Two Fates, One Hermeneutic, Zero Evil -- Part 7 of 7

 7) ECT "Problem Passages" for Conditional Immortality

At the top of this post--and I will add a similar note to Part 1--I should acknowledge that in many of these areas but particularly in the area of the Revelation passages discussed below I have been greatly helped and influenced by arguments put forth by Chris Date and the rest of the team at 'Rethinking Hell' ministries, and cannot claim originality of exegetical or theological insight really anywhere here, but I hope I've articulated some things in a fresh, personal way.

In this final post of the series (or at least final post of the main section of this series, leaving room for any further "cleanup" or follow-up posts on the same topic), we'll look briefly at the most common and most important passages brought up by advocates of the traditional view of final judgment. While we will not take time to go through every single possible passage that could be leveraged to support the traditional view, hopefully by taking a close look at the most powerful passages that seem at first glance, at least for many interpreters, to support ECT, we will see the robust strength and plausibility of conditional immortality or "annihilationism." Particularly in the case of certain "classic ECT passages," the attempts at exegesis on the part of ECT advocates, and the strained interpretation of some of the imagery involved, as necessitated by their view, further highlights the biblical consistency of CI.

1) Isaiah 66:24 in Mark 9:48

In Mark 9:43-48 Jesus gives warnings to "cut off" hand, foot, or eye, if it causes you to "stumble," because it is better to "enter life/the kingdom of God" maimed than to go into Gehenna, where, at least in v. 48 (the quotations in vv. 44, 46 may not be original but reflect scribal harmonization), Jesus says, alluding to Isaiah 66, "their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched."

Coming from a traditional perspective, reading this passage brings to mind eternally active worms and eternally burning fire into which the wicked are sent on the Last Day, such that the wicked will eternally, consciously experience the pains brought about by these conditions (whether more or less literalistically from the imagery). After all, it stands to reason that if the worm doesn't die, it will keep eating, and if the fire is not quenched, it will keep burning. If the worm is eating, it's eating something, and if the fire is burning, it's burning something.

If one slows down, however, and thinks through the precise language of Isaiah and Jesus--indeed, just reads the text carefully, one realizes that ECT is far from necessitated from these texts at all. In fact, it seems prohibited by the details of the text.

Note first of all that in Isaiah 66:24, the righteous who remain alive go forth and look upon the corpses of the wicked, rebellious transgressors in this final verse of Isaiah. They are not alive and screaming in agony forever; corpses are dead. Second, the fact that the worms (rotting-flesh-eating maggots) are said not to die is obviously not intended to suggest that these worms literally live forever but fail to accomplish their purpose (to consume rotting flesh of corpses); the point is obviously that they do not die such that their purpose is left unfulfilled. If the first point about the language of "corpse" isn't taken seriously, this second point may seem like bare assertion. But it is also buttressed by a third point: the fire is not "quenched," which in the Hebrew of Isaiah can theoretically mean to passively "go out," and the Greek sbennytai can theoretically mean to passively "go out" as in Matt. 25:8, but the overwhelming usage of these verbs in the Bible is the meaning "to actively extinguish, quench, or stifle." The point is that the fire will not be extinguished by some external force before it has accomplished its purpose--the normal purpose or effect of fire, namely to consume (see the myriad other places in the Bible in which fire imagery is used in judgment scenes precisely and explicitly for consumption of the wicked). The same goes for the phrase "unquenchable fire" (pyri asbestō) as used by John the Baptist in Matthew 3:12. The immediately preceding word is katakausei, meaning "will be burned totally up." No one will be able to quench the fire of judgment such that it will fail to burn up. Burn up what, again, after all? Corpses (even if the fire, if literal, is the primary modality of the actual point of their execution rendering them "corpses," in the first place).

While I find the following "problem passages" more challenging for annihilationism, Isaiah 66:24 and quotations of or allusions to it in Jesus' teaching should not be considered the strong evidence for ECT that they often are.

2) Matthew 25:41-46

At the end of the Olivet Discourse in Matthew (Chs. 24-25), Jesus describes a judgment scene, which even most partial preterist interpretations (though not all) believe refers directly to the final judgment on the Last Day. Jesus describes how the "blessed of the Father/righteous/sheep," those who served him in life by serving his brethren in practical ways when they had needs, will inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world, and go into "eternal life." On the other hand, Jesus warns, the "accursed/goats" who failed to serve Jesus by serving those in need (whether meaning Jesus' "brothers" only or more broadly is debatable) will depart "into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels" (v. 41), which is also described as "eternal punishment" (v. 46).

ECT advocates find several lines of evidence for their view in this passage:

a) Jesus describes the fire as "eternal fire," which seems to require or at least assume an eternally-existing object of its burning (if we don't quite want to say "fuel").

b) Jesus describes the fire as that which "has been prepared for the devil and his angels," which should give us pause about how similar to normal earthly fire we consider this judgment fire to be in its purpose, nature, and actions. 

c) Jesus describes this judgment upon the goats as "eternal punishment," which may indicate an eternal, conscious experience of some form of punishment on the part of the goats.

d) Jesus directly parallels "eternal punishment" with the "eternal life" received by the righteous sheep, and "eternal life" is obviously something everlastingly experienced by the righteous.

In response to each point, we can say a few things.

With regard to a), we need to understand that the adjective "eternal" in the phrase "eternal fire" may not have focus on duration, but refer to eschatological quality. However, even if it does include a connotation of "everlasting fire," especially given everything else we read about divine judgment-fire and its consuming quality in the New Testament, we need not suppose that fire of divine origin need some kind of perpetual human fuel in order to continue burning forever. After all, as Hebrews reminded us, God himself is a consuming(!) fire (Heb. 12:29). Finally, and most importantly in terms of exegetical proof, Jude notes that Sodom and Gomorrah are set forth as an example (deigma) "in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire" (Jude 7, my emphasis). The destruction of these cities is a picture of the effect of "eternal fire," according to the New Testament.

The point brought up by b) is readily dismissed by everything we have continued to emphasize about the Bible's own continual reference to fire-judgment as destructive and consuming, not eternally-torturous. The fact that wicked spiritual beings are in some sense the primary intended targets of this judgment-fire does not imply that this fire must work in categorically different ways from normal, earthly fire; it must simply be powerful enough to destroy spirits as well as bodies. 

Regarding c), people debate endlessly in philosophical ways about whether it is legitimate to regard a permanent judgment like annihilation as an "eternal punishment," since the punishment is not eternally consciously experienced by the condemned. But the structure of this phrase, 'eternal' + a deverbal noun, elsewhere in Scripture, shows that it refers to the eternal result of the verbal noun and does not have any focus on the ongoing conscious experience of the action. Hebrews 9:12 refers to Christ "having obtained eternal redemption" for his people. In the case of redemption there are of course ongoing, conscious experiences as a result of the redemption, but the redemption itself, which is connected with "eternal" in the phrase in question, is not ongoing. The redemption is "once for all" (cf. Heb. 7:27; 10:10), with the eternal result of cleansed consciences, service to God, etc.

The argument of d) is that because the righteous will inherit "eternal life," which is obviously an eternally-conscious experience of the kingdom they inherit, and because Jesus directly parallels their fate with the fate of the goats who will go into "eternal punishment," "eternal punishment" must refer to an experience of conscious, never-ending suffering. Apart from the grammatical point from c), we here need to highlight again and emphasize the fact that "life" in the Bible ordinarily means, or at least includes, and often centrally includes, animated bodily life. The fact that "eternal life" for the righteous indeed involves more than mere animated bodily life, and in the nature of the case of inheriting the kingdom involves superlative blessings in perfect communion with the triune God and with all the saints, in a new heaven and earth in which righteousness dwells, does not take away from the fact that bodily life in the Bible is not "value-neutral" (such that it could be posited eternally of the condemned wicked). It is a positive blessing to be alive, lungs filled with the breath given by God to Adam in the beginning (Gen. 2:7). Therefore it is something of which the wicked will be deprived in eternity. The parallel contrast Jesus draws here between the sheep and the goats, with regard to their fate, is explicit: eternal life, or judgment-fire that eternally deprives of life. The parallel, rather than supporting ECT, is better support for conditional immortality. The everlasting permanence of each fate is clear, the fundamental meaning of "life" in the Bible is clear (though layers of usage develop), the consistent purpose of judgment-fire is clear, and the New Testament definition of the "wages of sin" is clear (Rom. 6:23).

3) Revelation 14:9-11 and 20:11-15

These passages in the book of Revelation stand as the most important and most difficult challenges to annihilationism, because of their explicit references to "torment" in climactic judgment scenes, closely associated with language of "unto ages of ages" (idiomatic of "forever and ever"). Different annihilationist interpreters highlight and emphasize different words and phrases of these passages in order to argue their case that they do not indicate, or at least do not demand, an ECT interpretation. I will highlight only a couple of such significantly relevant details of the texts that may, for some interpreters, buttress the case for annihilationism or render it more plausible than it may otherwise be on first read of these passages. However, merely demonstrating that these texts as written may not quite demand an ECT interpretation is, to me, a weak exegetical move, rightly countered by ECT advocates with insistence that we take every passage of the Bible with full weight according to its clearest or most likely meaning--not that we "see what we can get away with" by special pleading, appeal to possible but less-likely interpretations, over-emphasis on words and phrases that help our case, deemphasis of words and phrases that mitigate the force of our case, or any such disproportionality in our exegesis.

A much better approach to these texts, in my opinion, is to consider broader hermeneutical principles which happen to point rather strongly, actually, in the direction of an annihilationist interpretation of these two passages (or, perhaps one should say, annihilationist implications of the proper interpretation and application of these passages--that distinction will become clear below). These have to do with the cumulative nature of proper biblical hermeneutics, details of the symbolic narrative of Revelation, and the explicit apostolic interpretation of Revelation's symbolism, given in the book itself. These considerations hang together and demonstrate the consistency of the book of Revelation's presentation of final judgment with all that came in the 65 divinely-inspired books before.

First, a handful of observations about some details in the passages which are interesting but not finally persuasive for the annihilationist position. Then we will flesh out the ramifications of the above broader hermeneutical matters which do surprisingly strongly point in the direction of annihilationism.

The Revelation texts never actually quite explicitly say that wicked human beings will be tormented in the lake of fire forever. Revelation 14 describes the Beast-worshipers as drinking the wrath of God and being "tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb" such that "the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever" and they "have no rest day and night" (Rev. 14:10-11). A close OT background text for this passage is Is. 34:9-10 which speaks of Yahweh's historical judgment(s) on nations in terms of "burning pitch" that is "not quenched night or day" such that "smoke will go up forever." If Isaiah can describe temporal, provisional judgment of nations in such eternally-burning terms, perhaps Revelation 14 is not describing eternal, conscious torment when using nearly identical language. 

In Revelation 20:10-14, the devil, Beast, and false prophet are said to be thrown into the lake of fire, where "they will be tormented day and night forever and ever." Then the Great White Throne Judgment takes place and human beings are judged on the basis of the book of life of the Lamb and the book of human deeds; those whose names are not found in the Lamb's book of life are thrown into the lake of fire. While the figures of the devil, Beast, and false prophet are explicitly said to be tormented forever, this is never explicitly predicated of the human beings tormented in the presence of the Lamb (Rev. 14) or thrown into the lake of fire (Rev. 20). Perhaps demonic entities are tortured forever as the form of final judgment suited to them, whereas human beings do not have an identical fate.

Capable interpreters have sometimes been swayed by consideration of these details in the Revelation texts, but I am not so impressed. While it is technically true that each passage comes just shy of explicitly describing unending torment of wicked human beings, the obvious implication of so much of the language is that in the visions of Revelation, the wicked human beings share the fate and experience of the devil, Beast, and false prophet of ongoing, conscious torment. The "anti-Sabbath" language of Revelation 14:11--"no rest day and night"--in combination with the language of smoke rising forever, derived from their fiery torment, and in the absence of language of "destruction" or "consumption," "obliteration," or any such synonymous word or phrase, strongly suggests the idea of eternal, conscious torment as that which is depicted in the vision. Likewise, the description of the lake of fire in Revelation 20 as that place where the devil, Beast, and false prophet are "tormented day and night forever and ever" strongly implies or suggests that the wicked human beings also thrown there in verse 15 should be understood as experiencing eternal torment in the vision.

Case closed against annihilationism, then? Indeed not.

We need to broaden our view and consider cumulativeness, some narrative details, and symbolic interpretation.

If every article/post before this one, and every section of this post before this final section on Revelation, was successful in demonstrating the consistent witness of the first 65 books of the Bible concerning the nature of the final judgment of the wicked as one of "destruction," "perishing," "consumption," and being "no more," (with plain-sense, non-special-pleading meanings attached to those words) then it would be a nearly unsurpassable challenge to biblical inerrancy to think that the book of Revelation, the 66th and final book of the canon of Scripture, teaches something contrary. And we may be assured that if Revelation teaches eternal, conscious torment as the fate of the impenitent wicked that this would indeed be contrary--contradictory--to all the "annihilation" and "consumption" texts we have considered. 

There is such thing as progressive revelation: God does not reveal the fullness of his plan or purposes all at once when he gives the proto-evangelion to Adam or when he makes promises to Abraham or when he reveals his name to Moses. Later revelation can expand and clarify what came before. But it cannot contradict what came before. There is no possible sense in which eternal, conscious torment can be thought of as a "fuller revelation" of the final judgment of the wicked, somehow complementing and expanding what was said before about the destruction, consumption, and complete removal of God's enemies in so many places. The Bible gives us authoritative categories of thought from its beginning pages, and although we need to be careful and not simplistic about how we understand those categories, and although those categories do "mature" and expand throughout redemptive history and the growing canon of divinely inspired interpretation of that history, those divine categories are never rescinded. If we are to take the principle of a cumulative hermeneutic seriously, we need to understand that from cover to cover, sin causes (brings about, earns) death (see previous discussions on proper biblical definition(s) of "death" and "life"). This is illustrated in dozens of ways through narrative, and taught explicitly by New Testament didactic passages. Therefore if Revelation seems at first to teach something different, we need to take a second (and a third and a fourth) look at it.

Above I left out some key narrative details in the book of Revelation. Already here we need to remember and reemphasize the highly symbolic nature of much of the book, which consists in a series of apocalyptic visions that John receives while exiled to the Isle of Patmos. It is not only the devil who occupies the lake of fire in Rev. 20:10. It is the Beast and false prophet from the symbolic narrative, who in 19:20 are "thrown alive into the lake of fire." While the devil is a personal, literal demonic being who is spoken of by Jesus and the apostles in other clear, didactic portions of the New Testament, the Beast is a figure symbolizing, in the imagery of Revelation, evil world empire in a collective sense (the 1st century Roman empire in my opinion--and I believe such is demonstrable) and Nero in a personal sense, depending on the specific text. And the false prophet is either the apostate 1st century Jewish leadership (possibly the priesthood) or some other 1st century propaganda machine for empire-worship and emperor-worship. If that is the case, what would it mean for such institutions to be literally "tormented forever and ever?" 

If that is not a satisfying objection to the traditional interpretation, because one can say that these institutions are comprised of individual human beings, what about Rev. 20:14? In this verse Death and Hades themselves are said to be thrown into the lake of fire! Earlier in Revelation (Ch. 6) "Death" is described anthropomorphically as a rider on an "ashen" (lit. "green") horse, with "Hades" following closely behind. These are personal characters in the narrative of Revelation, but they are obviously symbols, bearing the very names of their symbolic referents. What does it mean in reality, for Death and Hades to be "tormented forever and ever" in a "lake of fire" in the vision? Is it more likely the meaning and implication of this vision that God actually intends to eternally torment these abstract concepts (or at best, non-sentient realms), or is it more likely the meaning that he intends to do away with them forever? Paul, quoting Isaiah 25:8, in a didactic portion of Scripture, says that at the time of the general resurrection (which is everywhere in Scripture coincident with final judgment), "...will come about the saying that is written: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory'" (1 Cor. 15:54).

Finally, whatever we say about the referents of the symbolic figures that end up in Revelation's visionary lake of fire, and implications about the nature of their fate in reality, we must attend carefully to one more detail of the text: the repeated interpretation by the text itself that the lake of fire is the "second death." Throughout Revelation, periodically, Jesus, the angel leading John through various visions, or John himself, explicitly give the interpretation of various symbols from John's visions. The phrases, "This is," "these are," "which is," and "which are" often directly connect symbol with realistic referent, so that the reader of Revelation does not have to wonder or even make merely educated guesses about every symbol (though many others are not explicitly interpreted by the text, and remain more mysterious).

For example, in Revelation 4:5, John speaks of "seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which," he tells us, "are the seven spirits of God." Leaving aside the slight oddity of the specific turn of phrase "seven spirits of God," about which ingenious commentators have a lot to say, we simply notice the phenomenon here of John explicitly interpreting a symbol for us, and we notice the direction of interpretation: the seven lamps of fire, which are the symbol, are, in reality (they symbolically reference) "seven spirits of God." There are not any literal "seven lamps of fire" in reality unless we speculate that the heavenly temple/tabernacle happens to also concretize these symbolic things like the furniture of the earthly tabernacle/temple existed as concrete symbols of spiritual referents (and were indeed copies of some sort of "heavenly" reality, one way or another). Likewise in Revelation 5:8 John sees golden bowls full of incense, "...which are," he tells us, "the prayers of the saints." 

A slightly different example appears in 11:3-4, in which it is said of God's "two witnesses," who prophesy in the spirit and power of Moses and Elijah (cf. v. 6), who may themselves also be symbolic figures (but possibly are literal humans), "These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth," referring to symbols drawn from Zechariah 4. Here is a case where the more directly literal item or person appears in the text first (even if we say the witnesses are not literal human beings but themselves symbolize the preaching of the fulfilled Old Testament Law and Prophets by the Church, or something like that), and then it is explicitly connected with the scriptural symbolism, symbolism drawn from a specific Old Testament text, in this case (whether giving Zechariah's original contextual interpretation or deploying it anti-typologically in new layers of prophetic fulfilment). 

One is reminded of times when prophetic interpreters give the realistic referents or meaning of symbolic dreams and visions in the Old Testament. In Genesis 41 Joseph tells Pharaoh that the seven good cows from his dream "are seven years" and the seven good ears of grain from his dream "are seven years" (v. 26). The a similar, opposite meaning is given for the seven thin and ugly cows and seven thin ears of grain scorched by an east wind (v. 27). Similarly, in Daniel 2, Daniel explains to Nebuchadnezzar that the various sections of the statue from his dream, made of different metals, are various kingdoms that exist now or will soon arise: "You are the head of gold" (v. 38). Sometimes the language is a bit less direct and is stated as simile: "Then there will be a fourth kingdom as strong as iron; just as iron smashes and crushes everything, so, like iron that crushes, it will smash and crush all these things" (v. 40).

Whether the order of the interpretive statement is "[symbol] is/are [referent]" or "[referent] is/are [symbol]," it is always obvious which item is the symbol and which one is the realistic referent. Even in the case of Revelation 11 and the two witnesses, where the witnesses themselves may function as a further symbol in the grand scheme of John's visions (though not necessarily), it is clear that their identification with the lampstands and olive trees of Zechariah means that they are the direct symbolic referents in Revelation 11:4 while the lampstands and olive trees are the symbols. 

The "second death" is mentioned four times in the book of Revelation. In 2:11, Jesus promises the church in Smyrna that any "who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death." So far in the book the "second death" has not been mentioned, defined, or illustrated explicitly, although verse 10 promised that if the believers in Smyrna are "faithful until death," Jesus will "give [them] the crown of life." If we take seriously what we have said so far in this series about the general biblical teaching on life and death, this should probably be understood as a promise, ultimately, of bodily resurrection unto everlasting life (even if it also includes, provisionally, some sense of spiritual life in a conscious intermediate state or otherwise).

The next time the "second death" is mentioned is 20:6. Verses 4-6 of chapter 20 are notoriously difficult and have functioned as a centerpiece of debate about various eschatological "millennial views" Christian theologians have developed and held over the centuries. Whether or not we can determine if "resurrection" in this passage consistently means a physical, bodily resurrection in reality, or is being used more metaphorically for some non-physical reality (martyrs living in heaven, souls of men being regenerated on earth, faith-union with Christ in his own "first-fruits" resurrection, or some combination of these ideas or similar ones), we have in these verses a mention of a "first resurrection," of a subsequent "coming to life" at the completion of the thousand-year period, and of a "second death" (implying the existence of a first death). The second "coming to life" is clearly fleshed out in the Great White Throne Judgment of vv. 11-13 of the same chapter. This is the general resurrection of the dead on the Last Day, spoken of so many times in other didactic portions of Scripture (see John 5:24-29 as an important parallel; see also John 6:39-40). Revelation 20:6b says that those who partake in the first resurrection (whatever precisely that is) are not at all threatened by the "second death."

So far in the book, the only explicit mention of the "lake of fire," and the description of the obviously similar judgment-torment of the human Beast-worshipers in chapter 14, have not been explicitly connected with the "second death." Once we come to Revelation 20:14, though, we have the explicit connection: "Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire." 21:8 similarly speaks of the wicked who will not enter the glorious, paradisaical new creation of vv. 1-7, but who will have their part in the "lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."

It is possible that all hinges on what we do interpretively with these, well, interpretive phrases surrounding the "lake of fire." When the lake of fire is said to be the second death, we have two basic options for harmonizing these passages with all which holy Scripture had said before concerning final judgment: on one hand, we could say that the implicit everlasting torment of wicked human beings (and explicit torment of devil, Beast, and false prophet) in the visionary lake of fire is symbolic of the ordinary-sense "destruction," "perishing," "consumption," "blowing away like chaff," and "death" threated against the wicked in countless passages; or on the other hand, we are meant to read the eternal, conscious torment of the wicked depicted in Revelation's dramatic visions back into every previous final-judgment text of Scripture such that "second death" (and all that same death and destruction language used beforehand) is being (re(?)-)defined as everlasting torture.

I said before that it is always obvious which item in a symbolic-interpretation statement like these is the symbol and which is the realistic symbolic referent, and that is no different here. The lake of fire is obviously the visionary symbol, and "second death" is the realistic referent. But is the symbol in this case functioning to define and clarify the reality in an unprecedented(!) way? Is this a case of progressive revelation? Or is it a case of a shocking, visionary-symbolic dramatization of the repeated theme of sudden, intense judgment of the wicked which renders them "eliminated," "no more" (cf. Ps. 37:9-10), "corpses" (cf. Is. 66:24), dead (Rom. 6:23), and "swept away...like a dream" (Ps. 73:19-20)?

Here I pause and note again that because I feel the weight of Christian tradition in this area, and the gravity of the subject matter, I do not "plant my flag" with great force in the conditionalist/annihilationist camp. I am nowhere near as certain of this matter as I am the deity of Christ, the deity of the Holy Spirit, the resurrection of Christ, the forgiveness of sins, or the life everlasting. But given the consistent depiction of final judgment in 65 books of the Bible (including all less-symbolic didactic portions), the difficult and highly-symbolic nature of Revelation's visions, the suggestive interpretive statement "this is the second death," biblical teaching on natural human mortality apart from glorious resurrection life in union with Christ, considerations in connection with Christ's representative and substitutionary atonement and the Passover and Levitical sacrificial background of the same, and biblical and philosophical consideration of God's final victory over all evil in every corner of his cosmos, I do think that "annihilationism" or conditional immortality is the more textually supported and theologically coherent view. It seems that unending torment in the lake of fire is a dramatic symbol of final, irreversible execution of the wicked.

That is to say, it seems that the final end of the impenitent wicked, in favorable answer to the Psalmist's imprecation in Psalm 58:8, is to be "like the miscarriage of a woman that never sees the sun."

Two Fates, One Hermeneutic, Zero Evil -- Part 6 of 7

 6) The Nature of Christ's Atonement as Substitutionary Accursedness

The direction I intend to argue in this post is probably already apparent: if Jesus' work on the cross is rightly construed as a substitutionary sacrifice involving him taking upon himself the due penalty for our sins (to be sure, that cannot be taken for granted in today's theological landscape--but I'm convinced it's still correct, based on Rom. 3:21-26; 8:3 and 2 Cor. 5:21 with Is. 53 in the background, though I cannot argue it fully here), then the nature of Jesus' suffering and death should shed light on the nature of final judgment for the impenitent wicked on the Last Day. Specifically, while Jesus' atoning work involved more than his death proper, and accomplished more than cancelling the legal penalty for our sin by taking it upon himself, it did not involve less than those things, and I would argue that those things are indeed central to his atoning work.

Biblical atonement theology is extraordinarily rich and the properly broad categories for interpreting Jesus' work on the cross stretch back not only through the prophets and the Levitical system of sacrifice given in the Pentateuch (which will come into play below), but all the way back to Genesis 3:15. Gen. 3:15, the protoevangelion or first announcement of the gospel, sets the narrative stage of redemption in Christus Victor terms of God's war against the Serpent through the Seed of the woman ("seed" as collectively plural and eschatologically singular). The Serpent's lies led to a curse on the ground and judgment on mankind including forfeiture of eternal life, struggle with the cursed ground in cultivating and nurturing crop life (and thus human life), and struggle (same word again:ʿiṣṣāḇôn--toil, grief) in child-bearing (see the narrative of the rest of Genesis for illustrations of both--a surer exegetical method than reductionist word studies alone). 

God had also warned Adam of "death" on "the day" when the forbidden fruit would be eaten, and it will not suffice to say that Adam and Eve were driven from God's presence in Eden with that geo-relational separation itself constituting every sense of death threatened; nor yet is it sufficient to acknowledge that Adam and Eve would, because barred from the Tree of Life, one day return to dust (Gen. 3:19, 22-24), and so would merely begin the "process" of dying that day. Those things are true. But there was actual death that day, in the ordinary, physical sense. It is not reading too much into the text, given the related procedures and themes in the later ceremonial laws and in the prophets, to understand that the animal skins used to cover Adam and Eve's nakedness (for their [re]-investiture as protological royal priests) were taken from sacrificial victims--the first substitute animal sacrifices pointing forward to the shedding of the blood of Christ and the consequent ability for his people to be "clothed" with him (Rom. 13:14; Gal. 3:27). Compare the imagery in Zechariah 3:1-5.

From Genesis 9 and Leviticus 17 we learn that the "life of all "flesh" is emphatically "in the blood," and that it is for this reason that blood, in God's ordained ceremonial system for Israel, makes atonement for the people (Gen. 9:4-5; Lev. 17:11-14). Atonement requires the sacrificial offering of life. Atonement holistically involves more than "forgiveness of sins," but not less, and the author of Hebrews, reflecting on the Levitical system as a whole, comments, "And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness" (Heb. 9:22).

Jesus' atoning work fulfills all the major sacrifices of Israel's day-to-day sacrificial system as well as those of all the special feast days and weeks, so it can be viewed from the manifold perspectives of the involved symbolism of all those offerings and rituals. For example, the whole-burnt or "ascension" offering of Leviticus 1 emphasizes entire dedication unto, and transfiguration (in smoke) unto union and communion with, God whose glory is revealed in the cloud over the tabernacle/temple. Jesus consecrated himself and dedicated his entire life and being to the Father, and returned to glorious heavenly fellowship with the Father by way of the cross, fulfilling the tens (hundreds? thousands?) of thousands of ascension offerings Israelites had offered over the centuries.

In some key atonement texts, the language of either the sin/purification offering of Leviticus 4 (Rom. 8:3--see consistent LXX usage of peri hamartias) or the guilt/trespass offering of Leviticus 5-7 (Is. 53:10) is used to interpret Christ's work. The author of Hebrews focuses on the Day of Atonement ritual (see Leviticus 16), especially the slaughtered sin-offering goat whose blood is taken into the Most Holy Place and sprinkled on the mercy seat, as central to interpreting Christ's work (Heb. 9:6-28). And of course John the Baptist calls Jesus the "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (Jn. 1:29), and Paul tells us to celebrate the Passover in new covenant form (putting away the old "leaven" of malice and wickedness in the church), because "Christ our Passover" has been sacrificed (1 Cor. 5:6-8), clearly interpreting Jesus' death as a fulfilment of the Passover Lamb commanded to be slaughtered and eaten in family households before the Exodus from Egypt, and as a memorial of that redemption every year at the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Ex. 12:1-27; Lev. 23:5-8). The Passover sacrifice, being pre-Levitical, cannot neatly be categorized as a particular type of offering prescribed later in the Law, but it bears the most similarity to the peace/fellowship offering prescribed in Leviticus 3: the animal is slaughtered, its blood is displayed, and its flesh is eaten in covenantal table fellowship, by all parties (not just priests). It clearly also plays a substitutionary role, though: any household that has not slaughtered the lamb and displayed its blood will lose its firstborn son--its "future," its "life"--at the hands of the angel of death.

Jesus surely also fulfilled the grain/tribute offering of Leviticus 2, which did not in itself involve the shedding of any blood. However, the vast majority of the time, the grain offering was not offered on its own, but accompanied other animal sacrifices (usually ascension offerings, peace offerings, and ordination offerings). And the overwhelming emphasis of the prophetic and New Testament interpretation of the sacrificial work of the Messiah, in Levitical terms, is that he would spill his blood as a final sin, guilt, and Passover offering on behalf of his people, thereby bringing about, at minimum, purification (from all our "unintentional" sins short of "high-handed" rebellion), just restoration (we having transgressed against God's revealed holiness in many ways), and deliverance from the slavery of sin, Satan, and fear of the death which rightly threaten us (see, just for starters, 1 Cor 15:56-57; Eph. 1:7; Titus 2:14; Heb. 2:14-15; Heb. 10:18).

If we account for the whole Levitical system as the background supplying categories of atonement, we will realize that Jesus' death is not the entirety of his work of atonement. Otherwise, animals would have simply been killed whenever Israel needed to deal with sin(s), and then life would have gone on as normal. But there was further ritualization: detailed instructions about butchery, symbolic actions with hands and words, combinations of sacrifices, display of blood in particular areas of the tabernacle/temple depending on the type of offering and the station/status of the one offering it and the occasion of the offering, and sometimes the eating of various parts of the sacrifices. As much as something was "paid in full" as soon as Jesus died on the cross (something spoken definitively but proleptically, by Jesus himself, in John 19:30), if Jesus had not later ascended and presented his blood, as it were, in the heavenly Most Holy Place before the Father, cleansing the heavenly temple (cf. Heb. 9:11-14, 23-24 with Lev. 16:15-19 as background), his work of atonement would not be complete. 

We should also remember that the acceptability of Christ's sacrificial self-offering for atonement would not be possible if he had not kept himself perfectly pure, as an "unblemished" offering (Heb. 9:14) like that required for an animal sin offering (Lev. 4:32) or the Passover lamb (Ex. 12:5). Therefore his "atoning" work as the ultimate high priest and ultimate sacrifice, in one person, stretches not only beyond the cross itself, but begins the moment he is conceived as a man by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary. From his submission to his parents and his godly growth in wisdom and stature in his youth, to his conquering of the temptations in the wilderness at the beginning of his public earthly ministry, Jesus was entirely without sin (Heb. 4:15).

Nevertheless, this fuller picture of Christ's atoning work still centers on one fundamental reality: the death of Jesus Christ the God-man upon a tree--the shedding of his blood for the remission of sins. His perfect obedience to the Father qualified him as a perfect sacrifice to be slain, and his presentation of his blood in heaven to cleanse the heavenly temple (whether conceived of as only post-resurrection-and-ascension or as in some sense occurring between his death and resurrection--I prefer the former) presupposed him having previously shed that blood. All centers on his death: his self-offering of his life--the life which is in the blood (Gen. 9; Lev. 17).

What became of sacrificial animal victims under the Levitical system? They were certainly not lethally injected or peacefully euthanized the way a chronically ill pet might be today. They were slain by the edge of the knife such that their blood would drain out (a rather intense picture to imagine as a regular part of ancient people's lives), and butchered into parts, some of which were sometimes burned up in fire (the knife/sword and fire together recall the cherubim appearing as flaming swords, guarding the way that leads back to the Tree of Life in Eden--an "ordeal" that either we or a substitute and representative must undergo in order to access it). But (and now I will say it) there are no sacrificial rituals prescribed in Leviticus or anywhere else in the Pentateuch in which an animal is intentionally tortured for a prolonged period, let alone indefinitely, let alone forever--not even the sin or guilt offerings. The shedding of the blood of goats and bulls involved a kind of "violence" and surely inflicted pain on the beasts in the process, but the pain was not the main point--the shedding of blood, i.e. the ending and offering of the lives of the beasts was the point.

Therefore when it comes to Christ's atoning work, fulfilling the Old Testament sacrifices, it is no surprise that he undergoes the very same fate. He dies. His death is the relentlessly central feature of atonement according to the New Testament teaching. To be sure, he is killed, and violently so, becoming a "curse" for us (Gal. 3:13) in order to redeem us from the curse of the Law, evident in that he died by being "hanged on a tree" (Deut. 21:23) for supposed blasphemy (e.g., Jn. 5:18). While this violent death involved immense suffering throughout the course of his entire Passion, it is everywhere considered as suffering unto death. There are few if any passages in the New Testament that speak of Jesus' sacrificial suffering without either explicitly mentioning or clearly implying, based on nearby context, that his suffering led to and included his being finally killed by the Romans (at the Jews' behest). This is why his "blood" is spoken of as providing redemption and atonement in so many places (Rom. 3:25; 5:8-9; Eph. 1:7; 2:13; Col. 1:20; Heb. 9-10; 1 Pet. 1:2, 19; 1 Jn. 1:7; Rev. 1:5; 5:9; 7:14; 12:11; etc.).

What it meant for Jesus to offer his blood as drink (Jn. 6:55) and as the blood of a new covenant (Matt. 26:28; Mk. 14:24; Lk. 22:20) was nothing different than what he meant when he said that he, the good shepherd, "...lays down his life for the sheep" (Jn. 10:11, 15, 17; my emphasis), and nothing other than what he meant when he said that, "...the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mk. 10:45). 

If the fate of the impenitent wicked were eternal conscious torment, and that had been the fate of believers if they had not repented, their substitute Sacrifice would have had to undergo eternal, conscience torment in their place in order to atonement for them. It is too simplistic to say that that was merely impractical in God's providence and saving economy, because the redeemed would never actually get a chance to meet and communion with Jesus in eternity since he would still be undergoing the suffering due unto them. 

Nor will it do to say that the nature of final punishment for the wicked is radically different from the atoning Passion of Christ because of Jesus' infinite value as a divine Person, whose mere suffering and death is equivalent to an eternity of suffering for non-divine human persons. Besides this being a radically speculative theological connection to make, which Scripture does not hint at, it risks coming near implying a kind of Eutychian or otherwise monophysite Christological heresy: yes, Christ's human nature should not be conceived of separately from the Person of the divine Logos (else that would be Nestorianism), and the value of his person and work are indeed, surely, infinite, but everything Jesus does in suffering and dying as an atoning sacrifice for his people is done properly speaking "according to" the human nature. He was made to share in flesh and blood in order to be made like us in every respect, save for sin (Heb. 2:14, 17), so that his high-priestly ministry for us could include the disarming of the devil, through his own death (Heb. 2:14). The NT consistently points, then, to the fact that the substitutionary fate suffered by Jesus in his atoning work is the fate awaiting the finally impenitent wicked, and not something different.

It is even further unwarranted theological speculation to speak about the "infinitude" of the debt of sinners because of every smallest sin against God, due to God's infinity. There may ultimately be something accurate about that idea, but a) while evangelical preachers often speak in this way, the NT almost never, if ever, speaks in this way--the parable of the unmerciful servant (which speaks of a large sum) and the notion of "falling short of the glory of God" in Romans 3:23 (which immediately thereafter focuses on Jesus' blood) come closest; b) the final death of the impenitent wicked is actually infinite in one respect, in that it is eternally irreversible death (and this doesn't challenge the tight connection between Christ's temporary death and the eternal fate of the wicked, because Christ only bears the sins of those for whom he atones until he dies (inclusive of his death), and considered in his own person he surely merited the reward of resurrection life and marriage to his holy bride, the Church (cf. Is. 53:10-12).

There are more passages we could consider with regard to Christ's substitutionary death, and theological questions like the nature of "proportionality" in divine judgment and how that works in either the traditionalist or the conditionalist view of final judgment (there are good questions to be asked of both views here), and how those ideas work together in questions about "equivalentism" versus broader representationalism in Christ's particular atoning work ("so much suffering equals so many atoned for?" etc.; [and for the record, I reject equivalentism]). But the main point for this post, at this point in the series, is that one of the most central elements of the gospel and of the historic Christian faith--the sacrificial death of Christ--especially when viewed as any kind of substitution (and is not the release of Barabbas in the gospel narrative a miniature of substitution?), is much more coherent with an annihilationist view of the fate of the wicked than it is with traditionalism! And we should maintain a radically scriptural and non-speculative view of language and categories around things as weighty and central as the atonement and the nature of final judgment, leaving aside unscriptural, unwarranted applications of notions of "infinities" applied to creatures or their fates.

The gospel is not "Christ suffer(ed?) eternal, conscious torment for our sins according to the Scriptures, would be buried if he were not in Gehenna still, and would be lifted out of Gehenna for us according to the Scriptures if he didn't need to continue experiencing torment there eternally for us."

The gospel is, "...Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and...He was buried, and...He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:3-4, my emphasis). Those Scriptures were the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, which speak at length about life and death, and about the system of animal sacrifice that pointed forward to the Messiah. Let us allow those Scriptures to instruct us about the meaning and nature of Christ's work, and the life-and-death context of the fallen world which "necessitated" it, given the Father's gracious plan of redemption.