Tag: Early Church

The divine transforming a caterpillar into a butterfly, which flies upward into the light
Promoting Greater Hope

Universalism through Christ: a hopeful future starting now

Practical and ethical implications of hell by Tony Golsby-Smith is the basis of the following post.

There is a quiet crisis creeping through the experience of faith today. For whatever reason, the modern church has put ‘hell’ right at the core of Christian faith, so whoever starts to worry about it, feels they are challenging their whole faith. This means they are in danger of “throwing the baby out with the bathwater”, if they end up rejecting the ‘hell’ doctrine.

Those who try to avoid thinking about the doctrine, may not leave the faith but unconscious anxiety and questions don’t go away. They gnaw at you—potentially eroding your love for God.

This is the negative side of the picture. The positive side interests me more.

I recently met two young Christians who had begun to encounter, through my talks, an alternative picture of the future; the prospect that God will save all people (in fact all the cosmos) as the final end of his purposes. Both were educated Christians in a traditional evangelical church. I asked them what effect this different paradigm was having on them. They paused for a while, and then one of them said, “It has recovered my love for God.”

All human beings imagine the future, including the future beyond death. In order to imagine this future, we need to use imagery more than we normally might, for the simple reason that this future does not exist yet.

This makes the study of future thinking particularly intriguing but also more difficult than analysing the past and the present. This difficulty can make the study of the future seem speculative and optional. However, the future is important for another, more immediate reason; how we see the future will influence how we see the present, and therefore how we understand, decide, and act in the present.

Designers and architects harness this power of the future by a technique called ‘backcasting’. They try to imagine a very different kind of city—buildings shaped more by their aspiration than traditions, and then work backwards from these new conceptions of the future towards the present realities, with the hope that they can design exciting new structures.

The church can learn a lot from backcasting and really should be brilliant at it—at imagining and declaring a great future and using that vision to influence what it does today.

Paul reveals his vision of the future in Ephesians 1—his prayer captures his aspirations for all of us. As such, it is a most significant template for his vision of the character and the mind that he wants to see developed in the believers. Interestingly, he does not pray for a litany of good behaviours, or victories over sins and temptations; he believes that this holy living will flow from an inner transformation of the mind and the ‘eyes of the heart’. He prays that they will grasp three significant new ways of thinking:

  1. The ‘hope of their calling’
  2. ‘the riches of God’s inheritance in the saints’
  3. ‘the greatness of his power exercised on their behalf—specifically the power of resurrection that he first unveiled in raising Jesus from the dead’ 

These are the ways of thinking by which the believer will see all reality differently—as radiating possibility and glory secured already by the massive resurrection work of Jesus.

The effects of this transformation on our minds is all-pervasive. It shines a sense of wonder and hope over all things, all events, all contests in this world. It includes every corner of the cosmos and every moment in time in its transformative vision, and it thus breaks down forever the narrow boxes and divisions into which our faith all too often shrinks. Far from reducing our emphasis on Christ and the claims of Christ, it puts him at the centre of all things. It declares that no category of human endeavour or creation can be excluded from His Lordship and His demands. Finally, it is a beatific vision which circumscribes evil as temporary, insubstantial, and limited; and it amplifies goodness as inevitably eternal and all-pervading because it alone is the quality of God.

From this perspective, we can return to the topics of ‘hell’ and ‘judgment’. The church fathers took these themes seriously (as did most people who have espoused some forms of cosmic redemption) but they circumscribed them as means or ways to God’s purposes, not the ends. If the end of all things is humans sharing the rule of God, then humans need to develop and grow the capacity to do this. This development cannot be imposed on anyone but must be embraced and chosen. We don’t grow if we don’t want to grow. That is the basis of every decent educational program. Thus, cosmic redemption is not a free ticket to glory, it is an invitation to grow and develop towards the only end game in town.

In the writings of the church fathers, this could take place both before death and after death. In other words, death and the promise of immortality are not a mere open or shut gate but a continuation of a pathway; we are growing in this life, and we will also grow in the life of the age to come. Furthermore, our growth and trajectory in this life continues into the life of the age, and deeply affects our journey in the life of the age. If we reject our opportunity to grow in this era, we won’t be cast aside but we will travel a hard path in the age to come. There is judgment to be faced—and this judgment will include the believers in this life—but this judgment, like all fires in the Bible, will be for the purpose of purifying us not punishing us.

This leaves Christians with a very sobering and plausible warning to declare over human life and activity in this era. It boils down to no more than this: nobody gets away with evil, neglect, complacency, selfishness, cruelty, greed, or oppression in this life. Not Assad, not the cruel rulers of Sudan, not the despots who pillage their countries for personal gain—and not you and me. Thankfully, we have a God from whom nothing is hidden, and whose judgments are utterly pure and uncompromising. This means we need to take life seriously and weigh our actions in the light of this eternal rectitude.

But the Christian view of judgment goes one step further. The true success of any punishment system is not to crush a wrongdoer but to reform them so they choose to live godly lives. The mechanism for enabling this epic transformation remains the same as it has always been in the Christian gospel; the death of the God-man, Jesus and his subsequent resurrection from the dead—a resurrection which means not just our salvation but the death of death.

Robin Parry, Talk, Transcript

Where did universalism originally come from?—Robin Parry

Patristics is the study of the early church fathers, not in the very first century—strictly speaking, that’s the earliest church—but normally patristic scholars look from the second century (although they’re interested in the first) up to the ninth century. It’s particularly what the early church fathers taught, what the church was like, etc.

In particular, the debate has been looking at these leaders in the early church. “Gosh, some of them actually were Universalists!” Everyone knew that Origen was and so Origen tended to have a bad rap. He was generally looked down on—including by patristic scholars because they just inherited that way of looking at him—but as people began to study the text more, there’s been a real revival in Origen’s reputation. In the church too, I mean, the past few popes have really loved him—”He’s a dude!” There’s been a lot of work that has been sort of trying to revive his reputation. 

There are lots of debates about Origen and you’d really want to ask Ilaria Ramelli about this because she is like a super expert on Origen—she’s a super expert on everything, it just blows your mind. There are lots and lots of things people say that Origen said that arguably he probably didn’t say. In fact, oftentimes he said the opposite of what people say he said. So there are ongoing debates about how you interpret specific church fathers and what they taught. This debate has been growing with Ilaria’s work. She’s arguing that lots more church fathers were universalists—or at least had inclinations that way—than people have often thought. I think there’s a growing consensus or trajectory within patristic studies that would go in that direction. There are still questions about, “Well, this guy, it’s not so clear—Ilaria thinks he was, so-and-so thinks he wasn’t.” You get these debates about those kinds of things.

Another debate—and this is one that has revived again very recently—is, “What are the origins of Apokatastasis?” Apokatastasis is just the Greek word that is usually used when we talk about patristic universalism—it’s just to do with the restoration of all things at the end—the final restoration. I just used the word now because that’s the word the patristic folks tend to use—I’m talking about universalism.

One of the issues is, granted that Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and so on, were universalists—or believed in the Apokatastasis—where did they get that idea from? One school of thought is, “Actually, it’s a pagan idea. Maybe it originates in Gnosticism and they kind of gullibly imported it into Christianity and baptized it?” In effect, infected the theology of the Church with this alien idea that didn’t really belong within the Christian theological world. Those on the other side, like Ilaria, argue, “No, that’s ridiculous! In fact, the very first universalists were Christians. Gnostic universalism was a very different kind of ‘universalism’, it wasn’t even universalism proper as not everybody got saved in Gnostic universalism.” Also, Origen was ferociously opposed to Gnostics, he thought they were really terrible and dodgy theological characters.

Origen got his ideas, Ilaria argues, from Scripture. Scripture was really important for Origen, he was a massive scriptural commentator, he wrote masses and masses of stuff on the Bible, he was perhaps the most erudite scholar of the early church—perhaps even more than Augustine, who was a super amazing scholar. So she says he gets it from the Bible. He also gets it from various strands of Christian tradition that precedes him. He draws on Irenaeus a lot. Origen systematizes key ideas in Irenaeus—very Christian ideas—and developed them in ways that go in Apokatastasis.

Also, a very interesting tradition (that you find in lots of 2nd and 3rd-century Christian texts within proto-Orthodox Christian circles—churches that later developed into what we now know as Orthodoxy) where the Saints are praying for those in the lake of fire. Jesus’s invitation in some cases is to pray for those in the lake of fire and Jesus draws them out of the lake of fire. So this idea that the lake of fire or death is the point of no return once you died—”You can’t change your destiny”—wasn’t at all clear to a lot of Christians in the early church. It wasn’t incomprehensible or nonsensical to them to imagine somebody going into the lake fire and coming out of it. Origen takes these kinds of traditions and synthesizes them into his more systematic account of universalism or Apokatastasis. This is then passed down in that tradition through many fathers, including she argues—and I’m persuaded—Athanasius, who was a really important guy in terms of who was Jesus, Christology, Jesus’s divinity, and so on. 

Above is my transcript—edited for readability—of an excerpt from the video below (for more transcripts see Robin’s Hope & Hell videos).

Prof. Dr Ilaria Ramelli, Sacred Heart Major Seminary
Reasons For Reforming, Transcript

Sarris & Rankin Debate—Will Hell Eventually Be Abolished? part 1

Below is my transcript of George Sarris‘ 15-minute presentation in the above video of the Mars Hill Forum debate titled, “Will Hell Eventually Be Abolished?”

Host: The format for tonight’s forum is each of the speakers will present for 15 minutes, then they’ll have a discussion between two of them for about 20, we’ll take an offering at that point and after that, we’ll have Q&A for half hour or so. So that’s the form and we’re going to start with George Sarris.

George Sarris: I want to start by asking you three questions.

First question is: how much are you worth? And I don’t mean that in a financial sense like how much is your net worth, I mean how much are you worth as a person? How much are you worth to those who love you? How much are you worth to God who created you?

Second question is: I want you to think of some people that you know and love, how much are they worth? Again not in a financial sense but how much are they worth as a person? How much are they worth to those who love them and how much are they worth to God who created them?

The third question: I want you to think of some people you don’t like, or some people that may have hurt you, or whose lifestyles you don’t approve of. How much are they worth? Again how much are they worth—maybe not to you but to others who love them and everyone is loved by someone—how much are they worth to God who created them?

The basic message of my book is that in God’s eyes you and every one of them is priceless. The question John and I are discussing tonight is “Will hell eventually be abolished?” So it would seem appropriate to begin by asking what is hell? That word has been defined in different ways down through the centuries: from a place of literal fire; to a kingdom of darkness ruled by the devil and his demons; to what is the most common definition today: separation from God.

But for most people holding to the traditional view of Hell, two components are primary: First, hell is a place or condition of conscious misery and second that misery will never ever, ever, ever, ever end! I said that a little dramatically because in my experience most people—Christians today—have never really thought through the implications of what they say they believe. Punishment for sin is not the issue. We see sin punished all the time in this life and God has made it clear that there is punishment in the age (or ages) to come. But punishment that never ends is a completely different matter. It brings to mind cruel tyrants who torture their subjects who don’t do their bidding. Endless conscious misery is the most horrific thing you can possibly imagine and if you really believed it was true, you would be weeping almost every moment of every day over the fate of those who are lost and especially those you know personally.

I wrote my book to show that that understanding of Hell was not the teaching of the early Church, it is not the teaching of the Bible, and is contrary to what the scriptures reveal about the nature and character of God. What the early Church believed is important because they were closest to Jesus and the Apostles, they read the New Testament in their native tongue, they had the greatest impact on the surrounding culture of any time in history, and they established the faith that we now profess. They were the ones who wrote the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed to explain clearly what true Christians believed. They were the ones who formulated the doctrines of the divinity of Christ and the Trinity. And they were the ones who set up or who put together the 27 books that we call the New Testament. During the first 500 years after Christ, the dominant view within the leadership and laity of the church was that God will ultimately restore all of his creation.

Clement of Alexandria was one—born around AD 150. For him to believe that God was unable to save all was unthinkable because that would mean God is weak. To believe that God is unwilling was also unthinkable because that would mean that God is not good. For Clement, God is the Lord of the universe who will ultimately bring about the salvation of the universe.

Another leader in the early Church was Gregory of Nyssa. Gregory added the phrase, “I believe in the life of the world to come”, to the Nicene Creed, and is still revered as one of the greatest of the early Church fathers. Gregory explained that in due course evil will pass away into non-existence, it will disappear utterly from the realm of existence. Divine and uncompounded goodness will encompass within itself every rational creature—no single being created by God will fail to achieve the kingdom of God.

Even Saint Augustine—the most influential supporter of endless punishment in the early Church—acknowledged that in his day some, indeed “very many”, deplore the notion of the eternal punishment of the damned and their interminable and perpetual misery. Conscious suffering that never ends was not the teaching of the early Church.

And it’s also not the teaching of Scripture, even though most people today think it is. Four different words in the Bible have been translated to the English word “hell”: Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, and Tartarus.

Gehenna is the one most commonly translated that way in modern versions. Gehenna was well known during the time of Jesus as a specific location near Jerusalem that had been associated with child sacrifice in the past and was then most likely used as the common dump of the city. It was a place people could actually visit. And it spoke to Jesus and his listeners of repulsion, shame, and horrible death—instead of experiencing honor like their ancestors whose bodies were treated reverently when they died, those cast into Gehenna would experience the immense dishonor associated with those whose bodies had been thrown out into a dump to become an object of scorn for the masses. In an honor-shame culture like that in the ancient, and even modern Near East, that would be a fate worse than death. Gehenna didn’t mean punishment beyond the grave—endless punishment—in the Old Testament, during the time of Jesus, it didn’t mean that in the literature outside of the Bible, and it didn’t mean that for Jesus and the Apostles in the New Testament.

The passage most often used as the clearest statement in the entire Bible that punishment in hell is endless is Matthew 25:46. In that verse, Jesus himself says that the wicked will go away to “eternal punishment” but the righteous to “eternal life”.

The first thing to point out in that passage is that the word translated “eternal”, doesn’t mean “never-ending”. It actually means “the end is not known”. It refers to a period of time longer or shorter, past or future, the boundaries of which are concealed, obscure, unseen, or unknown. For example, numerous times the Septuagint—the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament that Jesus and the Apostles used—the same adjective in this verse, “eternal”, is used to describe the statutes governing the sacrifices and offerings made by the priests. They were said to be “eternal statutes” but they didn’t last forever, and were never intended to last forever. The Old Testament sacrificial system was designed to be replaced one day by the new covenant in Christ. In Micah chapter 4 verse 5 (and 17 other places in the Septuagint), the phrase “forever and ever” literally means “to the age and beyond”.

The second thing to note is that when the same adjective is used twice in the same sentence it does not necessarily mean the same thing each time. For example, if an NBA basketball player we’re standing in front of one World Trade Center in New York City, you could honestly say, “a tall man is standing in front of a tall building,” but no one would think you thought that the man in the building were the same size! The adjective tall derives its meaning from what it refers to. In the first instance to a man, in the second to a building. In Matthew 25:46, the adjective that Jesus used [aionios] “eternal” refers to two completely different things: life and punishment. Eternal life is the divine life that comes from God—that life never ends. Eternal punishment is the divine punishment that comes from his hand—the duration of that divine punishment may certainly be temporary, lasting as long as it’s necessary until it accomplishes its purpose. The verse should be translated, “the wicked shall go away to the punishment in the age to come and the righteous to the life in the age to come”.

So what does the Bible actually teach about the salvation of mankind? We’ve been so accustomed to thinking that only a few will ultimately be saved that we often completely overlook the message that is at the heart of Christianity. Jesus Christ is the savior of the world not just the savior of part of the world. The angel who appeared to the shepherds on the night of Jesus birth did not say, “I bring you good news of great joy there will be for some of the people,” he just said, “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” When speaking to the crowd after his triumphal entry, Jesus said, “when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all people to myself.” In Romans, Paul said, “as in Adam all die so in Christ all will be made alive.” The Apostle John told his readers that, “Christ is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” The message at the heart of Christianity is that Jesus Christ came to redeem all mankind. Endless conscious suffering in Hell was not the teaching of the early Church, it’s not the teaching of Scripture, and it’s also contrary to what scripture reveals about the nature and character of God.

It’s not uncommon to see a bumper sticker on a car or graffiti on a wall that says, “God loves you”. They’re so common that it’s almost become a cliche but is it true? Does God really love you? The religious leaders of Jesus day didn’t think so. They thought God only loved people like them. So Jesus told them three parables to show them God’s heart. The Good Shepherd is not satisfied with the restoration of 99 percent of what is his, he seeks until he finds the one lost sheep. The woman with ten silver coins is not satisfied with 90 percent of her wealth, she searches until she finds the lost coin. The prodigal son’s father waited until his son returned after completely messing up his life. He welcomed him joyfully and his son was restored. “God is not willing that any should perish but desires that all will come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Scripture says there is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord. No plan of his can be thwarted—nothing is impossible with God. What Scripture reveals about God that his love is unconditional, his power is irresistible, and he never gives up.

Let me close by making a few observations about free will, since that’s a major focus of John’s position. Only God has absolute free will, only he is free to accomplish all that he desires. He gives each person some free will but always within limits and in the context of his absolute free will. For example, none of us was given the freedom to choose when we were born, where we were born, who our parents would be, what our physical stature or mental capacities would be, whether we’re male or female, or even when and how we will die. We have no control over many of the factors that directly impact the situation and decisions that we make every day. Joseph didn’t choose to be made second-in-command in Egypt, God arranged the circumstances for that to happen. Jonah ran away from God but God’s will prevailed and Jonah found himself in Nineveh proclaiming the message that God had given him. Scripture is clear when it says, “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, he directs it like a watercourse wherever he wishes. The mind of man plans his way but the Lord directs his steps. Many are the plans in a person’s heart but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” God is not helpless in the face of mankind’s free will. God specifically said that “he desires that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” God specifically said that “one day every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will freely and joyfully confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” Will hell eventually be abolished? Yes, it will. When all is said and done, all those who were created by God will walk through Heaven’s doors and “God will be all in all” after “the restoration of all things” the final word will once again be, “God saw all that he had made and it was very good!”

Thank you.

God willing, I’ll get an opportunity to transcribe the rest of the debate over the next week or so…

Highlights, Questions, Transcript

What is God like?

My transcript of the above:

Eric: Hey there folks. This is The Eric Metaxas Show. Chris Himes we’ve got something very special for our listeners today.

Chris: Ah, do we?

Eric: Yeah, we do. What the heck, this is Hell Week on The Eric Metaxas Show. People don’t realize that this is what we like to call Hell Week on the show because we’re serious Christians; we take the concept of Hell very seriously.

Chris: Sure.

Eric: But the question is, “What about it?” George Sarris, welcome on the program.

George: Thank you very much, it’s a delight to be here!

Eric: George I’ve known you for a long time and the reason we’re having you on today is first of all because I’ve known you for a long time—you have a lot of credibility with me. The book you have written (it just came out) is titled Heaven’s Doors and then the subtitle is Wider than you ever believed. I read the book and I was very impressed with the way you dealt with this. I want to ask you your story. How in the heck did you come to write an entire book on the subject of hell?

George: Yeah, that’s a very good question. I guess my life really got transformed in 1969. I was a junior in college, back then, during the height of the Vietnam war era and God touched my heart—transformed it. And I was really excited about this great God who I heard about and so I ended up going on Campus Crusade for Christ staff for four years after that. And then I went to seminary—wanted to be an educated layman.

George Sarris
George Sarris (Photo: HeavensDoor.net)

And so anyway, I went to seminary but there was an issue that bothered me, “Why would an all-powerful, all-wise, all-loving God, either cause (if you’re a Calvinist) or allow (if you’re an Arminian) billions of people to suffer consciously forever??” It just didn’t seem to make sense to me. So I decided to use that topic as an issue for a research paper and what I discovered was absolutely shocking to me! During the first five centuries of the Christian Church the dominant view was that God was ultimately going to restore all of creation.

Eric: Now, I’d never even heard that until I read your book!

George: There were basically six centers of Christianity back then: two of them (Alexandria and Caesarea) followed the teachings of Origen and they favored Ultimate Restoration; two of them (Antioch and Edessa) followed the teachings of Theodore of Mopsuestia—who most people have never heard of.

Eric: Gesundheit.

George: Thank you very much. One (which was Asia Minor) followed Irenaeus and he believed in Annihilation, and then only one (northern Africa) followed the teachings of Tertullian and Augustine.

So the dominant view was really that God is going to ultimately restore all creation.

Eric: So Tertullian and Augustine believed in conscious eternal punishment?

George: That is correct.

Eric: Okay, so they did but Irenaeus did not.

George: That is correct.

Eric: And Origen did not.

George: That is correct.

Eric: Okay.

George: Nor did Gregory of Nyssa. Gregory of Nyssa was a major person. In fact, when the Nicene Creed was finalized, he actually added the phrase, “I believe in the life of the age to come” to the Nicene Creed. And he was probably the strongest supporter of Ultimate Restoration of any of the Early Church Fathers.

Well I wrote a paper (got an a-minus in the paper) in my seminary. I kept it as a private hope for a long time because nobody thought this is gonna work. And then in 2007 decided to look a little more carefully into the issue. I knew at some point that I’d have to do that and, as I did, I ended up writing the book. And it was just exciting to me because I had a look into all those issues. What about the the phrase of Jesus where he says to Judas that, “it would be better if you had never been born”? I mean how’s that fit into this whole idea of Ultimate Restoration? How about repentance is impossible? Or in Hebrews, “it’s impossible for someone who has once known God to then be returned.” So I had to deal with all those various issues.

Eric: So these are scriptures that people who don’t believe in your view would use to say, “how can you possibly get around the scripture?” and since you believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, you had to deal with that.

George: That’s correct. And I became convinced that scripture actually teaches that God is ultimately going to restore all of creation. That was what was an amazing thing to me—that God is not this weak individual. If you’re an Arminian, God is weak—he wishes that he could save everybody but, “son of a gun, I just can’t!”—or he is cruel, if you’re a Calvinist, it’s because God could have saved all but he chose only to save some.

So I thought, I don’t see God as being cruel, I don’t see him as being weak. I see him as being all-powerful, all-loving, all-wise. Why could he not accomplish what he set out to do?

Eric: Ok, now the people who take the Armenian or the Calvinist view, they would never say he’s weak and they would never say he’s cruel. Just to be clear, they would put it differently but I think your average person thinks that and says, “I don’t get this.”