Category: Darren Clark

Biblical Exegesis, Darren Clark, Uncategorized

How the ECT lens of G.K. Beale distorts his interpretation of 2 Thessalonians 1:9

Introduction:

G.K. Beale is renowned for his scholarship in the area of NT exegesis, especially his work on Revelation. I regularly consult his literature on the NT when investigating the finer points of NT Greek. In his commentary on the Thessalonian letters, Beale gives some space to discuss the meaning of 2 Thessalonians 1:9. Much of his discussion is aimed at answering the question of whether Paul meant to convey that unbelievers will be ‘annihilated at the final judgement’ or suffer an ‘everlasting, conscious suffering’.1G.K. Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, (InterVarsity Press: 2003), 187. Beale concludes Paul was teaching the separation view of ECT (eternal conscious torment) in this verse. This article aims to evaluate his reasons for that conclusion.

The meaning of ὄλεθρος (olethros):

Interestingly, Beale finds that Paul’s use of ὄλεθρος in other passages is not determinative for understanding the use of the noun in 2 Thessalonians 1:9.21 Cor 5:5; 1 Thess 5:3; 1 Tim 6:9 He mentions that ὄλεθρος can refer to physical death,3LXX 1 Kings 13:34; Ezek 14:16–18; 3 Macc 6:30, 34 and the defeat of one nation by another.4Jer 48:3; 51:55; Obad 1:13 He gives more attention to the use of the phrase ὄλεθρον αἰώνιον (‘eternal destruction’) in 4 Maccabees 10:15:

By the blessed death of my brothers and the eternal destruction of the tyrant (τὸν αἰώνιον τοῦ τυράννου ὄλεθρον) and the praiseworthy life of piety, I will not renounce my noble brotherhood.5Unless otherwise indicated quotations from the LXX will be from The Lexham English Septuagint.

Beale appeals to other statements in 4 Maccabees to show that ὄλεθρον αἰώνιον (‘eternal destruction’) ‘is defined by the context not as annihilation but as unending suffering.’6Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, 188. To support this claim, he highlights that Antiochus is said to ‘endure, by divine justice, eternal torture by fire’ (4 Macc 9:9),7Unless otherwise indicated, the English translation of the LXX will be from LES. and ‘perpetually endure tortures’ (4 Macc 10:11). The tyrant is told that God has ‘reserved divine justice for you, constant and eternal fire and tortures’ (4 Macc 12:12).8Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, 188.

Rethinking Hell contributor, James Harding, has published an article on 4 Maccabees here. Harding presents a case for the perspective that 4 Maccabees does not offer support for traditionalism. This is a challenge to Beale’s position. A full evaluation of Harding’s work is beyond the scope of this article so I will leave it to the reader to evaluate Harding’s work. For the purposes of this article I would like to focus on Beale’s methodology employed in his commentary on 2 Thessalonians. Ironically, his appeal to the context of 4 Maccabees 10:15 to clarify the meaning of ‘eternal destruction’ is a tacit admission that the phrase itself is ambiguous. That is, Beale knew he could not simply assert that the mere use of the phrase ‘eternal destruction’ justifies a traditionalist reading of 4 Maccabees 10:15. He knew that he had to cite other statements made by the same author to establish the meaning of that phrase. The problem is Paul does not use similar language anywhere in his literature. So, even if the reader remains unconvinced by James Harding’s article on 4 Maccabees, Beale still has a burden to show that Paul used ὄλεθρον αἰώνιον (‘eternal destruction’) in the same way as the author of 4 Maccabee.

Beale is also mistaken that 4 Maccabees 10:15 is the only relevant example that could illustrate what Paul meant by ὄλεθρον αἰώνιον (‘eternal destruction’). He overlooks a key entry in BDAG, which lists Testament of Reuben as a text using a combination of these words in the larger phrase ὄλεθρον Βελίαρ καὶ ὄνειδος αἰώνιον (‘the eternal destruction of Beliar and an eternal disgrace’).9BGAD, s.v. “ὄλεθρος.” For the critical-text that has this variant see Robert Henry Chalrles, The Greek Versions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, (Oxford University Press: 1960), 12. BDAG juxtaposes the citation to the Testament of Reuben 6:3 with 2 Thessalonians 1:9. The gloss given is ‘eternal death’. Αἰώνιος (aiōnios) is taken to modify ὄλεθρος even though it falls at the end of the sentence. The phrase can be taken as an example of the two words being used to refer to eternal destruction. The Testament of Reuben is part of the larger body of work called the Twelve Testaments of the Patriarchs. The authorship of the Testaments is debated. The corpus itself contains interpolations from Christians and (like the Bible) there are more than one versions of the Greek text of the Testaments. Nevertheless, it is possible to obtain a general understanding of what is meant by ‘eternal destruction’.

Whereas 4 Maccabees contains language that does prima facie refer to eternal torture, the same is not the case with the Twelves Tetaments. The only verse that comes close is Testament of Asher 5:6, which refers to souls being harassed after people have died. The Greek word used here is βασανίζω, which can refer to torture; however, the text lacks an explicit statement regarding the duration of this harassment. In contrast, there are statements that the righteous will enter into eternal life (Testament of Asher 5:6). Obtaining eternal life is how ‘one wards off death’ (Testament of Asher 5:2). Meanwhile, the people of Sodom are said to have ‘perished forever’ (Testament of Asher 7:1). The verb here is ἀπόλλυμι (apollumi), which is used throughout the testaments to refer to the killing of people. Finally, Treatment of Benjamin 7 describes the fate of Cain after he slew his brother Abel. Cain is punished with 7 punishments, the last of which is being ‘deprived of life’ (7:4). In the Testaments the righteous obtain eternal life so forever ward of death, while the unrighteous are deprived of life.

Beale may not have been aware of the use of ὄλεθρον αἰώνιον in the Testament of Reuben when he wrote his commentary on the Thessalonian letters, but it was not at all difficult to locate, given BDAG explicitly refers to it in its entry on ὄλεθρος. Beale could have located this text with a basic search of the lexica available to him. His failure to acknowledge this text mirrors his tendency elsewhere in his commentary on 2 Thessalonians 1:9 to gravitate towards evidence that supports a traditionalist reading of that verse.

In order to support his reading of 2 Thessalonians 1:9, Beale discusses a connection to LXX Isaiah 66.

This understanding of everlasting destruction is supported also by noting that Paul derives the phrase “in a blazing fire, giving vengeance” (en pyri phlogos didontos ekdikēsin; in blazing fire.… He will punish in NIV) from Isaiah 66:15: “the Lord will render his vengeance … in a flame of fire” (apodounai … ekdikēsin … en phlogi pyros), the only place in the Old Testament where this combination of terms is found. This is noteworthy because only nine verses later comes the well-known depiction of those who have been judged—“their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched” (Is 66:24)—a clear reference to an unending punishment of conscious beings.10Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, 189.

While Beale correctly notes that LXX Isaiah 66:15 is a relevant OT source text for the language of 2 Thessalonians 1:8, he fails to mention that the context of the source text explicitly has to do with the death of God’s enemies. To illustrate this, we can follow Beale’s method when discussing LXX 4 Maccabees 10:15 and read LXX Isaiah 66:15 in its immediate context of LXX Isaiah 66:15-17, 23-24:

For look, the Lord will come like a fire, and his chariots will come like a storm, to render his vengeance in wrath and his utter rejection in a flame of fire. For the whole earth will be judged by the fire of the Lord, and all flesh will be judged by his sword; there will be many casualties by the Lord. “Those who cleanse and purify themselves for the gardens and who eat swine’s flesh and abominable things and the mouse in the doorways will be destroyed all at once,” said the Lord.

And this will happen: All flesh will come to bow down before me month after month and Sabbath after Sabbath in Jerusalem,” said the Lord. “And they will go out and see the corpses of the humans who transgressed against me, for their worm does not die, and their fire will not be quenched, and they will become a spectacle for all flesh.”

Note the emphasis on the casualties. They are slain. Their corpses are left unburied, and open the elements. This is not a context in which the survival of those being punished is in view. Yet Beale ignores this completely. His assertion that the statement ‘their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched’ is ‘a clear reference to an unending punishment of conscious beings’ flies in the face of the evidence. Beale is inconsistent in how he appeals to the literary context of LXX 4 Maccabees 10:15 to clarify its meaning while ignoring entirely the literary context of LXX Isaiah 55:15 and 24. He follows sound exegetical practice when discussing a verse that can be seen as support for ECT but fails to apply the same process when discussing passages that do not support his view of hell.

Punishment as separation?

Beale thinks that 2 Thessalonians 1:9 teaches the final punishment of unbelievers is their eternal separation from God.

In 1:9 Paul defines this ongoing punishment as being separated from close relationship with God, “destruction in the sense of deprivation of the Lord’s presence” (Williams 1992:116). Unbelievers do not cease to exist because of God’s final judgment, but they are banned from ever existing in his presence (Richard 1995:308 rightly observes that the double use of from highlights not extinction of existence but a “ruin” that is defined as continued existence separate from Christ and lasting forever). If Paul had intended to convey a notion of annihilation, he could have merely said, they will be punished with everlasting destruction, without mentioning that those judged would be excluded from God’s presence. Thus, the punishment “fits the crime,” in that those who refuse to know God (1:8) and want to be separate from him in this life will be punished by being separated from God in the next life.11Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, 188–189.

Ὄλεθρος does not mean ‘separation’ or ‘deprivation’ in any other context in ancient Greek literature.12I have consulted the major lexica I own, including BGAD, s.v. “ὄλεθρος.”; BrillDAG, s.v. “ὄλεθρος.”; Louw-Nida, s.v. “ὄλεθρος.”; LSJ, s.v. “ὄλεθρος.”; and, CGL, s.v. “ὄλεθρος.” The noun certainly does not take this meaning in the three other instances Paul uses it, and it does not take on this meaning in the LXX. If Paul were to have used ὄλεθρος to denote a sense of destruction as separation or deprivation, then it would be a sui generis use of the word. This would demand the provision of indisputable evidence that Paul used this noun in a novel way.

Beale quotes David Williams and Earle Richard as support for his assertion. Neither of them offer a compelling reason to support Beale’s position. Their position that exclusion is in view is based on several lines of arguments. Williams points to Ephesians 2:12 (‘remember that you were at that time separated from Christ’) as evidence of a theme of separation from Christ in Paul’s theology. However, that is a different context entirely. It does not follow that since Paul described people as being separated from Christ before their salvation that he used ὄλεθρον αἰώνιον (‘eternal destruction’) to refer to the eternal separation of those suffering the final punishment. Besides, in Ephesians 2:12 Paul uses the word χωρίς (chōris), a word that usually denotes the notion of separation . This word is not used in either of the Thessalonian epistles. Instead, the preposition ἀπό (apo) does all the work for the traditionalist reading of 2 Thessalonians 1:9.

Williams also uncritically appeals to ἀπό as if it can only possibly mean ‘away from’ in this context and approvingly of the NIVs unjustifiable rendering of ἀπό as ‘shut out from’. Richard does cite Isaiah 2:10, which is commonly thought to be an OT source text for Paul’s language in 2 Thessalonians 1:9. Isaiah 2:10 reads as,

Enter into the rock and hide in the dust from before the terror of the Lord, and from the splendor of his majesty.

 

Richard fails to explain how Isaiah 2:10 supports a separation version of ECT. The implied argument is since the people are told to hide into caves then the idea of being in a place that is entirely removed from God justifies NIV’s rendering of ἀπό as ‘shut out from’ and the separation interpretation of 2 Thessalonians 1:9 generally. The LXX renders Isaiah 2:10 as ἀπὸ προσώπου τοῦ φόβου κυρίου (‘from the presence of the fear of the Lord’). To be sure, the preposition ἀπό is well capably of denoting the notion of separation of a person from another person. Yet, all of the major translations of the LXX refrain from rendering LXX Isaiah 2:10 in a way that comports with the notion of ‘shut out from’.

LEH

And now, enter into the rocks and hide in the earth from the face of the fear of the Lord and from the glory of his strength, when he rises to shatter the earth.

NETS

And now enter into the rocks, and hide in the earth, from before the fear of the Lord and from the glory of his strength, when he rises to crush the earth.

Brenton

Now therefore enter ye into the rocks, and hide yourselves in the earth, for fear of the Lord, and by reason of the glory of his might, when he shall arise to strike terribly the earth.

Rethinking Hell contributors Ronnie Demler and William Tanksley have discussed Paul’s use of ἀπό in an article here. They have shown how traditionalists misread Isaiah 2:10 by pointing out that people depicted there ‘are not hiding in a place separated away from their terror; they are hiding because of the presence of their terror.’ Demler and Tanksley are not alone in recognizing this.13See Graham S. Ogden and Jan Sterk, A Handbook on Isaiah, (United Bible Societies: 2011), 95; Gary V. Smith, Isaiah 1–39, (B & H Publishing Group: 2007), 139; Geoffrey W. Grogan, “Isaiah,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, (Zondervan Publishing House: 1986), 37.

Finally, it is worth noting Richard Ottley’s comments on the meaning of ἀπὸ προσώπου:

ἀπὸ προσώπου] A literal rendering of Heb. מפני, which is used almost as a simple preposition, sometimes meaning little more than ‘because of’: here the original meaning is hardly lost.14Richard R. Ottley, The Book of Isaiah according to the Septuagint, (Cambridge University Press: 1906), 113.

This supports Demler and Tanksley’s reading of Isaiah 2:10. The focus is on hiding because of fear of God’s punishment. One cannot be separated from their own emotions in a locative way. This being so, the mere fact that Isaiah 2:10 is the source for Paul’s language in 2 Thessalonians 1:9 is insufficient grounds for concluding that his use of ἀπὸ there should be regarded as denoting separation.

Beale’s favorable quotations of Williams and Richard without critical discussion suggests a willingness to only gather evidence that support the separative ECT reading of 2 Thessalonians 1:9. An example of this is seen in how Beale states that:

Richard … rightly observes that the double use of from highlights not extinction of existence but a “ruin” that is defined as continued existence separate from Christ and lasting forever.15Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, 188–189.

Neither Beale nor Richard explain why the double use of ἀπὸ denotes a ‘continued existence separate from Christ’. There is no provision of examples from undisputed texts showing how the dual use of ἀπὸ was a typical way separation was expressed using that preposition. It is merely asserted. This is not a compelling reason to adopt Beale’s reading of 2 Thessalonians 1:9. I contend that he cites this argument because of his intention to show that the ECT reading of this verse has merit. That Beale can state ‘Isaiah’s phrase underscores that idolaters will be forced to separate themselves from God’s presence at the time of judgment’16Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, 189. just after discussing Isaiah 66 where the corpses of God’s slain enemies speak to a mindset of an intention to marshal only the evidence that supports his view of hell.

Conclusion:

The case has been made that Beale does not follow the evidence when interpreting a verse like 2 Thessalonians 1:9. He is a traditionalist who wears his ECT lens when discussing this verse. It shows through in the way he omits even discussing aspects of Isaiah 66 that clearly mitigates against his view of hell. It shows through even as he uncritically cites other authors who share his view of hell. Beale has earned his reputation as a top NT scholar. Unfortunately, when it comes to a hell proof text like 2 Thessalonians 1:9, his ECT glasses lead him into eisegesis of that verse.

 

References
￪1 G.K. Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, (InterVarsity Press: 2003), 187.
￪2 1 Cor 5:5; 1 Thess 5:3; 1 Tim 6:9
￪3 LXX 1 Kings 13:34; Ezek 14:16–18; 3 Macc 6:30, 34
￪4 Jer 48:3; 51:55; Obad 1:13
￪5 Unless otherwise indicated quotations from the LXX will be from The Lexham English Septuagint.
￪6 Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, 188.
￪7 Unless otherwise indicated, the English translation of the LXX will be from LES.
￪8 Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, 188.
￪9 BGAD, s.v. “ὄλεθρος.” For the critical-text that has this variant see Robert Henry Chalrles, The Greek Versions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, (Oxford University Press: 1960), 12.
￪10 Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, 189.
￪11 Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, 188–189.
￪12 I have consulted the major lexica I own, including BGAD, s.v. “ὄλεθρος.”; BrillDAG, s.v. “ὄλεθρος.”; Louw-Nida, s.v. “ὄλεθρος.”; LSJ, s.v. “ὄλεθρος.”; and, CGL, s.v. “ὄλεθρος.” The noun certainly does not take this meaning in the three other instances Paul uses it, and it does not take on this meaning in the LXX.
￪13 See Graham S. Ogden and Jan Sterk, A Handbook on Isaiah, (United Bible Societies: 2011), 95; Gary V. Smith, Isaiah 1–39, (B & H Publishing Group: 2007), 139; Geoffrey W. Grogan, “Isaiah,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, (Zondervan Publishing House: 1986), 37.
￪14 Richard R. Ottley, The Book of Isaiah according to the Septuagint, (Cambridge University Press: 1906), 113.
￪15 Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, 188–189.
￪16 Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, 189.
Biblical Exegesis, Darren Clark, Universalism

Romans 5:18 Does not Support Universalism

Introduction:

Thomas Talbott is well known as a philosopher who has published books and articles in defense of universalism. He is generally well regarded in universalist circles. In an online article called How to Read the Bible from a Universalist Perspective, he discusses why he thinks Romans 5:18 is clear support for universalism. My goal in this article is to evaluate the reason he gives in his positive case for his reading of this verse.

Talbott’s argument:

Talbott begins by quoting Romans 5:18 in the following way.1Talbott uses the NRSV here. Unless otherwise indicated I will be using the ESV.

Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for

all [humans],

so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life

for [them] all.

Talbott obviously chose to present the verse like this to highlight the parallelism in this verse. He then explains the significance of this.

The whole point of such a parallel structure, so typical of Paul, is to identify a single group of individuals and to make two parallel statements about that single group of individuals, and the practical effect is therefore to eliminate any possibility of ambiguity. The very ones who came under condemnation, as a result of the first Adam’s act of disobedience, will eventually be brought to justification and life, as a result of the second Adam’s act of obedience. Or, as Paul put it in verse 19: the very ones who were constituted sinners, as a result of the first Adam’s act of disobedience, will eventually be constituted righteous, as a result of the second Adam’s act of obedience. I do not know how Paul could have expressed himself any more clearly than that.

Analysis of Talbott’s argument:

His entire case for the universalist reading of Romans 5:18 rests on the premise that the parallelism of the verse means both ‘all’ clauses refer to the exact same group of people. There is some merit to this in the sense that the use of parallelism means a similar basic notion is in view. In Romans 5:18a, there is one man’s act that has had consequences for ‘all’, and this is mirrored in Romans 5:18b where the one act of Christ has consequences for ‘all’. However, it does not follow that since Romans 5:18a refers to all humans who will have ever lived then Romans 5:18b does too.

Reasons why Talbott is incorrect:

For one thing, biblical parallelism generally is rooted in Hebrew poetic literature where parallel statements were not intended to be read as A = B.

The term “parallelism” has, unfortunately, spawned a common misunderstanding. Many people understand it to mean that a second poetic line merely restates or contrasts the point of the previous line in different words. They assume that an equal sign (=) links the lines together. Actually, parallelism is that phenomenon whereby two or more successive poetic lines dynamically strengthen, reinforce, and develop each other’s thought.2Emphasis by Klein et al. William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg & Robert L. Hubbard, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, 3rd ed., (Zondervan Academic: 2017), 373-374.

Being heavily influenced by the OT, the NT authors used parallelism to express aspects of their theology. This often occurred because the NT author would draw from OT passages containing parallelism but this is not always so. One example is found in Romans 4:25 which is structurally a parallelism.3It is tempting to list the many examples I have found over the years but this would be an unneeded digression since Talbott notes that Paul typically used parallelism in his writings.

who was delivered up for our trespasses

and was raised for our justification

ὃς παρεδόθη διὰ τὰ παραπτώματα ἡμῶν

καὶ ἠγέρθη διὰ τὴν δικαίωσιν ἡμῶν

Διὰ is polysemous so can be understood in several ways, which has led Pauline scholars to discuss the many possible ways Romans 4:25 could be interpreted. Most scholars do not think the Greek preposition διὰ (dia) has exactly the same meaning each time it is used in this verse. This is because interpretations where διὰ has the same meaning have significant problems.4For a discussion on the various problems facing those interpretations of Romans 4:25 which take διὰ as having the same meaning in each line of the verse see Michael Bird, ‘“Raised for Our Justification”: A fresh look at Romans 4:25’, in Colloquium, 35 (2003): 31-46; Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (William B. Eerdmans Publishing: 1996), 288-289. This shows that when Paul used polysemous words in parallel statements he did not necessarily intend the exact same meaning to apply in both lines of that statement.5This is in contrast to the parallelism of Matthew 10:28 where the way ἀπόλλυμι is used means it lacks its normal range of meaning (it can only mean ‘to slay’ there). In this case ἀπόλλυμι and ἀποκτείνω (‘to kill’) are synonymous. The parallelism there serves to develop an a fortiori logic through the use of synonyms. On this, see Glenn Peoples’s article The meaning of “apollumi” in the Synoptic Gospels Like διὰ, πᾶς (pas, ‘all’) can take on different senses in various contexts, depending on the referent being modified.6J. William Johnston, The Use of Πας in the New Testament, (Peter Lang: 2004), 57-58. This means any given passage where πᾶς is used could be taken in more than one way, even where parallelism is used. This is something that even Talbott tacitly admits as he does discuss possible contextual indicators that might impinge on our interpretation of Romans 5:18.

Regarding the parallelism in Romans 5:18, Paul has already stated twice that Adam’s trespass is not like the free gift of grace (Rom 5:15a, 16a). Adam’s sin allowed death to reign through him, but the gift is not simply the reversal of this result. A simple reversal would be that death no longer reigns over sinners. However, Paul goes out of his way to say that the gift brings ‘much more’ (Rom 15, 17) than this. Whereas Adam’s sin resulted in death reigning over those who sin, the free gift means those receiving the free gift will themselves continually reign through Christ. My point here is that Paul has gone out of his way to emphasize the two scenarios are not identical in terms of the result. This opens the door to the possibility that Paul did not intend εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους (‘for all men’) to be read as referring to the exact same ‘single group of individuals’ each time the phrase is used in the verse as Talbott supposes. Since the parallelism of Romans 5:18 is the only argument Talbott makes in his positive case for his reading of the verse, his argument has failed.

One of the ways we can know that Paul did not think all will receive the gift and reign in life is he tells us so in Romans 2:6-8:

For he will repay according to each one’s deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury.

Only one group of people will be given eternal life. They actively seek glory, honor and immortality through their actions. Later, Paul writes that the redemption that is in Christ is received through faith (Romans 3:24-25, c.f. 4:24-25). This is the context for his statement that ‘those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness’ (Rom 5:17). These are the people who are in view when Paul says ‘one act of righteousness leads to justification and life to all men’.

Conclusion:

Talbott, like many universalists, thinks that his particular reading of Romans 5:18 is the obvious one. His argument fails because he relied on a single positive argument on the structure of Romans 5:18. He does not defend his assumption about Paul’s use of parallelism in this verse. He simply asserts it. However, an awareness of the way parallelism is used by the biblical authors shows this is mistaken. This means Talbott needs to do much more to show his reading of that verse is warranted. As such, conditionalists can continue to be confident in our conclusion that Romans 5:18 does not support universalism.

 

 

References
￪1 Talbott uses the NRSV here. Unless otherwise indicated I will be using the ESV.
￪2 Emphasis by Klein et al. William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg & Robert L. Hubbard, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, 3rd ed., (Zondervan Academic: 2017), 373-374.
￪3 It is tempting to list the many examples I have found over the years but this would be an unneeded digression since Talbott notes that Paul typically used parallelism in his writings.
￪4 For a discussion on the various problems facing those interpretations of Romans 4:25 which take διὰ as having the same meaning in each line of the verse see Michael Bird, ‘“Raised for Our Justification”: A fresh look at Romans 4:25’, in Colloquium, 35 (2003): 31-46; Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (William B. Eerdmans Publishing: 1996), 288-289.
￪5 This is in contrast to the parallelism of Matthew 10:28 where the way ἀπόλλυμι is used means it lacks its normal range of meaning (it can only mean ‘to slay’ there). In this case ἀπόλλυμι and ἀποκτείνω (‘to kill’) are synonymous. The parallelism there serves to develop an a fortiori logic through the use of synonyms. On this, see Glenn Peoples’s article The meaning of “apollumi” in the Synoptic Gospels
￪6 J. William Johnston, The Use of Πας in the New Testament, (Peter Lang: 2004), 57-58.
Biblical Exegesis, Darren Clark, Glenn Peoples, Hermeneutics

Cutting through the noise: How Craig Ireland misses the best of conditionalist exegesis

Introduction:

Last year when Kirk Cameron announced he had come to accept annihilationism as the Scriptural view of hell, there was an explosion of responses from traditionalists from around the globe explaining why he was in error. Craig Ireland is one such traditionalist. Whilst Ireland is, as far as I know, not known on the global stage, he does seem to have a robust following in Brisbane, Australia. He posted several blog articles on his Substack page. I first encountered him on Facebook, where I noticed his posts had gained quite some attention from a very large number of annihilationists.1I am no longer on Facebook, which removed my account on the mistaken conclusion that I have been impersonating the real Darren J. Clark. That seems to warrant this short response. My intention with this article is to engage with Ireland’s charge that annihilationists are hermeneutically inconsistent, a charge he levels in his Substack article, Death by a Thousand Comments: What Three Thousand Annihilationists Taught me about Annihilationism. My main point is, though Ireland engaged with numerous annihilationists online, he does not appear to be aware of the stronger exegetical arguments for conditionalism.

In his article, Ireland gives two examples of annihilationist hermeneutical inconsistency, which I will discuss separately.

Matthew 25:46:

The heart of Ireland’s criticism of annihilationists handling of Matthew 25:46 is the way they would treat the word αἰώνιος (aiōnios) as it is used in this verse. Specifically, Ireland reports that;

Annihilationists frequently argued that aionios means “age-long” or “pertaining to the age” rather than “everlasting.” They insisted that the punishment could be finite in duration while life is infinite.

The basis of his response is the argument that the same word (αἰώνιος, aiōnios) used twice in the same sentence must have the same meaning. This is an ancient argument. The earliest expression of this argument I have found is from Augustine.

Then what a fond fancy is it to suppose that eternal punishment means long continued punishment, while eternal life means life without end, since Christ in the very same passage spoke of both in similar terms in one and the same sentence, “These shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into life eternal!” 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.2Saint Augustine, The Complete Works of Saint Augustine, Kindle ed. (No publisher given, 2013), Kindle loc. 21975-21981.

In the past I have contemplated the worth of pointing out that traditionalists making this argument could run into problems if universalists were to make the same argument about Romans 5:18. It is not simply that ‘all’ (πᾶς, pas) is used twice in the same sentence. There are parallel prepositional phrases which mirror that found in Matthew 25:46;

Mateo 25:46

And these will go away into eternal punishment (εἰς κόλασιν αἰώνιον),

but the righteous into eternal life (εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον).

Romans 5:18

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men (εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους)

one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men (εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους).3Edit: Thomas Talbott makes this point in his

 

 

‘The whole point of such a parallel structure, so typical of Paul, is to identify a single group of individuals and to make two parallel statements about that single group of individuals, and the practical effect is therefore to eliminate any possibility of ambiguity. The very ones who came under condemnation, as a result of the first Adam’s act of disobedience, will eventually be brought to justification and life, as a result of the second Adam’s act of obedience.’

Being a traditionalist, Ireland does not think that all will finally be justified. Yet universalists would be able to use his own argument against him, insisting that since the same word ‘all’ (πᾶς, pas) is used twice in the same sentence, then Romans 5:18 must be interpreted as saying all will be justified. I have no doubt Ireland would be able to think of a response of some sort, but he still will be subject to the charge that he treats ‘all’ (πᾶς, pas) with a different sense. His only viable option is to argue that πᾶς does mean ‘all’ in both clauses in Roman 5:18, but the individual clauses ‘one trespass led to condemnation for all men’ and ‘one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for fall men’ refer to different groups of people. In the first clause, the idea is all who are in Adam and sinned are condemned, while in the second clause, the idea is all who are in Christ are justified and find life. Ireland would only need to argue that not all end up being in Christ so they are not included in the group referenced in Romans 5:18b. “All” (πᾶς, pas) is taken with the same sense in each clause, but two different groups are in view. This helps shed light on the fallacy of Ireland’s argument. The mere fact the same word is used twice in the same sentence with the same sense does not necessarily mean the exact same concept is communicated in the clauses in which they are used.

Bringing this back to Matthew 25:46, I do think that αἰώνιος (aiōnios) means ‘eternal’ both times it is used there. However, this does not necessarily support the conclusion that since the righteous will live forever, then the unrighteous will also experience their punishment forever. A key point to make at this juncture is at a conceptual level being dead permanently does qualify as an eternal punishment. Johnathan Edwards (while arguing against conditional immortality) explains it this way;

For, if it be owned, that Scripture expressions denote a punishment that is properly eternal, but that it is in no other sense properly so, than as the annihilation, or state of non-existence, to which the wicked shall return, will be eternal; and that this eternal annihilation is that death which is so often threatened for sin, perishing far ever, everlasting destruction, being lost, utterly consumed, See. and that the fire of hell is called eternal fire, in the same sense that the external fire which consumed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha is called eternal fire, Jude 7. because it utterly consumed those cities, that they might never be built more; and that this fire is called that which cannot be quenched, or at least not until it has destroyed them that are cast into it. If this be all that these expressions denote, then they do not at all signify the length of the torments, or long continuance of their misery; so that the supposition of the length of their torments is brought in without any necessity, the Scripture saying nothing of it, having no respect to it, when it speaks of their everlasting punishments; and it answers the scripture expressions as well, to suppose that they shall be annihilated immediately, without any long pains, provided the annihilation be everlasting.4Jonathan Edwards, The Works of President Edwards: With a Memoir of His Life, (G. & C. & H. Carvill: 1830), 401.

Edwards is saying that if the annihilation of the person is permanent, then it truly does mean the punishment of that person is eternal. From my perspective, this means that ‘eternal punishment’ can legitimately refer to the eternal privation of life of the punished. Their punishment is truly eternal. Ireland might have other arguments to bring to bear against this reading of Matthew 25:46a, but he cannot press his argument from the dual usage of αἰώνιος because I – and all the leaders of the Rethinking Hell team – accept it does mean ‘eternal’ both times it is used there.

The meaning of ἀπόλλυμι:

Ireland also takes aim at annihilationists over the word ἀπόλλυμι;

The same inconsistency appeared with apollumi, the Greek verb often translated “destroy” or “perish.” Annihilationists pressed the word into meaning “cessation of existence.” But apollumi does not require this meaning. The lost sheep was apollumi. The lost coin was apollumi. The prodigal son was apollumi. All three maintained existence. The word means ruin, loss, devastation, and separation. It never means extinction.

While it is true that ἀπόλλυμι is polysemous, it is also true that the way this verb is used in each context dictates which meaning is in view. For instance, though ἀπόλλυμι means ‘lost’ in Luke 15:24 and 32, it means ‘perish’ in Luke 15:17 where the prodigal son exclaims, ‘I perish (ἀπόλλυμι) here with hunger!’ I doubt Ireland would think that the son meant anything other than that he was close to death. Likewise, there are distinct differences in saying a coin is lost (Luke 15:8) and talking about losing a hand or eye (Matt 5:29-30). The coin is lost because it has been misplaced, while body parts are lost because they are severed from the body and so are destroyed. I doubt Ireland thinks Matthew 5:29-20 has Jesus saying eyes and hands could be misplaced. Context matters. Often when words like ἀπόλλυμι are used in one context, some of its possible nuances are not available because of that context. Ireland knows this.

Ireland would likely push back on the contention that even the prodigal son would not cease to exist when he died. This is obviously because he can say the son’s soul remains alive, though his body died. This is a view that many conditionalists also hold. This brings us to the much quoted statement from Matthew 10:28, which many think is explicit on this point. However, even granting Ireland’s point of view that Matthew 10:28a teaches humans have a soul that cannot be killed, Matthew 10:28b has in view a scenario where the soul is killed along with the body in Gehenna.

Glenn Peoples has an article called The Meaning of “Apollumi” in the Synoptic Gospels, in which he does a stellar job of showing that when ἀπόλλυμι is used in the Synoptics in a context where one person (or group of people) is said to ‘destroy’ another person, the idea in view is always that they intend to slay that person. Peoples provides several examples to demonstrate this. I think his point can be made even more clearly when we note that Matthew uses ἀπόλλυμ interchangeably with a standard verb for ‘kill’, ἀποκτείνω (apokteinō).

 

Matt 2:13, Herod is about … to destroy (ἀπόλλυμι) him;

Matt 12:14, Pharisees … conspired … to destroy (ἀπόλλυμι) him;

Matt 14:5 though he wanted to put him to death (ἀποκτείνω);

Matt 16:21 they will kill him (ἀποκτείνω), and he will be raised on the third day;

Matt 21:35 the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed (ἀποκτείνω) another;

Matt , 21:38 Come, let us kill (ἀποκτείνω) him;

Matt 21:39, they… killed (ἀποκτείνω) him;

Matt 21:41, He will put those wretches to a miserable death (ἀπόλλυμι);

Matt 22:6, the rest seized his servants… and killed (ἀποκτείνω) them;

Matt 22:7 The king … destroyed (ἀπόλλυμι) those murderers;

Matt 23:34, some of whom you will kill (ἀποκτείνω);

Matt 23:37, the city that kills (ἀποκτείνω) the prophets;

Matt 24:9, they will … put you to death (ἀποκτείνω);

Matt 26:3-4, the chief priests and the elders … and plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him (ἀποκτείνω).

Matt 27:20 the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to … destroy (ἀπόλλυμι) Jesus.

Ἀποκτείνω and ἀπόλλυμι are synonymous when used in the context of one person killing another. Matthew does not deviate from this at any point in his Gospel. This means Matthew used ἀπόλλυμι in Matthew 10:28b because he wanted to say the soul and body can be killed in Gehenna — and this is necessary, since Jesus just said to not fear those who cannot kill the soul. In these contexts, there is no semantic range of ἀπόλλυμι.5Peoples makes this point in his article linked above.

The question for Ireland, then, is what does he think happens to a person whose soul has been killed along with the body? Ireland, like most traditionalists, may simply not give an answer, though it is easy enough to do so. If the soul is killed along with the body. then there can be no conscious existence of the person. Conditionalists need not argue that ἀπόλλυμι means ‘to render non-existent’. We simply follow the exegesis, noting how Matthew normally uses ἀπόλλυμι in various contexts.

Conclusion:

Ireland employs standard arguments against conditionalist exegesis, claiming we apply our interpretive principles selectively. He may have interacted with a large number of annihilationists who offered numerous exegetical arguments. But his article shows his criticism of conditionalist exegesis is generally superficial and betrays his lack of awareness of what Chris Date or Glenn Peoples might argue when defending our view of hell. If Ireland ever happens to read this article, I hope that he is prompted to investigate the more robust arguments offered for conditionalism at Rethinking Hell.

 

 

References
￪1 I am no longer on Facebook, which removed my account on the mistaken conclusion that I have been impersonating the real Darren J. Clark.
￪2 Saint Augustine, The Complete Works of Saint Augustine, Kindle ed. (No publisher given, 2013), Kindle loc. 21975-21981.
￪3 Edit: Thomas Talbott makes this point in his

 

 

‘The whole point of such a parallel structure, so typical of Paul, is to identify a single group of individuals and to make two parallel statements about that single group of individuals, and the practical effect is therefore to eliminate any possibility of ambiguity. The very ones who came under condemnation, as a result of the first Adam’s act of disobedience, will eventually be brought to justification and life, as a result of the second Adam’s act of obedience.’

￪4 Jonathan Edwards, The Works of President Edwards: With a Memoir of His Life, (G. & C. & H. Carvill: 1830), 401.
￪5 Peoples makes this point in his article linked above.
Biblical Exegesis, Darren Clark, Debates, Hermeneutics

Wood vs Paterson: the art of the smoke and mirror fallacy

Introduction

Last year, Dan Paterson from Questioning Christianity participated in an impromptu discussion on the final fate of the lost on the Premier Unbelievable? YouTube channel with a universalist named Jordan Wood. I am not going to review the entire discussion as Chris Date, Mark Corbett, and Dan Paterson have already done so here. Rather, I want to offer my thoughts on a single debate point discussed during the discussion. I will include a link to the timestamp of this exchange here. Specifically, one of the reasons Paterson gives for rejecting universalism is the biblical passages where ‘perishing is directly contrasted against the eternal life for those who do believe.’ Paterson offers 2 Peter 3:9 as an example.

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.1Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes from the English Bible will be from the ESV.

He then cites John 3:16.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Paterson is quite clear that he has in view the final fate of people.

The perishing is the thing that does not ultimately happen for those who trust in Jesus rather than being something that is subsumed within those who trust in Jesus.

I think it would be fruitful to quote Wood’s response to Paterson and then make a few comments.

I think the first thing is that … death and life seem to be similarly contrasting ideas or conceptions. And yet in Christ we have both. Christ dies, but he’s also resurrected. I wouldn’t say that because he’s resurrected, he didn’t die. He didn’t perish in the sense of death, the separation of body and soul or any of that. In fact, I think Paul insists that we must not only say that it’s that he died, but that because he died, therefore all died. Our death is so tied up into the death of the son of God that in a kind of bizarre sense this the death of the Son of God even makes our death not only possible but possibly remedial. So unless we want to say that Christ didn’t really die because death and life are two different fates. I would say Christ himself makes something possible that seems to our logical minds impossible which is exactly of course the claim of the resurrection from the dead anyway. So I think … in that sense you already have it integrated and not only does it just happen to be integrated but it’s necessarily integrated into the very heart of the gospel of the dead and resurrected Christ. The lamb who was slain but now and who can even be seen right in revelation as the lamb who was slain reigning on the throne. Well those right there are an intentional blending of two seemingly opposite things. And yet that’s the mystery. That’s the glory. That’s the power. The manifestation of God’s power is the bringing together the opposites.

I think I can show that this is a case of the smoke-and-mirrors fallacy. The smoke-and-mirrors fallacy occurs when a person gives a lot of information, but on closer examination, it turns out to be only the appearance of substance. It happens when most of what a person says does not properly address the argument of their opponent.2I do not intend to say or imply that Wood was dishonest, just that his response the appearance of rebutting Paterson’s argument when it does no such thing.

 

Preliminary thoughts

A preliminary issue to address is Wood’s admission that Christ died and resurrected. This is a mundane point to make, but it is necessary at this juncture, since Wood wants to counter Paterson’s contrast argument (‘perishing is directly contrasted against the eternal life for those who do believe’). Wood thinks that if he can show the Bible refers to believers being dead and alive at the same time, then he has an escape route from Paterson’s position. However, at the heart of NT (especially Paul’s) soteriology is the conviction that what happened to Christ (he died and was resurrected) is considered true of believers (we die and then are resurrected). Keeping this in mind will help prevent us from overreading statements from Paul that might at first blush seem to support Wood’s position.

A second preliminary point I wish to make concerns Wood’s argument that he would not say that, since Christ was resurrected, he did not die. I think this is a form of the motte-and-bailey fallacy. Normally, the motte and bailey fallacy happens when a person makes a hard-to-defend claim (the bailey) and, when challenged, retreats to an easier-to-defend claim (the motte). In this case, Wood immediately retreated to the motte: the statement that Christ’s resurrection does not mean he did not die. This is perhaps the easiest statement to defend, since everyone would agree with it. Christ’s resurrection doesn’t mean he did not die (it would be impossible to have a resurrection without dying). We can wholeheartedly agree with Wood that the resurrection of Christ cannot mean that he did not die, while also affirming without contradiction that there are two ultimate fates that humans face: death or life. This means that while much of Wood’s argument rests on his argument, it fails to support his rebuttal of Paterson’s statement. This, then, is a red herring that I hope does not lead people to think Wood has made some kind of telling blow against Paterson’s argument.

For the rest of this article, I will focus on three questions impinging on this debate. First, does the fact that believers have life and death in Christ offer a sufficient basis for Wood’s counterargument? Second, does the statement ‘therefore all died’ (c.f. 2 Cor 5:14) provide sufficient warrant to suppose that what happens to believers applies universally? Has Wood omitted discussing data that unequivocally shows Paterson is correct?

 

Understanding Paul’s prolepsis

There is not sufficient space in this argument to discuss NT soteriology in full. Since Wood quotes Paul (2 Cor 5:14), I will focus on some of Paul’s statements that relate to this subject. To properly understand Paul’s soteriology, one must come to grips with how he used prolepsis in discussing the implications of the union between believers and Christ. Prolepsis is a common device used in literature and on the screen that can be used flexibly.3Joseph Dear has written on this subject for Rethinking Hell here, here, and here. For instance, the movie Dead Man Walking (1995) is about a Catholic nun who helps a death-row inmate confront his past as his execution date approaches. Given the context, it would be ludicrous to suggest that simply because ‘Dead Man Walking’ is a reference to this man, then he is somehow pictured as being dead and alive at the same time.4Incidentally, ‘Dead man walking’ also has a dictionary entry, ‘a condemned man walking from his prison to prison cell to a place of execution’. An older example of prolepsis is found in John Keats’s poem Isabella (1820): ‘So the two brothers and their murdered man Rode past fair Florence’. This is the proleptic anticipation of the assassination of a living character.

Prolepsis is also a normal feature of biblical rhetoric. For instance, in Genesis 3:20, Eve is referred to as the mother of all living people before she has had any children. Obviously, people do not think this means Eve is a woman who has not yet given birth and has literally given birth to children. In Joshua 6:2, God tells Joshua that he has defeated Jericho before this happens. Obviously, people do not surmise that Joshua is simultaneously someone who has not yet won a battle and has literally won one. We understand such rhetorical devices as ways of speaking about a person as if a future event had already happened.

Paul’s soteriological reasons for using prolepsis concern the need to show that Christ’s death and resurrection have implications for believers in this age. Underlying this concern is Paul’s need to establish reasons why believers can and should cease sinning. One passage where this can be seen is Romans 5-6. In Romans 5, Paul affirms that death spread throughout the world because people sin. Just as Adam’s act of sin led to his death, so also acts of sin by other people are the reason they too die (c.f. Rom 1:32). The fact that people sin is why death spread throughout the world (Rom 5:12). There is more to note, though. Throughout Romans 5-6, Paul refers to death as a power that rules over those who sin (Rom 5:14, 17; 6:9), while sin reigns through death (Rom 5:20-21). Humans are enslaved to sin (Rom 6:6). At a theological level, Paul needs to show why believers are no longer enslaved to sin in this age.

Romans 6 is Paul’s answer to that problem. Romans 6 is concerned with answering the question: ‘How can we who died to sin still live in it?’ The answer to this question lies in Paul’s insistence that Christ’s death and resurrection are to be regarded as our death and resurrection (Rom 6:3-5). Our participation in his death and resurrection means sin (Rom 6:6-7, 12, 14) and death are no longer our masters (Rom 6:9, 11). The key point to note is that this is true only for believers, because Christ’s past death and resurrection are reckoned to be our past death and resurrection. This is similar to Ephesians 2:6, Paul goes so far as to say that God has already ‘seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus’. Any living believer can verify that they have not, in fact, ascended to sit beside Christ. Likewise, we can testify that we have, in fact, not yet died and been resurrected. This is how you can know that Paul was using the literary device of prolepsis.

There is a twist, though. Normally, with prolepsis, a writer speaks of a future event as if it has already happened to a person. When Paul uses this device in passages like Romans 6, he is saying Jesus’s past death and resurrection have implications for believers in the present and in the future. In the present, believers can reckon themselves to be freed from enslavement to sin and death (Rom 6:11). Christ’s death is reckoned to be our death, so we can consider ourselves to be dead to sin. A keyword here is ‘reckon’ (Rom 6:11).5The Greek word Paul uses is λογίζομαι (logizomai). There does not appear to be any special nuance to this word. In a context like Romans 6:11, λογίζομαι just means ‘reckon’ or ‘consider’. Paul’s use of this word shows that he did not think believers have actually died and been resurrected in this age, but that we can think and act as if this has already happened to us. This also explains why Paul could write as if he thought his audience had already been resurrected in one context (Eph 2:6, ‘made us alive together with Christ’) but write of our future resurrection in another context (1 Cor 15:20-24, ‘so also in Christ shall all be made alive’).

All of this helps us understand passages such as Romans 6:3-5:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

There is a present-tense truth here, unpacked through the literary device of prolepsis. Though believers will die in the future, our participation in Christ’s death means Paul can talk as if believers have already died. The sense of death here is the same as what we mean when we say Christ died. It is the loss of life. We can consider ourselves no longer enslaved to sin because Christ’s loss of life on the cross is counted as if believers had actually died. This is a different sense of dying we see in Ephesians, where it more refers to a lifestyle that makes sinners as if they are dead to God. Likewise, being able to ‘walk in newness of life’ means living a lifestyle that is congruent with what God wants believers to live. This is a different sense of living that is expressed in Romans 6:5, where Paul refers to the future resurrection of believers (‘we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his’). All of this means believers are never both alive and dead in the same sense at the same time.6I acknowledge Willian Tanksley for bringing this truth to my attention. Just as with Christ, the actual death and resurrection of believers are sequential events in time. Christ was never dead and alive at the same time, and this is the same for believers. This being so, Wood contention that there is ‘an intentional blending of two seemingly opposite things’ is an inaccurate oversimplification of Paul’s thought. It means Wood has not provided a legitimate counter-example to Paterson’s argument.

 

Does 2 Corinthians 5:14 support Wood’s argument?

If Wood can show that Paul was a universalist, then he would have given good reason to think that Paterson was incorrect in saying there are two possible fates in store for people. However, Wood seemingly smuggles in an implied argument from the language of ‘all’.

I think Paul insists that we must not only say that it’s that he died, but that because he died, therefore all died.

Wood has 2 Corinthians 5:14 in mind.

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died.

Wood does not explicitly argue that this is evidence that everyone who has ever lived will eventually be saved, but it is patently clear that this is his argument. The idea is that if Paul thought all humanity would eventually be saved because all humans have died because Christ died for all humans, then what Paul says about his believing audience in other contexts is applicable to every person who has ever lived. Since this is an implied argument, Wood’s audience is left to infer that his argument hangs on the contention that ‘all’ (πᾶς, pas) is used absolutely, so Paul had all humans in view.

I would contend that the evidence points to another conclusion. In his book The Use of Πᾶς in the New Testament, J. William Johnston discusses his methodology for analyzing the use of πᾶς. Johnstone outlines two aspects of his methodology. First, there are syntactical considerations. Broadly speaking, syntactical considerations refer to how the combination of πᾶς with other words affects the sense of this word.7Johnstone gives the example of the use of the article in the following phrase, πᾶσα ἡ πόλις (Matt 8:34) which can be contrasted with the anarthrous phrase πᾶσα πόλις (Matt 12:25). In Matthew 8:34, the use of the article (ἡ, hé) dictates that πᾶς has the sense of ‘whole’ (πᾶσα ἡ πόλις = ‘the whole city’). In Matthew 12:25 could mean πᾶς has the sense of ‘every’ (πᾶσα πόλις = ‘every city’). Greek nouns can be definite even without the use of the article so Matthew 12:25 could possibly be regarded as having an implied article so ‘the whole city’ is in view. In effect, this just illustrates the way the use of the article can affect the sense of πᾶς. J. William Johnston, The Use of Πᾶς in the New Testament, (Peter Lang Publishing: 2004), 34. Second, there are contextual considerations. This concerns how literary context affects the scope of πᾶς. Johnstone explains it this way,

At another level, the scope of πᾶς is often further qualified by the context in which it is found. The sense suggested by the syntax of πᾶς may often be modified by semantic and contextual features that must be considered in making a final determination of meaning.8Ibid., 34.

In this respect, πᾶς is similar to the English word ‘all’, since both are often modified by context. For instance, if I were talking about children in the schoolyard and the sudden onset of a violent storm, I might go on to say ‘all are safe’. In this context, I do not mean all people everywhere are safe. I mean, all the children who were in the schoolyard are safe. An example from Paul may be found in 1 Corinthians 9:20-22:

To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.

When Paul wrote ‘I have become all things (τοῖς πᾶσιν) to all people’, he was referring to the specific examples he had just mentioned. This and the previous scenario of the use of the English word ‘all’ are instances when someone refers back to a previous subject in a way that limits the scope of who is included in the ‘all’.

In the preceding context of 2 Corinthians 5:14 we find that Paul uses ‘we’ language: ‘we have this treasure in jars of clay’ (2 Cor 4:7), ‘We are afflicted in every way’ (4:8), ‘but not destroyed’ (4:9), ‘the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies’, ‘always carrying9Paul uses the present active plural participle, περιφέροντες, which modifies ἔχομεν (‘we have’) from the beginning of 2 Corinthians 4:7. in the body the death of Jesus, the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies’ (4:10), ‘we who live … the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh’ (4:11), ‘we have the same spirit of faith … we also believe’ (4:13), ‘he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you10The word ‘you’ is plural here. into his presence (4:14), ‘we have a building from God’ (5:1), ‘we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life’ (5:4), ‘we walk by faith, not by sight’ (5:7), and ‘the love of Christ controls us’ (5:14). The repetition of this ‘we’ language is one indicator that Paul primarily has in mind what is true for his believing audience.

Furthermore, in 2 Corinthians 4:11, he speaks of his audience as οἱ ζῶντες (‘those who live’). In 2 Corinthians 4:9, he says these people are οὐκ ἀπολλύμενοι (‘not destroyed’). We can compare this to how he references unbelievers as τοῖς ἀπολλυμένοις ‘those who are perishing’ (2 Cor 4:3). The participles ἀπολλύμενοι and ἀπολλυμένοις are from the much-debated word for ‘destroy’, ἀπόλλυμι. Setting aside the question of what ἀπόλλυμι may mean in this context, it can be seen that Paul uses οἱ ζῶντες to refer to people who already believe. He is not using it for every person who has lived on earth. This is important to note because Paul’s statement in 2 Corinthians 5:14 that ‘one has died for all, therefore all have died’ is part of a broader parallel statement spanning v14b to v15:

one has died for all

therefore all have died;

he died for all

that those who live (οἱ ζῶντες) might no longer live for themselves

Note how Paul used οἱ ζῶντες in the second part of this statement. As noted above, the designation οἱ ζῶντες is how Paul refers to those who already believe, as opposed to unbelievers. This and Paul’s use of ‘we’ language is exactly the same kind of contextual information seen in my schoolyard analogy. This information shows that ‘died for all’ and ‘all have died’ are not instances in which Paul intended to use πᾶς (‘all’) in its absolute sense.

Another line of evidence that supports this conclusion is that Paul uses the aorist tense with ‘have died’ (v14b). Aorist indicative verbs, such as the one Paul uses, generally refer to ‘past time with reference to the time of speaking’.11Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An exegetical syntax of the New Testament, (Zondervan: 1996), 555. This makes perfect sense, where he is referring to people who have already come to a saving faith in Christ. They have believed, and so they can be said to have died because they have participated in his death and resurrection. Paul spells this out in some detail in Romans 6. On the other hand, Paul refers to unbelievers as those who were still perishing (2 Cor 4:3) and are ‘dead in the trespasses and sins’ (Eph 2:1). They are people who do not believe and so remain slaves to sin and death. It would, then, be theologically absurd to say that these people have already died as if they have already participated in Christ’s death.

Like many universalists, Wood has quoted 2 Corinthians 5:14 as if that were all he needed to show that Paul was a universalist. I have shown from the context of this verse that Paul was not using πᾶς (‘all’) absolutely. If Wood (and any other universalist reading this article) continues to maintain that ‘all died’ must be taken absolutely, then I invite him to explain how the context of the verse supports the universalist conclusion. Simply replying on the word πᾶς (‘all’) alone is not enough to win the debate.

 

Has Wood omitted discussing data that shows Paterson is correct?

The answer to this is yes.

In Romans 6:19-22, Paul states that his believing audience had been destined to suffer death but were now destined to eternal life:

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

This is exactly the kind of contrast that Paterson had in mind, and it completely undermines Wood’s argument. Notice that Paul contrasts the outcome of the path his believing audience was on with the outcome of the path they are on now. Though ‘fruit’ can be used in a variety of ways in the Bible, it was also ‘a common metaphor for the outcome of one’s behavior’.12Frank Thielman & Clinton Arnold, Romans, (Zondervan Academic: 2018), no page given, available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/581251, (Accessed: 2 January 2026); Richard Longenecker, The Epistle to the Romans, (William. B. Eerdmans Publishing: 2016), 136. Examples of this usage of the motif can be found in Psalm 104:13,13‘From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.’ Jeremiah 6:19;14Hear, O earth; behold, I am bringing disaster upon this people, the fruit of their devices, because they have not paid attention to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it. 17:10;15‘I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.’ LXX Prov 11:30,16From the fruit of righteousness grows a tree of life, but souls of the lawbreakers are removed before their time. (The Lexham English Septuagint) and Matthew 7:15-18.17Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. Frank Thielman and Clinton Arnold point to an example in secular Greek literature.18“In every dealing there is nothing worse than bad companions,” says Eteocles in Aeschylus’s play, Seven Against Thebes (600–601), “let that bitter fruit [καρπός] never be plucked. The field of folly yields death as its harvest [θάνατον ἐκκαρπίζεται].’ Frank Thielman & Clinton Arnold, Romans, no page given.

I would also suggest that Paul had Genesis 3 in mind when writing Romans 6:21-22. Paul has already stated that sin and death came into this world through Adam, with subsequent generations going on to sin and die (Rom 5:12, 14-15a, 17). He clearly had been reflecting on the early part of Genesis when composing this section of Romans. We can also note that in the early part of Genesis 3, Eve is convinced by a crafty talking serpent to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, an act that God had previously forbidden (Gen 2:17), as this would cause those who ate that fruit to die.19I am well aware of the debate over whether the clause ‘in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’ refers to separation from God, ordinary death, or both. Chris Date has produced a short video here that well summarizes the official Rethinking Hell view on that subject. I do not intend to speak into that debate here as the argument I will make below stands regardless of whether death is viewed as the cessation of life or as separation from God. In LXX Genesis 3:2-6, the word καρπός (karpos) is used to refer to the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The consequence of eating from the forbidden tree includes death. This is seen when God tells Adam that he will return to dust (Gen 3:19). In this context, the return to dust is presented as a reversal of the creation of Adam (v19, ‘…you return to the ground … out of it you were taken … you are dust … to dust you shall return’). In Genesis’s own terms, death is the reversal of the creation of humans. It is ‘decreation’ of the person.20This is true regardless of whether Genesis 3 also presents death as separation from God. This ‘decreation’ of Adam and Eve would eventually happen precisely because they are denied access to the fruit of the Tree of Life when they were expelled from Eden to ensure they would not live forever (Gen 3:22). Adam did end up living an extremely long time (Gen 5:5). As long as this life was, it still had an end.

The Hebrew word translated as ‘forever’,ʿôlām, is heavily debated. I do not intend to enter that debate here. John Walton summarizes his study of the OT use of ʿôlām.

Careful study of the term that the NIV translates “forever” has demonstrated that it is not an abstract term, suggesting infinity or eternity per se, but characterizes something as being open-ended, with no anticipated ending built in. It is better translated “perpetual life,” suggesting that the fruit constantly counteracts any aging.21John H. Walton, Genesis (Zondervan Academic: 2001),170.

Even if death in Genesis is presented as separation from God, it is still true that a result of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden. This meant they would be able to eat the fruit of the tree of life and so would not live perpetually. They would go on to die an ordinary death. In my estimation, this is the most likely backdrop for Paul’s thought in Romans 6:21-22, which is part of a passage where he had been talking about the actual death of Christ being counted as the actual death of believers. That backdrop indicates that Paul had ordinary death in mind with ‘For the end of those things is death’ (Rom 6:21) and the promise that believers will be alive forever with ‘eternal life’ (Rom 6:22).

Another piece of evidence for my reading of Romans 6:21-22 is Paul’s use of the noun τέλος (telos). Τέλος is polysemous. However, when used with reference to the goal, end, completion, or consummation of something, it emphasizes the outcome. At times, it is context that dictates which nuance of τέλος is in view. Still, often it is the use of this noun in combination with other words that gives the word its sense.22See BDAG and BrillDAG, “τέλος”, for examples. This is something I wish to note because there is always the temptation to cherry-pick lexical glosses when debating the meaning of passages.

There is a particular usage of τέλος that is relevant for our discussion of Romans 6:21-22. When used with words capable of taking the genitive case,23For a brief introduction to the use of the case system in Greek see here. τέλος refers to the final end of something. For instance, Appian uses τέλος in this way when writing about how Hannibal’s invasion of Italy came to an ‘end’ (τέλος) (The Hannibalic War 61).24‘When Hannibal had departed from Italy the Senate pardoned all the Italian peoples who had sided with him, and voted a general amnesty except as to the Bruttians, who remained most zealous for him to the end. From these they took away a considerable part of their land, also their arms, if there were any that Hannibal had not taken. They were also forbidden to be enrolled in the military forces thereafter, as being no longer free persons, and they were required to attend as servants upon the consuls and praetors who went about inspecting the affairs of government and the public works of the provinces. Such was the end (τέλος) of Hannibal’s invasion of Italy.’ Hannibal had left Italy, and so the invasion had ended. In LXX Wisdom of Sol 14:14, we are told that there will be a speedy ‘end’ (τέλος) to idols. Several Greek lexicons note instances in Greek literature when τέλος was used with nouns in the genitive case to refer to a ​​​​​​person’s death. For instance, BrillDAG quotes Homer’s use of τέλος in Iliad 3.309, Ζεύς … οἶδε … ὁπποτέρῳ θανάτοιο τέλος πεπρωμένον ἐστίν Zeus, (trans., ‘Zeus … knows for which of the two death is fated’), and Hesiod’s use of the word in Works and Days 166, τοὺς μέν θανάτου τέλος ἀμφεκάλυψε, (trans., ‘the fate of death covered some of them’).25BrillDAG, “τέλος.” LSJ quotes Xenophon’s use of τέλος in Cyropaedia 8.7.6 (ἐμοὶ μὲν τοῦ βίου τὸ τέλος ἤδη πάρεστιν, trans. ‘the end of my life is now at hand’) and Demosthenes’s use of that noun in Against Eubulides 57.27 (πᾶσίν ἐστιν ἀνθρώποις τέλος τοῦ βίου θάνατος, trans. “Yet for all men the end of life is death”). BrillDAG notes Sophocles use of τέλος in this way in Oedipus at Colonus 1530 (χὤταν εἰς τέλος τοῦ ζῆν ἀφικνῇ, tran. ‘when you reach the end of life’.26BrillDAG, “τέλος.”

I have found other examples. In Against Apion 2.144, Josephus wrote of Apion dying in torment due to an infection caused by an ulcer on a sensitive part of his body: τοῦτο μὲν Ἀπίωνι τοῦ βίου τὸ τέλος (“And this was the end of Apion’s life”). Likewise, ordinary death is in view in LXX Ecclesiastes 7:3.

It is better to go to the house of sorrow than to go to the house of drinking, as this is the end of every person, and the one who lives shall give a good thing into his heart.27LES, 2nd ed.

The phrase ‘this is the end of everyone’ renders τοῦτο τέλος παντὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. It is a statement that everyone inevitably dies. In Hebrews 7:3, Melchizedek is presented as one who will not die (μήτε ἀρχὴν ἡμερῶν μήτε ζωῆς τέλος ἔχων, ‘having neither beginning of days nor end of life’).

The point is, the use of τέλος with a word capable of taking the genitive case was a way of talking about the ordinary death of a person. It is highly likely he chose to use τέλος with a demonstrative pronoun in the genitive case in verse 21 because it was a normal way of referring to the death of someone. Moreover, it is a way of referring to a person’s ultimate fate.

This second aspect of my point means my argument in response to Wood does not stand or fall on the definition of ‘death’. Even if death refers to something like separation from God, it is still the ultimate fate of the person who sins. Death is still the ultimate outcome of a life of sin. Paul also sets this in direct contrast with the ultimate fate of eternal life (v23), the final outcome of a life of sanctification. This is precisely the contrast that Paterson had in mind in his discussion with Wood.

Now, Wood might reply that Paul was addressing people who had successfully changed from a trajectory that would end in their ultimate death to one that would end in their possessing eternal life. He would be correct. However, Paul is quite clear in Philippians 3:19 that the final fate of the enemies of the cross is their destruction. The exact phraseology Paul uses is ὧν τὸ τέλος ἀπώλεια. The copula ἐστὶν (‘is’) is implied, and the phrase is to be regarded as an equative clause. 28Stanley Porter and David Yoon, Romans: A Handbook on the Greek Text, (Baylor University Press: 2023), 366. This is set in direct contract with Paul’s comments about his believing audience. Specifically, Paul encourages his believing audience by affirming that Christ ‘will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body’ (Phil 3:21). In 1 Corinthians 15:51-57, Paul spells this out further, saying that believers will be transformed with imperishable, incorruptible bodies. That is, for Paul, the transformation of our bodies is when we will be made immortal. So, for Paul, there will be some whose ultimate fate is their destruction and some who will be made immortal on their resurrection. So when Paul states in Romans 6:21-22 that the final outcome of sin is death and the final outcome of the sanctification of believers is eternal life, he believed that some would end up dead (note also Romans 1:32 and 6:16).

 

Conclusion:

It is now clear that Wood failed to rebut Paterson’s point that the Bible teaches there are contrasting fates for believers and unbelievers. Aside from the fact that Wood ignores biblical data that supports Paterson’s point of view, his claim that there ‘are an intentional blending of two seemingly opposite things’ is vague and does not accurately reflect Paul’s soteriology. Whatever integration of death and life for believers one might find in Paul’s thought, it is clear that the Apostle did not think that believers are simultaneously dead and alive. This means there is no integration of opposites in Paul, as Wood implies. Furthermore, Wood’s reliance on 2 Corinthians 5:14 without explanatory support has been shown to fail to support his point of view at all.

All in all, Wood had a lot to say, but it only gave the appearance that he had engaged with Paterson’s argument. Wood’s response sounds good, but it lacks substance. He offered nothing that effectively counters the Bible’s teaching that there are contrasting final fates for believers and unbelievers. This was merely an instance in which the smoke-and-mirrors fallacy was used to sidestep a difficult argument.

 

 

References
￪1 Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes from the English Bible will be from the ESV.
￪2 I do not intend to say or imply that Wood was dishonest, just that his response the appearance of rebutting Paterson’s argument when it does no such thing.
￪3 Joseph Dear has written on this subject for Rethinking Hell here, here, and here.
￪4 Incidentally, ‘Dead man walking’ also has a dictionary entry, ‘a condemned man walking from his prison to prison cell to a place of execution’.
￪5 The Greek word Paul uses is λογίζομαι (logizomai). There does not appear to be any special nuance to this word. In a context like Romans 6:11, λογίζομαι just means ‘reckon’ or ‘consider’.
￪6 I acknowledge Willian Tanksley for bringing this truth to my attention.
￪7 Johnstone gives the example of the use of the article in the following phrase, πᾶσα ἡ πόλις (Matt 8:34) which can be contrasted with the anarthrous phrase πᾶσα πόλις (Matt 12:25). In Matthew 8:34, the use of the article (ἡ, hé) dictates that πᾶς has the sense of ‘whole’ (πᾶσα ἡ πόλις = ‘the whole city’). In Matthew 12:25 could mean πᾶς has the sense of ‘every’ (πᾶσα πόλις = ‘every city’). Greek nouns can be definite even without the use of the article so Matthew 12:25 could possibly be regarded as having an implied article so ‘the whole city’ is in view. In effect, this just illustrates the way the use of the article can affect the sense of πᾶς. J. William Johnston, The Use of Πᾶς in the New Testament, (Peter Lang Publishing: 2004), 34.
￪8 Ibid., 34.
￪9 Paul uses the present active plural participle, περιφέροντες, which modifies ἔχομεν (‘we have’) from the beginning of 2 Corinthians 4:7.
￪10 The word ‘you’ is plural here.
￪11 Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An exegetical syntax of the New Testament, (Zondervan: 1996), 555.
￪12 Frank Thielman & Clinton Arnold, Romans, (Zondervan Academic: 2018), no page given, available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/581251, (Accessed: 2 January 2026); Richard Longenecker, The Epistle to the Romans, (William. B. Eerdmans Publishing: 2016), 136.
￪13 ‘From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.’
￪14 Hear, O earth; behold, I am bringing disaster upon this people, the fruit of their devices, because they have not paid attention to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it.
￪15 ‘I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.’
￪16 From the fruit of righteousness grows a tree of life, but souls of the lawbreakers are removed before their time. (The Lexham English Septuagint)
￪17 Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
￪18 “In every dealing there is nothing worse than bad companions,” says Eteocles in Aeschylus’s play, Seven Against Thebes (600–601), “let that bitter fruit [καρπός] never be plucked. The field of folly yields death as its harvest [θάνατον ἐκκαρπίζεται].’ Frank Thielman & Clinton Arnold, Romans, no page given.
￪19 I am well aware of the debate over whether the clause ‘in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’ refers to separation from God, ordinary death, or both. Chris Date has produced a short video here that well summarizes the official Rethinking Hell view on that subject. I do not intend to speak into that debate here as the argument I will make below stands regardless of whether death is viewed as the cessation of life or as separation from God.
￪20 This is true regardless of whether Genesis 3 also presents death as separation from God.
￪21 John H. Walton, Genesis (Zondervan Academic: 2001),170.
￪22 See BDAG and BrillDAG, “τέλος”, for examples.
￪23 For a brief introduction to the use of the case system in Greek see here.
￪24 ‘When Hannibal had departed from Italy the Senate pardoned all the Italian peoples who had sided with him, and voted a general amnesty except as to the Bruttians, who remained most zealous for him to the end. From these they took away a considerable part of their land, also their arms, if there were any that Hannibal had not taken. They were also forbidden to be enrolled in the military forces thereafter, as being no longer free persons, and they were required to attend as servants upon the consuls and praetors who went about inspecting the affairs of government and the public works of the provinces. Such was the end (τέλος) of Hannibal’s invasion of Italy.’
￪25 BrillDAG, “τέλος.”
￪26 BrillDAG, “τέλος.”
￪27 LES, 2nd ed.
￪28 Stanley Porter and David Yoon, Romans: A Handbook on the Greek Text, (Baylor University Press: 2023), 366.
Biblical Exegesis, Darren Clark

Why I remain unconvinced by Gavin Ortlund’s rejection of conditionalism

Gavin Ortlund is one of my favorite Christian apologists. He is kind in his critique of those with whom he disagrees. His YouTube channel is replete with irenic, thoughtful, and knowledgeable interaction with a range of people with whom he disagrees. Recently, Ortlund published a video on his YouTube channel entitled Annihilationism: Why I am not convinced.1While Ortlund uses the word annihilationism, I prefer the word conditionalism to describe my view of the final fate of the lost. In this video he seeks to steelman conditionalism and then offers reasons why he has not adopted this view of hell. There is already a lengthy response video available by RH called Responding (again) to Gavin Ortlund. In this article, I do not intend to relitigate all that was said in that video. Instead, I would like to simply outline why Ortlund failed to convince me that his rejection of conditionalism is merited.

It is safe to say that Ortlund holds to C. S. Lewis’s view of hell. This version of traditionalism emphasizes that hell should be seen in terms of self-exile as much as it entails divine judgment on unrepentant sinners. As such, ‘the judgment of hell is not an arbitrary one’.2Gavin R. Ortlund, ‘A Losing Battle Against Reality: C. S. Lewis On The Nature And Necessity Of Hell’, in Bibliotheca Sacra, 176:703 (Jul 2019): 342. Hell is to be seen as the ‘logical implication of the related doctrines of God and sin’.3Ibid., 327. God is ‘primal and necessary being’,4Ibid., 333. and so ‘union with that Nature is bliss and separation is horror’.5Ibid, 334. This is the basis for the conclusion that ‘hell is simply being banished from God’s presence and favor’.6Ibid., 334. Hell is also seen as a logical implication of human sin. Sin is defined as the refusal to submit to God. For Lewis (and Ortlund), human evil is to be seen as a trajectory where those who freely reject God will continue on that path, so hell is the culmination of a path of opposition to God. God will judge people according to their sins, and their rejection of God is the rationale for why they are punished. This is how Ortlund comes to the conclusion that God’s punishment of people eternally is not arbitrary or cruel. Ortlund frequently states that those who end up in hell will eternally be miserable, but he rejects the notion that hell is a torture chamber.7Joseph Dear has already published articles that directly and indirectly interact with Ortlund’s view. You can read his articles here and here. It is unclear whether Ortlund thinks those in hell will experience torture of some sort, but he does hold that hell will be awful for them.

In Annihilationism: Why I am not convinced, Ortlund gives several reasons why he remains unconvinced that conditionalism is the biblical view of hell. The first reason he gives for his skepticism is that he does not think that conditionalism coheres with all the passages relevant in the hell debate. Ortlund later identifies Revelation 14:9-11; 20:10, and 22:15 as the main verses that he thinks cannot be explained by conditionalists. The language Ortlund thinks tips the scale in favor of ECT is ‘they have no rest, day or night’ in Revelation 14:11, for he thinks this does not sound like people who cease to exist in hell. He also points to ‘they will be tormented day and night forever and ever’. Later on, Ortlund discusses some arguments that might be offered in response to his view. He briefly discusses some arguments made in response to his position on these verses, but does not address some of the stronger arguments offered by conditionalists. Due to the limited scope of this article, I will focus on showing how those stronger arguments work to show that Revelation 14:11 and 20:10 are no obstacle to conditionalism.8Readers can watch Ortlund’s video and make their own assessment of his response to the arguments he does discuss.

Perhaps the weakest argument from Ortlund is his appeal to Revelation 22:15. Unfortunately, Ortlund has missed that Revelation 22:6-21 is the epilogue to the book and so is not part of the vision itself.9Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, Kindle ed., (William. B. Eerdmans: 1997), Kindle loc., 8271; George Eldon Ladd, A Commentary on the Revelation of John, (William B. Eerdmans: 1972), 289; G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, (William B. Eerdmans: 1999), 1122; Grant R. Osborne, Revelation, Kindle ed. (Baker Publishing Group: 2012), Kindle loc., 17243 The function of the epilogue is described by Beale,

The epilogue now shows clearly that the purpose of the book is to induce holy obedience among God’s people so that they may receive the reward of salvation.10Beale, The Book of Revelation,, 1122.

Revelation 22:14-15 is a general statement issued from a perspective prior to the coming of Christ (c.f. Rev 22:12). It is a statement referring to believers and unbelievers generally. Verse 15 says nothing about the wicked other than the fact that they are not in the city with the righteous. There is no clarification that the wicked will be alive to experience eternal torment and conditionalists can just as easily say that the wicked are in the place where they will be killed. This verse is not evidence for Ortlund’s view of hell.

With respect to the phrase ‘they have no rest, day or night’ in Revelation 14:11, I contend that Ortlund has missed two strong arguments from conditionalists. The first strong argument is put forward by Ralph Bowles in his Does Revelation 14: 11 Teach Eternal Torment? Examining a Proof-text on Hell, where he presents the case that the structure of Revelation 14:9-11 consists of a chiasm. A chiasm ‘is a literary device in which a sequence of ideas is presented and then repeated in reverse order’. The chiasm looks like this.

9 And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice,

–(A) “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand,

—-(B) he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger

——(C) he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.

——(Ci) And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever

—-(Bi) they have no rest, day or night

–(Ai) these worshipers of the beast and its image, if anyone receives the mark of its name.”

This is the ESV, but I have made an adjustment at line Ai so it reads ‘if anyone’ instead of ‘and whoever’. This is warranted on the basis that the εἴ τις clause in Ai (‘if anyone receives’) is syntactically and grammatically identical to the εἴ τις clause in line A (‘If anyone worships’). If there is a chiasm in this passage,11I will be defending Bowles’s thesis that Revelation 14:9-11 has a chiasm in another article I am currently writing. then the statement about the ongoing lack of rest does not clarify the meaning of ‘the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever’. Rather, the reference to continual lack of rest refers ‘to the intense experience of the judgement as it happens; it’s a full-strength outpouring of God’s wrath that leaves no rest or break while it is unfolding’.12Ralph Bowles, Does Revelation 14: 11 Teach Eternal Torment? Examining a Proof-text on Hell, 28.

Another approach to Revelation 14:9-11 is taken by Chris Date and William Tanksley in a Rethinking Hell presentation called Hell and the Book of Revelation. Date and Tanksley focus on the way that visions and dreams can be interpreted in a passage. In his presentation of this argument, Date often begins with a discussion of Joseph’s interpretation of the dreams of others in Genesis 40-41. For instance, Date points out that Joseph interprets dreams involving three vine branches (Gen 40:9-11) or three baskets (Gen 40:16-17) as having to do with three days (Gen 40:12, 18). He also points out that Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dream of seven cows and seven ears of a plant (Gen 41:1-7) as having to do with seven years of good harvest and seven years of famine (Gen 41:25-31).

Brian J. Tabb has identified ways in which Revelation routinely interprets its visions. Some of the examples he identifies are as follows: seven lampstands are interpreted to be seven churches (Rev 1:19-20), seven lamps are interpreted to be seven spirits of God (Rev 4:5), seven horns and with seven eyes are interpreted to be seven spirits of God (Rev 5:6), golden bowls are interpreted to be the prayers of the saints (Rev 5:8), two olive trees and lampstands are interpreted as the two witnesses (Rev 11:3-4), the 144,000 are interpreted to be undefiled followers of the Lamb (Rev 14:3-4), and fine linen is interpreted to be the righteous deeds of the saints (Rev 19:8).13This is from page 2276 of Zondervans -NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible- Revelation Brian J. Tabb Bethlehem College & Seminary PhD, London School of Theology – Zondervan. The NIV Zondervan Study Bible, eBook: Built on the Truth of Scripture and Centered on the Gospel Message . Zondervan. Kindle Edition. There is no doubt that Revelation incorporates interpreted imagery throughout the work.

Date and Tanksley adopt a whole picture approach to interpreting Revelation 14:9-11 and 20:10. This means that they agree that the symbolism as a whole depicts a final punishment of eternal torment (even though the individual passages might not exactly all show that), but each of the passages is individually interpreted to mean a miserable end rather than endless misery. For example, although the Beast is seen as tormented forever in Rev 20:10, the interpreting angel says it will go to its destruction (Rev 17:8, 11). Likewise, elements of Revelation 14:9-11 (the cup of wrath, torment, and rising smoke, Rev. 18:6-7, 9-10; 19:3, c.f. 16:19) are applied to Babylon, who is said to be found no more once she has been destroyed. Given the use of the elements of “the cup of wrath,” “torment,” and “rising smoke” refer to the completed and total destruction of Babylon, it follows that the use of the same elements in Revelation 14:9-11 should communicate the same point. Date and Tanksley also point to the statement ‘This is the second death, the lake of fire’ in Revelation 20:14 (c.f. Rev.21:8), arguing that this is an interpretive note clarifying that the imagery in Revelation depicting eternal torment means those who are punished by fire and sulfur will die a second time. If so, this interpretive note serves to clarify that Revelation 14:9-11 also means those punished by fire and sulfur will die as a result.

There is more that could be said in defense of the thesis put forward by Bowles and the thesis offered by Date and Tanksley, but the main point I wish to make at this juncture is that neither thesis contests the usual meaning of the language of torment. In both cases, the usual meanings of the verb βασανίζω (basanizō, Rev. 14:10, 20:10) and the noun βασανισμός (basanismos, Rev. 14:11) as having to do with torture/torment are not contested. This is because both approaches to the hell texts in Revelation are fundamentally focused on the prima facie meaning of the words in the text they are discussing.

In contrast, though Ortlund states that he cannot get past the use of the language of torment in Revelation 14:9-11 and 20:10, his own version of ECT does not at all fit with that language. To be sure, Ortlund does conceive of hell as being a horror for those who end up there, but this is a result of ‘being banished from God’s presence and favor’. This is a far cry from the imagery in Revelation 14:9-11 and 20:10, where fire and sulfur are the means of punishment causing the physical torment of those who are being punished, and that torment is supervised by the Lamb. One might respond by pointing out that the verb βασανίζω could be used with reference to the battering of a boat by a storm (Matt 14:24; Mark 6:48), great mental distress (2 Pet 2:8), pain resulting from disease (Mat 8:6), or pain in childbirth (Rev 12:2) elsewhere in the NT. However, the idea is still that the person experiences great pain and suffering. In contexts where someone causes another extreme pain, especially through a medium like fire, it is difficult to see how this does not amount to torture. This is likely why William Mounce defines βασανίζω in terms of physical torture when discussing its use in Revelation 14 and 20.

But basanizō can also denote the retributive judgments on impenitent sinners at the close of this age (Rev. 9:5; 11:10) as well as the doom that awaits those who worship the beast and his image (14:10). John also uses this term to describe the horrendous torture in the lake of burning sulphur that awaits Satan and his agents at the end of history (20:10)—a torment that will last “day and night for ever and ever.” Such a horrific future for the unbeiever (sic.) should serve as a catalyst for the Christian to preach the gospel. That torment will be real and the only hope to avoid it is Christ.14William D. Mounce, Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words (Zondervan: 2006), 737.

Furthermore, the noun βασανισμός (Rev 14:11) does not have the same range of meaning as its cognate verb, βασανίζω. There is little evidence of the use of βασανισμός prior to the NT, but it is used in 4 Maccabees 9:6 and 11:2, where it unequivocally refers to torture. Thus, highly regarded lexica of NT Greek define the word in terms of torture.15‘‘the severe pain experienced through torture, torment’, William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 168; ‘βᾰσᾰνισμός -οῦ, ὁ βασανίζω examination, torture, torment’, Franco Montanari, The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, ed. Madeleine Goh and Chad Schroeder (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2015); ‘severe pain associated with torture and torment’, Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 286.

One caveat is required at this juncture. I do not intend to imply that the Biblical authors intended to convey the idea of sadistic torture, as is the case in 4 Maccabees. If this is all that Ortlund rejects, then I would have less reason to dispute his argument. Having said that, it is inescapable that both βασανίζω and βασανισμός as they are used in Revelation 14:9-11 and 20:10 have in view the idea that intense pain is being inflicted on those being punished. This is one reason why Ortlund’s view of hell does not cohere well with the traditionalist proof texts.

Another reason for this disjuncture between Ortlund’s view of hell and the traditionalist proof texts has to do with how the scene in Revelation 14:9-11 has the torment of the Beast worshippers as taking place in the presence of the Lamb and his angels. That is, the punishment takes place in the throne room, which can hardly be said to fit with the notion of banishment that forms a central role in Ortlund’s own defence of traditionalism. I have no doubt that Ortlund will be able to think of ways to synthesize this scene with other biblical data on the final fate of the lost, to show that the punishment does not take place in the great throne room after all. But that will come at the cost of his argument that the prima facie meaning of the words in Revelation 14:9-11 supports his view rather than conditionalism. If he no longer takes ‘in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb’ (V10) at face value, then why can he legitimately appeal to the face value of ‘they have no rest, day or night’ as a way to defeat conditionalism?

This problem is not restricted to these select traditionalist proof texts. For instance, Matthew alone uses multiple words and phrases that do not cohere with Ortlund’s version of ECT. Matthew 10:28 is a well-known verse cited in defense of conditionalism. The basic argument put forward is, when the Greek word behind ‘destroy’, ἀπόλλυμι (apollumi) is used in the Synoptics in contexts where one person is destroying another person, it always has the nuance of ‘to slay’. Glenn Peoples has an article here, where he outlines this argument. I would add that ἀπόλλυμι is used interchangeably in the Synoptics with a verb that means ‘to kill’, ἀποκτείνω (apokteinō). The reader can compare those verses in Matthew that use ἀπόλλυμι (Matt. 2:13; 12:14; 21:14; 22:7; 27:20) or ἀποκτείνω (Matt. 14:5, 17:23; 21:35, 38-39; 22:6; 23:34, 37; 24:9: 26:4). In each case, one verb can be swapped out for the other without changing the meaning of the verse. That list grows when we consider the other Synoptic Gospels. This is because in this specific kind of context that is in view in Matthew’s narrative, these two verbs function as synonyms. Matthew 10:28b, therefore, refers to the body and soul being killed in Gehenna. This being so, then all other verses from Matthew that are cited in the hell debate also refer to the complete destruction of the person.

There are other problems that these verses pose for Ortlund. In Matthew 3:12, Matthew uses two compound verbs communicating that the chaff will be completely done away with. I have previously discussed this verse here and shown how the motif of an unquenchable fire has to do with being unable to put that fire out and so prevent it from fully consuming what it burns, and not necessarily with a fire that never goes out. We know that elsewhere in scripture, it does describe fires that go out (e.g. Ezekiel 20:47). The question I would ask Ortlund is, if Matthew intended to convey the idea that people survive that fire forever, then why was the image of chaff used?

In Matthew 13:40-43, Jesus interprets his own parable of the wheat and tares (Matt. 13:24-30). At first glance, the reader might think that the statement about weeping and gnashing of teeth indicates an endless period of suffering. However, the text gives no indication that the weeping and grinding of teeth will continue forever. That this event will happen at the end of this age does suggest a finite period of weeping and gnashing of teeth. There are also two clear clues that Matthew intended to say that those thrown into that fire will be completely burned up by it. I have discussed these clues here, but will summarise them briefly. The first clue is in verse 40, where Matthew says ‘Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age’. The idea here is that the incineration of weeds at a harvest (Matt 13:30) gives a picture of what will happen to those who are punished at the culmination of the current age. The second clue falls in verse 42 with the statement ‘throw them into the fiery furnace’. The Greek phraseology behind ‘fiery furnace’ has a combination of εἰς (eis, into) + κάμινος (kaminos, ‘furnace’) + πῦρ (pur, fire). This particular combination of words is only found in LXX in Daniel 3, where variations of the phrase are used with reference to the superheated fire into which Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are thrown (LXX Dan 3:6, 11, 20-21, 23, 26), and 4 Maccabees 16:21, which is a direct reference back to Daniel 3. In LXX Daniel 3, the verb καίω (kaiō ,’to burn’) is part of the construction. It is used as a participle that adds a sense of intense ferocity at which that fire burned. While 4 Maccabees does not use καίω at all,164 Maccabees 16:21 has a truncated version of the construction with εἰς κάμινον πυρος. Matthew uses καίω in verse 40 when Jesus refers to the incineration of the weeds at a harvest as the example of what will happen to those thrown into the eschatological fire. In doing so, Matthew not only evokes a sense that the fire will be superheated to a point where it is guaranteed to incinerate those thrown into it, but he also adapts Daniel’s phraseology to explicitly state this is what would happen. People can weep and gnash their teeth as they are brought to and thrown into the place where they are killed, but they most certainly cannot weep and gnash their teeth forever if they are killed by fire (keep in mind that Matthew has the body and soul killed in this fire, which sets it apart from the scene in Luke 16:19-32).

There are a few comments that we might make at this point. The prima facie meaning of the words and image in Matthew 3:12, 10:28, and 13:40-42 fail to cohere with Ortlund’s view of hell. Furthermore, if these three texts teach that the whole person is killed, then this would establish that other contested passages in Matthew also refer to the actual death of the sinner. For instance, since Matthew 10:28 does teach that Gehenna is where the whole person is slain, then those other places in Matthew that refer to Gehenna refer to the same fate (Matt 5:22, 29-30l 18:8-9). Likewise, Jesus’s statement about the wide path leading to destruction (Matt. 7:14), which is followed by a statement that those who do not bear good fruit will be disposed of in a fire (Matt. 7:19), and an analogy of a house that is completely destroyed by a storm and flooding (Matt. 7:27) should be read as statements about people being killed.

Furthermore, Matthew’s use of the OT helps us to see that he viewed those texts he drew from as teaching conditionalism. As discussed above, Matthew drew from LXX Daniel 3 when describing the sheer intensity of the fire he had in mind Matthew 13:40-42. Commentators also note ‘the righteous will shine like the sun’ (v43) echoes language from LXX Daniel 12:3 (Th.).17Donald Alfred Hagner, Matthew 1-13, (Zondervan Academic: 2000), 394; Walter T. Wilson, The Gospel of Matthew, vol. 1: Matthew 1–13, Kindle e., (William. B. Eerdmans: 2022), no Kindle loc. given; D. A. Carson, Matthew, Kindle ed., (Zondervan: 2010), no Kindle loc. given; Craig A. Evans, Matthew (Cambridge University Press: 2012), 281; R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, (William. B. Eerdmans: 2007), 537. This is striking since Daniel 12:2 is one of the texts cited frequently by traditionalists in support of the doctrine of eternal torment. The structure of Matthew 25:46 also appears to be based on LXX Daniel 12:2, as has been noted by Davies and Allison,

The line in antithetical parallelism is based upon LXX Dan 12:2–3: ‘And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall rise, some to life everlasting (εἰς ζωην αἰώνιον), some to reproach, and some (οἱ δέ) to dispersion and eternal shame.18W. D. Davies & Dale C. Allison Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. 3, (T&T Clark: 2004), 432.

While it is true that LXX Daniel 12:2 and Matthew 25:46 do not contain the same language with respect to what happens to the unrighteous, they share the same language with respect to what happens to the righteous. The prepositional phrase εἰς ζωην αἰώνιον (eis zōēn aiōnion) appears in both Matthew 25:46 and LXX Daniel 12:2. Εἰς ζωην αἰώνιον is also used in LXX Psalms of Solomon 3:16 and 4 Maccabees 15:3. The second text was penned after Matthew so would not be a source text for his thought processes. LXX Psalms of Solomon 3:15-16 possibly could have played a role in shaping how he expressed his thoughts, as it does refer to the fate of the righteous vis-à-vis the unrighteous, but LXX Daniel 12:2 is much closer to Matthew 25:46 in terms of its pithy syntax. Furthermore, Matthew also picks up on the use of the adjective δίκαιος (dikaios, ‘just, righteous) from an alternative Greek text of LXX Daniel 12:3 (Th.). On balance, the evidence suggests that Davies and Allison are correct. We can be confident not only in the fact that Matthew crafted his narrative in such a way that it unequivocally teaches conditionalism, but also in thinking that he thought OT texts like Daniel 12:3 are also conditionalist texts.

A similar observation can be made with respect to Matthew’s quotation of LXX Psalms 36:9 and 11 (the meek shall inherit land) in Matthew 5:5 (“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth).19NT quotations of the OT are rarely exact so in the context of studies of biblical intertextuality the description of one author quoting another refers to a high degree of verbal correspondence between an author’s text and the OT source text. It will be fruitful to read LXX Psalms 36:9-11 in full.20LXX Psalm 36 aligns with Psalms 37 in our English Bibles.

For the ones who act wickedly will be destroyed. But the ones who wait upon the Lord, they will inherit the earth. And yet a little while, and the sinner will surely not exist (οὐ μή + ὑπάρχω), and you will seek for his place, and you will surely not find (οὐ μή + εὑρίσκω) him. But the meek will inherit the land, and they will delight in the multitude of peace.21Unless otherwise indicated all quotes from the LXX will be from Rick Brannan, Ken M. Penner et al., The Lexham English Septuagint, 2nd Edition (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020).

LXX Psalms 36:10 juxtaposes the construction οὐ μή + εὑρίσκω with the construction οὐ μή + ὑπάρχω (ou mē + huparchō). The verb ὑπάρχω does have a range of meaning broader than ‘to be’, ‘exist’. However, in the case of LXX Psalms 36:10, ὑπάρχω translates the Hebrew ʾayin, which means ‘non-existence; nothing; not, no; without’.22The Lexham Analytical Lexicon of the Septuagint (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012). This is similar to LXX Isaiah 41:11-12.

Look! All who oppose you will be dishonored and feel shame, for they will be as though they did not exist (ὡς οὐκ ὄντες), and all your adversaries will be destroyed. 12 You will seek them, and you will not find the people who rage against you, for they will be as though they did not exist (ὡς οὐκ ὄντες), and those who wage war against you will be no more (οὐ μή + εὑρίσκω).23Rick Brannan, Ken M. Penner et al., The Lexham English Septuagint, 2nd Edition (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020).

Shalom M. Paul notes that two words in the Hebrew in verse 11 express nonexistence.24Paul identifies the Hebrew words as אַיִן and אֶפֶס. Shalom M. Paul, Isaiah 40–66: Translation and Commentary, (William B. Eerdmans: 2012), 168. The LXX has ὡς οὐκ ὄντες (hōs ouk óntes) the much-debated verb ἀπόλλυμι (apollumi). Ὄντες is the participle form of the verb to be εἰμί (eimi), so ὡς οὐκ ὄντες is a way of saying that a person no longer exists. In verse 12, the construction οὐ μή + εὑρίσκω is used in parallel with the phrase ὡς οὐκ ὄντες. This shows οὐ μή + εὑρίσκω was a way of saying that someone had died and so had ceased to exist. Matthew does not use any variation of this construction (except c.f. Matt 2:18 where a single negative particle is used). It is, however, remarkable that he quoted parts of LXX 36, which does appear to state the wicked will be annihilated, then speaks of the destruction of the whole person throughout the rest of his narrative. Matthew surely must have viewed LXX 36 as a thoroughly conditionalist text.

Much more could be said about the way in which the other Gospel authors interacted with OT texts when referring to the final fate of the lost reveals their view that those same OT texts support their view of conditionalism. There is a lack of space to lay out that case here. I will say, if one holds that the divine inspiration of the Bible means there is a high degree of cohesion between individual authors on theological issues, as I am sure Ortlund does, then it stands to reason that Mark, Luke and John were conditionalists who regarded their OT source texts as support for conditionalism.25This is not to say this the only way we know that Mark, Luke and John were conditionalists, since the work has been done to show that they were. If Matthew unequivocally taught that the whole person will be killed at the last judgment, then what room is there to say that there is any ambiguity with respect to his fellow Gospel authors’ teaching on the final fate of the lost?

This goes a long way towards eroding the force of Ortlund’s arguments that not all texts conditionalists cite have to do with the final fate of the lost. His point is to say that the body of biblical evidence cited in support of conditionalism may contain passages that only refer to death from this earth and not to the ultimate fate of the wicked. I can readily concede that the temptation to see conditionalism in every possible text is real, and conditionalists can at times claim evidence for our point of view that the passage does not support. Nevertheless, once we account for these more ambiguous passages, we are still left with a sizable body of evidence that we conditionalists have shown to support conditionalism. We have endeavored to apply the rules of hermeneutics to these passages to ensure we are not reading our view into these texts. That body of evidence is still much larger than the three passages from Revelation that cause Ortlund to remain unconvinced about conditionalism. This raises the question of why just three passages should keep him from accepting conditionalism when a much larger body of evidence really does support this view. Ortlund’s calculus seems to be off at this point, since the greater body of evidence in favor of conditionalism should tip him towards this view.

Part of Ortlund’s argument is that many claimed conditionalist passages do not clearly refer to non-existence. My response to this is that we do not have the burden to show any given passage explicitly says that the lost will be rendered non-existent. Rather, our burden is to show that these passages refer to the death of the person, the end of their life, as the punishment. If the person is said to be dead, then I resist entirely the notion that traditionalists like Ortlund can legitimately expect conditionalists to show that these passages speak to non-existence. I would suggest that the ambiguity he sees in these texts is a result of the assumptions he brings to the passages and are not inherently in them. Ortlund has – perhaps unintentionally – shifted onto conditionalists a burden to prove something we do not claim, while offering a select few verses from Revelation that prima facie conflict with his particular version of traditionalism.

One aspect of Ortlund’s argument has to do with ‘the nature of eternal life as the parallel opposite fate of eternal death.’ Ortlund contends that eternal ‘involves the quality of one’s existence, not just ongoing existence’. This is a self-defeating argument. Putting aside the debate about whether the biblical language of eternal life includes the idea of a quality of life, Ortlund admits here that it also has to do with ongoing existence. This means, if a biblical author states that unbelievers are denied eternal life, then they are denied an eternal quality of life and ongoing existence. This has some bearing on some of my previous comments. Those passages that do not explicitly say that a person is rendered non-existent need not do so if they explicitly state that unbelievers will be denied eternal life. Some of Ortlund’s reasons for rejecting conditionalism end up providing ways of defeating other arguments.

I truly respect Ortlund and appreciate his ministry. My comments here are not intended to attack him but simply outline why I remain utterly unconvinced of his reasons for rejecting conditionalism. Given the broad range of subjects that he discusses on his YouTube channel, I can understand that he was not able to cover everything in the depth of detail as I have in my response. That will just be the result of the nature of his ministry. He should keep doing what he does, as he adds a sane voice to a diverse range of controversial subjects. Having said that, Rethinking Hell is a single-subject project. We have already spent years studying the subject in great detail and, in most cases, have already more than adequately shown why Ortlund’s arguments against conditionalism fall flat. I would hope that when he has the time, Ortlund would review our material in more depth. Either way, I will still consider him a potential friend of the Rethinking Hell ministry.

 

References
￪1 While Ortlund uses the word annihilationism, I prefer the word conditionalism to describe my view of the final fate of the lost.
￪2 Gavin R. Ortlund, ‘A Losing Battle Against Reality: C. S. Lewis On The Nature And Necessity Of Hell’, in Bibliotheca Sacra, 176:703 (Jul 2019): 342.
￪3 Ibid., 327.
￪4 Ibid., 333.
￪5 Ibid, 334.
￪6 Ibid., 334.
￪7 Joseph Dear has already published articles that directly and indirectly interact with Ortlund’s view. You can read his articles here and here.
￪8 Readers can watch Ortlund’s video and make their own assessment of his response to the arguments he does discuss.
￪9 Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, Kindle ed., (William. B. Eerdmans: 1997), Kindle loc., 8271; George Eldon Ladd, A Commentary on the Revelation of John, (William B. Eerdmans: 1972), 289; G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, (William B. Eerdmans: 1999), 1122; Grant R. Osborne, Revelation, Kindle ed. (Baker Publishing Group: 2012), Kindle loc., 17243
￪10 Beale, The Book of Revelation,, 1122.
￪11 I will be defending Bowles’s thesis that Revelation 14:9-11 has a chiasm in another article I am currently writing.
￪12 Ralph Bowles, Does Revelation 14: 11 Teach Eternal Torment? Examining a Proof-text on Hell, 28.
￪13 This is from page 2276 of Zondervans -NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible- Revelation Brian J. Tabb Bethlehem College & Seminary PhD, London School of Theology – Zondervan. The NIV Zondervan Study Bible, eBook: Built on the Truth of Scripture and Centered on the Gospel Message . Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
￪14 William D. Mounce, Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words (Zondervan: 2006), 737.
￪15 ‘‘the severe pain experienced through torture, torment’, William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 168; ‘βᾰσᾰνισμός -οῦ, ὁ βασανίζω examination, torture, torment’, Franco Montanari, The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, ed. Madeleine Goh and Chad Schroeder (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2015); ‘severe pain associated with torture and torment’, Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 286.
￪16 4 Maccabees 16:21 has a truncated version of the construction with εἰς κάμινον πυρος.
￪17 Donald Alfred Hagner, Matthew 1-13, (Zondervan Academic: 2000), 394; Walter T. Wilson, The Gospel of Matthew, vol. 1: Matthew 1–13, Kindle e., (William. B. Eerdmans: 2022), no Kindle loc. given; D. A. Carson, Matthew, Kindle ed., (Zondervan: 2010), no Kindle loc. given; Craig A. Evans, Matthew (Cambridge University Press: 2012), 281; R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, (William. B. Eerdmans: 2007), 537.
￪18 W. D. Davies & Dale C. Allison Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. 3, (T&T Clark: 2004), 432.
￪19 NT quotations of the OT are rarely exact so in the context of studies of biblical intertextuality the description of one author quoting another refers to a high degree of verbal correspondence between an author’s text and the OT source text.
￪20 LXX Psalm 36 aligns with Psalms 37 in our English Bibles.
￪21 Unless otherwise indicated all quotes from the LXX will be from Rick Brannan, Ken M. Penner et al., The Lexham English Septuagint, 2nd Edition (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020).
￪22 The Lexham Analytical Lexicon of the Septuagint (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012).
￪23 Rick Brannan, Ken M. Penner et al., The Lexham English Septuagint, 2nd Edition (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020).
￪24 Paul identifies the Hebrew words as אַיִן and אֶפֶס. Shalom M. Paul, Isaiah 40–66: Translation and Commentary, (William B. Eerdmans: 2012), 168.
￪25 This is not to say this the only way we know that Mark, Luke and John were conditionalists, since the work has been done to show that they were.
Darren Clark

Punishing Fallacies: Part 3: The hasty conclusion

In the first article of this series, I demonstrated that κόλασις (kolasis) was never a gardening term by origin, and even in horticultural contexts, it does not signify ‘pruning’. The second article examined Aristotle’s treatment of κόλασις and τιμωρία (timōría), arguing that he regarded both as forms of retributive justice. This third installment turns to Plato, challenging the universalist claim that he upheld a clear-cut distinction between κόλασις and τιμωρία. Both words are widely translated as “punishment” because they have a similar range of meanings as the English word “punishment.” While a comprehensive survey of every instance of these terms in Plato’s corpus lies beyond the scope of this article, I will analyze a representative selection of texts across his works to illustrate how he typically employed them.

Like Aristotle, Plato is a well known ancient Greek philosopher, and so is often cited by universalists as an important witness to what κόλασις meant. William Barclay made the following comment:1William Barclay, The Apostles’ Creed, (Westminster John Knox Press: 1967), 189.

Plato says that no one punishes (kolazei) a wrong-doer simply because he has done wrong – that would be to take unreasonable vengeance (timoreitai). We punish (kolazei) a wrong-doer in order that he may not do wrong again.

The passage Barclay is discussing from Protagoras 324.

No one punishes (κολάζω) a wrongdoer from the mere contemplation or on account of his wrong-doing, unless one takes unreasoning vengeance (τιμωρέω) like a wild beast. But he who undertakes to punish (κολάζω) with reason does not avenge (τιμωρέω) himself for the past offence, since he cannot make what was done as though it had not come to pass; he looks rather to the future, and aims at preventing that particular person and others who see him punished (κολάζω) from doing wrong again. And being so minded he must have in mind that virtue comes by training: for you observe that he punishes (κολάζω) to deter.

Plato’s Protagoras is a dialogue between Socrates and Protagoras which explores themes such as virtue, knowledge, and education. In the section from which this quote is taken, Protagoras discusses the role punishment takes in incentivizing good conduct and educating people in virtue. This passage does not have the nouns κόλασις and τιμωρία, but it does have their cognate verbs κολάζω (kolazó) and τιμωρέω (timóreó). Universalists like Brett from Salvation for All argue that Protagaros draws a contrast between κολάζω as a corrective punishment and τιμωρέω as retributive vengeance.

Plato is exceptionally clear that kolazo is corrective punishment that is done in order to benefit the person who committed wrong-doing as well as those who see the punishment and learn from it. He contrasts this with timoreitai, the taking of retributive vengeance. This is significant because Plato specifically tells us that kolasin means corrective punishment that serves a didactic purpose and is aimed at reform, as opposed to simply getting back at someone. For Plato kolasin is the type of punishment practiced by rational people because it produces beneficial results….

While it is true that corrective punishment is in view in the passage, this theme is not developed through contrasting κολάζω and τιμωρέω. In the first sentence, Protagoras does use κολάζω when he states no one punishes because of wrongdoing, but this is followed by ‘unless one takes unreasoning vengeance (τιμωρέω) like a wild beast’. This additional clause shows that one could κολάζω (punish) in a way that involved τιμωρέω (inflicting vengeance). Something similar can be observed with the next sentence. If we only look at ‘he who undertakes to punish (κολάζω) with reason does not avenge (τιμωρέω) himself for the past offence’, we might assume that Protagaros is contrasting the two words. Note, though, ‘he looks rather to the future…’ adverbially modifies ‘avenge’ (τιμωρέω), which in turn expresses the action of the subject of the sentence, ‘he who undertakes to punish (κολάζω) with reason’.2This is noted by Stewart James Felker here. This is perhaps why Trevor J. Saunders regards this as an instance when τιμωρέω and κολάζω are used ‘indifferently’, as both verbs imply ‘the infliction of suffering’.3Trevor J. Saunders, Plato’s Penal Code: Tradition, Controversy, and Reform in Greek Penology, (Clarendon Press: 1994), 134. The translation by Robert C. Bartlett captures the flow of thought well:

But one who attempts to punish (κολάζω) in accord with reason seeks retribution (τιμωρέω) not for the sake of the past act of injustice … but for the sake of the future one, so that neither the criminal himself nor anyone else who sees him punished (κολάζω) may commit injustice again.4Robert C. Bartlett, “Protagoras” and “Meno”, Translated with notes and interpretive essays, (Cornell University Press: 2004), 20-21.

Moreover, in the following sentences κολάζω and τιμωρέω are used with reference to the same kind of punishment:

And being so minded he must have in mind that virtue comes by training: for you observe that he punishes (κολάζω) to deter. This then is the accepted view of all who seek requital (τιμωρέω) in either private or public life; and while men in general exact requital (τιμωρέω) and punishment (κολάζω) from those whom they suppose to have wronged them, this is especially the case with the Athenians, your fellow-citizens, so that by our argument the Athenians also share the view that virtue is procured and taught.

Both κολάζω and τιμωρέω are used in the context of a paragraph that begins and ends with an emphasis on fostering virtue through education (‘virtue comes by training’ and ‘virtue is procured and taught’). Κολάζω is said to be inflicted for the purpose of deterrence, but in the very next sentence, Protagoras states, ‘This then is the accepted view of all who seek requital (τιμωρέω)’. That is, those who inflict τιμωρέω on another also have the view that virtue is fostered through training and education. In the third sentence, κολάζω and τιμωρέω are referred to as responses to having been wronged by another. This is evidence that Plato was not making a sharp distinction between the two verbs. That is, κολάζω alone is not being used with the technical meaning of ‘correction for the benefit of the one punished’. Rather, both verbs are referenced with reference to the procurement of virtue in the one who is punished.

One might question this conclusion on the basis that κολάζω is explicitly linked with the outcome of deterrence. If κολάζω acts as a deterrent, then is that not evidence it has its own nuance distinct from τιμωρέω? It should be noted that elsewhere Plato can just as easily use τιμωρέω in a context where the punishment is said to improve the one being punished while the punishment serves as a deterrent for others. See for instance Gorgias, 525b:

And it is fitting that everyone under punishment (τιμωρία) rightly inflicted (τιμωρέω) on him by another should either be made better and profit thereby, or serve as an example to the rest, that others seeing the sufferings he endures may in fear amend themselves. Those who are benefited by the punishment they get from gods and men are they who have committed remediable offences; but still it is through bitter throes of pain that they receive their benefit both here and in the nether world.

The connection of τιμωρία with a punishment that benefits the one being punished is noted by the secular scholar Harold Tarrant:5Harold Tarrant, ‘Ancient Readers of the Gorgias’, in Plato’s Gorgias: A Critical Guide, ed. By J. Clark Shaw, (Cambridge University Press: 2024), 41.

Revenge requires that punishment be withheld. Any interpreter would be justified in showing how this thesis agrees with the myth, all proper timôria (525e1, e1, e3) is either aimed at improving and benefitting those punished (if curable) or (where incurable) offering an example (paradeigma, 525b2, c2, c6, d3) to potential transgressors.

The additional benefit of τιμωρία has to do with its function of correcting those who observe those being punished. This is communicated by the use of παράδειγμα (paradeigma),6Gonzalez Lodge, Commentary on Plato Gorgias, (Ginn & Company: 1891), 266. which has the basic meaning of ‘pattern’ or ‘model’. The idea is people see those who suffer τιμωρία and are persuaded to avoid committing crimes. In this way they are improved. This emphasis on the improvement of the punished and onlookers is entirely at odds with the implied belief amongst universalists that τιμωρία was reserved for referencing vengeful punishment. Furthermore, it is difficult to imagine universalists arguing that since τιμωρία is used in a context of correction and the betterment of the punished, then the word itself has taken on the meaning of ‘correction’ or ‘beneficial punishment’. Yet this is what they do when analyzing uses of κόλασις.

Moving on, in his last dialogue called Laws, Plato uses dialogues between a fictional character known as the Athenian Stranger and other fictional characters to develop a penal code for a proposed Cretan city. Throughout the dialogue the Athenian Stranger discusses the purpose of punishment, along with themes such as punishment as a cure, as education, and as a deterrent. There is insufficient space in this article to fully analyze Plato’s theory of punishment in Laws.7For a discussion of Plato’s theory of punishment in Laws, see R.F. Stalley, An introduction to Plato’s Laws, (Hackett Publishing Company: 1983); R.F. Stalley, ‘Punishment in Plato’s Laws’, in History of Political Thought, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Winter 1995), pp. 469-487. My modest goal is to simply show how Plato’s use of κόλασις/κολάζω and τιμωρία/τιμωρέω in Laws does not reflect the kind of distinction universalists think exist between the two word groups.

In Laws 880e-881b,8I am using a different translation of Laws in this instance as it is much easier to see where the relevant Greek words are used. This translation can be found here. the Athenian Stranger discusses what is to happen to those who assault and kill their parents:

For whoever will dare at any time to touch in some violent assault his father or mother, or yet their progenitors, terrified neither by the wrath of the gods above nor by the retributions (τιμωρέω) said to be beneath the earth, but holding in contempt the ancient sayings repeated by everyone, as if he knew things he doesn’t know at all, and breaking the law—this man requires some ultimate deterrent. Now death is not the ultimate, and the toils said to await these people in Hades, though they’re closer than this to being ultimates, and though they speak very truly, do not succeed as a deterrence for such souls. If they did, there would never be assaults on mothers or daring, impious, attacks on the other progenitors. It is necessary, then, that the punishments (κόλασις) here for such things, inflicted on these men while they are living, be no less than those in Hades, insofar as possible.

This is noteworthy since τιμωρέω is used of the afflictions people experience in Hades, with the following discussion focusing on the function and effectiveness of these ‘punishments’ as a deterrent for those who might commit patricide and matricide. It is important to note that in Laws, Plato’s penal code incorporates the notion that certain instances where one acts unjustly towards another are ‘diseases of the soul’ and so must be cured through the law. To achieve this, they must instruct those who do wrong to compel that person to ‘never willing to dare to do such a deed’ in the future.

It is in this context that the discussion of punishment. The Athenian Stranger recognizes there are those who cannot be deterred from murdering their parents, and this is acknowledgement that the law and its punishment cannot cure everyone of the disease that inflicts their souls. They cannot be instructed and deterred by any punishment. Plato uses τιμωρέω with reference to the punishments people receive in Hades after they have died, while he uses κόλασις with reference to all possible forms of punishment that could be inflicted while the person is living on the earth. This means Plato used κόλασις broadly with reference even those punishments that might in other contexts be referenced as τιμωρία.

Furthermore, it is recommended that the κόλασις punishments inflicted while people are still living are at minimum as severe as the τιμωρία inflicted in Hades. Plato goes on to use κόλασις to discuss the range of punishments that are to be inflicted on transgressors in various scenarios relating to wrongdoing against one’s parents. The very first example given has to do with a bystander failing to act when a person beats his parents: ‘he who fails to help shall be banished from the country for life’. As for the one who is convicted of beating his parents, he too was to be exiled for life under threat of being punished (κολάζω) by flogging on the first attempt to return home and then death on the second attempt. Plato uses the word ἀειφυγία (aeiphygía), which means ‘exile for life’ or ‘perpetual exile’. The exile is permanent, as the increasing severity of retaliatory punishments (κολάζω) for refusal to remain in exile shows there is no attempt at reforming the offender as such. Permanent exile is akin to the idea of retribution that is associated with τιμωρία, even as Plato uses κολάζω to outline what is to happen to the offender. This fits with Plato’s use of κολάζω in Republic 6.492b, where the verb is used with reference to capital punishment: ‘Don’t you know that they chastise (κολάζω) the recalcitrant with loss of civic rights and fines and death?’ Death is permanent, and so capital punishment offers no chance for the punished person to reform his ways. Κολάζω could be used by Plato in this way precisely because the verb itself lacked the nuance of punishing for the sake of the one being punished.

Earlier in Laws, the Athenian Stranger discusses the punishment of those who rob temples. There were circumstances when the offender ‘must punish (κολάζω) him by long imprisonment, of a public kind, and by measures of degradation’ (Laws 855b-855c). Judges were to regard these offenders as ‘already incurable, reckoning that, in spite of all the training and nurture he has had from infancy, he has not refrained from the worst iniquity’ (Laws 854e). The possible punishments inflicted include execution, imprisonment, or flogging. Κολάζω is used with reference to these punishments that may be inflicted on the incurable offender.

In Laws 735, the medicinal analogy is pressed into service to emphasize the painful extirpation of incurable criminals from society. In this case Plato uses three common words for punishment in order to press the point home:

The best purge is painful, like all medicines of a drastic nature, the purge which hales to punishments (κολάζω) by means of justice (δίκη, diké) linked with vengeance (τιμωρία), crowning the vengeance (τιμωρία) with exile or death: it, as a rule, clears out the greatest criminals when they are incurable and cause serious damage to the State.

The use of the medicinal analogy is summarized by MacKenzie:

The community is a flock from which the unhealthy stock must be removed. This culling will, first, preserve the legislator from the excessive trouble of treating the chronically wicked and, second, protect the rest of the citizen body from infection. The medicine to achieve this is end is punishment (kolazein) by diké with timória; The medicine to achieve this is end is punishment (kolazein) by diké with timória; timória will be continued up to the point of death or banishment. Those who have committed the greatest crimes are incurable and constitute a source of great harm to the state; they must therefore be removed.9Mary Margaret Mackenzie, Plato on Punishment, (University of California Press: 1985), 198-199.

Another example is found in Laws 728 where τιμωρία is used:

Hardly anyone takes account of the greatest “judgment” (as men call it) upon evil-doing; that greatest judgment is this,—to grow like unto men that are wicked, and, in so growing, to shun good men and good counsels and cut oneself off from them, but to cleave to the company of the wicked and follow after them; and he that is joined to such men inevitably acts and is acted upon in the way that such men bid one another to act. Now such a resultant condition is not a “judgment” (for justice and judgment are things honorable), but a punishment, an infliction that follows on injustice; both he that undergoes this and he that undergoes it not are alike wretched,—the one in that he remains uncured, the other in that he is destroyed in order to secure the salvation of many others. Thus we declare that honor, speaking generally, consists in following the better, and in doing our utmost to effect the betterment of the worse, when it admits of being bettered.

Neither κόλασις or κολάζω are used here, but τιμωρία. This is in a context where the medical analogy is being employed. MacKenzie notes:

The medical metaphor prevails in this passage, which strongly suggests that during the process of justice effected by timória the curable criminal might be saved.10Mackenzie, Plato on Punishment, 119.

The idea that τιμωρία is inflicted in order to save is at odds with any variation of the claim that only κόλασις could be used with reference to a punishment intended to benefit the one who is punished. Furthermore, to my knowledge, no one argues that since the contexts of these passages have to do with curing, deterring, or correcting criminals then τιμωρία must have as part of its semantic range the notion of a cure, deterrence, or correction. Yet this is exactly the way universalists can at times reason from passages where they see κόλασις and κολάζω used where the surrounding contexts have to do with medicine, deterrence, or the correction of someone.

In his highly influential book called The Semantics of Biblical Language, James Barr discusses this faulty way of reasoning about the meaning of words. The problem Barr has in his sights is bound up with the practice of ‘suggesting that the significance which is given through associations of the context is in fact the indicator value of that word’.11James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language, (SCM Press: 1983), 69. The problem is compounded when the various contexts in which a word is used leads people to ‘adding up the semantic effects of various contexts and not the specific contributions which the word made to these contexts’.12Barr, Semantics, 71. This fallacious way of analyzing how words have meaning leads universalists to wrongly conclude that a word like κόλασις has the meaning of correction because it is used with reference to a punishment that was intended to correct an offender. The example of the use of κολάζω in Laws 735 is one where universalists likely would not attribute the context to the definition of this verb. It is difficult to see how they can be consistent.

There are more examples I could discuss but I can only make one last point. In Protagoras 326, where Plato uses both κόλασις and κολάζω, the context has to do with the education of children as the backdrop for a discussion of how punitive actions are intended to correct a person:

She punishes (κολάζω) anyone who steps outside these borders, and this punishment (κόλασις) among you and in many other cities, from the corrective (εὐθύνω) purpose of the prosecution, is called a Correction (εὔθυνα).

At first blush this may seem to show that Plato used κόλασις and κολάζω with the meaning of correction. However, Plato uses the verb εὐθύνω (euthýnō) and the noun εὔθυνα (eúthyna) to communicate the idea of correction.13Robert C. Bartlett, Plato: “Protagoras” and “Meno”, (Cornell University Press: 2004), 23. Both of these words convey the idea of making something straight and do the heavy lifting in the sentence to clarify the nature of the punitive action. The use of both in very close together suggests Plato was using them to emphasize the purpose of the punishment. This would not have been necessary if κόλασις and κολάζω themselves, without additional contextual clues, sufficiently conveyed the notion of correction in this kind of context.

This brings us back to Brett from Salvation for All, who asserts,

The claim that punishment benefits the sinner by causing them to reform is clearly laid out by Plato.

Brett, like most universalists – including William Barclay – rely on a single quote from Plato for the claim that his use of κόλασις and τιμωρία show that he maintained a particular distinction between the two words (see the quote from Barlcay at the top of this article). These universalists – including William Barclay – misunderstand the single quote from Plato they rely on for their claim. Even if this was not true, universalists – including William Barclay – offer no other evidence for their claim. As far as I can tell, no universalist goes beyond the single quote from Plato to discuss his other uses of κόλασις and τιμωρία. They have, therefore, made a conclusion based on very limited evidence from Plato, while misunderstanding the single text they do cite, and so their argument is at best a quintessential example of the hasty conclusion fallacy (drawing a conclusion from insufficient evidence).

 

 

References
￪1 William Barclay, The Apostles’ Creed, (Westminster John Knox Press: 1967), 189.
￪2 This is noted by Stewart James Felker here.
￪3 Trevor J. Saunders, Plato’s Penal Code: Tradition, Controversy, and Reform in Greek Penology, (Clarendon Press: 1994), 134.
￪4 Robert C. Bartlett, “Protagoras” and “Meno”, Translated with notes and interpretive essays, (Cornell University Press: 2004), 20-21.
￪5 Harold Tarrant, ‘Ancient Readers of the Gorgias’, in Plato’s Gorgias: A Critical Guide, ed. By J. Clark Shaw, (Cambridge University Press: 2024), 41.
￪6 Gonzalez Lodge, Commentary on Plato Gorgias, (Ginn & Company: 1891), 266.
￪7 For a discussion of Plato’s theory of punishment in Laws, see R.F. Stalley, An introduction to Plato’s Laws, (Hackett Publishing Company: 1983); R.F. Stalley, ‘Punishment in Plato’s Laws’, in History of Political Thought, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Winter 1995), pp. 469-487.
￪8 I am using a different translation of Laws in this instance as it is much easier to see where the relevant Greek words are used. This translation can be found here.
￪9 Mary Margaret Mackenzie, Plato on Punishment, (University of California Press: 1985), 198-199.
￪10 Mackenzie, Plato on Punishment, 119.
￪11 James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language, (SCM Press: 1983), 69.
￪12 Barr, Semantics, 71.
￪13 Robert C. Bartlett, Plato: “Protagoras” and “Meno”, (Cornell University Press: 2004), 23.
Darren Clark

Punishing Fallacies: Part 2: Detecting a distinction without a difference

In my first article in this series, I discussed William Baclay’s claim that κόλασις (kolasis) originally meant the pruning of trees to make them grow better. It is a claim that some universalists have repeated, but I was able to show there is no evidence in the primary sources whatsoever to support it. You can find that article here.

In this article I will discuss the following claim from William Barclay.

In Greek there are two words for punishment, timōria and kolasis, and there is a quite definite distinction between them. Aristotle defines the difference; kolasis is for the sake of the one who suffers it; timōria is for the sake of the one who inflicts it (Rhetoric 1.10).1William Barclay, The Apostles’ Creed, (Westminster John Knox Press: 1967), 189.

 

Aristotle is one whom universalists tend to cite frequently in support of this claim, even where they soften the claim to the contention that κόλασις could sometimes be used in the sense of correction by the NT era. This is because at first blush he does appear to be saying κόλασις referred to a punishment intended for the good of the one being punished. The following is the sentence Barclay cited from Aristotle’s Rhetoric 1.10.17, but I have added Rhetoric 1.10.16 for context.

Things are the result of calculation which are done because, of the goods already mentioned, they appear to be expedient either as an end or means to an end, provided they are done by reason of their being expedient; for even the intemperate do certain things that are expedient, for the sake, not of expediency, but of pleasure. Passion and anger are the causes of acts of revenge.

But there is a difference between revenge and punishment (κόλασις); the latter is inflicted in the interest of the sufferer, the former in the interest of him who inflicts it, that he may obtain satisfaction.

Joe Whitechurch discusses the meaning of this quote, the use of κόλασις by Aristotle throughout his literature, and how the noun is used in the Greek forensic corpus.2Joe Whitechurch, Revenge, Punishment and Anger in Ancient Greek Justice, (Bloomsbury Academic: 2024), 110-115. It is recognized in secular scholarship that κόλασις and τιμωρία are used in the Greek forensic corpus in ways where they both are ‘equally retributive and directed towards the victim of wrongdoing’.3Robert Nichols, as quoted by Whitechurch, Revenge, Punishment and Anger, 112. Whitechurch goes on to discuss the use of κόλασις and κολάζω in the orators, concluding that ‘The primary emotional driver of κόλασις was anger both in Aristotle’s model and in court’. Some examples he cites include jurors being encouraged to respond angrily by punishing (κολάζω) a defendant and a statement that the lack of anger leads to the failure to punish (κολάζω). Whitechurch notes that in the speeches, calls for κόλασις are accompanied by calls for anger, and he concludes, ‘The primary emotional driver of κόλασις was anger both in Aristotle’s model and in court’. 4Ibid. Whitechurch then states,

Κόλασις is an act overwhelmingly inflicted by superiors on inferiors, be they hegemonic poleis on their allies (Th. 1.40.5, 43.1, 3.40.7, 46.4–6), higher-ranked officers on lower (Xen. An. 3.2.31; Cy.1.6.20; Arist. NE. 1132b), or masters on their slaves (Ar. Cl. 7; Arist. Econ. 1344a). Central to κόλασις then is the attempt to return the offender to their correct hierarchical place.

This does not reflect the common understanding of Aristotle’s statement about κόλασις, so Whitechurch is compelled to reexamine the evidence from the philosopher to determine if we have misunderstood him. He concludes that ἕνεκά ἐστιν is better translated at ‘has in mind’ than ‘in the interest of’. In the remainder of this article I will discuss the evidence that supports Whitechurch’s conclusion.

The first thing to note is the end of Rhetoric 1.10.16, ‘Passion and anger are the causes of acts of revenge’. The Greek word behind ‘acts of revenge’ is τῑμωρητικός, not τιμωρία. Τῑμωρητικός is variously glossed as ‘vindictive’,5The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, s.v. “τῑμωρητικός”. ‘vengeful’,6The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, s.v. “τῑμωρητικός”. and ‘revengeful’. Aristotle uses τῑμωρητικός in contexts where he refers to those who are not vengeful. In Virtues and Vices 1250b he writes, ‘The great-spirited man is simple and noble in character, able to bear injustice and not revengeful (τῑμωρητικός).’

In Nicomachean Ethics 1126a, he discusses the positive qualities of a mild person. In this instance I have chosen to quote from a newer translation by Christopher Rowe as it more clearly shows how Aristotle used τῑμωρητικός: ‘the mild person tends not to look for revenge (τῑμωρητικός) but to be sympathetic’.7Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, translated by Christopher Rowe with a philosophical introduction and commentary by Sarah Broadie, (Oxford University Press: 2002). 152. In the context of this statement, Aristotle had been discussing the appropriate occasions when one can legitimately become angry. His point here is a person who is mild is not prone to inappropriately becoming angry and seeking vengeance on another person. In Rhetoric 1.10.16, τῑμωρητικός is used in the plural neuter form, thus denoting vengeful acts are in view. He says that people commit these acts of vengeance – κόλασις and τιμωρία – because of their passion and anger. In Rhetoric 1378a Aristotle says anger is ‘a longing … for a real or apparent revenge for a real or apparent slight’. Κόλασις arises because a person desire revenge and is itself an act of vengeance.

Even at this juncture we can see as Aristotle discusses κόλασις in Rhetoric 1.10.17 he sees it as a kind of vengeful act. This runs squarely against universalists that κόλασις was not inflicted as a punitive action on the one punished. This is even more evidence when it is noted that in Rhetoric 1.10.17 κόλασις and τιμωρία are dual subjects of the statement.8In Greek, the word form – not syntax as is the case in English – indicates the function nouns take in a clause or sentence. In Rhetoric 1.10.17, both κόλασις and τιμωρία have the form indicating they are the subject of the clause. This is a typical way that Aristotle used these two nouns. As Allen has observed,

One of the idiosyncrasies of Aristotle’s discussions of punishment is the frequency with which he places the words timoria and kolasis together as if they form a single compound noun (like “peanut butter and jelly”); he treats the associated verbs in the same fashion.9Danielle S. Allen, The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishment in Democratic Athens, (Princeton University Press: 2009, 86, 298) Allen gives a list of example texts in n.114, page 357.

An example of this is seen in Nicomachean Ethics 1113b, where he discusses how voluntary acts were responded to in Greek society.

But if it is manifest that a man is the author of his own actions, and if we are unable to trace our conduct back to many other origins than those within ourselves, then actions of which the origins are within us, themselves depend upon us, and are voluntary.

This conclusion seems to be attested both by men’s behavior in private life and by the practice of lawgivers; for they punish (κολάζω) and exact redress (τιμωρέω) from those who do evil … and honor those who do noble deeds, in order to encourage the one sort and to repress the other…

Both κολάζω and τιμωρέω are said to have been employed to stop wrongdoers from continuing to do wrong. The two categories of punishment are used together to repress those who do evil. It is already becoming evident that even in Aristotle, κολάζω was not used with reference to a punishment inflicted for the benefit of the one being punished.

Another example of this is found in Nicomachean Ethics 1126a.

Those who lose their temper at the wrong things, and more and longer than they ought, and who refuse to be reconciled without obtaining redress (τιμωρία) or retaliating (κόλασις), we call Harsh-tempered.

This example is particularly relevant due to the phraseology of τιμωρίας ἢ κολάσεως (timôrias ê kolaseôs). The disjunctive particle ἢ (ê) indicates either τιμωρία or κόλασις ‘suffice to assuage anger’.10Niels Aslak Christensen, “Aristotle on Anger, Justice, and Punishment”, Ph.D. diss. University College London, (2016), 76. This means that a person need not do more than seek κόλασις to appease one’s anger when wronged by another. We have more evidence showing the universalist view that κόλασις did not have to do with vengeance is misguided.

Aristotle’s penchant for using κόλασις and τιμωρία as a compound-noun phrase shows that he regarded both categories of punishment as τῑμωρητικός (‘acts of revenge’). Whitechurch is therefore correct in his assessment that Aristotle regards κόλασις and τιμωρία as τῑμωρητικός and so both are ‘products of passion and anger’.11Whitechurch, Revenge, Punishment and Anger, 112. For Aristotle, anger is “a painful and pleasant desire for what one takes to be revenge, caused by what one takes to be an undeserved slight against oneself or one (sic.) own”.12Christensen, “Aristotle on Anger, Justice, and Punishment”, 9. Like τιμωρία, κόλασις is viewed as an act of vengeance inflicted because the slighted party has become angry and longs for revenge.

This is reflected elsewhere in Aristotle’s writings. For instance, in Eudemian Ethics 1221b, Aristotle says that the anger of violent and abusive men causes them to commit κόλασις.

I mean for instance that a man is called quick-tempered from feeling the emotion of anger sooner than he ought, harsh and passionate from feeling it more than he ought, bitter from having a tendency to cherish his anger, violent and abusive owing to the acts of retaliation (κόλασις) to which his anger gives rise.13Another translation of Eudemian Ethics 1221b translates this as ‘through the punishments one inflicts from anger’.

In Nicomachean Ethics 1126a he talks about ill-tempered people who become so angry they cannot be appeased until they have inflicted τιμωρία or κόλασις.

We call had-tempered those who are angry at the wrong things, more than is right, and longer, and cannot be appeased until they inflict vengeance (τιμωρία) or punishment (κόλασις).

Κόλασις is one of the ways an angry person could be appeased!

In Rhetoric 2.3.5, Aristotle connects the severity of κόλασις to the sense of anger felt by the one who metes out the punishment.

And towards those who admit and are sorry for a slight; for finding as it were satisfaction in the pain the offenders feel at what they have done, men cease to be angry. Evidence of this may be seen in the punishment (κόλασις) of slaves; for we punish (κολάζω) more severely those who contradict us and deny their offence, but cease to be angry with those who admit that they are justly punished (κολάζω). The reason is that to deny what is evident is disrespect, and disrespect is slight and contempt…

As noted above, κόλασις and κολάζω were used in the forensic corpus with reference to punitive actions that put the offender in his place. The quotes from Aristotle supplied above fit more with this view of κόλασις than the idea it has to do with a punishment inflicted for the sake of the offender. This holds even where Aristotle refers to parental κόλασις of children. One might assume that a parent’s love drives the act of κόλασις so that the goal is to act for the sake of the child. However, in ancient Greek society regarded children differently to how we view children now. To the Greeks, Lovano states, children were family assets.14Michael Lovano, The World of Ancient Greece, (Bloomsbury Publishing: 2019), 235. Children from any socioeconomic demographic could be utilized in a variety of ways to benefit the family’s position in society. Corporal punishment of children was an expectation, and even strangers were permitted to do so. The discipline of children, even where the idea was to instill good moral character, was intended to help a child fit into his or her correct place in society. Allen notes the way κόλασις had been used in this context.

The word kolasis seems to refer to the effort to teach people their proper places in the city’s social structure—most usually children and hubristic wrong-doers. The word kolazein thus directs the audience’s attention to what must be done to the punished.15Allen, The World of Prometheus, 85.

One reason a child would have been punished is the perception that dishonor had been brought on the parents and family, prompting an angry response. The κόλασις of a disobedient child was therefore not inflicted simply for the sake of the child, but rather was ‘an attempt to restore the appropriate sense of hierarchy and deference’.16Whitechurch, Revenge, Punishment and Anger, 114.

There is an idiosyncratic use of κόλασις by Aristotle in Eudemian Ethics 1.1214b.

For children and the sick and insane have many opinions which no sensible man would discuss, for these persons need not argument but the former time in which to grow up and alter and the latter medical or official chastisement (κόλασις) – treatment with drugs (φαρμακεία) being chastisement (κόλασις) just as much as flogging (πληγή) is.17I have removed the parentheses in the translation as a very slight adjustment made for the sake of clarity.

I have no doubt universalists will assume that Aristotle’s point here is that κόλασις is like medicine in the sense that it is administered for the good of the one who is sick. That would be a mistake. The specific ailment is the inability to think and talk sensibly. In ancient Greek society, insanity was treated with φαρμακεία (pharmakeia, roughly glossed as ‘drugs’ or ‘potion’), which here probably refers to the traditional cure for madness like the plant hellebore.18Mark Ahonen, Mental Disorders in Ancient Philosophy, (Springer International Publishing: 2014), 71. Hellebore itself is ambiguous since it may have referred to two different plants, black hellebore (Helleborus niger) and white hellebore (Veratrum album). Though both pants are regarded as purgative (i.e. they act as aperients causing the bowels to open), they both were known to be extremely poisonous, with even small doses causing vomiting or death.19Ahonen, Mental Disorders in Ancient Philosophy, n.59.28. In fact, the hellebore varieties are so toxic that they were used by the Greeks as a chemical weapon. A modern example might be saying that chemotherapy and radiology for cancer punish the cancer sufferer. The point is not that chemotherapy and radiology are cures for cancer, but to say that these treatments are extremely harsh on the body of the one being treated. This helps shed light on Aristotle’s qualification that the φαρμακεία are κόλασις in the way flogging (πληγή, plégé) is and narrows down the possibilities of interpretation.

Plato had already used the cognate verb κολάζω with connection to flogging as corporal punishment in his Laws 762c.

If a man absents himself by day, or by sleeping away at night, without orders from the officers or some urgent cause, and if the Five inform against him and post his name up in the market-place as guilty of deserting his watch, then he shall suffer degradation for being a traitor to his public duty, and whoever meets him and desires to punish (κολάζω) him may give him a beating (πληγή).

Plato does the same in Laws 890c

Whosoever fails to show himself obedient to the laws must either be put to death or else be punished (κολάζω), in one case by stripes (πληγή) and imprisonment, in another by degradation, in others by poverty and exile? But as to persuasion, should the lawgiver, while enacting the people’s laws, refuse to blend any persuasion with his statements, and thus tame them so far as possible?

Mark Ahonen is probably correct that Aristotle’s equation of φαρμακεία with κόλασις in terms of πληγή was focused on punishment in general.20Ahonen, Mental Disorders in Ancient Philosophy, 71-72. However, there is also a component of the analogy that turns on the pain and suffering experienced by the one being treated with φαρμακεία. Just as κόλασις in the form of πληγή would be painful to the one being punished, so also the φαρμακεία is κόλασις in the way it causes pain and suffering for the one undergoing their medical treatment. Aristotle was not saying the drugs used to treat insanity were κόλασις because of their curative or ‘corrective’ properties. He was emphasizing the treatment was as punishing to the patient as flogging is to the one being beaten.

Another text is helpful for illuminating Aristotle’s point of view on κόλασις as medicine. Though Aristotle does not use φαρμακεία in Nicomachean Ethics 1104b, he does connect κόλασις with pain.21Ἰατρεία (iatreia, ‘medical treatment, cure, healing’) is used instead.

Another indication is the fact that pain is the medium of punishment (κόλασις); for punishment is a sort of medicine, and the nature of medicine to work by means of opposites.

This is notable since Aristotle has already in the same passage stated the act of facing danger because of pain is not virtuous.

A man … is brave if he faces danger with pleasure or at all events without pain, cowardly if he does so with pain.

That is, the use of pain to force a person to act a certain way means the person has not been reformed into a virtuous person. In this context, Aristotle’s comparison of κόλασις with medicine turns on the idea of opposites. This is similar to an underlying principle in homeopathy where the treatment for an illness is the opposite of that which is thought to have caused the illness (e.g. if a fever is caused by heat then it is thought to be cured by cold). Pain is applied when punishing a person where it is thought that pleasure caused the person to do wrong. But the fact that pain is a medium of κόλασις means the correction of the person has not in and of itself made him virtuous.

The connection of pain with punishment is also made in Nicomachean Ethics 1180a.

But doubtless it is not enough for people to receive the right nurture and discipline in youth; they must also practice the lessons they have learnt, and confirm them by habit, when they are grown up. Accordingly we shall need laws to regulate the discipline of adults as well, and in fact the whole life of the people generally; for the many are more amenable to compulsion and punishment than to reason and to moral ideals. Hence some persons hold, that while it is proper for the lawgiver to encourage and exhort men to virtue on moral grounds, in the expectation that those who have had a virtuous moral upbringing will respond, yet he is bound to impose chastisement (κόλασις) and penalties (τιμωρία) on the disobedient and ill-conditioned, and to banish the incorrigible out of the state altogether. For (they argue) although the virtuous man, who guides his life by moral ideals, will be obedient to reason, the base, whose desires are fixed on pleasure, must be chastised (κολάζω) by pain, like a beast of burden. This indeed is the ground for the view that the pains and penalties for transgressors should be such as are most opposed to their favorite pleasures.

There are several issues to note. Aristotle does not use κόλασις when discussing the discipling and nurture of children. Neither κόλασις nor τιμωρία (or their cognate verbs) is used for “compulsion and punishment”. Aristotle writes of how lawgivers can successfully influence those who already have a well developed sense of morality. However, lawgivers must impose both κόλασις and τιμωρία on those who are incorrigibly recalcitrant due to a lack of a well developed sense of morality. The picture here is that those who break the law because they were not properly nurtured in childhood and do not act virtuously must be forced to behave properly. Both κόλασις and τιμωρία are used to correct the wrongdoer!

Furthermore, the example of a working animal being forced to labor for humans through pain has the verb κολάζω. This is similar to Aristotle’s medicinal analogy in Nicomachean Ethics 1104b. Pain is used to κόλασις the beast, which is forced to do what its human owners want and need. The mere fact the beast does what it is forced to do through painful punishment means its correction is not one of a reorientation to that which is virtuous or that the κόλασις being inflicted on it is for its benefit. The κόλασις of the beast is simply to force it to its properly place as a means of easing the workload of its owner. The beast is forced to its proper place in the hierarchy. This is a far cry from the typical universalist understanding of Aristotle’s use of κόλασις.

A relevant example that does not have to do with κόλασις being inflicted with pain but does have to do with hierarchy is found in Nicomachean Ethics 1132b.

For in many cases Reciprocity is at variance with Justice: for example, if an officer strikes a man, it is wrong for the man to strike him back; and if a man strikes an officer, it is not enough for the officer to strike him, but he ought to be punished (κολάζω) as well. Again, it makes a great difference whether an act was done with or without the consent of the other party.

The very striking thing here is that κολάζω is not inflicted when an officer strikes a man but is inflicted when a man strikes an officer. If the idea here is correcting the offending person for his sake, then why is κολάζω not applied in each case? The answer lies in what we have already observed: that the focus is on correcting the offender by putting him back in his place in the hierarchy.22Whitchurch, 2024, 114. The officer is able to obtain reciprocity by striking the man, but this alone does not bring justice. Putting the man back in his place in society serves that purpose.

One final example showing the broad way that Aristotle could use κόλασις is seen in Politics 5.1315a.

And again he [the ruler] should carefully avoid all forms of outrage, and two beyond all, violent bodily punishments (κόλασις) and outrage of the young … the tyrant should either not consort with men of this kind, or appear to inflict his punishments (κόλασις) paternally and not because of contempt

This shows κόλασις could be used when talking about how a parent would discipline a child and put him in his place in the family. However, since Aristotle thinks that κόλασις could be inflicted with contempt he states the tyrant should not act that way. Κόλασις could just as easily refer to paternal punishment as the contemptuous treatment a tyrant inflicted on his subject. Examples like this and those discussed above explain why there are those like Christensen, who detects some kind of distinction between κόλασις and τιμωρία in Aristotle, but maintain that in the end it matters little.

So while Aristotle upholds a distinction between corrective punishment and revenge, it is not at all clear they should differ in praxis … in practice they amount to the same actions. Moreover … the two aims, rectifying injustice and “correcting” the offender, each relies on the other: for while on the one hand corrective punishment is justified as an act of revenge; on the other hand, successful revenge depends on the corrective punishment”.23Christensen, “Aristotle on Anger, Justice, and Punishment” 76-77.

Whitechurch takes the next step.

Let us look at Aristotle another way. He feels the need to clarify the difference between τιμωρία and κόλασις not because they are so different, but because they are so similar. Both are products of anger and, therefore, of perceived slights to oneself or one’s own. But more particularly, both are τιμωρητικά, a choice of term that indicates strongly where Aristotle considers the common ground to lie. … Both τιμωρία and κόλασις are born of anger and both seek to redress the honour imbalance, but while the former focuses purely on reclaiming what was lost, the latter aims to put the offender back in their place.24Whitchurch, Revenge, Punishment and Anger in Ancient Greek Justice, 114.

The body of evidence I have discussed has led me to the conclusion that Whitechurch is correct that Aristotle’s distinction in Rhetoric 1.10.17 has been misunderstood. His translation of the passage is warranted.

Passion and anger are the causes of acts of revenge. But there is a difference between τιμωρία and κόλασις; the latter has in mind him who suffers it, the former him who inflicts it, that he may obtain satisfaction.25Whitchurch, Revenge, Punishment and Anger in Ancient Greek Justice, 110.

The rendering of ἕνεκά ἐστιν as ‘has in mind’ as opposed to ‘in the interest of’ better reflects Aristotle’s perspective on κόλασις. It does not carry with it unwarranted connotations that lead people to misunderstand his distinction.

In the final analysis, the distinction itself affords no meaningful difference that universalists can use to argue κόλασις is used in Matthew 25:46 to express the idea of correction. The kind of distinction that Aristotle makes in Rhetoric 1.10.17 just does not fit with the universalists’ exegetical and theological goals. What is more, Aristotle himself did not continue to maintain that distinction in his own literature and it is not reflected in general usage.26A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., s.v. ‘κολάζω’. This leaves modern universalists without one of their go to arguments for their understanding of κόλασις while removing one plank supporting their argument that Matthew 25:46 supports universalism.

 

 

References
￪1 William Barclay, The Apostles’ Creed, (Westminster John Knox Press: 1967), 189.
￪2 Joe Whitechurch, Revenge, Punishment and Anger in Ancient Greek Justice, (Bloomsbury Academic: 2024), 110-115.
￪3 Robert Nichols, as quoted by Whitechurch, Revenge, Punishment and Anger, 112.
￪4 Ibid.
￪5 The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, s.v. “τῑμωρητικός”.
￪6 The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, s.v. “τῑμωρητικός”.
￪7 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, translated by Christopher Rowe with a philosophical introduction and commentary by Sarah Broadie, (Oxford University Press: 2002). 152.
￪8 In Greek, the word form – not syntax as is the case in English – indicates the function nouns take in a clause or sentence. In Rhetoric 1.10.17, both κόλασις and τιμωρία have the form indicating they are the subject of the clause.
￪9 Danielle S. Allen, The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishment in Democratic Athens, (Princeton University Press: 2009, 86, 298) Allen gives a list of example texts in n.114, page 357.
￪10 Niels Aslak Christensen, “Aristotle on Anger, Justice, and Punishment”, Ph.D. diss. University College London, (2016), 76.
￪11 Whitechurch, Revenge, Punishment and Anger, 112.
￪12 Christensen, “Aristotle on Anger, Justice, and Punishment”, 9.
￪13 Another translation of Eudemian Ethics 1221b translates this as ‘through the punishments one inflicts from anger’.
￪14 Michael Lovano, The World of Ancient Greece, (Bloomsbury Publishing: 2019), 235.
￪15 Allen, The World of Prometheus, 85.
￪16 Whitechurch, Revenge, Punishment and Anger, 114.
￪17 I have removed the parentheses in the translation as a very slight adjustment made for the sake of clarity.
￪18 Mark Ahonen, Mental Disorders in Ancient Philosophy, (Springer International Publishing: 2014), 71.
￪19 Ahonen, Mental Disorders in Ancient Philosophy, n.59.28.
￪20 Ahonen, Mental Disorders in Ancient Philosophy, 71-72.
￪21 Ἰατρεία (iatreia, ‘medical treatment, cure, healing’) is used instead.
￪22 Whitchurch, 2024, 114.
￪23 Christensen, “Aristotle on Anger, Justice, and Punishment” 76-77.
￪24 Whitchurch, Revenge, Punishment and Anger in Ancient Greek Justice, 114.
￪25 Whitchurch, Revenge, Punishment and Anger in Ancient Greek Justice, 110.
￪26 A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., s.v. ‘κολάζω’.
Biblical Exegesis, Darren Clark

Has John Dickson misinterpreted Romans 2:5-6? Part 2: Eisegeting Paul

This is the second article in my response to John Dickson and Greg Clarks. Their argument is that Romans 2:5-6 supports their contention that Paul taught there would be degrees of eternal punishment for those who reject Christ. This is important for their case against annihilationism, for they think that conditionalism cannot sufficiently account for degrees of punishment in hell for ‘a Hitler-figure … will receive the same judgment as a non-Christian humanitarian worker.’[1] My two-part series aims to show that Dickson and Clarke have misunderstood one of the passages they use to support their argument. In my first article I focused on their appeal to Paul’s statement that sinners are ‘storing up wrath against yourself’, showing their misunderstanding. You can find part one here.

In this article I will focus on this argument as they discuss Romans 2:5-6.

God will judge the world on the basis of human behaviour, in other words, ‘according to deeds.’ As Paul says in his letter to the Romans: Romans 2:5–6.

…In the above passage Paul quotes Psalm 62:12 saying that God’s judgment is “according to what each has done”. This does not mean ‘because of’ what each has done; it means ‘commensurate with’ or ‘in proportion to’ what each has done.[2] (emphasis Dickson and Clarke’s)

The relevant Greek preposition behind ‘according to’, κατά (kata), is polysemous. Beale, et al, note there are at least eight main variations of meaning of κατά when it is used with a noun in the accusative case.[3] However, even in these categories, there can also be variation of nuance.[4] My point is, there are several factors that exegetes take into account when trying to ascertain the exact nuance a polysemous preposition like κατά may have in any given context. Sometimes a proposition can even function as a double entendre or take on various meanings as it is used multiple times in the same passage. This is to say, the exegete must avoid simply assuming a proposition like κατά has a specific meaning in any given context.

This relates to Dickson and Clarke’s argument. They give no reason for their particular understanding of ‘according to.’ Κατά can be understood as referring ‘to the thing which is the ground or basis of something, and hence the item provides a standard for evaluation’.[5] However, this use of κατά does not necessarily denote the idea of variation in a standard. Perhaps this is why the many commentaries on Romans I have consulted, the subject of degrees of punishment has not been broached. There are parallels in the LXX and NT where the word for ‘each’ ἕκαστος (hekastos) is combined with κατά (LXX Ps 61:13; Prov 21:12; Mat 16:27; 1 Cor 3:8; 1 Pet 1:17; Rev 2:23). It is not always clear that degrees of punishment or reward is in view in these examples. For instance, in Matthew 16:27 Jesus says that ‘he will repay each person according to what he has done.’ The combination of ἕκαστος and κατά is used there, but Jesus had just stated that those who seek to save his life would lose it, while the reverse would be true for those who chose to follow him (v25). Gaining the whole world would be futile if that means one loses one’s life (v26). In that context, what one does could result in life or death for that person. The combination of ἕκαστος and κατά is used to express a precise and impartial standard of justice without the notion of degrees; rather, loss of life.

In contrast, Matthew 25:14-15 is an example where ἕκαστος + κατά is used in a context where there is variation in what people receive.

14 “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. (Matt 25:14-15 ESV)

The statement on the number of talents each servant receives is why ‘each according to his ability’ reads as a rationale for the variation of treatment of each servant. This kind of context is missing from Romans 2:6.

As discussed above, Paul had already articulated that those committing a range of sins all deserve to die (Rom 1:32). As Steven Runge points out, Romans 2 is not a completely new section but ‘builds directly on the latter half of chapter 1’.[6] In fact, most commentators point out that Romans 2:1-11 is directed at those who judge others even as they commit those same sins (Rom 2:1-3). These people commit the same sins so also deserve to die just as the ones they judge. They all deserve the one and same punishment of death. This all means that Paul’s ‘He will render to each one according to his works’ in Romans 6:2 is a statement emphasizing God’s impartiality in judgment without emphasizing degrees of punishment.

It comes as no surprise then that Romans 2:6 forms part of a chiasm, with its counterpart being a parallel statement that ‘For God shows no partiality’ (v11). Douglas Moo is one of many commentators who think Romans 6:6-11 has a chiastic structure, like a passage followed by its reflection.[7] Moo represents this chiasm in the following way.

A. God will judge everyone equitably v. 6

B. Those who do good will attain eternal life v. 7

C. Those who do evil will suffer wrath v. 8

C′. Wrath for those who do evil v. 9

B′. Glory for those who do good v. 10

A′. God judges impartially v. 11[8]

Since verse 6 is aligned with verse 11 in the chiasm, then each should be read as reflections of one another. Paul’s emphasis on God’s impartial judgment in verse 11 confirms that verse 6 is an affirmation that an ‘impartial standard of judgment that will be applied in the final Assize.’[9] This is all that Paul is saying in verse 6. Note too, the emphasis on those who seek immortality (along with glory and honor) being given eternal life. This must be seen in light of Romans 1:32. As noted above, Paul had stated that those who committed sins deserve to die. The language he used behind ‘deserve to die’ (ἄξιοι θανάτου) is used in Luke 23:15 (ἄξιον θανάτου) where Pilate tells the Jewish leaders that Jesus was innocent of any crime that might warrant the death penalty. It is also used in Acts 23:29 (ἄξιον θανάτου) and 25:25 (ἄξιον … θανάτου) where Paul is said to have committed no crime that warranted his death. This shows such language referred to ordinary death. Romans 1:32 emphases that sinful behaviour should result in the death of the sinner while 2:7 shows that those who are righteous will be rescued from that death by being made immortal.

Some might think that Paul’s use of the couplet of synonyms θλῖψις καὶ στενοχωρία (thlipsis kai stenochōria, ‘tribulation and distress’) implies that there will be an ongoing experience of punishment in hell. We do need to keep in mind that the chiasm in Romans 2:6-11 has the couplet of synonyms θλῖψις καὶ στενοχωρία in parallel with ὀργὴ καὶ θυμός (orgē kai thumos, ‘wrath and fury’) so I will be discussing both couplets. In the LXX, ὀργὴ and θυμός are synonymous, being used interchangeably ‘to translate every variety of Hebrew word expressing divine wrath.’[10] The couplet ὀργὴ καὶ θυμός is used a way of portraying the intensity of anger that motivates someone to act in a certain way. An example of this is LXX Jeremiah 7:18-20, where persistent idolatry provokes God to anger to the point that his wrath and anger was being poured out on the idolater with such intensity that it ‘will burn and not be quenched.’[11] Dunn says that ὀργὴ καὶ θυμός is used with reference to final judgment in LXX Isa 13:9.[12]

LXX Isaiah 13:9 For behold, the incurable day of the Lord comes, a day of wrath and anger, to make the whole world desolate and to destroy the sinners from it. (NETS)

The Greek word behind ‘destroy’ in LXX Isaiah 13:9 is ἀπόλλυμι (apollumi). It translates the Hebrew word ḥāram. Mounce says ḥāram is most often used to refer to the complete destruction of cities, which ‘involves the total annihilation of the human and animal population’.[13] The LXX translator also followed the emphasis in the Hebrew on people being destroyed from the world. There is no doubt that LXX Isaiah 13:9 refers to people being killed and so removed from the world on the day of the Lord. Recall that in Romans 2:5 Paul had written of ‘the day of wrath.’ This coupled with his use of ὀργὴ καὶ θυμός in Romans 2:8 indicate that Paul had LXX Isaiah 13:9 in mind as an OT source text for his thought. This is another line of evidence that he thought that the wicked would be killed by God on the day of the Lord.

In the chiasm of Romans 2:6-11, ὀργὴ καὶ θυμός is in parallel with θλῖψις καὶ στενοχωρία (thlipsis kai stenochōria, ‘tribulation and distress’). Unlike ὀργὴ and θυμός, θλῖψις and στενοχωρία are not synonymous. Paul uses θλῖψις is used in 2 Thessalonians 1:4-6 in conjunction with the cognate verb θλίβω (thlibō, ‘to squeeze, press, afflict’). In Romans 2:6 Paul used ἀποδίδωμι (apodidōmi, translated in the ESV as ‘render’), which is a variation of the words for ‘repay’ in 2 Thessalonians 1:6 (ἀνταποδίδωμι, antapodidōmi, ‘to repay’) verse 8 (δίδωμι, didōmi, ‘to give’). The verb ἀποδίδωμι was also used in LXX Isaiah 66:15 which, as observed above, was a major OT source text for Paul’s thought in 2 Thessalonians 1:8. There is good reason to think that Paul used θλῖψις in Romans 2:9 because he had in mind what he was teaching in 2 Thessalonians.

In contrast to θλῖψις, στενοχωρία is used rarely in the LXX and NT, and it is not used at all in Isaiah 66 or 2 Thessalonians 1. Nevertheless, Robert Jewett has surveyed the uses of the couplet θλῖψις καὶ στενοχωρία and instances when the individual words are used in the LXX and NT.[14] His conclusion is ‘στενοχωρία conveys the unavoidability of divinely imposed disaster.’[15] It is no surprise he also concludes θλῖψις καὶ στενοχωρία at times ‘appears to constitute a formula for divine wrath’ that ‘depicts the manner in which divine wrath is experienced.[16] The majority of commentators on Romans 2:9 made similar conclusions. None suggested that θλῖψις καὶ στενοχωρία express the idea that people would experience affliction differently to each other. On the contrary, the use of the couple simply emphasizes that people will feel the force of that which afflicts them. If it is a natural disaster or persecution at the hands of others (Rom 8:35) one will feel the full effects of that which afflicts them. In the context of a chiasm where the full ὀργὴ καὶ θυμός of God is poured out on those who have sinned and deserve to die, θλῖψις καὶ στενοχωρία emphasizes that those same people will fully experience that divine wrath as they are executed. This is surely a rebuke to those who mischaracterize conditionalism as the view that unbelievers will be snuffed or blipped out of existence.

Given Dickson and Clarke failed to do anything more than simply state what they think “according to what each has done” means and so opened themselves up to the charge they committed eisegesis. Eisegesis is a technical way of saying ‘read into the test’. I have discussed the various factors that need to be taken into account when interpreting Romans 2:6. This shows that Dickson and Clarke interpreted this verse in a way that fits with their commitment to the doctrine of degrees of punishment in hell, and not necessarily because the evidence supports that reading of Romans 2:6.

Overall, it should be clear that Dickson and Clarke have entirely misunderstood Romans 2:5-6. Their appeal to the phraseology ‘according to what each has done’ and ‘storing up wrath against yourself’ is insufficient for establishing their contention that Paul was teaching degrees of punishment in Romans 2:5-6. They even miss Paul’s emphasis on conditional immortality in this passage. Rather than being evidence that might work against conditionalism, this passage gives the reader good reason to think Paul was a conditionalist. If only Dickson and Clarke had focused on some of Paul’s language used in that passage, they may have seen this too.

  1. 1John Dickson and Greg Clarke, 666 And All That – The Truth About The Future, Kindle ed., (Aquila Press: 2007), 79-80. ↑
  2. 2Dickson and Clarke, 666 And All That, Kindle loc., 1072-1094. ↑
  3. 3In English syntax (word order) generally tells the audience whether a noun is the subject or object of the clause, In Greek, the ending of a Greek noun that tells us this, When the Greek ending is in the form that indicates it might be the object, that is called the accusative case. ↑
  4. 4Gregory K. Beale, , Daniel Joseph Brendsel, & William A. Ross, An Interpretive Lexicon of New Testament Greek: Analysis of Prepositions, Adverbs, Particles, Relative Pronouns, and Conjunctions, Kindle ed., (Zondervan: 2014), Kindle loc., 1238-1259. ↑
  5. 5Stanley E. Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament, (Sheffield: JSOT, 1999), 163. ↑
  6. 6Steven E. Runge, High Definition Commentary: Romans, (Lexham Press: 2014), 37. ↑
  7. 7D. Moo, The Letter to the Romans, 2nd ed. (Eerdmans: 2018). Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2015314, accessed: 13 March 2025, no page given. ↑
  8. 8A very basic introduction to biblical chiasm can be found here. Note, however, there can be variations in the use of chiasmus that this article does not discuss. ↑
  9. 9Murray J. Harris, Prepositions and Theology in the Greek New Testament: An Essential Reference Resource for Exegesis, (Zondervan, 2012), 152–153. ↑
  10. 10Anthony Tyrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, (S.P.C.K.: 1957), 206-209. ↑
  11. 11In LXX Gen 27:41-44, Esau is characterized as having determined to kill his brother Jacob over having missed out from the blessing from their father. Jacob is told that moving to Mesopotamia will allow time for Esau’s wrath and anger to dissipate. In LXX Deut 29:23 it is said God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in wrath and anger and verse 28 associates God’s wrath and anger with his exile of future sinful Israelites. See also LXX Isaiah 10:5 and 30:30. ↑
  12. 12James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1-8, (Word Books: 1988), 87. ↑
  13. 13William D. Mounce, Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words, (Zondervan: 2006), 175. ↑
  14. 14Robert Jewett, Romans: A commentary, (Fortress Press: 2007), 207-208. ↑
  15. 15Jewett, Romans, 208. ↑
  16. 16Jewett, Romans, 207. ↑

 

 

References
￪1 John Dickson and Greg Clarke, 666 And All That – The Truth About The Future, Kindle ed., (Aquila Press: 2007), 79-80.
￪2 Dickson and Clarke, 666 And All That, Kindle loc., 1072-1094.
￪3 In English syntax (word order) generally tells the audience whether a noun is the subject or object of the clause, In Greek, the ending of a Greek noun that tells us this, When the Greek ending is in the form that indicates it might be the object, that is called the accusative case.
￪4 Gregory K. Beale, , Daniel Joseph Brendsel, & William A. Ross, An Interpretive Lexicon of New Testament Greek: Analysis of Prepositions, Adverbs, Particles, Relative Pronouns, and Conjunctions, Kindle ed., (Zondervan: 2014), Kindle loc., 1238-1259.
￪5 Stanley E. Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament, (Sheffield: JSOT, 1999), 163.
￪6 Steven E. Runge, High Definition Commentary: Romans, (Lexham Press: 2014), 37.
￪7 D. Moo, The Letter to the Romans, 2nd ed. (Eerdmans: 2018). Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2015314, accessed: 13 March 2025, no page given.
￪8 A very basic introduction to biblical chiasm can be found here. Note, however, there can be variations in the use of chiasmus that this article does not discuss.
￪9 Murray J. Harris, Prepositions and Theology in the Greek New Testament: An Essential Reference Resource for Exegesis, (Zondervan, 2012), 152–153.
￪10 Anthony Tyrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, (S.P.C.K.: 1957), 206-209.
￪11 In LXX Gen 27:41-44, Esau is characterized as having determined to kill his brother Jacob over having missed out from the blessing from their father. Jacob is told that moving to Mesopotamia will allow time for Esau’s wrath and anger to dissipate. In LXX Deut 29:23 it is said God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in wrath and anger and verse 28 associates God’s wrath and anger with his exile of future sinful Israelites. See also LXX Isaiah 10:5 and 30:30.
￪12 James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1-8, (Word Books: 1988), 87.
￪13 William D. Mounce, Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words, (Zondervan: 2006), 175.
￪14 Robert Jewett, Romans: A commentary, (Fortress Press: 2007), 207-208.
￪15 Jewett, Romans, 208.
￪16 Jewett, Romans, 207.
Darren Clark

Punishing Fallacies: Part 1: Pruning universalism of a lexical myth

William Barclay (1907-1978) was a former Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism at Glasgow University who had become well known for his commentary series aimed at helping the average believer to better understand the Bible. He was also known for defending the doctrine of universalism. In 1975 he published his autobiography in which he argued the Greek word behind punishment in Matthew 25:46, κόλασις (kolasis),

was not originally an ethical word at all. It originally meant the pruning of trees to make them grow better.1William Barclay, A Spiritual Biography, (Eerdmans:1977), 66.

If this claim is true, then it would lend some credence to universalists’ claims that κόλασις came to be used for remedial discipline and not retributive punishment. What evidence is there for this claim?

The short answer is there is none.

The long answer will require some commentary on the lexical material universalists cite when supporting Barclay’s claim. Brett from Salvation for All cites the following entry from LSJ.2Brett (no last name given), ‘Kolasin’s Meaning’, https://salvationforall.org/10_Strongholds/7-kolasin-meaning.html, accessed 4th April, 2025. LSJ is short for Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, and Henry Stuart Jones, who were editors of A Greek–English Lexicon. LSJ is a lexicon of classical Greek and not the Koine Greek used in the NT. Its last edition was published in 1940-1941. You can find a free online edition of the lexicon here.

κόλ-α^σις , εως , ἡ , A. checking the growth of trees, esp. almond-trees, Thphr.CP3.18.2 (pl.).

Notice that ‘pruning’ is not given as a gloss for κόλασις. The reason for this is Brett quoted a late edition of LSJ. Sometimes universalists will quote an older edition of LSJ that includes ‘pruning’; meanwhile, modern lexicons like BDAG and Louw-Nida omit this sense entirely.

What has changed?

Huggins answers this question in a 2011 article sarcastically titled, Cutting-Edge Obsolescence: Rob Bell’s Reliance on a Long-Discredited Universalist Rendering of Matthew 25:46 in Love Wins. Huggins discusses how in the 1800s Greek lexicons like LSJ had listed the meaning of ‘a pruning or checking the growth of trees’ for κόλασις.3Ronald V. Huggins, ‘Cutting-Edge Obsolescence: Rob Bell’s Reliance on a Long-Discredited Universalist Rendering of Matthew 25:46 in Love Wins’, in Midwestern Journal of Theology, 10.1 (2011): 124-29. However, as more research was conducted on the usage of the word the idea of pruning was dropped so that by the 1940’s the 9th edition of Liddel & Scott defined κόλασις as having to do with ‘check the growth of trees’ (esp. almond trees). Huggins surmises that the reason for this was,

part of the difficulty lay in the fact that the only examples offered where there was any sort of clear horticultural connection with kolazo/kolasis derived from a single author, namely Theophrastus of Eresos (3rd/4th cent. BC), and in particular to a passage in a work where he used kolazo in a sense in which the concept of punishment appears already to be there.

In the entire body of ancient Greek literature only one author can be found using κόλασις in a horticultural context! This is probably why the premier authority on the original meaning of Greek words, Robert Beekes’ Etymological Dictionary of Greek, lists κόλασις with the gloss ‘chastisement’ and not ‘pruning’.4Robert Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, ed. Alexander Lubotsky, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2010), 739.

Those who might be inclined to accept Barclay’s claim that κόλασις was originally a gardening term might accept all this and still argue that Theophrastus did use the word in just such a context. Brett from Salvation for All makes the following argument.

You may have noticed that “checking the growth of trees” is the first definition given, followed by a reference: Thphr.CP3.18.2 (pl.)… It refers to On the Causes of Plants (De Causis Plantarum), a botany book about plant physiology by Theophrastus (371-286 BC), who is considered to be the founding father of botany as well as a scientific colleague and close friend of Aristotle (Thanos 1994). The numbers are the volume, chapter, and section of this work.

Unfortunately, I was unable to obtain On the Causes of Plants very easily …. Nevertheless, Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon makes clear reference to checking the growth of trees in order to make them more fruitful as an intended meaning in Theophrastus’ botany book. Pruning, therefore, is definitely part of its semantic range (range of meaning) and indicates that kolasin is beneficial to the one experiencing it.

There are problems with Brett’s argument. First, he is defending Barclay’s claim that κόλασις “originally” referred to pruning of trees. On the contrary, the first attestation of κόλασις is found in Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War,5This is stated in the following entry on ‘κολάζω G3134 (kolazō), to punish; κόλασις G3136 (kolasis), punishment; κολαφίζω G3139 (kolaphizō), to strike (with the fist), fig. Torment’, in New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis, 2nd ed., Olive Tree ed., publication details not given, page not given. which is an account of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC).6Arnold Wycombe Gomme, ‘Thucydides: Greek historian’, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thucydides-Greek-historian , accessed on 04/04/2025. Thucydides (circa. 460 BC—404 BC) died before Theophrastus (371-286 BC) was born. His use of κόλασις has nothing to do with gardening but with the treatment of former allies who had defected during wartime.7The Greek text from The Peloponnesian War can be found here.

Second, Brett assumes “checking the growth of trees” is a way of referring to pruning. LSJ gives a single reference for this gloss of κόλασις. It is from Theophrastus’ book called De Causis Plantarum.8The title is usually translated as, On the Causes of Plants. I will quote the relevant section and then make a few comments.

So when the almond tree starts to bear it is neither watered, nor manured, nor pruned (except only for removing deadwood) nor subjected to any other procedure;9In the text that I have access to there is a footnote at this point that has ‘such as spading or pulling out weeds’. for all such tendance is withdrawn so that the tree may not get too strong and drop its fruit in the blossom (this moreover is why the land sought for it is not the best). If after this it refuses to produce fruit they lay the roots bare for the winter to have its way with them and administer the other ‘castigations’ that we have mentioned.

I am guessing that as you read that paragraph from Theophrastus you assumed that κόλασις or its cognate verb κολάζω, is behind ‘pruned’. No, this is not the case; the word is διακαθαίρω. LSJ has ‘to prune’ as one of the meanings for διακαθαίρω, which is accompanied by a citation of a paragraph from Theophrastus’, Historia Plantarum (Enquiry into Plants). LSJ glosses διακαθαίρω as ‘prune’ (the sense used in Historia Plantarum), and Philo Judeaus in the 1st century A.D.. LSJ also lists ‘purge thoroughly’ as a meaning of διακαθαίρω in literature written in the 5th-4th centuries. This is the verb used when John the Baptist is reported to have said that Jesus ‘will clear his threshing floor’ (Matt 3:12; Luke 3:17). You can get a sense of how Theophrastus used διακαθαίρω through the following example in Historia Plantarum 2.7.2: Διακαθαίρεσθαι δὲ πάντα ζητῖ (‘All trees require pruning’). Needless to say, διακαθαίρω would have been the perfect word to use in Matthew 25:46 if the idea was to convey an age-long cleansing of the wicked.

In the quote from De Causis Plantarum above, κόλασις is used in the plural form, κολάσεις, and is rendered as ‘catigations’. This is used with reference to the withholding of the usual methods of cultivation like watering, fertilizing and pruning the tree. In this case, κόλασις refers to deliberate neglect of the almond trees, not pruning per se. Brett laments that he could not find an online copy of De Causis Plantarum. However, his inability to double check the primary source failed to prevent him from assuming ‘checking the growth of trees’ means, ‘Pruning … is definitely part of its semantic range … and indicates that kolasin is beneficial to the one experiencing it.’ Brett assumed LSJ supports his thesis when it does no such thing.

Third, even if Theophrastus did use κόλασις in De Causis Plantarum with the sense of ‘pruning’, in the 4th century B.C., there is nothing to say that the noun retained this meaning in the 1st century A.D.. What universalists need to do is find unambiguous examples of the use of κόλασις in literature contemporaneous to the NT and/or literature with which the NT authors interacted. I have asked them on several occasions for these examples but thus far none have been provided.

Brett goes on to support his argument in the following way,

For a bit more analysis on this meaning and on the rationale Theophrastus gave for why pruning increases fruit production, you can see The Palgrave Handbook of Infertility in History. In this book, Theophrastus’ logic of pruning almond trees to increase fruitfulness is summarized as follows:

“Cultivation, however, was not without risks to the fertility of plants. It too could lead to barrenness… Plants grown in rich soil could grow excessive leafage and fail to produce fruit. Thus, according to Theophrastus, almond trees planted in too rich a soil ‘grow over-luxuriant (exhubrisasai) on account of the rich feeding, and fail to bear fruit’…The solution was to prune such plants.” (Davis and Loughran 2017).10Brett references editors of the book and not the author of the essay in that book. The author is Laurence M.V. Totelin, ‘Whose Fault Is It Anyway? Plant Infertility in Antiquity’, in The Palgrave Handbook of Infertility in History, edited by Gayle Davis & Tracey Loughran, (Palgrave Macmillan: 2017), available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/3483534 (Accessed: 30 March 2025), no page given.

At this point, Brett has switched from discussing the noun κόλασις to its cognate verb κολάζω (kolazó). In doing so, he opens up the debate to the question of whether the verb κολάζω is used with the sense of ‘to prune’. But even the expert he cites does not identify κόλασις or κολάζω as the words used to express the notion of pruning. Furthermore, Brett also omits the rest of Totelin’s quote from De Causis Plantarum 3.15.4,11Totelin, ‘Whose Fault Is It Anyway?’, no page given.

Τὰς δ’ ἐν τοῖς ἐφύδροις ἢ ὅσα τῶν γενῶν ὑβριστικὰ τοῦ ἦρος ὅπως διεσκεδασμένου τοῦ ὑγροῦ καὶ τμηθείσης ἐν ὥρᾳ τοῦτ’ ἀπορρυῇ. Διὰ γὰρ τὸ πλῆθος οὐ πεττούσας τοῦθ’ ὑβρίζειν ἄλλως καὶ ἐκκληματοῦσθαι.

[They recommend pruning vines] in wet regions, or the types that tend to luxuriance (hubristika) in spring, so that the fluid may be dispersed and flow away at the time of the pruning. For it is on account of this abundance of fluid that the vines are unable to concoct it and grow over-luxuriant (hubrizein) in various ways, in particular running to branch.

Though the subject of pruning is indeed in view in this passage, neither the noun κόλασις, nor its cognate verb κολάζω are used to express this notion. The casual reader may have not detected this and assumed this is evidence for Barclay’s claim. In fact, just recently, one gentleman on social media cited this very portion of Brett’s article in order to refute my contention that Barclay had made a false claim. It must be stated in as clear terms as possible: Brett’s argument at this point has nothing to commend it.

In his discussion of the subject, Totelin cites Michelini’s observation that κολάζω is etymologically related to the usual word for pruning, κολούω (koloúō) 12Ann Michelini, ‘Hybris and Plants’, in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 82 (1978), 43. This is not in and of itself wrong, since both verbs were derived from the polyvalent adjective κόλος (kólos)13This adjective could take on several nuances like ‘docked’, ‘hornless or stump-horned’, ‘(of a spear) without point’, or (of battle) ‘broken off’. Robert Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, ed. by Alexander Lubotsky, (Brill, 2010), 739. However, though the two verbs were derived from κόλος independently, they are not synonyms. All that this shows is that Theophrastus had at his disposal a perfectly serviceable word for pruning so would not need to resort to κολάζω. Moreover, when Totelin does get around to commenting on κολάζω, he emphasizes the translation ‘punished’:

Like a judge who punished crimes of hubris, the farmer punished his trees for over-luxuriance.14Totelin, ‘Whose Fault Is It Anyway?’, no page given.

Michelini gives more context for this:

In a more striking example yet, κολάζω itself in Theophrastus – or more often κόλασις – is used for a drastic process that reduces exuberant growth in almond trees, a species particularly prone to ἐξυβρίζειν.15The verb ἐξυβρίζειν meant ‘to break out, go crazy’ and was used to describe plants that were over-luxuriant in their foliage. A hole cut in the tree permits the insertion of an iron peg to produce a continual flow of sap, reducing the tree’s vigor. Theophrastus also seems to use the term κόλασις for other drastic treatments, such as exposure and pruning of vine roots. The almond tree, after its mutilation, bears better nuts, just as the human ὑβρίζων is presumed to become a better citizen after punishment. Theophrastus (Hist. Plant. 2.7.6), struck by the picturesque language,

Michelini describes how Theophrastus used κολάζω to describe the mutilation of the roots of almond trees. The exact way this was achieved was not by cutting the root, though. This can be seen by the very quote from Theophrastus (Historia Plantarum 2.7.6) that Michelini discusses.

Into the almond tree they drive an iron peg, and, having thus made a hole, insert in its place a peg of oak-wood and bury it in the earth, and some call this ‘punishing’ (κολάζω) the tree, since its luxuriance is thus chastened.16The English translation of Theophrastus can be found here; The Greek can be found here.

The hole is created by driving an iron peg into it. Theophrastis is just saying that this mutilation of the tree caused some to say that it had been punished — certainly it did not cause them to say it had been pruned. Michelini gives other examples from De Causis Plantarum 1.17-9-10 and 2.14.4.17It is very difficult to find an accessible online copy of De Causis Plantarum but one can be found here. In the first example, Theophrastus gives more detail on the treatment of almond trees.

Too much food not only causes late fruiting but in some trees even causes failure to bear, as we said of vines and of almonds and in general of all trees that have holes driven in them and that are chastened (κολάζω) by blows. For when this is done to them, all of them, with the fluid drained off, either bear when they had failed to bear before or bear finer and more succulent fruit. In the almond, if one knocks out the peg and purges the influx of fluid over a period of two or three years the tree is even said to change from bitter to sweet.

In the second example, he harks back to the first, saying

as we said of the almond trees that are chastised (κολάζω) and get their roots cut off and of the fig trees that are slashed, since with the removal of the excess food the native heat has greater strength for acting on the remainder.

The verbs for ‘cut’ and ‘slash’ are not κολάζω. Theophrastus still has in mind the harsh treatment of driving iron spikes into the roots of the tree and it is this to which κολάζω refers. None of the available evidence shows that κολάζω was used with the sense of ‘to prune’, let alone Barclay’s claim that κόλασις meant ‘the pruning of trees to make them grow better’.

A final word needs to be said on the assumption behind most claims by universalists who cite Barclay on the meaning of κόλασις. The reason his claim about κόλασις originally being a gardening term is attractive is because universalists think it shows that κόλασις was used to express the belief that plants could be cultivated for their own good. This is why claims about κόλασις and κολάζω are often juxtaposed with the quote from Aristotle where he draws a distinction between κολάζω/κόλασις and τιμωρία/τιμωρέω. This is not accurate. If Theophrastus’ descriptions of botany tell us anything, it is that cultivated trees often had the propensity of pouring all their energy into producing lush foliage. This is the tree doing well. This is what is good for the tree.

But this is not what people need from trees. People cannot eat the foliage of these trees. They needed fruit to sustain them. So, they invented all sorts of procedures, many of them quite harmful to the trees, to force the tree to bear more fruit for human consumption. Theophrastus mentions this in Historia Plantarum 2.7.2.

All trees require pruning; for they are improved by removal of the dead wood, which is, as it were, a foreign body, and prevents growth and nourishment. Wherefore when the (tree) — becomes old, they cut off all its boughs: for then the tree breaks afresh. Androtion says that the myrtle and olive need more pruning than any other trees; for the smaller you leave them, the better they will grow, and they will bear better fruit.18This quote can be found here.

As Michelini observes,

The cure for the vegetable ὑβρίζων is as straightforward as the cause: by cutting off some of the superfluous growth, the farmer can return the plant to its proper function as producer of fruit.

The mutilation of the tree served the needs of humans, not the tree. This is perhaps best summarized by Totelin.

The ancients observed that the cultivation status of a plant had an impact on its fertility. They argued that a plant that grew wild was less able to bear fruit than its domesticated counterpart. Or to be more precise, a wild plant was able to bear fruit, but it could not bring that fruit to full concoction (maturation): its fruit would be inedible to humans. To the modern perception, these wild fruit trees are not at all infertile; but to the ancients, failure to produce useful fruit for humans equalled barrenness.19Totelin, ‘Whose Fault Is It Anyway?’, no page given.

Even if universalists like Brett were correct that κολάζω and κόλασις can refer to pruning, they would still completely misunderstand how ancient Greeks viewed the significance of the practice. They have things backwards. As it stands, universalists’ appeal to Barclay is an appeal to a lexical myth coupled with a false assumption about why pruning was employed at all.

This myth should be utterly abandoned by all universalists.

In part two of this series, I will discuss universalists reliance on Aristotle’s distinction between κολάζω/κόλασις and τιμωρία/τιμωρέω.

 

References
￪1 William Barclay, A Spiritual Biography, (Eerdmans:1977), 66.
￪2 Brett (no last name given), ‘Kolasin’s Meaning’, https://salvationforall.org/10_Strongholds/7-kolasin-meaning.html, accessed 4th April, 2025. LSJ is short for Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, and Henry Stuart Jones, who were editors of A Greek–English Lexicon. LSJ is a lexicon of classical Greek and not the Koine Greek used in the NT. Its last edition was published in 1940-1941. You can find a free online edition of the lexicon here.
￪3 Ronald V. Huggins, ‘Cutting-Edge Obsolescence: Rob Bell’s Reliance on a Long-Discredited Universalist Rendering of Matthew 25:46 in Love Wins’, in Midwestern Journal of Theology, 10.1 (2011): 124-29.
￪4 Robert Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, ed. Alexander Lubotsky, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2010), 739.
￪5 This is stated in the following entry on ‘κολάζω G3134 (kolazō), to punish; κόλασις G3136 (kolasis), punishment; κολαφίζω G3139 (kolaphizō), to strike (with the fist), fig. Torment’, in New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis, 2nd ed., Olive Tree ed., publication details not given, page not given.
￪6 Arnold Wycombe Gomme, ‘Thucydides: Greek historian’, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thucydides-Greek-historian , accessed on 04/04/2025.
￪7 The Greek text from The Peloponnesian War can be found here.
￪8 The title is usually translated as, On the Causes of Plants.
￪9 In the text that I have access to there is a footnote at this point that has ‘such as spading or pulling out weeds’.
￪10 Brett references editors of the book and not the author of the essay in that book. The author is Laurence M.V. Totelin, ‘Whose Fault Is It Anyway? Plant Infertility in Antiquity’, in The Palgrave Handbook of Infertility in History, edited by Gayle Davis & Tracey Loughran, (Palgrave Macmillan: 2017), available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/3483534 (Accessed: 30 March 2025), no page given.
￪11 Totelin, ‘Whose Fault Is It Anyway?’, no page given.
￪12 Ann Michelini, ‘Hybris and Plants’, in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 82 (1978), 43.
￪13 This adjective could take on several nuances like ‘docked’, ‘hornless or stump-horned’, ‘(of a spear) without point’, or (of battle) ‘broken off’. Robert Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, ed. by Alexander Lubotsky, (Brill, 2010), 739.
￪14 Totelin, ‘Whose Fault Is It Anyway?’, no page given.
￪15 The verb ἐξυβρίζειν meant ‘to break out, go crazy’ and was used to describe plants that were over-luxuriant in their foliage.
￪16 The English translation of Theophrastus can be found here; The Greek can be found here.
￪17 It is very difficult to find an accessible online copy of De Causis Plantarum but one can be found here.
￪18 This quote can be found here.
￪19 Totelin, ‘Whose Fault Is It Anyway?’, no page given.
Biblical Exegesis, Darren Clark

Has John Dickson misinterpreted Romans 2:5-6? Part 1: Cherry-picking Paul

In Australian apologetics circles, John Dickson is widely respected as a historian, author, and public advocate for the Christian faith. Though he steadfastly rejects conditionalism, the generally irenic tone of his responses to our comments has led many Australian conditionalists to maintain their deep respect for him. Just as Dickson maintains an irenic tone while not pulling his punches when critiquing conditionalism, I want to offer my own critique of his exegesis in a respectful way.

Dickson has co-authored a book with Greg Clarke called 666 and All That: The Truth About the Future in which they argue the following in support of the doctrine of degrees of punishment in hell.1John Dickson and Greg Clarke, 666 And All That – The Truth About The Future, Kindle ed., (Aquila Press: 2007).

God will judge the world on the basis of human behavior, in other words, ‘according to deeds.’ As Paul says in his letter to the Romans: Romans 2:5–6.

But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God “will give to each person according to what he has done” [a quotation from Psalm 62:12].

This statement is fascinating because it contradicts the common misconception that God’s punishment of sinners will be applied equally to all, as if a Hitler-figure, to use an admittedly clichéd example, will receive the same judgment as a non-Christian humanitarian worker. We venture to say that this is not what the Scriptures teach….

In the above passage Paul quotes Psalm 62:12 saying that God’s judgment is “according to what each has done”. This does not mean ‘because of’ what each has done; it means ‘commensurate with’ or ‘in proportion to’ what each has done. The Apostle emphasizes the point by talking about “storing up wrath against yourself”. ‘Storing up’ (thēsaurizō) is a financial term, meaning to amass or accumulate. In other words, God’s wrath against an individual can be lesser or greater depending on what s/he has done in life.2Dickson and Clarke, 666 And All That, Kindle loc., 1072-1094. (emphasis Dickson and Clarke’s)

My response to this will be in two parts, with part 1 focusing on the meaning of Romans 2:5 while part 2 will discuss Romans 2:6.

Dickson and Clarke base their argument from ‘storing up wrath against yourself’ solely on a basic lexical definition of θησαυρίζω (thēsaurizō, ‘to store up’). Dickson and Clarke are correct that θησαυρίζω can refer to accumulating something (e.g., LXX 4 Kingdoms 20:17; Luke 12:13-21) or even piling up dirt to construct fortifications (LXX Zecharia 9:3).3Since there are textual variants in the LXX I will use either the LES (Lexham English Septuagint) or NETS (New English Translation of the Septuagint). Unless otherwise indicated I will use the ESV when quoting the Bible in English. To the untrained exegetical, eye this looks compelling. There is much more that needs to be taken into account when exegeting Romans 2:5.

For instance, there is a more general sense of θησαυρίζω that need not imply adding things together. Citing BDAG,4William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 456. John Harvey thinks the verb ‘carries the idea of doing something that will bring about a future condition.'5John D. Harvey, Romans, B&H Publishing Group: 2017), 56. There is a good reason to think this more general sense of θησαυρίζω is what Paul had in mind in Romans 2:5. In the context of Romans 2:5, Paul had already spoken of a multitude of sins deserving the penalty of death. Romans 1:18-32 speaks of all who are unrighteous and ungodly as those who deserve to die for their sins. The list of sins includes murder alongside relatively ‘minor’ sins like a child’s disobedience of his or her parents, envy, foolishness, and gossip. In fact, murder is the only sin that we might consider to be serious enough to warrant the death penalty. Yet Paul refrains from making a distinction between the seriousness of these sins, instead saying, ‘those who do such things deserve death.’ This is evidence that Paul did not have in mind the idea that variegation in sin warrants degrees of punishment as he was writing Romans.

In Romans 2:1-5, Paul addresses a hypocritical interlocutor who presumes that he is safe from divine judgment because he had apparently experienced God’s kindness and blessing (Rom 2:4). Paul pulls no punches, telling the interlocutor that he has no excuse (Rom 2:1) because he commits the same sins as those addressed at the end of chapter 1 (or otherwise contained in some source of law). This means Paul’s ‘you are storing up wrath against yourself’ should be read in light of his previous statement that those committing a range of sins all deserved the same penalty of death.

Additionally, James Dunn (along with other commentators on Romans) thinks Paul’s ‘you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath may be echoing the Greek of LXX Tobit and hints the same with LXX Psalms of Solomon.6James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1-8, (Word Books: 1988), 84.

LXX Tobit 4:8 According to the abundance you have, give alms from them in proportion to the abundance. If you possess a little, do not be afraid to give alms in proportion to the little, 9 for a good treasure you store up for yourself against a day of necessity. 10 For giving alms delivers one from death and will not allow that one to go into darkness. (LES)

LXX Psalms of Solomon 9:5 The one who practices righteousness stores up life for himself with the Lord, and the one who practices injustice is responsible for the destruction of his own soul, for the judgments of the Lord are in righteousness for each man and household. (NETS)

It is unclear whether Paul had a Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek version of Tobit in mind when he wrote Romans 2:5. Nevertheless, David deSilva discusses how Tobit had influenced the NT with respect to its theme of almsgiving. He discusses a range of NT passages to demonstrate this, noting Paul’s development of this theme in 1 Timothy 6.7David A. deSilva, Introducing the Apocrypha: Message, Context, and Significance, 2nd ed., (Baker Publishing Group: 2018), 79-82. The NT authors had also developed Tobit’s ‘day of necessity’ for the ‘day of wrath’ theme (deSilva mentions Mat 25:31-45). It is reasonable to conclude that where there is evidence that Paul echoes Tobit, he was to some extent influenced by the older work in the way he expressed his own thoughts.

Most commentators think Paul uses irony at this point.8e.g. See Thomas Schriener, Romans, 2nd ed. (Baker Academic: 2018), 118-119, accessed at https://www.perlego.com/book/2051130, 8 February 2025. Where Tobit 4:9 has a good treasure being stored up and the Psalms of Solomon has life being stored up, Paul turns this on its head so that it is wrath. Interestingly, the author of Tobit has already prayed for his own death due to his many sins.

LXX Tobit 3:4-6 You gave us over to plunder, captivity, and death, and made us a proverb of disgrace to all the nations among which we were dispersed. And now your many judgments dealing with me are true because of my sins and those of my fathers; for neither have we observed your commandments, nor have we walked in faithfulness before you. So now deal with me as you see fit. Command to take up my spirit that I may be released and may become dirt, since it is more profitable for me to die than live. For I have heard untrue reproaches, and much grief is within me. Command that I be released of the distress immediately into the eternal place. Do not turn your face away from me.” (LES)

Notice the language: ‘You gave us over to plunder, captivity, and death’, ‘Command to take up my spirit that I may be released and may become dirt’, and ‘it is more profitable for me to die than live.’ Death here is the loss of life. The connection of plunder and captivity with death makes this clear enough. Moreover, the notion of the spirit being released so the person becomes dirt echoes the account of the creation of Adam (Gen 2:7). OT authors sometimes used this language from Genesis to speak of the ‘decreation’ of a person so death is spoken of as the reversal of a person’s creation (c.f., Gen 3:19; Ps 104:29, Eccl 3:20; 12:7). Carey A. Moore regards ‘my spirit’ as meaning ‘my life’ precisely because of this connection with the breath of life (Gen 2:7).9Carey A. Moore, Tobit, (Yale University Press: 1996), 140. See also, Robert J. Littman, Tobit The Book Of Tobit In Codex Sinaiticus, (Brill: 2008), 74. This is followed by Tobit 3:7-15, where a character named Sarah prays for her own death because a demon kept killing her husbands on her wedding day. The much-debated verb ἀπόλλυμι (apollumi) is used alongside the conventional verb for ‘to kill’ (ἀποκτείνω, apokteinó).

LXX Tobit 3:15 … Seven of mine are already dead (ἀπόλλυμι)! So then why should I live? Now if it does not seem right for you to kill (ἀποκτείνω) me, command that regard be had on me and show mercy to me that no longer may I hear a reproach.” (LES)

Like Tobit, Sarah is talking about ordinary death (a phrase herein used to refer to the most common sense of the word, ‘the end of life’, as opposed to any spiritual death or fine distinctions like ‘first death’). This is context for the statement that ‘giving alms delivers one from death’ in Tobit 4:10. Though Paul applies Tobit’s ‘you store up for yourself against a day of necessity’ ironically, reversing so those who sin store up wrath against themselves, his ‘those who practice such things deserve to die’ (Rom 1:32) shows that he continued to have Tobit’s emphasis on ordinary death.

The Psalms of Solomon is a collection of Jewish poems written by several authors. These poems were originally written in Hebrew in the first century BC and were translated into Greek by the end of the first century AD. It is impossible to say whether Paul interacted directly with Psalms of Solomon, but it should be noted that the language used throughout these Psalms show how the subject of punishment on the basis of works could be perceived around the time Paul wrote Romans.

The Psalms of Solomon evince an ordinary view of death. That is, when ‘Solomon’ talks about death, it is the loss of life and cessation of vital functions that is in view (e.g., 2:35–38; 3:11–16; 13:9–10; 14:1–6; 15:1–15; 17:25–26). R. B. Wright says that in the Psalms of Solomon,

Life after death is concentrated entirely in the hope for bodily resurrection (viz. 2:31; 3:12) and betrays no certain trace of a belief in an immortal soul. The life of the righteous “goes on forever” (13:11), but this is in the kingdom, after the “day of mercy” (14:9). Thus the psalmist conceives of man as essentially embodied and the occasional use of the term “soul” corresponds to its use in the psalter to mean “person.” He posits no body/ soul dualism and is not in the least “otherworldly” in his thinking.10R. B. Wright, “Psalms of Solomon: A New Translation and Introduction,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2 (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1985), 645.

As a whole, the various Psalms of Solomon teach the righteous will live forever while sinners will be killed. God is portrayed as one who ‘puts the arrogant to sleep for eternal destruction in dishonor’ (2:35). Sinners ‘will perish in the day of the judgment of the Lord for eternity’ (15:13), and ‘will perish for the eternal time (15:15) since ‘all the substance of sinner’ will be destroyed (15:7) and so ‘will be removed into destruction’ (13:10). This is set in contrast to what will happen to the righteous. They ‘will arise into eternal life’ so ‘their life will never come to an end’ (3:16). ‘Famine and sword and death are far from the righteous’ (15:8). ‘The holy ones of the Lord will live in it for eternity (14:2) as their ‘planting is rooted for eternity (14:3).11The references above are from LEH. The emphasis on ordinary life and death in both Tobit and the Psalms of Solomon means that statements about storing up life or being repaid according to one’s works cannot be statements conveying the notion of degrees of punishment.

Some scholars even doubt that LXX Psalms of Solomon 9:5 are about the ‘mechanics’ of divine justice at all, instead insisting the point is no one can hide from God.12Paul R. Williamson, Death and the Afterlife: Biblical Perspectives On Ultimate Questions, Kindle Edition, (InterVarsity Press: 2017), Kindle loc., 1881-1896; David Falk, ‘Psalms and Prayers’ in Justification and Variegated Nomism. Volume I: The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism, ed. by D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Paul Seifrid, (J. C. B. Mohr: 2001), 42. The same approach is often taken by commentators on Romans 2:5-6, since they are reluctant to think Paul was teaching eternal life could be obtained by doing good works.13e.g. See Schriener, ‘How does judgment according to works fit with Paul’s theology? The most interesting question relates to the implications of these verses. Did Paul believe that some could obtain eternal life by doing good works? How does this fit with his claim that no one can be righteous before God by the works of the law (Rom. 3:20)? The main reason Paul introduced the issue of repayment according to works is to show the Jews that God is impartial,10 that there will be no special favoritism for them.’ Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, 2nd ed., (Baker Academic: 2018), 122. In any case, it is clear that around the time that Paul wrote Romans, statements about storing up something or being judged by one’s works were not necessarily ways of talking about degrees of reward or punishment. If one comes to Romans 2:5-6 assuming otherwise—as Dickson and Clarke appear to—then one will be in danger of assuming he was talking about degrees of punishment when he was not.

Another way we can know Paul was not talking about degrees of punishment is to note his reference to the day of wrath (Rom 2:5). It has long been recognized that in biblical scholarship the NT authors took up the OT theme of a day of God’s wrath and applied it to the day when Christ returns.

In the Old Testament, the day of God’s wrath not only dawns for gentiles (Isa 13:9, 13; Ezek 38:18–19, 23; Zeph 3:8) but also, in an ironic way, for Israel because of Israel’s wickedness (Zeph 1:15, 18; 2:2–3). This is exactly Paul’s point here.14Frank Thielman, Romans, (Zondervan: 2018), accessed at https://www.perlego.com/book/581251, 1 March 2025, no page given.

Zephaniah is particularly illuminating for our purposes. Bear in mind, Zephaniah is talking about what would happen to sinful Israel on the day of wrath.

Zeph 1:15 A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness (ESV)

Maria Eszenyei Szeles describes the picture created by this verse as a scene akin to

the devastation caused by a hurricane, the ravaging of a tornado, the evidence of total conflagration and havoc at the hands of a cruel enemy—material destruction, homes in ruins, human beings butchered.15Maria Eszenyei Szeles, Habakkuk and Zephaniah, (Eerdmans: 1987), 87

The Hebrew word behind ‘devastation’ (mešôʾâ) is translated in the LXX by ἀφανισμός (afanismos), which can mean ‘ruin’, ‘destruction’, or ‘annihilation.'16T. Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, (Peeters: 2009), 106. The word is translated in the following way in prominent translations of the LXX.

LXX Zeph 1:15 That day will be a day of anger, a day of affliction and torture, a day of darkness and extermination (ἀφανισμός), a day of gloom and darkness, a day of cloud and fog. (LES)

LXX Zeph 1:15 That day will be a day of wrath, a day of affliction and anguish, a day of untimely fate and annihilation (ἀφανισμός), a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and fog (NETS)

Any doubt that the prophecy includes an emphasis on the wicked being killed is dispelled by further statements that God ‘will pour out their blood like dust, and their flesh like cow dung’ (v17),17The LES and NETS are identical. and bring a swift end to them (v18). Paul is expanding on Zephaniah with new revelation or typology, even though Paul uses all of the same ideas of ‘die’ (1:32) and ‘perish’ (2:12).

This fits with what Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10, where he alludes to Isaiah 66 in more than one way. In his commentary on discussing whether Paul employed Isaiah 66 in this in 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10, Jeffrey Weima notes that LXX Isaiah 66:6 and 15 use ἀνταποδίδωμι (antapodidómi, ‘to repay’), which Paul picks up in 2 Thessalonians 1:6.18Jeffrey A. D. Weima, ‘1– 2 Thessalonians’, in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, eds G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, (Baker Publishing Group: 2007), 883. Isaiah also uses a cognate of the word, ἀποδίδωμι (apodidómi, ‘to give back’) in LXX Isaiah 66:15. Paul uses δίδωμι (didómi, ‘to give’) in 2 Thessalonians 1:8. Paul’s εν φλογι πυρος (en pyri phlogos, ‘in flaming fire’) in 2 Thessalonians 1:8a is drawn from Isaiah 66:15.19Weima discusses a relevant textual variant of 2 Thessalonians 1:8 but concludes that εν φλογι πυρος was Paul’s. Weima, ‘1– 2 Thessalonians’, 883-884). In the same verse, Paul also echoes Isaiah’s αποδουναι … εκδικησιν (apodounai … ekdikēsin, ‘render vengeance’) with διδοντος εκδικησιν (didōmi ekdikēsin, ‘inflicting vengeance’). Beale notes that 2 Thessalonians 1:8 is ‘the only place in the Old Testament where this combination of terms is found.'20G. K. Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, (InterVarsity Press, 2003), 189. Fee points out that part of 2 Thessalonians 1:8 uses some of the language from Isaiah 66:4.21Gordon D. Fee, The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians, (Eerdmans: 2009), 256-257. Weima also thinks there is some verbal similarity between 2 Thessalonians 1:12 and LXX Isaiah 55:5.22c.f., Paul’s οπως ενδοξασθη το ονομα του κυριου ημων Ιησου, hopōs endoxasthē to onoma tou kyriou hēmōn Iēsou en hymin, ‘so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified’ with Isaiah’s ινα το ονομα κυριου δοξασθη, hina to onoma kyriou doxasthē, ‘so that the name of the Lord may be glorified.’ Weima, ‘1– 2 Thessalonians’, 886. There is sufficient evidence to conclude that 2 Thessalonians 2:5-10 ‘is the result of a conscious reflection of Isa. 66, supplemented by a few other OT texts.23Weima, ‘1– 2 Thessalonians’, 883.

In Isaiah 66, God slays his enemies (Is 66:16), leaving their rotting corpses open to the elements to be abhorred by the still living righteous (Is 66:24). Though the Hebrew word ḥālāl and the Greek word τραυματίας (traumatías) can refer to being wounded, they also often are used with reference to the fatal wounding or slaying of a person. This is worth mentioning here since some LXX translations render τραυματίας as ‘wounded’ in LXX Isaiah 66:15. Shalom M. Paul translates the Hebrew to “And many shall be the slain of the Lord”,24Shalom M. Paul, Isaiah 40–66: Translation and Commentary, (Eerdmans: 2012), 624. while Ottely notes that the Hebrew ‘regularly rendered ‘slain.'25Richard R. Ottley, ed., The Book of Isaiah according to the Septuagint (Codex Alexandrinus), vol. 2, (Cambridge University Press, 1906), 386. One Greek lexicon I own says τραυματίας can be understood as referring to a wounded man (2 Mac 4:42), casualties of war (wounded or dead, 1 Mac 1:18), the corpse of one slain (1 Kgs 11:15), or one fatally wounded (Deut 21:1).26Johan Lust, Erik Eynikel, and Katrin Hauspie, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint : Revised Edition (Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft: Stuttgart, 2003). In any case, verse 24 clearly depicts these enemies of God as having been killed.

Since this is a primary OT source text Paul had in mind when penning 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10, then it stands to reason that he had in mind the death of those who had afflicted the Thessalonian church on the day of Christ’s return (v10) when they ‘will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction’ (v9). The word for ‘destruction’ is ὄλεθρος (olethros). While traditionalist commentators regard ὄλεθρος in a way that fits with the doctrine of eternal torment, it should be noted in the LXX this noun was used ‘always with the general sense “destruction,” though often death is at least implied as well.’27ὄλεθρος, in New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis, 2nd ed., edited by Moisés Silva, Olive tree ed., (Zondervan: 2014), no page given. Beale points to several instances in the LXX where ὄλεθρος is used with reference to death.28Beale cites LXX 1 Kings 13:34; Ezek 14:16–18; 3 Macc 6:30, 34. G. K. Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, (InterVarsity Press, 2003), 188. Others think Paul used ὄλεθρος with reference to physical death in 1 Thessalonians 5:3, 1 Corinthians 5:5, and 1 Timothy 6:9.29For instance, see D. Michael Martin, 1, 2 Thessalonians, (Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1995), 213; Charles A. Wanamaker. The Epistle to the Thessalonians, Kindle ed., (Eerdmans: 1990), Kindle Locations 3874-3876; Jeffrey A. D. Weima, 1-2 Thessalonians, Kindle ed., (Baker Publishing Group: 2014). Kindle loc., 11681-11696; Ernest Best, The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians, (A. & C. Black: 2003), 261. The point is ὄλεθρος is the kind of word that afforded Paul the ability to talk about the permanent death of the wicked. Since Isaiah 66 was an OT source text for 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10, it follows that he had in mind Isaiah 66:24 when he wrote about the eternal destruction of those who had persecuted the Thessalonian church. After all is said and done, this context shows that Paul was talking about the death of the wicked when he wrote ὄλεθρον αἰώνιον (eternal destruction).30For more on this argument, please see our 2-part series on this passage.

Paul’s emphasis on the death of the person on the day of judgment in 2 Thessalonians 1:9 helps us to understand what he meant by storing up wrath and being judged by works in Romans 2. The notion of storing up wrath is the idea that people have acted in such a way that God’s full wrath will be poured out on them, thus ending their lives. Being judged by one’s works is just a way of saying God’s judgment for sin is not arbitrary.

A significant problem for Dickson and Clarke’s reading of Romans 2:5 as a statement of degrees of punishment in hell is Paul’s explicit reference to the day of judgment. Paul is talking about what happens to the wicked on that day when they are judged by God. Even if ‘you are storing up wrath for yourself’ implies some kind of variation in the intensity of wrath being poured onto each sinner, Dickson and Clarke have yet to explain why this should be read as a statement about the punishment people receive once they are in hell, as opposed to “on the day of wrath.” Their logic turns directly against them, as even if they are correct, it would actually prove that all that added-up wrath is repaid on a day — that is, over a finite amount of time.

All in all, Dickson and Clarke have failed to account for the breadth of evidence that needs to be considered to properly understand Romans 2:5. By basing their conclusion on a particular gloss of a single word in the verse, they have presented a case that rests on a single data point. This is a text-book example of cherry-picking evidence. An unfortunate result of this they have indeed misunderstood Romans 2:5.

 

References
￪1 John Dickson and Greg Clarke, 666 And All That – The Truth About The Future, Kindle ed., (Aquila Press: 2007).
￪2 Dickson and Clarke, 666 And All That, Kindle loc., 1072-1094.
￪3 Since there are textual variants in the LXX I will use either the LES (Lexham English Septuagint) or NETS (New English Translation of the Septuagint). Unless otherwise indicated I will use the ESV when quoting the Bible in English.
￪4 William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 456.
￪5 John D. Harvey, Romans, B&H Publishing Group: 2017), 56.
￪6 James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1-8, (Word Books: 1988), 84.
￪7 David A. deSilva, Introducing the Apocrypha: Message, Context, and Significance, 2nd ed., (Baker Publishing Group: 2018), 79-82.
￪8 e.g. See Thomas Schriener, Romans, 2nd ed. (Baker Academic: 2018), 118-119, accessed at https://www.perlego.com/book/2051130, 8 February 2025.
￪9 Carey A. Moore, Tobit, (Yale University Press: 1996), 140. See also, Robert J. Littman, Tobit The Book Of Tobit In Codex Sinaiticus, (Brill: 2008), 74.
￪10 R. B. Wright, “Psalms of Solomon: A New Translation and Introduction,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2 (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1985), 645.
￪11 The references above are from LEH.
￪12 Paul R. Williamson, Death and the Afterlife: Biblical Perspectives On Ultimate Questions, Kindle Edition, (InterVarsity Press: 2017), Kindle loc., 1881-1896; David Falk, ‘Psalms and Prayers’ in Justification and Variegated Nomism. Volume I: The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism, ed. by D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Paul Seifrid, (J. C. B. Mohr: 2001), 42
￪13 e.g. See Schriener, ‘How does judgment according to works fit with Paul’s theology? The most interesting question relates to the implications of these verses. Did Paul believe that some could obtain eternal life by doing good works? How does this fit with his claim that no one can be righteous before God by the works of the law (Rom. 3:20)? The main reason Paul introduced the issue of repayment according to works is to show the Jews that God is impartial,10 that there will be no special favoritism for them.’ Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, 2nd ed., (Baker Academic: 2018), 122.
￪14 Frank Thielman, Romans, (Zondervan: 2018), accessed at https://www.perlego.com/book/581251, 1 March 2025, no page given.
￪15 Maria Eszenyei Szeles, Habakkuk and Zephaniah, (Eerdmans: 1987), 87
￪16 T. Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, (Peeters: 2009), 106.
￪17 The LES and NETS are identical.
￪18 Jeffrey A. D. Weima, ‘1– 2 Thessalonians’, in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, eds G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, (Baker Publishing Group: 2007), 883.
￪19 Weima discusses a relevant textual variant of 2 Thessalonians 1:8 but concludes that εν φλογι πυρος was Paul’s. Weima, ‘1– 2 Thessalonians’, 883-884).
￪20 G. K. Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, (InterVarsity Press, 2003), 189.
￪21 Gordon D. Fee, The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians, (Eerdmans: 2009), 256-257.
￪22 c.f., Paul’s οπως ενδοξασθη το ονομα του κυριου ημων Ιησου, hopōs endoxasthē to onoma tou kyriou hēmōn Iēsou en hymin, ‘so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified’ with Isaiah’s ινα το ονομα κυριου δοξασθη, hina to onoma kyriou doxasthē, ‘so that the name of the Lord may be glorified.’ Weima, ‘1– 2 Thessalonians’, 886.
￪23 Weima, ‘1– 2 Thessalonians’, 883.
￪24 Shalom M. Paul, Isaiah 40–66: Translation and Commentary, (Eerdmans: 2012), 624.
￪25 Richard R. Ottley, ed., The Book of Isaiah according to the Septuagint (Codex Alexandrinus), vol. 2, (Cambridge University Press, 1906), 386.
￪26 Johan Lust, Erik Eynikel, and Katrin Hauspie, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint : Revised Edition (Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft: Stuttgart, 2003).
￪27 ὄλεθρος, in New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis, 2nd ed., edited by Moisés Silva, Olive tree ed., (Zondervan: 2014), no page given.
￪28 Beale cites LXX 1 Kings 13:34; Ezek 14:16–18; 3 Macc 6:30, 34. G. K. Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, (InterVarsity Press, 2003), 188.
￪29 For instance, see D. Michael Martin, 1, 2 Thessalonians, (Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1995), 213; Charles A. Wanamaker. The Epistle to the Thessalonians, Kindle ed., (Eerdmans: 1990), Kindle Locations 3874-3876; Jeffrey A. D. Weima, 1-2 Thessalonians, Kindle ed., (Baker Publishing Group: 2014). Kindle loc., 11681-11696; Ernest Best, The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians, (A. & C. Black: 2003), 261.
￪30 For more on this argument, please see our 2-part series on this passage.