This article is the final part of a 9 part series on Universal Restoration vs Eternal Torment (hell). I recommend reading the introduction first if you haven’t already. (link below)
- Universal Restoration vs Eternal Torment (hell) introduction.
- The Biggest Hole in Hell: Aion, Ages and Eternity
- Can you be saved after you die?
- So let’s talk a little bit about the word “hell”
- Scriptures That Support Universal Restoration
- Scriptures In Revelation That Support Universal Restoration
- So why did Jesus die if not to save us from hell?
- The Early Church Fathers on Universal Restoration
- Universal Restoration vs Eternal Torment Conclusion (You are here)
One Universalist said this:
“Am I a heretic? Maybe. If believing that God is all powerful, all loving, wiser than His creation and perfectly willing and capable of saving all of His children makes me a heretic, sign me up.”
(source)
That perfectly sums up their position. The early Christians called Universal Reconciliation “The Larger Hope” for that’s what it is.
Anyone without a serious heart problem will wish that the Universalists are right. However, wishing they are right doesn’t make them right. I’m not saying they are right, but I do think their opinion is valid enough that it should be part of the argument.
I don’t think the scriptures condemn Universalism is quite as much as most people believe. I simply wish that Universalists could have a discussion (or even mention the concept) without being branded as heretics who should be shunned.
Christians have debated sovereignty vs free will, whether or not you can lose your salvation, original sin and a whole host of issues over the centuries. I think that Universalism has enough support from the scriptures that at the very least “Eternal Torment vs Universal Restoration” should be another one of the great debates the church has with itself.
But that’s me.
I have so far tried to keep my points firmly rooted in scripture with as little appeal to the heart as possible. One must be careful that your personal feelings don’t lead you astray when searching for the truth.
But I will break that rule here at the end to share a story.
Someone I know took her 10 year-old niece to go see the recently released live-action Beauty and the Beast. There’s a slight difference between the animated version (which I like) and the live-action version (which I don’t).
In the live action version, the last petal from the rose falls and completes the curse. Once the petal’s fall is complete, everyone in the castle turns from talking furniture into inanimate, dead furniture. The beast has been shot and breathed his last breath. Bell (the only survivor) is weeping over the beast’s body.
There are several seconds where the movie almost appears to be over because nothing happens. It’s a sad and somber moment. In this pause – at the most hopeless point of the story – the niece leaned over to my friend and asked:
“Is it over? That’s not a very good ending.”
Honestly, that’s how I feel when I talk about Eternal Torment.
Like Bell in the live-action Beauty and the Beast, will believers be the sole survivors weeping for our loved ones while knowing they will be tormented forever? I know the Bible says every tear will be wiped away, but still…
If God wants everyone to be saved and the devil wants everyone to be damned, then who wins when most of mankind is lost to Eternal Torment? Wouldn’t that make hell a monument to Satan’s “victory” over God?
Jesus came to “destroy the works of the devil” but did He fail?
Will most of mankind be forever separated from God and eternally tormented in hell, seemingly giving the devil a huge victory over the Almighty God?
“That’s not a very good ending.”
1st Corinthians 1:17-20 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? It is a welcome scourge of humility knowing that all arguments whether pro or con, regarding anything concerning the Master’s sacred gospel will be rendered a vanity of vanities. All our sages secular or pious. All our scribes, no matter the weight of their pens. All our debaters no matter their agenda. Paul’s zeal for the cross of Christ dares us to contemplate the location of such efforts. How the cross obliterates it all for the empty blathering that it is. For all of this, intentionally or not, makes the cross of no effect. So that welcome scourge of humility is also a terrifying warning. Does the cross of Christ perpetually call out to those in outer darkness who weep and gnash their teeth: If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me? Does the Master admonish them: You will be hated by all for My name’s sake? Or he who endures to the end will be saved? Does the Son of David exhort them: Narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it? Hezekiah realized the mortal urgency of his own sinfulness: Indeed it was for my own peace that I had great bitterness; But You have lovingly delivered my soul from the pit of corruption, For You have cast all my sins behind Your back. For Sheol cannot thank You, Death cannot praise You; Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your truth, Isaiah 38:17,18. I am a man with a nature like yours. I am morbidly disturbed with eternal damnation. I am not the Lord of Hosts’ umpire. I ain’t His referee. If I throw a flag it would be asinine fatuity! Does the eternal torment of the damned merit sympathy? Certainly not. 1st Peter 2:20 For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? It only merits abhorrence! Paul curses their fate: 1st Corinthians 16:22 If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed! To this Isaiah heartily concurs: And they shall go forth and look upon the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me. For their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched. They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh, 66:24. Is this a mockery of misery? God is not mocked. What a man sows that he will also reap. Why does it matter whether eternal damnation is believed or not? Jesus chided His disciples when they asked what the parable of the sower meant: If you don’t understand a parable about evangelism 101, some will believe and most won’t, how can you possibly understand any other parable? In that vein, If you don’t believe in eternal damnation then how can you possibly understand anything about holiness, and judgement? For our God is a consuming fire, Hebrews 12:29. Universal restoration might seem comfy in armchair theology, but it makes the cross of Christ of no effect. Hopefully this will help you to reconsider
Okay, then how do you deal with passages like 1 Peter 4:6 which explicitly say the Gospel was preached to the dead? (since I can’t reasonably reply to a whole wall of text)
Peter is talking about persecution and suffering: Since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, verse 1. For this reason ( because of persecution ) the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, ( who got killed) that they might be judged according to men in the flesh ( killed in persecution), but live according to God in the spirit, verse 6. Hence the exhortation to not be perplexed about the “fiery trial” which will scorch them during persecution when they are “reproached for the name of Christ”, verse 12-19. Study the entire chapter. Context is severe persecution, not universal restoration. With this I bid you farewell. I am an old man and you are a harvest for the youth to reap. Shalom 🙂
The context of chapter 3 makes it clear that the dead who are being preached to were the wicked men of Noah’s generation. But I completely understand if you don’t want to get into a debate with a random guy on the internet. 😉 Shalom.
After reading 1 Peter 4
It seems that the Chapter does not support your view.
Does not 1 Peter 5:8
Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walketh about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
indicate that as far as we know the devil has not repented,
and if not, why not, for surely he has had enough time to realise
that his pride has done him no good or anyone else any good.
The Early Church Theologians do not seem to support you overall claim
that everyone will repent, do their proper penance, suffer for their sins
and then be admitted to Heaven.
In some cases they seem more to speaking of those who had/have faith in
Jesus and thus will be redeemed by the Cross, but have to be cleansed of their sins.
In other cases, such as Origen, he seems to be speculating whether all souls and the demons and the devil might repent and through their humbleness ask God to forgive them.
Trying to argue that 2/3rds of Early Theologians held this or that, as if Doctrine is subject to Democratic Principles, may be imprudent.
If God does leave the doors of Salvation open to any and all no matter how great and firm they are/were in the sinning, so be it.
But Jesus is not recorded as offering that option to the demons He casts out, nor does He say that Satan is just mistaken, but rather He is the Father of Lies and has been that way since he came into existence.
One could and perhaps one should ask:
If it is the case that demons and the devil can repent,
why have they not done so ?
Why is the devil still rebelling against God and seeking the damnation of souls ?
Why didn’t the demons upon meeting Jesus, ask to be forgiven and admitted to Heaven ?
Why must Jesus be scourged, be crowned with a crown of thorns
and unmercifully crucified though He did not sin ?
If we are all sinners, via ignorance, once we realise there is a Heaven and
we, even though dead, can repent and go to Heaven, why not have Jesus
be present as a Prophet who preaches Universalism and who lives a natural life ?
In some sense you remind me of the following:
On a train to Auschwitz, a women had dreams of humans being
put into the Crematoria and their bodies being turned into ashes.
She woke up screaming:
We are all going to be turned into Ashes.
Her fellow passengers, who trusted what the Germans told them:
You are going to a Work Camp, bring one suitcase with you,
bring your children and your elderly, you will all be taken care of.
Could not, did not, would not believe what she was predicting
and began to beat her into silence. The next night she had
dreams of the Gas Chambers and the separating of the children,
the infirm and those deemed to old from the rest and those not
found fit to work being led into the gas chambers and she woke up
screaming that was going to be their fate.
Again she was beaten.
That day the train arrived at Auschwitz and someone told the Germans
about her and her lies, and they pulled her from the train and took her
around a corner and shot her…
No one must know what will soon become of them.
If you are correct about Universalism,
then Praise be to God Almighty,
Thank You Jesus,
Blessed be the Holy Spirit that revealed complete salvation to you.
But if you are wrong and so you have misled others
for let us be honest, while it would be nice to believe that if people did
believe that they will one day be saved, they would gladly repent and
live our the Gospel precepts, many humans would just sneer at you
and go on indulging in your sins believing that whatever happens in the
afterlife, they are still going to Heaven.
Is that not what Paul, Peter and James write against, those who do not fear the
loss of salvation, who call themselves Christians but happily go on sinning…
Does not Jesus warn us that the judgement against those who say they “knew Jesus’
but did not follow His commands will be the greatest ?
When I was younger and very intellectualistic and idealistic,
I wanted to believe in Universalism, for certainly if I were God
I would bring all souls to salvation, otherwise why did I ever created
that person…
but I vastly underestimated the evil that is produced in the world
by the free choices of humans,
and the evil within myself…and how I freely chose to do what is clearly wrong –
and how one can hate in a way that lies outside of time.
Sin is much, much, much more damaging than any of us can realise.
As Augustine notes, Justice demanded that Adam and Eve be dis-created
for their sin, the gravity which we cannot even begin to understand.
But God’s Justice is not human justice.
God’s mercy is not human mercy.
God’s ways are not our ways.
Nothing in Scripture that I am aware of supports Universalism
and Jesus makes it quite clear that those who do evil and refuse to repent
in this life, should not expect to go to Heaven.
Nothing is presented that shows the demons or the devil as having any remorse.
In some sense you are like someone on the train to Auschwitz who is re-assuring
everyone that they need not worry, we are all going to a Work Camp.
Yes, I know they have not given us any water for the last three days,
and we are crammed into these cattle cars in a human manner,
and yes, unfortunately some of us have died on the way,
but there is a war on and these things cannot be helped,
but soon the journey will end and we will be fine…just fine…
after all the Germans would not bring us all this way in the middle of a War
to just kill us…would they ?
Of course not, that would not be rational,
that would not be intelligent…
it is un-imaginable…
And when you arrived at the camps and the Germans
began to beat people with whips, where dogs attacked anyone not
quick enough to get into line, where children were torn from their mothers,
families brutally separated and you are led down into an underground chamber,
lied to by the Kapos that you are only going to take a shower and to be sure to remember what the number of your hook for your clothes is and yes your little suitcase is quite safe, here just go this way, into the shower room, see the shower head,
just cooperate and this will all be over soon.
And then the heavy steel door is closed and locked and the lights go out and then the
Zyklon B-2 begins to suffocate you, and all your reasoning, all your intelligence, and notions of Universal Salvation mean nothing for you are dying for no reason, no reason at all except hatred, a hatred that will destroy all your relatives and any future ancestors.
God can redeem all, but will our Free Wills co-operate ?
Perhaps re-read the first four paragraphs of this article after the opening quote. I’m merely saying that it should be part of the discussion. I make no argument that demons will repent, nor will I. I suppose it *might* be possible, but I don’t think the scriptures speak to it. Speaking of the scriptures, I noticed that you didn’t engage on a single verse. You say you disagree on 1 Peter 4, but why? What about all the other verses?
You write passionately, but passion won’t convince me. You’ll need sound exegesis of the scriptures to do that where doctrine is concerned.
I might also add that you might be correct about eternal torment. If so, praise be to God for His justice. But if you are wrong, then you have presented God incorrectly, and in a way that turns many people away from Him. If you are wrong, you might have scared many people away from God who might’ve repented, but didn’t because they (rightly) believe that He couldn’t be that cruel. Is it not written that “mercy triumphs over judgement”? And again “it is the benevolence of God that leads to repentance”? Eternal torment presents the opposite view, and quite possibly damages the gospel message.
I spent the day reading your nine articles on universal restoration. Reading it with the correct Greek words made it so much clearer. Thank you for sharing the results of your research. It was what I was needing. We are told that if we are to be like God then we should love and forgive. So that is what God is—love. Why would a loving God make us for his pleasure to let most of us be forever tormented? I think the difference is that the “church” will reign with him and have rewards. Those not in the church will have to endure the fire of discipline. I know all the answers are in the Bible and we have to study to find them. Learning Greek would be beneficial! You have encouraged me to study more to seek His face. May God bless you and all of us fighting the good fight!
My personal feelings say that our God never settles for “good enough”. On some level the old Serpent had to know he could never truly win, and taking two thirds or more of Man into judgement with him would be a nice consolation prize…
But my feelings don’t really matter here. What matters is that, in lieu of a “Magic Bullet” passage to kill the UR position, circumstantial evidences seem to strongly lean towards UR. A man who accepts Christ becomes a New creature, one that is blameless though the Savior and thus has no portion in the inheritance of wicked (Perpetual Condemnation). Traitors to His rule (sinners) deserve death, but the Cross of Christ paid for the sin of the whole world.
On the subject of a “Magic Bullet” verse, though, what do you make of 2 Timothy 2:11-13?
“11 This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him. 12 If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He will also deny us. 13 If we are Faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.” (NKJV)
Thank you for the work you do, brother. Peace of our God with you.
The correct view to my mind is Conditional Immortality. The Hell view is based on the idea that one’s soul is immortal – where is such an idea found in scripture? Jesus warned; “And do not be afraid of those killing the body, and are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Matthew 10:28 (LSV) Pretty sure the destruction he speaks of is final, and note it’s destroy and not torture.
Jesus Christ ‘who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,’ did this by his resolute obedience and confirmed it with his resurrection – it is this mighty work of God in raising him from the dead that is the sum and substance of Paul’s confidence without which we are of all men most miserable. There is no good news to the gospel if the majority of humanity are simply treading water before the water torture starts, and there’s no good news if heaven ( I reject your recreated earth as Jewish fable) is to be peopled by the same incorrigibles as on earth – now is there? The whole point is to ‘taste and see that the Lord is good’ and thus enlightened to daily deny those impulses to self creation so that ultimately such discipline might yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness knowing that without holiness none shall see the Lord. Abiding in this faith until death we can be certain that the God who cannot lie shall gather us up ‘one by one’ (Isa.27) Hence is that word ‘it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment; made joyous by ‘blessed are they who die in the Lord from now on’. Peace
Matthew 10:28 is interesting because the Greek word translated “soul” there is translated “life” just a few verses later:
Thus, I think you might want to revise your interpretation. Further, the Greek word translated “destruction” there has the implication of ruin because of loss, not annihilation. I’m afraid that I have never seen a single verse that (when viewed in context) supports conditional immortality.
Great job, Berean Patriot. For almost 2,000 years now, Jesus’ followers have prayed, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
We know His will from 1Timothy2: 3-4 “… God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
and we know His will from 2 Peter 3-9 “The Lord is … not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”
How do we know our Yahweh gets His will to be done??
1 John 5:14-15 “Now this is the confidence we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him”
Praise God!!! In Yeshua, we have guaranteed Universal Restoration. To consider otherwise would be double-minded. Thank you, Father!!! We love You!!! “He first loved us” 1John 4:19
Thank you very much. 🙂 UR does seem to fit all the verses and harmonize them perfectly, doesn’t it?
Immortality of the soul is nowhere found in Scripture and is a Greek (Platonic) concept. If the soul was eternal then what is the “second death”? Logically, death means not existing anymore. Ezekiel has “the soul that sins, it shall die” with the word soul being han-nefesh (nefesh being soul/life in most literal translations). Many other images suggest finality: “perish”, “burn up”, “destruction”, “consuming fire”…
Maybe annihilationism deserves a separate chapter? I came to such a conclusion after thinking about the problems with eternal torment, but can’t find any way to explain 2 Thess 1:9 (among others) under universalism.
I agree that the immortality of the soul isn’t found in scripture, but the immortality of the spirit is. The soul is connected to life and breath in the body, while the spirit is the eternal part of us. I might eventually write something up on annihilationism/conditional immortality, but I’ve found zero biblical evidence for it, and plenty of evidence to the contrary despite significant digging.
2 Thess 1:9 can be understood by properly translating αἰώνιον (aiōnion) as “of ages” meaning severity, and properly translating the word usually translated “destruction”, which means:
So the “ruin/loss of ages” would be a more proper understanding. Most of the other “problem passages” can also be explained in a similar fashion.
Interesting take on the division between soul and spirit. I suppose it is possible to make “psukhe” = “non-bodily aspects of life” but that means “saving souls” is a totally wrong term.
I’m comfortable to leave the meaning of αἰώνιον ambiguous or as “world to come”.
I would agree that “saving souls” is an incorrect term, since that would more accurately mean “saving lives”.
I would translate it as “age to come”, not “world to come”, since that’s the primary definition. That said, even having it be ambiguous is a win for UR and a defeat for ET; ET requires it to mean “eternal” basically all the time, and any uncertainty casts serious doubt on the ET position because it relies so heavily on that one single word.
You said, “wishing [Universalists] are right doesn’t make them right” but then you immediately say “I will break that rule here at the end to share a story”.
You first (correctly) agree that an Appeal To Emotion is a logical fallacy. However, you then go on to make your own (false) Appeal To Emotion! Making a rule and then breaking it is bad reasoning and a bad way to conclude an article.
Your conclusion here doesn’t mention any of your Scriptural analysis at all, it purely speaks to the emotion and leaves me with the impression that the core reason you conclude UR is true is based on your emotions, which, respectfully, is not a good way to ascertain truth.
As you’ve mentioned in the comments of your original sin article, you EISEGETE universal redemption INTO scripture. This is a bad practice and is one explanation for why you come to many of the conclusions you do. Rather, scripture should speak for itself, and be interpreted in light of itself, which includes the teaching that the way to life is narrow and the way to destruction is broad.
Okay, now you are simply twisting my words. Stop. What I said was:
The topic wasn’t UR, and I was talking about one of my previous comments, not an article. I have a low tolerance for this kind of thing. Stop. You have been warned.
If you weren’t eisegeting UR into Romans 3 and 5, what were you saying that you were eisegeting?
You’re saying you eisegete inherited corruption into Romans 3 and 5? That makes no sense at all. You were trying to use Romans 3 and 5 as proof texts for inherited corruption in that article. I.e. you were trying to EXegete Romans 3 and 5 as saying we inherit corruption…not EISegete inherited corruption in.
I was referring to Ephesians 2, and I explicitly said that. Please read my comments more carefully.
Romans 5:19 uses the phrase “the many” to describe those who “were made sinners”, and then uses the exact same phrase of “the many” to describe those who “will be made righteous”. Good hermeneutics requires that the first “the many” is the same group of people as the second “the many” since it’s the same sentence. Therefore, if “the many” in the first clause is everyone who was made a sinner, then that same group of “the many” (everyone who was made a sinner) “will be made righteous” according to the second clause. Thus: everyone who was made a sinner will be made righteous. That’s not eisegesis, that’s exegesis according to sound hermeneutics. I’d argue it’s clear from the text too.
I can definitely now see why you aren’t so quick to change your view that Eph 2 teaches inherited corruption (even though I’ve shown that it does not) – because if your “primary verse used to support [inherited corruption]” (Eph 2) did not teach inherited corruption, that could very well compromise your belief in UR because then Romans 5 would not give you UR via your eisegesis.
I.e., in a way, by believing UR, you’ve committed yourself to re-interpreting Eph 2 as teaching inherited sin when it doesn’t teach it.
Actually, UR doesn’t rest in the slightest on eph 2:3 — not at all — and that’s not the primary verse/passage to support inherited corruption anyway. (and BTW, I’ve been reconsidering and giving serious thought to inherited corruption.)
Ah, I see now. That was my mistake, I didn’t notice you were talking about Eph 2 there. I think I got a bit carried away / over-zealous. That’s my fault – Please forgive me.
I agree with your thinking that Paul is paralleling “the many”s and “all”s in Romans 5 but I disagree that Paul is saying these are identical groups of people. He is clearly comparing/contrasting the two groups – not equating them. Adam vs Christ. All vs All / Many vs Many. They are not identical groups. This point is most clear in v17 where he contrasts Adam’s trespass leading to death vs Christ’s atonement being PARTICULAR only to “those who receive the free gift.”
In any case, as I mentioned before, the correct understanding of “all” in this Romans passage, given the context of the preceding chapter and the book’s purpose, is “Jews and Gentiles alike”, not “every single person that ever lived”.
As for your response “[eph 2:3] is not the primary verse/passage to support inherited corruption anyway.”
I took this directly from your Original Sin article:
“One primary verse used to support this understanding is in Ephesians [2:3]”.
Either it IS a primary verse or it’s NOT, which is it?
Maybe you were thinking your only other passage supporting this [Gen 8:21] was the other primary passage? To which my comment is:
Gen 8:21 never mentions HEREDITARY INHERITANCE as the mechanism for how corruption spreads. It simply describes that we are sinful from a young age. Which is also not BIRTH, if one takes this passage literally. So Gen 8 isn’t teaching inherited corruption either.
As you’ve already noted correctly, Psalm 51:5 doesn’t teach this, so there really isn’t any support for inherited corruption in Scripture.
Thanks for the article; it was an informative explanation of Universal Restoration. From my reading of scripture, some form of universalism seemed to be the most straightforward to interpret many passages. Eternal Damnation has always been a major sticking point for me and others I’ve talked to about Christianity, so this perspective seems to be worth considering.
Thank you for all your work here. May I recommend you visit ‘Grace Alone Saves’ podcast with David Artman. A great hub for thinkers on the subject of Christian Universalism
I might pose another possibility for you to consider. While eternal torment is unbiblical, eternal death isn’t. That is, just being dead forever, ceasing to exist.
Now, if you consider that hell is not a destination upon death, then perhaps consider that neither is heaven, and this is where the ressurections come into play. Yes, that is plural. The first ressurection is the saints and the second ressurection at the end of the thousand year reign is for those who did not have any opportunity to answer the call in this lifetime and they are given a period of time to accept or reject Jesus. The penalty of sin is death, not eternal torment.
Yup, that position is called “conditional immortality”, and often known as “annihilationism”. I’m somewhat more understanding of it than ETC/hell, but ultimately, I think the primary passages it’s based on don’t take into account the context, which is why I reject it.
To the rest, it’s hard to address that without discussing eschatology. My views align most closely with the Classic/partial Preterist position, which says that most (but not all) of Revelation has already happened. I have an article on revelation about that.