Interesting Argument; Adequate Rebuttal

More goings-on over at Triablogue:

Triablogue: Happy God vaporized your mom?

Regarding Hell, Annihilation, and Conditional Immorality

Here are a few links to another look at the idea and reality of hell. Including some Christian Research Journal. As well as questioning the idea of annihilation.

As a follower of Jesus Christ I must acknowledge the fact that Jesus Himself talked more about hell than He did heaven. Jesus described hell as a very real and terrible place (Matt. 16:19-31).

Many within evangelical circles, and those who have aligned themselves with certain cults, teach that hell is simply being annihilated out of existence or that one will suffer for only a time and then be annihilated. This is of course a drastic descent from the traditional view of an eternal hell.

However, what does the Bible say about the duration of the non-believers fate in hell?

This two-part article by Alan W. Gomes aims to set the record straight regarding hell, annihilationism, and conditional immorality.

You can check out the article here:

Evangelicals and the Annihilation of Hell: Part 1 and Part 2

HT: Truthbomb Aplogetics

Hell and the Weight of Evil

Also a statement on whether one can put a price on God’s law, obedience to God, and the glory of God or can measure their worth...

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Let’s make a long story short. Once upon a time the Creator, who is chief of all virtue, holiness and excellence, fashioned a few creatures; He also told them how to be good tenants of the land that He rented to them, and let them go on their way. These tenants already knew and had some inkling of the idea that to do certain things was wrong, but they did these things anyway. Occasionally, they would stop and realize that they had done something reprehensible; and if they thought to make amends for what they had done they would choose their own way of attempting to atone for their wrongdoings, a way which did not truly satisfy the ontological demands of justice in the first place. In fact, they went on doing things which were deviant and contemptible anyhow and they forgot and otherwise ignored that what they were doing had no rightful place in this universe.

What they did was damnable and would be a just cause of their being destroyed outright, but the Creator and Sustainer of the universe did not immediately punish them, or remove them from the land, or destroy them. The wicked tenants of the land noticed that their evil actions were not entirely restrained and thus felt no strong compulsion to stop what they were doing. In fact, some of them even developed or nurtured the attitude that a crime committed long ago was a crime not warranting one’s being punished. (They did this regardless of the fact that clearly some measure of delay between crime and punishment did not negate the justice of punishment, as any parent with unruly or disobedient children in public places likely realizes.) So the tenants continued to walk the crooked path of moral deviance, some even professing to care next to nothing of the bitter fruit that their willfulness and corruption were storing up for them.

But then it came. The threshold separating imagination and reality and separating warning and culmination immediately dissolved and before these reprobates stood the realization and reification of the apostle Paul’s words to the Roman church that on the coming day of reckoning and settling of accounts there would be trouble, distress, and wrath for those who do evil. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” and that is exactly what happened when the books were opened, the people were weighed and found wanting, and terrifying punishments no more than commensurate with the crimes these people committed began to be handed down.

At length the apostle Paul writes:

18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed [it] unto them. 20For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21Because that, when they knew God, they glorified [him] not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. 24Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. 26For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. 28And even as they did not like to retain God in [their] knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; 29Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. 1Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. 2But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. 3And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? 4Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? 5But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; 6Who will render to every man according to his deeds: 7To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: 8But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, 9Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; 10But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: 11For there is no respect of persons with God. 12For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; 13(For not the hearers of the law [are] just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. 14For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: 15Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and [their] thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) 16In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel (Romans 1:18-2:16).

Says the writer of the book of Hebrews:

26For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, 27But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. 28He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: 29Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? 30For we know him that hath said, Vengeance [belongeth] unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. 31[It is] a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10.26-31).

The terrifying picture in which it is not the sinner who sends himself to hell continues to be drawn as Christ himself says:

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: (Matthew 25.41.)

Christ’s apostle Paul again writes:

19Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but [rather] give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance [is] mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. 20Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. 21Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12.19-21).

3We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth; 4So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure: 5[Which is] a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer: 6Seeing [it is] a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; 7And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, 8In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: 9Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; 10When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day (2
Thessalonians 1.3-10).

Vengeance belongs to God, who is beyond being subject to endless cycles of violence which preoccupy the minds of humanistic consequentialists who categorically object to execution of vengeance. Meanwhile, the everlasting fire that awaits those who ignore God’s law, God’s requirements, and God’s warnings of the same is not some place of which God washes his hands before demons step in to do the would-be dirty work of dragging sinners off to perdition’s flames before they commence to prod them with red pitchforks for the rest of time. No, if you’ve thumbed your nose at the great God, then whether in this age or the next He will avenge Himself where vengeance is fit and He certainly will give to you what your wretched actions deserve.

It is fashionable to paint a picture of final divine punishment as one’s merely being separated from God, yet this portrayal is nothing less than both a hermeneutical and rhetorical crime. The situation of those who break God’s law is far worse than separation from the divine. In Matthew 18.8-9 Christ says:

8Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. 9And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell [ΓΕΕΝNΑΝ] fire.

This is to be compared with Mark 9.47-48:

47And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell [ΓΕΕΝNΑΝ] fire: 48Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

The Greek word translated here as “hell” apparently is an allusion to Ge Hinnom, the valley outside the city of Jerusalem that is said to have been filled with heaps of trash that burned perpetually in the early first century A.D. Whether one is to glean from this passage that he will suffer as with fire for ages to come if he is a sinner, or whether one is to gather the idea that in his willfulness, corruption and evil he makes himself to be cosmic trash, the outlook is beyond bleak: it is incomprehensibly dreadful. Yet a man reaps what he sows.

A body that is broken, damaged, and made to disintegrate is in the meantime a sad, pathetic thing. The body that wastes away by degenerative diseases, that is ravaged by cancer, that is missing limbs or that otherwise has fallen far from its design is a pitiful object, to say nothing of how it would be if outright destroyed. Yet destruction is a reward of rebellion and deviance as the apostle Paul writes:

3We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth; 4So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure: 5[Which is] a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer: 6Seeing [it is] a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; 7And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, 8In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: 9Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; 10When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day (2 Thessalonians 1.3-10).

To endure the existence of a weak, broken, destroyed object that suffers the everlasting flames of divine retribution is not something at which to scoff and later something to survive and adapt to—it is something to haunt those of us who are complacent, those of us who are haughty, and it is something to fit those who are unmindful of their Creator and the gifts that He has provided. Yet a man reaps what he sows.

Meanwhile, the apostle Peter speaks of men for whom the “mist of darkness” is reserved forever (2 Peter 2.17) while Jude speaks of men for whom the “blackness of darkness” is reserved forever (Jude 1.12-13). All can appreciate the sensory delights to be found in the spectacular vistas of things such as mountains ranges, painted sunsets, lightning storms, clear starry nights, etc. Yet these things are owed to no one and the day is coming when they no longer will be given to everyone who can appreciate them. At least some of those who will be destroyed, who will be left to persist and scratch along in their pathetic, meaningless existence, and who will suffer the pains of everlasting fire perhaps will now find themselves devoid of sensory delights. Because in the first place they were never owed any gifts from their Creator, it is dubious that they will ever again have the blessings of songs, music, singing, whistling, good food and drink, pleasant aromas, and so on. It is also doubtful that they will never again see anything.

In our own day we know of things such as pain, terror, hopelessness, grief, and depression. Things such as these can also make for a sense or feeling of a meaningless existence, an existence composed solely of work, toil, trouble, distress, pain, and the cyclical repetition of these things. But whether you have experienced these things or not, if you are someone who does evil and who transgresses God’s law and requirements, you will drink from the cup of God’s wrath and God will consign you to an experience and an existence that will teach you of the weight and serious nature of evil. First, foremost and above all, the great God is to be obeyed. Secondly, our Creator is not a liar, and when He warns that evil and transgressions of his law will be met with a dreadful and horrifying punishment it follows that sins happen to be worse, more grievous and more heinous than many make them out to be. And what the sum of your crimes will be met with is an experience and existence far worse and far more durative than what seems to exist in this world.

Hell and Annihilationism

Allow me to play a naïve role as devil’s advocate for a moment. It is a myth of Churchianity that reprobates or unrepentant sinners will be subjected to some unending, everlasting process of punishment. There is no shortage of evidence that, to the contrary, sinners will one day be punished and eventually cease to exist.

1. Suffixes

For starters, are you not misunderstanding the word “punishment” as used in the New Testament when you point to the likes of Matthew 25.46 to argue that people will suffer forever? The word is “punishment,” not “punishing.” Sinners will be subjected to everlasting punish-ment, meaning the result of having been punished; for this is what the word means. If Christ had said “punishing” then traditional teaching about hell would be correct, but look and observe that he did not say this.

2. Measurement

You are not much better off appealing to Matthew 25.41 to argue that people will suffer forever. Sure, the word “everlasting” is used there, but the adjective in question differs from the adverb “forever” pretty much only in terms of grammatical function, and thus not in terms of meaning. As it so happens, you forget the words of Exodus 21.6:

Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever.

So how long is forever here? Clearly, it is until death. So “forever” does not always mean forever properly speaking or forever in the naive sense of the word.

3. Destruction

It is also clear that the Bible teaches that evil people will cease to exist, for it plainly tells us that evil people will be destroyed. Read:

But the transgressors shall be destroyed together: the end of the wicked shall be cut off (Psalm 37.38).

When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; [it is] that they shall be destroyed for ever: (Psalm 92.7)

7 And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, 8 In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: 9 Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; (2 Thessalonians 1.7-9)

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell (Matthew 10.28).

4. Consumption

Not only will evildoers be thrown to the fire, but fire will consume them--they will be no more:

But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the LORD [shall be] as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away (Psalm 37.20).

And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners [shall be] together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed (Isaiah 1.28).

5. Cessation and Vanishing

Again, evildoers or sinners will be annihilated. There is just no question about it. But do not take my word for it; see what the Scriptures have to say about the matter. Observe:

As the whirlwind passeth, so [is] the wicked no [more]: but the righteous [is] an everlasting foundation (Proverbs 10.25).

11 Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish. 12 Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, [even] them that contended with thee: they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought (Isaiah 41.11-12).

All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never [shalt] thou [be] any more (Ezekiel 28.19).

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It is not hard to find such a line of arguments on the Internet or in Seventh-Day Adventist tracts. This is the best case that annihilationists can make short of revisionist translations of the Scriptures.

The first argument goes too far to assert that “punishment” means result of having been punished. To be sure, the suffix -ment can conventionally convey a meaning of results, but sure enough it also variably carries a meaning of act or process. Moreover, the kind of meaning that annihilationists would favor in Matthew 25.46 would make no sense in that verse. It would make no sense to say “These shall go away to an everlasting result of having been punished” when the result is annihilation. After all, the state, condition, or property of having been annihilated--as it were--cannot be predicated of any object that does not exist. Again, you cannot both be a nonexistent sinner and now have any kind of result to which you have gone away. So the naive interpretation of Matthew 25.46 is correct.

With the second argument, even if we were to concede that certain persons will cease to be servants of other people, all the while it cannot be denied that the basic function of the word “forever” is to convey connotations of a thing’s persisting across all futurate moments. The word is subject to occasional use of hyperbole and sharp delimitations of semantic purview--you get held up in a traffic jam on your way home from work, and you later say, “It took forever to get home!”--as are other words, but the basic use of the word is known to everyone. Accordingly, the onus or responsibility of proving one’s favorite translation of the word in New Testament texts is on the annihilationists here.

The third argument is ridiculous, for it is audacious enough to go beyond biblical hermeneutics and into raw metaphysics to counterintuitively equate destruction with annihilation, as if there were no difference between the latter two things. One should make up his mind, from the outset, that an object can undergo radical changes in structure and still survive. If I take my wristwatch to a repair shop, and the repairman disassembles the watch such that parts are laid here and there while he conducts repairs, you don’t want to say that my watch has ceased to exist while he conducted repairs. Likewise, if I take my car to a repair shop and tires are removed and moved to different axles, you don’t want to say that my car ceased to exist while it underwent radical structural changes. Accordingly, it is not clear that a violent act of causing contiguous parts to move apart--more or less destruction--necessarily causes an object to cease to exist. In any case, we need not appeal to intuition to decide whether every act of destruction is an act of annihilation. We can consult a dictionary for the meanings of the word “destroy,” and we can even compare the following:

And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth (Genesis 6:13).

And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth (Genesis 9:11).

Meanwhile, the fourth argument is made with the assumption that an object’s being consumed--or perhaps its being consumed specifically by fire--necessarily results in its ceasing to exist. You start to figure out that there is something wrong with this idea when you come across Jeremiah 16.4 and 44.12 where people are consumed by the sword as opposed to fire:

4 They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; [but] they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcases shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.

12 And I will take the remnant of Judah, that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and they shall all be consumed, [and] fall in the land of Egypt; they shall [even] be consumed by the sword [and] by the famine: they shall die, from the least even unto the greatest, by the sword and by the famine: and they shall be an execration, [and] an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach.

Meanwhile, others have in fact survived consumption, as in Psalm 90:7, Jeremiah 5:3, and Jeremiah 10:25.

Finally, the fifth argument would commit its proponents to the idea that Enoch long ago ceased to exist, for it is written:

And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him (Genesis 5:23-24).

In the Scriptures nonexistence, as it were, apparently can be metaphorical of a thing’s being gone from sight or gone from the face of the earth.

Hell and Everlasting Punishment: Supplemental

I lay in bed today and I thought to myself: if it is better for someone to throw himself into a watery grave than to cause those little ones to sin (Mt 18.1-9), is punishment on the final Day compounded if the initial act of offense, or causing to sin, creates a chain reaction or exponential reaction of other people’s sinning? If so, then the idea of infernal everlasting punishment should not be so hard to believe.

Hell and Failures of Universalism & Reconciliationism

So, last time I was talking about hell, since people who disagree with Christian ethics and theology want to take issue with the idea of everlasting punishment. But, you have people within Christendom also, as it were, who want to take issue with Christian ethics and theology. We may as well take a look a look at more issues of Doomsday if we started off with the topic of whether everlasting punishment is just.

At the present moment it would be more natural to address the revisionist arguments which produce novel renditions of certain Hebrew and Greek words and attack the idea of everlasting punishment in this way. However, I do not want to delve into all the tedium and technical details right now, so I won’t. Instead, why not have a look at univeralism and reconciliationism, especially since this is the Internet and heterodox beliefs such as those thrive on the Internet where eccentrics and kooks have a voice?


Reconciliationism basically gives us a happy ending to world history. Regardless of whether people eventually will be punished for their wrongdoings, at the very end of the story they will be reconciled to God in good standing. To argue a case for this point of view, one could produce the biblical passages that one might first expect to find in such an argument: Romans 5.18, Romans 5.19, Romans 11.32, Romans 14.9.

Romans 5.18 itself reads as “Therefore as by the offence of [one judgment came] upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one [the free gift came] upon all men unto justification of life.” This is the kind of verse that presents issues relevant to the would-be veracity of Arminianism and its offshoots. Indeed, if the phrase “all men” means all human beings simpliciter in verse 18a, then it should be that this phrase is used in the same way in verse 18b such that it states nothing less than that all human beings are or will be justified by God.

I do not know how or even if Arminians and post-Arminians can produce an orthodox and accurate rejoinder to the idea that Romans 5.18 supports universalism. (I suppose their only and quasi-responsible option is to argue a “weight of evidence” case by contrasting other Scriptures and then asserting that the phrase “all men” somehow undergoes a change of usage, denotation or meaning from the first part of Rom 5.18 to the second part.) On the other hand, a Calvinist or quasi-Calvinist like myself would already be hip to the reality that the phrase “all men” as used in the NT is not always used as it is in Modern English.

After all, a quick and honest look at Luke 6.26, 1 Corinthians 9.22, 1 Corinthians 10.33 or 1 John 1.7-9 shows that while naïve Arminian ideas of the connotation of “all” and “all men” are accurate, the naïve failure to recognize that neither the scope/purview nor reference of these phrases always correspond with the connotation must be acknowledged. In fact, we see in 1 Cor 9.22 that the phrase “all men” basically means all sorts of men of a particular set. (Paul clearly did not have Celts, Indians and North Americans in mind here.) By analogy, it was always possible and plausible that the phrase in question had this meaning in Romans 5.18--Christ is the savior of both Jews and Gentiles and is not the savior of only the special nation of Israel, a message which is repeated in the writings of the apostle Paul.

Now, a committed univeralist might take the foregoing comments as circumlocution, but facts are facts; and the fact is that one must be careful in his exegesis of Romans 5.18. The same is true of Romans 5.19, where Paul writes: “For as through the disobedience of the one man, the many were constituted sinners: so also through the obedience of the one, shall the many be constituted righteous.” The many who were made righteous? The many Muppets? The many holy angels? The many kinds of people in the world today? The grammar of the verse does not necessarily indicate what the answer to the question is.

It’s the same story with Romans 11.32, where Paul writes: “For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.” Might have mercy upon all what? All atoms? All things? All people around us? All kinds of people around us? Keep this verse in context (Romans 10 and 11) in order to discover the answer. Both Jews and Gentiles have been shut up in disobedience, and if we were to speak abstractly (i.e., with generalizations or reference to properties/qualities shared by individuals) of Jews and Gentiles as opposed to speaking of specific individuals--and this is what Paul seems to do so in his writing--then we could say that it is all sorts of men or people who have been shut up in disobedience.

Finally, in Romans 14.9 the apostle Paul writes: “For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.” You’ll get the idea that this verse argues for universalism only if you are the type who thinks that “to make Christ the Lord of your life” is to get saved and that recurrent acts of Christ’s becoming the Lord of someone’s life occur and save people from their sins. There are a number of things wrong with this modern idea, but in passing I will state just one problem: the Scriptures state that Christ has been made Lord of all things in the universe (Matthew 28:18, 1 Corinthians 15:20-28 with the seeming exception of death; cf. others), while we know that some things in the universe are destroyed (e.g., condemned buildings) or will be destroyed (cf. 2 Peter 3), yet Christ is Lord even of these things. So the fact that Christ is Master or Lord of all people does not necessarily make one to be safe from destruction or divine wrath.

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Oh, but the would-be proofs for reconciliationism do not stop there. Take a look at what the apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 1.10:

That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; [even] in him:

Some will look at Ephesians 1.10 and see nothing other than possible indications of reconciliationism. On the other hand, the translators of the NIV apparently see Paul as speaking of Christ’s being made the lord of all things in this verse; other translations allow for the plausibility that Paul is speaking of the so-called Rapture or something like it. Meanwhile, it bears noting that Colossians 1.19-21, a passage which is used to argue for reconciliationism, probably informs us of one thing that Paul does not have in mind in Ephesians 1.10; for the passages are analogous enough to warrant this assertion. In Colossians 1.19-21 the apostle Paul writes:

For it pleased [the Father] that in him should all fulness dwell; 20And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, [I say], whether [they be] things in earth, or things in heaven. 21And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in [your] mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled.

If one will use this passage in order to argue for reconciliationism, then this verse either proves too much or does not prove enough. Question: Are the elect, holy angels at opposition with God? No, they are not. Have they ever been at opposition with God? No, they have not. Are the holy angels some of all things? Yes, they are some of those things which are created, and so they are some of those objects which could be denoted by the phrase “all things.” So if the holy angels are some of all things, then how can these holy angels be reconciled to Christ, as a reconciliationist interpretation of this passage either intentionally or otherwise logically implies?

So it seems that ultimately either of the following must be admitted by reconciliationists. Either:

a) The phrase “all things” does not mean all things simpliciter in Colossians 1.20 (stemming either from limited purview or from hyperbole of some sort); or

b) The word “reconciled” as used in verse 20 is a word that can apply to reconciliation of a particular sort which does not pertain to one’s ceasing to lead a life of rebellion against God.

Regardless of whether the Colossian passages sheds any light on Ephesians 1.10, it certainly does not support reconciliationism in an obvious manner. Yet according to the similarity of the two passages, Ephesians 1.10 also does not support reconciliationism in any obvious fashion.

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Finally, in Matthew 12.31-32 Christ says:

Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy [against] the [Holy] Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the [world] to come.

So if He says that, then that means that forgiveness will possibly be given in the world to come, right? Not really. If one wants to try to draw conclusions about what propositions this passage supposedly unconventionally implicates, then it is enough for me to make this plausible statement: mention of the dichotomy of worlds was made in order to draw attention to how well righteous people will live in the world to come while sinners are subject to abject misery, misery which is only intensified by these sinners’ knowledge that happiness and life could have been theirs had they only done right, but now they’ve had their chance at happiness and have squandered it.

Besides, what divine forgiveness of sins will be made in the world to come if we read in Daniel 12.2 “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame [and] everlasting contempt”?

Hell and the Justice of Everlasting Punishment

On two grounds one could object to the biblical idea that infernal everlasting punishment is just:

1) The finite and completed amount of time in which Christ suffered before death;
2) Everlasting punishment supposedly is not commensurate with the evil deeds for which God will punish people.

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The first objection

The crucifixion, suffering and death of Christ nowadays is typically articulated or described with the following phrase: “paid the price,” as in “Christ paid the price for our sins.” Because so many Christians today portray the suffering of Christ as “the price” for every sin of every reprobate who will eventually go on to be consigned to the lake of fire and everlasting punishment, it is only natural for one to stop and think: Hey, since it is the price for our sins, how could everlasting punishment be just, since it simply is much longer than death by crucifixion?

This is a fair question to ask and one which is not entirely novel. An easy answer could be “The short death of an eternal person carries a weight equal to that of the eternal death of a finite being.” I can see someone offering up this would-be solution, and it is not one that I accept. However, it is an idea that is not without merit. Suppose there was a luminary who was born into a life of luxury and high prestige and who really lived it up, all until he stepped away from that lifestyle, became like an unimportant pauper living on the streets, and then died an ignoble death involving his being mocked and his having to endure unspeakable pain and discomfort? The pain of knowing that you willingly put yourself in this position, and that you could instead be lounging in sunny Miami had you not made the decision to put yourself in this position--this has to count for something.

A better answer would be to explain what should be an obvious truth underlying the claim that “Christ paid the price for our sins”--it is understood by all, or rather it should be so understood, that no one is saying that the suffering of Christ is just like the punishment of sinners. No one thinks or asserts that people who reject Christ will on Judgment Day be sentenced to death by crucifixion. In other words, ideally the post-Arminians who run around saying “Christ paid the price for our sins” are merely asserting that either two things are required for justice or appeasement of divine wrath: the suffering of Christ or the everlasting punishment from which no reprobate will escape.

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The second objection

The second objection begins with the notion that punishment which is not commensurate with the crime is neither good nor just. The objection itself is that everlasting punishment is not commensurate with the evil deeds for which one is punished. However, the objection is suspect on one hand and moot on another hand.

Think of the concept of infinity for a moment. Actual infinite numbers are impossible to begin with, and anything that we refer to or speak of in language is more or less defined or bounded. So in one possible sense, to say that one will be punished forever, or that one will live forever, etc. need not be anything other than to say that he or she will experience a certain state of affairs until the end of time.

However, if someone harbors the admittedly reasonable belief that the word “everlasting” as in “everlasting punishment” necessarily or really conveys the connotation of recurrent acts of extending time such that the duration of one’s punishment could continue to be extended--such that saliency of the phrase in question is in its connotations as opposed to denotation--then he should keep a number of things in mind:

1) He does not know what effects everlasting punishment will have upon the human body or the human person. It could well be that severe initial phases of punishment damage pain receptors or diminish the body’s capacity to feel pain, such that duration of punishment becomes a necessary means of proper, commensurate punishment. In fact, we hear about the destruction of wicked people in 2 Thessalonians 1.7-9 and 2 Peter 3.7, and what is a person destroyed but a person who is beaten down and thrashed if not broken to pieces and ruined? The full range of capacities which he had when he was born is no longer with him.

2) He seems to assume that once lawbreakers and rebels are consigned to the lake of fire on the coming Day, they will stop sinning. Yet the Bible seems to carry no indication that one stops sinning at this time, and sinners who even today are angry with God will have new reasons to be angry once they see the infernal flames begin to grow higher and higher all around them. Sinless perfection of personal conduct will very possibly never be attained by reprobates, and any future sins warrant future punishment--you get new punishment for every new sin.

3) What people are punished for is cosmic treason and rebellion against God and for transgressions against his law. And you have to stop and ask yourself and answer the questions: How much is God worth? How bad of a thing is it to thumb your nose at the divine? Is it a small or trifling thing to shake your fist at the infinite, holy, just, good, mighty Creator, Sustainer and Sovereign Ruler of the universe and all its vast array of beauty and good things? No, it is not a small and trifling thing to rebel against God.

So if you are punished forever for even just one wrongdoing, this may well be a just thing. Meanwhile, if God is willing to have some mercy upon Christ such that Christ’s suffering amounts to less than everlasting punishment, who can object to this? God is the offended party, and the offended party may have mercy as he will.

4) The appeal to commensuration is possibly a double-edged sword. If I walk up to a random stranger and sucker-punch him, then I deserve to be sucker-punched in return. If I pick on ugly, unpopular kids at school for fun, I deserve to have someone pick on me for fun. This is what commenurateness is all about: eye for eye and tooth for tooth, not prolonged torture for random sucker-punches or Chinese water torture for sardonic grins.

Correction: This is part of what commensuration is about. If I punch the stranger and he feels no pain and suffers no harm, then apparently he has no right to punch me in return to the point where I am pained or injured. Or if I pick on someone and he suffers no emotional distress as a result and is unbothered by my meanness, he has no special right to pick on me. However, if the physical pain I inflict on the first person takes several days before it goes away, and if the second person is traumatized for several subsequent days, and if we will be honest about the matter--then apparently I am suddenly deserving of punching and mocking with effects lasting several days

And one can guess what that seems to imply. If God were grieved by the unjust and harmful things that his creatures sometimes do, and if that grief were to persist forever, then sinners would suddenly become rightful candidates for punishment which is nothing less than everlasting.