Perhaps this is the issue.
When Jewish people read the words like eternal torment what do you think that meant to them? Are there other verses in the Torah that mentions fire , eternal destruction, and so on.
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As far as I can tell, we really do not know what is going to happen after we die. All I can say for sure is some people are going to be with God and others are not I am trusting in Jesus for my salvation, and I am trusting in Him that He will do eight whatever that is by others, that is it.
1 Corinthians 2:9 (NIV2011)
9 However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”— the things God has prepared for those who love him—
That is enough.
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Amen. I want to try and understand what I can, but also recognize the Bible is not a user’s manual or orientation training to “Life After Death 101.” It’s ultimately more about the Who than the what.
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Yet I feel compelled to point out that the “who” that we’re speaking of found it rather important to teach us various things about the “what”, no? If the “who” is truly important to us, it seems fitting that we listen carefully to his words when he spends so much of his teaching talking about this particular “what.”
Focusing so much on the “who” while ignoring or deemphasizing “what” this “who” talked about or told us to do about it seems a sure way to face the rebuke, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?”
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@Laura will answer for herself I’m sure. Aye, there’s the rub. We don’t do we? We haven’t obtained equality of outcome. We haven’t hungered and thirsted and mourned for social justice.
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That’s a good point. And well answered by you earlier, complete with the authoritative and canon reference: the Simpsons! 
‘It can be both.’
And yet that said, if anyone were to insist on speaking separately of giver and gift (I’m not saying you are) - but if they were, then these are not an equal two things. While one might, with young or weak faith accept the giver only because they desired the gift, this is an inferior position to the one of stronger faith who gladly accepts the gift because of the giver. It is the giver we should most want. All the necessary things (any gift, or even anything at all, whether it be gift or cross) follow from that highest desire.
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Thanks for the reference Korvexius…and for the link to the rebuttal. “Anyone who doesn’t obey the Son will never experience eternal life but remains under God’s angry judgement” (John 3:36)
“Then death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the second death. And any one whose name was not found in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:14-15)…
If you want to look around for it, there is a verse where Jesus castigates the rulers of His era by noting that at the last judgment, the ciitzens of Sodom and Gomorrah will rise up in judgment against that generation — suggesting that all these folks are still alive and waiting somewhere…
Ehrman is a bit out of bounds on this issue. And yes, the biblical language remains melodramatic ("…where their worm dies not" --you look it up)…but it is hard to accept that Jesus — and the followers of Jesus of the first century – did not talk of judgement and hell. And a case could be made for it being eternal. And even if “not” eternal — how long would it be? Ten billion years of torment in fire and brimstone? Long enough.
Precisely. I may have misunderstood or read too much into @Laura’s comment earlier, as I don’t entirely disagree (the “who” is certainly in many aspects far more important than the “what”)… it is just that I have far too often seen that idea used to dismiss a rather clear command or instruction or truth because it is unpopular or troublesome in some way.
Not to mention your earlier point… what would we think of a thief who “claimed” to have been forgiven, and claims that now, he is focusing on “knowing God”… but keeps on stealing because he wants to focus on the “who” not the “what”… and after all, the Bible (even with all its “instructions” and laws about stealing and envy and covetousness) isn’t supposed to function as “God’s little instruction book”…!
So dare I get in my soap box… but Pete Enns (Perhaps among others) has been talking so much about how the Bible is not “God’s little instruction book for life.” And true enough as far as it goes… that basic idea hits an important point, and the way people treat the Bible as “God’s little instruction book” is downright detestable to me.
But like with so many things, Dr. Enns throws the baby out with the bathwater, and essentially means by his words that whenever we evangelicals discover any instruction in Scripture, and suggest that it is, in fact, a command from the almighty that we are bound to obey, that we are thus guilty of treating the Bible as “God’s little instruction book.” If I try to embrace a particular truth that Jesus indisputably taught, according to Dr. Enns, I am apparently treating God like a “helicopter parent”, and the Bible like “God’s little instruction book.”
The Bible is so, so, so, so much more than a compendium of instructions from God. But dare we suggest it is less? Dare we take any instruction from the mouth of the Lord Jesus and discount it on the grounds that the gospels are not “Jesus’s little instruction book?”
OK. Off my soap box.
Actually there is an issue with the Apostles Creed worth noting here too. If one looks at the two versions of the creed in Latin one can see how the confusion over hell vs. dead (grave) may have arisen. In Latin only one letter differentiates ‘the dead‘ (iferos), figuratively, ‘the grave’ from ‘hell’ (infernos).
The simplest reason why hell has made its way into the apostles creed then is most likely due to boring old scribal error. A sleepy scribe working late into the night with poor eyesight and a flickering candle (artistic licence, bear with me) accidentally adds an ‘n’ to iferos without realising it. The copy(ies) makes its way to a prominent city(ies) where the error is copied several more times and those copies are sent on… Before you know it, it’s 2020 and churches around the world are affirming a non-biblical idea together on almost Sunday mornings, namely, that Jesus went to hell.
Hope that is not too tangential but rather a helpful addition to the conversation. Though I would note that it neither affirms nor denies one view of hell over another.
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I’d agree with @Merv’s observations here – I didn’t say the “what” isn’t important, but it’s only important so much as it comes from and is in alignment with the “who” (which isn’t always easy to parse, as the “what” requires interpretation and proceeds from a particular cultural standpoint that is often different from our own).
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Thank you, Laura, for your agreement.
Laura wrote in agreement with me, but people are picking on her instead of me when we were making the same points.
The first point is that the teaching of Jesus is about salvation and eternal life, and not about heaven and hell. Certainly the purpose of the Gospel is to teach how to avoid going to hell. If that is your purpose in life then you are not going to heaven.
The story of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16:19 - 31) in some sense speaks of this. The rich man asks Abraham to allow Lazarus to go back to earth to warn his brothers to change their ways so they do not end up in hell, but Abraham refuses.
Luke 16:31 (NIV2011) 31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ ”
If people are unwilling to so what is right, for the right reason, because Jesus tells people to love one another, why would they do it for the wrong reason?
Anyone who thinks they can bluff their way into heaven by saying that they love God, while abusing God’s People has got to be crazy. Admittedly we have many crazy people in the USA today, but that does not justify false legalism. God don’t like ugly, which is not hard to understand, unless you want to justify your own selfishness by putting the blame on others.
I know that God has joy and peace for those who love God, but what this will look like I sure do not know. I expect that those who reject God’s love and peace will not receive God’s joy, but I do not know what there will look like either.
The biggest puzzle is those who are double minded. They want God’s love and peace, but fail to make the commitment needed to receive God’s love and peace.
What about those who deem to have to outward appearances of salvation in that they are members of churches, but whose lives do not seem to bear the fruit of salvation? Where do they stand? I certainly do not know, nor am I able to guess. That is God’s business.
The Gospel message was accept the fact that all persons are sinners, and the only way we can be forgiven for our sin is to accept our selfishness and repent
Hell is indeed annihilation—of goodness, hope, joy, even the unifying power of the personality, the I. We see the seeds of hell in the demon-possessed man in Luke 8:26–30. Jesus asked him his name and he replied, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. He had lost his unifying self, his I. Yet something remained there. He was not simply annihilated. C. S. Lewis points out that “in all our experience, the destruction of one thing means the emergence of other things. Burn a log and you get ashes and gases.” What burns in hell are the soul’s putrid, hate-filled remains.
Annihilation Is Contrary to the Nature of God As Love
Annihilation would be demeaning both to the love of God and to the nature of human beings as free moral creatures. It would be as if God said, “I will allow you to live only if you do what I say. If you don’t, I will snuff out your very existence!” Eternal existence is an eternal testimony to the freedom and dignity with which God created humans; eternal bliss is the destiny of the redeemed, and eternal suffering is the destiny of the unrepentant.
Annihilationism Is Contrary to the Nature of Humanity
It would be contrary to the created nature of humans to exterminate them, since we are made in God’s everlasting image and likeness (Gen. 1:27). God is the ultimate freedom, and in His infinite wisdom He bestowed freedom upon His human creatures. To renege on this gift would be for Him to attack what is good in our nature—a good that He determined was best for us to receive.
Moral Justice Demands Degrees of Punishment
To equally punish a “white lie” and genocide would be unjust; murder should receive greater punishment than petty theft. However, there is no evidence that judgment proportionate to the sin is always meted out in this life; the wisest man who ever lived complained of this life’s inequities (Eccl. 3:16–22).
Annihilation is the great equalizer, having upon all who are unreconciled with God the same eternal effect—nothingness. Not all sin is equal, though, and all will not receive the same eternal result. Annihilationism is contrary to moral justice, which demands that the punishment fit the crime.
There Are No Degrees of Annihilation
The Bible reveals degrees of eternal punishment in hell (Matt. 5:22; Rev. 20:12–14). Because “degrees of annihilation” is implausible—nonexistence would be the same for everyone—annihilationism is irrational. God’s Word also gives no indication about post-death degrees of temporary conscious punishment and then annihilation; it speaks of immediate, post-death, “eternal,” “everlasting” punishment.
Annihilationism Is Illusory
Anything based on wish-fulfilment is an illusion. At the base of annihilationism is the desperate wish to avoid suffering—no one wants to suffer, let alone to suffer forever. Annihilationism, like universalism, is pie in the sky: That it would be nice if it were true doesn’t make it true. Again, C.S. Lewis said about the latter,
I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully “All will be saved.” But my reason retorts, “Without their will, or with it?” If I say “Without their will,” I at once perceive a contradiction; how can the supreme voluntary act of self-surrender be involuntary? If I say “With their will,” my reason replies “How, if they will not give in?” (PP, 106–07).
In our fallenness, we would love to believe that there really are no consequences for our sins, either in this life or the next, so we need help to be cured of such psychological diseases. The antidote is the truth, which sets us free (John 8:32).
Some historical arguments
The historical evidence against annihilationism is the same as the historical argument for eternal conscious punishment—that is, the historical evidence against annihilationism is identical to the evidence for hell, annihilationism is opposed by most orthodox teachers in church history, from the beginning to the present.
Annihilationism was roundly condemned by the early church. In one example, the last of the nine anathemas of Emperor Justinian (c. 483–565) against Origen (c. 185–c. 254) reads: “If anyone says … that the punishment of demons and of impious men is only temporary and will one day have an end … let him be anathema” (in Roberts and Donaldson, ANF, Vol. 14). Before the Reformation, the Fifth Lateran Council (1513) also condemned the denial of hell (Cross, ODCC, 328).
When examining carefully and in context, none of the above passages proves annihilationism. Certain words used may permit that meaning, but nowhere do they demand it regarding eternal punishment. In view of comparison with other clear passages, conditionalism must be fully rejected, for it rests on a sentimental (rather than scriptural) basis, rooted more in emotion than in reason. Numerous passages plainly state that those who have chosen wickedness will suffer consciously and eternally.
References:
Augustine. The City of God.
Crockett, W. V. Through No Fault of Their Own.
Cross, F. L., ed. Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church.
Davidson, Bruce W. “Reasonable Damnation: How Jonathan Edwards Argued for the Rationality of Hell” in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society.
Edwards, Jonathan. The Works of Jonathan Edwards.
Erickson, Millard. Evangelical Mind and Heart.
Freud, Sigmund. The Future of an Illusion.
Froom, Le Roy E. The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers.
Fudge, Edward. The Fire That Consumes.
Geisler, Norman L. “Man’s Destiny: Free or Forced” in Christian Scholar’s Review.
Gerstner, John. Jonathan Edwards on Heaven and Hell.
Guillebaud, Harold. The Righteous Judge.
Harmon, Kendall S. “The Case Against Conditionalism: A Response to Edward William Fudge” in Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell.
Lewis, C.S. The Great Divorce.
———. The Problem of Pain.
———. The Screwtape Letters.
Stott, John. Evangelical Essentials.
Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologica.
Wenham, John. The Goodness of God.
White, Edward. Life in Christ
The term destruction, as used of judgment on the wicked at death, does not mean extinction.
First, the very phrase itself (in 2 Thess. 1:9) does not fit with annihilationism: Paul has in mind an irreversible verdict of eternal non-fellowship with God. A person exists but remains excluded from God’s good presence”
Second, the same word for destruction (olethron) is used in 1 Corinthians 5:5 of the disfellowshiping (or disciplining) of a church member’s “flesh.” Whatever flesh means here (whether body, old nature, etc.), it certainly was not annihilated when he was excommunicated—he was later returned to the fellowship of the church (2 Cor. 2:6).
Third, destruction does not mean extinction in Revelation 17 (vv. 8, 11), where the beast and the false prophet are thrown alive into the lake of fire and are still there a thousand years later (20:7). John says emphatically that they “will be tormented day and night for ever and ever” (v. 10).
Fourth, the Bible uses several main pictures to speak of hell: (1) darkness, (2) separation, (3) weeping, (4) gnashing of teeth, (5) punishment, (6) fire, (7) death, and (8) destruction.
The first five in no sense coalesce with the idea of annihilation; and, when properly understood in context, neither do the last three.
As applied to hell, then, destruction clearly does not mean annihilation but connotes the punishment of something still in existence. Punishment is precisely what Paul called the action taken on the excommunicated man (using the same word—cf. 2 Cor. 2:6; 1 Cor. 5:5).
Fifth, if destruction did mean “annihilation” when used of the unbeliever’s post-death state, it would not be “everlasting” destruction, for annihilation is instantaneous; annihilation does not stretch over a long period of time, let alone forever, but only takes an instant and then is over.
If someone undergoes everlasting destruction, then they must have an everlasting existence. (Analogously, just as the cars in a junkyard have been destroyed but are not annihilated—they are beyond repair or irredeemable—so the people in hell are not extinguished but are simply irredeemable and irreparable.)
Sixth, and finally, as Augustine observed, the terms eternal punishment and eternal life ( Matt. 25:46) are parallel, and it would be absurd to use them in the same sentence while meaning one is temporal and the other is eternal (CG, 21:21–24).
Hence, the conditionalists’ distinction between eternal consequences (which they accept) and eternal consciousness (which they reject) is contrived and not based on God’s Word
References
Harmon, Kendall S. “The Case Against Conditionalism: A Response to Edward William Fudge” in Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell.
McKnight, Scot. “Eternal Consequences or Eternal Consciousness?” in Crockett, Through No Fault of Their Own
Geisler, N. L. (2005). Systematic theology, volume four: church, last things (p. 412). Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers., “ECEC” in Crockett, TNFTO, 155–56).
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If we’re appealing to a sense of moral justice where the punishment must fit the crime, then ECT would make even less sense to me. But the idea of annihilationism as being some kind of equalizer has been bugging me, because I would consider God’s mercy an even greater equalizer than that. Even if I had spent my life murdering and hurting other people, I could still repent at the end of my life and receive mercy, and be just as much a child of God as someone who had spent their life doing humanitarian work. Since I have received mercy regardless of my sin, who am I to criticize God for not punishing others enough? I don’t think I get to have an opinion on that. I know it’s about more than my opinion – I could be wrong in my views and I want to better understand what the scriptures say, but I just don’t see that I have any leg to stand on when it comes to insisting that God can’t be “fair” unless he tortures people for eternity.
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What if you didn’t repent Laura? Must you be punished?
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Annihilation is the great equalizer - that is why annihilation ideas are false. It goes against God’s righteous justice in judgement as there are degrees of sin. Each sin is treated differently under judgement by God. Even our courts today do the same. You would object if it didn’t.
Under annihilationism, God would be unjust to treat lesser sins the same as greater sins. Jesus speaks in John 19:11 of the greater sin. Greater privileges bring greater responsibilities. Either we judge our sins, or God will judge them (1 Cor. 11:31). Bible does state that on the day of judgment some sins will merit greater punishment than others (Matthew 11:22, 24; Luke 10:12, 14). This is not my opinion but scripture. Annihilation treats all sins as equal, doesn’t matter, no a big deal, but it violates God’s just judgements.
God’s grace rescued one of the worst sinners in history, a man who by his own admission was a persecutor, blasphemer, and murderer. Paul’s story gives every sinner hope. The thief on the Cross received grace but no crown of glory. God’s grace is his disposition to choose and save his people, even though they are sinners and do not deserve it. In Paul’s case, his sin was great, but that extreme sin was borne by Christ.
The Bible describes the reality of hell in forceful figures of speech. It is said to be a place of darkness (Matt. 8:12; 22:13), which is “outside” [the gate of the heavenly city] (Rev. 22:14–15). Hell is away from the “presence of the Lord” (Matt. 25:41; 2 Thess. 1:7–9). Of course, these are relational, not necessarily spatial, terms. God is “up” and hell is “down.” God is “inside” and hell is “outside.” Hell is the other direction from God.
The nature of hell is a horrifying reality. It is like being left outside in the dark forever (Matt. 8:12). It is like a wandering star (Jude 13), a waterless cloud (Jude 12), a perpetually burning dump (Mark 9:43–48), a bottomless pit (Rev. 20:1, 3), a prison (1 Peter 3:19), and a place of anguish and regret (Luke 16:28).
To borrow the title of the book by Lewis, hell is the “great divorce”—an eternal separation from God (2 Thess. 1:7–9). There is, in biblical language, “a great gulf fixed” between hell and heaven (Luke 16:26) so that no one can pass from one side to the other.
Nowhere does the Bible describe it as a “torture chamber” where people are forced against their will to be tortured.
This is a caricature created by unbelievers to justify their reaction that the God who sends people to hell is cruel. This does not mean that hell is not a place of torment. Jesus said it was (Luke 16:24). But unlike torture which is inflicted from without against one’s will, torment is self-inflicted.
Torment is living with the consequences of our own bad choices. It is the weeping and gnashing of teeth that results from the realization that we blew it and deserve the consequences. Just as a football player may pound on the ground in agony after missing a play that loses the Super Bowl, so those in hell know that the pain they suffer is self-induced.
Hell is also depicted as a place of eternal fire. This fire is real but not necessarily physical (as we know it) because people will have imperishable physical bodies (John 5:28–29; Rev. 20:13–15), so normal fire would not affect them. Further, the figures of speech that describe hell are contradictory, if taken in a physical sense. It has flames, yet is outer darkness. It is a dump (with a bottom), yet a bottomless pit. While everything in the Bible is literally true, not everything is true literally.
**Many unbelievers would be willing to accept a temporary hell, but the Bible speaks of it as everlasting.Hell Will Last as Long as Does God.
The Bible declares that God will endure forever (Ps. 90:1–2). Indeed, he had no beginning and has no end (Rev. 1:8). He created all things (John 1:3; Col. 1:15–16), and he will abide after this world is destroyed (2 Peter 3:10–12). But God, by his very nature, cannot tolerate evil (Isaiah 6; Hab. 1:13). Hence, evil persons must be separated from God forever. As long as God is God and evil is evil, the latter must be separated from the former.
I don’t dispute the existence of hell, or that it’s an unpleasant place – I’m just not sure its purpose is eternal conscious torment of humans, as it was prepared for the devil and his angels.
Are you saying (or implying) that there are degrees of eternal conscious torment? Are some people tormented to a lesser degree or duration? Edit to clarify: Otherwise I don’t see that it solves the problem of justice any more than annihilationism.
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That concept of proportionality is another sticky point. Is ECT a just punishment for a teenager telling a lie when asked where he has been?
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