In considering the age of accountability, we have to include in our thinking the doctrine of “conditional immortality.” This is the plain teaching of scripture that the saved will be given immortality and the damned will not. Rather, they will suffer destruction and death, with the amount of pain and duration of their suffering proportional to their guilt before God.
What I just said, of course, completely contradicts over a thousand years of church dogma, but it doesn’t contradict the Bible. I covered this in detail in the Surprised by Hell series a while back. So I apologize to long-time readers. I really have to cover this again. (But then, I’ve got some new material to add!) And I apologize to new readers. I really don’t want to repeat the entire series. I’ll cover the highlights, and if you want to go deeper, follow the link.
Now, I have to give credit where credit is due. I’ve been instructed by N. T. Wright in his Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church
Lesson 1: The idea of everlasting punishment comes from the Greeks
You see, it’s the Greeks who taught that humans have an everlasting, indestructible soul that survives death and passes either to Tartarus (bad people) or Elysium (the Elysian Fields) (good people). Indeed, it was the Greeks who taught that we’ll have no body after we die, just a disembodied soul.
Readers have trouble finding a doctrine of hell or an eternal hope of heaven in the Old Testament because, well, they aren’t there. That’s not because these doctrines are new to the New Testament: they aren’t in the New Testament either. Rather, the New Testament understanding of the afterlife is the same as the Old Testament understanding — just with more blanks filled in. We don’t see it because we’ve been taught to the contrary from childhood.
Certainly the Old Testament teaches that the saved will enjoy an eternity with God, and that the damned will suffer God’s firey wrath. But the perspective is quite different from the Greek perspective. We’ll be getting to it.
You see, there is an obvious problem with conventional, Greco-Christian thought. The fact is that everlasting, conscious torture may be okay for the Hitlers and Pol Pots, but it hardly seems fair for a 12-year old one day removed from the age of accountability. How does one day of accountability without baptism justify an eternity of conscious torment? The plain answer is that it doesn’t, but we refuse to think in these terms because the Greek idea of hell is so deeply written into our consciousness.
Lesson 2. The soul is not an immaterial, spiritual part of us that inherently lasts forever; rather, we will experience a bodily resurrection
Paul teaches —
(Phi 3:20-1 ESV) 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
There’s nothing here about a disembodied soul. Rather, we’ll have bodies like the body of the resurrected Jesus.
(1 Cor 15:42, 52) So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable … . 52 [I]n a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
Jesus’ own resurrection is like our own. Paul refers to Jesus as the “firstfruits” –
(1 Cor 15:20-24) But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 23 But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. 24 Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
He is the firstfruit because he is part of the same harvest. His resurrected body is like what our own bodies will be.
(1Co 15:12-13 ESV) 12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.
You see, Jesus’ resurrection proves nothing about our own unless ours is the same sort of resurrection. If our souls fly away to heaven when we die, then Jesus proves nothing because his resurrection would be entirely unlike ours. His soul didn’t fly immediately to heaven when he died. Rather, God left him in the grave until the third day — when he was resurrected with a transformed body. His new body never died.
God had proved many times before that he can restore life to the dead. But in Jesus’ case, he didn’t just give him his life back; he transformed his body so that he’d never die again.
Now, Paul declares our post-resurrection bodies to be “spiritual” bodies, but as explained in this post, “spiritual” is used by Paul to mean “from the Spirit” rather than “made out of spirit.”
Finally, the idea that we experience a bodily resurrection, rather than a disembodied “resurrection” of the soul, is confirmed by the earliest Christian writers. Indeed, for many years, insistence on the Greek view of a disembodied state after death was considered a damning heresy.
Now, this all makes much better sense when you realize that “resurrection” was used to refer to resurrection of the body, rather than the departure of the soul up to heaven. This is demonstrated in great detail by N. T. Wright in The Resurrection of the Son of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 3)
You see, traditional Christian thought posits a radical discontinuity between the resurrection of Jesus and our own resurrections — treating his as bodily, delayed from his death, and quite literally out of the grave, whereas ours is a disembodied soul, immediate upon death, and preceding burial. And yet somehow we claim that God’s resurrection of Jesus demonstrates that we, too, will be resurrected. But, in fact, Paul teaches that our resurrection will be just like Jesus’ with a body such as Jesus had, and it will be delayed, with the general resurrection occuring at the Second Coming.
(This leaves for consideration what happens to us in between, but I’ll not cover that question now. We considered in detail in the earlier Surprised by Hope series.)
Lesson 3: The traditional, modern Christian conception of the soul is Platonic, not Christian
Fudge points out that the question of immortality was a favorite of Greek philosophers. The seminal work on the subject was Plato’s Phaedo, a dialogue on the question that was well-known among First Century Hellenistic people.
The debate Plato writes is between Socrates, who argues for innate immortality of the soul, and Cebes, who argues that —
when the [soul] has departed from the body, [it] nowhere any longer exists, but on whatever day a man dies, on that day it is destroyed [diaphtheiretai] and perishes [apolluetai]; the moment it departs and goes forth from the body it is dispersed like breath or smoke, and flies abroad and is gone, and no longer exists anywhere.
Apolluetai is a form of apollumi, the word the New Testament so frequently uses for “destroy” or “kill,” used routinely of the fate of the damned.
The New Testament writers use diaphtheiretai (root: diaphtheiro) in such verses as –
(2 Cor 4:16) Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
(Rev 11:18) The nations were angry; and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great — and for destroying those who destroy the earth.”
Fudge writes (p. 167),
Both Plato and Paul use the terms ‘death’ (thanatos), ‘destruction’ (apoleia), ‘corruption’ (phthora), ‘perish,’ (olethros) and ‘die’ (apothnesko) — but with this difference. Plato says none of these things will ever befall a soul, for it possesses immortality; Paul says these words define the destiny of those who resist God and refuse to believe in Jesus. …
Interestingly, Plato believed that some would be punished for ever (or at least for a very long time after death). Such reprobate souls can continue in misery, he said, because they possess ‘immortality’, are ‘indestructible’ and ‘immortal’. Yet ‘not one of these terms is ever used in the New Testament to describe the future condition of the lost.’
When the New Testament speaks of immortality and such like, it is speaking to a Hellenistic audience in the Greek language regarding a subject that the Greeks had discussed in these terms for centuries. It only makes sense to read the words in this light.
Obviously, as we consider the background against which the New Testament was written, we give the heaviest weight to the Old Testament, which we’ve previously considered in two posts here and here. But we can’t ignore the Hellenistic background.
Now, I realize this idea creates an array of questions, and I’ll try to answer some of them as we go. Be patient.
I guess I’m not convinced that that Greeks were wrong about the immortality of the soul. If we’re going to take this path into Hebraic thought, then why not just eliminate an afterlife altogether (let’s go back the worldview of Job). Really the point about hell seems moot anyway. If given the option between eternal torment and annihilation, I’d as soon flip a coin over it. I guess if someone had never really tasted that the Lord is good, then they’d wish to just pass away like a fog—otherwise I see little difference.
The idea of conditional immortality seems more about appeasing the pain felt when thinking about our unsaved loved ones and neighbors…but for this I’d rather think along the lines of Origen on Hell, if that indeed was my motive…
I guess, though, I agree with Keller that Hell is less about going to the ultimate torture chamber than it is a self made abyss. So in a sense I agree that there is proportional punishment. It’s just that in my view, separation from God IS the ultimate punishment!
I fully agree with Wright against a Platonism-styled heaven and Medieval-styled hell, but I’m not convinced that this necessary implies that there isn’t still a biblical hell that is worse than merely getting what you deserve…
Are the lost resurreccted bodily as well? I see no reason why not:
Is there any "physical" difference between the two resurrections? No. Both groups rise from their graves => the resurrection is a bodily resurrection both for the saved and the lost.
The beast and the false prophet are two humans. They did not die in the battle, but were taken alive and thrown in to the lake of fire. A thousand years later (I am a convinced historical-premillenialist) the second resurrection takes place:
At the end Satan and the lost will be thrown into the same lake of fire where the beast and the false prophet are (!!! – present tense – even after 1000 years!!). And they shall be tormented (!) day and night (!) for ever and ever (!).
Not, that I like these verses, but I cannot brush them aside either. There will be a bodily resurrection for the lost, too, and this resurrection will result in eternal punishment and torment.
So – please note – this has nothing to do with the Greek thought of an immortal soul. It is about the Jewish (and Biblical) hope of a bodliy resurrection.
Words of Jesus that confirm that (BTW Revelation also comes from the mouth of Jesus):
It may be a little disturbing to hear Christ speak of tormentors when speaking about hell; and I am convinced He chose this imagery for a reason. Considering how enormously huge the servant's debts were it sums up to eternal punishment.
This is one of quite a number of verses where the Lord speaks of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Why not of destruction if that's what hell is really all about? It is interesting also, that he uses substantives to describe this and not verbs – saying: This place is characterized by weeping and gnashing of teeth. So it is not about a short time of weeping while being sentenced to destruction, but about being sentenced to a place of weeping.
This is reference to the last verses of Isaiah:
The fire will burn forever.
The worms will always have plenty to eat.
The bodies burn continually without being consumed
And they are dead
Yet it is a place of weeping
a place of torment
a place of gnashing teeth
a place of knowing that you are lost
Now what about the word destruction that you referred to (Rev 11:18)?
Or in John 3:16 (persih):
These words can mean full and literal destruction, but also be used in a more metaphorical sense. If we want to see them in the light of the other Scriptures, they certainly don't mean:
a) Their bodies will be consumed by fire and disappear
b) Their torment and weeping will be only for a limited time (it only takes a few hours to burn a corpse to ashes)
c) The worms will die of starvation once they have eaten up the bodies
So these words can only mean
a) a completely devastated and ruined humanity
b) a hope forever destroyed
c) pain without any chance for healing and recovering
Again: It is not about the Greek philosophy of immortal souls – it is about resurrected bodies that will burn forever. Very Jewish indeed, right from the prophet Isaiah.
Honestly, I wish it were not like this – but since the Lord revealed Himself as an avenger of all evil, I will worship Him with the words from Revelation:
Amen.
Alexander
Yes, wasn’t it the heavily Hellenized Sadducees that in their Greek thought denied the afterlife???
Alexander and Stephen have some good points. What bothers me Jay, is your dismissal as anti-biblical of an interpretation that differs from your own (even if you used to hold to it). Isn't that what you have been blogging against fior all these years – demonization of interpretations that differ from our own?
Alexander,
I must say that I'm very impressed with your argument here.
I don’t get the impression that Jay is here trying to demonize counter views. That said, I do think that any position that attempts to ‘rethink’ hell in order to highlight the goodness of God will always end up ironically doing quite the opposite. It seems to me that there is a fine line between critiquing erroneous theological traditions and ignoring difficult biblical passages.
The comment that sparked this post said of the ‘traditional’ view of hell, “[…]that God is an unjust tyrant who condemns us all by default no matter how small our sins are to eternity in hell.” But what if this statement is exactly backwards? What if actually the opposite was the case, that God has done, and is doing, everything and more to save His free-willed creatures from a fate worse than even scripture appears to suggest?
While I understand the comment above, I find the root of the complaint to actually be part of the problem—for the argument starts from the position of justice in relation to us—not in relation to God. This view asks: ‘am I not less bad than that guy?’ ‘Doesn’t that guy really deserve such and such…’ But all through scripture God has wooed us to Himself, but he lets us go our own way. In the end, if we are left estranged from God, torment or no, it’s all the same…hell. Hell is not something God does, but the logical flipside to us having a free-will to chose Him or not. We cannot ascribe the horrors of Hell to God!
So assuming that hell is such, then the only other reason to hold to ‘conditional immorality’ is to appease our own consciences. But in that case perhaps a little ‘Pascalian wager’ is due: given the chance of universal immortality, do we really want to hope on the alternative? That maybe those who only do a little bad will just fade away. What would such a hope gain us?
Again, I implore you to please give Keller a listen: http://download.redeemer.com/sermons/Hell_Isnt_th…
And on a somewhat lighter note: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/10/30/06103…
"You see, there is an obvious problem with conventional, Greco-Christian thought. The fact is that everlasting, conscious torture may be okay for the Hitlers and Pol Pots, but it hardly seems fair for a 12-year old one day removed from the age of accountability. How does one day of accountability without baptism justify an eternity of conscious torment? The plain answer is that it doesn’t, but we refuse to think in these terms because the Greek idea of hell is so deeply written into our consciousness."
I agree with you that rationally eternity in hell for minor offenses is absurd. But does that mean the Bible doesn't teach it? What about James 2:10?
James 2:10 "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it."
That 12 year old who dies one day past the "age of accountability" has probably only committed the minor sin of lusting after a married woman or telling a little white lie. But although he has only committed such minor thing, according to James 2:10 God will treat him as though he has committed every sin in the book. At some point you have to just admit that the Bible teaches that God is unjust and stop playing games.
konastephen,
The Sadducees denied the resurrection of the dead. N. T. Wright has shown that "resurrection" meant "bodily resurrection" and so the Hellenized Sadducees denied a bodily resurrection.
It appears that they also denied any survival after death, which some Greeks also taught — contrary to Plato. They weren't all Platonists.
Jay,
Did you write "How does one day of accountability without baptism justify an eternity of conscious torment?"
I am lost here. Are you suggesting that a person could be condemned for a peccadillo, for missing the mark however slightly? They simply won't endure all that much torment for a small sin or two in a life that was otherwise OK before they reached the age of accountability – Is that what you are suggesting as a real possibility?
Please help me understand this a little better.
So Plato, Pythagoras and other 'Egyptian' plunderers aside, I still don’t see what a difference a finite hell versus an infinite hell makes–but to appease our own conscience. And then what does this have to do with the ‘Age of Accountability’ anyway?! It seems to me that a better tack on this issue would be to critique the view that God is a God of technicalities. For He is not…
Back to the James 2:10 comment: the context is on equality–that sin is the great equalizer. But if we stew on how unjust God is because even a little sin separates us from Him, then we can start to distort our whole view of God and reality. I've seen many get angry with God (which is okay) but some then lose faith in their wrestling with the difficulties between justice and love, it can all seem so unfair. But we must be careful in how we define sin, justice, holiness and love!
Some of the comments here though seem the wrong way around. We want to believe that a little ignorance or a little white lie will get you a quick painless permanent death, while the Hitler's of the world get their due…are we serious?! Well maybe I'm the one with the wacko ideas, I think Hell is what happens when God leaves the room. In comparison to being reconciled to God, a quick snuffing out or an eternity in Hell is all the same to me…
Randall,
Traditional salvation teaching is that a child who attains the age of accountability will be punished for whatever sins she commits thereafter unless she finds salvation by hearing, believing, repenting, confessing, and being baptized. Moreover, for someone who is accountable, a single sin is enough to damn. Therefore, if a child attains the AOA without baptism, as soon as the child commits a sin, the child is damned — meaning if the child were to die the day after the AOA, she would suffer an eternity of everlasting, conscious torment for whatever sin she commits in that one day — even if only a single sin.
Am I suggesting that this is a real possibility? No: I'm suggesting that this a the possibility that demonstrates the unreality of traditional salvation teaching.
Now, I should add that in 20th Century CoC teaching, this is true of every one, even the saved, who stand damned for each and every unforgiven sin until specifically repented of, confessed, forgiveness is requested, and restitution made. Therefore, the absurdity of everlasting torture for a child who's only been accountable for one day prior to dying doesn't seem that strange to the 20th Century CoC mind. That mindset is comfortable with eternal agony for just one sin. Indeed, it's routine preaching.
And that also demonstrates the failure of 20th Century CoC teaching.
"We want to believe that a little ignorance or a little white lie will get you a quick painless permanent death, while the Hitler’s of the world get their due…are we serious?!" (konastephen)
We want to believe that a little speeding or a little jaywalking will get you fine, while murder and rape will get you life in prison without parole……are we serious?!
konastephen,
I'll get to what this has to do with the AOA question as we go. I can't answer that until we have a deeper understanding of hell and damnation.
Regarding the rest, I think many a lost soul refuses to come to Jesus because they can't see the justice and love in a God who punishes so very severely. Now, if that's what the Bible says, so be it; but when I read the Bible, I find a God very concerned that the punishment be proportional to the sin. But that's a future post. We'll be getting there.
Rey:
Let me preface this by saying that I am by no means scholarly in things biblical, so by my jumping into the deep end of the pool here, I am well aware I may be totally wrong.
That said, it seems to me that you are applying James 2:10 incorrectly. Is it not referring to the Old Law? In verse 11 (James 2:11), he definitely makes an OT application.
Furthermore, he says in v.12 that we'll be judged by the law that set us free (Christ; love God/each other), and in v.13 we are told that if we show mercy, then God will show us mercy. That, to me, would make James 2:10 moot for an over-arching application as anything other than Old Law. Because now we are NOT guilty of the whole law…so long as we show mercy.
To me, it seems the point is that we are incapable of keeping the entirety of ANY law perfectly…thus, we need a Savior. So be gracious and generous to the poor, and be merciful to all…as we receive our unmerited favor.
I may be wrong, but I've just seen several references to James 2:10, and to my reading, it doesn't seem contextual.
Furthermore,
Kona:
Could Matthew 5:23-26 be a reference to punishment that fits the crime?
Hey Kona, as far as the idea of "who cares whether it is eternal punishment or a quick snuffing"…you obviously weren't raised in the COC, because if you had, you'd be well aware of the exact nature of the tortures you'd be receiving, and the idea of a quick snuffing would be music to your ears! 🙂
JMF,
I am well aware of the EUPHEMISTIC interpretation that James merely means that whoever breaks any point of the law is considered a lawbreaker. But that's not what he says. He says "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it." So, if you commit any one sin you are considered guilty of all others–that's what he says.
Now what do he do with this principle, or why does he put it forward? As you said he puts it forward in order to argue that we show mercy to others. The idea is basically this: "Anyone who commits any one sin is considered by God as having committed all sins, and therefore you have to be merciful to everyone no matter how bad a sinner they are. You can't think 'I'm better because I only was baptized a little wrong, but this guy is a murderer' because in God's eyes the two are equivalent and you both deserve to burn eternally in hell, and the only way to avoid that is to show mercy to others so God will show you mercy, otherwise you get punished as if you broke every point of the law."
Regardless of the fact that James gives us an out to escape punishment (showing mercy) his concept of the sort of punishment we deserve and why is plainly a concept based on the idea that God is unjust, that God punishes people for sins they didn't even commit, that if I commit one sin God condemns me for all others too. It is absurd and is at the heart of why Christianity is too weak to change the world or do anything right.
Yeah Rey,
After posting this, I read some of your other posts in other threads and realized I might have misread your intent a bit.
I pretty much completely agree with everything you just said.