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Conditional Immortality

Conditional Immortality. Paul Wilson. Popular understanding. The Christian hope is …. going to heaven forever when you die Human destiny is …. going to heaven or hell forever when you die Evangelism is …. changing people’s destiny from hell to heaven Assumption ….

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Conditional Immortality

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  1. Conditional Immortality Paul Wilson

  2. Popular understanding • The Christian hope is …. • going to heaven forever when you die • Human destiny is …. • going to heaven or hell forever when you die • Evangelism is …. • changing people’s destiny from hell to heaven • Assumption …. • Every human being has an immortal soul • Do you agree with this?

  3. What I believe • Immortality • The Age to Come • Day of the LORD • Resurrection of the dead • Some will be included, others excluded • Criterion of inclusion/exclusion is complex • Hell is a means of destruction • The age to come – heaven and earth united

  4. Immortality • Only God has immortality. • Human beings do not have immortal souls. • If human beings attain to immortality, it is because God gives them eternal life. • We can experience eternal life now (in part). • The full experience of eternal life is in the age to come.

  5. The Age to Come • Mixture • Good and evil • Joy and suffering • Justice and injustice THIS AGE THE AGE TO COME

  6. The Age to Come • Material well-being • Social justice • Personal integrity SHALOM (well-being) = how things should be

  7. The Scope of Shalom Individual People Structures of Society Nature

  8. The Day of Judgment THIS AGE SHALOM

  9. Judgment – an act of mercy. • If things don’t change, they stay as they are. • Judgment makes things better (Noah’s flood). • It might not make things better for everyone. M I S HP AT S H A L O M

  10. The Day of the LORD • Parousia (the ‘second coming’ of Christ) • Resurrection of the dead • Judgment • ‘Hell’ • ‘Heaven’ Ingredients:

  11. Resurrection • Does not mean • going to heaven when you die • reincarnation • a spiritual experience of renewal • Does mean • being raised from the dead. • It hasn’t happened yet (except Jesus) • It does demand an event – the parousia.

  12. Resurrection Part of the ‘renewal of all things’

  13. At the resurrection • Some will be rewarded by inclusion in the age to come • Some will be excluded (cast out) • They will then no longer exist • Hell (gehenna) is the means of destruction • Nobody is in hell yet • Hell is not the same as Hades (Sheol)

  14. The criterion of inclusion • Sometimes described in terms of faith • The saved = believers • The lost = unbelievers • Sometimes described in terms of behaviour • The saved = the righteous • The lost = the wicked • More complex than ‘Christian/non-Christian’ (or ‘Jew/gentile’).

  15. Hades is not the same as hell • Sheol (Hebrew) • Place of the dead • Hades (Greek) • God of the Underworld • Cerberus (dog) • Pluto (Roman) • KJV is inconsistent • Sheol/Hades = hell/grave/pit

  16. What about hell? • Gehenna = Valley of (the sons of) Hinnom • Valley south west of Jerusalem • Site of child sacrifices to Moloch • Place for heaping up bodies after battle • Maybe Jerusalem’s rubbish dump • Used by Jewish writers as a symbol of the final punishment of the wicked. • ‘Worm’ and ‘flame’ – agents of destruction.

  17. Mark 9:43ff . If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where “their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.” (quoting Isaiah 66:24)

  18. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Matt 10:28

  19. Revelation 20:12-15 • And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

  20. New heaven and a new earth Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.“ (Rev 21:1-4)

  21. The meaning of ‘eternal’ (aionios) • Not necessarily ‘everlasting’ • Quantity: e.g. ‘long-lasting’ ordinances • Quality: ‘belonging to the age to come’ • ‘Eternal life’ = life of the age to come • ‘Eternal salvation’ (Heb 5:9) • ‘Eternal redemption’ (Heb 9:12) = with consequences for the age to come.

  22. ‘Eternal punishment’ etc. • ‘Eternal destruction’ (2 Thes 1:9) • ‘Eternal punishment’ (Matt 25:46) • ‘Eternal judgment’ (Hebrews 6:2) • All these refer to eschatological events – in the age to come, having irreversible consequences, but not torment for the whole of the age to come. • ‘Eternal sin’ (Mk 3:29) is ‘not forgiven in this age or in the age to come’ (Mt 12:32).

  23. Resurrection of good and bad.

  24. Why I don’t believe in eternal torment • I can’t see it in the Bible (Do people who can see it in the Bible already believe in ‘immortality of the soul’) • For God, who is love, to raise people in order totorment them forever is inconceivable. • Genesis 3:22 God denied Adam eternal life. • Mt 10:28 God destroys soul & body in hell. • Rev 20:14 Lake of fire is the second death.

  25. Why I am not a Universalist • The grace of God can be resisted. • (I am not a Calvinist or a determinist). • The flavour of much of the New Testament is one of contrasting responses to God – sheep and goats, wise and foolish virgins, wheat and weeds, good fish and bad, etc – leading to contrasting destinies. If these were only hypothetical, that would make Jesus devious, which I can’t accept.

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