This is part 12 of my Actual Good News series of articles on the topic of biblical soteriology (the study of salvation).
Please note that I’m including many of my scriptural references in the links (which are are the underlined words throughout the article), and they also link to studies with extended details that I couldn’t fit into the article, so please be sure to click all the supporting links in order to get the full picture, as well as all the Scripture references.
Very important: Please be sure you’ve read all of the previous parts of this series — or are at least familiar with everything in them — before reading this article. If you don’t, parts of this article will make no sense, and you will likely remain unconvinced without knowing the details in those articles.
In this final article in the series, it’s finally time to look at the so-called “proof texts” that we’ve all heard used to support the doctrine of never-ending punishment in hell, in order to finally determine what they’re actually talking about once and for all.
Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire. — Matthew 18:8–9
And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. — Mark 9:43–48
I already covered both of these passage extensively in Part 2 of this series, which you should have already read before this one, so please go read it (and the rest of the articles in this series) before continuing if you haven’t already.
And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. — Daniel 12:1–3
Now, the events of this passage do take place at least partly around the time of the Great White Throne Judgement (at least the negative part of it; the positive part is separated from the negative part by a thousand-year “Mountain Peak” of prophecy, taking place long before the negative part), but all it says is that some people will be resurrected to shame and “everlasting” contempt (this also means that nobody is dead in this passage, at least at first, since they’ve just been resurrected, so it can’t be talking about the “hell” one’s soul is figuratively said to be in after they’ve died that we discussed in a previous article in this series), and shame and contempt aren’t even remotely close to the same thing as torture in fire. Besides, aside from the fact that “everlasting” has to be meant to be interpreted figuratively rather than literally here anyway, based on everything we’ve already covered about the salvation and reconciliation of all humanity, as well as what we’ve covered about how the word is generally meant to be read qualitatively rather than quantitatively in the KJV and other less literal Bible translations, it’s also only the contempt that is said to be “everlasting,” not the shame (and the contempt is experienced by others rather than by the ones being judged in this passage themselves). This tells us that, when they’re resurrected, many people will feel shame while being judged at the Great White Throne, and then, after they die a second time in the lake of fire, their corpses will be looked upon with “everlasting” contempt (meaning age-pertaining contempt, as we now know) by those who see them being consumed on the New Earth (this is referring to the contempt, or abhorrence, that those spoken of in Isaiah 66:24 will feel when looking upon the carcases — meaning the dead bodies — of those in the lake of fire, being translated from the same Hebrew word — דְּרָאוֹן/“der-aw-one’” — in both verses). But at the end of the ages, when everyone who died a second time has been resurrected and quickened (meaning made immortal, which will have to happen in order for death to be destroyed as promised), this “everlasting” contempt will finally end.
Before moving on, though, this seems like a good time to remind you that not once did the Hebrew Scriptures ever threaten any human with never-ending torture (much less torture in fire), either while dead or after one is resurrected, as a punishment for breaking the Mosaic law (or even for sin in general). At most, they threatened physical death for certain capital crimes. And even if this passage in the book of Daniel had actually said that certain people will be tortured in fire without end while they’re dead (which isn’t what it says at all), or even after they’ve been resurrected, there’d never been a threat of a never-ending conscious punishment before that passage, so there’s no good reason to assume it was suddenly being proclaimed here, centuries after the giving of the Mosaic law, when no Israelite had ever heard of it before, and when the readers of Daniel clearly couldn’t have possibly understood it to mean that prior to Jesus’ statements about “hell” anyway (presuming we ignored the context of those warnings, which we learned from Isaiah and Jeremiah, of course, as discussed earlier in this series). You’d think that, at the very least, God’s chosen people would have been given a warning about something as horrific as never-ending torture (in fire, no less), not to mention be told who would be experiencing such a thing or why, or how to avoid it, for that matter, prior to Jesus (or even prior to Daniel) supposedly doing so. The fact is, not only was no Israelite ever warned about it (at least not that we see in Scripture, and we need to base our doctrines on what Scripture says), nobody prior to Israel was ever warned about it either, at least that we’re told of. Not even Adam and Eve were warned about suffering without end in a fiery place if they sinned, much less anyone who lived from their time to the time Daniel was supposedly warned about it.
And even if to “surely die” (which was obviously a figurative translation in the KJV, as we’ve already learned, since Adam didn’t physically drop dead the day he sinned) was referring to the so-called “spiritual death” that many Christians mistakenly believe in, there’s no hint of being tortured in fire without end in that expression anyway. I say “mistakenly,” of course, because “spiritual death” is actually a completely unscriptural and meaningless term (at least outside of the fact that those in the body of Christ can be said to have died with Christ when He died, but that isn’t what Christians mean when they talk about the so-called “spiritual death” of sinners) since, if our spirits could die, we’d drop dead ourselves (considering the fact that a body requires a spirit to remain alive, and I can’t imagine that a spirit which had somehow dropped dead, however that’s supposed to even work, would still be able to sustain life in a body). And if the term is simply a metaphor, then it isn’t actually “spiritual death” so much as “metaphorical death”; and if it really is just a metaphor, it can’t be a metaphor for being separated from God, as some assume, because “in Him we live, and move, and have our being,” as Paul explained, so to be separated from God would mean to cease to exist, if it were even possible to be separated from Him at all (which it isn’t, since to actually be separated from God would require a “universe” that exists “outside” of Him, so to speak — for those who are separated from Him to end up in — but to have anything “outside” of Him would mean there’s another “universe” that’s somehow “larger” than God, requiring an even “higher” God than ours to create that universe, so the entire idea is actually quite blasphemous). And it can’t be a metaphor for ending up in the lake of fire either, because Adam didn’t end up in the lake of fire on the day he ate the fruit. Besides, if Adam did only die metaphorically, then we’ll also only die metaphorically as well (and Christ would have also only died and risen metaphorically too), which we know isn’t the case, so there’s just no good scriptural basis for interpreting these things the way most Christians have been taught to interpret them, and it should really be clear that this figurative warning in the KJV should simply be interpreted as meaning Adam would gain mortality leading to eventual physical death, as we’ve previously discussed.
That’s not to say death isn’t ever used as a metaphor in the Bible. But even Ephesians 2:1-7 (which is often quoted to try to prove the idea of “spiritual death”) has to be interpreted carefully so as to not to descend into absurdity. Because even if that is a good translation of the original Greek — which I say simply because not everyone agrees, since some believe that something more along the lines of “And you, being dead to your trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to the age of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: among whom also we all conducted ourselves in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, (and we now being dead to the trespasses;) quickens us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and raises us up together, and makes us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus,” would be a better translation of the original Greek in those seven verses, believing the passage is actually referring to believers now being dead to sin, as Paul also said we are in Romans 6, rather than referring to having been dead in some way in the past due to sin — it simply can’t be saying that people are literally “spiritually dead,” for the reasons we just covered, especially in the KJV which also says we’ve been quickened in that passage, despite the fact that we haven’t literally been quickened, since we’re clearly still mortal (at least as of the time I wrote this article), and we aren’t literally sitting in heavenly places right now either, which this translation says we are if we interpret it literally. The key to the part about being quickened, of course, is partly found in verse 7 (where we can see that this is indeed figurative, since this verse tells us that Paul is referring to the ages to come, which means the references to having been raised together and seated in heavenly places in verse 6, and having been quickened in verses 1 and 5, have to be mostly proleptic, meaning they’re a guarantee of our future immortality, sinlessness, and position when we’re finally in heaven), and also partly found in Colossians 2:10-13 (which tells us we’ve been baptized into not only Christ’s death and resurrection, but into His quickening/immortality as well, although it obviously isn’t physical for us yet as it one day will be when we’re literally in heaven). And so, even if one believes that the way the KJV translators rendered the passage is indeed the best translation (and this series is assuming that the KJV did translate things correctly, even if I wanted you to be aware that some might disagree with this translation), everything else we’ve covered still proves that it can’t be referring to a “spiritual death” without contradicting the rest of the Bible, so the words “who were dead in trespasses and sins” and “even when we were dead in sins” in verses 1 and 5 would have to be interpreted metaphorically rather than “spiritually.”
That tangent about “spiritual death” aside, though, as I already mentioned, the passage in Daniel is talking about a physical resurrection on earth anyway. It wasn’t referring to a spiritual existence in an afterlife realm while dead at all. The negative part of this passage is referring to those resurrected to life at the Great White Throne Judgement before they’re either sent off to their second death — when they’re tossed into the lake of fire to die a second time for a while — or to their time paying off “the uttermost farthing” on the New Earth (which is a whole other topic that most Christians aren’t familiar with at all, and which has nothing to do with “earning salvation,” as Christians assume would be the case if it means what some of us believe it means, because nobody gets saved by paying off their debt, since that doesn’t gain anyone any of the types of salvation we’ve already covered), so it seems safe to say that this isn’t actually talking about what most people have read into it, and that we should move on to the next passage.
And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. — Matthew 5:29–30
This is just an earlier telling of the same warning Jesus gave in Matthew 18 that we covered near the beginning of Part 2 of this series. The reason I didn’t include it along with that passage is because this one doesn’t refer to the duration of one’s time spent in hell (or, more accurately put, the duration of the existence of this particular “hell” — which is the Valley of Hinnom, being translated from the Greek word γέεννα/“gheh’-en-nah” — since the other passage technically didn’t mention the duration of one’s time spent there either), but everything I already said about that passage applies to this one too, so there isn’t really much to add to those comments here, although perhaps I should point out that Jesus said “thy whole body” could be cast into this particular “hell,” so His warning can only be referring to something that happens to physical bodies in a geographic location here on earth rather than to ghosts trapped in an afterlife dimension, which lines up perfectly with what we’ve already learned from that prophecy about carcases in the book of Isaiah and from that prophecy about the Valley of the Son of Hinnom in the book of Jeremiah that Jesus was referencing with this warning.
Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. — Matthew 5:21–22
Jesus said this shortly before the last passage we just looked at, but you’ll notice that he didn’t say anything about being conscious in hell, or being there without end, so the same comments apply to this warning as well. And for those Christians who want to insist that never-ending punishment is implied by all of these references to “hell,” well, they’d have to demonstrate how everything we’ve already covered in this series has been incorrect, not to mention prove that this assertion of theirs is indeed the case, in order for it to be anything other than an assumption they’re reading into Scripture.
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. — Matthew 18:6
This passage doesn’t actually mention any version of “hell” by name, but it precedes one of Jesus’ suggestions that people amputate body parts in order to avoid the hell known as the Valley of Hinnom, so I wanted to mention it because these verses all seem to suggest that if people either kill themselves (or allow themselves to be killed) after (or perhaps rather than) committing a certain type of sin, or mutilate their bodies in order to avoid committing certain types of sins, they can avoid being punished in hell, which really doesn’t seem to fit with the traditional Christian doctrine of salvation, at least not that of most Protestants. And if they aren’t taking the methods of avoiding being punished in hell in these passages literally (or at least interpreting the methods figuratively to mean that one must do whatever they can to avoid sinning in order to avoid hell, which also doesn’t fit with the popular doctrine, because most Protestants don’t believe we can avoid hell by avoiding sinning, considering the fact that by the time anyone had heard or read these warnings they’d already have sinned at least once in their life, guaranteeing them a one-way trip to their version of “hell,” if they were right, and so these warnings would have come far too late to be useful to anyone if they happened to be correct in the rest of their theology), then they can’t really use these passages to defend their assumptions either, if they want to remain consistent.
Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. — Matthew 12:31–32
Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation. — Mark 3:28–29
And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven. — Luke 12:10
These are parallel passages that are all talking about the same thing: the so-called “unforgivable sin.” The first thing it’s important to note when reading them is how long the penalty for this sin will actually last, because contrary to what most people assume, it isn’t a never-ending punishment. You see, while the passage in Mark tells us (at least in less literal Bible translations such as the KJV), “he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness,” the passage in Matthew tells us how long that “never” (which is a figurative translation in the KJV) will actually last: for the duration of this “world” and the “world” to come. This is another case of the word “world” being used as metonymy for “age” in the KJV (having again been translated from the Greek word αἰών/“ahee-ohn’” in this verse), and there are at least two “ages” or “worlds” to come still, as we just learned when we looked at Ephesians 2:7 (note the plural “ages” in the verse — and I should also mention that those who understand the Doctrine of the Ages/Eons do believe we’re still living in the same age, or eon, that Jesus was living in when He spoke the words we’ve been looking at). This means that, while someone who is guilty of this sin won’t be forgiven in this world/age/eon, or even the next world/age/eon, they could theoretically be forgiven during the world/age/eon after that (which, as those who are familiar with the Doctrine of the Eons believe, will be the final world/age/eon, on the New Earth, prior to the time Christ destroys death), not to mention after the final world/age/eon has concluded (as all ages will have to do, based on the definition of the word “age”). This also once again supports the fact that the word “everlasting” generally just means “age-pertaining” when it’s used in the Bible, since we can see from what we just covered from Matthew 12 that the “everlasting” damnation of Mark 3 will only last for two ages (the age that Jesus lived in while He walked the earth, and the age after that one).
But what is this “everlasting” damnation, specifically? Well, it’s important to note that time spent in the lake of fire is not implicitly meant by the word “damnation” there (the word “damnation” in this passage in Mark — translated from the Greek word κρίσις/“kree’-sis” — basically only means “judgement,” “sentence,” or “penalty,” referring to the fact that there is indeed going to be an “everlasting” penalty, figuratively speaking), and since neither hell nor the lake of fire are mentioned in any of these passages, to read punishment in the lake of fire into those passages without a good reason to do so is simply an assumption one has to make in order to support their soteriology. And while the less literal Bible versions such as the KJV don’t make it quite as obvious what the penalty is, the way the original Greek and the more literal Bible translations do, anyone who has made it this far in the series should really be able to figure it out on their own.
Before I explain it, however, I should really point out that, even if “hath never forgiveness” in Mark in the KJV was meant to be taken literally and actually meant they wouldn’t eventually be forgiven, people don’t necessarily need forgiveness in order to be saved anyway. That might sound like a strange statement, but there are two factors to consider here. The first is simply that someone who is condemned to some form of punishment doesn’t require forgiveness in order for their punishment to end, because even when someone is found guilty of a crime and sentenced to a certain number of years in prison today, they still leave the prison once they’ve served their time, even if they are never forgiven or pardoned (and to assume that the sentence of those who commit the so-called “unforgivable sin” has to be without end is also nothing more than eisegesis, especially since we already know from Matthew that it only lasts until the conclusion of the world/age after the one Jesus lived in during His earthly ministry, and that there’s at least one world/age to come after that next one ends, based on what Paul wrote in that verse in Ephesians 2:7 we just looked at, which means that “will have no forgiveness for the age” is what the figurative translation in Mark is really saying — which is backed up by the fact that it’s a legitimate literal translation of the original Greek, as various literal Bible versions also confirm by the way they render this verse — simply telling us that they won’t be forgiven during the current age, or during the thousand-year period of time known as “the age,” also known as “the kingdom of heaven,” and sometimes also as “the eon,” depending on your Bible translation). And the second thing to consider is that there’s actually something even better than forgiveness, and that’s justification. Forgiveness implies guilt, and just means that the forgiver is overlooking the guilt of the one being forgiven by not punishing them for their crime (and said forgiveness can be revoked as well), whereas justification means “not guilty” to begin with, or “declared to be righteous” (it’s sometimes well defined as: “just as if I’d never sinned at all”; and it’s important to note that justification can’t be revoked the way forgiveness can be — at least not the sort of justification Paul wrote about, anyway — and there’s no reason to believe that a “not guilty” verdict by God could suddenly become a “guilty” verdict), so even if somebody does miss out on forgiveness entirely, justification is far superior to it anyway, and that passage doesn’t even hint at the idea that they won’t eventually be declared justified (which it seems they eventually will have to be, based on everything we already went over from Paul’s epistles).
So, with all that being said, what is the punishment for the sin that these passages are referring to? Well, there were various reasons one might end up experiencing this sentence, but there was basically only one ultimate punishment that Jesus ever threatened His Jewish audience with: missing out on getting to live in Israel during “the age” when the kingdom exists there for 1,000 years (regardless of whether the cause of missing out on “everlasting,” aka “age-pertaining,” life in the kingdom is because one has not been roused from the dead at the resurrection of the just, is because one has been executed and had their corpse burned up in the Valley of Hinnom, or is simply because one has been exiled from Israel to live in the “outer darkness” at that time, missing out on living in Israel during that thousand-year age was basically the bottom line when it came to the punishments Jesus spoke about), and since a more literal translation of the Greek text that Mark 3:28-29 is translated from is, “Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost shall not have forgiveness for the age, but is worthy of an age-pertaining sentence,” and also since one needs forgiveness in order to live in Israel during “the age,” we can determine that the “age-pertaining” sentence must simply be to miss out on getting to live in the kingdom of heaven during that thousand-year age because they won’t have been forgiven during that period of time.
But as big and bad a threat as that was for Jesus’ audience (and it was a pretty major threat for them), missing out on getting to enjoy life in Israel for that thousand-year age wasn’t the final word. Jesus said that “the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you” to the chief priests and the elders of the people, but that doesn’t mean the chief priests and elders won’t ever go into the kingdom of God themselves (even if they missed out on the part of the kingdom of God known as the kingdom of heaven, since that part only lasts for 1,000 years). In fact, they indeed will, just not until a point in time after the first group has already done so (Jesus said “before you,” not “instead of you”), and since both groups are currently dead, with the first group not even having enjoyed life in the thousand-year kingdom yet, the only time and place left for the second group to possibly enter the kingdom of God will be on the New Earth, after the Great White Throne Judgement has ended (since they won’t be resurrected until after the thousand years are over), which proves that people who miss out on the salvation Jesus spoke about can still make it to the New Earth. Please note that I’m not saying they’ll definitely have been forgiven at this point, though. In fact, I’m willing to concede that they very well might not be forgiven at that time, and they certainly won’t have been saved at that point (at least not when it comes to the sort of salvation Jesus primarily spoke about, since they’ll have been dead during the thousand years, or at least for most of that period of time; and they won’t be made immortal at that time, so they won’t enjoy the salvation Paul taught about at that time either). But that’s okay because, as we’ve already covered, one doesn’t need to be forgiven (or “pardoned,” which might be a more precise translation than “forgiven”) once they’ve paid the penalty for a crime, and the penalty for this particular crime was simply to miss out on life in Israel for the thousand years that the kingdom of heaven will exist there (simply put, forgiveness is quite possibly only necessary for getting to live in the kingdom of heaven during the thousand-year period of time it exists on this planet, or for getting to live in heaven itself during the same time period, although the forgiveness that the Israel of God experiences is conditional, whereas the “forgiveness” that those of us in the body of Christ experience was given to us by God without us having to do a single thing to enjoy it, simply because He chose to bless us more than anyone else, and the word “forgiveness” when it comes to us is mostly just referring to being dealt with graciously by God, but that’s a much bigger discussion than I have the room to get into here, although it really should be pretty evident based on everything else I’ve covered about our salvation in this series).
To reiterate all that, there are people who will get to enjoy the kingdom of God when it begins on earth shortly after Jesus’ Second Coming, in the next world/age (this would include the tax collectors and prostitutes Jesus spoke of, among others). But after the Great White Throne Judgement, during the final world/age (which will be the world/age after the one Jesus referred to as “the world to come”), the kingdom will be located (at least to begin with) in the massive city known as the New Jerusalem, and it’s during this world/age that people such as the chief priests and elders, as well as those who are said to “hath never forgiveness,” will get a chance to enter the kingdom (which refers to getting to enter the New Jerusalem; it isn’t a reference to simply living on the New Earth, since there will be plenty of people living on the New Earth who aren’t living in the New Jerusalem). Not everyone will get to do so until they’ve paid off “the uttermost farthing,” however (which I personally suspect means, at least in part, paying the people they wronged in this lifetime back in some way while on the New Earth). But when they have, they’ll also get to enjoy life in the kingdom of God (even if they missed out on the salvation Jesus spoke about, since they didn’t get to live in Israel when Jesus first returned). This doesn’t mean the salvation we’re concerned with is through works, though, because this has nothing to do with the salvation Paul wrote about at all. Nobody who goes to live in the New Jerusalem after paying off their debt on the New Earth will be made immortal at that time, which is what the salvation Paul wrote about was largely referring to (although it seems likely that they’ll remain alive, thanks to the fruit and leaves of the tree of life, but it seems they’ll need to continue consuming the tree’s products regularly in order to remain healthy and alive — presumably on a monthly basis, based on Revelation 22:2 — as already discussed, and so while they won’t technically be mortals at this time, since the tree’s produce will protect them from death by aging or illness, they’ll be in that state I refer to as being “semi-mortal” rather than being truly immortal, since true immortality refers to being incapable of dying, which means they wouldn’t need the produce of the tree of life to remain alive, and hence this isn’t the salvation Paul wrote about).
I should also quickly add that, being recorded only in Circumcision writings, and based on the fact that members of the body of Christ are guaranteed our special salvation regardless of what we do, this particular sin isn’t something we need to concern ourselves with (even if blaspheming the Holy Spirit is still a good thing to avoid). Basically, this warning is really only applicable to Israelites who are hoping to live in Israel during “the age.”
For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him. Though while he lived he blessed his soul: and men will praise thee, when thou doest well to thyself. He shall go to the generation of his fathers; they shall never see light. — Psalm 49:17-19
Of course, “hell” isn’t mentioned in this passage, but regardless, the reference to the one who dies in this passage never again seeing light is sometimes still used to try to defend the popular doctrine. However, by this point, I trust you can see that the reference is obvious hyperbole, since we already know that they will see light when they’re resurrected to be judged. This is simply poetic terminology being used in a book of poems and other figurative language, in this case to say that those who do evil can’t rely on their wealth to save themselves, and that they’ll wind up in the dust along with the animals who have died, during the time that the writer gets to enjoy his salvation, which we now know will be in the kingdom of heaven on earth. But we also now know that this isn’t going to be the last word on their final outcome, even if the writer of the Psalm himself wasn’t aware of this fact.
For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead. None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life. — Proverbs 2:18-19
Similar to the part of the Psalm we just looked at, this Proverb is obviously also using hyperbole for the exact same reasons, so I trust I don’t have to go into any detail actually explaining it, since what I said in that explanation about future resurrection would also apply equally here.
Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. — Isaiah 55:6-7
Some Christians will quote this verse in order to suggest that one can’t find the Lord or be saved after the time that “he may be found”or “is near.” This passage was written specifically to the Circumcision (Israelites), however, and we already know that not everyone will be saved under the Gospel of the Circumcision, so it doesn’t cause any problems for the doctrine of the salvation of all, because anyone who misses out on salvation under that Gospel will eventually experience salvation under the Gospel of the Uncircumcision, as we’ve already learned, so this passage doesn’t actually help the popular doctrine either.
The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? — Isaiah 33:14
I’m sure it should go without saying, by this point, that the “devouring fire” and “everlasting burnings” can’t be referring to any version of “hell.” For one thing, as we’ve already covered, nobody who heard or read this warning at the time it was given could have possibly interpreted it as referring to any version of “hell,” since no location referred to as “hell” in any English version of the Bible had ever been described that way in Scripture yet, and this verse doesn’t mention “hell” either, so there’s no way anyone could have made a connection between this particular “fire” and any version of “hell” back then (and there’s nothing in the verse that even hints at an afterlife, so there’s no way it could have been interpreted as referring to an afterlife punishment either). So what was this talking about? Well, the first thing to note is that it’s a reference to specific sinners in a specific location — Zion — telling us that this is a judgement specifically meant for Israel, and the fire is simply a figure of speech for certain judgements of God against Israel. Why does God use fire as a symbol of judgement? Because the judgement comes directly from God, Who is referred to as a consuming fire Himself in various parts of Scripture (and I hope you don’t believe that God is “hell,” or the lake of fire, Himself, which He can’t be since we already know that that the lake of fire will be located in a valley in Israel). The Hebrew Scriptures are full of examples of this symbolism being used to refer to judgements of Israel, so to assume this one verse is a reference to the lake of fire is just reading one’s preconceived doctrinal bias into the text. But the question does remain, who among Israel shall be able to dwell in the “fire” when God judges Israel? Well, the answer to that question is given in the very next verse (in Isaiah 33:15): “He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil.” Those Israelites who walk righteously will be able to dwell among the fiery judgements themselves without being devoured, yet we know the righteous won’t be cast into the lake of fire (only certain unrighteousness people are said to end up there), so it should go without saying that this verse was never talking about the lake of fire to begin with. This also serves as a good reminder when reading the rest of the Bible that, just because you see the word “fire” in a passage (even if it’s a passage about judgement), it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s referring to the lake of fire or any other “hell,” but rather that it might simply refer figuratively to someone being judged in some way without ending up in the version of “hell” known as the lake of fire (especially if you don’t specifically see the words “hell” or “the lake of fire” in the passage in question).
In addition, it’s also important to remember that, when we see a passage about judgement, being judged doesn’t imply that someone will be punished without end anyway (or even that they’ll be punished at all). First of all, judgement can be a good thing (as the judgement of the body of Christ at the judgement seat of Christ, among other scriptural judgements, should make clear). But second of all, many of the punishments based on negative judgements throughout the Bible eventually ended (or were promised to be reversed in the future), so we’d have no basis for simply assuming that doesn’t apply to the judgement referred to in this verse in Isaiah either, even if we didn’t already know what Paul wrote about the salvation of all humanity, which proves it would have to anyway.
For it is the day of the Lord’s vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever. — Isaiah 34:8-10
This is, of course, typical figurative, prophetic language, just like in the last passage we looked at (which was in the chapter immediately before this one in the book of Isaiah), and aside from the fact that neither “hell” nor the lake of fire are mentioned anywhere in this chapter either, the reference to the dust becoming “brimstone” and the land becoming “burning pitch” which “shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof” which “shall go up for ever,” not to mention the part of the passage saying, “from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever,” isn’t even talking about people burning at all, but rather is talking about land (at least in a figurative manner, if not literally). This passage, at least if read literally, is basically a prophecy about the judgement awaiting the land the nations live in during the Day of the Lord’s Vengeance, as the passage says, which is referring to the Tribulation. Yes, the land of Idumea (meaning Edom) is mentioned specifically in verses 5 and 6, but the Edomites have pretty much been lost to history at this point, with no particular land left belonging to them, so Idumea is generally assumed to be have been used there as a single example of the judgement which will come upon all the nations of the world who stand against Israel during the Tribulation, as Edomites often did when they were still around, since they hated Israel more than any other nation (although it does also seem to be true that what was once the land of Edom will be “a desolation” at that time as well, presuming this itself isn’t simply figurative language for the utter destruction that did fall upon the Edomites in the past). And since we know that the rest of the world which isn’t Israel isn’t going to be a desolate, burning wasteland for the entire 1,000 years that the kingdom of heaven exists in Israel (because we already know people will be living out there in the “outer darkness” during that time period, or else nobody would exist to rise up against Israel at the end of the thousand years one last time, as Revelation tells us will happen), not to mention the fact that this entire planet is going to be destroyed after the thousand-year kingdom of heaven in Israel ends and will be replaced with a New Earth, we know that this isn’t meant to be taken any more literally than the “everlasting burnings” in chapter 33 are meant to be, since the smoke which is going to “go up for ever” would have to eventually stop rising, if it were literal smoke, because there won’t be any land left to burn after this earth is destroyed and replaced with by the New Earth, and that the “for ever and ever” of this entire judgement takes place for no longer than 1,000 years, give or take. This is all just telling us that either the land the nations live in will be judged harshly for a period of time, or that the people living in said land will be instead, but we know that the “burning” language in this prophecy is purely figurative based on what else we know about the state of the rest of the world during the thousand year period of time that the kingdom of heaven will exist in Israel. But either way, there isn’t anything in this passage which even implies that any humans will suffer without end.
Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn. — Matthew 13:24–30
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. — Matthew 13:47–50
When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. — Matthew 25:31–46
I’m covering all three of these passages together because I believe they’re talking about similar judgements which occur around the same time. And since pretty much every Christian I’ve ever spoken with also believes these are either similar judgements which take place around the same time, or are even perhaps referring to the exact same judgement, it seems safe to do so (although, if you believe these are actually referring to separate judgements that don’t take place around the same time, I’d be curious to hear how you do happen to interpret these passages).
If someone reads those passages over without taking the time to break them down, and ignores the fact that no version of “hell,” nor the lake of fire, is mentioned by name anywhere in any of these parabolic prophecies, it’s sort of easy to see why someone might assume they’re talking about true believers going to heaven and non-believers ending up trapped in hell (especially if they aren’t aware of what we’ve now learned about what both heaven and the various “hells” are when referred to in the Bible, not to mention what we’ve now learned about Paul’s teachings regarding the salvation of all humanity). But whatever the cause of the outcome mentioned in these passages is, I hope it’s obvious by now to anyone who has made it this far into the series that Jesus’ main point here had to be about getting to enjoy life in the kingdom of heaven on earth vs not getting to do so, just as pretty much all of His judgement teachings were about. As I mentioned in a earlier article in this series, at the end of His explanation of the first parable, Jesus says the angels “shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth,” and we now know that the kingdom of heaven is going to be here on earth, not in an afterlife realm, which means the identity of the “righteous/just/sheep” and the “wicked/them which do iniquity/goats” can’t be what most Christians have assumed either. Of course, most Christians assume that the sheep, or the righteous, represent true believers, and that the goats, or the wicked, are everyone else, and while neither hell nor the lake of fire are actually mentioned by name in any of these passages, if people are being judged and going into fire for eternity, as the passages seem to imply when one doesn’t consider the context and recognize the figurative language, most also assume that it must be talking about the Great White Throne Judgement and the lake of fire. Of course, as most Christians are aware, but seem to forget when they read these passages for some reason, there won’t be any true believers being judged at the Great White Throne, which means the sheep can’t actually represent true believers at all if Jesus was talking about that particular judgement (those in the body of Christ will have already been “judged,” so to speak, over 1,000 years earlier, at the Judgement Seat of Christ — or the dais of Christ, as it’s referred to in certain more literal Bible translations — and will have been living in the heavens for all that time, while those in the Israel of God will have been living on, and reigning over, the earth that they inherited for the thousand years before this occurs, and there’s no reason to think that either group would be judged after that period of time ends, especially since most of them will have been made immortal at this time, and immortality for humans is always connected with salvation in Scripture, as we now also know; besides, believers within the body of Christ will likely participate in judging those at the Great White Throne Judgement — Christ is the judge at that judgement, and it would take a very long time for one person to judge every single human being who ever lived, even if one excludes all those who have already experienced salvation, so it makes sense that the rest of His body will assist Him here — and no, the Great White Throne Judgement doesn’t take place outside of space and time, but rather takes place in our physical universe after the dead have been physically resurrected into mortal bodies, which should be more obvious than it is to some, considering the fact that it’s technically impossible for anyone who isn’t God to be outside of space and time anyway, as well as that nothing can occur without space and time, so nobody could experience being judged if they weren’t existing within space and time, considering the fact that movement requires one to exist within space and change requires one to exist within time). Not to mention, there’s no reference to a resurrection in any of these passages, which would be necessary to occur if these are about a judgement of everyone who has ever lived. Instead, all one needs to do is take a look at the verse in Matthew 25 which says it takes place “when the Son of man shall come in his glory,” and look at the context of the rest of the chapter, as well as the chapter before it, which makes it obvious that it’s talking about the time that Jesus returns to the earth at His Second Coming, telling us that these passages must be talking about a judgement (or judgements) which takes place on earth shortly after the Great Tribulation ends, rather than the Great White Throne Judgement which takes place about a thousand years after this judgement.
Of course, if “life eternal” and “everlasting punishment” literally meant that every single human living on earth were going to be judged and sent to afterlife realms called heaven or hell for eternity, as most Christians have always assumed would happen at the time the judgement in these parables takes place, that would cause other obvious problems. For example, it would leave nobody living on the earth for the next thousand years to reproduce, as Scripture says will happen in Israel when the kingdom begins there (as well as on the New Earth, after the thousand-year age ends and our current planet is destroyed). As I’ve mentioned in previous articles in this series, the Bible teaches that those who have been made immortal will be like the angels and will no longer marry or reproduce at that time, and if all the non-believers are going to be sent to the lake of fire to die a second time at that point, with everyone else being given their immortality at that time, that doesn’t leave anybody else to fulfill the prophecies about the New Covenant, or even the New Earth, that are supposed to take place after the Tribulation ends. Not only that, it also wouldn’t leave any Gentiles to fulfill the many prophecies about the nations during the thousand years, not to mention the fact that no Gentiles would be left to rise up against Israel at the end of the thousand years one last time if all the non-believers are cast into the lake of fire at this point, as I’ve already mentioned.
Hopefully you’ve also asked yourself why there’s nothing in there about the sheep “asking Jesus into their hearts” or “accepting Jesus as their Lord and Saviour” in these passages, if you’re still assuming this is talking about the salvation Paul wrote about (not that either of those are actually scriptural ways to be saved), or even about them believing that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day, and why it seems like the positive outcomes in these parables appears to be dependent upon being just or doing good works rather than being said to be by grace through faith. Most people just brush those concerns aside, of course, because they “know” these passages have to be talking about what they’ve always been taught by their religious leaders that they are, and decide to believe, even though it doesn’t actually say so in the passages, that the reason for the positive outcomes in these passages (especially during the judgement of the sheep and the goats) has to be figurative and has to be talking about these good works as proof of faith rather than good works being the actual cause of the sheep’s reward as that passage says they are when interpreted literally (and then push the thought that “many non-Christians do the very things Jesus seemed to say would result in everlasting life while many Christians don’t” to the back of their minds and try to forget that fact as well), because if one were to read it literally it would become obvious pretty quickly that it just can’t be talking about what one has always assumed it is at all (although one is then also forced to push the thought that, “if the cause of the rewards and punishments referred to as ‘life eternal’ and ‘everlasting fire’ is figurative, then there’s no reason to believe that these rewards and punishments, or even their durations, aren’t also figurative in this passage, especially based on the meaning of the English words ‘everlasting’ and ‘eternal’ in other parts of the KJV and the words they’re translated from in Scripture,” to the back of their mind as well, but most successfully do so). But even if this could all somehow be twisted into meaning the sheep are true believers who will go to heaven, and the goats are non-believers who will go to the lake of fire, we already know from what we’ve previously covered that there’s no basis for believing that any human is going to remain in the lake of fire without end (and that there’s no reason to believe any human is conscious in it either), and we in fact know that everyone who dies a second time will have to be resurrected and quickened in order for death to actually be destroyed as Paul said it will be, so mangling the passage in such a manner doesn’t actually help defend the traditional doctrine anyway.
But as for what these passages are actually talking about, in order to figure this out, one needs to first be aware of certain passages in the Hebrew Scriptures which are the key to understanding the biblical meaning of being in a “furnace,” because this isn’t talking about the lake of fire at all. Instead, if you look at passages such as Deuteronomy 4:20, which says, “But the Lord hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day,” or Jeremiah 11:4, which says, “Which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God,”among various other references in the Hebrew Scriptures to being in a “furnace,” it should be obvious that none of these passages refer to spending time burning in literal fire in an actual furnace made of iron, but are basically talking about time spent in parts of the world that aren’t Israel (no Christian believes the “furnace” part of the parable is literal anyway, and if the “furnace” in the warning isn’t a literal structure with fire burning inside of it, it stands to reason that the “fire” in the figurative “furnace” in this warning isn’t literal fire either, but is simply a symbolic reference to judgement, as we’ve now learned that mentions of “fire” and “burning” very often are in the Bible). And so, what the first two parables are actually saying is that there will be righteous Israelites and unrighteous Israelites when Jesus returns, and some will wail and gnash their teeth (which is a figure of speech used in various parts of the Bible to refer to the extreme negative emotions of the living rather than the dead) because they’ve been forced to live in parts of the world that aren’t the kingdom of heaven/Israel (these parts of the world being referred to parabolically as “the furnace of fire,” also referred to in other passages as the “outer darkness,” which we’ve already learned can’t refer to the lake of fire, since it will be located in a valley inside the kingdom, and since Israel is where the kingdom of heaven will be located when it begins on the earth, those parts of the world far from the light of the King and His kingdom will be in “outer darkness,” also referred to in Isaiah 34 as a figurative “burning pitch” which “shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof” going up “for ever”), unlike the righteous Jews who will get to live in the kingdom of heaven/Israel at that time (which is where everyone who heard Jesus when He spoke wanted to live when the kingdom fully arrives on earth in the future). It’s actually very simple to grasp once you come to understand who Jesus’ audience was and what His message was all about, especially when you also take all of Paul’s references to the salvation of all humanity in his epistles into consideration. But when you assume that Jesus was talking about an afterlife for ghosts in another dimension rather than the life and death which physical bodies on this planet will go through, and think that Jesus was directing His message to everyone rather than specifically to Israelites, it’s easy to get extremely confused about all of His sayings.
As for the parable of the sheep and the goats, this judgement simply refers to certain Gentiles of the nations (based on Jesus’ statement that “before him shall be gathered all nations”) being cursed for not being a blessing unto the least of Jesus’ brethren during the Tribulation period, which this judgement takes place immediately after (Jesus’ “brethren” obviously being a reference to faithful Israelites, presumably those who will be taken into captivity among the nations during the Tribulation, and not simply to random people who are suffering today), by being forced to reside outside the kingdom of heaven, as well as to other Gentiles of the nations getting to live in the kingdom in Israel at that time as a reward for blessing the faithful Israelites who were persecuted during the Tribulation. We know from Zechariah 14:16–21 that there will be Gentiles not living in the kingdom of heaven at this time, consisting of “every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem” at the end of the Tribulation, meaning the Gentiles who didn’t support Israelites during the Tribulation and hence won’t get to enjoy 1,000 years of “life eternal” in Israel at that time, but who didn’t die at Armageddon because they weren’t a part of the army that gathered against Jerusalem there. So we know from this passage that the goats definitely won’t actually be killed in the lake of fire at this judgement, because if they were, there wouldn’t be anyone left to fulfill that prophecy, not to mention the prophecy in Revelation which tells us that every nation will be involved in rising up against Israel one more time in the future, long after this judgement, as well. This, of course, also means that the fire prepared for the devil and his angels isn’t any more literal than the “furnace of fire” is, but rather that it’s simply a figurative reference to the parts of the planet outside the kingdom of heaven where these people are sent to live as their punishment (the parts of the planet that are referred to as a “furnace” for exiled Israelites at that time, or, again, as the land which was referred to as a figurative “burning pitch” which “shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof” going up “for ever,” which makes sense, considering the fact that what we’ve seen so far tells us that “fire” rarely, if ever, speaks of the “hell” known as the lake of fire when either that specific location isn’t also referred to by name in a passage using the word, or the word “hell” itself isn’t used in the passage in the KJV), since people living in those parts of the world — or at least their descendants who don’t get saved during that time, one thousand years later — will give in to temptation by Satan to rise up against Israel one last time at the end of the thousand years, having been “prepared for the devil and his angels” so they can to tempt these people to do so (keeping in mind the “Mountain Peaks” aspect of prophecy when reading this passage if it sounds confusing that it could be talking about the distant offspring of those who didn’t help Israelites during the Tribulation who are ultimately the ones “prepared for the devil and his angels”). This also means that the urban legend which many Christians repeat, that “God created hell for the devil, not for humans, but humans sinned so He had to punish them in hell too,” is based on a complete misunderstanding of this passage, and actually has no scriptural basis at all, since this passage isn’t even talking about hell, or about it being prepared for the devil, to begin with. Simply put, those labelled as “goats” in this prophecy will spend the rest of the impending thousand-year age that the kingdom of heaven exists in Israel (or at least the rest of the time they’re alive during that age, although their descendants are also included in this age-pertaining punishment, figuratively translated as “everlasting punishment” in the KJV) in the age-pertaining “fire,” meaning the parts of the world outside of Israel. And at the end of the thousand years, the descendants of the original “goats” will be tempted by the devil to rise up and attack Israel one last time, just prior to the Great White Throne Judgement.
And don’t worry, this interpretation of the judgement of the sheep and the goats isn’t teaching salvation by works either. In fact, it isn’t technically talking about salvation at all — because the sheep won’t be quickened at the time they enter the kingdom they were predestined by God to enter — but is just talking about a reward for blessing Israelites.
And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day. — 2 Thessalonians 1:7–10
This passage is obviously also talking about Christ’s Second Coming (compare the details of verse 7 here to the details mentioned in Matthew 25:31 if there’s any doubt in your mind), which means that what I’ve already written about “fire” in the parables we just looked at applies to this passage as well. Paul was simply pointing out the sort of punishment some of those who will be alive at the time Jesus returns will have to endure, and it’s just as figurative as when Jesus spoke about it (referring to not getting to live in the kingdom of heaven when it begins on earth, including both “them that know not God,” meaning the Gentile “goats” of Matthew 25, as well as them “that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ,” meaning Israelites who are not a part of the Israel of God and are exiled to live in the figurative “furnace of fire” at that time). Besides, almost no Christian takes the word “destruction” in this verse literally (since most somehow manage to interpret this word as a figure of speech referring to being tortured in the lake of fire without end), and if that word is figurative and not literal, there’s no good reason to believe that the word “everlasting” before it is any more literal than it is (and based on everything we’ve already learned from Paul’s epistles about the salvation of all, as well as what we now know about the meaning of “everlasting” in the Bible versions that use the word, we know it can’t be anyway).
(For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.) — Philippians 3:18-19
We know that anyone who experiences “destruction” will still eventually also experience salvation, based on what Paul taught in the rest of his epistles. This means that the “end” which the enemies of the cross of Christ that Paul is condemning here can only be an “end” from a relative perspective, since we know the “end” they’ll experience at the end of the ages will ultimately be salvation.
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. — Matthew 10:28
Notice the word “destroy” there, which, just like the word “destruction” in the last couple passages we looked at, we have no basis for interpreting figuratively in the manner most Christians do either (in the sense that to be “destroyed” somehow figuratively refers to suffering without end in the lake of fire). Even if we didn’t know about all of Paul’s teachings on the eventual salvation of all humanity, I’d still argue that it would make far more sense to interpret it in a way that lines up with what Jesus was actually teaching throughout His earthly ministry: about the kingdom of heaven beginning in Israel in the future, and how to either get to live there when it begins, or end up missing out on it at that time. With that in mind, I’d suggest that this verse is simply saying that Jesus’ Jewish audience at the time He gave the warning (along with those Israelites who live through the Tribulation, and even any who live between those two periods of time) should not fear men who might kill them for their faith in Jesus, because God will still resurrect them to live in the kingdom of heaven when it begins on earth if they’re martyred. But if they die without that faith, on the other hand, or have rejected Jesus in order to temporarily save their lives, God will not resurrect them at that time, and they’ll presumably even die a second time in the lake of fire, which means they’d miss out on the greatest desire of their soul (this is what the figurative language of having one’s “soul destroyed in hell” means, or at least this is a far more scripturally consistent interpretation of the phrase than what most Christians assume it means, as should be obvious by this point), which for anyone listening to Jesus would have been (or at least should have been) to get to live in that kingdom when it begins in Israel in the future. Like Judas, it would have been far better for them to have died in the womb or in childbirth than to have been born at all, since babies who die in childbirth will at least be resurrected at the Great White Throne Judgement so they can grow up on the New Earth, while Judas will likely end up in the lake of fire when he’s resurrected, at least prior to the time Christ destroys death (yes, even Judas will have been resurrected and quickened at that time, but he’ll have missed out on so much in the meantime).
Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. — Matthew 10:32–33
This statement almost certainly has to do with who will get to be resurrected to live in Israel when the kingdom begins there vs who won’t be, based on the last passage we just looked at (which was stated just moments before this one), as well as about any Israelites who will be living when Jesus returns and whether they get to enter the kingdom or don’t get to, and doesn’t tell us anything about what happens to anyone after the thousand years come to an end, so it doesn’t really help support the popular doctrine.
When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever. — Psalm 92:7
Just like the other passages referring to being destroyed that we’ve looked at, we know that being “destroyed for ever” in this verse can’t be referring to never-ending torment in hell without reading one’s doctrinal bias into the phrase, and we also know from everything we’ve learned from Paul’s epistles about the salvation of all that nobody remains dead (or even dying) at the end of the ages, so the “for ever” here has to be as figurative as it is in any other passage we’ve already looked at, and by now it should be clear that this just means they’ll miss out on getting to live in the kingdom of heaven, but not that they won’t eventually experience salvation at the end of the ages, when the figurative “for ever” comes to an end.
Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? — Matthew 23:33
All this verse says is that the Pharisees to whom Jesus was speaking at the time would be sentenced to have their corpses destroyed in the Valley of Hinnom, and they almost certainly did in AD 70 after being killed by the Romans (presuming this wasn’t a reference to the lake of fire after the Great White Throne Judgement; while the prophecies about having one’s corpse consumed in the Valley of Hinnom are referring to dead bodies being destroyed in a literal, geographical location, we do have to take the “Mountain Peaks” of prophecy into consideration with such references as well, because they are sometimes referring to a location on our current planet, and sometimes referring to a location that will exist on the New Earth instead, if not referring to it happening in both locations, depending on the person). It doesn’t say they’ll be in this particular hell without end, however, nor does it say they’ll be conscious while they’re in it (and we know from what we’ve already learned that they won’t be), so this really isn’t a helpful verse for anyone trying to teach never-ending torment in hell.
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. — Matthew 7:13–14
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. — Matthew 7:21–23
Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them, Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out. And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God. And, behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last. — Luke 13:23–30
Of course, there’s nothing about hell or the lake of fire in these passages, but they’re quoted so often to defend never-ending punishment that I thought I should include them regardless. That said, based on everything we’ve covered so far, you should really be able to interpret these for yourself by now. But for those who do need an explanation, Jesus is simply talking about certain people who won’t be allowed to enter the kingdom of heaven after He returns, because they’ve continued to live particularly sinful lives (this also makes it clear that this isn’t a warning for members of the body of Christ, because there is no condemnation for us, and nothing can separate us from the love of God, not even sin, since where sin abounds, grace much more abounds). He obviously isn’t talking about ghosts not being allowed to live in an ethereal afterlife realm called heaven when they die, based on everything we’ve already covered, and He likely isn’t even talking about unbelievers (I’d think that anyone who can do the things in His name that the people He was condemning were able to do are probably Jewish believers, but it wasn’t lack of belief He condemned them for anyway; rather, it was for their iniquity). Jesus’ statement that many “shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God” in the passage in Luke also confirms that this all takes place on earth. So, in answer to the disciple’s question, yes, there are relatively few that will be saved, at least when it comes to the sort of salvation Jesus preached about during His earthly ministry. This doesn’t mean they can’t later experience the sort of salvation Paul taught about, however, because it’s an entirely different sort of salvation, as I’ve already explained.
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. — John 14:6
Like the last passage, this one doesn’t mention hell or the lake of fire either, but I thought I should quickly cover it as well, since many Christians like to use it to prove that non-Christians are going to be permanently punished in hell. Aside from the fact that Jesus was talking to Jews in this verse, which tells us that it’s technically about the sort of salvation Israelites were looking forward to (which, again, involves getting to live in Israel after He returns, not “going to heaven” as ghosts after one dies), if anybody comes to the Father after the thousand years are finished, as Paul promised everyone eventually will, it would still be “by” (or “through,” meaning “because of”) Christ.
Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. — Acts 4:12
Once again, there’s nothing about “hell” or the lake of fire in this verse, and this statement was made by Peter to the religious leaders of Israel, so we already know it can only refer to the sort of salvation that pertains to Israelites (getting to live in the kingdom in Israel after Jesus returns, in other words), and has nothing at all to do with the sort of salvation Paul later taught about to the nations.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. — John 3:16
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. — John 3:36
He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. — 1 John 5:12
Pretty much every single Christian out there already interprets basically every part of these passages extremely figuratively, reading “going to heaven” into the word “life,” and “being punished without end in hell” into the word “perish,” for example. Based on everything I’ve written in this series, though, it should really be quite clear by now to anyone who has been paying attention that these verses are simply saying that those Israelites who “believeth not the Son” won’t get to enjoy life in Israel after Jesus returns (and while it’s too big of a tangent to dig into the details of it right now, references to “the world” in the writings of John that aren’t talking about specific ages/eons are generally, if not always, referring to “the world” of Israelites, not the whole planet or every human to ever live, based on who Jesus said the intended audience of his earthly ministry was: the lost sheep of the house of Israel). And how does an Israelite “believeth on the Son,”as the KJV puts it? Well, it simply means they believe that Jesus is Israel’s Messiah (or Christ) and the Son of God, as John wrote at the end of the same book: “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.” Now, I trust you noticed what John didn’t write in that verse. You see, if the people John was writing to are required to believe that Christ’s death was “for our sins,” and if they have to trust in His death “for our sins” in order for them to have “life through his name,” then John left out a very crucial piece of information for them in that verse where he told his Jewish readers exactly what they have to believe in order to have “life through his name.” Because, yes, his book did explain that Christ died, but A) it didn’t explain that His death was “for our sins,” and B) it also didn’t explain that this aspect of His death (the “for our sins” aspect) was necessary to be trusted in the way it is for those who are saved when they believe Paul’s Gospel. So I hope you’ve figured out that this is because that particular belief wasn’t necessary to experience the sort of salvation Jesus spoke about during His earthly ministry, realizing that John certainly would have included it in that list of things they have to believe in order to experience the sort of salvation that John was writing about if it actually was a necessary thing for his readers to believe in order to experience the sort of salvation that he was writing about, since it wouldn’t make sense for him to leave out such important information about what his readers needed to believe in order to “have life” if that was the main reason he wrote the book, as he claimed it was in John 20:31 (especially since John wrote this after Jesus’ death and resurrection).
There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. — John 3:1–7
Modern-day evangelicals are obsessed with this passage, insisting that everyone has to choose to be “born again” if they want to experience salvation. Unfortunately, just like Nicodemus, they have absolutely no idea what Jesus meant by the term. To get the obvious out of the way first, nobody can choose to be born a first time, and this second birth is no different since it happens to those who “received him [Jesus]” and were “given power to become the sons of God” not “of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God,” so it’s obviously not something any individual can choose to experience out of the strength of their own will power, but is instead something that is ultimately decided for them by God (once again demonstrating that receiving something isn’t necessarily based on a choice we make ourselves).
But equally important to know, unless you’re an Israelite, you can’t be “born” a second time, because you haven’t been “born” a first time, at least not when it comes to the sort of “birth” that Jesus was talking about there. Remember, Jesus wasn’t talking about the same sort of salvation Paul primarily wrote about (in fact, throughout Paul’s epistles, he never even once spoke about a new birth; instead, he taught about a whole new creation altogether — or “a new creature,”as the KJV puts it — which is even better than being “born” a second time), but was referring to getting to live in the part of the kingdom of God that will exist for 1,000 years in Israel, so from that fact alone it should be obvious that this statement is only relevant to Israelites and not to Gentiles. But to make this even more clear, Jesus’ question (“Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?”) in response to Nicodemus thinking that any of this was about biological childbirth tells us that this Pharisee should have already known exactly what Jesus was talking about based on the Scripture available to him at the time. This tells us that we have to look to the Hebrew Scriptures to determine exactly what Jesus meant (and we know there’s nothing in the Hebrew Scriptures about “asking Jesus into your heart,” as most evangelicals explain being “born again” as meaning when they share their “gospel,” or really anything else they use to try to explain the meaning of being “born again” either, for that matter).
So what was it in the Hebrew Scriptures that Jesus was referring to here? Well, Jesus was talking about a nation that was figuratively said to have been “born” a first time by Moses in Exodus 4:22 when he said, “Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn” (along with similar statements he made in Numbers 11:12 and in Deuteronomy 32:18). That would be the first “birth” of those whom Jesus was referring to in this passage, telling us that it only applies to the nation of Israel. As for the second birth, this also has to be something spoken of in the Hebrew Scriptures if Nicodemus should have known this already as “a master of Israel,” so we have to look to passages that refer to Israel being born another time, and this would be Isaiah 66:8 which asks, “shall a nation be born at once?”, prophetically referring to something that will happen to the nation of Israel in the future. Simply put, Jesus was talking to Nicodemus about Israelites fully experiencing their New Covenant (which never applied to Gentiles, since we didn’t have an old covenant to be replaced with by a new one to begin with) and the rebirth of the favoured nation of God when they’re returned to their land completely and are finally able to walk in God’s statutes properly, meaning they’ll finally keep the Mosaic law perfectly, because they’ll have been sprinkled with “clean water” and will have the law written on their new hearts (and this is why Jesus said they need to be born not just of the Spirit, but also of water, to let Nicodemus know that He was referring to that prophecy in Ezekiel 36, and Nicodemus would have also known that this prophecy was connected with the prophecy about the New Covenant in Jeremiah 31), which we know — thanks to the Greek Scriptures — will all take place around the time of the end of the Tribulation, when Jesus returns and the thousand-year kingdom begins.
This is also why Jesus specifically said, “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” Unfortunately, people who aren’t using the King James Version are unlikely to be aware of this, because most other Bible versions don’t use the precise grammar in their translations of that passage the way the KJV does (and even many people who do use the KJV won’t realize it, since few today know about 17th-century grammar), but “ye” is a plural word in the KJV, which means Jesus was simply saying: “Marvel not that I said unto thee [Nicodemus], Ye [the nation of Israel] must be born again.”
Now, it is true that Jesus said, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” and combined with the fact that they make the same mistake Nicodemus made in assuming the first “birth” was biological (which is what led him to ask his question about entering “the second time into his mother’s womb”), this has led evangelicals to assume that individual Gentiles today have to choose to be “born again” or they won’t be able to go to heaven, but we already know that going to heaven is only for the body of Christ, so this can only be referring to getting to live in the part of the kingdom of God that will exist on earth for 1,000 years rather than in the part of the kingdom of God that will be in heaven. Simply put, Jesus was just referring to the specific Israelites God chose to be a part of Israel’s second birth when it occurs (since Jesus didn’t specify that He was referring to or including the nations in this statement the way He did in Matthew 25:32, and because we know that His teachings were pretty much only relevant to Israelites — not to mention the fact that Gentiles weren’t “born” a first time in the manner that Jesus was referring to there, so there’s no way they could be “born” a second time as well — it should be pretty obvious that His statement should be understood as meaning: “Except a [Jewish] man be born again…”), including a few who can perhaps be said to have (at least proleptically, if not literally) experienced the second birth earlier than the rest, such as those Peter wrote to in his first epistle (where he called back to prophecies about this from Exodus 19:6 and from Psalm 22:30–31). And even then, we know that an Israelite only needs to be “born again” to “see the kingdom of God” during the first thousand years of its existence on earth, since the Mosaic law (and hence the New Covenant) will be irrelevant after those thousand years have been completed, after heaven and earth have passed away, which means the “born again” figure of speech will no longer be relevant either. This tells us that Israelites who missed out on getting to enjoy life for 1,000 years in the kingdom of God on this earth will finally have an opportunity to enter the kingdom of God on the New Earth (when it will be centred within the New Jerusalem). Some will try to argue that Jesus’ “except a man” statement means this has to apply to all humans, of course, but they’re ignoring the context of the passage. This is just like Paul’s “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” statement, which we now know is only referring to the part of the kingdom of God that will be in outer space, because we know that flesh and blood will inherit the part of the kingdom of God that’s going to exist on earth during the thousand years (since not everybody who gets to live in the kingdom will have been quickened at that time), as well as on the New Earth (at least until the end of the ages), and there’s no reason the word “man” and “kingdom of God” can’t be just as context-defined here as “flesh and blood” and “kingdom of God” are in that passage (and, based on the scriptural references I linked to in this paragraph, as well as the other arguments I presented, it should be obvious that it is).
And just as a quick but somewhat related aside, I should point out that Nicodemus and Jesus were likely speaking either Hebrew or Aramaic rather than Greek when they had this conversation, and that it would have then been translated into Greek from whichever language they were speaking when their discussion was recorded in the book of John. I bring this up because the Greek adverb ἄνωθεν/“an’-o-then” that the English “again” part of “born again” was translated from in the KJV can legitimately be — and, honestly, is even more commonly — translated in English as “from above” (although not always), and some Christians believe this means that Jesus actually said “born from above” rather than “born again.” However, I don’t believe that anybody at all could ever hear “born from above” and possibly somehow think the speaker was literally talking about a second biological birth the way that Nicodemus thought Jesus’ statement was referring to, even as a misunderstanding of what the speaker was saying, whereas someone who hears “born again” could be forgiven for mistakenly assuming that’s what the speaker meant. Nicodemus’ use of whichever word was translated into Greek with the adjective δεύτερον/“dyoo’-ter-on” — literally meaning “the second time” — seems to tell us that the context of the term he was responding to was “second,” or “again,” anyway, so I maintain that “born again” is indeed the only English translation that makes sense, unless, perhaps, the writer of the book of John specifically used ἄνωθεν as a double entendre in his Greek translation, since the second birth of Israel would indeed be sent “from above” rather than generated by themselves. But either way, the original statement Jesus made in whichever language they were speaking was almost certainly “born again” and not “born from above.”
So no, unless you’re a member of the Israel of God, you haven’t been “born again,” and neither can you be (since you weren’t “born” a first time in the manner Jesus was speaking about), nor do you need to be, since the salvation of those in the body of Christ won’t be enjoyed in the same part of the kingdom of God that Israel is looking forward to living in when it begins in earnest on the earth, and keeping the New Covenant in the way that being born again refers to is entirely irrelevant to us anyway, because we’re not going to follow the Mosaic law perfectly in outer space (since we’re not under law to begin with) the way Jeremiah said those in the house of Israel and the house of Judah will when the New Covenant comes fully into effect.
I realize that evangelicals and other Christians have various ideas about what it means to be “born again,” but if their ideas can’t be shown to be laid out in the Hebrew Scriptures, they have no basis for the claims, because otherwise Jesus wouldn’t have criticized Nicodemus for not knowing what He meant by the term. And I’m sure you’ve heard “testimonies” by certain Christians about how they were “born again” and became a whole new person, walking away from a life they considered to be sinful, thanks to God changing them when they “got saved” (and, in some cases, it’s true that they were leading particularly sinful lives, although it’s also true that most Christians misunderstand even more of the Bible than just the topics we’ve been discussing, and misinterpret large parts of it to be teaching that many things are sinful which actually aren’t sinful at all, but that’s a discussion for another time). And yes, God was indeed behind the change, at least from an absolute perspective, because God is behind absolutely everything that happens (since all is of God). But from a relative perspective, their changed lifestyles had nothing to do with being “born again” at all, since we know from what we just covered that being “born again” is only for the Israel of God (and that’s not to say the lives of Israelites who are “born again” won’t change drastically, but that’s because they’ll finally be able to keep the Mosaic law perfectly when it happens, which isn’t something Gentiles are meant to keep, and members of the body of Christ certainly aren’t, whether they’re Jewish or Gentile, which is another clue that being “born again” isn’t for us).
So when you hear a Christian’s “testimony” about how getting “born again” changed them, and are tempted to think it means you should remain a member of (or return to) the Christian religion (or to join it, if you’ve never been a member), remember that many people who have hit rock bottom have realized how destructive their lifestyles were and dramatically changed their lives for the better without becoming Christians at all (and that people who join other religions have similar “conversion experiences” to the ones Christians talk about as well), so joining this religion isn’t proof of anything other than that they decided something in their life needed to change. And if “fruit” is evidence of having believed the truth, just remember all the negative “fruit” of all those Christians you’ve met throughout your life (and even those who might seem to be living better lives now in some ways than they were before they converted all have “secret sins” they hide from the rest of us, so remember that you’re only seeing the “fruit” they’ve made public). As nearly everybody who hasn’t been blinded by the “light” of the leaders of the Christian religion knows, the fruit of Christianity is anything but good, so don’t be tempted to return to it if you’ve already been saved from it, or to give it a try if you’ve been blessed enough to never have been imprisoned by it (and if you’re still a member, get out as quickly as you can). Those of us who have escaped the Christian religion (as well as many of those who were wise or blessed enough to never join it) know very well that, while nearly everything Christians think is sinful actually isn’t, almost all of the actions and attitudes that they live by are extremely wrong (and often quite evil, all the while calling their actions and teachings both righteous and good). As nearly everyone who looks in at it from the outside can see, greed, fear, paranoia, hunger for power, peer pressure, envy, hypocrisy, arrogance, prejudice, intolerance, anti-intellectualism, malice, spite, and all manner of other actual sins are the hallmarks of the Christian religion, but most Christians within the religion somehow just can’t see what is plainly evident to the rest of us. That said, where sin abounds, grace much more abounds, so even Christians can technically experience God’s grace (and eventually all of them will, of course). But as far as those who don’t embrace His grace go, I really wouldn’t want to be a religious leader or Christian “evangelist” at the final judgement, and those who willingly follow these leaders are in for a world of sorrow at that time as well (yes, it’s likely that most Christians will actually end up at the Great White Throne Judgement due to their believing a false “gospel”). If the citizens of the cities that rejected Jesus’ disciples are going to be judged more harshly than those of Sodom because they had the light revealed to them, how much more severely are those in Christendom who have the completed Scriptures going to be judged for ignoring, and even rejecting, the truths found therein, following the myths of their religious leaders instead, because they prefer to have their self-righteous ears scratched? (And for anyone who is wondering, yes, members of the body of Christ might have been called Christians at one time, and while this label does seem like it might have been used by members of the Israel of God in the past, there’s no indication that any believers in the body of Christ used it for themselves, but rather it appears to be a pejorative applied to them by others outside the body, and as such, most of us avoid the label — so as to not be confused with those in the religion that uses the label today, which some of us suspect began with people such as Phygellus and Hermogenes and others who turned away from Paul creating the adulterated “gospel” of the Christian religion by merging parts of each of the two legitimate Gospels into one — and simply call ourselves members of the body of Christ, or sometimes just “believers” or “‘Concordant’ believers.”)
Still, there is a possibility that a small number of people today (and throughout the last two millennia) do have a legitimate “born again” experience, similar to those who were members of the Israel of God during Peter’s lifetime. I’ve spoken with some who are not necessarily “orthodox” Christians, but who seem to have had some miraculous experiences and signs connected with coming to believe what John 20:31 (and Romans 10:9-10, which we’ll be discussing next) says, so it’s possible that they have Israelite ancestry that they aren’t even necessarily aware of themselves, and that they’re a part of a remnant of the Israel of God awaiting the kingdom, which I do personally believe has existed since the first century. But even if so, the vast majority of Christians do not fall into this small group, presuming I’m correct that it does exist, since most of them believe that Jesus is God the Son rather than the Son of God, and aren’t following the Mosaic law in the way that they’re supposed to be doing so.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. — Romans 10:9–10
Similar to the above passages written by John, misunderstanding what Paul wrote in this passage has caused a lot of confusion and consternation among many people, and has also led to some pretty bad doctrines (such as the idea that “Lordship Salvation” is meant for members of the body of Christ, as just one example). As we learned in the first article of this series, however, there are different types of salvation referred to in Scripture, and different ways of experiencing “everlasting life.” By now you should be well aware that anyone to whom God has given the faith to truly believe that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day will experience “everlasting life” in the heavens (rather than in Israel, which is where those who experience the salvation Jesus preached about will enjoy their “everlasting life”). This means that, while it isn’t the choice to believe in Christ’s death for our sins, as well as His subsequent burial and resurrection, that saves someone (our special salvation to “everlasting life” is based on God’s sovereign election of those of us in the body of Christ long before we were even born, and has nothing to do with any decisions we make at all, as we’ve already determined), if someone does truly understand what it means, and also believes, that He did die for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day, they are among those whom God has chosen for membership in the body of Christ, and will get to enjoy “everlasting life” in the heavens after they’re caught up together in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. One thing you’ll notice that Paul didn’t say his readers did when they were saved, however, is confess Jesus as Lord (or “confess the Lord Jesus”), and yet verse 10 of Romans 10 seems to make it clear that the salvation written about there is at least partly based on confession. Now, this doesn’t mean that Jesus isn’t Lord to us, of course, since we’re told elsewhere that He is, but His Lordship isn’t something Paul said his readers confessed at the time they were brought into membership in the body when he explained what they did when they were saved (nor did he say it’s something that they or we have to confess in order to be brought into the body; in fact, it’s simply having faith that he considers to be the important thing we do, as he makes clear all throughout the rest of his epistles, so there’s no good reason to take this one reference to confession being necessary for salvation that happens to be sitting in the middle of a series of chapters which were primarily about Israel and their salvation and applying it to us, especially when it would contradict everything else we know about our salvation).
Likewise, while Romans 10:9–10 says that someone who experiences the salvation that confessing the Lord Jesus and believing God raised Him from the dead brings will indeed believe God resurrected Jesus (just as those in the body of Christ believe), which means they would obviously also have to believe that He died (just as those in the body of Christ also believe), there isn’t anything in that verse about His death being “for our sins” or about that fact being something one has to trust in for their salvation, which is a crucial part of what we believe when we’re saved (there’s nothing about His burial there either, I should add, which was also an important element of Paul’s Gospel, as we now know). The most important part of the belief connected to the sort of salvation Paul is talking about in Romans 10 is Jesus’ resurrection, not His death for our sins. It might not seem like it to most, the first time they read this passage, but these are important distinctions between these two different sets of belief connected with two different types of salvation.
As I’ve already alluded to, something we need to keep in mind is that Romans chapters 9 through 11 are primarily about Israelites (they aren’t 100% about Israelites, but a focus on Israelites is a large part of those chapters, including in the passage in question), and Paul’s point about confessing and believing in that passage was connected to what Israelites have to believe in order experience the sort of salvation John wrote about, which is that Jesus is the Christ, meaning Israel’s Messiah, and that He’s the Son of God. This sort of salvation/“everlasting life” has nothing to do with the salvations Paul wrote about in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, nor does it have anything to do with residing in the heavens during the impending ages, but is actually about getting to live in the part of the kingdom of God that will be on planet earth, meaning living in Israel after Jesus returns. Belief that Christ’s death was “for our sins” wasn’t a requirement for salvation in any message that Jesus or anyone else preached prior to Paul proclaiming that it was necessary to be believed to be considered a member of the body of Christ, as we’ve already discussed (it couldn’t have been, since even Jesus’ disciples didn’t understand that He was going to die or be resurrected until after it had all taken place, which means they also couldn’t have known all that His death would accomplish prior to Paul trying to explain it to them), and Jesus’ resurrection was only an important part of what they had to believe inasmuch as it proves He’s still able to be their Messiah because He’s no longer dead (with the confession part being connected to Him being the Son of God).
Of course, most Christians mistakenly assume that the whole Bible is to and about everyone, but by now it should be pretty clear to anyone who has made it this far into this series of articles that there are two entirely different sets of messages for two entirely different groups of people in the Bible (one for the body of Christ and one for the Israel of God), as well as multiple different types of salvation written about in there, so don’t worry if you haven’t verbally spoken the words “Jesus is Lord,” or “confessed the Lord Jesus” with your mouth (especially if you have a disability making it so you physically aren’t able to speak and, as such, can’t verbally confess anything). One day you, and everyone else, will, of course. But in the meantime, the only way to experience the special form of salvation Paul wrote about in 1 Corinthians 15:2 is for God to choose you for membership in the body of Christ; and if He has, He’ll give you the faith to understand and believe what it means that Christ died for our sins, that He Himself was buried, and that He rose again the third day, at some point prior to your death or to the time Christ comes for His body.
I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. — Romans 9:1-5
I’m including this passage because I’ve heard it asked, “How could Paul be willing to give up his salvation in exchange for the salvation of his kinsmen — if it actually was possible to make such a trade — if everyone will be saved?” Of course, based on everything we’ve already covered, we now know that Paul taught about different types of salvation at different times, and it should be obvious that this passage can only be referring to the special form of salvation which only a few will experience, meaning he’d be willing to give up his position as a member of the body of Christ if it meant all Israelites could join the Israel of God (remember, this is in Romans 9, which is largely about Israelites and their sort of salvation, as we just discussed when looking at the last passage), because he cared about his kinsmen that much. And since we already know that not everyone will experience either of those types of salvation, this passage isn’t actually problematic at all when it comes to the type of salvation everyone experiences because of what Christ accomplished. But on top of that, few seem to consider the question of, if Paul actually did believe in never-ending torment, do you actually think he’d really wish to lose his salvation, even if it meant that every other Israelite would be saved? Can you imagine that anyone would be willing to suffer fiery torture without end for any reason at all whatsoever? Anyone who has burned themselves even for a moment would know the answer to that question is a resounding “no” (those who believe in never-ending torment have to admit that not even Jesus was willing to make that sort of trade, yet some want to suggest that Paul was more generous than Him, or at least would be if their soteriological assumptions were correct), but they might be willing to trade their future glorified position in heaven for the benefit of those they care about, knowing that they’d still experience immortality on the New Earth eventually, so this passage actually tells us quite definitively that Paul did not believe in the idea of never-ending torment. And since it’s also pretty unlikely that someone would give up their existence altogether, never to be resurrected again, this is yet another passage supporting the idea that Paul believed in the salvation of all. This also tells us that the common Christian assertion that “God doesn’t send people to hell, but rather people ‘choose to go to hell’ themselves” can’t be true either, at least not when it comes to the inescapable torture-chamber version of “hell” most Christians believe in, because nobody would actually choose to allow themselves to be burned without end. And those who would then reply to this by saying, “they choose to go to hell by rejecting Christ,” aren’t thinking things through, because unless someone can choose to avoid the Christian version of “hell” after their judgement as well, it would still be God forcing them into the mythical torture chamber against their will, if such a place existed, so this attempt to absolve God of being responsible for forcing untold billions into an inescapable place of suffering really doesn’t work the way they think it does at all.
But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. — 1 Thessalonians 4:13
I’ve heard Christians use the line about those who have “no hope” here to try to prove that these people without hope can’t ever be saved, but Paul was simply referring to people having no expectation in their minds (which is what the Greek word ἐλπίς/“el-pece’,” translated as “hope” in this passage, means) of a future resurrection and salvation, not to having no possibility of resurrection and salvation. And he was referring to the sorrow of living people due to them not expecting their dead loved ones (who could be deceased members of the body of Christ even) to be resurrected, because they didn’t believe in a future resurrection of their dead loved ones. He wasn’t talking about the sorrow of people who were already dead at all, or how they have no hope/expectation in their minds (which they can’t have, because they’re dead and can’t have any thoughts at all), so anyone who tries to use this verse to prove never-ending punishment isn’t reading the text very carefully.
And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. — Matthew 18:3
Just like all the other passages we’ve covered, there should be no reason for me to point out that there’s no mention of hell or the lake of fire in this verse either, and I shouldn’t have to repeat that Jesus was simply talking about not getting to live in Israel after He returns when He said certain people would not enter the kingdom of heaven unless they’ve been converted, so I’ll just leave it at that.
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. — Romans 6:23
This verse is extremely misunderstood, and is almost always taken completely out of the context of the rest of the section of Scripture that it’s in, but just like the last few passages we covered, this verse doesn’t mention hell or the lake of fire directly, so one has to read the idea of never-ending torment in hell into the word “death” here if they want to continue believing in such a thing, which by now should be obvious that there’s no basis for doing, since the concept doesn’t even exist in the Bible to begin with, at least not in any of the passages we’ve looked at so far (and is clearly contradicted by Paul’s writings about the salvation of all humanity anyway). As for what the verse is talking about, it would take a long study of Romans chapter 2 all the way through chapter 8 to really get into it, but to put it very simply, Paul is basically using this as a metaphor for the ongoing results of his readers continuing to allow Sin to reign over themselves (Paul anthropomorphized “sin” at times in Romans, although the KJV doesn’t make this as obvious as certain other translations do) while they’re alive (and the English word “wages” in the KJV is just as figurative as “death” is here, which is something that most Christians already agree with me on, even if they aren’t aware of what either word is actually referring to — the Greek word ὀψώνιον/“op-so’-nee-on” that it’s translated from really refers more to a ration than to a payment, but that’s too big of a tangent to get into here so I’ll leave it at that, although the book Suffering vs. Death by A.E. Knoch, which is made available as a free PDF by its publisher, explained it well if you’d like to learn more about it). As I said, this is a really big topic, but to at least touch on what’s most important for us to understand about it is that Paul wasn’t talking about unbelievers getting punished by going to hell when he wrote that, but rather that he was talking about actual members of the body of Christ who haven’t fully reckoned themselves to be dead to Sin yet, meaning they’re still allowing Sin to reign over them because they’re still having confidence in the flesh and are actively trying not to sin using their own strength — which is what it means to “obey it in the lusts thereof” (referring to Sin’s anthropomorphized lusts, not our own lusts), since walking after the flesh is compared to obeying Sin’s “desires” by allowing it to have dominion over you by following religious rules and worrying about morality.
You see — and yes, this is a bit of a tangent, but it’s an important thing to know, even though few Christians seem to be aware of it — worrying about sin and morality (at least the way traditional Christians understand morality) is just not what those of us in the body of Christ are called to do. What followers of Churchianity (which is what some of us call the Institutional Church and the “orthodox” religion known as Christianity — as opposed to the “heretical” religionless doctrines that I now believe the Bible teaches are meant for the body of Christ) don’t seem to realize is that all of the “thou shalts” and “thou shalt nots” cause them to completely miss the point of Paul’s teachings to begin with (since, again, it’s Paul’s teachings that the body of Christ is supposed to concern itself with under the dispensation of the grace of God). Starting with a flawed presupposition about doctrines like sin and grace will cause one to think that they’re supposed to be concerned with religious rules, when being a member of the body of Christ is actually about something else altogether. Basically, Paul’s Gospel isn’t a religious proposition (“do this or else!”); rather, it’s a proclamation (“it’s already been done by Christ, so why not believe this good news and stop trying to please God yourself?”).
While most religions are a set of rules that people need to follow in order to A) live an enjoyable life, B) avoid suffering negative consequences (either imposed by followers of said religions in this life or by their deity or other beings in an afterlife, or by being reincarnated to live another mortal life again on earth after death), and C) make God happy, Paul promised that A) believers of his teachings are less likely to have a fun life than those who don’t believe his message, since they’d be persecuted by those who do prefer religion (including the Christian religion) to the truth, B) explained that we don’t have to do anything to avoid suffering a negative afterlife (or life after resurrection, to be more precise) since we’ve already been justified by faith regardless of what we do, and C) told us that God is already happy (the word “blessed” in 1 Timothy 1:11 literally means “happy”). Instead of following a bunch of rules the way followers of various religions (including the Christian religion) do, members of the body of Christ don’t have to actively try to avoid sinning by our own strength at all (and, in fact, should actually not ever try to), because we’re justified (and living) by faith, and are walking according to Spirit and not according to flesh.
To hear most Christians talk about it, you’d think that sins are something we should be actively trying to avoid committing. When the street preachers here in my city give their sermons, the focus is always on sin and how our sinful actions will send us to an afterlife realm called “hell” if we don’t get our sin dealt with by “getting saved” in the manner the preachers believe one needs to do so in (completely missing the fact that Christ’s death for our sins in Paul’s Gospel is a proclamation, not a proposition, and that sin has already been taken care of for everyone whether they believe it or not, as we’ve already learned). And if you talk to them one-on-one, you’ll discover they believe that, even after we “get saved,” we still need to do our best to avoid certain actions the preachers consider to be sinful (as well as do certain things they consider to be commanded of us). Following rules is basically the foundation of their entire religion, and so when they attempt to interpret passages such as Romans 8:1-10 or Galatians 5:16-25, they’ll tell you Paul was explaining how we need to try to do good, spiritual acts while trying to avoid fleshly, sinful acts.
And while Paul is indeed telling his readers they shouldn’t be walking after the flesh — not to mention what the consequences of doing so might be — in those verses, that he isn’t telling people to try to actively avoid sinning should be very obvious to anyone who considers the context of the passages. Unfortunately, most Christians are so obsessed with religious rules that they’ve actually made Sin their lord (anthropomorphically speaking), which keeps them from being able to grasp what Paul actually taught about the topic of sin at all.
So what was Paul talking about in those passages? Well, if you ask any Christian who has studied Paul’s epistles to the Romans and to the Galatians (the very epistles those passages about walking after Spirit rather than flesh were written in), they should be able to tell you that a large part of both books is about how we’re not under the law, and how we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be placed under it at all. The problem is, when they get to passages that talk about ”the flesh,” most Christians immediately forget this fact and proceed to completely ignore the context of the passages, reading their love of religious rules into the passages instead. Following religious rules isn’t even close to what Paul was talking about when he wrote warnings about walking after the flesh, however. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Even though the context of those passages should make it obvious, it can help to read an entirely different passage written by Paul, one which can serve as the key to understanding the other times he writes about the flesh: Philippians 3:1-11, where Paul warns his readers against having confidence in their flesh — by which he means trying to be righteous by following rules — telling them they should instead be trusting in the faith of Christ for their righteousness rather than trusting in their own actions (or even in their own faith).
This, along with the context of not being under the law (and the fact that Paul also compares walking after the Spirit with not following the law in that passage from Galatians), should make it clear that Paul was actually telling people to stop trying to follow (and enforce) any religious rules at all, because trying to follow religious rules is what it actually means to walk after the flesh (including trying to follow the 10 Commandments, which are indeed a part of the Mosaic law, as Paul made clear by referencing the 10th commandment when he wrote Romans 7:7 as a part of his teaching that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be placed under any parts of the law). So if you are actively trying to avoid (or even trying to do) specific actions in order to please God, you’re actually walking after the flesh, not to mention ignoring what Paul said about following ordinances and other commandments of men. And, as we now know from what he wrote in Romans 8:1-4 and other passages, he contrasted the concept of walking after the flesh with the concept of walking after the Spirit, and if walking after the flesh means trying to follow religious rules, walking after the Spirit must necessarily mean we aren’t trying to follow religious rules, but are instead trusting that Christ will live the life He wants us to live through us, and that He’ll end up doing the things God wants us to do and avoiding the things God wants us to avoid, Himself, through us, as I mentioned previously (Sin — anthropomorphically-speaking — is just as “happy” when we purposely try not to sin as when we purposely do sin, because it “likes” any focus we can give it, since it turns our focus and trust away from Christ and onto Sin itself). It’s only when we start walking after the flesh, meaning we start worrying about religion and trying to follow rules and prohibitions, that we begin doing the very things that God doesn’t want us to do, because, as I already pointed out various times in this series, trying to follow religious rules (be it the Mosaic law, or any other form of religious rules) only leads to more sin.
At this point, of course, most Christians will protest and say that, while we aren’t under the Mosaic law itself, there are still other rules in the Bible we need to follow, but in making such claims they’re ignoring everything Paul taught throughout his epistles. The reason we don’t follow the Mosaic law isn’t because there’s anything wrong with the specific rules in the law themselves. The commandment against murder is not a bad rule in and of itself, which means that it isn’t simply the specific rules in the Mosaic law we aren’t supposed to follow, but rather it’s trying to follow religious rules in general that we aren’t supposed to do.
Which brings us to the next protestation most Christians will make. “What about the long list of sins Paul mentioned in that passage in Galatians we looked at? Wasn’t he telling his readers to do their best to avoid those specific actions?” The answer to this will shock most people, but no, he most certainly wasn’t. If walking after the flesh means trying to follow religious rules, how could Paul possibly then turn around and say, ”But make sure you don’t break these specific religious rules, okay?” Instead, if you look at the context, it becomes clear that he’s warning his readers what will happen if they try to avoid sinning. Instead of becoming the holy, righteous people they hope that avoiding those specific actions will make them, those actions are instead exactly what they’ll end up doing. Just as positive attributes like love, joy, and peace are the fruit of walking after the Spirit, the various negative actions Paul listed there are the fruit of walking after the flesh, meaning those actions are the fruit that will come forth from trying to follow religious rules.
And so, Paul’s condemnation in Romans 10:2-3 can equally be applied to Christians today: “For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.”
Bottom line, if you hear someone tell you that one must follow religious rules, especially if they’re a part of the Mosaic law in any way (at least if you’re in the body of Christ), don’t walk; run! It means that they are very likely a wolf in sheep’s clothing, trying to lure you into their religious trap. At the very least, they are extremely confused and likely have nothing useful to teach you (at least from a spiritual perspective). Remember that, while not all things are a good idea, all things are technically permitted, and also that to the pure all things are pure (but those unbelievers in Paul’s Gospel who are pretending to be believers — likely lying even to themselves about their faith, not to mention often telling themselves that there’s really only one Gospel while also completely failing to understand what Paul’s Gospel actually means in the first place — have a defiled mind and conscience that causes them to consider pretty much nothing to be pure). Yes, if someone doesn’t have faith that something is allowed, then it would be a sin for them specifically to do it (although not because the action itself is necessarily actually sinful in and of itself), but the corollary of this verse must be true too: if that which is not out of faith is sin, then that which is out of faith is not sin. It is true that Paul used food and holy days as specific examples, but the principle still applies to everything.
Remember also that we should think of our old humanity (or our “old man,” as the KJV puts it) as dead, and that we are to, in fact, reckon ourselves dead to Sin altogether, which means that Sin has no more dominion over us at all — anthropomorphically speaking — because we’re not under law at all, but rather are under grace (and remaining under grace by remaining free from the law takes away all of Sin’s power over us). And remember, to “reckon” isn’t to try make something a fact, meaning to try to avoid sinning in this case, but rather it means to simply look at it as if it’s already a fact, and to stop letting Sin reign over you by trying to avoid sinning or by trying to “crucify your flesh,” which is something that’s already been done once and for all time for the body of Christ rather than something that has to be done again and again anyway. As we learned earlier in this series, when Paul said, “I die daily,” he didn’t mean he died to sin daily (especially not in the sense of not allowing himself to sin, as many misinterpret the statement to mean), which would be a ridiculous thing for him to be implying since he told us to consider ourselves as already being dead to Sin. The context of that passage was physical death, and was simply speaking of how he risked physical death regularly thanks to the various persecutions and perils he faced in his ministry, as he clarified in the very next verse after he made that statement. Similarly, Jesus’ command to “take up one’s cross daily” doesn’t refer to this either. Aside from the fact that this was directed specifically to those under the Gospel of the Circumcision instead of to the body of Christ, even if it could be considered a trans-dispensational truth, it wasn’t talking about avoiding sin, but rather about being willing to face death like He was about to do.
To be fair, as we also covered earlier in this series, the Bible does seem to teach that those believers who happen to be saved under the Gospel of the Circumcision do have to be careful to avoid rejecting what they’ve believed and falling back into sin so as to not “lose their salvation,” so to speak, or they’ll miss out on the thousand-year kingdom of heaven, if not more (although the “more” just refers to living in the New Jerusalem during the final age, not to the immortality that everyone will eventually experience by the end of the ages), and unlike those of us in the body of Christ, they are required to keep the Mosaic law (at least the parts they’re still able to keep without a temple). But as far as those of us in the body of Christ go, while we may or may not all get to reign, we are safe as far as our special salvation goes, regardless of what we do, because Paul told us in Romans 8 that anyone God calls for membership in the body of Christ will be justified and glorified, and because he told us not to allow ourselves to be placed under the law at all, since to do so is what it means to fall from grace. So at the end of the day, we just don’t have to worry about Sin, or about trying to avoid sinning, if we’re in the body of Christ, because we’re now dead to Sin.
I should say, after reading all that, some (honestly, most) Christians are still going to misunderstand everything I just wrote, thinking that I’m telling people we actually should go out and purposely commit sins, not to mention that we shouldn’t walk worthy of the Lord, but that’s not what I’m saying here at all (although it is imperative to remember that the pace at which we walk is entirely in God’s hands). In fact, you definitely should not be going out and purposely committing sins (at least not actual sins; I’m not talking about the innocent actions that most Christians confuse for sins because they essentially misunderstand the entire Bible — yes, 99% of the actions that most Christians think are sinful actually aren’t sinful at all, and the passages they think forbid most of these actions are actually speaking of something else altogether, although that’s also a whole other topic for another time). I’m simply saying that we shouldn’t be trying to avoid sinning of our own strength, but rather that we should be trusting God to keep us from sinning instead. This also means that if you aren’t accused of encouraging people to sin, you probably aren’t teaching the same things that Paul taught about sin and grace, since this false accusation seems to have also been levelled against him — which is why he wrote chapter 6 of Romans in the first place — and so those who aren’t accused of being “hyper-grace” or antinomian themselves probably aren’t either).
And, of course, with all that being said, we can see that Paul also contrasts this figurative “death” with the freedom of “eternal life” that one can experience instead, and this “eternal life” is just as figurative as the “death” in this verse is, as should also be obvious by now if you’ve read all the previous articles in this series.
And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. — Acts 16:31
A common question I’ve heard asked is, “How can Paul have been teaching the salvation of all humanity if he said that someone has to ‘believe on the Lord Jesus Christ’ in order to be saved?” Of course, by now it should be obvious that Paul had to have been referring to the special form of salvation which involves being a member of the body of Christ, and not to the salvation which all humanity will experience because of Christ’s death for our sins, burial, and resurrection on the third day, so this verse doesn’t actually cause any problems for the doctrine of the salvation of all humanity at all. (And for anyone who thinks Paul’s statement there was meant to be instructive to anyone reading the book of Acts as far as salvation goes, imagine only telling someone who didn’t even know who Jesus really was to “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” with no further explanation of what that even means, and then ask yourself if that could possibly be enough for them to do in order for them to be considered saved; as I mentioned in a previous article in this series, it’s important to remember that the book of Acts was a Circumcision writing primarily concerned with letting the Israel of God know why the kingdom temporarily ended up getting put on hold for them, and that Paul’s Gospel was never fully fleshed out anywhere in the book since it wasn’t meant for the book’s original audience to believe, which is why the writer left the full explanation of what Paul meant, which he would have later given to the Philippian jailor when he arrived at the jailor’s house, out of the book.)
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. — 1 Corinthians 6:9–10
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. — Galatians 5:19–21
Inheriting the kingdom of God in these passages should not be confused with salvation. Paul was writing to members of the body of Christ who were already saved, and who couldn’t lose their salvation no matter how hard they tried (as Paul said in that passage in Romans, if you’re called for membership in the body of Christ, you will be justified, with no other qualifications included in that passage), so the inheritance here was simply about reigning with Christ. It couldn’t have been about salvation for those in the body of Christ because our special salvation isn’t based on our actions — even if we stop believing in Him for some reason, He’ll remain faithful to us from a salvation perspective since He can’t disown, or deny, Himself, and the body of Christ is now a part of Himself. Now, it might be that we can lose out on reigning with Him by denying Him in order to avoid suffering, but whether we can or not, we still remain His body, and He won’t amputate and disown His own body parts, and body parts can’t amputate themselves either. So even if a member of the body of Christ doesn’t “inherit the kingdom of God” (or doesn’t get to “receive an allotment of the kingdom of God,” referring to gaining ownership or rulership over a specific portion of the kingdom of God, which is what verse 21 of Galatians 5 is presumably saying, and which is how that part of the verse can also legitimately be translated from the original Greek), they’ll still experience their quickening at the same time the rest of the body does. (Everything I wrote about Romans 6:23 also applies to these passages too, I should add, and reading the surrounding verses helps explain the context of these passages, but I’ll leave it at that since this is a much bigger discussion than we have the space to get into here.)
Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. — Philippians 2:12
This verse is used not only to try to defend salvation by works, but also to claim that, if someone has to work out their salvation with fear and trembling, the possibility exists that they might end up not being saved in the end. My personal suspicion as to what this verse means is that Paul was instructing his readers to make sure — or to work out in their minds whether — they’ve truly believed his Gospel and hence really are saved (referring, of course, to the special “eternal life” sort of salvation which is only for the body of Christ, not the general salvation that everyone will experience). However, whether or not this is the actual meaning of the verse, whatever it does mean, just as it can’t be telling people to do works in order to be saved, because that would contradict all the passages where Paul explained that salvation under his Gospel isn’t based on works (and that anyone who does try to be saved by works under his Gospel will be accursed), it also can’t mean that anyone will miss out on the general salvation he taught about, because that would contradict everything else he taught about his Gospel we’ve already covered in this series.
And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. — Revelation 3:14–19
A lot of people worry that they’re a “lukewarm” believer, and that God will “spue” them out of His mouth, sending them to hell to suffer without end. Of course, we already know what “hell” refers to in Scripture now (in fact we now know what all of the “hells” mentioned in the KJV are), and that it isn’t what most people have always assumed it is, but something else important to note is that this passage is referring to a whole local church, not to any individual, so it’s that local church itself that’s at risk of judgement, and isn’t talking about any individuals being at risk of “hell” to begin with (and I personally believe it’s a local church that will exist during the Tribulation, although that’s a discussion for another time; but regardless, since Revelation wasn’t written by Paul, the local churches John wrote to have to be a part of the Israel of God rather than the body of Christ, so it isn’t relevant to most of us anyway).
These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever. — 2 Peter 2:17
I’m not going to get into all the details of this particular passage, because it’s enough to point out that the sinners in question aren’t literally wells, nor are they literally clouds, so the “for ever” here should be taken about as literally as the rest of the verse (and about as literally as the other times it’s used in judgement passages in the Bible that we’ve covered as well), which means we can’t really use this verse to prove any particular soteriological perspective when it comes to the duration of one’s judgement.
I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. — Jude 1:5–13
The “everlasting” chains in this passage don’t help defend any specific doctrine of salvation either, because this passage tells us they only lock up the fallen angels until (“unto”) their judgement (the “everlasting” in “everlasting chains” is translated from a whole other Greek word — ἀΐδιος/“ah-id’-ee-os” — rather than the typical αἰωνίων/“ahee-o’-nee-ohn” that “everlasting” is normally translated from in the KJV as well, which doesn’t actually change anything as far as anyone’s soteriology goes, but I thought I’d mention it because it’s one of the two cases of this word being used in the Greek Scriptures, with the other being used — and translated as “eternal” in the KJV — in Romans 1:20). And the reference to Sodom and Gomorrha suffering the vengeance of “eternal” fire doesn’t help either because neither of these cities are currently still burning, and we already know that Sodom will also eventually be returned to her “former estate” anyway (and if Jude was just referring to the citizens of the city, Ezekiel 16:55 would then likely also have to be referring to its citizens). And as far as the “wandering stars” go, the lake of fire doesn’t seem like it could be described as a place of “blackness of darkness” (aside from the fact that it will be in a valley in the open air in Israel, underneath the sun and moon, the lake of fire would be anything but dark unless we aren’t taking the “fire” part of its title literally, and if one chooses to interpret the “fire” part figuratively, there’s no reason to interpret the supposed duration of the punishment, as the KJV translates it, literally either), and I’m assuming I don’t have to point out that they aren’t literally clouds or trees or waves or stars, which means we’re outside the territory of literalism to begin with here, telling us that we once again have no basis for interpreting “for ever” any less figuratively than we would these words either (and reminding us that, at least based on everything else we’ve covered so far, we seem to have no reason to ever interpret “for ever” as literally meaning “without end” in the Bible versions that use the phrase), nor do we have any way to use this passage in the KJV to support any particular soteriological perspective when it comes to the duration of one’s judgement either.
And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. — Revelation 14:9–11
This passage is obviously extremely figurative. It can’t simply be about being cast into the lake of fire because the lake of fire will be located in a valley down here on earth after the Tribulation ends, not up in heaven where it would presumably have to be in order to be tormented in the presence of “the holy angels” and the Lamb, if we were taking it literally. And for those who would suggest, for some reason, that it’s about those who worship the beast during the Tribulation getting cast into the lake of fire after the Great White Throne Judgement, 1,000 years later rather than immediately after the Tribulation, the lake of fire will be outside the New Jerusalem on the New Earth, not inside it where it would have to be for those words to make sense from a literal perspective. Plus, we know from Isaiah that no humans will be alive in the lake of fire anyway, so the reference to torment here tells us it can’t be about suffering consciously in the lake of fire, but that it must be referring to something else altogether. As for what it means, considering everything we’ve already learned about the word “fire” when it’s used in passages that don’t also specifically refer to “hell” or the lake of fire by name (and this passage doesn’t use either of those names), it makes far more sense to interpret this passage in the KJV as simply being extreme hyperbole (since Revelation is an extremely figurative book) about the judgement of those who take the mark and worship the beast, and the intense suffering they’ll go through while still alive during the Tribulation for doing so, as described just two chapters later. This is similar to the way that when the great whore of Babylon is judged — which I don’t believe any Christian interprets as referring to an actual human suffering or even being burned in actual fire, but rather as a satanic religious, political, and/or economic system being utterly destroyed — and when “her” smoke rises up “for ever and ever,” we know there isn’t going to be any literal smoke rising because there’s nothing literally even being burned, so the concept of smoke rising “for ever and ever,” as the KJV renders the particular Greek phrase it’s translated from, seems to simply be apocalyptic language referring to an intense judgement in whatever manner it might happen to occur in.
Either way, though, that was quite literally the only passage we’ve looked at which even suggests that any human might be conscious while being punished “for ever and ever” (since the only other passage to mention a judgement of conscious beings for that particular “duration” in the KJV was referring to the punishment of spiritual beings, not humans, and we now know that even those particular beings will have to be set free in order to be reconciled to God the way Paul said they will be, so there’s no reason to assume the “for ever and ever” in this passage in the KJV is any more literal than the one that talks about how long their punishment will last, not to mention any longer than the limited number of years the “for ever and ever” mentioned in the judgement of the land the nations will be located in after the Tribulation ends will last in the future either; and unless one decides to read their theological assumptions into the text, in order to apply it to more people than are actually mentioned in it, this passage can really only be applied to humans who worship the beast and take his mark anyway, which is an extremely small percentage of every non-believer to ever live, so it doesn’t help support the idea that anyone else who doesn’t choose to get saved will suffer without end either — not to mention the fact that the same passage which tells us that even the evil spiritual beings who will be tormented “for ever and ever” will eventually be reconciled to God has to mean that all humans, even those who take the mark of the beast, will have to be reconciled to God some day too, in order to not contradict that passage in Colossians, along with all the other passages about the salvation of all humanity that Paul included in the rest of his epistles which we’ve now looked at as well), and this is quite problematic for the popular doctrine of never-ending torment in hell, because that’s it. No other passage I’m aware of that one might think is talking about the “hell” known as the lake of fire implies that they’ll actually be alive and suffering while in said location, so they don’t actually help defend the popular doctrine (although please correct me if I’m wrong and missed one, but please also first consider whether anything I wrote in this series of articles would apply to it as well), and to interpret this extremely figurative reference to the judgement that a very specific — and relatively small — group of people (those who took the mark) will experience as referring to suffering consciously in the lake of fire makes no sense either.
In fact, prior to reading this single passage in John’s book describing his vision on Patmos, nobody who was reading the books of the Bible in order would have ever had any scriptural reason to interpret any of the other passages we’ve looked at as meaning that any humans would be conscious in the lake of fire — especially in light of what Isaiah wrote about carcases in that location — or even that their corpse could never be resurrected from their second death and be quickened (and hence saved) after burning up in it, since no passage which mentioned either “hell” or the lake of fire by name in the KJV said anything of the sort. And so, somebody studying the Bible carefully from beginning to end who had never actually heard of the doctrine of never-ending torment in hell for non-believers couldn’t possibly come to the conclusion that any humans would be conscious or suffering while in the lake of fire, at least not before reaching this particular passage more than halfway through the final book in the Bible. And if they’re being honest with themselves and taking the rest of Scripture into consideration when they get to this passage, they’d realize that it would make no sense to think this passage was referring to that either, since no other passage we’ve looked at even hinted at such a fate, and because it would contradict everything else they’d already learned as well, which means that to use this one extremely figurative passage located near the very end of the Bible to reinterpret all the references to judgement that came before it in Scripture into meaning all unbelievers (or really anyone at all) will be suffering without end in hell ignores basically every hermeneutical principle I’m aware of, and would contradict too many other things in Scripture we’ve already looked as well, so there’s just no good scriptural excuse for doing that (especially because nobody prior to the writing of the book of Revelation could have ever understood any of the other judgement passages to actually mean that anyone would be tormented without end, based on what we’ve now learned). And so, even though some people will miss out on “everlasting life,” and might even end up in “everlasting” hell fire (or perhaps simply end up experiencing some other form of judgement, figuratively spoken of using the word “fire,” as often happened in the Bible), we now know that they, and everyone else, will eventually leave hell (whichever hell or hells they might end up in) and experience salvation, thanks to God and Christ.
But the fact that not everyone gets to enjoy “everlasting life” is also something that should concern my readers, because there are certain qualifications for getting to do so. There are, of course, various types of “everlasting life” available to be experienced, depending on when one lives, anyway. You might get to enjoy the “everlasting life” that involves living in Israel after Jesus returns if you happen to live through the Tribulation and take care of Israelites who are persecuted during the second half of it. This isn’t in an immortal body, however, although I think it stands to reason that whoever does get to enjoy this sort of “everlasting life” will likely be given access to the tree of life and will never die. The members of the Israel of God will also be given “everlasting life” after Jesus returns (and will get to reign over the rest of the world from Israel), and those of them who died prior to — and are resurrected 75 days after — the end of the Tribulation will even get to enjoy their “everlasting life” in immortal bodies upon their resurrection (while those who “endure to the end” of the Tribulation will get to remain alive in a semi-mortal state thanks to the tree of life, although they, as well as those who helped persecuted Jews during the Tribulation, will eventually be made truly immortal too, along with everyone else, at the end of the ages, when Christ finally destroys death completely).
However, there’s a final group of people who also get to experience “everlasting life,” and this entire group will get to enjoy it in immortal bodies (and these bodies will be even more glorious than the immortal bodies of those in the Israel of God). These people, of course, are the members of the body of Christ. This is an extremely small group of people, though, and technically only those relatively few people who have been ordained to “eternal life,” meaning those to whom God has elected to give the understanding of what it means and the faith to believe that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day, will actually be immersed into His body. However, while whether we experience this sort of “everlasting life” or not isn’t something we ultimately get to decide for ourselves (nobody chooses what they believe — they either hear or read something and believe it, or they hear or read it and don’t believe it, and nobody can choose to force themselves to believe something that they think isn’t true, at least not without some serious self-induced brainwashing, likely requiring powerful drugs; although, if they didn’t think it was true, they’d have no reason to try to force themselves to believe it in the first place, so we couldn’t really blame them for not believing it anyway), at some point in their life, anyone included in this group will have believed (which first requires actually understanding) all the elements of what it is Paul said that members of the body of Christ believe when they’re saved, which means God will have given them an understanding of, and belief in, the following facts before they die or before Christ comes for His body: 1) That “Christ died for our sins” means that sin has now been dealt with for everyone, and so nobody’s sins are being held against them at all anymore (the good and evil works of non-believers will still be judged at the Great White Throne, of course, but sin and evil are two entirely different concepts, as I’ve already mentioned, and should never be confused as being the same thing, although it is true that a lot of evil actions are indeed sinful), and everyone will eventually experience salvation because of this, and entirely apart from anything they do on their own at that, including even believing this good news. 2) That “He was buried” means Christ Jesus literally ceased to exist as a conscious being when He died, and that He Himself was placed in the tomb (and not just His body while He Himself went somewhere else, which also means that He can’t be Almighty God Himself). And 3) that “He rose again the third day” means, after spending three days truly dead, God resurrected Christ Jesus into a physical (albeit “spiritual”) body, and not that Jesus simply now exists as a glorified ghost in another dimension (this final point was the whole reason Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 15, after all). And so, if you’ve come to truly understand and believe the details I’ve just explained, then you can rest assured that you are indeed among the elect and have joined the body of Christ.
If you’ve made it this far and disagree with basically everything I’ve written, however (although I’d be very surprised if that ever happens, because at the time of the latest revision of this series, at least, literally every single person who has read all of the articles in it up to this one without skipping over anything in them and has gotten back to me has told me they’re now convinced that everyone indeed will eventually experience salvation), I’m sorry to say that there’s a good chance you’ll have to wait until the end of the ages to experience your own salvation, since you likely aren’t among those whom God has elected for membership in the body of Christ (although I’d like to hear how you answered all the questions throughout this series of articles that I asked those who disagree with us, so please get in touch with me to let me know those answers, or at least let the person who sent you the link to this article, or series of articles, know your answers). But, just like everyone else, even you’ll get to enjoy salvation at that time (and if you happen to be alive at the time the Tribulation begins, maybe you’ll actually be among those who get to experience “life eternal” by being a member of the Israel of God, or perhaps even by helping the least of Jesus’ brethren at that time, instead). This also means that, if you want those of us who have come to understand and believe what I’ve written in this series so far to change our minds and believe what you do about the topics I’ve covered instead, you’re going to have to do a good job of breaking down exactly where I went wrong in my scriptural interpretations throughout this series of articles. You can’t just expect those of us who have come to believe the doctrines I’ve covered in this series to take your word for it that they’re wrong simply because you say they are, so you’ll have to actually do the work of explaining how we’ve misinterpreted all of the passages of Scripture that I’ve exegeted in this series in order to prove us wrong if you want us to change our minds and believe what you believe instead (which doesn’t mean just presenting us with various philosophical arguments, or appealing to our emotions, as Christians who don’t want to let go of their beloved doctrine of never-ending punishment tend to do when they realize they have no scriptural foundation for their assumptions, at least in my experience). So the ball’s in your court, but I’m not going to hold my breath, because, as I’ve mentioned already, thus far literally nobody has ever even attempted to refute the arguments I’ve laid out in this series about the topics we just covered (although a few people I’ve shared these interpretations with have been given the faith to believe the truth and are now in the body of Christ, and I pray that now includes you too).
But why did God seem to hide all this truth from so many, as seems to be the case when we consider the fact that so few people appear to be able to see much of it at all when they read their Bibles? To that I simply repeat the words of Proverbs 25:2 once again, in which we’re told, “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter,” and then suggest that perhaps God did this to reveal the true nature of our hearts to us when we’re finally judged, so that we’ll be able to see just how evil our preferences for how others end up spending eternity can be (although it’s also true that those who aren’t among the elect can’t believe most of what I’ve written anyway, because their minds have been blinded, and only God can open the eyes of their minds and get them to believe the truth, which won’t happen for most people until they’re standing before the Great White Throne). And your reaction to everything you’ve just read almost certainly will be used to reveal the truth about the state of your own heart during your years as a mortal here on earth to you at that time.