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.
Monday, March 24, 2025
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Lutheran Confessions GPT Chat About Christology
https://chatgpt.com/share/67bddc47-a100-8006-ba43-ce16a4e39485
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
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.
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.
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