But I noticed that our Lord, while stressing the terror of hell with unsparing severity usually emphasizes the idea not of duration but of finality. Consignment to the destroying fire is usually treated as the end of the story--not as the beginning of a new story.

C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain


Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them, in like manner giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

Jude 1:7













MISSION STATEMENT This blog is devoted to presenting biblically based evidence which argues for the extinction of the wicked as oppossed to their eternal torment in a place called hell. The usual case for extinction follows a familiar pattern: the wicked will be resurrected, suffer for a time in the lake of fire, then be extinguished. This blog takes a different view. It is the assertion here that all of the language in the Bible that refers to torment is in fact referring to earthly torment endured during the tribulation. The argument proceeds as follows: The Bible teaches a period of earthly torment (Mark 13:19, Rev. 4:10, 1 Thess. 5:2-3, Rev. 9:4-5), from which the just are exempt (Rev. 7:2-3, 9:4-5, 14:9-11), that consists of Christ shutting the door (Gen. 7:16), weeping (Amos 8:10, Zeph. 1:14), fire and brimstone (Rev. 9:18, 9:2, Isaiah 34:9, Malachi 4:1), smoke going up forever (Isaiah 34:8-10), and a form of retributive justice (Jer. 16:18, 17:18, Rev. 18:16, Psalm 69:27-28, 59:13, 83:17), which ends in extinction (Malachi 1:4, Obadiah 1:16, Psalm 37:20, Rev. 20:11-14, Matt. 25:46, Luke 12:48).



















Sunday, January 9, 2011

CHRIST'S DEATH

If the wages of sin are hell rather than death, we should expect to find the most vivid demonstration of this in the person who came to pay that wage. It is at the cross, however, that we find the least evidence for hell. Here--where "hell" is encountered head-on--is precisely where all of the language of hell falls silent. That silence is pierced by a thunderous cacophony consisting solely of the language of death. In his book The Fire That Consumes, Edward Fudge observes:



"The Bible exhausts the vocabulary of dying in speaking of what happened to Jesus. He "died for our sins" (1 Cor. 15:3). He laid down his "life" (John 10:15). He was destroyed (Matthew 27:20) or killed (Acts 3:15). Jesus compared his own death to the dissolution of a kernel of wheat in the same passage that means losing one's life rather than loving it in order to find life eternal (John 12:23-26). Jesus "poured out His life unto death..."



This blog is called ETERNAL FIRE: The Beginning or the End? By every indication if Christ didn't rise from the dead, it would have been the end of Him and of those who died in Him. 1 Cor. 15:13 states "But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished."



Of course it is impossible to completely disentangle the language of death from the language of torment, precisely because death is a torturous thing. We see this reflected in a messianic verse like Jonah 2:1-6:



"Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, and said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me: out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped around my head. I went down to the bottom of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me forever, yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God."



In Jonah, the language of extinction and torment collide. Which one is correct? And what about Acts 2:27, which talks about Christ in "hell"? What does that mean? This is why we compare scriipture with scripture. By doing so here we can discover four things that help put the matter in perspective: 1) Hell is the grave; that was its common usage. 2) Death and the grave (hell) is depicted as a violent force whose end is extinction. 3) The sea is a metaphor for hell (the grave). 4) The sea will be no more.



1)Hell is the grave "Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell." (Psalm 55:15) Effectively, this verse is saying "Let them die and go to the grave." Words like hell, the deep, the pit, and the grave were used interchangeably in the Old Testament. Christ did not go to a hell of eternal torment. He went into the grave (Acts 2:27).

2) The language of torment and death are interwoven; death is a violent force whose end is extinction. "Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them...and their beauty shall consume in the grave..." (Psalm 49:14) "Let them be confounded and troubled forever; yea, let them be put to shame, and perish." (Psalm 83:17)
"Consume them in thy wrath, consume them, that they may not be." (Psalm 59:13)

3) The sea is a metaphor for hell (the grave), and it hungrily swallows up its victims:
"All thy waves and billows are gone over me" (Psalm 42:7)
"Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink; let me be delivered...out of the deep waters. Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me." (Psalm 69:14-16)
"I am counted with them that go down into the pit; I am as a man that hast no strength: Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou remembers no more: and they are cut off from thy hand. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with thy waves." (Psalm 88:4-7)

The description of Jonah (Christ) swallowed by the sea does not imply eternal torment. The Bible is simply employing for Christ the same language it employs elsewhere. The last verse makes clear what's really in view is not torment, but death: "thou brought up my life from corruption..." The language of torment precedes what's really in view--death, as in Psalm 83:17: "Let them be troubled forever, yea, let them perish." Perish. It is what the Bible says would have happened to those fallen asleep in Christ had he not been raised (1 Cor. 15:13).

4) The sea (hell) will be no more. "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death." (Rev. 20:14) "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea." (Rev. 21:1)

If Christ endured an eternity in hell, then His experience could never be shared by another, much less by a believer. But Matt. 20:23 indicates just the opposite: "Ye shall indeed drink of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptised with..." This cup refers to the cross: "...the cup which the father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" (John 18:11).

In closing, it is worthwile noting that Old Testament sacrifices were not tormented; they were killed. By every indication this is what happened to Christ on the cross. He became a curse for us (Gal. 13:13), and then shed His blood for us (Heb. 9:14). In Christ--the revelation of God's wrath--we find the language of death (Romans 6:23), resurrection (1 Cor. 15:42), reconciliation (Romans 5:10), washing, sanctification, and justification (1 Cor. 6:11), intercession (Heb. 9:15), blood (1 Cor. 11:25), redemption (Heb. 9:12), purification (Heb. 9:23), and ultimate union with God (1 Thess. 4:17), but nothing whatsoever of weeping and gnashing of teeth, fire and brimstone, or worms and maggots. In God's clearest, dearest, most intimate revelation of Himself and His wrath, we find only the language of the two polar opposites that God set before us from the beginning--life and death. The pronouncement in Romans 6:23--"The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ our Lord"--seems to be God's final word on the subject of His wrath as revealed in Jesus Christ.
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