Conditional Immortality Supports Annihilationion, Refutes Eternal Conscious Torment and Universalism

[ToBeLoved]

Thanks for responding. It's difficult for me to reply to vague evidence like "too many Biblical passages". Perhaps we could start with one?

Here's one for you:

NIV John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus indicates that the alternative to eternal life is to "perish". That makes sense! Now, if (God forbid) I had a relative who had been captured by ISIS and the intelligence community believed they were being held and tortured, I would not say "My relative has perished". I would have hope that my relative would be rescued! But if my relative was incinerated by an ISIS bomb I would say "My relative has perished".

What I'm saying is simply that the most famous verse in the Bible appears to quite plainly support annihilationism.

I think you may be missing the entire spiritual messsge in your literal interpretation.

Not being with God for eternity is spiritual death. Not being a child of God is spiritual death.

You are taking these verses literally and missing the entire message and teachings of this and other verses.

 

[stuart lawrence]

There's that disrespect again. Take care.

I don't think so. We all get over exuberant at times, me included

 

[Chris Date]

I don't think so. We all get over exuberant at times, me included

This is true, although as I demonstrate in the quotes from conservative evangelicals I've added to my previous comment, I was not over-exuberant. In any event, God bless and take care. I'll let someone familiar with orthodox views of the atonement take on my challenge.

 

[stuart lawrence]

Perhaps. Or perhaps you're mistaken about what conservative evangelicals generally believe. Wayne Grudem, for example, writes that as a result of the atonement, God "declares that we have no penalty to pay for sin, including past, present, and future sins." (Systematic Theology) John MacArthur likewise writes, "In Christ we have infinite forgiveness for every sin—past, present, and future." (Drawing Near—Daily Readings for a Deeper Faith)

In any event, I'll let someone else respond to my challenge. Thanks.

I don't know if I have this right. But are you saying, because Jesus atoned for sin at Calvary, non believers cannot spend eternity in hell?
The only people who's sins are not counted against them are the saved, not the unsaved

 

[Mark Corbett]

I think you may be missing the entire spiritual messsge in your literal interpretation.

Not being with God for eternity is spiritual death. Not being a child of God is spiritual death.

You are taking these verses literally and missing the entire message and teachings of this and other verses.

NIV John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Do you believe that if we believe in Jesus we will literally have eternal life?

 

[Chris Date]

I don't know if I have this right. But are you saying, because Jesus atoned for sin at Calvary, non believers cannot spend eternity in hell?
The only people who's sins are not counted against them are the saved, not the unsaved

I encourage you to re-read my challenge, as it doesn't sound as though you read it carefully. Here it is again, for the benefit likewise of anyone else who wishes to take on my challenge:

Substitutionary, atoning, sacrificial death is worked into the warp and woof of salvation history from the beginning, from the garments of skin made for Adam and Eve from the first sacrificial animal death, to the Passover lamb that died in the place of the first-born of the families who placed its blood on their doorposts, to the animal sacrifices of the Mosaic covenant. This is why Jesus, as their typological fulfillment, is so consistently said to have died in the place of sinners, biblical authors using the Greek prepositions ἀντί and ὑπ́ερ to teach that Jesus literally took our place and suffered what we deserved when he died (e.g., Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45; 1 Timothy 2:6; 2 Corinthians 5:14; John 11:50-52).

It seems eminently reasonable, then, that the penal consequences of sin, borne by Jesus on the cross as a substitute in the place of sinners, is the sort of death he suffered. Yet that sort of death—the privation of embodied life—is the very sort that the finally impenitent in hell will never suffer, according to the doctrine of eternal torment. And so its defenders inadvertently end up denying the substitutionary nature of Christ's death, for whereas he died, the risen wicked will not.

Conservative evangelicals are ordinarily adamant that it is heresy to deny the substitutionary death of Christ, including Bruce Ware, John Piper, and Chuck Colson. Meanwhile, otherwise stellar, thoughtful exegetes and theologians end up inadvertently denying this evangelical essential, including Wayne Grudem. In his Systematic Theology, he writes, "When Jesus knew that he had paid the full penalty for our sin, he said, ‘It is finished’ (John 19:30).” Grudem's use of the perfect-tense "had paid" demonstrates that in his view, Christ suffered the complete penalty for sin, the equivalent of the eternity of torment he thinks Christ's people deserved, and then he died. So his death actually isn't substitutionary in this view; only his pain is.

Can any defender of eternal torment here simultaneously affirm the substitutionary nature of Jesus' physical death and the doctrine of eternal torment for the physically risen, immortal wicked in hell?

 

[stuart lawrence]

I encourage you to re-read my challenge, as it doesn't sound as though you read it carefully. Here it is again, for the benefit likewise of anyone else who wishes to take on my challenge:

Substitutionary, atoning, sacrificial death is worked into the warp and woof of salvation history from the beginning, from the garments of skin made for Adam and Eve from the first sacrificial animal death, to the Passover lamb that died in the place of the first-born of the families who placed its blood on their doorposts, to the animal sacrifices of the Mosaic covenant. This is why Jesus, as their typological fulfillment, is so consistently said to have died in the place of sinners, biblical authors using the Greek prepositions ἀντί and ὑπ́ερ to teach that Jesus literally took our place and suffered what we deserved when he died (e.g., Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45; 1 Timothy 2:6; 2 Corinthians 5:14; John 11:50-52).

It seems eminently reasonable, then, that the penal consequences of sin, borne by Jesus on the cross as a substitute in the place of sinners, is the sort of death he suffered. Yet that sort of death—the privation of embodied life—is the very sort that the finally impenitent in hell will never suffer, according to the doctrine of eternal torment. And so its defenders inadvertently end up denying the substitutionary nature of Christ's death, for whereas he died, the risen wicked will not.

Conservative evangelicals are ordinarily adamant that it is heresy to deny the substitutionary death of Christ, including Bruce Ware, John Piper, and Chuck Colson. Meanwhile, otherwise stellar, thoughtful exegetes and theologians end up inadvertently denying this evangelical essential, including Wayne Grudem. In his Systematic Theology, he writes, "When Jesus knew that he had paid the full penalty for our sin, he said, ‘It is finished’ (John 19:30).” Grudem's use of the perfect-tense "had paid" demonstrates that in his view, Christ suffered the complete penalty for sin, the equivalent of the eternity of torment he thinks Christ's people deserved, and then he died. So his death actually isn't substitutionary in this view; only his pain is.

Can any defender of eternal torment here simultaneously affirm the substitutionary nature of Jesus' physical death and the doctrine of eternal torment for the physically risen, immortal wicked in hell?

If you want responses just simplify it. State what you are saying in a nutshell

 

[Dirk1540]

I'd like to ask the defenders of eternal torment here what they make of the fact that Jesus, who we evangelicals believe is our substitutionary, atoning sacrifice for sin, died in our place.

Substitutionary, atoning, sacrificial death is worked into the warp and woof of salvation history from the beginning, from the garments of skin made for Adam and Eve from the first sacrificial animal death, to the Passover lamb that died in the place of the first-born of the families who placed its blood on their doorposts, to the animal sacrifices of the Mosaic covenant. This is why Jesus, as their typological fulfillment, is so consistently said to have died in the place of sinners, biblical authors using the Greek prepositions ἀντί and ὑπ́ερ to teach that Jesus literally took our place and suffered what we deserved when he died (e.g., Matt 20:28; Mark 10:45; 1 Tim 2:6; 2 Cor 5:14; John 11:50–52).

It seems eminently reasonable, then, that the penal consequences of sin, borne by Jesus on the cross as a substitute in the place of sinners, is the sort of death he suffered. Yet that sort of death—the privation of embodied life—is the very sort that the finally impenitent in hell will never suffer, according to the doctrine of eternal torment. And so its defenders inadvertently end up denying the substitutionary nature of Christ's death, for whereas he died, the risen wicked will not.

Conservative evangelicals are ordinarily adamant that it is heresy to deny the substitutionary death of Christ, including Bruce Ware, John Piper, and Chuck Colson. Meanwhile, otherwise stellar, thoughtful exegetes and theologians end up inadvertently denying this evangelical essential, including Wayne Grudem. In his Systematic Theology, he writes, "When Jesus knew that he had paid the full penalty for our sin, he said, ‘It is finished’ (John 19:30).” Grudem's use of the perfect-tense "had paid" demonstrates that in his view, Christ suffered the complete penalty for sin, the equivalent of the eternity of torment he thinks Christ's people deserved, and then he died. So his death actually isn't substitutionary in this view; only his pain is.

Can any defender of eternal torment here simultaneously affirm the substitutionary nature of Jesus' physical death and the doctrine of eternal torment for the physically risen, immortal wicked in hell?

My post yesterday quickly got buried in an avalanche posts, I'll repost it because I would like to know the answer...

As I was reading this post it occurred to me, don't we have a mathematical problem with eternal torment? How can Jesus 'Pay the price' for, let's say for argument's sake 2 billion eternal sentences??

Everyone knows that infinity times infinity is an illogical problem. Likewise you can not 'Finish' a sentence of eternity. One might answer "God can do anything", no he can't, God can not draw a square circle. Likewise God can not finish off an eternal sentence because that's a self defeating statement. And pointing out self defeating statements are the exact arguments that apologists have been using to put atheists in logical corners for years (if you're familiar with it, Norm Geisler & Frank Turek's 'Road Runner' strategy used against postmoderns).

So what is an eternal sentence plus an eternal sentence? Or what is this answer,

2,000,000,000 x eternity = Z

Solve for Z please. You can't it's an illogical question. It's as illogical as asking "Well then who created God?" God is that which has always been...meaning that asking a question about God's beginning is self defeating.

So would somebody please solve for Z? The problem is that you can only solve for Z on the day that you can also draw a triangle with 2 angles.

 

[stuart lawrence]

I encourage you to re-read my challenge, as it doesn't sound as though you read it carefully. Here it is again, for the benefit likewise of anyone else who wishes to take on my challenge:

Substitutionary, atoning, sacrificial death is worked into the warp and woof of salvation history from the beginning, from the garments of skin made for Adam and Eve from the first sacrificial animal death, to the Passover lamb that died in the place of the first-born of the families who placed its blood on their doorposts, to the animal sacrifices of the Mosaic covenant. This is why Jesus, as their typological fulfillment, is so consistently said to have died in the place of sinners, biblical authors using the Greek prepositions ἀντί and ὑπ́ερ to teach that Jesus literally took our place and suffered what we deserved when he died (e.g., Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45; 1 Timothy 2:6; 2 Corinthians 5:14; John 11:50-52).

It seems eminently reasonable, then, that the penal consequences of sin, borne by Jesus on the cross as a substitute in the place of sinners, is the sort of death he suffered. Yet that sort of death—the privation of embodied life—is the very sort that the finally impenitent in hell will never suffer, according to the doctrine of eternal torment. And so its defenders inadvertently end up denying the substitutionary nature of Christ's death, for whereas he died, the risen wicked will not.

Conservative evangelicals are ordinarily adamant that it is heresy to deny the substitutionary death of Christ, including Bruce Ware, John Piper, and Chuck Colson. Meanwhile, otherwise stellar, thoughtful exegetes and theologians end up inadvertently denying this evangelical essential, including Wayne Grudem. In his Systematic Theology, he writes, "When Jesus knew that he had paid the full penalty for our sin, he said, ‘It is finished’ (John 19:30).” Grudem's use of the perfect-tense "had paid" demonstrates that in his view, Christ suffered the complete penalty for sin, the equivalent of the eternity of torment he thinks Christ's people deserved, and then he died. So his death actually isn't substitutionary in this view; only his pain is.

Can any defender of eternal torment here simultaneously affirm the substitutionary nature of Jesus' physical death and the doctrine of eternal torment for the physically risen, immortal wicked in hell?

Christ paid the full penalty of sin for believers, not non believers:

Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness for everyone who believeth rom10:4

Only their full penalty has been paid!

Bind up the testimony
Seal up the law
AMONG MY DISCIPLES
Isaiah 8:16

 

[Mark Corbett]

My post yesterday quickly got buried in an avalanche posts, I'll repost it because I would like to know the answer...

As I was reading this post it occurred to me, don't we have a mathematical problem with eternal torment? How can Jesus 'Pay the price' for, let's say for argument's sake 2 billion eternal sentences??

Everyone knows that infinity times infinity is an illogical problem. Likewise you can not 'Finish' a sentence of eternity. One might answer "God can do anything", no he can't, God can not draw a square circle. Likewise God can not finish off an eternal sentence because that's a self defeating statement. And pointing out self defeating statements are the exact arguments that apologists have been using to put atheists in logical corners for years (if you're familiar with it, Norm Geisler & Frank Turek's 'Road Runner' strategy used against postmoderns).

So what is an eternal sentence plus an eternal sentence? Or what is this answer,

2,000,000,000 x eternity = Z

Solve for Z please. You can't it's an illogical question. It's as illogical as asking "Well then who created God?" God is that which has always been...meaning that asking a question about God's beginning is self defeating.

So would somebody please solve for Z? The problem is that you can only solve for Z on the day that you can also draw a triangle with 2 angles.

Dirk, I do think you have something here. God promised to "pay back" people for their sins.

NIV Romans 12:19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.
NIV 2 Thessalonians 1:6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you

NIV Hebrews 10:30 For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people."

If payment for sins requires eternal torment, then God will NEVER reach a point where He has fulfilled His promise to "pay back". A trillion years after judgment, God would still have paid back far, far less than one trillionth of what He "owes" in terms of punishment. Annihilation makes more sense in this way, and in many other ways.

 

[Chris Date]

Christ paid the full penalty of sin for believers, not non believers:

Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness for everyone who believeth rom10:4

Only their full penalty has been paid!

Bind up the testimony
Seal up the law
AMONG MY DISCIPLES
Isaiah 8:16

That's right. But what he paid is the penalty believers deserved, and believers did not deserve a different penalty than what the unsaved deserve. Er go, the penalty the unsaved deserve is death, not eternal life in immortal torment.

Anyone else like to respond to my challenge?

 

[stuart lawrence]

That's right. But what he paid is the penalty believers deserved, and believers did not deserve a different penalty than what the unsaved deserve. Er go, the penalty the unsaved deserve is death, not eternal life in immortal torment.

Anyone else like to respond to my challenge?

That's a ridiculous conclusion.
Eternal life with God or eternity without God. Christ died so you may have eternal life with God.

I'm afraid your challenge is no challenge at all

 

[Chris Date]

Dirk, I do think you have something here. God promised to "pay back" people for their sins.

NIV Romans 12:19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.
NIV 2 Thessalonians 1:6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you

NIV Hebrews 10:30 For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people."

If payment for sins requires eternal torment, then God will NEVER reach a point where He has fulfilled His promise to "pay back". A trillion years after judgment, God would still have paid back far, far less than one trillionth of what He "owes" in terms of punishment. Annihilation makes more sense in this way, and in many other ways.

I don't think the finite duration of Christ's suffering is the real issue here. As the God-man, both divine and human, Christ's finite duration of suffering can, I think, substitute for an eternity of suffering if that's what would have awaited his people, and what awaits the lost. The bigger problem for eternal torment is that Christ died as a substitute for his people; he died in the place of believers. So the penalty Jesus bore in the stead of believers was death, and therefore the penalty we deserved is death, and therefore the penalty the lost deserve is death, not an eternal life in immortal torment.

Because defenders of eternal torment say the risen lost will live forever in immortal torment, rather than die as Christ did, they inadvertently deny substitutionary atonement.

 

[stuart lawrence]

I don't think the finite duration of Christ's suffering is the real issue here. As the God-man, both divine and human, Christ's finite duration of suffering can, I think, substitute for an eternity of suffering if that's what would have awaited his people, and what awaits the lost. The bigger problem for eternal torment is that Christ died as a substitute for his people; he died in the place of believers. So the penalty Jesus bore in the stead of believers was death, and therefore the penalty we deserved is death, and therefore the penalty the lost deserve is death, not an eternal life in immortal torment.

Because defenders of eternal torment say the risen lost will live forever in immortal torment, rather than die as Christ did, they inadvertently deny substitutionary atonement.

If non believers die as Christ did for three days. They do not completely cease to exist!

 

[stuart lawrence]

And seeing this before, he spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption
Acts2:31

 

[Dirk1540]

I don't think the finite duration of Christ's suffering is the real issue here. As the God-man, both divine and human, Christ's finite duration of suffering can, I think, substitute for an eternity of suffering if that's what would have awaited his people, and what awaits the lost. The bigger problem for eternal torment is that Christ died as a substitute for his people; he died in the place of believers. So the penalty Jesus bore in the stead of believers was death, and therefore the penalty we deserved is death, and therefore the penalty the lost deserve is death, not an eternal life in immortal torment.

Because defenders of eternal torment say the risen lost will live forever in immortal torment, rather than die as Christ did, they inadvertently deny substitutionary atonement.

Ok so the story I've heard a lot as a kid, that Christ paid the equivalent of an eternity in Hell for each believer between the time of his death and resurrection...that is unfounded in scripture? I went to Catholic school.

 

[Chris Date]

Ok so the story I've heard a lot as a kid, that Christ paid the equivalent of an eternity in Hell for each believer between the time of his death and resurrection...that is unfounded in scripture? I went the Catholic school.

That's right, that's not founded in Scripture. In fact, it's a heresy. No orthodox Christian has ever held that Christ paid the penalty of hell between his death and resurrection. What defenders of eternal torment have said is that he paid the equivalent of an eternity in hell on the cross, until he died.

But therein lies the denial of Christ's substitutionary death. The Bible says Jesus died in place of sinners, bearing the punishment they deserved. Therefore the judgment inflicted in hell, for the sin sinners deserve, must likewise be death, not eternal immortal life in torment. Defenders of eternal torment therefore inadvertently deny the substitutionary death of Jesus.

 

[William Tanksley Jr]

But they didn't die by eating the apple did they. They went into a whole new state of life and experience

That's far, far from what God said about what happened.

God told them that they would die, and the serpent, intending to kill them, lied to them that they wouldn't die. By this technique, Satan became a murderer, because the man's sin brought death on him, and death passed on all men.

Now that man knows good and evil, God says, man must not live forever; so God made it impossible for sinful man to reach the tree. Notice the cause and effect there? God says it would be bad for man to live forever knowing good and evil; so God stops that from happening. A man who cannot live forever may live a while, but he must die eventually. And this is also what God said. He told Adam that his toilsome labor would be until he returned to the dust. God added, then, that in returning to dust Adam is undoing creation.

And this is likewise what the New Testament says when it comments on Adam. Never does the Bible say "they didn't die"; death is always affirmed to be what they caused. Jesus said so unambiguously in John 8:44 -- Satan wanted to kill the humans the same way the Pharisees wanted to kill Jesus, and so Satan lied to them. This makes sense; the Pharisees didn't want to leave Jesus in "a whole new state of life and experience" -- they wanted to kill him.

 

[stuart lawrence]

That's far, far from what God said about what happened.

God told them that they would die, and the serpent, intending to kill them, lied to them that they wouldn't die. By this technique, Satan became a murderer, because the man's sin brought death on him, and death passed on all men.

Now that man knows good and evil, God says, man must not live forever; so God made it impossible for sinful man to reach the tree. Notice the cause and effect there? God says it would be bad for man to live forever knowing good and evil; so God stops that from happening. A man who cannot live forever may live a while, but he must die eventually. And this is also what God said. He told Adam that his toilsome labor would be until he returned to the dust. God added, then, that in returning to dust Adam is undoing creation.

And this is likewise what the New Testament says when it comments on Adam. Never does the Bible say "they didn't die"; death is always affirmed to be what they caused. Jesus said so unambiguously in John 8:44 -- Satan wanted to kill the humans the same way the Pharisees wanted to kill Jesus, and so Satan lied to them. This makes sense; the Pharisees didn't want to leave Jesus in "a whole new state of life and experience" -- they wanted to kill him.

Those who died under the old covenant died a physical death to living on this earth, they did not cease to exist at all!!

 

[Dirk1540]

That's right, that's not founded in Scripture. In fact, it's a heresy.

Ok thanks, so in my math rebuttal I was attacking a straw man argument...in the sense that I was misrepresenting the other camp's argument?

What defenders of eternal torment have said is that he paid the equivalent of an eternity in hell on the cross, until he died.

Oh look at that we're back to my self defeating math problem, how can you bear the punishment of eternity unless we never heard from Jesus again? You can never 'Complete' or 'Pay For' a sentence of eternity, you can only eternally keep serving the sentence!

What is infinity times in infinity? How long does it take to complete eternity time eternity? Who created God (God is that which always was)? These are all illogical questions. Jesus can't draw a square circle, and he can't COMPLETE a sentence of eternity, it's an illogical contradiction.

This ongoing debate of exegesis is fascinating, but how exactly do we debate in favor of supporting a self defeating illogical position? Do we not use logic to back up our faith? So...a self defeating statement doesn't place a bad taste in your mouth??