Oct
31
Biblical Teaching on Eternal Punishment
Here is another selection quoting Anglican theologian J.I. Packer in Hell Under Fire, eds. Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson. The focus is on the Scripturally-based and -supported expression “eternal punishment” as the deserved penalty that some people earn for their sin, as opposed to what universalists believe. (See my earlier post.) But, it is bound to make annihilationists uncomfortable — or, perhaps annoyed — too. (See especially point 3 below.)
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“The phrase ‘eternal punishment’ comes from Jesus’ parabolic prophecy of the separation of the sheep from the goats (Matt. 25:31-46). As on other occasions, Jesus here speaks of himself in the third person as the messianic Son of Man and as executing the purpose of ‘my Father’ (v. 34). In his prophecy, the Son of Man has returned to the world as its King (vv. 34,40) and is now judging ‘all the nations’ (v. 32). Those who, by serving others, have actually served him inherit ‘the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world’ (v. 34); those who, by not serving others, have failed to serve him are banished to ‘the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’ (v. 41).
The evident lesson here is that one’s profession of faith is validated by the quality of one’s life. So the wicked ‘will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life’ (Matt. 25:46). ‘Eternal’ (aionios) means belonging to the age to come, which in contrast to the present world order will not end. ‘Punishment’ (kolasis) means retributive, as distinct from causeless, infliction of pain by or on behalf of whoever’s authority has been flouted, as an expression of that person’s displeasure. So eternal punishment means a divine penal infliction that is ultimate in the same sense in which eternal life is ultimate — prima facie, therefore, everlasting and unending.
Matthew 25:46, said O.C. Quick, Regius Professor of Theology at Oxford, is one of the two most explicit New Testament texts affirming permanent penal pain for some after death. Quick’s other passage is Revelation 20:10,15, where a ‘lake of fire’ appears as the place of torment for the devil, the beast, and the false prophet ‘forever and ever,’ and with them for any whose names are not found written in the ‘book of life.’ Quick observes, sharply enough: ‘The strain of anti-universalist teaching in the New Testament can hardly be regarded by an impartial mind as other than conclusive.’
Eternal punishment is not merely a matter of these two texts, however. Jesus declared, ‘Anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit [rejecting his outward and inward witness to Jesus’ own identity and role] will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come’ (Matt. 12:32). In his teaching on discipleship, Jesus said that it was better to get rid of a hand, foot, or eye that triggers sin than ‘to be thrown into hell [Gehenna, the spot outside Jerusalem where rubbish was burned], “where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched”‘ (Mark 9:43-48). In his teaching on neighbor love, Jesus envisages a hardhearted rich man describing his after-death state as ‘agony in this fire’ (Luke 16:24). Cries of agony and gnashing of teeth in outer darkness and in a fiery furnace also appear in Jesus’ utterances (Matt. 8:12; 13:42; 24:51; Luke 13:28)….
Nor is it just Jesus and John in Revelation who talk in this fashion. Paul speaks of Christ’s return ‘in blazing fire. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction’ (2 Thess. 1:8-9; cf. Rom. 2:5-9, where the words wrath, fury, tribulation, and distress are used for what awaits the disobedient and defiant). The writer of Hebrews tells us of ‘eternal judgment’ (Heb. 6:2), stating that ‘man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment’ (9:27), and declaring that apostasy brings ‘a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God…. It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God’ (10:27,31). The point is that anticipation of eternal punishment for the impenitent pervades the whole New Testament.
We can make four comments on this material:
(1) As to the exegesis of passages threatening eternal punishment, it has been suggested that they are not informational at all, but that Christ and the apostles spoke them as in effect a horrific bluff, invoking their hearers’ and readers’ prejudices in order to drive them into faith and faithfulness out of fright. But this cynical and unpastoral idea fits neither the context in which these statements were made (i.e., to committed believers; Thessalonians, Romans, and, as the writer to the Hebrews trusts [see 6:9], his ex-Judaic addresses) nor their actual logical form, in which revelations or reminders of grim facts are clearly basic to whatever admonition, exhortation, or encouragement is being expressed.
(2) As to the meaning of these passages, anyone who, for whatever reason, thinks these passages inconclusive regarding eternal punishment for the impenitent must answer the question: How could our Lord and his apostles have made this belief any clearer? What more could they have said that they did not say had they wanted to put everyone out of doubt that this was indeed their meaning? To recognize the reality of eternal punishment is, to be sure, awesome, jolting, and traumatic, but surely there is no room for doubt that this was exactly what Jesus and his apostles wanted their hearers to recognize.
(3) As to the theory of annihilation (i.e, the idea that the fiery destruction that unbelievers will undergo ultimately will end in their nonexistence), this idea has to be read into the texts; it cannot be read out of them, since the fire is a picture not of destruction but of ongoing pain, as Luke 16:24 makes unambiguously clear. Also the Greek words that express destruction (verb, appolymi; nouns, apoleia and olethros; adjective, olethrios) signify functional ruination (as when one totals a car, thereby reducing it to a heap of wreckage) rather than ontological abolition (reducing something to a state of complete nonexistence). This popular theory could be called universalism in reverse, since universalism anticipates all [created] persons who exist being saved while annihilationism anticipates that those who are saved are the only [created] persons who exist [forever]. Both views are speculations, seemingly driven by the same conviction that the idea of endless punishment is not acceptable, and hence by the same desire that hell should one way or another be emptied.
(4) As to theodicy (the discipline that seeks to safeguard God’s praiseworthiness by showing that when he does what he does he is in the right and is doing or sanctioning something significantly good), so far from seeing endless retribution as creating a moral problem, as if it were really divine cruelty on those persons who do not deserve it, the New Testament sees it as resolving a moral problem, namely, the problem created by the way in which rebellious evil and human cruelty have constantly been allowed to run loose and unchecked in God’s world. As in the Old Testament, so in the New: The vindicating of God’s justice and the manifesting of his righteousness in merited retribution are treated as matters for praise (note, though, how the judgment on spiritual ‘Babylon’ is viewed in Rev. 18:20; 19:2). Joy flows, and will forever flow, from the knowledge that God has finally taken action, and his righteous judgment (Rom. 2:5) has ended the running sore of global moral disorder at last.
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Amen!
