[ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joshua M. Walters, M.Div. (Palmer Theological Seminary), is an intellectual nomad, wandering here and there with a devout interest in the mystery of life. He grew up in the tradition of the Wesleyan church (a branch of Methodism), attended seminary at the age of 24, and currently lives in Toronto, Ontario. Major influences include N.T. Wright, JŸrgen Moltmann, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Loida Martell-Otero, and Sallie McFague. Ideas that interest him include Process Theology, postmodernism, and pop-culture. Joshua considers himself a practical or pastoral theologian. If you would like to comment on any of the ideas below, then click HERE to visit his blog and go to the bottom of the page.]
QUESTION: Is the Notion of Hell Outdated and Irrelevant in the 21st Century?
This is a crucial question for the proponents of religion, especially Christianity. In a word, yes, of course it is irrelevant: ask anybody off of the street whether they endorse the traditional view of hell and they will respond in the negative. But as with most religious/philosophical ideas, the question is what one means by the term Òhell.Ó It is about the relevance of [a] particular notion[s] of hell (such is the same with God, I believe). Therefore, those who wish to reflect critically on this question must consider the various ways in which hell has come to be understood and defined by tradition and conventional wisdom. The particular notion that has become outdated and irrelevant is the notion of a postmortem destination in which the individual suffers a kind of endless torment by the direct or indirect action of God. What most people do not know, however, is that this traditional notion of hell was not an essential doctrine of Christianity until the 4th century; and it has been challenged consistently throughout the history of Christianity (the website Tentmaker.org is a good resource on this).
Opposition to the traditional notion of hell continues today. There are websites and books dedicated to the re-understanding of this menacing topic. I myself have dedicated some time to writing about it and in the process have come to believe that hell is relevant for our world today Ð but in a way that is different from the traditional notion. In the following two essays I argue for a different understanding of hell. In the first, I explain that hell is to be understood as a present, this-worldly phenomenon that is characterized by violence and is fundamentally opposed to the Òkingdom of heaven/GodÓ (Matt .4:17). In the second, I explain that there is biblical support for a postmortem hell that is not everlasting but rather temporary due to its remedial purpose. Both essays attempt to rediscover the notion of hell in a canonical theology of universal salvation.
There is a fascinating passage in Jeremiah chapter 7 in which Jeremiah speaks on behalf of the God of Israel and says this:
"The people of Judah have done what I said was evil, says the Lord. They have set up their hateful idols in the place where I have chosen to be worshiped and have made it unclean. The people of Judah have built places of worship at Topheth in the Valley of Hinnom. There they burned their own sons and daughters as sacrifices, something I never commanded. It never even entered my mind." (Jeremiah 7:30-31)
The Valley of
Hinnom was a specific location outside of Jerusalem that evolved into what the
New Testament authors called "Gehenna" in Greek and what our
contemporary bibles call "hell." (This is also the
roots of Islam's concept of hell called "Jahannam") As one can
see from the Jeremiah text, the Valley of Hinnom was a horrific scene where
pagan idol worship led to human sacrifice. Isaiah also alluded to this scene
when he wrote of a "burning place" (30:33) where "the fire is
not quenched and the worm does not die," (66:24). This real, historical
scene provides the background to our contemporary notion of hell. The
similarities are obvious: fire, suffering, death, etc. Over hundreds of years
it evolved from a particular location associated with a particular cult into a
concept associated with the fate of the wicked. This is the same
location/concept (Gehenna) that Jesus spoke no less than 11 times according to
the Gospels.
It is for this reason that I find the passage in
Jeremiah 7:31 so fascinating. Maybe you didn't catch it in your reading, but
Jeremiah, who is speaking on behalf of God, describes this hellish scene of
fire and human suffering as " something I never commanded. It
never even entered my mind." Hold the
phone. Is God saying that the mere thought of humans being consumed in fire is
abhorrent? Jeremiah mentions the Valley of Hinnom a second time:
"And they built the high places of Ba'al, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin." (32:35)
I won't belabor the point. These passages in
Jeremiah are extremely interesting because they portray God as totally repulsed
by the Valley of Hinnom. How,
we may ask, can the God who abhors the Valley of Hinnom be the same God that
sends people to a place of fire and torment? How can the
God who abhors the Valley of Hinnom become incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth and
speak of hell? The traditional view answers with the disturbing picture
of God as both compassionate and wrathful, loving and "just,"
abhorring death and also dealing eternal death. Many, including myself, find
the traditional view unsatisfactory. Let us therefore take a closer look
at the concept of hell as found in the Bible.
The word "hell" never appears in the Old
Testament. Aside from the Valley of Hinnom, the only thing we find is the
concept of Sheol,
an "underworld" or "place of the dead" that is neither
positive nor negative; it is simply the place of all the dead. Old Testament Judaism really had no
concept of hell. It was during the Exile (500's BCE) that Judaism began to
adopt myths of the afterlife from surrounding cultures. Brian McLaren writes,
"The Jews have a lot of contact with these people of other cultures and
religions during the Exile in Babylon and during the continuing occupation by
the Persians, Greeks, and Romans, so it's natural that there would be some amount
of syncretism or mixture between the very this-worldly Judaism of the
pre-Exilic period and these other-worldly, speculative elements, especially
with the Persian religion of Zoroaster," (The Last Word
and the Word After That, 81).
Other-worldly speculations became popular during the
Exile as Jews attempted to make theological sense of their experience. The Jews
saw themselves as God's chosen people. Their entire story was based upon the
covenant that God had made with Israel. Therefore, when the exiles and foreign
occupations occurred they were forced to speculate as to how their current
oppression would be resolved. The answer that many adopted was that the
faithful would be vindicated in the afterlife, while their oppressors would
have 'hell' to pay in the afterlife. It was also during the Second Temple
period that many Jewish freedom fighters revolted against foreign occupiers (e.g.
the Maccabean
Revolt). Belief in postmortem justice was an essential element to
such revolutionary violence. For more on this see N.T. Wright's The New
Testament and the People of God (especially 216ff).
The major point here is that the concept of
hell is nowhere to be found in the Old Testament. It is obviously something
that developed sometime between the Exile and the New Testament. Indeed, David Powys writes, "GehennaÕ is
nowhere found in the Hebrew Bible but may be found in the Pseudopigrapha,
Palestinian Targums, and New Testament," (Hell: A Hard
Look at a Hard Question,177). James A. Brooks confirms that it
was "During intertestamental times [Gehenna (Greek), or the Valley
of Hinnom (Hebrew)] became the garbage
and sewage dump of Jerusalem and a symbol of the place of punishment (1 Enoch
27:3; 4 Ezra 7:36) because worms and fires were always consuming the
refuse," (Mark: The New American Commentary). If you want a detailed
development of hell in the intertestamental period then see David Powys' book.
There are various Greek words translated as
"hell" in the New Testament. As you can plainly see, the Jewish
concepts of Sheol and Valley
of Hinnom (Ge Hinom) evolved; notably in step
with Hellenistic thought. The
classical Greek term "Hades" occurs 10 times and is used to convey
both a general realm of the dead (Rev. 1:18, 20:13-14) and that of a negative
fate (Matt. 11:23). Also Greek, the term "Tartaro" (from
"Tartarus") is used once in 2 Peter 2:4 to
refer to God sending angels to a place of punishment. More than any others,
however, the word "Gehenna" appears in the New Testament 11 times,
namely on the lips of Jesus. Thus it is upon this word and Jesus himself that I
wish to focus. Let the reader not forget what we have learned about the history
of "Gehenna" above.
Reformed pastor Timothy Keller denounces Universalism
after saying, "Jesus
talks more about hell and punishment than all the rest of the authors and
speakers in the Bible put together." Yes, Jesus talked about hell a
lot. But mere
quantity of usage is not an argument. Words
have to be interpreted in their context to understand their meaning. I'm sure there are plenty of old
books that use the word "gay"a lot. Should the quantity of that one
word lead us to believe that the authors intended what we now mean by the word
"gay?" Obviously not.
We must interpret Jesus' speaking
about hell and punishment in the context of his prophetic ministry in
first-century Judea at a climactic moment in the story of Israel.
First of all, Jesus was a
prophet. "Prophets in the Jewish tradition characteristically
announced the judgment of the covenant god upon his rebellious people, and
(sometimes) announced also the inauguration of a new movement, a time when
Israel's god would again act graciously for his people. Part of Jesus'
prophetic persona was that he did both." (N.T Wright, Jesus and the
Victory of God, 182-3). "Jesus' message, so
far from omitting or toning down the warning of judgment, seems from a wide
variety of texts to have emphasized it continually. We might have guessed as
much from the traditions which report on his public image: he was likened not
only to John the Baptist but to Elijah and Jeremiah... Once we see Jesus
in this light, a great many sayings come together and make sense." (Wright, JVG, 326-7)
So how exactly ought we interpret Jesus' warnings and
talk about hell? Wright continues: "We may regard these warnings as
threatening the end of the present nation of Israel, if they do not
repent. In the sad, noble and utterly Jewish tradition of Elijah, Jeremiah and
John the Baptist, Jesus announced the coming judgment of Israel's covenant god
on his people, a judgment consisting of a great national, social and cultural
disaster, ultimately comprehensible only in theological terms."
(Wright, JVG, 184-5) Let us examine
some examples.
In all three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke)
Jesus pronounces judgment upon various Galilean towns because they do not heed
his message of the coming judgment and the kingdom of God. In Matt. 10:14-15 he
says to his disciples:
'If anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than that town.'
Wright explains, "Once again, this was not a prediction of a non-spatio-temporal 'last
judgment'. It was a straightforward warning of what would happen if this or that
Galilean village refused his way of peace which Jesus had come to bring. This
was amplified in the words of woe uttered over Chorazin, Bethsaida, and even
Jesus' own adopted home town of Capernaum. Judgment would fall upon them which
would make the judgment of Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom seem mild by comparison. The
horrifying thing was that Jesus was using, as models for the coming judgment on
villages within Israel, images of judgment taken straight from the Old
Testament..." (JVG, 329)
"The catalogue of judgment upon the scribes and
Pharisees, as it appears in the material common to Matthew and Luke, concludes
with a further warning that is specific to 'this generation':
'Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to Gehenna? Therefore, I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all this will come upon this generation.' (Matt. 23:32-36)
Faced with this prospect, it would be better to
abandon that which was most cherished rather than go straight ahead into the
conflagration:
'If your hand causes you
to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than with two
hands to go to Gehenna, to unquenchable
fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to
enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out;
it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two
eyes to be thrown into Gehenna, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. For every
one will be salted with fire.' (Mark 9:43-49)
The judgment was coming upon 'this generation', now
caught in the act of rejecting the final messenger who had been sent to call it
back to obedience." (Wright, JVG,
330)
"Luke 13 opens
with a double solemn warning. Unless Israel repents of her headlong rush into
destruction, she will suffer the same fate as those whom Pilate killed, or who
were crushed by the tower of Siloam: in other words, Roman swords and falling
masonry will be their fate if they persist in going the way of idolatrous
nationalism (13:1-5)." (JVG,
331) As one begins to understand the socio-historical context of Jesus'
ministry, as well as the story of Israel, it becomes increasingly clear that
his teaching about Gehenna is nothing less than
a prophetic warning of present tense, this-worldly destruction.
One classic passage that is often cited as proof of
Jesus' teaching the traditional view of hell is the story of the rich man and
Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31.
Again Wright is helpful:
"The parable is not, as often supposed, a
description of the afterlife, warning people to be sure of their ultimate
destination. If that were its point, it would not be a parable: a story about
someone getting lost in London would not be a parable if addressed to people attempting to find their
way through that city without a map. We have perhaps been misled, not for the
first time, by the too-ready assumption, in the teeth of evidence, that Jesus
'must really' have been primarily concerned to teach people 'how to get to
heaven after death'. The reality is uncomfortably different.
The welcome of Lazarus by Abraham evokes the welcome
of the prodigal by the father [Luke 15:11-33], and with much the same point.
The heavenly reality, in which the poor and outcast would be welcomed into
Abraham's bosom (as everyone would know from [a well known] folk-tale), was
coming true in flesh and blood as Jesus welcomed the outcasts, just as the
father's welcome to the returning son was a story about what Jesus was actually
doing then and there. ... The point of this, when the story is seen as a
traditional tale with a new ending, was not so much what would happen to both
in the end... but rather what was happening to both rich and poor in
the present time. (255)
Another popular passage in which Jesus speaks
of hell is Luke 12:4-7:
'I tell
you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have no more
that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has
killed, has the power to cast into Gehenna; yes, I tell you, fear him! Are not five sparrows sold for two
pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of
your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many
sparrows.'
"Some have seen 'the one who can cast into
Gehenna' as YHWH [God]; but this is unrealistic. Jesus did not, to be
sure, perceive Israel's god as a kindly liberal grandfather who would never
hurt a fly, let a lone send anyone to Gehenna. But again and again - not least
in the very next verse of this paragraph - Israel's god is portrayed as the
creator and sustainer, one who can be lovingly trusted in all circumstance, not
the one who waits with a large stick to beat anyone who steps out of line.
Rather, here we have a redefinition of the battle in terms of the
identification of the real enemy. The one who can kill the body is the imagined
enemy, Rome. Who then is the real enemy? Surely not Israel's own god. The real
enemy is the accuser, the satan." (Wright, JVG, 454-5)
What we see over and over again in Jesus' career as
an itinerant prophet is that he announced imminent judgment upon Israel if they
did not turn from their self-righteous, violent, nationalistic ways and follow
Jesus' way of peace: "Those who take the sword will perish by the
sword," (Matt. 26:52). This is evidenced again in the Olivet Discourse as
Jesus predicts the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple.
At the end of Jesus' life we find a final, cogent
warning as Jesus warns the women who
weep for him that they should instead weep for themselves. "There will
come a time when they will utter a terrible 'beatitude': Blessed are the
wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never gave suck!' The great
blessing of children will be turned into shame; for if they (the Romans) do
this when the wood is green, when the condemned one is innocent of violent
revolt, what will happen when the wood is dry, when the children at present
playing in the streets grow up into a revolutionary force that will pit itself
directly against Rome? Jesus, knowing that Israel has now finally
rejected the one road of peace, knows also that within the next generation she
will find herself embroiled in a war that she cannot but lose, and lose
horribly." (Wright, JVG,
332)
And lose horribly she did. About 30 years
later, in the same generation,
the Jews revolted against
the Romans in 66 C.E., which led to the ultimate destruction of
Jerusalem in 70 C.E. "The entire city was plundered
and burned in A.D. 70 and it must have seemed that not one stone remained upon
another (see Luke 19:43-44). Christians in the city are reported to have
escaped to Pella. Tens of thousands of Jews perished and were thrown
outside the wall into the Valley of Hinnom." (The Biblical
World: A Dictionary of
Biblical Archeology, ed. Charles F.
Pfeiffer, 323)
Let that sink in.
Though I have not examined each of the 11 occurrences of
"Gehenna" on Jesus' lips, the above study clearly demonstrates
that Jesus' talk about hell was not about the afterlife but rather about apresent
tense, this-worldly devastation. Jesus
was warning that if Israel did not repent and "enter the kingdom of
God," that is, Jesus' way of living, then there would come a time when the
whole city of Jerusalem would be indistinguishable from the smoldering trash
dump outside the city. Every single occurrence of
"Gehenna" in the Synoptic Gospels should be interpreted in this
manner. To read our contemporary [Greek mythological] understanding of
hell back into Jesus' words is to miss his point entirely and prolong the harm
caused by this absurd [mis]interpretation that is behind the traditional view
of hell.
In Jesus of Nazareth we find the incarnation of the
God who abhors the Valley of Hinnom. In Jesus we find the prophet of God who
warns us to turn from our wicked ways so that we might not turn our world into
Gehenna. In the final analysis, Gehenna is no mere metaphor for a place in the
afterlife, it is a literal, present tense place of evil where humankind has
turned from the will of God.
I cannot think of anything more EVIL than to twist
the meaning of hell as Jesus used it into an other-worldly concept or metaphor
that turns our eyes from the current hells in this world happening all around
us. This is the ultimate evil of the traditional view of hell. And it is this
distorted understanding of hell that prevents us from seeing the Gehennas of
our world.
With the God who abhors Gehenna, may we weep for
ourselves and the hell we have caused for refusing the Way of Jesus and His
Kingdom.
In Essay 1 I explained that Jesus' teaching about
hell (Gehenna) was not about an afterlife destination but rather a present,
this-world reality. Specifically, Jesus warned Israel that her current praxis
would turn the whole city of Jerusalem into a burning pile of rubble where men,
women, and children would weep and gnash their teeth. Does this mean that there
is no hell beyond this life? Does this mean that there is no afterlife? Does
this mean that there is no final judgment or ultimate justice? It is to these
questions that I would like to turn in Essay 2.
Universal salvation does not necessarily jettison
the belief in a postmortem hell. It does, however, jettison an everlasting hell that is torturous beyond
remedial purposes. Universalism
emphasizes ultimate justice and thereby makes room for a kind of hell. One of
the reasons that we have long held on to the concept of hell is because human
beings have an innate orientation toward justice. Socrates argued that "if death were a
release from everything, it would be a boon for the wicked, because by dying
they would be released not only from the body but also from their own
wickedness together with the soul," (McLaren,
79). In the tradition of Socrates, humankind has long affirmed the necessity
for ultimate justice, heaven/hell, reward/punishment.
However, Universalism contends that the Gospel of
Jesus Christ reveals God's justice, not humanity's, and that justice is expressed
in the salvation of all. The Gospel reveals God's desire that all be saved and
God's willingness to die in place of humanity so that his may be accomplished.
Thus, while a kind of postmortem hell may indeed exist for those who have
refused God in this life, it is certainly not the traditional view of hell
offered in Calvinism or Arminianism.
Hell as
Purification
Universalism offers an alternative vision of
postmortem hell as a kind of purification or penal education so that persons
are made capable of entering the kingdom of God. Universalists find
biblical grounds for arguing that God's judgment is itself salvific (Isa.
48:9-11; Jer. 9:25; 30:11-17; 31:10-37; Ezek. 16; Hos. 6:1; 11:-13; Rom.
14:10-12). As K.F. Keil writes, "Judgments of the Old Testament must
not be viewed as eternal punishments; they leave the possibility for future
salvation."
There is one particularly paradigmatic passage in the
New Testament that deserves quoting here. In his first letter to the church in
Corinth, Paul writes:
By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation
as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should
build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one
already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using
gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for
what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with
fire, and the fire will test the quality of each personÕs work. If what has
been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned
up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be savedÑeven though only as one
escaping through the fire. (1 Cor. 3:
10-15)
Paul makes clear that not building upon the
foundation of Jesus is a grave mistake: those who do not do so will suffer
loss. But Paul also makes room for salvation after this suffering. It is not eternal damnation for the sake of
'justice'; it is God's remedial cleansing for our benefit. Let the reader be
sharp about what this means: it does not mean that hell is without pain,
suffering and, in Paul's words, "loss" (which, in the Greek, denotes
injury and damage). Hell is indeed a terrible thought. It brings to mind the
tragedy suffered by the servant in the vision of Julian
of Norwhich. Building one's life on gods other than Jesus Christ
brings real suffering and loss.
However, this suffering - this "hell" -
does not have the final word in much of the Bible. Judgment in the Old
Testament, including God's "eternal fire" is not the final word but
rather a means to reconciliation with God (e.g. compare Jer. 17:4 to Jer. 31).
Many of the Old Testament passages that speak of God's wrath/judgment contain
nothing of the "unending punishment" that is endorsed by traditional
views today. In many places we have read the modern meaning of
"eternal" back into the text. The Hebrew word, olam, which is often translated "forever" and
"everlasting" did not carry the same meaning in the Hebrew worldview.
The word possessed connotations of intensity, not time. It was used qualitatively, not quantitatively.
In addition to the passage in 1 Corinthians 3, there
are interesting wordplays in the book of Revelation that might indicate God's
punishment as a purification. Though these text-critical studies are beyond the
scope of this essay, I will note two here. In various visions (14:10, 19:20,
20:10, 21:8) John sees the wicked being thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone to be tormented. The word for "brimstone" in Greek is theion, which closely resembles the word for God, theos.
Because of this the word theion often meant "divine fire" or
"fire from heaven." This wordplay between God and stone also occurs
in the gospels as it applies to Jesus: the Hebrew for "stone" (eben) is applied to the "son" (ben) in the parable of the vineyard (Mark 12:10-11). In
addition to these figurative meanings, the literal usage of theion was for burning a divine incense that had the
power to purify and ward off disease.
The word translated for "torment" is basanidzo.
If you were to look up this word in a Greek
lexicon you would find that this word's primary meaning had to do with testing
precious metals by use of a touchstone so that the metals could be purified.
This does not rule out additional meanings, but it is interesting to consider
what meaning it has in conjunction with theion. To give you an alternate reading allow me to
paraphrase Revelation 14:10b as follows: "They will be tested and purified
by a divine fire while in the presence of the Lamb."
By no means do these two words provide conclusive
evidence that the lake of fire and brimstone is God's means for purifying
sinners. It is nevertheless fascinating to explore. After all, God is
referred to as a "consuming fire"
on more than one occasion. Could
Jesus be the divine fire or the touchstone that purifies? The author of Revelation describes
him as having eyes like fire. And isn't it interesting that the lake of fire
and brimstone in 14:10 is in the presence of the Lamb? Perhaps it is not all that far-fetched to imagine
that the unsaved will, in fact, be saved - "even though only as one
escaping through fire," (1 Cor. 3:15).
Many who espouse the traditional view find the
Universalist version of postmortem hell dissatisfying (which is a bit scary if
you think about it). Like Socrates, the traditionalists see ultimate universal
salvation as an unfair gift to those who live their earthly lives in
disobedience to God. In response to this argument we might consider McLaren's
words:
"What could be more serious than standing in
front of your Creator - the Creator of the universe - and finding out that you
had wasted your life, squandered your inheritance, caused others pain and
sorrow, worked against the good plans and desires of God? What could be more
serious than that? To have to face the real, eternal, unavoidable, absolute,
naked truth about yourself, what you've done, what you've become?" (Last
Word, 110)
Perhaps there is no greater punishment than an
unavoidable encounter with the Truth. And perhaps it is this very Truth
that shall set us free.
At this point I want to insert a very important
caveat to what has been said about hell as purification. There is a tendency
among Christians to hold discussions about hell as if we were only talking
about "them" and not "us." I want to include myself in the
category of those who will be judged and purified by God. Although I have been
baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus, I am not outside the
judgment of the Lord. In fact, it is precisely the judgment of Jesus, the
merciful one, that I am under. If this entails a kind of hell as purification,
I know that I certainly need it in order to participate fully in the
Trinitarian love of God.
The "second death" is
another concept used to oppose universal salvation, particularly in the form of
annihilationism. There really isn't room enough to discuss it here, but I do
want to offer an alternative interpretation simply for the sake of exploration.
In Rev. 20:14
John sees a vision in which "death and Hades [are] thrown in to the lake
of fire," as well as those "whose name was not found written in the
book of life." This "second death" has traditionally been
understood as the final annihilation of the damned. However, a universalist
interpretation argues that the text itself explains the nature of the second death.
In 20:14 we read, "Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.
The lake of fire is the second death." Then, in 21:8, we read again that
the wicked will be thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone and "THIS is
the second death." What, then, is the second death? Being thrown into the
lake of fire. What is the lake of fire? We already discussed this above, it is
the divine fire of purification.
Why this "second death" is necessary is
because not all have died with Christ (as in baptism, see Romans 6:6). Thus
explains Andrew Jukes:
The "second death" (Rev. xx. 14.)
therefore, so far from being, as some think, the hopeless shutting up of man
for ever in the curse of disobedience, will, if I err not, be God's way to free
those who in no other way than by such a death can be delivered out of the dark
world, whose life they live in. The saints have died with Christ, not only
"to the elements of this world," (Col. ii. 20.) but also "to
sin," (Rom. vi. 10.) that is, the dark spirit-world. By the first they are
freed from the bondage of sense; by the second, from the bondage of sin, in all
its forms of wrath, pride, envy, and selfishness.
The ungodly have not so died to sin. At the death of
the body therefore, and still more when they are raised to judgment, because
their spirit yet lives, they are still within the limits of that dark and fiery
world, the life of which has been and is the life of their spirit. To get out of
this world there is but one way, death; not the first, for that has passed, but
the second death. Furthermore, not only is the second death the fire of
purification, the second death is the death of death itself! As Paul writes in 1 Cor. 15:26,
"The last enemy to be defeated is death."
As you may have guessed, not all agree with the view
of hell as purification. In a rather simplistic analogy, N.T. Wright suggests that
life is more than a "game of chess" in which we are free to play
however we like and afterward God will put all the pieces back in order.
Universalism, he argues, trivializes the consequences of choices in this life.
But what is Wright really saying here? Is he saying that God's universal
forgiveness toward those who have wasted their earthly life trivializes the
consequences of their choices or somehow minimizes "divine justice"?
Once again I think we are witnessing traces of 'original ungrace.'
First of all, human begins are not pieces on a
chess board! Wright's illustration fails to take seriously that human beings
are living and becoming beings, not static pieces of marble. Secondly, the
illustration fails to comprehend the nature of forgiveness. Forgiveness is
never a return to a prior state, as if wiping a chalkboard clean or putting
chess pieces back into place. Forgiveness is, in fact, a moving forward
into a deeper understanding of relationship. That which has been forgiven continues
to have meaning in the context of relationship. This point merits an illustration.
I recently got into a fight with a good friend. I
said things that I should not have said and I hurt her feelings. Our
relationship was fractured. Fortunately, we were able to reconcile after I
apologized and asked for forgiveness. Now, did my friend's forgiveness
trivialize the consequences of my actions? Absolutely not! The forgiveness that
I received transformed my sinful
behavior and gave it meaning for our relationship and it will continue to
"live" in our relationship forever. It was precisely because
of forgiveness that I could re-appropriate
my sinful behavior into an understanding of how to exist in loving
relationship. Is this not what Jesus taught
Simon the Pharisee? Those
who have a larger debt to be forgiven are all the more able to understand the
nature of forgiveness.
Thirdly, Wright oversimplifies the idea of
consequences. Unlike the simple, one-to-one chain of consequences in, say,
chess, the consequences we suffer in real life are complicated. Although no one
is innocent, we all suffer from undeserved and unforeseen consequences as well.
This is why many today argue that all sin stems
from woundedness. For example, a person who commits a crime in
adulthood may be acting out of the wounds from a traumatic childhood event.
Much psychology has helped shed light on the woundedness behind the cyclical
nature of sin.
Along with the oversimplification of consequences,
Wright's argument assumes that those who disobey God in this life do not suffer
consequences in the present. The Bible
consistently teaches that those who disobey God suffer real consequences in the
present; this is precisely what Jesus' warnings were about (see essay 1). It is
difficult to see how those who do not follow Jesus do not reap here and now the
consequences of their actions. Is Wright saying that these consequences are not
enough? Perhaps. But then again, the Universalist version of hell as
remedial "cleansing" seems to speak to this dilemma.
This topic is unbelievably complex and much more
could be said. If you want to research more on this topic, I highly recommend
David Powys' book Hell: A Hard Look at a Hard Question. At this point, let us summarize what I have put
forth in essay 2:
á Universalism
does not necessarily jettison the concept of hell.
á Hell,
according to universalism, is a transitional phase for the lost to be purified
for life in the Trinitarian Love of God
á There
is biblical support for the idea that the unsaved shall be saved through fire.
á The
second death is literally the death of death.
á Universalism
does not trivialize consequences.
In conclusion, I'd like to offer two concise
statements to recapitulate what has been put forth in these two essays on the
idea of hell in our contemporary time.
Whatever you mean when you use the word
"hell," know this:
1. The God of the Bible detests hell.
2. The God of the Bible will bring an end to hell.
Amen.
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