The Scene Where Every Knee Bows

Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11)

The scene shown in Philippians 2:9-11 follows directly from the one portrayed in Philippians 2:5-8, which begins with “Let this mind be in you which is also in Christ Jesus.” Christ, because he is God, did not seek out his own reputation but became a human being and humbled himself to the shameful death of the cross for our sake. This is what self-giving, other-centered love looks like — and it is the glory of God.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. (Phillipians 2:5-8)

So, to interpret 2:9-11 as a scene where God coerces anyone, driving them to their knees and forcing them to mouth words that would be nothing more than lip service, would be completely out of sync with what preceded, completely out of sync with the revelation of God who, in Christ, reconciles the world to himself (see Colossians 1:19-20 and 2 Corinthians 5:19), and completely out of sync with the God who is love (1 John 4:8,10). Love does not look anything like that — indeed, such a thing would be detestable to love. To see what love looks like, we must look to the cross. And for an excellent description of how love behaves, let us look to 1 Corinthians 13:

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

A deity who behaves in any way other than that would be a petty deity, a Zeus-like figure, not the God revealed in Jesus Christ, and therefore not worthy of anyone’s worship.

Bowing the knee and confessing Jesus as Lord are acts of worship, freely offered, not empty acts that are forced upon  rebellious and unwilling hearts. God has never cared for empty gestures and hollow words. “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Isaiah 29:13). But the confession that Jesus is Lord is a saving one, one  nobody can make except by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3).

What we see depicted in Philippians 2:9-11, where every knee bows, is not a scene of cringing terror but of loving devotion, a heartfelt response to the scene in Philippians 2:5-8, where the self-giving, other-centered love and humility of our Lord Jesus Christ is most gloriously portrayed.

Where is Christ in the Sodom Narrative?

If he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard) — if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. (2 Peter 2:6-9)

In recent years, I have learned the importance of reading all the Scriptures as being about Christ, since that is who Christ himself taught they are about. If we are reading them as being about anything other than Christ, we are not yet reading them as Scripture, and it is only in their testimony concerning Jesus Christ that they bear trustworthy witness (see my article, Intention and Inerrancy). 

As I have written about this, some have asked about where and how we may find Christ in various Scripture passages. Recently, I was asked about where Christ is in the story of Lot and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, in Genesis 19? 

One of the important features of this narrative is that it follows after the narrative of Abraham’s hospitality (xenophilia, love for the stranger) to the three mysterious, angelic figures who represent the Lord in Genesis 18. Both narratives are about hospitality, and in them, both Abraham and Lot show hospitality to angels without realizing who they are. As the author of Hebrews reminds us, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2).

It is for Lot’s hospitality that Second Peter 2:7-8 deems Lot a righteous man. That certainly seems strange, even offensive, to us when we recall that Lot offered his daughters to the men of Sodom, so to protect the strangers from the mob. In the light of Christ, it is an act for which there is no excuse, and neither Second Peter nor the Church Fathers defend it. But it is not that particular act for which Lot was considered “righteous.” Rather, it was because of the anguish and vexation he felt over the debauched and lawless behavior of the city’s inhabitants toward the strangers, his guests.

Lot’s righteousness is seen in his reception of the strangers. He sat outside the gate at evening, watching for them, then watched out for them once they were in the city, defending them as best he knew (though that was woefully inadequate). In the end, however, it was these two angelic strangers who rescued Lot and his daughters, leading them out of the city before destruction came.

But where is Christ in all this? Well, for one thing, Second Peter uses Lot as an example of the righteous, for he was “a righteous man,” in anguish over the debauched, depraved behavior of the wicked, and “tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard.” The argument here is that if the Lord rescued Lot, “then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from their trials” (2 Peter 2:9). Christ is not only the Righteous One but is also the Rescuing One.

We may also see Christ as the Hospitable One. Hospitality has always been an important matter with God. To receive the stranger in the land was to receive the Lord; to turn away the stranger was to turn away the Lord. Lot showed hospitality to the two angelic strangers, and so towards the Lord; the men of Sodom failed to show any hospitality but only depraved hostility toward them. Christ has come into the world to reveal the hospitality of God toward us.

At this point, we might think of our Lord’s “Parable of the Sheep and the Goats,” in Matthew 25:31-46, where Christ commended the nations that showed hospitality to the stranger, because in receiving with kindness the “least of these,” they were actually, by their kindness, receiving Christ himself. And those who neglected the stranger were rejecting Christ himself.

Even more, we see that Christ himself showed the hospitality of God even to the publicans and prostitutes, sitting and eating with sinners. This was much to the consternation of the Scribes and Pharisees, and it was in response to this that Christ told the parable of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son (Luke 15).

As for Sodom itself, this was not the end of their story, for there is an interesting passage in Ezekiel that shows what would become of them:

Your older sister was Samaria, who lived north of you with her daughters, and your younger sister, who lived south of you, was Sodom with her daughters. Have you not copied their behavior and practiced their abominable deeds? In a short time you became even more depraved in all your conduct than they were! As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, your sister Sodom and her daughters never behaved as wickedly as you and your daughters have behaved.

See here – this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters had majesty, abundance of food, and enjoyed carefree ease, but they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and practiced abominable deeds before me. Therefore when I saw it I removed them. Samaria has not committed half the sins you have; you have done more abominable deeds than they did. You have made your sisters appear righteous with all the abominable things you have done.

So now, bear your disgrace, because you have given your sisters reason to justify their behavior. Because the sins you have committed were more abominable than those of your sisters; they have become more righteous than you. So now, be ashamed and bear the disgrace of making your sisters appear righteous.

I will restore their fortunes, the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters, and the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters (along with your fortunes among them), so that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all you have done in consoling them.

As for your sisters, Sodom and her daughters will be restored to their former status, Samaria and her daughters will be restored to their former status, and you and your daughters will be restored to your former status. (Ezekiel 16:46-55 NET)

The surprising thing here is that Sodom is to be restored. And so we see that God’s judgment on them was not final but penultimate, and that God’s ultimate purpose was restoration. As it so often goes in the Old Testament Prophets, the word of divine judgment is presented, but with it also is the promise of divine restoration afterwards. Here in Ezekiel, the people of Judah were facing the judgment of God, but there was also the promise of reconciliation. God would be restoring them, just as he would be restoring Sodom.

Ultimately, then, Christ is not only the rescuer of Lot, but even of Sodom. His hospitality is not only toward the righteous (Lot) but also toward the wicked sinners (Sodom).

Since Christ taught that the Scriptures are about him, we should always continue to seek until we find him in them. What I have offered above is not the one and only interpretation; I do not think there is necessarily only one true interpretation — there may be many true interpretations of a passage. The way we can tell a true one from a false one is that a true one is Christ-centered, cross-shaped and gospel-patterned. In considering how the Scriptures treat Sodom, I see Christ who rescues all by the hospitality of the Cross.

The Body of Christ, the Whole of Humanity

Now the body of Christ,
as I often have said,
is the whole of humanity.
— St. Gregory of Nyssa

It is a truth of the Incarnation, in which Christ has united himself with all of humanity, that the body of Christ is the whole of humanity. For there is only one humanity in which we all share, and Jesus shares in it with us. That one humanity is thus united with God. It violates no logic. It is not a redefinition except inasmuch as the coming of Christ into the world changes everything. This concept was well defined in the early Church, as Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-395) demonstrates. He was no theological hack, and orthodox Christian understanding today owes much to him.

We find the Incarnation in John 1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ... The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1, 14). This and many other passages shows the intimate connection between Christ and all humankind. He did not become human in a different humanity but in the only one there is. We are all and united in it, and Christ shares in it with us.

So thoroughly united is all humankind with Christ, Paul can say that, just as Adam’s disobedience resulted in condemnation for all humankind, so also Christ’s righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people (Romans 5:18). And that, just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:22).

Because all humankind is united with and in Christ, and Christ is united with and in all humankind, there can be no situation where only some are the body of Christ while others are not. For Christ would have to be disunited with that part of humanity which is not his body, and that would be the undoing of the Incarnation. And the undoing of the Incarnation would be the undoing of salvation not just for some but for everyone.

This Incarnational union and embodiment does not at all do away with divine judgment but is precisely the means of that judgment — and it happens through the Cross and Resurrection. This is how God sets everything right in the world, making all things new.

Inasmuch as in Christ all will be made alive in the end, then all humankind, eschatologically understood, is the body of Christ. And inasmuch as humankind is inextricably bound with creation, and Christ is inextricably bound with humankind, so Christ is inextricably bound with creation. All creation is in him, as Paul tells us in Colossians 1, and Christ is in all creation — Christ is all and in all. Just as all of humankind, eschatologically understood, is the body of Christ, so also, all of creation, eschatologically understood, is the body of Christ.

There is no place in creation where Christ is not present. Not one part, not one cell, not one atom. But Christ is in all of creation, every bit of it. This means that Christ is embodied in throughout all creation, so thoroughly united with all creation that all in heaven and on earth are brought to unity in Christ, headed up in Christ (see Ephesians 1:9-10).

God of the Living

It is a most amazing revelation:
“For as in Adam all die, so also
in Christ all will be made alive.”

It is clear and absolute,
and perfectly symmetrical.
Both clauses balance out
perfectly, without remainder.

Adam’s disobedience resulted
in condemnation for all.
Christ’s faithful obedience resulted
in justification and
Life for all.

Once headed up in Adam,
humankind is now
headed up in Christ,

for Christ has united

divine being with 

human being.

In Christ all will be made alive.
For God, who will be All in All,
is not the God of the dead
but of the Living.

 

(Based on Romans 5:18 and 1 Corinthians 15:22, 28)

All Has Been Accomplished in Jesus Christ

His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Ephesians 3:10-11)

The eternal purpose of God has been accomplished in Jesus Christ. In Ephesians 1, Paul tells us that God's eternal purpose is to be bring all in heaven and on earth to unity, all summed up in Jesus Christ.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our offenses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. He did this when he revealed to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, toward the administration of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ – the things in heaven and the things on earth. (Ephesians 1:7-10)

When we see the Cross, we see the accomplishment, the fulfillment not only of God’s eternal purpose, but of time itself. The Cross is what the end of history looks like — Christ crucified, risen and ascended. For through the Incarnation, divine being is joined together with human being, heaven is united with earth, and eternity is made one with time.

Lord Jesus said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all to myself” (John 12:32). This is ascension language, and here, Jesus refers to the Cross, the death he died. Christ, the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world, in his ascension to the Cross, “draws” all to himself. The Greek verb is helkuo, which means to draw or drag, like a fisherman drawing in his net. It is not merely all kinds of people Christ draws to himself. And I do not think it is only people that Christ draws to himself, but I believe it is all of creation that Christ draws to himself, everything in heaven and on earth. At the Cross, the devil is deposed and, in Christ, the world is put right, and Christ announces, “It is finished!”

We are used to thinking of the Cross as merely an event in time, locating it somewhere in the middle of history, as something that happened long, long ago. But the Cross is the eschatological event, the end of time, the final denouement and consummation of all things. I believe it is also the creation of all things, for it is through, and by, and for, and in Christ crucified and risen that all things come into being. The end is in the beginning, and the beginning is in the end.

The Cross plays out in time, and we experience its outworking mostly as a succession of moments. Yet it is accomplished in eternity as the reality of the world. Even time itself is transfigured by it, such that we can experience the eternal in the mystery of the sacraments — Baptism and the Eucharist — as full and complete.

Is God a Destroyer of Souls?

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. (Matthew 10:28)

These are sobering words Jesus spoke to the disciples. What do they mean? There are two assumptions that are often made about this verse. The first is that it is about a postmortem, afterlife experience — often thought of as eternal conscience torment in “hell.” The second is that it is God who destroys both body and soul in hell. But let’s take a closer look.

Is Jesus speaking of a postmortem experience? The word for “hell” here is Gehenna, which often gets conflated with the word Hades and translated as “hell.” But is Gehenna the same thing as Hades, so that they can be spoken of synonymously, as many modern translations seem to do? I think not. I have written about both of these terms in previous posts (see links below). My conclusion is that they refer to two very different things and cannot be lumped together.

• Hades is a Greek name and is a counterpart to the Hebrew word Sheol in the Old Testament. It refers to the realm of the dead (see Hades — A Word About Hell?). As such, it is postmortem in nature.
• Gehenna, in the New Testament, is a variation of the Hebrew name, Ge Hinnom — Valley of Himmon — from the Old Testament (see Gehenna — A Word About Hell?). It is geographical, a place located outside of old Jerusalem and can still be found today. The prophets spoke of it as a place where faithless Israel would be judged, and the valley would be filled with their dead. This judgment was fulfilled in history, centuries before Christ. Although it was not a postmortem experience, Rabbis after the time of Jesus did come to use it metaphorically for such an experience, but it was thought of as a judgment that was of very limited duration, a purgatory of sorts.

So, how did Jesus use this word, Gehenna? What did he mean by it? It seems unlikely that he would have followed later rabbinic usage rather than the usage of the Old Testament prophets, to speak of a judgment that would occur not in some otherworldly scenario but in this world and could be located in history.

There is a movement of warnings in the book of Matthew that culminates in the Olivet Discourse, in Matthew 24, where Jesus warns of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. This destruction is seen as a judgment on the faithless leaders of Israel (see the “woes” pronounced on the Scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23, ending with the words that their “house” would be taken from them). It is the destruction that occurred in AD 70, when Roman armies, after a long siege, burned the temple and the city to the ground. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were slaughtered. Josephus, the ancient Jewish historian, speaks of that horrific time and tells us that, during the siege, the Jews ran out of burial space for the dead, so the bodies were thrown over the wall into the valleys below Jerusalem. Jesus’ warnings about Gehenna were fulfilled.

In Mark 9, Jesus again speaks of Gehenna and adds that it is where “the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.” It is a reference to Isaiah 66:24, “And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind” (see Where Worms Do Not Die). This scene depicts not only the thorough destruction of the dead bodies of the faithless, rebellious ones but also the contempt that is shown for them. Cyril of Alexandria, a fifth century Church Father, commented on this final verse in Isaiah, connecting it with the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70:

These misfortunes piled on the Jews are meant to be the things we say happened to them at the hands of the Romans, when the temple was destroyed and all were subjected to cruel slaughter. Suffering such things they became a spectacle for all, but their suffering was not prolonged indefinitely. Yet this is what perhaps is meant when it says, “Their worm will not die nor the fire go out.”

If Gehenna is not a postmortem, otherworldly experience but a judgment in this present world, then who is “the one” who can destroy both body and soul there?  Many assume that it refers to God. But is God a destroyer of souls? In John 10, Jesus speaks of the thief who comes to steal, kill and destroy, while Jesus is the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep and gives deep and abiding life without limits. We know that God does not act any differently than Jesus, because Jesus is the perfect expression of God (Hebrews 11:3). And if God were the destroyer of both body and soul in Gehenna, it would be rather odd that the verses immediately following describe him in quite a different way:

Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Matthew 10:29-30) 

God is the Good Father who knows when a sparrow falls. God is not the destroyer of souls. Jesus is not playing “Good Cop, Bad Cop” here. God is not malevolent one moment and then benevolent the next — there would be no assurance in that. But Jesus clearly intends to reassure the disciples about God’s intimate care for them.

Who, then, is “the one” Jesus is talking about in verse 28? Would it not be “the evil one” he referred to earlier, when he taught the disciples to pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:13)? I am persuaded that it is so.

The persecutors Jesus warned the disciples about knew how to kill the body, but how is the evil one able to destroy the soul? Can he annihilate the soul and put it out of existence? No, he is not the creator and sustainer of the soul, so he has no power to make it cease. Nor does he have the power of death, for that has been destroyed by Christ: “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14). The only ability that he has is to accuse and to slander — that is what the name “devil” means. His is not the way of Christ, whose way is love and forgiveness but the way of hate and shame.

Jesus promised that those who followed him would be persecuted by the Jews and spoken of falsely — and, indeed, many were martyred for following him. Yet that was not to be feared; those who were persecuted for the sake of righteousness would have great reward (Matthew 5:11-12).

Far greater than the destruction of the body through such persecution would be the destruction of the soul if they departed from the way of Christ, the way of peace, the way of forgiveness. In the prayer Jesus taught the disciples to pray, he lay heavy emphasis on forgiveness: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Failure to forgive is no small thing but is a trap of the evil one. In 2 Corinthians 2:10-11, Paul instructs them to forgive, “in order that Satan might not outwit [exploit, defraud, take advantage of] us. For we are not unaware of his schemes” (see Don’t Let the Devil Outsmart You).

For those who followed the way of Christ, death would find no shame in them. But for those who turned instead to the way of violence, the Gehenna that was to follow in AD 70 would be not only the destruction of the body but also the shaming of the soul. Even if the Jews had defeated the Romans and gained the whole world by their violent resistance, their souls would have been eaten up by their own bitter hate.

Those who followed the way of Christ endured persecution but were not present at the destruction of Jerusalem, for they had been forewarned by Christ about when to leave (Matthew 24). But those who followed the way of violence suffered terribly under that destruction and were put to shame by the Romans.

Will Evil Finally Be Eradicated?

Will evil finally be eradicated from God’s creation, or is the best we can hope for is that it will be sequestered? Will it finally be no more, or will it be forever confined in some corner of God’s creation?

The question I am posing actually concerns the extent of Jesus’ victory over evil. If, in the end, evil is merely shut away but still existent, that would seem to be a lesser victory than if it were altogether done away with, would it not? Evil would still have a little bit of the victory inasmuch as, though sequestered, it would still exist in God’s good creation. The cross and the resurrection would be mostly successful — but is that the most we can say?

Annihilationism (also known as Conditionalism) is a possible reading of the Scriptures. It is the view that there are some who will suffer varying degrees of punishment and then perish and cease to exist. It seems that a few of the early Church Fathers may have leaned toward that view. The undivided Church never took any dogmatic position on it one way or another (though individual sects and segments have over the years). The late Edward Fudge, who wrote about it in his book, The Fire That Consumes, addresses some of the history of it and the exegetical issues involved. His is a helpful book, and I did take the Annihilationist view for a season, but finally came to a different position on the matter.

The advantage of the Annihilationist view is that it does envision the full and final eradication of sin and evil from God’s good creation — which is more than my former position did or could. But the problem is that it does so at the cost of part of God’s good creation, which God called good. In particular, it comes at the cost of a portion of humankind, which God created in God’s own image and to be like God, and which God called very good. Can we call it a full victory over sin and evil when even a portion of what God created and called good ends up being destroyed? In that case, sin and evil would seem to win at least some victory over those who get annihilated.

My former view — Lord, forgive me — was of a fire that torments eternally; some in the early Church did hold to this view. Fudge referred to Annihilation as a fire that consumes, utterly and completely; and there were some in the early Church who held to this, though not quite as many. But what I see in Scripture is the fire of God as a fire that refines. This view was prevalent in the early Church for about the first five centuries; more in the East than in the West, though not absent from the West. Again, the undivided Church never took any dogmatic position on any of these views one way or another; all three are within the bounds of historic Christian faith and orthodoxy.

In 1 Corinthians 3:11-15, we see the fire of judgment as a refiner’s fire, a purgative fire, a therapeutic fire that burns away in us what is evil, without destroying what God has created; burning away, as it were, the “wood, hay and stubble,” leaving finally only the “gold, silver and precious jewels” (that is, what is created by God). Even those whose works are burned up will be saved, not in spite of the fire but through the fire. Jesus declared that everyone will be salted with fire (Mark 9:49). Salt, like fire, was and is an agent of cleansing and purification.

Lest anyone misunderstand, none of this does away with or replaces the saving work of Christ on the cross but, quite the opposite, is an expression of it, Christ’s saving work being applied to the sinner to free him evil and sin. Without the cross, none of that could happen.

All of this, I believe, is in accord with Paul’s words, that God will be “all in all” — not just all in only some, or even all in whatever is left. Everything that God in Christ created in heaven and on earth in Colossians 1:16 gets finally reconciled to God in Colossians 1:19, through Christ by the blood of the cross. Likewise, in the divine purpose of God as expressed in Ephesians 1:7-10, all things in heaven and on earth (and not merely whatever is left of them) are finally brought into unity in Christ.

God’s Judgment is Always for Our Good

The judgment of God is never against us, to condemn us, but is always for our good, to save us. That is a stunningly beautiful truth, though one that some Christians balk at. It means that God never gives up on us. For God is love, and love never fails. Even in hell — whatever such hell may be — God’s love endures. What God has purposed in Christ will be fulfilled.

Jesus is the perfect expression of God’s being, in whom all the fullness of God dwells in bodily form, so that whoever has seen him has seen the Father. Scripture has much to say about God’s purpose in Christ — and God has no other purpose for the world apart from the one he has purposed in Christ.

• In John 3:17, we see that God did not send Jesus into the world to condemn the world but to save the world. God has no purpose to condemn the world.
• In 2 Peter 3:9, we see that God has not purposed that any should perish but that all should repent.
• In 2 Corinthians 5:19, we see that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting our sins against us. Christ, the perfect expression of God’s being, came reconciling everyone to God, not condemning anyone.
• In Ephesians 1:9-10, we see that God has purposed to bring all things in heaven and on earth together in unity, headed up in Christ.
• In Colossians 1:19-20, we see God’s purpose to reconcile to himself all things in heaven and on earth, through Christ, having made peace by the blood of the cross.

God’s plan and purpose in Christ, as found in Scripture, is to save the world, to reconcile all in heaven and on earth to himself through Christ by the blood of the cross, so that all are brought to unity, being headed up in Christ. There is no Plan B, no plan to condemn anyone in case Plan A does not work out.

Even in Matthew 25:46, often cited in support of Plan B thinking, we find a very interesting thing. It comes at the end of Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats, and it speaks of “punishment” in the age to come. The Greek word is kolasin and is rooted in an agricultural term that refers to pruning. Pruning is not done in order to destroy a plant but to restore it to health and productivity. In this passage, kolasin is used metaphorically and refers to chastisement. It is not retributive; the Greek word for that sort of punishment would be timoria — but that is not the one we find here. The difference is this: retribution is for the benefit of the one exacting it; chastisement is for the benefit of the one receiving it.

What Jesus speaks of here is chastening, not condemnation. It is for the purpose of restoration, not retribution — for God is love, and love is not retributive. Clearly, it is divine judgment, and it may not be pleasant to endure, for it strips away whatever does not belong so that whatever does may come to fruition. This may be very painful if we try to hold on to what God is working to purge from us. Yet, it is not intended for harm but for healing and for good, to bring one finally to know their salvation and completion in Christ.

From the Face of the Lord

These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed. (2 Thessalonians 1:9-10 NKJV)

This is often supposed, by not a few evangelicals, to be a “kill” verse to any idea of Christian universalism. After all, does it not speak of “everlasting destruction”? Case closed! Or so it is thought.

What goes unnoticed is that the word for “everlasting” (aionion) does not actually, of itself, indicate any idea of endless duration. Oh, it can certainly take on such meaning when applied to God, or to the kingdom of God, or to the life we have in Christ, all of which are otherwise known in Scripture to be without end; but it does not inherently mean without end. Also unnoticed is that “destruction” (olethros) is not necessarily annihilation but may actually have a corrective, therefore, redemptive purpose — I have addressed both these points elsewhere (see “Eternal Punishment, Eternal Destruction?”). To put it simply, in this passage, Paul is speaking of chastisement in the Age to Come.

But there is something else in the verses above that is often assumed to disprove any Christian universalism, and that is the phrase, “from the presence of the Lord.” The assumption is that the “everlasting destruction” is separation from the presence (or face; the Greek word is prosopon) of the Lord. But that assumption fails on at least two counts:

First, it fails theologically, in regard to the relationship between God and creation. Paul teaches us in Colossians 1 that all things are created by Christ, through Christ, for Christ and in Christ, and continue to hold together in Christ. That being so, it is impossible for Christ to be absent from any person or thing in creation, or else such persons or things would simply cease to exist. Of course, that could be a point in favor of the annihilationist view — except that Paul also tells us in Colossians 1 that God is pleased to reconcile to himself, through Christ, all things in heaven and on earth (that is, all that has been created), having made peace by the blood of the cross.

Second, the phrase “from the presence of the Lord” (apo prosopou to kuriou) is used in only one other place in the New Testament, and it does not indicate any separation from God. We find it in Acts 3:19, where Peter is preaching in Solomon’s portico and says, “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (apo prosopou to kuriou). Clearly, this has nothing to do with being separated from the Lord but is about the blessing and refreshing that proceeds from the Lord’s presence.

In 2 Thessalonians 1:9, the phrase, “from the presence of the Lord,” is not about being separated from the presence of the Lord but is about what proceeds from the presence of the Lord: chastisement in the age to come. Now, the Lord does not have two different presences, one that brings refreshing and another that brings chastisement. Christ is everywhere and always present throughout the universe, but his presence may be experienced in different ways.

The difference is not found in the Lord or his presence but in the disposition of the one who is in the presence of the Lord. For those who turn toward Christ, his presence is experienced as blessing and refreshment, but for those who turn away from Christ, his presence is experienced as torment and destruction. The presence of the Lord is life and light and love, and those who turn to Christ are prepared to receive his presence as such. But those who turn away from Christ experience his presence as torment for as long as they cling to their dead, dark ways. This is just as true in the Age to Come as it is in this present age.

But as the life of Christ overcomes death, and the light of Christ overcomes darkness, so the love of Christ overcomes hate. So the “destruction” in the Age to Come is not a destruction of persons but of the things of death and darkness and hate. It is purgative and corrective, therefore redemptive in purpose.

Make no mistake, the prospect of such drastic measure in the age to come is not pleasant but is thoroughly dreadful, to be avoided at all costs — not only for our own sake but for the sake of others as well. But it in no way forecloses God’s redemptive purpose in Christ, to bring all things in heaven and on earth to unity in Christ (Ephesians 1:9-10), and to reconcile to himself all in heaven and on earth, through Christ, by the blood of the cross (Colossians 1:19-20), “so that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28).

The Consuming Fire of Divine Love

The Scriptures teach us that God is love and that God is a consuming fire. That is not saying two different things but saying the same thing in two different ways. For God is simple, not a being of parts that must be held in tension or played off one against another.

To speak of God as love and as consuming fire is to say that the love of God is the consuming fire of God, and the consuming fire of God is the love of God. So, however the consuming fire of God is manifest, it has everything to do with the love of God, and has no expression apart from that love.

The consuming fire of God’s love is a refiner’s fire, purging away the dross and purifying the precious elements. It may be like the doctor’s laser burning away a cancer in the patient’s body. The doctor’s purpose is not to harm but to heal. Likewise, the purpose of the consuming fire of God’s love is not to harm but to heal and restore.

Christ is the perfect expression of God’s being (Hebrews 1:3), which is to say that God is exactly like the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, any interpretation of the Scriptures that portrays God in any way that is contrary to the revelation of God we have in Jesus Christ is an interpretation we must reject as being unworthy of Christ and the Scriptures.

In the New Testament, we learn the gospel-shaped truth that God is love. Love is not a possession, an item in God’s divine toolbox to be brought out as the occasion arises. Nor is love a choice God makes, extending it to some while withholding it from others. Nor is it an attribute that must be held in tension with or balanced out by other divine attributes. No, it is much deeper than all that: God is love (1 John 4:8). It is the nature of God to love — always. So, any interpretation of Scripture that portrays God as in any way contrary to Christ’s self-giving, other-centered love, or the New Testament teaching about love, is an interpretation we must reject as unworthy of Christ, of the gospel and of love.

God has always been the way he is revealed in Christ. He has not changed from the Old Testament to the New; he has always been the way Christ has revealed him in the New Testament. The understanding the Old Testament writers and prophets had about God was not full and complete. But Christ has now come, and he is the full and complete revelation of God, the perfect expression of God’s being.

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being. (Hebrews 1:1-3)

That really is a night and day difference, but it does not mean we ought to dismiss the Old Testament Scriptures, as if the revelation of God given to us in Jesus Christ has done away with them. Quite the opposite, for Christ said that the Scriptures are about him:

You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me. (John 5:39)

We ought to read the Scriptures, then, but we ought to read them through Christ and the gospel, with a Christ-centered, cross-shaped understanding. Otherwise, we are liable to end up with ideas about God that are simply unworthy of Christ and therefore unworthy of God.

The idea, then, that God should ever act in any way that is retributive or intends harm to anyone is thoroughly unworthy of Christ, and ought to be rejected — love simply does not act that way. Rather, we ought to see the consuming fire of God as the expression of God’s love, intended not for harm but for healing, not to destroy but to restore.

Death Has An Expiration Date

The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Corinthians 15:26)

Death has an expiration date, for it is the last enemy to be destroyed. After that, there are no more enemies of God. No beings at enmity with God. Anywhere. After death is destroyed, there is only life. For death is nothing more than the absence of life, and where death itself has been put to death, there is no longer any impediment to life or any lack of life. Paul continues:

For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:27-28)

When death is finally eliminated, all that exists, everything that has being, everything God has created, will have been made subject to Christ, brought into alignment with Christ, put in order under him. And Christ himself will be made subject to God — not in regard to the eternal and internal unity of the Trinity, but in the economy of our salvation.

And God will be “all in all.”

The Love of God is the Fire of Hell

“The love of God is the fire of hell.” ~ St. Isaac the Syrian

What St. Isaac speaks is nothing more than the truth that God is love. Love is not merely what God has or does but what God is. So God always acts toward everyone according to love. Always. Because God is love.

Even in hell, then, God is love. God is not retributive because love is not retributive but always seeks what is best for the loved one.

But it is like the old proverb that the same sun melts wax but hardens clay. The difference is not found in the sun but in the materials upon which it shines. Likewise, the difference between heaven and hell is not a difference in God’s disposition but is found in the heart of the individual. God does not act any differently towards those who experience hell than towards those who experience heaven. The difference is found in each individual and his or her orientation toward God.

God’s orientation toward everyone is always the orientation of love. Those who turn toward God experience the love of God as it truly is, that is, as love. But those who turn away from God and resist God are turning away from love and resisting love, so the love of God seems to them a torment. It is not that God intends to torment them, but the disposition of their heart perceives the way of God as torment.

So, the love of God that is the light of heaven is also the fire of hell. What is needed in those who experience it as torment, or hell, is repentance, a change of attitude toward God, which God has made possible through Jesus Christ.

The Final Word on Hell

When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:28)

Whatever happens in the meantime, in the end, God will be all in all. This is Christian universalism in a nutshell. This does not deny that there is some sort of hell or torment. It only means that in the end — whatever hell there may be in the meantime, whatever its intensity or duration — God will finally be “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28).

God being “all in all” cannot be anything less than universal without it meaning that Christ’s atonement was less than successful and God’s victory less than complete. It would leave the condemnation that resulted from Adam’s transgression finally greater and actually more encompassing than redemption and reconciliation through Christ’s act of obedience. And the apostle Paul would have been mistaken, in Romans 5:15-21, in supposing that the result of Christ’s obedience, and the grace of God, was so much more extensive than was the result Adam’s transgression.

In Romans 5:20, Paul says, “but where sin increased, grace multiplied all the more.” He did not say, “grace multiplied almost as much” or that it was almost as effective. But if God is not finally “all in all,” in its plainly universal sense, then the redemptive act of Christ and the grace of God will have been not quite as effective as was Adam’s transgression. Almost as much, perhaps, but not fully and completely, and certainly not “all the more.”

The devil has taken an awful toll on earth, my friend tells me; and, yes, that is true. Who has not experienced that in one way or another; and perhaps many people may experience it even beyond this present life. But all of that is only in the meantime. However, if in the end, God is not all in all, then the devil will have ultimately taken an awful toll on the victory of God.

To whatever extent that toll finally endures (if any), by just that much will God’s plan of reconciliation through Christ have failed. The result of Adam’s transgression will have proven to be more effective and pervasive than Christ’s faithful act of obedience. The lie of the deceiver will have been more persuasive than the love of God. And Paul would only be able to say, “Where sin increased, grace multiplied a little.” Or perhaps, “grace multiplied almost as much.” But not, “grace multiplied all the more.”

Imagine all you want, then, about what happens in the meantime — about hell and judgment and suffering, and people shaking their fists at God — but that is not the final word on anyone or anything. The final word belongs to God. It is a word of love, because God is love. The final word is that God, who is love, will be all in all.

There is Only One Humanity

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:22)

There is only one human nature, one humanity, of which we all partake. The Incarnation, God becoming man and dwelling among us (John 1:14), was not about creating a new and different humanity — that would have been a species alien to us — but it was Christ partaking of the one and only humanity there is. It means that Christ participates with us in our humanity, even as broken as it is, so to make us whole.

So, the cross saves us in a very ontological way. That is, Christ did not die as one whose humanity was similar to but quite other than our humanity, dying instead of us in a different humanity, and somehow creating a legal fiction to satisfy a legal debt. There is no real connection in that between Christ and humanity.

No, Christ died as one with whom we participate together in the same humanity, dying as us, so that his death was our death, too, because his being shares in our being, in our nature as human beings. His death was our death, so that his risen life is ours, as well. This cannot be reduced to some sentimental way of thinking; is the objective reality of our own being participating together in the resurrected human being of Christ.

In the same way, we are righteous before God, not because of some legal accounting (imputed righteousness), or by receiving it from a source outside of us (imparted righteousness), but through Christ’s very real participation in human being, our mutual participation with Christ in the only humanity there ever was or shall be. This one and only humanity, which was once headed up in Adam is now headed up in Christ, which is why the apostle Paul can make the Adam/Christ comparison so extensively, in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15.

Consequently, just as one trespass [Adam’s] resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act [Christ’s] resulted in justification and life for all people. (Romans 5:18)

The Byzantine icon of the Resurrection, above, shows Christ, with the shattered gates of hell^* beneath his feet, reaching his hands to Adam and Eve, and raising them from the grave. “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22).

^*Hades, the realm of the dead.

Gathering All Unto Himself

At the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom, by whom and for whom all things were created, and in whom all things hold together, and who by the Incarnation joined himself with all humankind, disarmed the principalities and powers, and broke the power of sin and death and the devil. God was in Christ reconciling the cosmos to himself, not counting our sins against us (2 Corinthians 5:19).

Looking to the cross and the manner of his death, Christ said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all to myself” (John 12:32). The Greek word used for “draw” is one that is used of fishing nets being drawn or dragged, gathered in.

Christ has been lifted up, exalted, at the cross, where the glory of God has been revealed. And Christ is now drawing all, everyone and everything, gathering all unto himself.

This is the glory of the cross.

All-Encompassing, All-Redeeming Christ

(adapted from Colossians 1:15-20)

Christ is all-encompassing,

In every dimension and every degree.

The fullness of Christ in all things,

the fullness of all things in Christ,

with nothing left out at any point.

All things and everything.

Christ is the firstborn over all creation.

Not some,

not most,

but all.

All things have been created in Christ

and through Christ

and for Christ.

Not some,

not most,

but all.

Christ is before all things.

Not some,

not most,

but all.

And in Christ all things hold together.

Not some,

not most,

but all.

Christ is the head of the body,
the Church.

Christ the beginning,

and the new beginning,

the firstborn from

among the dead,

so that in all things

Christ might have

the supremacy.

Not some,

Not most,

but all.

For it was pleasing to God to have

all fullness dwell in Christ.

Not some,

not most,

but all.

And through Christ

to reconcile to himself all things.

Whether things on earth

or things in heaven,

by making peace

through his blood,

shed on the cross.

Not some,

not most,

but all.

The Possibility of Repentance After Death

Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment ... (Hebrews 9:27)

Evangelical universalism entails the possibility of “post-mortem conversion,” that is, the proposition that, though many depart this life without faith in Christ, yet is it still possible for them to come to such faith after they have died.

A common objection to this view has been Hebrews 9:27, “Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment …,” and it is supposed that this precludes any post-mortem opportunity for salvation. It is then further assumed that if one has not come to faith in Christ when they die, all that is left for them is an eternity of conscious torment.

What is the Context?
But there are a few problems with such a reading. First, it ignores the context. Verse 27 is not a stand-alone statement or a completed thought but is part of a larger discussion about Christ as our high priest, holding him in contrast with the Levitical priesthood of the Old Testament:

For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:24-28)

The high priest of the Old Testament had to go into the Holy of Holies every year to make sacrifice for sins. But Christ did not come year after year to offer himself as a sacrifice over and over for our sins. He did not suffer many times but only once. Mark the word “once” in the verses immediately preceding and following verse 27; it is the key to the comparison the author makes.

• Christ has appeared once for all to do away with sin (v. 26).
• Just as people are destined to die once (v. 27).
• So Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of the many (v. 28).

Note also the use of “just as” by the NIV (or “and” in several other versions) at the beginning of verse 27. It indicates the continuation of a preceding thought. The use of “so” at the beginning of verse 28 shows a continuation of the thought carried along in verse 27 and completes this portion of the argument the author is making: Just as people are destined to die once, so Christ was offered once, in sacrificial death.

What is the Judgment?
Here, we come to my second point, though still considering the context. The second clause in verse 27 has to do with judgment. If we think of this in general terms, it is worth noting that the author does not specify how soon after death this judgment comes, only that people are destined once to die, and after this comes the judgment. We cannot simply assume that it comes immediately, leaving no room for coming to repentance and faith.

But the author of Hebrews has been focusing our attention on Christ, and that, it seems to me, is how we should think of judgment here. The first part of verse 27, “destined to die once” is answered by the first part of verse 28, “Christ was sacrificed once.” So also, the second part of verse 27, about judgment, is answered in the second part of verse 28: “to take away the sins of the many.”

To see how the taking away of our sins in verse 28 corresponds to judgment in verse 27, we need to understand something important about the nature of God’s judgment: it is not retributive but restorative. Our own sense of judgment is often about retribution or pay-back, even to the point of the destruction of offenders — and we tend to imagine that God must be that way, too.

But God’s judgment is always about restoration, for God is love, and love does not seek retribution. God comes to set things right — to set us right. The judgment of God does not come to destroy the offender but to remove the offense. For God did not send Christ into the world to condemn us (John 3:18) but to bring about reconciliation (more on that in a moment).

The judgment of God, then, does not preclude any further possibility of repentance, for repentance and faith are exactly what it is intended to bring about. Think of the many times in the Old Testament when God judged wayward Israel. It was not to abandon Israel forever but to bring her to repentance, for there was always the promise of the day when God would finally gather her in from the nations.

The ultimate judgment of God took place at the cross, where the “once for all” death Christ died destroyed the works of the devil (1 John 4:8), disarmed the principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15), broke the power of death, and the power of the devil, who held the power of death (Hebrews 2:14), and so, broke the power of sin. The cross is where the forgiveness of God was revealed, and the judgment of God made manifest.

The author extends the thought at the end of verse 28, showing that the One who was offered once for our sins, “will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.” The death of Christ brings salvation — and that is the judgment of God.

The author of Hebrews is not arguing that death is a “point of no return” that precludes any possibility of post-mortem conversion but showing us something very different, a Christ-centered focus. Nor can we conclude that the future appearing of Christ is the cut-off point for repentance and faith; the author simply does not make that argument.

What is God’s Purpose in Christ?
This brings me to my third point: there are numerous passages in Scripture that clearly indicate God’s purpose is the reconciliation of all things in heaven and on earth through Christ and by the blood of the cross. I have listed several of them in another article, “What If ‘All’ Means All?”, but I will mention three here:

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. (2 Corinthians 5:18-19)

With all wisdom and understanding, [God] made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment — to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. (Ephesians 1:9-10)

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 1:19-20)

In the end, God will be, as Paul said, “All in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28). The reconciliation of all things will not happen apart from Christ, or the cross, or repentance and faith. But Paul does seem convinced that it will indeed happen.

If that is so, and all are finally to be reconciled, then it seems to me that post-mortem conversion is not only possible but is inevitable, seeing that so many people appear to depart this present life without having come to any repentance or faith in Christ. Hebrews 9:27 does not preclude this; it does not even address the question, much less answer it.

No Coercion Required

How hard it is even for Christians to believe that God intends to save the whole world. This is even though the New Testament indicates in several places that this is exactly what God has purposed in Jesus Christ (see What If “All” Means All). One objection that comes up, and I encountered it twice just yesterday, is that for God to fulfill his purpose would require that he must coerce people to believe — and wouldn’t that just make puppets of them?

The first time it came up was in a discussion I had with a Christian friend on his Facebook page. The second time was because I posted the opening sentence above on my Facebook page: “How hard it is even for Christians to believe that God intends to save the whole world.” Almost as if to demonstrate my point, another Christian friend, who I hadn’t heard from in a while, brought up the same objection in the comment section. Here, with a few edits to smooth it out a bit, is how I responded:

The question at hand is, of course, about free will. And it is usually asked as if anyone has a will that is truly free outside of a relationship with Christ. But the human will apart from Christ is not in any way free; it is in deep, dark bondage. This is one reason why Christ came into the world: to set free our bound and broken wills so that we may turn to God.

Many people think of freedom of the will as the ability to choose between competing options, to deliberate between good and evil, to calculate between choosing God or not choosing God. But which tree in the Garden of Eden does that sound like to you? The Tree of Life? Sounds to me more like the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The decision to eat of that tree was not one freely made but by one who was deceived, and it led only to misery, destruction and bondage to fear and further deception. A will that is bound up in deception is not one that is truly free.

Many other folks, and I am one of them, understand freedom of the will to be the ability to act and respond according to our true nature. This leads us to ask, what is our true nature? I understand it this way: God made us to be in God’s own image and according to God’s likeness — that is, to be like God. That is our true nature, the truth of who we really are and were always meant to be. But through the deception and darkness of the evil one, our true nature, and so also our will, was bound up so that we were no longer able to act according to how God created us to be.

But Christ came to set us free from all bondage. He came to destroy all the works of the devil, to bind up the “strong man” and plunder his house. Through the Incarnation, Christ joined himself with all humankind — he did not become merely one like us but one with us. That is why his cross, which was inevitable because of the Incarnation, was not just Christ’s victory but our victory as well.

Christ, who is fully human as well as fully divine, is the perfect expression of God. All the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ in human form. Christ is the one to whose image God conforms us. Christ is exactly what God had in mind from the beginning, when God said, “Let us make man in our image.”

We were chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world (see How God Chose Us In Christ and Chosen in Christ for the Unity of All Things). This is the truth of all humankind: Christ is now our true nature. With Christ as our true nature, then, freedom of the will is the ability to act according to Christ.

And the love of God is always at work in us like a consuming fire to burn away all the chains of lust, anger, violence, pride, egoism, rebelliousness, etc., until our wills are truly free and we are able to simply respond to God according to our true nature, the truth of who we are in Christ and who Christ is in us.

In the end, every knee in heaven and on earth will bow before Christ and every tongue will confess Jesus as Lord (Philippians 2:9-11). This is not the language of anyone being coerced. It is the language of that which is offered freely and willingly. A coerced confession is not a true confession but a contradiction in terms. A coerced confession would be nothing more than lip-service, and God has no interest in that. The confession of Jesus as Lord is not one that can be made apart from the Holy Spirit (12 Corinthians 12:3), and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, not coercion.

So, no coercive force is required for the complete fulfillment of God’s purpose to save the whole world — or else God would be no better than Zeus, a cheap and petty deity, and not the God revealed in Jesus Christ. The only “force” needed is the power of God’s non-coercive, self-giving, other-centered love. It is out of such divine love that God was in Christ reconciling the whole world to himself, not counting our sins against us (2 Corinthians 5:19).

Trampling the Fear of Death

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. (Hebrews 2:14-15)

For the past couple of posts, we have been looking at the relationship between sin and death, particularly at the question of whether we are mortal because we sin, or we sin because we are mortal. My understanding of Scripture is the latter, that we sin because we are mortal. (See Whereupon All Sinned and The Sting of Death.) But how is it that mortality leads to sin? I think Hebrews 2:14-15 provides a clue.

First, let’s notice what the author of Hebrews identifies here as the problem that is solved by the death of Christ. It is not sin but death, which is to say, the power of death, and the power of him who holds the power of death. It may come as a surprise that the one identified here as holding the power of death is not God but the devil. But God is not the one who kills.

God has the power of life, not of death. Death is nothing in itself; it is the absence of something. Just as darkness is nothing but the absence of light, so death is nothing but the absence of life. Christ is life, and when he encounters the power of death, as he did at the cross, it is “game over” for death. There is simply no contest.

In Revelation 1:18, Christ says, “I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” But what does he do with those keys? In Revelation 20, both death and Hades (the place of the dead) are cast into the “lake of fire,” but before they are, they are emptied out.

At the cross, Christ broke not only the power of death, but also the power of the one who held the power of death, that is, the devil. In 1 John 3:9, we read that Christ came to destroy the works of the devil. This, too, happened at the cross and was revealed in the resurrection when Christ broke the gates of Hades and set its captives free.

Now, let’s look at how the author of Hebrews describes what the power of death and of the devil does: It causes us to fear, and that fear leads us into bondage. But Christ has broken that power so to “free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”

Fear of death is a terrible bondage, causing people to do all sorts of things to avoid it, or else to get all the pleasure they can out of this life before they meet their inevitable end (supposing that death has the last word). It is fear of death that whispers in us, “What shall we do? How shall we survive?” Jesus speaks to this deep anxiety in his Sermon on the Mount:

So do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:31-33)

We live in bondage and the fear of death when we do not know we have God as our loving Father who takes care of us in every way. It causes us to live as orphans, believing we must make do for ourselves in whatever way we can. Fear of death blinds us to the truth: “The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father’” (Romans 8:15). “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 4:7).

There is an illuminating scene toward the end of the comedy movie, Moonstruck. It is a brief conversation between Rose Castorini (Olympia Dukakis) and Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello).

Rose: Why do men chase women?

Johnny: Well, there’s a Bible story ... God ... God took a rib from Adam and made Eve. Now maybe men chase women to get the rib back. When God took the rib, he left a big hole there, where there used to be something. And the women have that. Now maybe, just maybe, a man isn’t complete as a man without a woman.

Rose: [frustrated] But why would a man need more than one woman?

Johnny: I don’t know. Maybe because he fears death.

[Rose looks up, eyes wide, suspicions confirmed]

Rose: That’s it! That’s the reason!

Johnny: I don’t know ...

Rose: No! That’s it! Thank you! Thank you for answering my question!

Fear of death is a terrible bondage. But Christ rescues us from it, having delivered us from the power of death and of the devil — and so from the power of sin. He did this:

• By the Incarnation, in which he fully participates with us in our humanity (and we participate with him in his divinity).
• By the Cross, where he experienced the full measure of our mortality, destroying the power of death and the works of the devil.
• By the Resurrection, shattering the gates of Hades through the victory of his death, binding the strong man — the devil — and liberating captive humanity.
• By his Ascension to the right hand of the Father, leading captivity itself — death and Hades — captive, showing himself as Lord and victor over them. And being emptied out, they are finally cast into the “lake of fire.”
• By Pentecost, where he poured out upon all people the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit by whom we cry out “Abba, Father,” so that no longer need we live in fear of death or of anything else.

Divine Love, Holiness, Mercy and Justice

Recently, I came across this quote by J. C. Ryle, who was an Anglican bishop (the first one in Liverpool, England, according to Wikipedia). It is from a sermon he wrote called “The Great Separation”:

Beware of new and strange doctrines about Hell and the eternity of punishment. Beware of manufacturing a God of your own: a God who is all mercy — but not just; a God who is all love — but not holy; a God who has a Heaven for everybody — but a Hell for none; a God who can allow good and evil to be side by side in time — but will make no distinction between good and evil in eternity. Such a God is an idol of your own imagination!

Ryle was, no doubt, a good Christian, a fine man of God, and rightly to be celebrated. But if it may be permitted, I do have a problem with what he has said in this rather popular quote (and one that has often been echoed by others). In the body of his sermon, Ryle is anxious to safeguard the doctrine of an eternal hell, which is the reason for the distinctions he makes in this quote. For Ryle, anyone who disagrees with that doctrine is presenting a “strange and new” doctrine.

Perhaps such a view that differed from his was new and strange to him, but it was not new to the Church, which has never come to a settled understanding on the nature and duration of “hell.” In fact, for about the first five hundred years, the predominant view of the eastern branch of the Church was very different from Ryle’s. They understood the Scriptures as teaching a universal restoration in which God would finally be “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28), that the purpose of hell was for cleansing and that it was therefore of limited duration.

But whatever view one takes about hell and everlasting punishment, the problem with Ryle’s quote is that it seems to me to pit God’s love with God’s holiness, and God’s mercy with God’s justice. As if a God who is all love cannot also be holy, and a God who is all mercy cannot also be just. Or as if the love of God must be qualified by the holiness of God, lest God’s love be taken as overly loving, even to the point of offending God’s holiness. Or likewise, as if the mercy of God must be balanced out by the justice of God, lest God’s mercy be understood as too merciful, even to the point of offending God’s justice. But this does not seem to me to adequately understand the nature of divine love and holiness, or of divine mercy and justice.

LOVE AND HOLINESS
The First Epistle of John tells us that God is love (1 John 4:8, and again in 1 John 4:16). Love is not merely a part of God (as if God had parts), or something God has, or does or chooses. It goes deeper than that: Love is what God is. And what God is, he is wholly, not just in part. And not just potentially, either, but fully actualized, fully expressed. In other words, God is all love.

That God is all love tells us about the holiness of God. The Greek word for “holy” refers to what is “set apart.” Holy things are those set apart for God. God’s people are “set apart” for him and are called “holy ones” (another word for this is “saints”). The holiness of God’s own self is the utter uniqueness of God — there is none other like God.

Only of God can it be said that he is love. Human beings may have love, choose love and act in love. But it cannot be said of any of us that we are love. Whatever love, or capacity to love, we may possess, we do not have it in and of ourselves. It is a gift we have received from the God who is love. This uniqueness, that God is love, sets him apart from everything.

God is all love. Every act of God, then, is a manifestation of both the love and holiness of God. A god who is not all love cannot be a god who is truly holy but is a divided, conflicted deity, because it is possible for him to act in ways that are not of love.

We can reckon with the holiness of God as much as we like, but in the end, it does not differ from his love one bit. So, the love of God does not need to be qualified by the holiness of God. For if the holiness of God is the same as his love, then to qualify God’s love with his holiness would be to qualify God’s love with his love. On the other hand, if the holiness of God is different from his love, then to qualify God’s love with holiness would be to qualify it with something that is non-love. In that case, God’s love would itself then be something less than all love: love qualified by non-love. The God of whom it is said that he is love would also then be something less than love — and God would not be truly holy after all.

MERCY AND JUSTICE
The love of God does not work against his holiness, and the holiness of God does not work against his love. Nor do they balance each other out. Likewise, the mercy of God does not work against his justice, and the justice of God does not work against his mercy, or his love. But both the mercy and justice of God are manifestations of the holy love of the God who is all love.

Because God is all love, the justice of God is loving toward all. God’s justice, then, is not about retribution, for love is not retributive. But God’s justice is always restorative, because love always seeks what is best for the one who is loved. So, God, who is love, always seeks what is best for his loved ones (which includes everyone), even when they consider themselves enemies of God.

If God’s justice is restorative, is this not divine mercy? To speak of the mercy of God and the justice of God, then, is not to speak of two different things but to speak of the same thing in two different ways. For both divine mercy and divine justice fully manifest the love of God toward us, or else they have no place in the God who is love.

The restorative justice of God means that, though good and evil exist side by side in the present age, this shall not always be the case. The loving justice of the God who is wholly love will by that holy love remove all evil from his loved ones until they are fully restored, and then God will truly be “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28). Otherwise, evil would continue to exist in God’s good creation forever — and would that not be a failure either of God’s love or God’s power, or both?