and intends. We believe that our perfect God has always had a perfect end for his perfect plan. As Thomas Talbott describes, he is the grandmaster chess player who doesn’t need to control our moves but who is always 12 steps ahead of us—and who is assured to win. ⁸ And this is a good thing for all of us!

Anyone who believes this won’t be motivated to share the gospel with others.

It’s very ironic to see this challenge come from Calvinists, and we do. This is the very same challenge they receive sometimes! It’s not true of Calvinists (Calvinist believers are very often passionate about evangelism, missions and church-planting), and it’s not true of evangelical universalists either. In fact, many who embrace this truth describe the same change of perspective. It’s amazing when we begin looking at every single person we come into contact with as someone who will eventually come to faith in Christ. No one is a lost cause! Not only does this mean we can’t ever mentally dismiss anyone, but it also gives us great confidence and enthusiasm in evangelism. Everyone with whom we share the faith will eventually repent and believe! Everyone is save-able! This doesn’t make us less interested in evangelism, it makes us much more eager to share the truth and love of Christ with those we know will ultimately embrace this truth!

If this is true, why aren’t the Scriptures more clear and explicit that all will be saved?

This was something I wrestled with at one time. And there are a few things to think about here. First, as others have pointed out, we do see a great many passages that clearly and explicitly tell us everyone will be reconciled to God and restored. There is actually much more clear, explicit biblical support for this belief than there is for many other beliefs we take for granted.

Also remember that the Old Testament only clearly mentions resurrection once. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t true, just that God hadn’t revealed everything to them yet. We also saw in the story of Jonah that God gave him a message of judgment, but didn’t reveal that he would relent from that judgment if they repented. We can never presume to know every detail of what God’s going to do. And—as with Jonah—we should assume that God is loving and merciful, eager to relent from destroying people.

Still, some might say, why don’t the passages that speak of hell also tell us that people won’t be there forever, that they will eventually be saved? But remember, hell is the punishment of God. How many of you when warning your children of punishment include the comforting detail that the punishment won’t last forever? “If you disobey me you’ll sit in your room without any electronic devices—but don’t worry, it won’t last forever!” We don’t do that, do we? It’s not that it’s untrue; it’s just not helpful at the moment. It actually wouldn’t make sense for God to add to the passages warning of hell that they’ll still be saved. We find that truth in other passages.

And one other possibility to consider. God shared with Abraham his plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:16-33). Abraham responds by contending with God for them: “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” And we see in the passage that this is exactly what God intended. He wanted Abraham to respond this way, and almost eggs him on. Later, God tells Moses to get out of the way, that he’s going to destroy the people of Israel and start over again with him. Again we see someone, this time Moses, pleading with God on behalf of the people (Exodus 32:9-14). Either God had lost control and needed to be talked down by Moses, or Moses did what God wanted him to do all along. He stood in the gap for the people. He put himself on the line, pleading with God to forgive and not destroy the people. And, of course, we know that Moses was a type of Christ, pointing forward to the one who would perfectly stand in the gap for all the people, seeking the forgiveness, reconciliation and restoration of all the people—as God had always intended. We then see Paul also standing in the gap for the people, willing to put his own life on the line so his people could be saved.

If God desired Abraham to have a heart for people that would cause him to appeal to God for them to be saved; if he desired Moses to put his life on the line to plead that God would show mercy to the people and relent from judgment; if we see this heart in Christ himself, in his sacrifice and in his prayer for the very people who were killing him; if we later see this same heart in Paul toward his people who were stubbornly rejecting their own Messiah—maybe this is the heart he wants us to have toward the lost as well. Maybe he’s not as clear as he could be in Scripture in order to see if we will have a heart that longs for each person to be reconciled to God and restored, or if we’ll have a heart that either calls for fire from heaven to destroy our enemies (Luke 9:52-55), or hearts that cause us to simply shrug our shoulders in indifference at the fate of the lost.

It doesn’t surprise me at all that people would struggle with what is, for them, new and very different ideas concerning hell and who will be saved. I would actually discourage anyone from embracing too quickly any change of view. It’s good for us to wrestle with these things, to question and to challenge. What has surprised me, and deeply troubled me, is the anger I sense in many responses to this belief. Why would the thought that God might actually save everyone cause any Christian to respond with anger? Shouldn’t we be moved with compassion for the lost as Christ was? Shouldn’t we desire that all be saved as God does? Aren’t we to love even our enemies? Why are we so often like Jonah, who was angry that God would relent from judging Nineveh, or like the older brother of the prodigal, who was angry that his father would take his lost brother back in and restore him? Why are our hearts too often like these hard-hearted people in Scripture . . . instead of like Christ’s?

If we must come to the conclusion that God won’t actually save everyone, shouldn’t that be a sad realization? And if we do become convinced that God not only wants to save everyone but will, wouldn’t that result in tremendous rejoicing, praise and worship? Isn’t this what we want? And wouldn’t this bring God even more glory, to be a God who doesn’t have to eliminate his enemies or imprison them as they persist in rebellion, but a God who completely triumphs over every enemy by bringing them to the point of perfect clarity where they surrender to him, embrace his truth and love and grace for them, and are transformed from enemies into servants and even children?

I believe that God has always had the perfect end to his perfect plan. I believe that his truth and his love are not only unconquerable, but that nothing in all creation can ultimately and finally stand against God’s truth and God’s love. Nothing.

If you’d like more expansive arguments for and against the differing views of hell, I’d recommend beginning with one of these books:

Four Views on Hell (2nd ed.) by Preston Sprinkle, Denny Burk, John Stackhouse Jr, Robin Parry, and Jerry Walls

All You Want to Know about Hell: Three Christian Views of God’s Final Solution to the Problem of Sin by Steve Gregg

For much deeper and more complete presentations of the evangelical universalist view of hell, I would strongly recommend the two books listed below. I’ve tried to footnote specific ideas I first encountered in the writings of Thomas Talbott and Robin Parry, but there isn’t much in my thinking on this subject that hasn’t been deeply affected by these brothers. I strongly and warmly recommend both of these books:

The Inescapable Love of God (2nd ed.) by Thomas Talbott

The Evangelical Universalist (2nd ed.) by Gregory MacDonald

Jerry L. Walls, Hell: The Logic of Damnation (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 128.
Denny Burk, “An Eternal Conscious Torment Response” in Four Views on Hell, 2nd ed., ed. Preston Sprinkle (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016), 131.
Burk, Four Views on Hell, 131.
Steve Gregg, All You Want to Know about Hell (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2013), 57.
C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1955), 279-280.
Thomas B. Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God, 2nd ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2014), 171-185.
Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist, 2nd ed. (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2012), 114-120.
Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God, 170.

Exploring Hell series:

Hell in the Bible: Understanding the biblical words

Hell in the early church: What did early church leaders believe about hell?

Is there a biblical case for universal salvation? The Old Testament pattern

Is there a biblical case for universal salvation? New Testament passages

Considering the theological case for eternal conscious torment

Considering the theological case for universal salvation

Considering the theological case for universal salvation

November 16, 2021March 22, 2023 / Curt Parton

Photo by Small Group Network on Unsplash

This is part of a series on the nature of hell. See below for the rest of the series.

We’ve looked at the background regarding our beliefs about hell, we’ve examined the biblical case for eternal conscious torment, and we’ve considered the theological arguments for an eternal hell. After weighing all of this, I fail to see any convincing scriptural or theological reasons why we should believe in eternal conscious torment. But does this leave us in a state of ignorance about the eternal fate of the lost? We have seen many biblical passages that strongly indicate God will ultimately reconcile and restore all of his creation. Are there also broader theological arguments for this view? And how convincing are they? We’ll look at the theological case for universal salvation in this post, and consider the theological challenges to this view in the next.

Three propositions

To help us think through how we’re approaching all of this, consider three theological propositions or claims. (I’m paraphrasing something originally written by Thomas Talbott.¹) Some Christians believe each of the following statements—but no one believes all three:

God loves everyone and intends for each person to be saved.

God will accomplish everything he intends.

Some people will be eternally lost.

One could find biblical passages that—at least superficially—seem to support each of these claims. But all three propositions can’t be true. So each of us will deny one of these claims. Calvinists will disagree with the first statement. They don’t believe that God loves everyone in the same way and that he intends to save each individual person. Arminians and other non-Calvinists don’t believe statement number 2. They would insist that God desires and does everything he can to save each person, but his ability to accomplish what he intends is limited by the individual’s free will. Christian universalists deny the third claim. They don’t see any biblical or theological reason to accept the idea that some people will be eternally lost. They believe God fully intends to save each person and that he is certainly able to accomplish what he intends. Thus, he will do what he intends and will bring each person to the point of repentance and faith in Christ—even if he has to utilize hell to accomplish this.

So we have a choice between: (a) a God who could save everyone but chooses not to; (b) a God who sincerely wants to save everyone but isn’t able to; or (c) a God who both wants to save everyone and does. Do we have a God who lacks loving intent for those he’s created, a God who lacks the power or ability to accomplish what he desires and intends, or a God who lacks neither love nor power? Has God created people he knew would be lost for eternity—people he either chose to leave damned, or whom he knew he wouldn’t be able to rescue? By creating as he has, did God give himself a problem even he can’t solve? Did he actually create a rock too heavy for him to lift?! Ultimately, we have to examine the scriptural support for each of these three claims. I find the first two biblically certain, and the third to be without much support at all.

The love of God

Let’s think about the character of God as we see described in Scripture. Can God ever be unholy? Is there anyone to whom God would not be holy? Of course not. God is always holy, without fail. Can God ever be untrustworthy? Could God ever call people to trust in him and then not be worthy of that trust. Absolutely not. We have complete confidence in the biblical character of God. So can God ever be unloving? Remember, the Scriptures don’t just tell us God is loving, but that God is love (1 John 4:16). Can God ever be unloving? Is there anyone to whom he would act in a way that isn’t ultimately in their long-term best interest? Because—if love is an essential part of his character and he could choose not to love some—then why should we be confident he’ll always tell us the truth, or be holy, or trustworthy, etc.? If he doesn’t always love others, then why should we believe he’ll always love us? And if we say “because he’s told us he’ll always love us,” why should we trust him if he’s not consistently true to his character?

No, our first instinct here is the biblical one. Of course God is always loving. This means that everything God does is loving, just as everything God does is holy. In the same way he calls us to be loving in everything we do (1 Corinthians 13), he is loving in everything he does. Even if his actions are unpleasant for us or seem harsh, we ultimately find they’re loving. This means that hell must be loving. Whatever view we hold about hell must include this unavoidable truth. If God is love, if God never fails to be loving, if everything that God does is loving—then hell must be loving. Hell must be in the best interest of those who are subjected to it.

We understand that hell is the punishment of God for those who haven’t placed their faith in Christ. So let’s think about punishment. This is something we understand well because human parents must sometimes punish their children. So what is it about punishment that makes it a loving act? It’s the intended outcome, right? Parents punish their children for the sake of their children. There may be other reasons as well (to establish order, to be an example, etc.), but what makes the punishment loving is the motivation, the outcome intended by the parent. What would constitute unloving punishment? Unloving punishment would be punishment that isn’t done for the child at all, but simply to express the rage of the parent.

We see all through Scripture that even God’s harshest judgment has loving purpose. His judgment is intended to bring about change in the hearts and lives of those he judges. Hell is the punishment of the lost by God, and it’s something that must be loving because this is the character of God. He can no more be unloving than he could be unholy. So what makes the punishment of hell loving? The intended outcome. It must be in the best interest of those God is punishing. For hell to be loving it must be remedial. It must be intended to bring about change in those being punished. It must be redemptive.

We see in Scripture the kind of love to which God calls us. We’re to love others as Christ loved us. We’re even required to love our enemies (Matthew 5:43-48). Does the Bible give us an end point to this command? Does it ever describe a point when we’re no longer to love our enemies? No, it doesn’t. So does God love his enemies? Does God ever stop loving his enemies?

We’re commanded to forgive those who sin against us. How many times are we to forgive those who have sinned against us? Not seven times, but seventy times seven (Matthew 18:22), right? Does that mean we can count up to the 491st time someone asks for forgiveness, and then we don’t have to forgive anymore? No, it doesn’t mean that at all. Study Bibles and commentaries explain the context of this verse, that Jesus is showing how God’s grace is completely without limit, and that we must follow his example. So how can we then claim that God has a point past which he will no longer forgive those who sin against him? Is God a “do as I say not as I do” kind of God?

And let’s think about God’s love for those of us who are now his, those of us who will experience heaven. Does God love us? Of course he does. We can have complete confidence in God’s love for us. But what if your beloved spouse or son or daughter isn’t a believer when they die? Will God stop loving your spouse or your child? How can he claim to love you, but not love your spouse or your child? ² How could God claim to love you, to be committed to what is best for you, and not also love the child you love so much, not also be committed to what is best for your child?

How could God expect us to enjoy the bliss of heaven while those we love are either being consciously tormented for all eternity or completely snuffed out of existence? Some would say God somehow removes the memory of our lost loved ones. But this is horrific. And how would it work anyway? Would he actually remove the memory of a spouse to whom someone’s been married for 60 years? What’s left remaining wouldn’t be your life! This would be deception, and God does not deceive. We’ll gain clarity in the life to come, not lose it. We will know fully even as we are fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Some say we’ll gain a greater appreciation of God’s holiness and judgment and so, somehow, be accepting of the eternal conscious torment of our loved ones. But certainly we will be more loving in the life to come, not less! ³ If we share the heart of God, our hearts will break even more for those who are experiencing hell. And we’ll be even more aware of just how horrible this judgment is. No, this will give us an even greater longing for their salvation. And even if we are somehow unaware of this eternal suffering, God will certainly be aware. Will he stop loving his lost creation? Will he live for eternity in a state of grief and mourning for those either being tormented or who were extinguished? Or will he accomplish what he desires and save all of his creation?

How can heaven be fully heaven—for any of us—while anyone remains in hell? Isn’t our God the one who loved his fallen world so much that he sacrificed himself—taking on our death and condemnation—so that we could all be reconciled to him and receive his life? In Revelation, Jesus is the Lion of the tribe of Judah and he’s also the Lamb who was slain. Jesus will eternally be the God who was crucified, who laid down everything for his creation. Do we really believe he will come to no longer love his lost creation?

The victory of God

We know from Scripture God will ultimately triumph over all his enemies, and that the last enemy to be destroyed will be death (1 Corinthians 15:24-28). In 1 Corinthians 15:55 we have this confident challenge to death:

Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?

This is the glorious victory of God over all his enemies! But let’s think this through. If: (a) the consequence of sin is death (Romans 6:23), and (b) the ultimate consequence of sin, the ultimate death is either an eternal, conscious death in hell or death by completely ceasing to exist, and (c) much, or even most, of God’s creation remains eternally in this state of death . . . how exactly is God triumphing over death? How is this victory? How will death have been “destroyed”? Would 1 Corinthians 15:55 above not be an empty challenge? Would not death be able to respond to these questions: “Where is my victory? Right here! In the countless number of your precious creation who will eternally remain dead.”

We use the term “lost” for those who aren’t yet saved, and it’s a biblical word. But when the shepherd leaves the 99 sheep and seeks the one that’s lost (Luke 15:1-7), to whom is the sheep lost? Who is the one in the story who has experienced the loss? It’s the shepherd! And he’s seeking to restore his lost sheep to himself. ⁴ When the widow loses one of her silver coins (Luke 15:8-10), to whom is the coin lost? To her! And she searches to restore the coin to herself. To whom is the prodigal son lost (Luke 15:11-32)? To his father! And he watches and waits until he can restore his son to himself. So to whom are the lost actually lost? To God. And he longs to restore even the last one who’s lost to himself. Will he experience eternal loss? Or will he be victorious?

Again, imagine you have seven children. And let’s say your children all become victim to a mind-controlling cult that will ultimately destroy them. So you endeavor to do everything you can to rescue each of your children from this cult and bring them to freedom. In the end, you’re able to rescue only two of your children. The other five remain, and take part in the mass suicide of the cult. Would you then exult, “I have been triumphant! I have completely won the victory!”? Is this really the kind of victory for God that Scripture is describing?

We read 1 Thessalonians 4:13 that believers “do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.” This a wonderful, blessed truth to which we hold tightly when we experience the loss of a loved one. But is this only true for our loved ones who we know have placed their trust in Christ before they died? For the rest, are we back to grieving like the rest of mankind with no hope? Is our hopeless grief actually worse than the rest of mankind because we know so well the consequences of death without faith? Or does Scripture give us hope for all our loved ones who die because our trust is in the unconquerable love of God (Romans 8:38-39) and his sacrifice for all people (1 John 2:2)?

In John 10, Jesus contrasts himself as the Good Shepherd, who comes “that they may have life and have it to the full [v. 10],” with the thief, who comes to steal, kill and destroy. But according to both eternal conscious punishment and annihilationism, what does God do with those who are lost? Does he not kill and destroy them? Is he not doing to them exactly what the enemy desires to do? How, then, is God victorious over Satan? Even if Satan is eternally bound, can’t he go to hell with a smile on his face because he’s taking so many of God’s created beings with him, and even seeing God accomplishing Satan’s intended design for them: their death and destruction? How is this victory for God?

Will evil actually exist for all eternity? Will sin remain in the hearts of those in hell forever? Will God truly be utterly supreme over everything everywhere (1 Corinthians 15:28) . . . except for his rebellious creation in hell who still resist and refuse him as Lord and King? Or does he remove his opponents by killing them—somewhat like ensuring a unanimous vote by killing all those who vote against you? Is this really the complete and glorious victory of God?

Which view best fits the gospel?

While arguing against the universal restoration view, Jerry Walls wrote:

I will also concede that his view [evangelical universalism] represents the end of the biblical story that is most to be desired. The universalist view delivers on the promise of a truly perfect end of the story. ⁵

But how can the “truly perfect” end of the story not actually be the end of the story? How can we come up with a better end of the story than God did? Could it be that this conclusion isn’t too good to be true, but that it’s too good to not be true? As we’ve seen, this view isn’t based on warm and fuzzy wishful thinking, but on rigorous exegesis of Scripture. And which view best fits the good news of Jesus Christ? Which best fits into the whole biblical story?

In his book examining the different views on hell, Steve Gregg tells us he’s still struggling with this issue, that he hasn’t definitively reached a conclusion yet. I certainly respect that kind of transparency. But we can perhaps see a bit of his process in the headings he chose for the different sections of his book. The 2-chapter section on eternal conscious torment, he titled: “First, the Bad News.” The next section, on annihilationism, he titled: “The Bad News Is Not As Bad As You Thought.” And the final section, on restorationism, he titled: “The Good News Is Better Than You Thought”! ⁶ Again, how can we think of anything better than God’s good news?

In Robin Parry’s response to another view, he uses playful—but I would say insightful—descriptions of the differing views. He describes those who believe in eternal conscious torment as “tormentors,” and those who believe in annihilation as “terminators.” ⁷ Those who believe in evangelical universalism would then be “transformers.” As everyone agrees, what we believe about hell reveals what we believe about God. So the question is really: Do we believe in a God who’s ultimately a Tormentor, a Terminator, or a Transformer? Which best fits his character? Which best fits his gospel? Which best fits the biblical story?

What do we see in the gospel, taking it in its whole canonical context? We see God’s creation ruined and then restored. We see his people, Israel, ruined and then restored. We see us ruined by the fall into sin, but then restored. At the heart of his gospel, we see Christ sacrificing himself, taking on the death brought by sin, in order to reconcile and restore his fallen, rebellious creation. We see the mission that comes from the gospel, the mission which we now pursue. And we see the ultimate culmination and final victory of God’s plan, accomplishing what he intends to accomplish, what he accomplished on the cross. So which understanding of hell best fits this gospel, the eternal torment of those lost to God, the termination of those lost to God, or the transformation and restoration of those lost to God? ⁸

There’s so much more I’d like to write in this post, but much of it would get too involved. Maybe I’ll write a stand-alone post later exploring, for instance, all the ways biblical universalism resolves so many issues debated between Calvinists and Arminians (and other non-Calvinists). There are so many intriguing insights I’d like to include here. For example, Chris Brackett, one of our pastors, pointed out in a group discussion that we believe Christ paid the penalty for our sin. Jesus took on our death so we can receive his life. But if the wages of sin is death, and if that death means either eternal conscious torment or annihilation, then Christ actually didn’t take on our death, the consequence of our sin—because Christ wasn’t eternally tormented or annihilated!

I don’t see sufficient biblical support for eternal conscious torment and I don’t find any of the theological arguments persuasive. But I find many passages of Scripture that show the ultimate reconciliation and restoration of all of God’s creation, and I find the theological arguments for this view profound and compelling. But what of the theological challenges? We’ll look at these next.

If you’d like more expansive arguments for and against the differing views of hell, I’d recommend beginning with one of these books:

Four Views on Hell (2nd ed.) by Preston Sprinkle, Denny Burk, John Stackhouse Jr, Robin Parry, and Jerry Walls

All You Want to Know about Hell: Three Christian Views of God’s Final Solution to the Problem of Sin by Steve Gregg

The Inescapable Love of God (2nd ed.) by Thomas Talbott

The Evangelical Universalist (2nd ed.) by Gregory MacDonald

Thomas B. Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God, 2nd ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2014), 38.
Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God, 126-129.
Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist, 2nd ed. (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2012), 17.
Steve Gregg, All You Want to Know about Hell (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2013), 57.
Jerry L. Walls, “A Hell and Purgatory Response” in Four Views on Hell, 2nd ed., ed. Preston Sprinkle (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016), 141.
Gregg, All You Want to Know about Hell.
Robin A. Parry, “A Universalist Response” in Four Views on Hell, 89-92.
Parry, Four Views on Hell, 91.

Exploring Hell series:

Hell in the Bible: Understanding the biblical words

Hell in the early church: What did early church leaders believe about hell?

Is there a biblical case for universal salvation? The Old Testament pattern

Is there a biblical case for universal salvation? New Testament passages

Considering the theological case for eternal conscious torment

Considering the theological case for universal salvation

Is there a biblical case for universal salvation?: New Testament passages

November 3, 2021March 22, 2023 / Curt Parton

This is part of a series on the nature of hell. See below for the rest of the series.

In the last post we looked at the Old Testament. We saw that God desires to relent from judging people, that we should expect for his judgment to always be followed by restoration, and that biblical passages speak of a future time when all of God’s creation will submit to and worship him. According to the Scriptures we examined, all of this is grounded in God’s love. If we’re seeing this correctly, we should discover the New Testament expanding on this and making it even more clear. Some might point out—rightly—that the passages we looked at in the Old Testament are poetic in nature, drawn from the Psalms and prophetic books. We need for these poetic references to be confirmed in more direct, didactic [intending to teach] scriptural books such as the letters to the churches. Let’s see what we find in the New Testament.

Romans 5:18-19 all “will be made righteous”

As we study through Romans, we see in 5:10 that “while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son.” This is a wonderful truth, but it prompts some questions. Who would be included in “God’s enemies”? Who are those in need of reconciliation? Wouldn’t that be everyone? Does that mean God has reconciled everyone to himself through Christ’s death? This leaves a question that needs to be resolved.

Moving on in this chapter, we come to verse 15:

But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! [emphasis added]

We should clarify a couple of things in this verse. First, we see here a use of the word “many” with which most of you are probably already familiar. It wasn’t uncommon for them to use “many” in an understated way to actually refer to “all.” It says first that “many” died by the trespass of the one man (Adam). Who would this include? All of us, right? Paul has made this clear in previous chapters of Romans. Since the first “many” is referring to all, the second “many” must also refer to all. Paul shows this in the chapter by going back and forth between using “many” and using “all.” So death came to all of us because of Adam, and grace overflows to all of us because of Christ.

But also notice this isn’t a simple comparison of equally significant phenomena. Grace isn’t merely the positive equivalent of the death that comes because of sin. No, notice the “how much more” speaking of God’s grace. I like the way the REB brings this out:

But God’s act of grace is out of all proportion to Adam’s wrongdoing. For if the wrongdoing of that one man brought death upon so many, its effect is vastly exceeded by the grace of God and the gift that came to so many by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ [emphasis added].

Verse 17 gives us another “how much more” contrasting the death through Adam and reigning in life through Christ. In verse 20, we read the familiar line: “where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” Again, I think the REB gives us the vivid sense of the Greek: “where sin was multiplied, grace immeasurably exceeded it.” Do you see the significance of this? God’s grace and life are immeasurably more powerful than sin and death. Grace always exceeds sin; grace always abounds much more than sin. So, in the context of all of this, Paul tells us this in verses 18-19:

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.

Notice again the interchangeable use in this chapter of the words “all” and “many.” Who are the “many” who were made sinners through the disobedience of Adam? That’s everyone, right? Then the very same word is used again: “so through the obedience of one man the many will be made righteous.” If the many who were made sinners includes everyone, then the many who will be made righteous has to include everyone. There’s nothing in the text that would cause us to interpret the second “many” to have a different meaning than the first—especially considering the intentionally repeated and emphasized comparisons of the all and the many throughout this section, each referring to all humanity. If I was teaching this in a classroom setting, and drew a circle on the whiteboard to show those who were made sinners, and then drew a circle showing those who will be made righteous—it would be the very same circle. I don’t see any way around this without doing violence to the text.

But—some will say—there’s only one way to “be made righteous.” Paul has made it clear in chapters 3 and 4 that only those who have the same faith that Abraham had will be justified or considered righteous. The only way for us to be made righteous is through faith in Christ! To this, the evangelical universalist will respond, “Amen!” And since Paul says here that all will be made righteous, we must understand that all will come to faith in Christ. Notice he doesn’t say throughout this chapter that all were potentially made sinners. No, all were made sinners, because of the sin of one man, Adam. So, he’s not saying that all will potentially be made righteous. No, all “will be made righteous,” “through the obedience of one man [Christ].” Isn’t this saying the same thing we saw in the Old Testament, that all will come to submit to God and worship him? But now we see more clearly that this happens in Christ.

And let’s not forget the contrast in verse 20, that grace always immeasurably exceeds sin. But, wait a minute. We need to think about this. If sin results in death for everyone in God’s vast creation, but the grace of God only saves from death a certain number of those condemned to death—possibly even a relatively small number—how is grace increasing even more than sin? How is the salvation greater than the curse? If Adam’s sin affects everyone without exception, but Christ’s grace affects only some . . . how is God’s grace greater than Adam’s sin?

Romans 8:38-39 Nothing can separate us from God’s love

Romans 8:35 asks the question: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” And Romans 8:38-39 answers the question:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It’s hard to imagine how Paul could have been more all-inclusive. The message seems clear: Absolutely nothing can separate us from God’s love. God’s love triumphs over anything that might try to separate us from that love. Even death can’t separate us from God’s love. And, if the wages of sin is death, is not hell the ultimate experience of death? Even hell can’t separate us from God’s love. Some might ask, “Yes, but can I separate myself from God’s love?” Well, am I saying that I am greater than God’s love? And are we not included in “all creation”? Then, according to this text, we can’t even separate ourselves from God’s love!

1 Corinthians 15:21-22 “in Christ all will be made alive”

The passage we just examined in Romans 5 compares very well to this one in 1 Corinthians 15:21-22:

For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

Who dies “in Adam”? Everyone. So who will be made alive in Christ? Everyone. “But,” some will say, “it’s only those who are ‘in Christ’ who will be made alive.” Yes. All of us agree on this. But unless we have any place in Scripture where it clearly says that some will never come to faith in Christ—either in this life or the life to come—we have no reason to assume there are some of the “all” who die in Adam who are not in the “all” who will be made alive in Christ. Notice again what it says: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” Just as all die because of Adam, so also all will be made alive in Christ.

And then we read what it says later in this chapter, in verse 55:

Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?

If a great many of God’s created beings, possibly even the vast majority, remain locked in an eternal death or are extinguished and completely cease to exist, wouldn’t this be an empty boast? Wouldn’t death be able to respond: “Where’s my victory? Right here! Right here in the countless number of your precious created people who I will hold eternally with no one to take them away from me.”

Philippians 2:9-11 & Revelation 5:13 every knee will bow, every tongue will confess, every creature will worship

In Philippians 2:9-11, we read these familiar words:

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

So let’s clarify something right away. Some will pick up on the wording in the NIV above that “every knee should bow,” and say: “Oh, this is just what everyone should do.” But this is simply an older way of saying that every knee will bow. This is why many other translations clearly say that “every knee will bow” (even the NASB).

This passage is drawing from Isaiah 45:22-24, which we looked at in the last post. So is this describing people being forced against their will to bow to Christ and confess him as Lord? Are these people bowing to Jesus under the boots of his angels? Do we see anywhere in Scripture where God requires or even accepts insincere, forced worship? (Again, read Isaiah 29:13 and 1:11-18.) How could a forced, insincere confession of Christ as Lord be “to the glory of God the Father”? Or is this exactly what it sounds like, every knee bowing to Jesus and every tongue confessing Christ as Lord. And this will be every knee “in heaven and on earth and under the earth.” It’s hard to get much more all-inclusive than that. And don’t forget that Romans 10:9 tells us that those who confess or acknowledge Jesus as Lord will be saved.

If we still want to see this as some kind of forced acknowledgment, we have a bigger problem when we get to Revelation 5:13:

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!”

This is inarguably not a forced acknowledgment, but heartfelt, exuberant praise and worship. And who is doing this praising and worshiping? The text says it’s “every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them.” Again, this is going to great lengths to describe everyone without exception. This description even includes those on and in “the sea.” This is particularly meaningful here because throughout Revelation the sea indicates rebellious humanity. It’s hard not to see here all of God’s creation—including those who were previously sinful and rebellious—pouring out to God lavish praises and worship. And who could deny that this would be profoundly to the glory of God the Father?! It’s hard to imagine an ending that would bring God more glory than to have all of his previous enemies now pouring out his praises in heartfelt, thankful worship!

Colossians 1:20 all creation is reconciled to God through Christ

Colossians 1:15-23 is a section focusing on the supremacy of Christ, the Son. Verse 16 says:

For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.

That doesn’t leave out much of anything! The Greek word translated “all things” in this verse is used seven times in six verses (sometimes translated “everything” or “all”). This is a noticeable pattern, something Paul is strongly emphasizing. In verses 19-20 we read the final reference to “all things” in this section, the conclusion of this pattern of obvious, specific references to “all things”:

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him [Christ], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

As we read through these verses, it’s very apparent that “all things” means just that: everything that was created (just as in verse 16). So who does God reconcile to himself through Christ? Everyone who was created. Who does that leave out? No one.

So let’s make sure we understand what this is saying. What does it mean to be reconciled? For people to be reconciled means their relationship is restored. If we have a family member who is estranged from us, and then we’re reconciled, our relationship with this loved one is restored. So, if a married couple is going through a difficult time, and even seek counseling, but end up divorced and going their separate ways—are they reconciled? No, they’re not. The relationship is not restored. In fact, the term often used in these situations is “irreconcilable differences,” right? If two Christians have been openly hostile to one another, but now come into the place where the church meets, intentionally never speak to each other, go to opposite corners of the room and try to not even look at the other person—are they reconciled? No, of course not. There is no restored relationship here.

So what does it mean for us to be reconciled to God? It means we’re no longer estranged, no longer separated. Our relationship has been restored. We’re reunited, brought back together again. And this passage tells us God reconciles everyone to him, he reunites everyone to him, he restores everyone’s relationship with him, not leaving anyone estranged or separated from him. We’re so used to reading things like this and assuming this can’t mean everyone, that it’s hard for us to just see what the text of Scripture is actually saying, that “all things” means all things.

Revelation the kings of the earth

So is there any place in Scripture that indicates people in hell actually coming to faith in Christ? The book of Revelation includes the most graphic descriptions of the torment of hell. But let’s see something even more fascinating we discover in this unusual (to us) book. ¹ Let’s start with Revelation 6:15-17:

Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?”

So are “the kings of the earth” good guys or bad guys? They seem to be part of sinful, rebellious humanity, now subject to the wrath of God, right? Let’s look at what else we see about these “kings of the earth” in 16:14-16:

They are demonic spirits that perform signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty. . . . Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.

So, the kings of the world—good guys or bad guys? Well, since they’re gathering to fight Christ at Armageddon, I think it’s safe to say they’re bad guys, right? Let’s look at 17:2 (speaking of the great prostitute):

With her the kings of the earth committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.

Good guys? No, definitely bad guys. And we have another reference in verse 18:

The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.

Again in 18:3:

For all the nations have drunk
the maddening wine of her adulteries.
The kings of the earth committed adultery with her,
and the merchants of the earth grew rich from here excessive luxuries.

And in verse 9:

When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury see the smoke of her burning they will weep and mourn for her.

And then we see in 19:19:

Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the rider on the horse and his army.

Is there any question which side these guys are on, or to whom they give their allegiance? And we see this repeated emphasis of these kings of the earth all through the book of Revelation. They’re never mentioned in a positive or even neutral context from the beginning of Revelation to this ultimate rebellion in chapter 19. And we know what happens to those who submit to the beast, don’t we? Remember what we read previously in Revelation 14:9-11:

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 forever and ever [Greek unto the ages of ages]. 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.

And we see this fate mentioned also in 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.

Continuing immediately into the beginning of chapter 21, we have the new heaven and the new earth. In verse 2 and following we see the new Jerusalem. The descriptions make clear that the new Jerusalem is the church, after the resurrection and the judgment. But along with these wonderful images, we see some conflicting descriptions that can be confusing.

In verse 1, we’re told that “there was no longer any sea.” This makes sense because throughout Revelation the sea has represented sinful, rebellious humanity. We’re also told in verse 4 that there will be no more death. This compares well with 1 Corinthians 15:26 that says the last enemy Christ will destroy will be death. And in verse 5, God says that he is making everything new! But then in verses 7-8 we read this:

Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. 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.

How can it indicate there is no more sinful, rebellious humanity (no sea) and then describe sinful, rebellious humanity? How can there be no more death—with death completely, finally defeated and destroyed—when there remains a second death? Is God making everything new . . . except for all of this? But then we read something really shocking in verses 23-27:

The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. 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. Nothing impure will ever into it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life [emphasis added].

So the city is the church, the covenant people of God, with God in their midst, heaven on earth. And nothing impure can be in the church, in this city, nothing shameful, only those whose names are written in the book of life. And into this city come the kings of the earth . . . but . . . these are the bad guys! All through Revelation they were obviously and consistently the enemies of God, submitted to the beast. We know what happened to them—they’re in the lake of fire! But here they are, coming into the city. To come into the city they can no longer be impure, their names must now be written in the Lamb’s book of life. How can this be . . . unless there remains an opportunity for repentance and salvation even after judgment. What this passage describes is impossible, unless God has also reconciled these enemies of his, these kings of the earth, to himself. And—if all of these kings of the earth and “the nations” with them repent, place their faith in Christ, and then come into the city, into the church, submit themselves to Christ, bow their knees to him and confess that he is Lord—if all of this happens, what would be the result? There would eventually be no more “sea,” no more sinful, rebellious humanity. There would be no more death. Death would be finally conquered—by emptying it. All creation would be reconciled to God and would be restored. “No longer will there be any curse [22:3].” God would have made everything new!

We have another description of this in 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.

So the city is the church, and outside are all the lost, sinful people. This fits well with the references of Jesus to those who are “cast into outer darkness” (Matthew 8:12, etc.). We have those on the inside and those on the outside. This passage speaks of those who wash their robes and then have the right to enter the city through the gates and partake of the tree of life. But, wait a minute—we’re already the city. We’re already inside. How—after the resurrection and after the judgment—can anyone else come into the city, into the church? There’s only one way to become part of Christ’s church, and that’s through faith in Christ. But this passage—showing how vile are the people on the outside—still describes people washing their robes (which must be in the blood of Christ, Revelation 7:14) and entering the city! And remember what it said in 21:25, the gates of the city are never closed! Putting this all together, doesn’t it mean there always remains the opportunity to repent and place our faith in Christ, and that eventually all will, in fact, be reconciled and restored? No wonder it says almost immediately after this in 22:17:

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the ones who hear say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

So who are we and the Spirit inviting? I can’t see any way, in context, to say this doesn’t include an invitation to those outside the city, to those in outer darkness, experiencing the second death of judgment in hell.

When I was a teenager, a friend from work invited me home to have dinner with her family. They were Jehovah’s Witnesses, so it wasn’t a surprise when they invited me to join them for a study after dinner. The conversation quickly became focused on the issue of the deity of Christ, and they had some challenges I hadn’t heard before. So I went home and dragged out my “research library” consisting of three translations of Scripture, a Strong’s Concordance and a Halley’s Bible Handbook. I spent much of the next few days searching the Scriptures to make sure they really did teach that Jesus is God. When I was done, not only was my confidence in this belief confirmed, but I saw the deity of Jesus everywhere in the Bible. I couldn’t avoid it!

The more I’ve searched the Scriptures regarding universal reconciliation and restoration, the more I’ve had a similar experience. The passages I’ve listed above are by no means all of the texts that speak of universal salvation. And the more I’ve studied this, the more I’ve come to see this hope woven all through the Bible. Just recently, I was researching a completely different subject. I was using the REB translation at the time, and looked up Acts 3:21. My jaw dropped open when I read:

He must be received into heaven until the time comes for the universal restoration of which God has spoken through his holy prophets from the beginning.

I checked the Greek and, sure enough, the word here is apokatastasis, the same word the early Greek-speaking church leaders used for this belief. The ISV, NRSV and Phillips translate it similarly, while other translations speak of ‘everything being restored’ or ‘the restoration of all things.’ It was amazing to see the phrase right there in the text of Scripture in black and white. When people espouse belief in “universal restoration,” they’re using an expression right from Scripture.

In the book of Romans, Paul takes three chapters, 9-11, to answer the question of why so many of the Jewish people weren’t coming to faith in Christ. He brings all of this to his conclusions in chapter 11, and in 11:26 states boldly that “all Israel will be saved.” We’ve typically tried to qualify that to mean all Israel who remain on earth when Christ returns or something similar—but that’s not what the Scripture says, and it doesn’t do justice to the flow of Paul’s thought. Ephesians 1:10 tells us the end result of God’s plan that he always intended: “to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.” Over and over again we encounter passages in Scripture that seem to be universal in scope, but which we assume can’t mean that. But what if we stop explaining away the clear wording of these texts? What if we take these Scriptures to actually mean what they say? What if the universal restoration that Scripture speaks of actually is universal?

We’ve seen in the last few posts that the biblical case for eternal conscious torment almost completely rests on what everyone seems to agree is a mistranslation of one Greek word. If we understand this word correctly, we have little exegetical support for eternal conscious torment. On the other hand, we’ve now seen extensive scriptural support for belief in universal reconciliation and restoration. But we still need to consider the broader theological arguments for and against these views. In the next post, we’ll think through the theological case for eternal conscious torment.

I’m indebted to Robin Parry for describing this pattern in Revelation. For more on this, see:

Bradley Jersak, Her Gates Will Never Be Shut (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2009)

And for more in-depth exegesis of all the biblical passages, see:

Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist: The Biblical Hope that God’s Love Will Save Us All, 2nd ed. (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2012), particularly (in regards to the reference above) chapter 5: “A Universalist Interpretation of the Book of Revelation.”

Exploring Hell series:

Hell in the Bible: Understanding the biblical words

Hell in the early church: What did early church leaders believe about hell?

Is there a biblical case for universal salvation? The Old Testament pattern

Is there a biblical case for universal salvation? New Testament passages

Considering the theological case for eternal conscious torment

Considering the theological case for universal salvation

Is there a biblical case for universal salvation?: The Old Testament pattern

October 26, 2021March 22, 2023 / Curt Parton / 2 Comments

This is part of a series on the nature of hell. See below for the rest of the series.

In the last two posts, we looked at the biblical case for eternal conscious torment. We found that the case for this view rests almost wholly on the traditional (for us) understanding of the Greek word aionios as “eternal,” an understanding we found to be in conflict with what most evangelical scholars actually tell us about this word and how the early Greek-speaking teachers and leaders used this word. Once we acknowledge that aionios does not mean “eternal,” this leaves us with essentially no explicit biblical case for the eternal conscious torment view. (We still need to examine the broader theological case.) But what about the universal reconciliation and restoration view? Is there a case to be made from the explicit wording of Scripture for this view? In this post, we’ll look at the pattern we find in the Old Testament, and in the next post we’ll consider some New Testament passages.

Not surprisingly, the Old Testament is not as clear about these things as the New Testament. This is to be expected. Remember, as I mentioned in the last post, we have only one explicit, unambiguous reference to bodily resurrection in the whole Old Testament. So we shouldn’t expect any belief such as this to be as fully understood and discussed in the Old Testament. God revealed much more of the clarity of his plan to the apostles in the New Testament. Still, there are some very compelling passages in the Old Testament that we need to consider, beginning with those that speak to the nature of God’s judgment.

Jonah

Some time after I became aware of evangelical Christians who believe in universal salvation (although I still remained unconvinced exegetically), I began to teach through the book of Jonah. I found this Old Testament prophetic book compelling in ways that surprised me. Many of us are mostly familiar with the first part of Jonah’s story, when he runs away from God’s call, is eventually swallowed by a great fish and then put back on the right course. What happens in Nineveh is often thought of as almost a postscript to this well-known story. But I think we’re in danger of missing an incredibly meaningful part of this account.

As you’ll recall, God sent Jonah to the pagan, enemy city of Nineveh to deliver a very simple message of impending judgment (Jonah 3:4):

“Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!”

That was it. No conditions, no clauses, no ifs, ands or buts. In forty days Nineveh would be destroyed—period. If someone were to suggest that maybe there was a chance God would relent and not actually destroy Nineveh, others could point to the unambiguous wording of God’s message. God had been very clear that in forty days he would destroy Nineveh, and he didn’t say anything about a possible relenting.

Of course, we know what happened. We know that everyone in Nineveh, from the king down, repented, humbling themselves before God. And God did relent from destroying Nineveh. And then Jonah responded to God in words that are amusing, troubling and insightful (Jonah 4:2):

“Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, LORD? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people.”

Isn’t that amazing? Jonah is telling God: “I knew you would do this! You’re so merciful, compassionate, eager to turn back from destroying people—I knew you would relent and not actually destroy Nineveh as you said you would!” And he makes clear that this is the very reason he ran away from God’s calling—because he knew that God would relent and show mercy! There’s a lot we could say about Jonah’s attitude (and we’ll return to this in a later post), but his strong certainty about the character of God and what God would do is something we must note. Jonah’s compelling example didn’t make me embrace universalism, but it did challenge my thinking in a few ways:

It showed me that I need to be careful to never think I know completely what God is going to do, especially if I’m assuming any limit to his grace or love. We need to always accept that we don’t know the whole story, that even God’s Word to us doesn’t tell us everything he’s going to do.

Jonah’s certainty that God would relent and show mercy was very compelling to me. Did my perception of God include less of his grace and love than this angry Old Testament prophet? Did Jonah have a more clear understanding that God is “eager to turn back from destroying people”? Why was I so sure that there’s a point beyond which God will no longer show mercy and forgive?

This actually fits a consistent pattern in the Old Testament. It’s almost as if a warning of judgment automatically includes an option (whether spoken or unspoken) that if people will respond with repentance, God will relent. It seems that this is such a strong pattern, that God has to make it very clear when he will not relent, as we see in passages such as Jeremiah 7:16; 11:14; and chapters 15-18.

But even in the places where we see that God doesn’t relent in bringing judgment, this is always part of a larger pattern we see in the Old Testament:

The pattern of judgment and restoration

There are some fascinating passages in the Old Testament that show a compelling pattern. We know that God severely judged the nation of Judah for their idolatry and sin, but then later restored them. What’s fascinating is there’s a much broader pattern of God’s judgment followed by restoration. Look at some of these examples:

“Moab will no longer be a nation [NIV: “will be destroyed as a nation”],
for it has boasted against the LORD.”
Jeremiah 48:42

“But I will restore the fortunes of Moab
in days to come.
I, the LORD, have spoken!”
Jeremiah 48:47

“I myself will go with Elam’s enemies to shatter it.
In my fierce anger, I will bring great disaster
upon the people of Elam,” says the LORD.
“Their enemies will chase them with the sword
until I have destroyed them completely.”
Jeremiah 49:37

“But I will restore the fortunes of Elam
in days to come.
I, the LORD, have spoken!”
Jeremiah 49:39

Consider what the prophet Isaiah had to say, from the Lord, about Egypt and Assyria:

The LORD will make himself know to the Egyptians. Yes, they will know the LORD and will give their sacrifices and offerings to him. They will make a vow to the LORD and will keep it. The LORD will strike Egypt, and then he will bring healing. For the Egyptians will turn to the LORD, and he will listen to their pleas and will heal them.
In that day Egypt and Assyria will be connected by a highway. The Egyptians and Assyrians will move freely between their lands, and they will both worship God. In that day, Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth. For the LORD of Heaven’s Armies will say, “Blessed be Egypt, my people. Blessed be Assyria, the land I have made. Blessed be Israel, my special possession!”
Isaiah 19:21-25

This might prompt some in-depth discussion as to exactly how this prophecy will be fulfilled, but it certainly shows nations who were previously enemies of God’s people, and thus of God—and who were judged by God—but who will both become people of God themselves!

In Ezekiel 16:46-63, God compares the nation of Judah unfavorably with the sin of Samaria (the northern kingdom of Israel) and of Sodom, both of which had been severely judged by God. Then God says this:

But someday I will restore the fortunes of Sodom and Samaria, and I will restore you, too. Then you will be truly ashamed of everything you have done, for your sins make them feel good in comparison. Yes, your sisters, Sodom and Samaria, and all their people will be restored, and at that time you also will be restored.
Ezekiel 16:53-55

Yes, even wicked Sodom will be restored! Judah will be restored just as God restores Sodom! This compelling pattern seems to show that whatever God judges, he also restores. This doesn’t say anything directly about hell because the Old Testament doesn’t say anything about hell per se. But it does tell us quite a bit about God’s judgment, and hell is the ultimate example of God’s judgment. This pattern in the Old Testament would cause us to expect, by default, that God’s judgment will always be followed by restoration. We’ve already seen there are no passages in Scripture that explicitly describe hell as eternal with no chance of restoration. But are there passages that show restoration after God’s final judgment? We’ll look closely at the New Testament in the next post, but there are some other passages in the Old Testament we need to consider.

Other Old Testament passages

For no one is abandoned
by the Lord forever.
Though he brings grief, he also shows compassion
because of the greatness of his unfailing love.
For he does not enjoy hurting people
or causing them sorrow.
Lamentations 3:31-33

It’s hard to imagine a more clear statement. No one is abandoned by the Lord forever (or indefinitely). Why not? We’re told the reason why not: “because of the greatness of his unfailing love.” God doesn’t enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow. Jonah tells us God is eager to turn back from destroying people because he is filled with unfailing love. And here Jeremiah tells us that no one will remain abandoned by God. And they both ground this in the character of God. So God has a necessary purpose in bringing judgment, a purpose that is in harmony with his love, and this necessary judgment does not mean irrevocable abandonment with no ultimate restoration. In light of this, consider what Jeremiah writes in other places:

The anger of the LORD will not diminish
until it has finished all he has planned.
Jeremiah 23:20

The fierce anger of the LORD will not diminish
until it has finished all he has planned.
Jeremiah 30:24

It’s not about God’s anger, and God’s anger is not unending; this is about God’s anger fulfilling its purpose, accomplishing what God intends. And underlying all of this is the love of God. We get this from these Old Testament prophets. And then we compare this to passages such as this one:

For his anger lasts only a moment,
but his favor lasts a lifetime!
Weeping may last through the night,
but joy comes with the morning.
Psalm 30:5

Now let’s think about what we see described in the following passages:

The whole earth will acknowledge the LORD and return to him.
All the families of the nations will bow down before him.
Psalm 22:27

It’s hard to deny that this at least sounds like God ultimately reconciling everyone to himself.

Everything on earth will worship you;
they will sing your praises,
shouting your name in glorious songs.
Psalm 66:4

All the nations you made
will come and bow before you, Lord;
they will praise your holy name.
Psalm 86:9

“Let all the world look to me for salvation!
For I am God; there is no other.
I have sworn by my own name;
I have spoken the truth,
and I will never go back on my word:
every knee will bend to me,
and every tongue will declare allegiance to me.”
The people will declare,
“The LORD is the source of all my righteousness and strength.”
And all who were angry with him
will come to him and be ashamed.
Isaiah 45:22-24

As you consider these passages, ask yourself: Is there anyplace in Scripture where God demands—or even accepts—worship that is not sincere, from the heart? Isn’t that specifically what God rejects in passages such as Isaiah 29:13 and 1:11-18? Do verses such as Psalm 66:4 (above) sound like the forcibly imposed “worship” of God through clenched teeth by those who remain defiant and rebellious? Or does it sound like the exuberant praise and adoration of those who have been freed from their bondage to sin and enmity against God and now pour out heartfelt worship and praise to God “because of the greatness of his unfailing love,” a God who—through his love—turns his enemies into his friends and even adopts them as his children?!

I am, admittedly, now drawing from the New Testament, and it’s to the New Testament we must now go. The pattern and passages we’ve seen in the Old Testament are surprisingly clear and compelling on their own. We’ve seen in the Old Testament a pattern of God’s judgment always being followed by his restoration. And we’ve seen in these Old Testament passages that no one will remain abandoned by God, but that everyone he has created will eventually come to worship him, giving him their allegiance. But we expect the New Testament to be even more clear and explicit, so we turn there next with great interest in what it has to say about these things.

For a deeper exploration of the Old Testament in regards to universal salvation, I recommend The Evangelical Universalist: The Biblical Hope that God’s Love Will Save Us All (second edition) by Gregory MacDonald (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2012).

Exploring Hell series:

Hell in the Bible: Understanding the biblical words

Hell in the early church: What did early church leaders believe about hell?

Is there a biblical case for universal salvation? The Old Testament pattern

Is there a biblical case for universal salvation? New Testament passages

Considering the theological case for eternal conscious torment

Considering the theological case for universal salvation

Hell in the early church: What did early church leaders believe about hell?

October 8, 2021March 22, 2023 / Curt Parton

Image by Günther Simmermacher from Pixabay

This is part of a series on the nature of hell. See below for the rest of the series.

Most evangelical Christians aren’t that familiar with early church writers and teachers, and that’s unfortunate (for many reasons). Because of our lack of historical awareness, we tend to assume the early Christians worshiped pretty much the same way we do every Sunday, and that they believed all the same things we do. When we’re thinking of hell, for instance, even many pastors assume that the vast majority of early church pastors and leaders believed in eternal conscious torment as do the majority of evangelicals today. Is this true?

If pressed, some of us may have some vague recollection that the early Christian scholar Origen held to some form of universalism. And we might even be aware that annihilationists or conditionalists claim Irenaeus as an early proponent of their view. But we would usually consider these people to be outliers in the early history of the church, brilliant theologians who may have been a bit eccentric in some of their beliefs, but overall were exceptions that prove the rule in an otherwise consistently held—and familiar—view of hell. But is this actually the case? It might be good to make sure the early consensus to which we refer did, in fact, exist.

The desire by many to go back and see what these early Christians actually wrote about their beliefs regarding hell has proved a challenge to this common assumption. It’s not that this has never been done before, but there is definitely a renewed—and growing—interest in understanding with greater clarity who believed what about final judgment. Ilaria Ramelli is a respected scholar of historical theology (among other things). In 2013, she published the results of 16 years of painstaking research of early Christian views concerning universal salvation and restoration (apokatastasis in the Greek). [She later published a more affordable, more accessible book covering much of the same material: A Larger Hope?: Universal Salvation from Christian Beginnings to Julian of Norwich (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2019).]

Ramelli’s work was widely hailed not only for its impressive span and depth, but also for the great care she took in evaluating these ancient authors’ statements in the context of their larger bodies of work, in light of Scripture, and in their historical contexts. Many of her fellow scholars now view her book as a new benchmark on the subject of universal salvation in the early church. (She handily dispatched the challenges of one scholar who attempted an extensive critique of her work, showing his conclusions to be unsupported by the actual historical data.) Ramelli corrected the overreach of some earlier universalists who had tried to show universalism to have been the standard view in the early church. But she also surprised almost everyone by documenting just how extensive belief in universal salvation actually was. Christian universalism was not merely the extreme minority view of one or two isolated thinkers; it was widely held, and taught by many of the people we consider to be great heroes of the early Christian faith.

Origen was by no means the first Christian universalist. Before him were Bardaisan of Edessa and Clement of Alexandria. (There are also indications of belief in universal salvation in Christian writings preceding these teachers. We don’t know the view of many early church leaders because they either didn’t address the issue or didn’t make clear their view.) We shouldn’t move too quickly past Origen himself, though. Possessing an imposing intellect, he’s the only Christian thinker in the first centuries who produced more writing on theology and biblical exposition than did Augustine.

It would take far too long to go through all of the early Christian leaders who believed in universal salvation, but we should comment on a few highly significant examples. Some may be aware that Gregory of Nyssa firmly held a belief in universal salvation and restoration. This is clear in his writings and has been well-documented. Again, this is worth noting because Gregory of Nyssa was one of the most respected theologians of the 4th century, one of the famous “Cappadocian fathers” [the early church leaders are often referred to as the “church fathers”], and honored by the Second Council of Nicea as “father of fathers.” Gregory’s views on universal salvation were well-known, running through virtually all of his writings, and apparently did nothing to hamper the respect or acclaim he garnered.

Ramelli shows that, while not as clear or outspoken as Gregory of Nyssa, we should include the other Cappadocians, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory Nazianzen, as revered theologians in the early church who evidenced belief in universal salvation. We even see good reason to include the great champion of the Trinity Athanasius among the universalists! Even Augustine believed in universal salvation until later in life (as was also true of Jerome), and he later commented on how prevalent the belief still was at that time. This is just a sampling of a much longer list of prominent Christian theologians in the first 500 years of the history of the church whose theological work incorporated belief in universal reconciliation and restoration.

It’s telling that none of the early creeds include anything at all concerning eternal damnation in hell. And, until the time of Augustine, the fact that Christian leaders and theologians held differing views regarding hell didn’t seem to them cause for debate. Even Augustine didn’t condemn those who disagreed with the view of hell he had come to adopt (eternal conscious torment). We should also note the large number of early church leaders and thinkers who spoke and wrote in Greek who believed in and taught universalism, and the fact that those who advocated for eternal conscious torment tended to be those who spoke and wrote in Latin. This is important because the meaning of the Greek in Scripture became one of the distinguishing points between the views, and the understanding of the early Greek-speaking scholars would have carried much more weight than those who weren’t as conversant in Greek. We’ll look at this in much greater depth in the next post.

So does any of this tell us which view is right and which is wrong? No, it doesn’t. We still have a lot of examining to do linguistically, exegetically and theologically. But looking at this background does keep us from falsely claiming any one view as the overwhelmingly dominant view in the early church. Some overeager proponents of universalism have tried to make it the virtually universal view of early Christians. There’s simply not enough evidence to back up this claim. But we have even less to suggest that eternal conscious torment was the predominant view in the early church, especially among the Greek-speaking believers. However we may debate the specific view of any particular scholar of the early church (and these debates will continue), it seems incontrovertible that the early church of the first five centuries included varying understandings of hell and final judgment. This means we can’t just assume one view as the Christian view, and it makes our continuing study even more necessary if we want to understand what the Bible actually teaches us about hell.

Exploring Hell series:

Hell in the Bible: Understanding the biblical words

Hell in the early church: What did early church leaders believe about hell?

Is there a biblical case for universal salvation? The Old Testament pattern

Is there a biblical case for universal salvation? New Testament passages

Considering the theological case for eternal conscious torment

Considering the theological case for universal salvation