Checkmate For Hell - Part 2: Moves 4-5

This is part of an ongoing series of blog posts, meant to be read in order.  In my last post, I introduced the concept of Universalism, and introduced the concept that I would be defending my position through a series of "chess moves".  I mentioned that I believe I have checkmate in 2 moves, but because a lot of questions would be left, I would use a series of further moves to keep the king in checkmate while I systematically removed the rest of the pieces from the board.  I would highly suggest you read the previous section of this series before reading this one.
 
Preface

In the prior three moves, I laid out a logical defense of Biblical Universalism that can be summarized with the following logic:

1. God is sovereign/omnipotent/in control.  In other words, God gets what God wants.
2. God wants all men to be saved, or to put it in the negative: God doesn't want anyone to perish.
3. Therefore it would be illogical to conclude that a current majority of the world's population, and an even bigger majority of the previous population will end up in eternal conscious torment.  In other words, eventually all men will be saved.

Now what is interesting about this debate is that the first two points are widely taught by large denominations of Christians, by many respected theologians throughout the centuries.  But the logical conclusion has been opposed by a seeming majority of Christians for much of history - this seeming majority can be broken up into two camps. 

One camp, which we shall call Calvinists, readily affirms point number 1, but disagrees with point number 2, and explains away the scripture which would seem to support it by saying that "all" means "people from all nations", or something along those lines.  The problem with this is that it become very difficult to then conclude in God's goodness, or to affirm that - as I John 4:8 and 16 says - God is love.  So then the Calvinists will say "who are you to question God?", or something along those lines.

The other camp, who we will refer to as Arminians, will readily affirm point number 2, but will then minimize God's sovereignty by insisting that man's free will can upset God's plans.  The problem with this is that God then becomes a colossal failure - He becomes a very weak, ineffective God.

So why can't we just logically conclude in point number 3?  Well, we have certain scriptures that the Calvinists and Arminians insist teach that the wicked will end up in eternal conscious torment.  It is with this issue in mind that I now move on to moves 4 and 5.

But first, I'd like my readers to consider the following quote from authors John Kronen and Eric Reitan in "God's Final Victory":

One difficulty with assessing the plain sense of Scripture is this: if anything has authority, it is the plain sense of the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic texts.  Translation involves interpretation.  As such, any attempt to discuss the plain sense of Scripture in modern Christian communities, in which only a few experts have the language skills to access the original texts, is immediately suspect.  Relying on any English translation of the Bible is relying on the authority of a group of experts who can and do disagree, as evidenced by variations among the English translations produced by scholars who were commissioned based on their expertise.

Chess Move #4
My next move is to critically question the translations of certain verses in the Bible that use the English words “forever”, “eternal”, “everlasting”, etc.  One bit of reading material that helped me work through this was a series of articles by a man named John Lilley entitled "Erasing Hell by Francis Chan - Debunked!"  (Edit: It appears that these articles are no longer online, however it appears that the book from which most of the material was excerpted and adapted is available here and here.)  As a disclaimer, I’m not sure I agree with John on all of his conclusions in this set of articles, as I believe that he may be taking some things a little more literally than I now think are intended, but he makes some excellent points in this series, and he is very persuasive.  So I take the following quote from part 2 of that series:

Every time you see the words “eternal/everlasting/forever/forever-and-ever” in your English Bible, it is always – I repeat, always – a blatant mistranslation of the Greek word “eon” or the Hebrew word “olam”.
Hasting's Dictionary of the New Testament (vol. I, p. 542, art. Christ and the Gospels) puts it well when it states that there is no word either in the Hebrew Old Testament or in the Greek New Testament that expresses the abstract idea of eternity.

Corroborating this testimony are other scholars such as Dr. G. Campbell Morgan - called “the prince of expositors” - who wrote in his book “God’s Methods With Man”:

Let me say to Bible students that we must be very careful how to use the word "eternity."  We have fallen into great error in our constant use of that word.  There is NO word in the whole Book of God corresponding with our "eternal," which as commonly used among us, means absolutely without end. 

Additionally, Marvin Vincent, D.D., professor of sacred literature at Union Theological Seminary wrote:

Aion, transliterated aeon, is a period of longer or shorter duration, having a beginning and an end, and complete in itself. Aristotle (peri ouravou, i. 9, 15) said, "The period which includes the whole time of one's life is called the aeon of each one." Hence, it often means the life of a man, as in Homer, where one's life (aion) is said to leave him or to consume away (Il v.685; Od v.160). It is not, however, limited to human life. It signifies any period in the course of the millennium, the mythological period before the beginnings of history. The word has not "a stationary and mechanical value" (De Quincey). It does not mean a period of fixed length for all cases. There are as many aeons as entities, the respective durations of which are fixed by the normal conditions of the several entities. There is one aeon of a human life, another of the life of a nation, another of a crow's life, another of an oak's life. The length of the aeon depends on the subject to which it is attached ... The adjective aionious in like manner carries the idea of time. Neither the noun nor the adjective, in themselves, carry the sense of endless or everlasting. [emphasis mine]

Now you might be inclined to argue with me on that one.  If so, I suggest you do some careful examination.  I have done some research on this subject, and found some lists of the Biblical usages of these words that were pretty convincing. 

But first, I'd like to examine what some ancient lexicographers gave as the meaning of aion.  In John Wesley Hanson's book "The Greek Word Aion-Aionios", he writes:

The oldest lexicographer, Hesychius, (A.D. 400-600,) defines aión thus: "The life of man, the time of life." At this early date no theologian had yet imported into the word the meaning of endless duration. It retained only the sense it had in the classics, and in the Bible.

Theodoret (A.D. 300-400) "Aión is not any existing thing, but an interval denoting time, sometimes infinite when spoken of God, sometimes proportioned to the duration of the creation, and sometimes to the life of man."

John of Damascus (A.D. 750,) says, "1, The life of every man is called aión.  . . .  3, The whole duration or life of this world is called aión. 4, The life after the resurrection is called 'the aión to come.' "

As Hanson demonstrates, it was later on in history, after Theologians had successfully used the word to signify "eternity" that later lexicography included the definition of "eternity".

Now let’s look at a few places of interest in the Old Testament that the word “olam” is used:

• In Genesis 6:4, "olam" is translated as "heroes of old".
• Exodus 21:6 uses "olam" to refer to a servant's lifespan.
• In Numbers 25:13, it says that Aaron and his descendants will have a covenant of lasting priesthood - the original word is "olam".  (Similar usage in Leviticus 25:46)
• Leviticus 24:8 tells of the Mt. Sinai or Mosaic covenant as being an everlasting covenant yet Jeremiah 31:31 prophesies its end with a second and better covenant. Hebrews 8:7-13 reiterates this prophecy as being fulfilled.
• In Jonah 2:6 the translators are actually consistent, translating "olam" as "forever", but as Jonah is actually praying from within the belly of the fish at this point, and is then released after three days, the inaccuracy of this translation shines through.
• There are plenty of other examples, but we’ll stop here for “olam” – if you want to do more research, this link lists a bunch of instances in which the word “olam” is used.

Moving on to the New Testament for a few examples of how “aion” is used:

• In Matthew 12:32, the NIV actually translates "aion" correctly for once, when it says "either in this age or in the age to come."  It would be nonsense to translate it as "either in this forever or in the forever to come" and they knew it.
• In Matthew 13:22, Jesus says that when the seed falls among the thorns, the worries of this life (or literally - of this age) choke out the word.  The same translation method is used in verses 39 and 40, and then again in verse 49.  These are all examples of “aion”, and it wouldn’t make sense to translate it here as “this forever”.
• Matthew 24:3 indicates that the age (a translation of "aion") will end - therefore it does not mean eternal or forever.
• Luke 18:30 speaks of an age to come.  The word translated "age" here is "aion", and there are similar translations to this - for example, Ephesians 2:7 speaks of multiple aions to come.  In fact, I Corinthians 10:11 seems to indicate that all ages (plural of aion) will end.
• In I Corinthians 2:7, it mentions a mystery "that God destined for our glory before time began."  A more literal translation would be "before the eons", because a plural form of "aion" is used here.  If there is a time before the aions, (and there is more than one), then aion cannot mean eternal.
• Galatians 1:4 talks about the present wicked age - the word here is "aion", and it is merely the present, which will pass - therefore it is not eternal.
• In 2 Timothy 1:9, it says that grace was given to us in Jesus before the beginning of time - could be translated as "before the beginning of this age", as once again the word used is a form of "aion".  If there is a time before the aion, then aion cannot mean eternal.
• Hebrews 1:2 is one of the more interesting choices of translations of "aionios".  As you can see, the NIV says "through whom also he made the universe".  This is literally di hou kai epoiesen tous aionios - and Young's Literal Translation has this rendered: "through whom also He did make the ages." If God made the aion, the aion cannot be eternal.

For a more detailed list of all the uses of "aion", look at this link, and for an extensive list of all the uses of "aionios", look here.

It is interesting to note here that in the Septuagint - an ancient translation of the Hebrew Bible into Koine Greek - "aionios" occurs 150 times, and according to the aforementioned Marvin Vincent, four-fifths of those occurrences are of limited duration.  So we should never assume that "aionios" means "eternal" or "forever" without contextual evidence to back the assumption.  Furthermore, as David Burnfield writes in "Patristic Universalism: An Alternative to the Traditional View of Divine Judgment":

Traditional commentators contend that hell is eternal because aion or aionios always means eternal and those who don’t agree must be compromising God’s word. But these same traditional scholars interpret aion as less than eternal in passages such as 1 Chron 16: 34 (“… For His mercy endures forever.” - NKJV) because they believe God’s mercy will not last forever but will end at physical death. In other words, they believe the word aion means eternal when applied to punishment but less than eternal (in this case, the duration of one’s life) when applied to mercy. So by their own admission, aion does not always mean eternal.

To translate a word, scholars have to look at more than just the uses in the Bible - they examine the way it's used in other literature from the same era.  Now, some scholarship has suggested that Plato invented the "aionios" form of "aion", as they have been unable to discover an earlier use of term.  John Wesley Hanson wrote about Plato's use of this word in "Bible Threatenings Explained":

Plato, referrring to certain souls in Hades, describes them as being in “aionian” intoxication.  But that he does not use the word in the sense of endless is evident from the Phaedon, where he says, “It is a very ancient opinion that souls quitting the world, repair to the infernal reigions, and return after that, to live in this world.”  After the “aionian” intoxication is over, they return to earth, which demonstrates that the word was not used by him as meaning endless.

Aristotle uses the word in the same sense.  He says of the earth, “All these things seem to be done for her good, in order to maintain safety during her aionos,” duration, or life.  And still more to the purpose is this quotation concerning God's existence: "Life and 'an aion continuous and eternal, zoe kai aion sunekes kai aidios.'"  Here the word aidios, (eternal) is employed to qualify aion and impart to it what it had not of itself, the sense of eternal.

To add to the point - in John Wesley Hanson's book "The Greek Word Aion-Aionios", he writes of Plato's use of "aionios":

[Plato] speaks of that which is indestructible, (anolethron) and not aiónion. He places the two words in contrast, whereas, had he intended to use aiónion as meaning endless, he would have said indestructible and aiónion.

Once more, Plato quotes four instances of aión, and three of aiónios, and one of diaiónios in a single passage, in contrast with aidios (eternal.) The gods he calls eternal, (aidios) but the soul and the corporeal nature, he says, are aiónios, belonging to time, and "all these," he says, "are part of time."

In the Apostolic Constitutions, a collection of eight treatises which belongs to genre of the Church Orders and is dated between 375 and 380 A.D., it is written: "kai touto humin esto nomimon aionion hos tes suntleias to aionos" - this translates: "And let this be to you an eonian ordinance until the consummation of the eon."  Due to the "consummation of the eon", it appears obvious that "aionion" does not refer to forever and ever without end.

Now, if you are getting nervous at this point, thinking that I am saying that there is no such thing as forever - well, the concept does exist, but is talked about in a different way.  For example, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul talks about our incorruptible bodies - bodies that are not subject to decay and will not die.  Additionally, I Peter 1:3-5 talks about the resurrection through Jesus Christ being an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade.  Also, in I Cor. 9:25, the word aphtharton is used to describe the crowns we will receive, which means "incorruptible" or "imperishable".  This is how we deduce that the life through Christ lasts for eternity.

So the concept does exist.  But the point of this argument is that translators have abused their responsibilities by using the English word "forever" in the "hell" passages, when they should have used "age-long" or something similar. So when you apply this concept to passages that are supposedly talking about eternal conscious torment, you realize that you’ve lost significant ground for your claims – there’s another checkmate for Hell.

Aionian and "Eternal Punishment"
With the context of the translation issues in mind, I would like to explore one of the Hell passages in which I believe "aionian" has been mistranslated. In the "Parable of the Sheep and the Goats" in Matthew 25:31-46, verses 41 and 46 both translate forms of this word into "eternal".   Now I'd like to discuss why in this particular passage there is nothing which necessitates this translation.

Now for many, the translation of this word to "eternal" might make sense to them, since in verse 46 some go into "eternal" punishment, and others go into "eternal life." This would be a balanced system for them. But the first question I would ask in response to this is: is God's mercy equal to His wrath? I would answer "no" to this, as we repeatedly see in the Bible that God's love and mercy endure through the ages (Ps. 106:1; 107:1; 118:1; 138:8; and over and over in Ps. 136), but his anger lasts only a moment (Ps. 30:5, 103:9, Isa. 57:16, Jer. 3:12, Mic. 7:18). This shows that the relationship of God's love to His wrath is not an equal balance, but is specifically shown to be a contrasting relationship where His love vastly outweighs His wrath.

Secondly, it is possible to use a word with multiple meanings more than once in the same sentence and mean different things each time.  For example, as in an example as David Burnfield gives, if I say that in my father's day, it took three days to travel across the country during the day, I have just used the same word in three different ways: to figuratively speak of the age my father lived in, a 24 hour period, and the daylight hours of a 24 hour period.  Along with this point, when Habakkuk 3:6 says that "[t]he ancient hills collapsed. His ways are everlasting", the Septuagint uses the word "aionios" both for "ancient" and "everlasting".  The literal meaning of "aionios" in this passage is "lasting" or "enduring" - as in "through the age" - and the purpose of using "aionios" in both halves of the verse is to show that God endures longer than the hills.  But before we move on, while we're talking about parallel "aionios" structures, note also here the hypocrisy of saying that Matthew 25:31-46 proves hell is eternal because of the use of aionios to describe both life and punishment, but the refusal to acknowledge that "all" might mean the same thing because of the parallels from Paul that I pointed out in the last post.

Thirdly, one must consider that the word paired with "aionian" in Matthew 25:31-46 is "kolasis" - the translation to "punishment" does not really do this word justice, in my mind, because the word is the same word used to describe the pruning of a tree, and connotes correction. Correction has a purpose, and is not an end unto itself. There is another word used to describe inflicting pain merely as an end unto itself - this word is "timora", which means torture. But Jesus did not use the word timora here, he used the word kolasin, which means correction.

I think Aristotle gives us a very good insight into the difference between these two concepts, in his Treatise on Rhetoric:

Now, between punishment (τιμωρια, timora, also translated as "revenge") and correction (κολασις, kolasin) there is a difference; for kolasin is for the sake of the sufferer, but timora for that of the person inflicting it, in order that he may be satiated.

With the above comment in mind, it would make absolutely no sense whatsoever to inflict everlasting correction upon someone - at no point would this person have reached a point of having been corrected.

And finally, I think that we should look to scripture to interpret what, exactly, "eternal life" means to Jesus. And so I turn to another one of Jesus' statements - in John 17:3, Jesus says:

Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

Now in this definition, "eternal life" seems to have nothing to do with the duration of time, but is rather a state of knowing God.  And so it would seem logical to conclude that "age-long kolasis (correction)", being the opposite state, would be the state of not knowing God.  But this is not a hopeless state from which there is no possible return. Many have come from this state into the state of knowing God.  And so I hold out the hope that even those who face aionian kolasis will one day turn to God and know Him.  And I believe this hope is spoken of in numerous places throughout the Bible, such as Job 14:7:

For there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease.

 
But let’s move on to some more “chess moves”:


Chess Move #5
Hell is a mistranslation. Whenever you see the word “hell” in your modern English Bible, it is a translation of one of four different words, none of which indicate the modern conception of an eternal lake of fire where unbelievers will be tormented for all of eternity.  It is interesting to look at charts like this one and see how the number of times "hell" has appeared in the Bible has drastically changed over the years as we've received new translations which were more faithful to the old language.  You see, translators have been using the word "hell" as a translation for the Hebrew word “sheol” and the Greek words “gehenna”, “hades”, and “tartarus”.

Sheol literally means "grave", "pit", or "abode of the dead", and we can easily prove that it is not eternal conscious torment by citing verses such as Psalms 86:13:

For great is your steadfast love toward me;
you have delivered my soul from the depths of sheol.

If one can be delivered from sheol, than it is obviously not eternal.  To really explore this concept fully, we would need to explore how Hebrews conceptualized death – but then I’d be getting ahead of myself, as that is “chess move #6”.  So we’ll save that for later, and move on from sheol.

Next, let's talk about Gehenna.  Gehenna was an actual, physical place in Jerusalem.  Gehenna is an Aramaic transcription of the Hebrew phrase Ge Hinnom, which translates as “Valley of Hinnom”, and there is a rich history behind this valley.  First of all, we find in Jeremiah 7:31-32 that this valley has a reputation as a place where the Canaanites sacrificed their children in fire. Secondly, it has a reputation as Jerusalem’s garbage dump - some accounts of the place say it was filled with stench of garbage and the smoke of burning trash.  Jesus makes references to Gehenna several times, such as in Mark 9:43-48, and it is through these references that we learn that Isaiah’s flowery language and rich metaphors of worms that do not die and a fire that is not quenched are actually referring to this garbage dump, as Jesus quotes Isaiah word for word after mentioning Gehenna.  So when Jesus talks about Gehenna in these passages, he's literally talking about being thrown into the garbage, not a burning lake of fire where poor souls are tormented endlessly.  This is actually a very rich metaphor for judgment – the natural consequences that Jesus was implying Israel would face if they continued down the path of violent revolution towards the empire of Rome.  Jesus was not saying that they would go to a place of eternal conscious torment, but rather that Rome was going to crush Israel!  Fast forward to about A.D. 70 and the Roman destruction of the temple of Jerusalem, and when you read some of the accounts of Josephus, it begins to sound very much like these prophecies of Jesus.

Indeed, in Matthew 24,  Jesus points to the buildings of the temple and tells his disciples that "not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down."  His disciples ask when this will happen in the next verse.  It is important to recognize that this is the setup for verse 34:

Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.

This suggests that Jesus is saying the temple will be destroyed within the next generation - and sure enough, it was destroyed around A.D. 70.  The descriptions that the historian Josephus gives sound very similar to the words of Jesus as well as many of the things John wrote in Revelations:

While the holy house was on fire, everything was plundered that came to hand, and ten thousand of those that were caught were slain…but children, and old men, and profane persons and priests, were all slain in the same manner.
Wars 6:5:271

Yet was this misery itself more than the disorder; for one would have thought the hill itself on which the temple stood was seething hot, as full of fire on every part of it, that the blood was in larger quantity than the fire, and the slain more in number than those who slew them; for the ground did nowhere appear visible for the dead bodies that lay on it; but the soldiers went over heaps of these bodies as they ran upon such as fled from them..
Wars 6:5:275-276

...all this burning came upon Jerusalem…a city that had been liable to so many miseries during the siege that, had it always enjoyed as much happiness from its first foundation, it would have been the envy of the world. Nor did it…deserve such misfortunes, as by producing such a generation of men as were the occasions of this its overthrow.
Wars 6:8:408

For a more in depth analysis of the parallels between Matthew 24 and the accounts of Josephus, take a look at this document.

Jews and "Hell"
The topic of "Sheol" and "Gehenna" brings up an interesting question: what do modern Jews have to say about "Hell"?  Interestingly enough, they don't believe in it!  At least, not in the sense that the average "Christian" does.  Here's Rabbi Aron Moss on the topic:

We do believe in a type of Hell, but not the one found in cartoons and joke books. Hell is not a punishment in the conventional sense; it is, in fact, the expression of a great kindness.

The Jewish mystics described a spiritual place called “Gehinnom.” This is usually translated as “Hell,” but a better translation would be “the Supernal Washing Machine.” Because that’s exactly how it works. The way our soul is cleansed in Gehinnom is similar to the way our clothes are cleansed in a washing machine.

Put yourself in your socks’ shoes, so to speak. If you were to be thrown into boiling hot water and flung around for half an hour, you might start to feel that someone doesn’t like you. However, the fact is that it is only after going through a wash cycle that the socks can be worn again.

We don’t put our socks in the washing machine to punish them. We put them through what seems like a rough and painful procedure only to make them clean and wearable again. The intense heat of the water loosens the dirt, and the force of being swirled around shakes it off completely. Far from hurting your socks, you are doing them a favor by putting them through this process.

So too with the soul. Every act we do in our lifetime leaves an imprint on our soul. The good we do brightens and elevates our soul, and every wrongdoing leaves a stain that needs to be cleansed. If, at the end of our life, we leave this world without fixing the wrongs we have done, our soul is unable to reach its place of rest on high. We must go through a cycle of deep cleansing. Our soul is flung around at an intense spiritual heat to rid it of any residue it may have gathered, and to prepare it for entry into Heaven.

Of course, this whole process can be avoided. If we truly regret the wrong we have done and make amends with the people we have hurt, we can leave this world with “clean socks.”

That’s why our Sages said, “Repent one day before you die.” And what should you do if you don’t know which day that will be? Repent today.

Rabbi Yisroel Cotlar gives a similar definition: 

Yes, Judaism believes in punishment and reward in the afterlife. But in Judaism:

Hell is temporary -- not permanent.

Hell is a therapy -- not an imprisonment.

Hell is a consequence -- not a punishment.

Hell is a washing machine -- not a furnace.

More details here.

You can find two more Rabbis talking about Hell here - in summary:
Rabbi Naftali Brawer says:

There is a key argument in the Talmud regarding the length of sentence in Gehinom for sinners and the widely accepted view is that with rare exception the longest sentence does not exceed twelve months. In this sense Gehinom is more like purgatory than eternal damnation.

And Rabbi Jonathan Romain says:

You are right: the idea of a person suffering in agony forever does not sit easily with the notion of a loving God. You will be pleased to know, therefore, that the Jewish concept is very different. For a start, whereas Christianity has a clear road-map of the hereafter, with signposts to heaven and hell, and stopping off points in limbo and perdition, Judaism is much more cautious about what happens next.

To be blunt, we do not know, and those who claim to know are, at best, speculating and, at worst, deliberately misleading. Instead, Jewish teaching has always tried to emphasise the importance of this world. We will find out about the world-to-come in due course, but in the meantime should concentrate on the here and now.

The fact that Jews by and large do not believe in eternal "Hell" is problematic for a religion that is supposed to be the fulfillment of Judaism.  But let’s move on to the last two words that have been mistranslated as “hell”.

Tartarus is the realm of Hades where the evil are imprisoned, and this word is only used once in the Bible, in 2 Peter 2:4.  And this verse uses tartarus only in reference to evil spirits (probably talking about demons).  One verse that seems to be specifically talking about demons is hardly enough to make a case for eternal conscious torment for nonbelievers.  Furthermore, it appears that Peter may also be talking about tartarus here:

1 Peter 3:18-22
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.  He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.  After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits — to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also — not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God.  It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

Now, if tartarus is eternal conscious torment from which there is no hope of escape, then why would Jesus take on the futile task of preaching to those inside?

Last of all, there is Hades – it should be noted, of interest, that Hades was not actually a Jewish concept.  It was a Greek concept.  So it is first interesting to note that when Jesus talks of Hades, he is using Greek imagery to describe Jewish religion.  When you think of this, it would be of interest to note where what Jesus describes actually clashes with their concepts.  Also, if you want to be faithful to the history of the word “Hades”, you have to note that Greeks believed everyone went there initially, and Tartarus was a lower realm reserved for those who needed to be punished.


Hyperbole
Now I want to explore one of the passages in which Hades appears, but before I do, I want to talk about the concept of hyperbole.  In the book "Good Goats: Healing Our Image of God", Dennis Linn tells a story of a young man who was admitted to a psych ward after he tried to gouge out his own eye, having taken Jesus' commandment in Matthew 5:29 literally.  Most people rightly saw this young man's literal interpretation of the passage as insanity.  But Dennis was stunned when he realized something: what if it were insane to take the second half of the passage literally as well?  Jesus has just employed hyperbole to warn his followers of the dangers of lust - why would we think he was not continuing to use hyperbole when he mentioned their whole bodies being thrown into hell (literally: Gehenna)?

Consider the following analogy: a good father is on a trip with his family.  Not a perfect father (there is only one of those), but a good one, with healthy, well-adjusted children who demonstrate good behavior as a result of good parenting.  As the trip drags on, the noise level from the back seat gets louder and louder, and the parents in the front seat are starting to lose their minds.  Finally, when he reaches the point when he can take it no more, the father yells into the back seat "you kids better be quiet or I'm going to tie you to the roof of the car and you can finish the trip that way!"  Suddenly, the noise level drops - the children are quiet.  Now, did the father literally mean that if the children did not quiet down, he would tie them to the roof of the car?  If this imperfect father did not literally intend to do such a thing, why would we assume that a perfect Heavenly Father - who is described as personifying love in 1 John 4:8 - would cast any one of His beloved into an eternally burning lake of fire, where they would be tormented for ever and ever?

So, with this background for Hades in mind, let’s explore two passages where Hades appears:

In Luke 16:19-31, Jesus tells a very interesting story about a rich man who goes to Hades, and a poor man named Lazarus who goes to Abraham’s bosom.  Naturally, the Hell-sayers would like to throw this one in the face of those of us who wish to dispel the myths about Hell.  But there are some very interesting details in this story.  First, we have to consider Jesus' deliberate usage of the word “Hades” – the Greek underworld.  So one must ask: why would Jesus choose to use a Greek concept in a parable that was meant for Jews?  Also, one should note that in Greek mythology, Heaven (actually “Elysium” in their mythology) and Hades were separate realms altogether – there was no crossing over back and forth, and one could not simply look in a certain direction while in Hades and see and talk to people in Greek Heaven.  However, in the tale Jesus told, the rich man calls out to Abraham and requests that Lazarus be sent to bring him water to cool his tongue.  This is a strange detail to note.  Then, the rich man requests that Abraham send Lazarus to his family to warn them of the place he is in.  So is this story about eternal conscious torment?  Or else, what could it be saying to us?

The answer I am led to believe: Jesus is using satire.  Satire is defined as the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.  Jesus had a way of turning everything upside down.  He turned what people valued upside down, and made character traits that were considered weaknesses (such as humility) into virtues.  In the world in which Jesus was born, Jews were living in the Roman Empire.  Some Jews had begun to merge their traditional beliefs with Greek views – and so there were most likely many Jews in Jesus’ audience who had begun to believe in Greek concepts of the afterlife, including Hades, despite the fact that in the Old Testament there is no such concept.  I have read that Hades had even become a popular belief among the Pharisees of Jesus’ day.  Also, I have noted how Jesus is often criticizing the Pharisees, while placing value on the poor.  I believe that the poor man in the story goes along with the concept of the “poor in spirit”, spoken of in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and the rich man represents a selfish, uncaring Pharisee.  The fact that Jesus purposely uses Hades in this story, but does not stick to the traditional Greek concepts of the place, leads me to believe that this story is a satire. The Pharisees had become conceited about their spiritual piety and had stopped caring about the hurting people around them, while at the same time threatening people who committed their "pet sins" with Hades. Jesus is telling a ridiculous story to illustrate the spiritual emptiness of the Pharisees – not teaching us that Hades is a real place.  Jesus was being the Stephen Colbert of the era, if you will. And in this story, the Pharisees' whole system of ideals has been turned upside down - the one you thought would be in Elysium is in Hades, and the one you thought would be in Hades is in Elysium.

Furthermore, there is nothing in the story - even if it is not satire - that directly refused the possibility of Universalism.  True, the rich man is separated from the bosom of Abraham by a chasm he cannot cross.  But this does not mean he will never be able to cross the chasm.  And it also does not mean that God cannot cross the chasm - and is it not the Christian belief that this is what Jesus has done for all of us?  Perhaps the rich man will "never get out until you have paid the last penny" (Mt. 5:26), but then, Universalism contends, he will be released from his bondage.

And finally, on the concept of Hades, it is interesting the fact that in Revelations 20:14, Hades and death are thrown into the lake of fire, and the lake of fire is then defined as a second death. Nowhere in that passage do we read that there was anyone in Hades before it was thrown into the lake of fire – that would be an assumption.  But it is thrown into that lake along with death.  So it could be said that in the end times, God is going to throw Hell away....

And then after the New Jerusalem is established, we read in Revelations 21:25 that the gates of this city are always open - outsiders are never prevented from entry by the insiders.

The fact that death is also thrown into the fire segues nicely into my next chess move, but I am going to save that for my next post.  So stay tuned for the following chess moves:


Chess move #6: What is the Biblical definition of death?
Chess move #7: How are we "saved"?
Chess move #8: Jesus is our defense attorney and our judge - how can we possibly lose that case?
Chess move #9: No fear.
Chess move #10: Wasn’t Origen a heretic?
Chess move #11: What about the wrathful God of the Old Testament?
Chess move #12: Calvinism is Totally Depraved
Diagrams
Conclusion: Testing the fruits.

Checkmate For Hell - Part 1: Moves 1-3

Hi, my name is Geoff, and I’m a Universalist.  I wasn’t always a Universalist – I grew up believing that a majority of the people in our world would end up in a fiery place of eternal conscious torment, and I believed that this was both Biblical and just.  But events in my life led me to a place where I felt that something was very wrong with “my world”, and this led me to explore the vast territories of truth.  For those of you who are not Universalists, I am willing to bet good money that you have a lot of misconceptions about what exactly Universalism is.  I’m willing to bet that there are some misconceptions you might have about Universalism, as I had some of the following misconceptions before I embraced it myself:

• Maybe you think I’m “throwing out” Hell.  You think that I’ve rejected the very idea of Hell.
• You might think that I’m not balancing God’s love with the fact that He is just – you might accuse me of “throwing out” God’s justice.
• You might think that I am ignoring portions of the Bible – I’m “throwing out” those passages.
• You might think I have no Biblical basis for being a Universalist at all!
• You might ask “if everyone’s going to Heaven, what’s the ‘point’ of being a Christian? In other words, if there’s no eternal hell, then what is the motivation to be good in this life?”

I hope that by the end of this series, all of these misconceptions will have been answered.  And I also hope that I will be able to give you an understanding of why I am passionate about this subject, and why I think it’s so important for our time.

Please note that what I am about to do is not to bring to you a universal definition of Universalism (see what I did there?), but rather to present my own views and defend them.  The steps I am about to outline in defense of my belief are more or less the logical steps I went through as I deconstructed my own beliefs as I explored what Universalism means for me.  I am wary of the label "Univeralism", as I am wary of all labels - Soren Kierkegaard once said that "when you label me, you negate me."  It is because of the misconceptions I outlined above that I am wary of the label, as well as the fact that I am aware that there are other "flavors" of Universalism out there.  I have heard some people use the term "Ultimate Redemptionist" rather than "Universalist", and perhaps this is a better term for what I believe in.  But hopefully, by the end of this series you'll have a better idea yourself.

But before we get into a defense of Universalism (or my definition of it), I would like to outline some burning philosophical questions that arise if one believes in Hell as being eternal conscious torment in a lake of fire.  Questions such as:

• Why would God create billions of precious people, knowing beforehand that most of them would end up burning and screaming forever?
• How can Heaven be Heaven when some of us will know that loved ones are in this place of torment?  The image being along the lines of an eternal party with billions of people in the basement being endlessly tortured throughout – how is it appropriate to party in such a situation, and how can a loving “party master” allow such a thing?
• How can a loving God justify sending billions to Hell when most of them never even had an opportunity to hear the Gospel in the first place, and the Bible clearly states that you must hear the Gospel to be saved?
• How is it just that a good person who has not said the magic incantation…er, I mean, the sinner’s prayer…will go to face eternal conscious torment while a bad person who has said it will not?
• Also, isn't this thought a little odd:

Let's be honest - isn't this kind of like the crazy boyfriend that says "date me, or I will burn down your house while you're sleeping!"

But to delve into these questions, I'm going to approach the argument for Universalism from a logical standpoint, because this is what eventually convinced me.  I'm a computer programmer, so I think in very logical terms, and I remember in school we used to always do this exercise called "be the computer" where our professor would give us some computer code, and he'd ask us "what is the screen going to show at the end?"  And he'd always try to put some trickiness in there to see if he could trip someone up.  So I started to think universalism was a possibility when I started to notice a problem in the "code" of the Bible.

So I'm going to give you a series of "chess moves", but really the way I think of it is that after the first 2 chess moves I have checkmate, logically.  But to give that checkmate some weight I'm going to put some more "checkmates" in there – or perhaps a better way of thinking about it is that after trapping the “king” in check mate, I'm going to keep him there while I systematically remove all the other pieces from the board as well.  I'm not going to go into too much painstaking detail because this could get incredibly long (I started this as an over 50 page document on the subject of the afterlife - 2/3 of which were focused on deconstructing Hell), but there is actually plenty of material out there about Universalism if you're interested.


Chess Move #1
Does God get what God wants?  In other words, is God "sovereign"?  Is he "omnipotent", or "all powerful"?  Jesus said that with God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26), and when I think of how I John 4:8 says that God is love, to me I think that makes it logical to substitute "God" for "love" in I Corinthians 13.  So when this chapter says that love never fails, I think I can logically say that God never fails.  Similarly, Ephesians 1:11 says that God "works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will", and in Job 42:2 we see that Job is confident in God's sovereignty:

I know that you can do all things;
no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

The Psalmist declares (in 135:6) that God does whatever pleases him.  In Romans 11:36, Paul states that "from him [God] and through him and for him are all things."  In Isaiah 14:24-27, the voice of God declares that whatever He has planned or purposed will be done.  And perhaps the strongest case for God's will being "unthwartable" is Daniel 4:35:

All the peoples of the earth
    are regarded as nothing.
He does as he pleases
    with the powers of heaven
    and the peoples of the earth.
No one can hold back his hand
    or say to him: “What have you done?”

Finally, Isaiah 55:11 says that God's word "will not return to [Him] empty, but will accomplish what [He] desires and achieve the purpose for which [He] sent it."  In none of these verses is an exception left open for some other personality's will getting in God's way.  So I'd answer the question "does God get what God wants?" in the affirmative.  To say that God is “sovereign”, or “omnipotent” is actually the prevailing belief of most denominations of Christianity, so I don’t think I’m challenging anything in this move.  But I must point this belief out as it adds a significant amount of weight to my next move.


Chess Move #2
After we’ve established that God gets what God wants because He is “sovereign”, when we are on the topic of Hell, the logical next step would be to ask: what does God want?  Now if you believe in eternal conscious torment for everyone who is not a "Christian", then logically you have to conclude that this is actually what God wants, that is if you answered the first question in the affirmative.  But if that's the conclusion you make, then it becomes very, very difficult to call God "good".  I mean, I really have a very tough time understanding how people can reconcile those two ideas - that God is good and loving, and yet two thirds (if you're optimistic) of the beings He has created are purposed for going into a place of eternal conscious torment in the basement while the rest of us are partying upstairs.  “Oh, don’t listen to all that screaming downstairs – we’re having a party, people!  Here, let’s turn up that music – everyone get your dance on!”  

But is that really what God wants?  Well, what does the Bible say about that?   

I Timothy 2:4 says that God wants all people to be saved, and 2 Peter 3:9 says that God doesn't want anyone to perish but wants everyone to come to repentance.  I believe, logically speaking, you have a checkmate there against eternal conscious torment.

One of the tricks people will use to try to wriggle out of verses like I Timothy 2:4 is to make it seem as if God's desire is like our desire - as if God wishes for something to happen, but if something gets in the way He won't force the issue.  And this might seem like a great point, until you examine the Greek word that is translated "wants" or "desires" in I Timothy 2:4 - the word is "thelo", which is defined in Thayer's Greek lexicon as: "to will, have in mind, intend, to be resolved or determined, to purpose".  This isn't some wishy washy sort of desire - like "well, I wish this would happen, but it's not going to."  This is something God pursues with resolve and determination - with intention.

Now, statistically, if we believe that only people who claim Jesus as their savior will escape the eternal conscious torment of hell, then this means that the majority of the population of the world are going to hell – this implies that God is a colossal failure.  But God is love and love never fails.  Either there is no eternal conscious torment, or the Bible is a liar.   

Now, I used this argument with some friends of mine, but one of them pointed to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and said “well, God didn’t want them to eat the fruit!”  He was implying that God actually doesn’t get what God wants (interestingly enough: my friend was a Calvinist).  If this is the line of reasoning you jump to in reply to my checkmate, then I believe you are answering the wrong question – I believe you are answering the question “does God get what God wants right away.”  This is the wrong question – the question I am really asking could better be stated as “does God get what God wants eventually”, or “does God get what God wants in the end?”  And going back to I Corinthians chapter 13, if God is love, then we know that God does not demand His own way (verse 5), and God is patient (verse 4).  So, keep that in mind while we go back to 2 Peter 3:9:

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. [emphasis mine]

If you look at stories like the story of Adam and Eve and answer my question (“does God get what God wants?”) in the negative, then you are answering the wrong question.  It would be as if you were to stop reading the story of Jonah at the point when he gets on a boat going in the other direction of Ninevah, and demanded that this proved that God doesn't get what God wants.  But I am insisting that if you keep reading, you will find that you must answer the question in the positive.

But we could also go at this problem from the other side - up until now, I've been arguing the positive, that God loves all and wants eventual salvation for all.  But what if we go at the problem from the negative?  Does God desire destruction for the wicked?  For the answer, I give the following three scriptures:

Ezekiel 33:11
As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways!

Lamentations 3:31-33
For no one is cast off by the Lord forever.  Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love.  For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.

Matthew 18:14
In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.

In Genesis 12:3, God speaks his intention to reach the whole world through Israel.  Over and over we read that God is not a God who shows partiality or favoritism (Deut. 10:17, 2 Chron 19:7, Job 39:14, Acts 10:34, Rom. 2:11, Eph. 6:9, I Pet. 1:17).  Jesus also declared the universal scope of his mission (see Mt. 28:18-20, John 12:32, Acts 1:8).

These verses make it pretty clear that God does not wish destruction upon anyone!  Add this to the proposition that God is sovereign, or omnipotent, and what do you get?  The eventual universal redemption of all!

Outlining Problems
Before I move on, I'd like to point out the problems that arise if we reject either "Move #1" or "Move #2".  Because it boils down to one of two options: either God is not willing to save all men, or He is not able to.  If God is not willing to save all men, but God is able to do all things - then this means that God is not good, because God created 2/3's of mankind knowing that they had no hope of salvation and yet God made them for the purpose of torturing them for all eternity.  Such a God is a sadistic monster and is clearly not worthy of being worshiped.  A loving God would not create beings for which there was no hope but eternal torment - so if God is not willing to save all, then God is not loving.  

Consider the way this problem is worded by authors John Kronen and Eric Reitan in "God's Final Victory":

God loves every one of His creatures with a profound and unwavering benevolence; and He wills upon some of these creatures the very worst kind of evil conceivable, and He wills that they suffer it for all eternity, even though it cannot possibly do them any good, since it never culminates in anything but more of the same.

I sincerely hope my readers are able to see the contradiction between the first part of the above statement ("God loves every one of His creatures") and the end ("He wills that they suffer for all eternity").

But the other side has it's own problems - because if God is willing to save all men, but not able to, then we cannot have any confidence in the efficacy of God's will.  If God's will can be thwarted, then how can we say that God is "sovereign"?  Consider the following analogy - the situation is as if a person had the choice between eternal bliss on the one side and thrusting themselves in a fire on the other, and we are saying that after being given this choice repeatedly for all of eternity they still choose to thrust themselves into the fire.  That this would continue for all eternity, and that an infinite God with infinite time and resources would not be able to ever tempt these poor souls into choosing eternal bliss over continual burning seems dubious at best - and even if this were possible, I'd question why God either does not allow them to be consumed by the fire or made them so they wouldn't be in the first place?  

Once again, I turn to John Kronen and Eric Reitan in "God's Final Victory":

That someone created in the divine image, and hence naturally ordered towards the good, should eternally reject the perfect good strikes us as prima facie unlikely, especially if God continues unremittingly to seek the creature's repentance.  Furthermore, that an omnipotent and omniscient God should eternally fail to find a morally legitimate way to transform an unwilling creature's heart strikes us as prima facie dubious.

So one might argue that God does not continue to unremittingly seek repentance - but if this is the case, then we'd be once again back into the world of the problems with confirming God's goodness: why does God give up on His own creatures, and is it good to give up on any being and allow them to face eternal torture?  Do we not have a responsibility to save conscious beings from such a horrible fate?  And if love demands that we save conscious beings from a horrible fate such as this, why doesn't it compel the Eternal Being whose very nature is love (I John 4:8 and 16) to continually strive for the salvation of these beings?

But as we've seen in these first two "chess moves", the Bible implies that God is both willing and able to save all.  As 2 Peter 3:9 says, "God is not willing that any man should perish but that all should come to repentance", therefore God is willing that all should be saved.  And the Bible implies that God is able to save - Hebrews 7:25 says that God "is able to save to the uttermost", 1 Chronicles 29:11 says that God is "sovereign over all the sky and earth" and goes on to say: "You have dominion and exalt yourself as the ruler of all."  Isaiah 46:10 says that God's purpose "will stand" and He "will do all that [He] please[s]"!

Chess Move #3
As I pointed out before, I Timothy 2:4 says that God wants all people to be saved.  But then you might argue "well, what does the word 'all' mean?"  Well, we should always allow scripture to interpret scripture, so let’s look at some other verses that talk about “all” to figure out what scripture means when scripture says “all”.  It's actually interesting once you accept universalism to do a study on "all" and the phrase "the world" and see the many many many times those two show up in the New Testament, and then to realize how we've been trained (dare I say brainwashed?) to read right past those phrases without ever really thinking about the possibility that they actually mean what they say.  Because I grew up being trained to say "oh, those don't really mean ALL as in everyone, they mean 'all believers' and there's going to be believers from every country in the world, and that's why the Bible sometimes says 'the world'."  But does this line of thinking logically make sense?  Or are we allowing our assumptions to shape the way we read scripture, rather than allowing scripture to shape our assumptions?

To answer that question, let me start by asking you this: does a word change meaning to its opposite meaning halfway through a sentence without any contextual clues to show us that it has done so?  In other words, we know that "table" can mean more than one thing - I might say "I'm doing my multiplication table at the kitchen table", and so we know we're talking about two different things there, but we have contextual clues to tell us that, and actually the root meaning of the word, "a flat surface", hasn't really changed.  Well, if a word can change meaning willy nilly without any contextual clues, then it becomes very, very hard to communicate, and if we're going to play by those rules I could probably use them to prove to you that God is a flying spaghetti monster (yeah, that's what "love" means in I John 4:8).  So in order to be able to effectively communicate with each other, we have to have certain rules, one of them being that if we have established a meaning for a word, that word does not change meaning unless there is context around it to indicate that it has done so.  So with this rule in mind, we approach the following verse:

I Cor. 15:22
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

Now in the first half of the verse, it is pretty clear to me that “all” means “every human being who ever lived and whom ever will live.”  I mean, it’s a scientific fact that everyone dies – it’s proven over and over and over again throughout history.  So when we approach this verse, we see that Paul is using a method of communication known as a “simile” – he’s making a comparison between one thing and another in order to prove a point.  He’s saying “just like ‘a’ is true, so ‘b’ is also true in the same sense.”  So when I approach this verse, I think it is logical to say that what Paul is communicating here is that just like every human being who ever lived and ever will live has died or is going to die because we’re “in Adam” (or have inherited his legacy), because of Christ every human being who ever lived and ever will live will be made alive.

This is not the only place where Paul makes the Adam/Christ comparison.  In Romans 5:18-19, Paul makes two similar statements back to back, both stating that all who were effected by Adam's sin will be redeemed by Christ:

Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.  For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

 
And once again in Romans 11:32, Paul states:

For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

I find it very difficult to find any logic in the claims that state that Paul is only talking about "people who believed in this life" in these statements.  If this is his intention, then he is a horrible communicator, because it seems very clear in each of these statements that the very same set he is speaking of in the first half of the sentence is the very same set he is speaking of in the second half.

One problem I'd like to point out with the way some people re-interpret the "second all" in these verses - when we say that yes, every person who ever lived and ever will live dies because of Adam, but not every person who has ever lived and ever will live will be made alive because of Christ, then Adam is more powerful than Christ.  Adam's actions are more effective than Christ's.  Thus, Christ is not God - Adam is.  This is a big problem.  But what I want to say is that in these verses I've just laid out, Paul is saying that the actions of Adam have been completely undone and reversed by the act of Christ, and thus Christ is revealed as being infinitely more powerful than Adam.

But still, there are those who attempt to argue this point further and say “all doesn’t really mean ‘every human being who ever lived or ever will live’”, and they insist that it actually means “all believers”, and then I pull out this card:

I Timothy 4:10
That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.

If “all” doesn’t really mean “all” but is actually a subset of “every human being who ever lived and ever will live” that is limited to “all believers”, then why does Paul then specifically point out a subset of “all” who are “those who believe”?  If the subset and the main set are one and the same, why does Paul call special attention to the subset?  That would make no logical sense whatsoever!  And along those same lines:

I John 2:2
He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

Once again we find that special attention is being paid to a subset – our sins – and then John is saying that this atoning sacrifice applies to a larger set outside of this subset, and that larger set is “the whole world”.   

Before I move on, I'd like to take a quick sidetrack and mention one of the problems with the arguments used as an attempt to justify eternal hell.  To the question of how it would be just for an infinite punishment to serve a finite crime, the argument has been used that it is a finite crime against an infinite being who is infinitely offended.  But if this were true (there are reasons this is questionable, not least of which I will discuss in Chess Move 8), then it would require an atoning sacrifice of infinite worth to fully meet the supposed demands of justice.  And if the atoning sacrifice were of infinite worth, then God could no longer be impelled by the supposed demands of justice to torment any creatures - for if there were a sacrifice of infinite worth, then God could not fail to recognize this infinite worth and fail to apply its worth to any creatures.  God would have to forgive the entire race in light of a sacrifice of infinite worth - otherwise, were he to limit His forgiveness only to those who accepted the sacrifice (and the reasoning which insists that forgiveness is withdrawn if it is not accepted is questionable at best), then he would be failing to attribute to this sacrifice its full worth.  With this reasoning, I John 2:2 would seem to imply that Christ's sacrifice is indeed of infinite worth and does indeed apply to all human beings.

So I think I can logically conclude that when the New Testament says “all” or “the world”, it’s actually talking about “every human being who ever lived and ever will live.”  And once you accept that, it totally changes how you read other verses that talk about “all” or the world, like these (just for a couple quick examples):

Romans 11:32
For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

Titus 2:11-14
For the grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation to all people.  And we are instructed to turn from godless living and sinful pleasures. We should live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness, and devotion to God, while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed.  He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds.

So now that we’ve established what “all” means, I think I can confidently say "check mate...again". 


Perhaps the clearest "universalist passage" is this one:

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

What's interesting about that passage is that Young's Literal Translation renders the phrase in verse 20: "to reconcile the all things to himself...."  And if you look at the context of this passage that was set up in verse 16, you'll see what "the all things" is that Paul is talking about:

For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.

It's harder to come up with a clearer picture of Universalism than that.

But you probably have more questions - I did.  So I have worked out some more "chess moves" which will repeatedly check mate eternal conscious torment, as well as capturing all of Hell's pawns, knights, bishops, rooks, and queen.  But I will save these moves for the next post.  To give you a taste of what is to come:


Chess move #4: Forever?
Chess move #5: Hell is a mistranslation.
Chess move #6: What is the Biblical definition of death?
Chess move #7: How are we "saved"?
Chess move #8: Jesus is our defense attorney and our judge - how can we possibly lose that case?
Chess move #9: No fear.
Chess move #10: Wasn’t Origen a heretic?
Chess move #11: What about the wrathful God of the Old Testament?
Chess move #12: Calvinism is Totally Depraved
Diagrams
Conclusion: Testing the fruits.