Two Fates, One Hermeneutic, Zero Evil -- Part 5 of 7

 5) Specific Scriptural Teaching on the Nature of Final Judgment for the Wicked

Having briefly considered the general pattern of scriptural teaching on life, death, human mortality, judgment upon the wicked, and the fate of evil itself, we turn now to a brief exposition of some of the specific scriptural teaching on the nature of final judgment for the wicked.

One complication arises in this study for those who, like myself, approach New Testament prophecy with a generally partial-preterist hermeneutic: some passages which many interpreters have historically taken as referring to final, eschatological judgment, may refer primarily or even solely (depending on the passage) to the imminent historical judgment on Jerusalem, and therefore cannot be used to confidently bolster a case for annihilationism (see, for example, the preaching of John the Baptist against the Pharisees and Sadducees in Matthew 3:7-12--a passage that would readily buttress the idea of the literal consumption of the wicked on the Last Day, if that were more certainly what the passage were about, but it is not about that, at least not directly).

Even some later texts from NT epistles that are more probably about final judgment could still be read legitimately as referring to 1st-century judgments in place of or in addition to final judgment. In biblical prophecy it must be acknowledged that there are often (not always) layers of fulfilment (see Isaiah 7:14), types and anti-types. While the detailed judgment prophecies of Revelation 4-19 cannot seriously be thought to be exactly fulfilled repeatedly throughout history, nevertheless, history itself has a kind of "rhyme" to it, and universal principles of divine providence including judgment are always at work. Therefore the cataclysmic judgments of 67-73 AD and the end of the 1st century Jewish nation in 125 do speak to the final end of all things in certain ways, all the much more so as Israel was always a kind of microcosm of the whole world (compare thematically to Rom. 3:19).

Nevertheless here we will still focus on texts that seem most likely to refer to final judgment or at least demonstrate a clear connection between the nature of past historical judgments and future climactic judgments.

1) Matthew 10:28 quotes Jesus as saying, "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in [Gehenna]."

There is a lot to say about this passage. First, we must clear the table of the misunderstanding that "soul" in the New Testament, even in contexts in which it contrasts with "body," necessarily refers to a substantial, immaterial aspect of our being. While a handful of texts may indicate that we indeed do have a distinct, immaterial aspect of our being as humans (Lk. 23:43; Phil. 1:21-26), in both Hebrew and Greek, biblical references to "soul" (Heb. "nephesh," Gk. "psyche") should usually (perhaps not always) be taken to refer to an individual life, holistically. Most orthodox articulations of the fate of the wicked in Gehenna, after all, are post-resurrection and post-final-judgment, as distinct from disembodied "souls" experiencing provisional judgment in Hades. On this reading, Matt. 10:28 is exhorting followers of Jesus not to fear earthly powers to can kill the body in this life only (but cannot destroy one's life eternally) but rather to fear him (namely, God) who is able to destroy soul and body (holistic, eternal destruction of life) in Gehenna. 

Objections by traditionalists come from at least two angles commonly here. A) Perhaps "destroy" doesn't mean slay, kill, or annihilate but only to "ruin" something such that it cannot maintain its original form or purpose; and B) the passage doesn't say God will destroy soul and body in Gehenna, but only that he can or could and should therefore be feared. However, A) is easily answered by the observation that "destroy" is put in precise parallel with "kill" and should be understood synonymously. To destroy a person/to destroy their body and soul in this context is precisely to kill them forever. "Annihilationism," as we said before already, isn't focused on the cosmic fate of the dust particles of the wicked and whether that material goes out of existence completely, but on the fate of the wicked person as one of being eternally slain, killed, or rendered unalive forever. B) is a rather facile objection, given the fact that the "teeth" of the exhortation are completely removed if we understand it as an empty threat, and given the fact that "Gehenna" is explicitly named as a specific place God could and obviously will carry out this threat (an allusion to the "Valley of the Sons of Hinnom" which becomes associated with idolatrous worship, child sacrifice to Molech, and resultant divine judgment, as a common 2nd Temple period image for expected post-mortem divine judgment).

The language of Matt. 10:28 is very unexpected and more difficult to interpret in an unstrained way if eternal conscious torment is the true fate of the wicked.

2) Matthew 13:24-30 is the parable of the tares and the wheat. While it is possible to read this passage preteristically, the very next two parables are favorites among postmillennialists--many of whom today are preterists--in arguing for the gradual growth of the kingdom of God across the entire Church age up until the return of Christ. At the very least, it is a provisional or typological judgment pointing forward strongly to final judgment, but it may very well be a picture of final judgment itself, in which the "tares" (the wicked) are bundled up, thrown into a furnace of fire, and burned up ("katakaio", an intensive of "kaio," so meaning "to utterly burn up" v. 30). It won't do to point to the explanation of the parable in vv. 36-43 and highlight the fact that "in that place"--in the furnace of fire--there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, as if that is A) said to go on there forever (it is not anywhere here said to continue forever); or B) what constitutes the actual punishment, rather than being merely a description of an emotional reaction to the punishment, a reaction of grief and anger. Tares are weeds, and when you throw weeds into a furnace of fire, the fire burns them up.

3) Romans 1 ends with a list of vices over to which God gives the wicked as a provisional judgment itself, and then notes that even though men "...know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them" (Rom. 1:32, my emphasis). Romans 2 goes on immediately to describe the impartiality of God in judgment, lest anyone self-righteously and hypocritically condemn others while they themselves sin in like manner. Paul contrasts the fate of the righteous--those described as persevering in good, seeking glory, honor, and immortality(!)--with the fate of the wicked--those described as selfishly ambitious, disobedient to the truth, and "obedient" to unrighteousness. The righteous receive "glory, honor, and peace" (v. 10) as well as "eternal life"(!) (v. 7), while the wicked receive "condemnation" (v. 1), divine judgment (vv. 2-3), "wrath" (v. 5), "wrath and indignation" (v. 8), and "tribulation and distress" upon the soul (v. 9).

While the precise metaphysical nature of the judgment of the wicked here is not laid out explicitly, this passage is useful because of the strong parallel between the two groups. The righteous seek, among other things, immortality, and they in fact receive it (they receive "eternal life"). This presumes a) that they are not yet immortal (see the previous post on natural human mortality), and b) that not all will receive immortality. The prima facie implication for the wicked is that they do not "seek immortality," nor will they receive it. They will not receive eternal life. They will not "live forever" even if it is said to be "living" in a place of final, eternal judgment. They will suffer a fate opposite of eternal life: the eternal death that results from the wrath, indignation, tribulation, and distress that come upon them as a result of divine judgment (just as Romans 6:23 says, the wages of sin is "death" but "eternal life" is the gift of God in Christ). This is a perfect, solemn parallel from Genesis to Revelation.

4) The author of Hebrews warns his hearers/readers multiple times to heed the speech of God which has come through Christ and his New Covenant apostles and prophets, and not to cave to pressures to abandon Christ and return to obligatory observance of outdated Torah restrictions which have been rendered obsolete with Christ's coming. In Hebrews 10 he warns that, "...if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin, but a terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries" (vv. 26-27, my emphasis; probably alluding to Is. 26:11). 

The judgment that results from rejecting Christ and deliberately continuing in a sinful lifestyle (whether in specifically shrinking from Judaizing persecution ongoingly, or otherwise) is certainly final judgment, and it is described here as a "consumption," just as Isaiah foretold. This same concept is repeated in Hebrews 12:25-29 in which God is to be worshiped with reverence and awe because he himself is a "consuming fire." Just like the tares of wheat in the parable of Matthew 13, God's enemies will be burnt up.

5) One of the most powerful passages demonstrating the specific nature of final judgment for the wicked is 2 Peter 2:6. Focusing on false prophets but referring to the ungodly in general, Peter says, "...[God] condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter" (my emphases). The import of this passage for our topic is straightforward: one of the classic divine judgments in the biblical narrative, the complete destruction of two entire cities by brimstone and fire out of heaven, is given as a direct example of the fate of the ungodly: they will be similarly burned up and destroyed by divine fire. Another reference to Sodom and Gomorrah in the book of Jude will be relevant a couple of posts later when we consider the central texts used by traditionalists to support the view of eternal conscious torment.

So far we see that key examples of specific New Testament teaching on the nature of final judgment for the wicked cohere perfectly with the general pattern of scriptural teaching on divine judgment and the fate of the wicked we investigated previously. There are other important New Testament texts about final judgment, especially in Matthew 25, 2nd Thessalonians 1, and Revelation 14 and 20, which need our attention later on. They are used to argue that the New Testament clarifies the eternal death and destruction of the wicked by defining it as an eternally ongoing conscious experience of torment. Before we get to that, we will take one post to discuss biblical atonement theology, especially the atonement of Christ, in connection with these different ideas about final judgment.

Two Fates, One Hermeneutic, Zero Evil -- Part 4 of 7

4) Scriptural Teaching on God's Plan to End Evil Itself

One neglected component of the strong biblical case for conditional immortality or annihilationism, which is usually only brought up in more philosophical discussions about God's relationship to evil's existence in the cosmos, long-term, is the category of texts that speak explicitly to the question of the ongoing existence of evil.

In brief, the scriptures teach not only that God will judge all evil-doers in some final way, but that in the aftermath of final judgment, the very way and desire(s)/lusts of the wicked will perish/pass away:

"For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
But the way of the wicked will perish." -- Ps. 1:6, my emph.

"The desire of the wicked will perish." -- Ps. 112:10c, my emph.

"The world is passing away, and also its lusts..." -- 1 Jn. 2:17a, my emph.

Many other texts are closely related to the same idea. But these are the most explicit and forceful to the effect that, contrary to C. S. Lewis' notion that Hell (conceived of as a place of eternal, conscious torment) is "locked from the inside" due to its inhabitants' persistence in evil and ongoing lack of remorse, repentance, or love for God, in fact God plans to end all evil itself.

Even the most careful, nuanced view of the "lucidity of the wicked" on judgment day--in which the wicked realize, understand, and perhaps even concede the divine justice of their sentence, and perhaps even cease their previous level of highly-proactive rebellion--cannot posit that they cease sinning in Hell, if the least bit of lack of love for and worship of God is to be construed as sin (as it should be, biblically).

Therefore traditionalists must affirm that sin and evil itself continue eternally in Hell, contrary to the prima facie meaning of texts above. And their only strategy for interpreting these texts otherwise is to say that they pertain only to the realm of the new heavens and new earth, such that they mean only that, "...nothing unclean, and no one no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into [the New Jersualem]" (Rev. 21:27a). The wicked and their evil is gone forever...from the new creation, but not necessarily from the entire cosmos if Hell is considered.

However, this does not reckon with the seeming absoluteness of the above texts. Nor does it sit squarely with the case made so far about the scriptural view of life and death, natural human mortality, or the general scriptural pattern of final judgment on evildoers. Another problem is that the traditional view, allowing for the ongoing existence of evil in Hell forever, gives unnecessary ammunition to the universalist who would use texts about or related to the idea of the "reconciliation of all things" (e.g., Eph. 1:10; Col. 1:20): if the scriptural view of the final, eternal state of the cosmos is one of perfect reconciliation, and evildoers aren't eternally slain/consumed in final judgment (per annihilationism), isn't it reasonable to assume that those who are lost at the day of final judgment will eventually repent and be redeemed? But of course, if evildoers are done away with by means of their final judgment, there is no possibility of post-mortem conversion, and there is an ultimately reconciled cosmos.

That final point is primarily a biblical one, but it does touch on a philosophical discussion worthy of brief mention here: Is a wholly good God's victory over evil truly complete if evil continues to exist everlastingly, albeit in a separate, confined realm of punishment sealed off from the new heaven and earth enjoyed by the righteous? If scripture pointed us in that direction, we would need bow to it, whatever our other philosophical or emotional "intuitions" or desires about reality may be. However, I am fairly convinced scripture points in another direction, and I see as a philosophical fruit or side-benefit of that direction--the conditional-immortality view--that God's justice in the judgment of evil is completely satisfied in the total destruction and consumption of the wicked and their very desires, forever. There is no eternal waiting for the full enactment of the divine sentence upon evildoers to have been finished at an unreachable, always-eternally-future point in time.

Lutheran Confessions GPT Chat About Christology

https://chatgpt.com/share/67bddc47-a100-8006-ba43-ce16a4e39485

Two Fates, One Hermeneutic, Zero Evil -- Part 3 of 7

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.