3) Judgment and the Fate of the Wicked (Generally)
After Death enters the world through Adam's sin, and Death spreads to all men, such that the refrain, "...and he died" repeats eight times in Genesis 5, we see sin multiply greatly in the world. The just divine response to sin is holy judgment on sinners. God always keeps a remnant for himself, for the purpose of continuing the unfolding drama of the redemption that will utimately be found in Christ. But throughout the narrative, God is not shy about displaying his fierce wrath against sin by judging sinners. When man's sin comes to a fever-pitch and God will tolerate it no longer (often after he does patiently tolerate it for a long time), God brings ultimate judgment. And the result is always the same.
If we believe a generally cumulative approach to biblical hermeneutics is proper, this should inform our view of final judgment.
When violence multiplies in the earth, and man's thoughts are only evil continually, God destroys all flesh of man, beast, creeping things, and birds with the great Flood. They are wiped out, no longer living.
When Sodom and Gomorrah display (various kinds of) wickedness, and despite Abraham's intercession, not enough righteous are found there to justify God sparing the cities, he rains down brimstone and fire to overthrow and destroy those cities.
When God brings Israel up out of Egypt and they are pursued by Pharaoh and his hosts, God makes Israel to pass through the sea, and then brings the water over the heads of the Egyptians, such that they are no more.
When Nadab and Abihu offer "strange fire" before the Lord in the tabernacle, fire comes out from the presence of the Lord and "consumes" them. Evidently this doesn't mean their bodies were instantly, completely burned up, since Moses calls on Mishael and Elzaphan to "carry away" their relatives from before the front of the sanctuary (presumably Nadab and Abihu). But this does mean "they died" (Lev. 10:2).
In Numbers 16, the rebels under Korah are swallowed up by the earth. While it is said they go "alive down to Sheol," lest we misunderstand this in Greek mythological terms rather than Hebrew-idiomatic terms, it also says "they perished from the midst of the assembly." Fire is also said to have come forth from the Lord and consumed 250 men who were offering incense. The next day, after accusing Moses and Aaron of causing the death of the Lord's people, God causes a plague to kill thousands more, until it is checked by an offering of incense.
In the conquest of Canaan, God uses the Israelite army to overthrow and kill entire cities (arguably, military garrisons), as judgment for the Canaanites' persistent idolatry and abominable practices for hundreds of years.
When Uzzah and Ahio improperly transport the ark of the covenant, and the oxen pulling the cart nearly stumble, and Uzzah reaches out with his hand to touch and steady the ark, God strikes him dead immediately.
God also strikes Ananias and Sepphira dead on the spot in Acts for their misrepresentation of their contributions to the apostolic ministry, and King Herod Agrippa is struck down immediately for failing to give glory to God when his own voice is regarded as divine by the crowd.
Isaiah says that Babylon will be judged and never inhabited again. Similarly, Tyre will be brought down like those who go down to the pit; he says: "I will bring terrors on you and you will be no more; though you will be sought, you will never be found again" (Ezek. 26:21).
The Psalms and Proverbs refer in various places to the expectation that the wicked will one day "be no more" (see Ps. 37:10; 104:35; Prov. 10:25; 12:7).
All of these examples are very representative, and indeed a number of them are paradigmatic of God's climactic judgment against evil. If we knew nothing of Greek notions of a supposed inherent immortality of the human soul, and if we knew nothing yet of the visions in the book of Revelation, and read through the entire rest of the narrative of Scripture--Old Testament and New--we would hardly conclude that the eschatological, final judgment of the wicked would be anything other than what we had read about so far in redemptive history: death, destruction, obliteration.
We will come to passages that many think indicate otherwise, in a future post. For now I just want to re-emphasize that a cumulative hermeneutic, especially when taking into account paradigmatic judgment stories like the great Flood and the defeat of Pharaoh and his men, points in a very particular direction.
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Friday, March 22, 2024
Two Fates, One Hermeneutic, Zero Evil -- Part 2 of 7
2) Natural Human Mortality
The label "conditional immortality" emphasizes the theological anthropology inherent in an annihilationist view of the final judgment of the wicked. Specifically, it refers to the idea that the Bible teaches that human beings were created mortal and remain mortal unless they partake of the Tree of Life (whether it is a literal, sacramental tree related to God's bestowal of eschatological covenant blessing, or whether that tree is simply a literary symbol for the same).
Before the Fall, at least on a Vosian reading of the covenantal arrangement in the garden of Eden, Adam was put on probation and upon passing the probationary test of obedience would have been granted to eat of the Tree of Life and thus advance human nature from natural weakness and corruptability/mortality to glorious, Holy Spirit-infused immortality. In 1 Cor. 15:42-49, Paul coordinates fallen "natural" man with even unfallen "natural man" (see v.44b as the transition point in the argument) when contrasting both with the body that is raised with glory and power in the resurrection, reflecting the "image of the heavenly" [i.e. the risen Christ]. In the next paragraph (vv. 50-57), this contrast is further developed in explicit terms of "perishable" vs. "imperishable," "mortal" and "immortal[ity]", and Paul refers to Isaianic prophecy of the swallowing up of Death.
When Adam and Eve fell, they were driven from the garden and prevented from partaking of the Tree of Life, lest man "stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever" (Gen. 3:22). God told Adam, "By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, till you return to the ground because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return" (v. 19). The Bible seems to describe an at least partially active role of God in the final judgment of the wicked at the resurrection day, but from one perspective, the original plunging of humanity into death was more of a failure to attain an offered blessing of escape from death than it was "death as an utterly new potentiality" imposed upon man's reality. Man would remain mortal, until life and immortality would be "brought to light" by the grace of God (2 Tim. 1:10). It is only by virtue of redemption in Jesus Christ, because of his substitutionary death and resurrection, that believers in him may again partake of the Tree of Life (Rev. 22:14).
By faith alone in Christ alone--by "eating" the "bread of heaven"--human beings may experience everlasting life (Jn. 6:51, 58). There is no biblical evidence that God will grant a "different kind" of "immortality" to the wicked for the purpose of causing them to "live" in Gehenna and undergo eternal physical torment; salvation is always "out of death into life" (Jn. 5:24). Outside of the resurrection life granted in Christ, the wicked will rise only for a formal judgment/reckoning before the throne of God, but they will ultimately be killed and cease to live, forever.
There is likewise no biblical evidence that human beings in general--much less the wicked--are created with inherently immortal souls (a rather more Greek than traditionally Jewish idea). God alone possesses immortality (1 Tim. 6:16) and shares it by the grace given in Christ, of which the finally impenitent will have no part, eternally--they will perish. If humans have souls that are distinct substances from the body, constitutive of complete human nature together with the body, the Bible regards that part of man as just as inherently mortal as the body, apart from the eschatological covenant blessing of God whether by the Tree of Life in the garden (but that ship has sailed) or by means of the Tree of Calvary.
"This mortal must put on immortality" (1 Cor. 15:53b, my emphasis).
The label "conditional immortality" emphasizes the theological anthropology inherent in an annihilationist view of the final judgment of the wicked. Specifically, it refers to the idea that the Bible teaches that human beings were created mortal and remain mortal unless they partake of the Tree of Life (whether it is a literal, sacramental tree related to God's bestowal of eschatological covenant blessing, or whether that tree is simply a literary symbol for the same).
Before the Fall, at least on a Vosian reading of the covenantal arrangement in the garden of Eden, Adam was put on probation and upon passing the probationary test of obedience would have been granted to eat of the Tree of Life and thus advance human nature from natural weakness and corruptability/mortality to glorious, Holy Spirit-infused immortality. In 1 Cor. 15:42-49, Paul coordinates fallen "natural" man with even unfallen "natural man" (see v.44b as the transition point in the argument) when contrasting both with the body that is raised with glory and power in the resurrection, reflecting the "image of the heavenly" [i.e. the risen Christ]. In the next paragraph (vv. 50-57), this contrast is further developed in explicit terms of "perishable" vs. "imperishable," "mortal" and "immortal[ity]", and Paul refers to Isaianic prophecy of the swallowing up of Death.
When Adam and Eve fell, they were driven from the garden and prevented from partaking of the Tree of Life, lest man "stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever" (Gen. 3:22). God told Adam, "By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, till you return to the ground because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return" (v. 19). The Bible seems to describe an at least partially active role of God in the final judgment of the wicked at the resurrection day, but from one perspective, the original plunging of humanity into death was more of a failure to attain an offered blessing of escape from death than it was "death as an utterly new potentiality" imposed upon man's reality. Man would remain mortal, until life and immortality would be "brought to light" by the grace of God (2 Tim. 1:10). It is only by virtue of redemption in Jesus Christ, because of his substitutionary death and resurrection, that believers in him may again partake of the Tree of Life (Rev. 22:14).
By faith alone in Christ alone--by "eating" the "bread of heaven"--human beings may experience everlasting life (Jn. 6:51, 58). There is no biblical evidence that God will grant a "different kind" of "immortality" to the wicked for the purpose of causing them to "live" in Gehenna and undergo eternal physical torment; salvation is always "out of death into life" (Jn. 5:24). Outside of the resurrection life granted in Christ, the wicked will rise only for a formal judgment/reckoning before the throne of God, but they will ultimately be killed and cease to live, forever.
There is likewise no biblical evidence that human beings in general--much less the wicked--are created with inherently immortal souls (a rather more Greek than traditionally Jewish idea). God alone possesses immortality (1 Tim. 6:16) and shares it by the grace given in Christ, of which the finally impenitent will have no part, eternally--they will perish. If humans have souls that are distinct substances from the body, constitutive of complete human nature together with the body, the Bible regards that part of man as just as inherently mortal as the body, apart from the eschatological covenant blessing of God whether by the Tree of Life in the garden (but that ship has sailed) or by means of the Tree of Calvary.
"This mortal must put on immortality" (1 Cor. 15:53b, my emphasis).
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