Month: agosto 2024

~ Read Part 1 or Part 2 ~

The Smoke of Their Torment Rises Forever and Ever
Turning our attention now to Revelation 14:11, Trent says that Revelation’s account speaks of “those condemned to hell, in which ‘the smoke of their torment goes up for ever and ever; and they have no rest, day or night.’” To demonstrate how this verse better supports annihilationism, let’s set our crosshairs on finding out what it means that the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. Jumping ahead to Revelation 19:3, smoke is also said to rise from Babylon forever and ever, but that is not all that is said about Babylon. Smoke rising from her forever and ever is the outcome of what is said to have happened to her in the last chapter. In Revelation 18, we read that she will be burned down (18:8), that in a single hour she has been laid waste (18:19), and that, interpreting the scene for John, “a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, ‘So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more” (18:21). Far from being support for the traditional view, smoke rising is actually an idiom referring to complete destruction. Indeed, Genesis 19:28 notes that “the smoke of the land went up like smoke of a furnace” after the Lord utterly wiped out Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and sulfur (19:24-25)—the same two elements mentioned in Revelation 14:10. Now, one may try to say, “Yeah, both passages speak of smoke rising and of being afflicted with fire and sulfur, but in Revelation, unlike in Genesis, the smoke rises forever and ever, and it’s specifically the smoke of their torment, not of their destruction.” To be blunt, this argument has no teeth. Torment and destruction are not mutually exclusive. The process of being destroyed by fire is undoubtedly to experience a great deal of torment. In Revelation 18:7-9, speaking of Babylon, we read: “As much as she glorified herself and lived in luxury, give her a measure of torment and mourning… and she will be burned down with fire… the kings of the earth… will weep… when they see the smoke of her burning.” You see, Revelation’s account itself makes it clear that torment and destruction go hand in hand, speaking of smoke as the result of fiery, destructive torment. Now, concerning the “forever and ever” part, it is simply meant to intensify the idiom; it symbolizes destruction from which that which was destroyed will never return. To be sure, consider Isaiah 34:9-10, a text that refers to the destruction of Edom: “And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur; her land shall become burning pitch. Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever.” Need I point out the obvious? Edom is not still burning, nor is there literally smoke still rising from it. So, again, to be clear, smoke rising forever is not evidence of fire burning something forever; it is an idiom communicating complete destruction.

They Have No Rest Day or Night
Still in Revelation 14:11, another statement is worthy of attention, namely that beast worshippers “have no rest day or night.” According to Trent, it is “the common sense interpretation that the damned endure unending suffering.” But is that really the case? I don’t think so; common sense would not have us read this statement in a way that contradicts the fact that smoke rising communicates complete destruction. What is the correct interpretation, then? To answer that, let me suggest that the non-canonical book of Enoch might be of service. According to Robert Henry Charles, “1 Enoch has had more influence on the New Testament than has any other apocryphal or pseudepigraphic work.”¹Robert Henry Charles, ed., Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), 178. In harmony with Charles, Ephraim Isaac says that “there is no doubt that the New Testament world was influenced by its language and thought.”²E. Isaac, “A New Translation and Introduction,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1 (New York;  London: Yale University Press, 1983), 10. Especially germane to the present case, in the next sentence, Isaac notes that 1 Enoch “influenced… Revelation (with numerous points of contact).” To begin, let’s compare Revelation 14:18-20 with 1 Enoch 100:3-4:

And another angel came out from the altar, the angel who has authority over the fire, and he called with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, “Put in your sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe.” So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for 1,600 stadia. (Rev. 14:18-20)

The horse shall walk through the blood of sinners up to his chest; and the chariot shall sink down up to its top. In those days, the angels shall descend into the secret places. They shall gather together into one place all those who gave aid to sin. And the Most High will arise on that day of judgment in order to execute a great judgment upon all the sinners. (1 Enoch 100:3-4)

Considering that both texts speak of angels gathering sinners for a punishment that leads to an accumulation of blood as high as a horse’s chest, it seems undeniable that the language of 1 Enoch 100:3-4 influenced that of Revelation 14:18-20.³It is worth noting that Rev. 14:18-20 is the enactment of the judgment foretold in Revelation 14:9-11, and the punishment portrayed by the large pool of blood is clearly death. Now, why point out this instance of Enochic influence? Because if Revelation 14 is known to have borrowed language from 1 Enoch, then it is probably not a bad idea to consider how 1 Enoch uses language similar to what we find elsewhere in Revelation 14. Having said that, it turns out that in 1 Enoch 99:14, only 5 verses prior to 1 Enoch 100:3, we read this:

Woe to them who reject the measure and eternal heritage of their fathers
And whose souls follow after idols;
For they shall have no rest.

Coincidence? I think not. In fact, even the woe to those who “reject the measure and eternal heritage of their fathers” fits quite well with the beginning of Revelation 14, which points out that only 144,000 Israelites (12,000 per tribe) “follow the Lamb wherever he goes” (v. 4), meaning that the rest of Israel rejected the measure and eternal heritage of their fathers, which found their final and greatest expressions in Christ. That is why Jesus speaks of those who deny Him as “those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan” (Rev. 2:9). Not only so, but are worshipers of the beast not examples of people who follow after idols? It is these who will have no rest. Here, we are faced with the question whose answer might be of service: Is the notion that they shall have no rest incompatible with death being their final fate? No, not at all. 1 Enoch 99:14 is part of a short series of woes, and in 99:11, the first woe is the following:

Woe to you who spread evil to your neighbours;
For you shall be slain in Sheol.

The fate of the wicked, according to the fifth and final section of 1 Enoch (91-107), is a violent death. The last woe is no less clear, saying that the Most High shall “destroy you all with the sword” (99:16). In the previous chapter, we read: “And now, know ye that ye are prepared for the day of destruction: wherefore do not hope to live, ye sinners, but ye shall depart and die; for ye know no ransom… Woe to you who set at nought the words of the righteous; for ye shall have no hope of life.” (98:10, 14). Further, we read that “the spirits of those who died in righteousness shall live and rejoice; their spirits shall not perish” (103:4), whereas “the names of (the sinners) shall be blotted out from the Book of Life and the books of the Holy One; their seeds shall be destroyed forever and their spirits shall be slain” (108:3). Also, similar to “they shall have no rest” in 99:14, the previous woe in 99:13 says that the wicked “shall have no peace.” Whatever “you shall have no peace” means, it is not that the wicked are expected to forever experience distress, since the previous chapter says: “Therefore they shall have no peace but die a sudden death” (98:16). Instead, it is meant to be a point of contrast with the notion that “there shall be peace to the righteous in the name of the Eternal Lord” (58:4), a peace grounded in the fact that “the days of their life shall be unending, and the days of the holy without number” (58:3). As we read elsewhere, “there shall be length of days with that Son of Man, and the righteous shall have peace and an upright way in the name of the Lord of Spirits for ever and ever” (71:17). 

Likewise, there is no reason to think that “they shall have no rest” is inconsistent with death being the punishment of the wicked. In fact, we have every reason to think otherwise. Aside from the immediate context strongly supporting that it is, we can find further evidence of this when we look at the way this kind of language is used in an earlier section of 1 Enoch. In 38:2, a rhetorical question is asked: “Where [will be] the resting place of those who have denied the Lord of Spirits?” The implied answer is, “Nowhere; they will not have a resting place.” Just a few verses later in 38:5-6, the author goes on to say that “kings and rulers shall perish” and that “no one shall be able to induce the Lord of the Spirits to show them mercy, for their life is annihilated” (Charlesworth translation – emphasis mine). Clearly, their not having a resting place does not mean they will live forever in a restless state. Indeed, in a show of sarcasm, the same author later answers his own rhetorical question, saying that “worms shall be their bed” (46:6), essentially to say, “Well, I’m not being entirely accurate in implying that they won’t have a resting place; they’ll rest in a bed of worms feasting on their corpses.” In the very next line, he adds that “they shall have no hope of rising from their beds, because they do not extol the name of the Lord of Spirits.” (Does that sound like an early Christian tradition we saw earlier?) 

It seems to me that “they shall have no rest” likely means one of two things. The first thing it could mean is that unlike the righteous who “shall eat and rest and rise with that Son of Man forever and ever” (62:14, Charlesworth translation – emphasis mine), the wicked will never get to enjoy resting with the Son of Man in the world to come.

The second thing it could mean is that they will have no rest during the outpouring of wrath leading to their destruction. In 63:1, we read that “kings who possess the earth implore (Him) to grant them a little respite from His angels of punishment to whom they were delivered,” and in 66:1 that “the angels of punishment… bring judgment and destruction on all who dwell on the earth.” In 63:6, still flowing from 63:1, we read that the kings will say: “We long for a little rest but find it not… And darkness is our dwelling-place for ever and ever.” To know what it means that darkness will be their dwelling place, we need only look back to 46:6 where the clause “darkness shall be their dwelling” runs directly parallel to the clause “worms shall be their bed,” meaning that they communicate the same fate. So, in 63:6, we see that the kings’ lack of rest ends in their annihilation.⁴“Darkness” is also used to refer to non-existence in the Old Testament. Job, for example, says: “Let the day perish on which I was born… Let that day be darkness… That night—let thick darkness seize it! Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months” (Job 3:3-4, 6). Either way, both possibilities are perfectly consistent with our view.

Either of these possibilities also seem like they apply well to Revelation 14:11. We can understand them having no rest as a direct point of contrast with Revelation 14:13, which says: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on… that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!” “For all good things,” says 1 Enoch 103:3, “and joy and honor are prepared for and written down for the souls of those who died in righteousness. Many good things shall be given to you—the offshoot of your labors.” Unlike the righteous who will enjoy rest with Jesus Christ in the new creation, the unrighteous will never get to enjoy such rest but will instead be deprived of continuance and length of days forever and ever. We can also understand “no rest” to refer to the time during which the angels of punishment mentioned in the passage—like in 1 Enoch 63 and 66—will be pouring out the wrath of God, ending in destruction. Again, either way, this text does nothing to tip the scales in favor of the eternal torment view. The fact that smoke rising forever can easily be demonstrated to refer to complete destruction, paired with 1 Enoch’s use of the phrase “they shall have no rest,” provides ample reason to view this text as better support for our view.

Objection!
Some may attempt to undercut my Enochic lens of interpretation by suggesting that 1 Enoch teaches eternal torment, not annihilation. Since this article is not meant to be a comprehensive treatment of 1 Enoch, I will try to brief. Recall what I said earlier: “The fate of the wicked, according to the fifth and final section of 1 Enoch (91-107), is a violent death.” 

According to Ephraim Isaac, “1 Enoch is clearly composite, representing numerous periods and writers.”⁵E. Isaac, “A New Translation and Introduction,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1 (New York;  London: Yale University Press, 1983), 6. “Milik,” Isaac writes, “has argued for the categorization of the Ethiopic version into five primary books with the last chapter being taken as a much later addition,”⁶Ibid., 7. namely chapter 108. These five books are The Book of the Watchers (1-36), The Book of the Similitudes (37-71), The Book of the Astronomical Writings (72-82), The Book of Dream Visions (83-90), and the Book of the Epistle of Enoch (91-107). Robert Henry Charles concurs, saying: “The Book of Enoch was intended by its final editor to consist of five Sections, like the Pentateuch, the Psalms, Proverbs, Sirach, and many other Jewish works.” 

Importantly, he immediately follows this up by saying (emphasis mine): “Behind this apparently artificial division lies a real difference as to authorship, system of thought, and date.”⁷Robert Henry Charles, ed., Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), 168. Indeed, of particular relevance to this article, Charles notes (again, emphasis mine): “Conflicting views are advanced on the Messiah, the Messianic kingdom, the origin of sin, Sheol, the final judgement, the resurrection, and the nature of the future life.”⁸Ibid., 164. So, even if it were the case that some passages outside of chapters 91-107 taught eternal torment, that would not damage my case. Whether any of the first four sections actually teach eternal torment is a debate for another time. For the purpose of this article, I want to focus only on the Book of the Epistle of Enoch. 

In his commentary on 1 Enoch, specifically under a section called “The Great Judgment According to the Epistle,” George W. E. Nickelsburg states: “As elsewhere in 1 Enoch, the judgment, when fully consummated, will be final. Judgment on the sinners is ‘destruction’ (98:3, 9, 10, 16; 99:1, 9, 16)—whether this means extinction or eternal punishment in the fires of Sheol (103:8).”⁹George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, ed. Klaus Baltzer, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2001), 425. It is interesting that, after pointing his readers to multiple verses that say the wicked will perish or be destroyed, he leaves open what “destruction” might refer to, considering that just one page earlier, he wrote that the author of the Epistle uses “the verb ‘to be destroyed’ or ‘to perish’ (ἀπόλλυμι, translating אבד) to designate the annihilation of the sinners who now unjustly prosper…”¹⁰Ibid., 424. (emphasis mine). The only verse that seems to make him not definitively land on the “extinction” meaning is 1 Enoch 103:7-8, to which I want to turn our attention.

But know that your souls will be brought down to Sheol, and there they will experience distress and tribulation in darkness, in nets, and in flames of fire. And your spirits will enter into a great judgment, and the great judgment shall be of all generations of the world. Woe to you, for you shall have no peace.

When we examine these verses in light of what we read shortly prior to it in the Epistle, it becomes obvious that they predict extinction as the wicked’s final lot, in line with the rest of the Epistle. Verse 7 begins by saying their “souls will be brought down to Sheol,” and we have already seen that they “shall be slain in Sheol” according to 99:11. Next, verse 8 says that their “spirits will enter into a great judgment.” Backing up just a few verses to 103:4, it is said of the righteous that their “spirits… shall live… their spirits shall not perish.” In concert with what this statement heavily implies about the result of the tribulation of the great judgment, consider 98:9-10: “Woe to you, ye fools, for through your folly shall ye perish: and ye transgress against the wise, and so good hap shall not be your portion. And now, know ye that ye are prepared for the day of destruction: wherefore do not hope to live, ye sinners, but ye shall depart and die; for ye know no ransom; for ye are prepared for the day of the great judgement, for the day of tribulation and great shame for your spirits.” Lastly, verse 8 says that the unrighteous “shall have no peace,” and as already unambiguously stated, 98:16 says that “they shall have no peace but die a sudden death.” 

Again, when we look at the language of 103:7-8 and consider how that same language is used elsewhere in the Epistle, it becomes unreasonable to conclude anything other than that the verses contain no shred of support for the eternal torment view. Therefore, the Enochic lens through which I support my reading of Revelation 14:11 stands on solid ground.

A Bit of Groundwork for Understanding Revelation 20:10
Revelation is a book in which John records an apocalyptic vision that he was given while in exile on the island of Patmos. To properly interpret certain passages therein, it is imperative for one to understand the relationship between vision (or dream) and interpretation. All throughout Scripture—from Genesis to Revelation—dreams and visions depict entities and events by means of symbolic imagery; they are not literal, straightforward descriptions of said entities and events. For example, in Revelation 1:12-16, John sees seven golden lampstands and seven stars in his vision. In Revelation 1:20, Christ interprets the vision for him, saying that “the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.” When visions and dreams are interpreted, the interpretation is the thing in reality. As a formula, it looks like: [Symbol] is [thing in reality]. Critically, symbols do not describe reality (e.g., the seven lampstands do not describe what the seven churches are) but merely symbolically represent it.

They will be tormented day and night forever and ever
Of course, Trent’s article would not have been complete if he had not raised Revelation 20:10 as support for his view. After all, it explicitly says that “they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” But who, exactly, is the “they” who will experience eternal torment according to verse 10? Explicitly, the answer is the devil, the beast, and the false prophet. On this point, Trent quotes Stackhouse who says that, granting that these three are actual persons, “Revelation teaches only that they do, and we are focusing in these essays on the destiny of human beings.” To counter Stackhouse, Trent unwittingly lays a trap for himself, saying:

But this neglects what Jesus said to the wicked human beings, whom he judges on the last day: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41, emphasis mine).

If the devil will be cast into a condition where he experiences eternal torment, and Jesus says damned human beings will be cast into that same condition, then we can reasonably conclude that human beings who reject God’s offer of salvation will experience that same eternal torment.

The Fate of Death
Think with me now. In Revelation 6:8, death is symbolized as a horseman named Death, and in Revelation 20:14, Death is thrown into the lake of fire. Granting Trent’s logic, if, in the vision, the devil is cast into the lake of fire and experiences eternal torment, and Death, in the vision, will also be cast into that same lake of fire, then we can reasonably conclude that Death, in the vision, experiences that same eternal torment. Fine, that may be what the symbolic vision depicts, but the question is, “What does that symbolic vision mean in reality?” In reality, according to Revelation 21:4, “death shall be no more” (cf. 1 Cor. 15:26). By applying Trent’s reasoning, we can say that if Death experiencing eternal torment in the vision symbolizes death being no more in reality, and the symbolic vision depicts unbelievers as experiencing eternal torment, then we can reasonably conclude that unbelievers experiencing eternal torment in the vision likewise symbolizes unbelievers being no more in reality.

If Trent decides to back away from his reasoning, then Revelation 20:10 becomes entirely irrelevant in the debate over the fate of unbelievers. If he stands by his reasoning, then he merely lays a foundation that annihilationists can build upon to prove our view.

The Fate of the Beast
More to the point, despite what the fate of the beast is explicitly said to be in the symbolic vision, the beast’s fate in reality aligns with that of Death. In Revelation 17:7-8, an angel interprets part of John’s vision and says, “Why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery… of the beast… The beast that you saw… is about to… go to destruction.” The Greek word translated “destruction” here is apoleia, which BDAG defines as “the destruction that one experiences, annihilation both complete and in process,”¹¹William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 127. listing 17:8 as an instance where the definition applies. Moreover, in the vision of Daniel 7, which foretells the same events as Revelation, the ten-horned beast (Dan. 7:24; Rev. 17:12) that rises out of the sea (Dan. 7:3; Rev. 13:1) and speaks great words against the Most High (Dan. 7:25; Rev. 13:5) is “killed, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire” (Dan. 7:11). So, in the vision given to Daniel, the beast is killed, whereas in the vision given to John, the beast is kept alive in torment forever and ever. Of course, a contradiction in symbolism is only problematic if there is also a contradiction in interpretation, which is not the case. In line with the angel’s interpretation in Revelation 17:8, the beast’s death in Daniel 7:11 is interpreted thus in 7:26: “[the beast’s] dominion shall be taken away, to be consumed and destroyed to the end.”

The Fate of Unbelievers
So far, we have seen that both Death and the beast being thrown into the lake of fire in the vision to be tormented forever symbolizes that death and the beast will be no more. While we could safely stick by Trent’s reasoning and conclude the same will be true of unbelievers, we can do as we have just done in the case of the beast and peer deeper into the text for confirmation. Remember the formula I established using the example of Revelation 1:12-16, 20: [Symbol] is [thing in reality]. In Revelation 20:14 and 21:8, we are told that the lake of fire is the second death. Following the formula, the second death is the thing in reality, and the lake of fire merely symbolizes it. Just as the seven lampstands in 1:20 do not describe what the seven churches are, eternal torment in the lake of fire does not describe what the second death is; lampstands and the lake of fire merely symbolize churches and the second death. The unrighteous will literally die a second time, which fits well with their names not being written in the book of life. “How does a place of eternal torment symbolize dying a second time?”, one may ask. I don’t know; perhaps because the former, like the latter, ensures that one will never again experience the joys of life. How does a lampstand symbolize a church? I don’t know; perhaps because both are meant to be lights to the world. We can come up with plausible answers to these questions, but whether we are incredulous to them is inconsequential; the precise way that a certain thing symbolizes another is not always crystal clear.

The Second Death in Jewish Literature
Having earlier examined the writings of three important, early church fathers, I hope Trent will now appreciate the Jewish background of the term “second death.” In a work entitled The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature, Martin McNamara writes the following concerning the second death: “An expression used four times [in Revelation] must have been current coinage when the Apocalypse was composed.” Notably, McNamara goes on to say that the term “is found nowhere in Jewish literature outside the Targums” (emphasis mine). The Targums are, in essence, an Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures. Since John almost certainly borrowed the term from the Targums, it would only make sense for us to consider how the term is employed in them. 

In Targum Jonathan on Jeremiah 51:39, 57, we read: “…they shall be like drunken men, so that they shall not be strong; and they shall die the second death, and shall not live for the world to come… And I will make her princes and her wise men drunk, her governors and her tyrants and her mighty men; and they shall die the second death and not live for the world to come…” Explicitly, according to this Targum, dying the second death results in ceasing to live. Living forever in torment, then, is not the fate communicated by the term “second death” in this Targum—annihilation is. In Hebrew, the verses say that “they will sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake,” which could be taken as denying the resurrection of the unjust, in which the Pharisees believed. To explain how the tension is only apparent, the author of the Targum clarifies that the perpetual death from which the unjust will not rise is the second death, which they will be made to face by rising from the first one. To perpetually sleep and not wake sounds nothing like living forever in torment. 

In Targum Onkelos on Deuteronomy 33:6, the author, understanding the blessing spoken in favor of Reuben to refer to the world to come, renders the verse this way: “May Reuben live an everlasting life and not die the second death…” Here, everlasting life and the second death are explicitly contrasted, meaning that the two are mutually exclusive. To further spell out the obvious, this is contrary to the traditional view, which posits that those for whom the second death is reserved will live forever. A similar rendition is offered in Targum Jonathan, which reads: “Let Reuben live in this world and not die the second death which the wicked die in the world to come…”

 In Targum Jonathan on Isaiah 65:15, we read: “You shall leave your name to my chosen for an oath, and the LORD God will slay you with the second death; but his servants, the righteous, he will call by a different name.” The second death, according to this Targum, refers to God slaying the wicked, as opposed to God rendering them immortal to suffer for eternity in the flames of Gehenna.

More could be cited to the same effect, but what is provided here should suffice. The second death, according to the Targums, is the result of God slaying the unrighteous in the world to come, such that they will not live forever in it, but sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake. If we had Jewish literature in which the term clearly bore a meaning congruent with the traditional view, then pointing to the Targums would merely balance the scales. But, seeing that “second death” is a uniquely Targumic term in the realm of Jewish literature, and it clearly refers to annihilation, the weight of the evidence here falls entirely on the side of conditional immortality.

The Eternal Fire Prepared for the Devil and his Angels
Lastly, what are we to think will result from the wicked being cast into eternal fire? We have already seen that Irenaeus thinks it will result in everlasting death. Is he correct? Most definitely. The phrase “eternal fire” is only used three times in Scripture, counting the verse Trent quoted, namely Matthew 25:41. 

In Matthew 25:41, no one would dispute that eternal fire is what inflicts “eternal punishment,” a phrase we find five verses later. We have already concluded that it makes most sense to understand eternal punishment as a reference to everlasting death, seeing that it is contrasted with eternal life, a “reward for the sheep,” in Trent’s words. The goats, then, to whom the reward will not be given, will be destroyed—cut off from life—in the eternal fire.

Earlier in Matthew 18:8-9, the same conclusion makes most sense. In verse 8, the phrase “eternal fire” is used, and in verse 9, the phrase “Gehenna of fire” is used as a synonymous parallel, meaning that eternal fire and Gehenna of fire refer to one and the same fate. This is key since the meaning of Gehenna of fire can be reasonably inferred by looking to the Old Testament. Gehenna is a Greek transliteration of a Hebrew abbreviation of “Valley of the Son of Hinnom,” namely Gehinnom. Concerning this valley, we read the following in Jeremiah 7:31-33:

And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. [32] Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth, because there is no room elsewhere. [33] And the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the beasts of the earth, and none will frighten them away.

The image that Jesus was evoking in the minds of his listeners in Matt. 18:8-9 was one of people being violently killed, not of eternal torment. This also makes more sense of Jesus saying “It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire.” He is saying that it is better to cripple yourself and remain alive than it is to keep all your members and be slain; or that it is better to lose only part of yourself than to lose all of yourself. To quote again the words of Irenaeus: “And just as then, those who led vicious lives, and put other people astray, were condemned and cast out, so also even now the offending eye is plucked out, and the foot and the hand, lest the rest of the body perish in like manner” (4.27.4).

Last but certainly not least, Jude 7 says that “Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities… serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.” By the phrase “eternal fire,” Jude is referring to the fire by which Sodom and Gomorrah were reduced to ashes in Genesis 19. Indeed, Peter, in a parallel passage (2 Pet. 2:6), says that “by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly.” Not only so, but everywhere these two infamous cities are cited as examples of what awaits the ungodly, both in Scripture and intertestamental literature, it is never in reference to any sort of ongoing experience in the afterlife, but always to what happened to them as described in the Genesis account (cf. Isaiah 13:19; Jeremiah 50:40; Luke 17:29; 3 Maccabees 2:5; Wisdom 10:6; Sirach 16:8-9; Jubilees 20:5). Traditionalists sometimes try to suggest that unlike its parallel in 2 Peter, and unlike all these other passages that refer to a past, completed event, Jude is referring to present-day suffering in the afterlife. To support this, they make much of the fact that Jude says that the cities serve as an example “by undergoing” rather than “by having undergone” a punishment of eternal fire. But of course, even to this day, when we refer to the destruction of the two cities, it is entirely correct to say that these cities serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire in the past, or in the pages of Genesis. After citing instances where God destroyed people for being disobedient, Paul writes this in 1 Corinthians 10:11:

These things happened to them as examples and were written for our instruction, on whom the ends of the ages have come.

If I said to you, “Christ serves as an example of love by suffering death on behalf of others,” you would immediately know that either a phrase like “in the past” is implied in my statement, or that I am referring to Christ suffering in the gospel accounts, wherein His selfless act is carried along through time; a single historical moment forever occurring in the pages of Scripture. Either of these options are inarguably preferable to the traditionalist proposition, considering that it makes Jude 7 disanalogous to its New Testament parallel, and makes it into an exception among every other mention of the infamous cities undergoing punishment. 

Again, there is no reason for taking Matthew 25:41 as support for the view that unbelievers, and even the devil, will be tormented forever and ever. Indeed, this text only bolsters our view, and suggests that the devil, like the beast and Death for whom eternal torment symbolizes being no more, will also be no more, despite what the vision symbolically depicts his fate to be. In this way, destroying all evil, the Lord will accomplish his “plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:10).

The reason fire which only burns its subjects for a brief time before reducing them to ashes is called “eternal fire” is because it proceeds from God, the eternal “consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29) whose breath is “like a stream of sulfur” (Isa. 30:33), from whom fire and sulfur rained on Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:24).

My Final Appeal to Trent Horn
Trent, if you truly took the time to read and digest everything written in this long-winded response, thank you. I hope you found it persuasive; if not persuasive enough to adopt our view, then at least persuasive enough for you to seriously begin considering it. As you’ve seen, our view rests not only on solid biblical grounds, but also on important early figures like Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch and Irenaeus of Lyons, and even finds support from Jewish sources like 1 Enoch and the Targums. As much as this article covers, it is still nowhere near everything Scripture, the early church, and Jewish literature have to offer. Please, if you have any questions or comments, or if you would like to talk about this on a private call, feel free to reach out. God bless you and your family.

~ Read Part 1 or Part 2 ~

~ Read Part 1 or Part 3 ~

Their Worm Does Not Die, and the Fire Is Not Quenched
Returning (finally) to Trent’s article, speaking of eternal torment, he writes: “It’s no wonder the traditional reading of scripture favors this view, given that Jesus said in Mark 9:48 that hell is a place ‘where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’” Forgive me for being pedantic, but doesn’t Trent’s statement essentially mean, “It’s no wonder the eternal torment interpretation favors the eternal torment view”? I assume he meant something like, “It’s no wonder the traditional way people have understood scripture is what it is, given that…” Pedantry over. 

A bit later, referring back to Mark 9:48, he asks: “Moreover, if the ultimate fate of the wicked is their destruction, then why did Jesus say they will be cast into unquenchable fire or be consumed by worms that never die?” So much to say here. Firstly, before I answer the question, let me tweak your question and throw it back to you, Trent: If the ultimate fate of the wicked is not their destruction, then why did Jesus say to fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna (Matt. 10:28)? And why did Paul say that they will be punished with eternal destruction (2 Thess. 1:9)? Secondly, ever since I’ve become a conditionalist, I’ve often wanted to slap myself upside the head for not having realized sooner how nonsensical it is to think of the term “unquenchable fire” as obvious support for eternal torment. Trent even italicized the word “unquenchable” to make sure we don’t miss it. Suppose a firefighter called you while you were at work and said, “We’re terribly sorry, sir. We’re calling to tell you that your neighbour alerted us that your house is on fire, so we’re on site now, but the fire is unquenchable.” Upon hearing the word “unquenchable,” what would you expect to find upon arriving at the scene? No more house. It is precisely the fact of being told that the fire is unquenchable that would make you expect to find nothing but a pile of rubble. So, far from being support for eternal torment, even a surface-level reading of the text lends itself better to our view. 

But what if we go deeper? Well, the phrase, “where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” is taken from Isaiah 66:24, according to which it is dead bodies that will be subject to these things after the wicked have been slain (cf. Isa. 66:15-16), not immortal people. The worm (or maggot) that “does not die” (not “never dies” as Trent writes in italics) and the fire that “is not quenched” are consuming agents (Job 24:20; Isaiah 30:33), not everlasting torture devices. They are like the birds of the air and beasts of the earth of Jeremiah 7:31-33 whom “none will frighten away,” such that they will not fail to consume the dead bodies of God’s slaughtered enemies. In 2 Samuel 21:10, Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, after her two sons were hanged, “did not allow the birds of the air to come upon them by day, or the beasts of the field by night” because it was dishonoring for a dead body to not be given a proper burial but instead be consumed in the open for anyone to see. So, stated clearly, all it means for the worm to not die and the fire to not be quenched is that neither of them will be prevented by those things from consuming the corpses; it doesn’t mean the worm will never die, or that the fire will never go out. In Proverbs 23:13-14, the same Hebrew phrase (לֹא מוּת) translated “does not die” in Isaiah 66:24 is used this way: “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die (לֹא מוּת). If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.” Obviously, this does not mean that the child will never die, but simply that he will not do so prematurely. Returning to fire that is “not quenched,” Scripture’s use of this term fits perfectly with the house example; it refers to fire that is not prevented from consuming that which it burns (Jer. 17:27; Ezek. 20:47; Matt. 3:12).

Unquenchable Fire in Ignatius’ Letter to the Ephesians
Before moving on, I want to allot a few words to a particular quote from Ignatius that I purposely did not mention earlier because I thought it would be better to do so here. On the Catholic Answers website (the website on which Trent’s article is published), in an article entitled What the Early Church Believed: Hell, Ignatius is presented as though he believed in eternal torment on the basis of a single quote: “Corrupters of families will not inherit the kingdom of God. And if those who do these things according to the flesh suffer death, how much more if a man corrupts by evil teaching the faith of God for which Jesus Christ was crucified? A man so foul will depart into unquenchable fire: and so will anyone who listens to him” (Eph 16.1-2). 

For one to look at this quote and automatically conclude that Ignatius believed in eternal torment is for one to reveal that he is completely unfamiliar with the terrain of the debate. Unquenchable fire is a term taken straight from Scripture, and both annihilationists and traditionalists think that Scripture uses this term to communicate their respective views, so the mere use of a term like this on Ignatius’ part should not be considered support for either side. To know how Ignatius understands the term, we need to see if Ignatius elaborates on his view either in the immediate context, or in the rest of his writings. Let’s take a closer look at the quote: “if those who do these things according to the flesh suffer death, how much more if a man corrupts… the faith of God… A man so foul will depart into unquenchable fire…” Considering the flow of thought, the following paraphrase seems like the most appropriate interpretation of the quote: “Seeing that corrupters of families suffer death as a consequence, how much more deservedly will corrupters of the faith of God suffer death by means of unquenchable fire.” This reading not only fits better with the immediate context, but with everything else we have read from Ignatius.

… but the righteous into eternal life
Still intimating that the traditional view is the obvious teaching of Scripture, Trent writes that Jesus “also declared that after the Last Judgment the wicked, ‘will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’” Again, I can hardly believe I didn’t realize sooner how silly the traditional reading of this text really is. Trent continues: “But annihilationists say we are hastily assuming that Jesus is talking about the traditional concept of hell. They contend that the word “eternal” (Greek aionion) in Matthew 25:46 refers to ‘the age to come.’” Though that is indeed the contention of some annihilationists, it is not that of us at Rethinking Hell. We simply contend that aionion means “unending,” both when it qualifies “punishment” and when it qualifies “life.” 

With that in mind, consider that “eternal punishment” is directly contrasted with “eternal life.” Eternal life, by the way, is exactly what it sounds like: living forever. Jesus is pretty clear about this in John 6, where instead of “eternal life” he sometimes says  “live forever” (vv. 51 and 58) or “not die” (v. 50).¹John 17:3 is sometimes cited as evidence that eternal life more specifically refers not merely to living forever, but to living forever while knowing God and Jesus Christ in the relational sense. But this is to misunderstand “this IS eternal life, that…” as using an “is” of identity, rather than an “is” of result. In reality, what Jesus means here is that to know God and Jesus Christ results in eternal life. In John 12:50, he speaks the same way, saying that “[the Father’s] commandment IS eternal life,” by which he means that the Father’s commandment results in eternal life. Whatever the punishment is, it cannot include the reward with which the punishment is contrasted, namely life, leaving no room for the punishment to be anything other than death. Not only does life being contrasted with death make more sense than life being contrasted with a punishment that necessarily includes life, but in Romans 6:23, the punishment that Paul explicitly contrasts with eternal life is, in fact, death. The same is true of John 3:16, which contrasts eternal life with perishing. I mean, seriously, how can it be any clearer? The punishment is death; the unrighteous will never be brought back to life; ergo, the punishment is unending. Very simple. The word “punishment” (κόλασις) in Matthew 25:46 is just a generic word for punishment that can, in fact, refer to the death penalty, as it does in places like 2 Maccabees 4:38, 3 Maccabees 7:10, 14, and Wisdom of Solomon 19:4-5. Now, I do not mean this disrespectfully, but what Trent goes on to write is poorly articulated and thought out. For ease of reference, here’s the relevant section:

But annihilationists say we are hastily assuming that Jesus is talking about the traditional concept of hell. They contend that the word “eternal” (Greek aionion) in Matthew 25:46 refers to “the age to come.” It can refer to unending duration of life, like in John 10:28, when Jesus says, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.” But it can also refer to actions that have eternal effects even though the actions no longer continue, as in Hebrews 9:11-12, in which Paul says we will have “eternal redemption” even though Christ redeeming death on the cross is complete. According to Basil Atkinson, “The lost will not be passing through a process of punishment forever but will be punished once and for all with eternal results.”
To say something’s destruction has “eternal results,” however, stretches the meaning of “eternal” and “results” beyond their breaking point. What people fear from punishment is not its results but the punishment itself.

Considering that Trent never pushes back on the contention of some annihilationists that “aionion punishment” means “punishment of the age to come,” it is difficult to understand why he even mentions it. Almost as if he never mentioned it, he just moves on to introduce a wholly distinct annihilationist argument: the Hebrews 9:12 argument. This argument, then, is the one I will now address. 

In Matthew 25:46, we say that the word punishment refers to the punishment itself (i.e., what the punishment is), not to the punishing (i.e., the infliction of the punishment), and that it is the former that is unending, not the latter. As a linguistically analogous instance, we point out that in Hebrews 9:12 (among other verses), the word “redemption” in the phrase “eternal redemption,” in like manner, refers to the redemption itself, not to the process of redeeming, and that while the former is unending, the latter is not. Similarly, the gold standard of Greek lexicons, BDAG, understands the phrase “eternal judgment” in Hebrews 6:2 to refer to a “judgment whose decision is valid eternally,”²William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 567. not to an eternal process of judging.

None of this, mind you, necessitates that we speak of “eternal results” (though some annihilationists do); we can simply say, as I said before, that the punishment is death, and that since this death will never be reversed, the punishment is everlasting. That said, I want to defend those who do speak of “eternal results” by clearing up what they mean, and by addressing what Trent says about this way of articulating our view. The quote from Basil Atkinson, reworded, simply means, as should be clear by now, that though the punishing process will be finite, the punishment inflicted during that finite punishing process will endure forever. 

In response to Atkinson, Trent says that “to say something’s destruction has eternal results… stretches the meaning of ‘eternal’ and ‘results’ beyond their breaking point.” Really? Kind of like how traditionalists stretch the meanings of “death,” “perish” and “destruction” beyond their breaking points? No, because unlike those examples, the words “eternal” and “results” are not being stretched at all. If God destroys the unrighteous and they forever remain gone, then God’s process of destroying does, in fact, have eternal results. Trent tries to substantiate his claim by saying: “What people fear from punishment is not its results but the punishment itself.” Okay, so if a rapist is sentenced to castration, fear of never being able to enjoy sex again is off the table? Ludicrous. Besides, even if I were to grant the point, “the punishment itself” (death), as Trent puts it, is precisely what Atkinson means by “results”; death is the eternal result of the punishing process (God destroying), so Trent has totally missed the point. Now, how does Trent support the idea that the word ‘eternal’ is being stretched? By saying that this “interpretation also doesn’t make sense of the parallelism that Jesus is clearly employing to contrast the rewards for the sheep with the punishments for the goats.” To explain this, he quotes Augustine in his City of God (21.23.1):

If both destinies are “eternal,” then we must either understand both as long-continued but at last terminating, or both as endless. For they are correlative—on the one hand, punishment eternal, on the other hand, life eternal. And to say in one and the same sense, life eternal shall be endless, punishment eternal shall come to an end, is the height of absurdity. Wherefore, as the eternal life of the saints shall be endless, so too the eternal punishment of those who are doomed to it shall have no end.³Augustine of Hippo, “The City of God,” in St. Augustin’s City of God and Christian Doctrine, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. Marcus Dods, vol. 2, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1887), 469.

Funny enough, this argument is precisely one of the arguments that we at Rethinking Hell are fond of using to argue against universalism. Well put, Augustine! However, as I have said multiple times now, we believe that the punishment is death, and that this death will never be reversed, and therefore that the punishment is eternal. Nothing about the word “eternal” is being stretched—whether we say that the punishment itself is eternal, or that the result of the punishing process is eternal, the word refers to an endless duration. So, not only does Trent’s appeal to Augustine’s argument miserably fail, but Augustine himself would not have used this argument (or, at least, I doubt he would have) to argue against conditional immortality. The quote is taken from a section in which Augustine is specifically arguing against universalism, not annihilationism. In fact, earlier in the very same book (21.11.1), Augustine asks this question concerning the punishment of death:

Then as to the award of death for any great crime, do the laws reckon the punishment to consist in the brief moment in which death is inflicted, or in this, that the offender is eternally banished from the society of the living?⁴Ibid., 463.

Put in the form of a statement, Augustine is here affirming that laws, in fact, reckon the death penalty to consist in the fact that the offender is eternally banished from the society of the living, meaning that the man to whom Trent turned for support is of no help to him at all. Instead, he only confirms that we are correct in understanding death to be an eternal punishment. Trent is a very intelligent man; the weakness of his argumentation is either a testament to the strength of the case for conditional immortality, or evidence that he did not take the task seriously.

~ Read Part 1 or Part 3 ~

~ Read Part 2 or Part 3 ~

Trent’s article: Yes, Hell Is Real and It Is Eternal | Catholic Answers Magazine

Introduction
It is my sincere conviction that conditional immortality is a silver bullet against the Roman Catholic church’s professed infallibility on matters of doctrine, considering just how clearly this doctrine is taught in Scripture from cover to cover, as well as in the writings of a number of significant ante-Nicene Christian writings. “What is conditional immortality?”, you might be asking yourself. Simply put, as the name strongly suggests, it is the belief that immortality is not universally granted to the righteous and the unrighteous alike but that it is a gift given only to those who meet the condition of being in Christ. The punishment awaiting the unrighteous at the resurrection of judgment, then, is death; the whole person—body and soul (Mt. 10:28)—will be destroyed and never live again. I mean no disrespect to Trent Horn when I say this, but his article does nothing but confirm and reinforce my conviction; Rome, like everyone else, has no good answer to conditional immortality.

Just Getting Warmed Up
Trent begins by rightly representing what we conditionalists believe, saying that our view is “the view that God destroys the damned in hell instead of allowing them to experience eternal torment.” Firstly, it is at least interesting to note that to describe our view, Trent says that God destroys the damned, which seems to indicate that when he is not seeking to reconcile the Bible’s language of destruction with other texts that he understands to be teaching eternal torment, he implicitly acknowledges that such language communicates what our view teaches. When interpreting a verse like 2 Thessalonians 1:9, however, Trent is forced to oppose the evident meaning of the word. Secondly, in contrast to our view, God “allowing them to experience eternal torment” assumes immortality for all. Indeed, in response to a woman who called into the Catholic Answers Live radio program to ask why people will be tormented forever in Hell, Trent begins his response by saying: “We as human beings have immortal souls, and God has revealed to us that not only will our souls survive death, but we will be reunited with our bodies and we will live forever”¹The quote is taken from a video called “Trent Horn – Why is the punishment of Hell eternal?” on the Catholic Answers YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-x6iSGc6LQ&t=80s at 1:01. (emphasis mine). To put it bluntly, this is rubbish. In his first letter to Timothy, Paul teaches that “[God] alone has immortality” (1 Tim. 6:16), meaning that God alone is inherently immortal, and that God alone can confer it. But to whom does he confer it? In his second letter to Timothy, Paul is no less clear when he teaches that “life and immortality” are conferred “through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:10). In Paul’s mind, immortality is something human beings “seek” (Rom. 2:7), not something “we as human beings have.” After all, our Lord said: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever… not like the bread the fathers ate, and died.” (John 6:51, 58). Those who do not eat of this bread will not live forever, contrary to Trent’s assertion.

Shortly thereafter, he goes on to say that it “seems like a good time to remind the faithful… of the reality of hell as an eternal punishment for the condemned,” and then says that this belief is “unequivocally upheld in Catholic doctrine.” As will be explicated further into this article, we conditionalists do not dispute that the punishment is eternal, hence my title agreeing with Trent that Hell is eternal, assuming that “Hell” in the title of his article is shorthand for the punishment meted out therein. To show that the Catholic church upholds eternal punishment as true, he cites paragraph 1035 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a paragraph I will address in a future article dedicated to correcting the Catechism’s mistaken teachings on the topic of hell. (To dispel potential confusion, the paragraph’s mistake does not lie in affirming the eternity of hell, but something else). That said, since Trent did not quote it to argue that Roman Catholics are right to hold eternal torment as true, I see no need to comment on it here.

Conditionalism Was Quenched, Eternal Torment Was Stoked, and the Rest Is History
Directly on the heels of this, Trent follows up by saying that “annihilationism… is a minority position in Church history,” and that “John Stackhouse Jr. admits that when it comes to the nature of hell, ‘There is no doubt where the weight of the tradition lies, and it doesn’t lie here,’ that is, in favor of annihilationism.” As Trent rightly states, John Stackhouse Jr. is a defender of annihilationism, and if Trent had wanted to cite more annihilationists who have made the same concession, he surely would have met no shortage of them—and I readily add myself to the list here. We have no problem admitting that this is the case. If our position has any weak spot, it is this. Yet, this weak spot is by no means a death blow. Critically—setting aside for now the fact that the biblical data strongly favours conditional immortality—if we limit the scope to the first two hundred years of the church, the weight of the tradition most certainly also favours our view. In a video entitled “#452 – The Church father Protestants fear the most . . .”, posted on his cleverly named YouTube channel, The Counsel of Trent, Trent says: “When you have early church fathers, who witness to distinctly Catholic doctrines, then it becomes much harder to say that these doctrines are merely the traditions of men and not actually what the apostles taught because we are getting much closer.”²https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1i2Aji49ig at 4:21. Of course, I can only hope that if Trent reads this article, he will exercise enough intellectual honesty to reason this way about the doctrine of conditional immortality. Though a more exhaustive case could easily be made, for the sake of brevity, I will only appeal to three important witnesses: Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch (the church father Protestants fear the most according to Trent’s video), and Irenaeus of Lyons.

**Whenever words or phrases are italicized for emphasis inside a quote from these three men, the emphasis is mine**

Clement of Rome (ca. A.D. 96)
Our first witness, Clement, shows no sign of believing in eternal torment but rather every sign of believing in conditional immortality. In his only authentic letter (1 Clement), which he wrote to the Corinthians, we read: “How blessed and wonderful, beloved, are the gifts of God! Life in immortality… Let us therefore earnestly strive to be found in the number of those that wait for Him, in order that we may share in His promised gifts” (ch. 35). According to Clement, life in immortality is a gift of God for which one needs to earnestly strive; it is not unconditionally granted to every human being.

Indeed, this fits neatly with Clement teaching that only the righteous will rise. After offering the phoenix bird as an emblem of our resurrection, he asks whether we “deem it any great and wonderful thing for the Maker of all things to raise up again those that have piously served Him in the assurance of a good faith” (ch. 26). At this juncture, one may argue that saying, “God will raise those that have piously served Him” is not necessarily to say, “God will raise only those that have piously served Him.” While it is true that Clement’s statement does not necessarily imply that the wicked will not rise, it seems most natural to take it as though he thinks of rising as something reserved specifically for those who have piously served Him in the assurance of a good faith, and thus does intend to imply that the wicked will not rise. In fact, later (ch. 50), he writes: “All the generations from Adam… have passed away; but those who, through the grace of God, have been made perfect in love… shall be made manifest at the revelation of the kingdom of Christ. For it is written, ‘…I will remember a propitious day, and will raise you up out of your graves.’” Notice, Clement does not merely identify those whom God will raise as those who have been perfected in love, but he specifically identifies God raising them from their graves as the way they will be made manifest; that is, as the way they will be distinguished from the unrighteous. 

Of course, we at Rethinking Hell do not deny that the unrighteous will rise to judgment, and I do not think that Clement does either. What Clement means, I think, is that only the righteous will rise indefinitely. It is reminiscent of Jesus who, despite teaching that both the righteous and the unrighteous will rise from the dead (John 5:28-29), also spoke of “those who are considered worthy to attain to… the resurrection from the dead” (Luke 20:35), as if not everybody takes part in the resurrection. It is also reminiscent of Paul who, despite saying “that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust” (Acts 24:15), also said: “I have suffered the loss of all things and count them rubbish, in order that I may… be found in Him… having a righteousness… which comes through faith in Christ… that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Phil 3:8-11), as though he could fail to be counted among those who will be raised. That is because Jesus, Paul, and Clement all specifically have in mind the “resurrection of life” (Jn 5:29); the resurrection whose beneficiaries “cannot die anymore, because they… are sons of God” (Luke 20:36). Those who are not sons of God can still die, and will indeed die a second time at the resurrection of judgment (Rev. 20:14; 21:8). 

In line with this, we also read from Clement that those “who do anything beyond that which is agreeable to His will, are punished with death” (ch. 41). Earlier, he exhorted his readers to “yield obedience to His excellent and glorious will” and to “turn and have recourse to His compassions, imploring His mercy and loving-kindness” while they “forsake all fruitless labours and strife, and envy, which leads to death” (ch. 9). Immediately following this exhortation, he gives an example: “Let us take (for instance) Enoch, who, being found righteous in obedience, was translated, and death was never known to happen to him.” No one disputes the sort of death Enoch escaped; it was death as normally understood. In light of this, to suggest that Clement might mean something else by the word “death” just a few strokes prior would be nothing short of absurd. Two chapters later (ch. 11), to establish that the Lord punishes the ungodly, he reminds his readers that Sodom “was punished by means of fire and brimstone,” which, in the words of 2 Peter 2:6, resulted in its inhabitants being turned to ashes and condemned to extinction. He also mentions Lot’s wife, who “was made an example of, so as to be a pillar of salt… that all might know that those who are of a double mind, and distrust the power of God, bring down judgment on themselves…” In a later exhortation, describing the fate of those who fail to share in the gift of immortality,  Clement writes: “Consider now these things, you who forget God, lest He tear you in pieces, like a lion, and there be none to deliver. The sacrifice of praise will glorify Me, and a way is there by which I will show him the salvation of God” (ch. 35).

Lastly, Clement teaches that “[Christ’s] soul was delivered to death… and He bore the sins of many, and for their sins He was delivered,” (ch. 16) and that “Jesus Christ our Lord gave His blood for (ὑπὲρ) us by the will of God; His flesh for (ὑπὲρ) our flesh, and His soul for (ὑπὲρ) our souls” (ch. 49). The language here unambiguously means that Jesus died in our stead, meaning that death is the punishment awaiting those who reject the Substitute, not life forever in torment. The way Clement speaks of Christ’s death resembles how he speaks of many kings and princes who “have given themselves up to death, in order that by their own blood they might deliver their fellow citizens [from destruction]” (ch. 55). Ringing in one’s ears ought to be John 11:49-51: “Caiaphas… said to them, ‘…it is better for you that one man should die for (ὑπὲρ) the people, not that the whole nation should perish.’ He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for (ὑπὲρ) the nation…” 

From calling immortality a gift for which one needs to strive, to identifying rising from the grave as a distinction marker between the righteous and the unrighteous, to establishing that God punishes evildoers with death, to teaching that Christ died in the place of those who belong to Him so that they don’t have to die themselves, Clement has left us no reason to conclude anything other than that he held to the doctrine of conditional immortality.

Ignatius of Antioch (ca. A.D. 110)
In Ignatius’ letters, we find the same four pillars of conditional immortality that we find in 1 Clement, which I just highlighted in the concluding paragraph. To Polycarp, he says: “Be sober as an athlete of God: the prize set before you is immortality and eternal life” (Poly 2.3). The implication of immortality and eternal life being prizes, of course, is that they are not distributed to every human being. To the Ephesians, Ignatius writes that the bread we break is “the medicine of immortality and the antidote that we should not die but live for ever in Jesus Christ” (20.2), and to the Philadelphians, he writes that though the prophets pointed to Christ, “the Gospel is the completion of immortality” (9.2). Without the medicine of immortality, one is bound to die, lacking the antidote provided by the Gospel that allows one to live forever. 

Indeed, according to Ignatius, speaking of those who “abstain from the Lord’s supper because they do not confess [the bread] to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Smyr 7.1)—which follows from them “not confessing that He was a bearer of flesh” (Smyr 5.2)— he says that ”it would be better for them to treat [the Lord’s supper] with respect that they also might rise again” (Smyr 7.1). These people, according to Ignatius, are “advocates of death rather than of the truth” (Smyr 5.1). His thinking is clear: If one abstains from the medicine of immortality, one will not rise again; that is, he will not rise indefinitely. This, of course, stands in direct opposition to the Catechism: “What is ‘rising’?… God, in his almighty power, will definitively grant incorruptible life to our bodies…Who will rise? All the dead will rise, ‘those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment’” (paras. 997-998).

Wherever Ignatius states what does await those who deny Christ, it is consistent with what we have just seen him say does not await them. To the Magnesians, he is unequivocal:  “Let us not, therefore, be insensible toward His kindness, for if He were insensible toward us, we would cease to be” (Mag 10.1). His kindness, of course, refers to His willingness to suffer death “in order that by believing in His death, you may escape death” (Trallians 2.1). To those who are insensible toward His death, it will be as though Christ were insensible toward them—for to turn down His kindness is to make it as though it had not been shown—leaving them to face the death of their whole being, at which point they will “cease to be.” For “how shall we be able to live without Him” (Mag 9.2) seeing that He is the one through whom “our life also arose [on the Lord’s day]” (Mag 9.1)? In the end, “these two things are simultaneously set before us — death and life; and every one shall go unto his own place” (Mag 5.1). 

Finally, to the Romans (6.1), Ignatius writes: “Him I seek, who died on our behalf (ὑπὲρ); Him I long for, who rose again for our sake.” Just as it is no mystery what Paul means when he says, “I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of (ὑπὲρ) my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh,” it is no mystery what Ignatius means here: “Him I seek, who offered us to step aside so that He could suffer death in our place, the punishment that otherwise would have been ours to bear.” 

Just like in the case of Clement, we are offered by Ignatius a multi-faceted, coherent picture of what awaits the ungodly.

Irenaeus of Lyons (ca. A.D. 180)
Of all three witnesses, though Clement and Ignatius are by no means unclear, Irenaeus is, without a doubt, the one who expresses his belief in conditional immortality in most detail. To begin, in his largest work called “Against Heresies,” Irenaeus devotes a section (1.10.1) to writing down what is known as a “rule of faith,” which is a set of core doctrines considered both definitional and foundational to the Christian faith. A rule of faith was used to establish and maintain doctrinal orthodoxy within the early Christian community, serving as a standard against which all teachings and beliefs were measured to ensure they aligned with what had been handed down by the apostles. Setting the stage for the list of foundational doctrines, Irenaeus starts off by writing, “The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith:…” Toward the end of the list, we read, “and that He should execute just judgment towards all; that He may send ‘spiritual wickednesses,’ and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, and wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love…”

In other words, the faith that the Church received from the apostles, according to Irenaeus, includes conditional immortality! Immortality is conferred in the exercise of God’s grace to those in Christ; it is not conferred to those who, by contrast, are sent into eternal fire. Indeed, as we ought to expect based on Irenaeus’ words here, this is how he interprets Matthew 18:8-9 where Jesus uses the term “eternal fire”: “And just as then, those who led vicious lives, and put other people astray, were condemned and cast out, so also even now the offending eye is plucked out, and the foot and the hand, lest the rest of the body perish in like manner” (4.27.4). The threat is clear: it is better to live crippled than to die whole in the eternal fire. Later, quoting Matthew 25:41 and 2 Thessalonians 1:9 respectively, Irenaeus writes: “the Lord Himself declares, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire…’ And the apostle in like manner says [of them], ‘Who shall be punished with everlasting death from the face of the Lord…’” (4.33.11) It only makes sense that everlasting death would be the punishment awaiting those to whom immortality is not conferred. Remember what I said in the beginning, namely that “to describe our view, Trent says that God destroys the damned, which seems to indicate that when he is not seeking to reconcile the Bible’s language of destruction with other texts that he understands to be teaching eternal torment, he implicitly acknowledges that such language communicates what our view teaches.” Well, apparently, so clearly does language of destruction communicate our view that Irenaeus, when quoting what Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 1:9, did not quote it verbatim but replaced “everlasting destruction” with “everlasting death.” Elsewhere, he puts it this way: “to scoffers, and to those not subject to God… has He assigned everlasting destruction by cutting them off from life” (4.11.4). Death is not counter-intuitive code language for everlasting life in misery; it is to be deprived of life—and in this case, forever.

More to the point, an honest reading of Irenaeus’ work demands that we understand his expression about being cut off from life to entail being cut off from existence. In 4.20.7, he says that God has revealed himself to man through many dispensations “lest man, falling away from God altogether, should cease to exist, for the glory of God is a living man,” clearly contrasting ceasing to exist with living. He directly connects immortality with existence as well, speaking of “the gratuitous bestowal of eternal existence upon [those who are in subjection to God]” which, with only one sentence in between, he follows by saying that “being in subjection to God is continuance in immortality” (4.38.3). 

Next, just like Clement and Ignatius, we find Irenaeus teaching that resurrection is only for one group: believers. In 5.27.1, we read, “Has the Word come for the ruin and for the resurrection of many? For the ruin, certainly, of those who do not believe Him… but for the resurrection of believers, and those who do the will of His Father in heaven.” Unlike Clement and Ignatius, though, he also plainly says that God will “raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that… He should execute just judgment towards all” (1.10.1), which I only mention to vindicate them; their denial that the unrighteous will rise is, as I have already argued, merely a denial that they would rise indefinitely. Only the righteous receive the resurrection of life. Lastly, though more passages could be quoted, this last passage (2.34.3), quoted in its entirety, ought to be enough to tie a bow on this treatment of Irenaeus:

For as the heaven which is above us, the firmament, the sun, the moon, the rest of the stars, and all their grandeur, although they had no previous existence, were called into being, and continue throughout a long course of time according to the will of God, so also any one who thinks thus respecting souls and spirits, and, in fact, respecting all created things, will not by any means go far astray, inasmuch as all things that have been made had a beginning when they were formed, but endure as long as God wills that they should have an existence and continuance. The prophetic Spirit bears testimony to these opinions, when He declares, “For He spake, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created: He hath established them for ever, yea, forever and ever.” And again, He thus speaks respecting the salvation of man: “He asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest him length of days for ever and ever;” indicating that it is the Father of all who imparts continuance for ever and ever on those who are saved. For life does not arise from us, nor from our own nature; but it is bestowed according to the grace of God. And therefore he who shall preserve the life bestowed upon him, and give thanks to Him who imparted it, shall receive also length of days for ever and ever. But he who shall reject it, and prove himself ungrateful to his Maker, inasmuch as he has been created, and has not recognised Him who bestowed [the gift upon him], deprives himself of [the privilege of] continuance for ever and ever. And, for this reason, the Lord declared to those who showed themselves ungrateful towards Him: “If ye have not been faithful in that which is little, who will give you that which is great?” indicating that those who, in this brief temporal life, have shown themselves ungrateful to Him who bestowed it, shall justly not receive from Him length of days for ever and ever.

That’s Enough for Now
Although a number of other witnesses dating between the late first century A.D. and the early second century A.D. taught conditional immortality—like the Didache (ca. 100 A.D.), the Epistle of Barnabas (ca. 100 A.D.), the Odes of Solomon (ca. 125 A.D.), Polycarp of Smyrna (ca. 125 A.D.), and others—this article is not meant to offer a comprehensive treatment of the first two centuries. Now, having gone over three important early witnesses, even if one were still reluctant to grant that the weight of the tradition of the first two centuries lies on the side of conditional immortality, one would at least have to admit that the eternal torment view by no means enjoyed the position of dominance that it has enjoyed following the time of Augustine. To quote Edward Fudge,

[Augustine’s] influence on Western Christianity is immeasurable. Traditionalist author Harry Buis says that Augustine’s advocacy of the position that hell will be a place of unending conscious torment “tended to cause it to become the accepted doctrine of the church for the centuries that followed.” Edward B. Pusey, a leading traditionalist of the nineteenth century, acknowledged that Augustine “has, more than any other, formed the mind of our Western Christendom.”³Edward William Fudge & Robert A. Peterson, Two Views of Hell: A Biblical and Theological Dialogue, (InterVarsity Press, 2000), 189.

Notably, even in Augustine’s day, by the man’s own admission, “very many” rejected the eternal torment view. In his Enchiridion (ch. 112), Augustine wrote:

It is in vain, then, that some, indeed very many, make moan over the eternal punishment, and perpetual, unintermitted torments of the lost, and say they do not believe it shall be so; not, indeed, that they directly oppose themselves to Holy Scripture, but, at the suggestion of their own feelings, they soften down everything that seems hard, and give a milder turn to statements which they think are rather designed to terrify than to be received as literally true.⁴Augustine of Hippo, “Enchiridion,” Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 3, ed. Phillip Schaff (Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887), 273.

Whether Augustine here fairly represents those who opposed eternal torment in his day is neither here nor there. I think he knew better than to essentially suggest that they were just soft sentimentalists, but hey… rhetoric. I can’t help but wonder if he would have directly accused our three witnesses of being such. Anyways, the point is that though more than a millennia and a half of tradition is weighty, weightier is the witness of the earliest Christians. Which view actually deserves to be called the traditional view?

~ Read Part 2 or Part 3 ~