Every sensitive person, facing the question of human destiny, must surely long to be a universalist. No one could desire to see another person brought to the end of all existence, whether at death, as conditional immortality teaches, or by the judgment of God after death, as annihilationism teaches; no one could wish to think of the bitter pains of eternal death consciously and eternally endured by sinners, as traditional orthodoxy insists. Hence, the tremendous human attractiveness of a belief which assures eternal life and bliss to every soul of man!
However, sentiment cannot be exalted into a theological norm, and when one sees the extent to which universalist writings lean upon analogies of human love, one realizes that there is at least a danger of the wish being father to the thought. For the truth is that man as such possesses no yardstick whereby to measure eternal issues. We do not know by instinct what the love of God is like, and therefore we need to beware of the human analogy; we certainly do not know for ourselves what the holiness of God is like, and therefore we must beware of giving much weight to what sinners think of the seriousness of sin. Only God can say what precisely are the facts, and what are their implications. We must rigidly adhere to the principle: “To the law and to the testimony!” What has the God of truth written for out learning?
Old Testament. The Old Testament insists on the fact of human survival of death. This is asserted as true of godly and ungodly alike. The life in Sheol, the place of the departed, is the expectation of the patriarch Jacob (Gen. 42:38) and of King David (2 Sam. 12:23); equally it is the lot of the heathen king of Babylon (Isa. 14:9) and of “the multitude of Egypt” (Ezek. 32:18 ff.). All alike die, and all alike take up their abode in Sheol.
A most important observation follows. It is widely urged by advocates of conditional immortality and of annihilation that death may be defined as “the loss of life or existence” (H. Constable, The Duration and Nature of Future Punishment, p. 16). Man is not possessed of an immortal soul; this is only the possession of some, on condition of faith in Christ; for the rest, death is the end. The slight modification of this statement made by adherents of annihilationism—that the soul survives bodily death until it is extinguished by act of God in judgment—is unimportant at the moment. The question is: May we define death as “loss of life”? Clearly not! The Old Testament shows us that death is rather to be seen as an alteration of place, from earth to Sheol, and of state, from the body-soul unity of life on earth to the separate life of the soul in Sheol. Death is defined by God himself as “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Gen. 3:19), but by virtue of creation man is more than dust (Gen. 2:7). Consequently the correct balance is set forth in Ecclesiastes (12:7): “Then shall the dust return to the earth … and the spirit … to God.…” This meaning of death seems to stand firm throughout the Bible.
The life of the soul in Sheol is revealed as continuous with the present life in terms of character and personality. David expects to meet his lost child and to know him (2 Sam. 12:23); Samuel, recalled from the grave, is recognizably the Samuel who was known on earth (1 Sam. 28:11 ff.); and Job (19:25–27) and the Psalmist (49:15) expected personal survival of death.
This at once leads us to ask if the Old Testament recognizes and provides for distinctions of moral character in the world to come. Only the beginnings of such teaching are to be found. Certainly, in the case of the wicked, there is only the hint of adverse lot after death. There are, for example, certain passages which associate Sheol rather specifically with notable wickedness of life (Ps. 9:7; Prov. 5:5; Ps. 88:7–12; Job 31:12). In the same way, whereas the threat to the wicked (Ezek. 3:18) that he shall die in his iniquity may only mean that his iniquity will speedily terminate his life on earth, the general tone of the context rather suggests that there is a special doom awaiting a man who dies unrepentant. Daniel 12:2 is explicit.
The teaching on the reward of the righteous is rather more prominently stated. Of the passages which relate to this point (e.g., Isa. 25:8; 26:19; Prov. 14:32; Dan. 12:2; Ps. 16:8 ff.; 17:14 f.; 49:14, 15), Psalm 73:23, 24 is undoubtedly preeminent. The problem of this psalm is the familiar one of the prosperity of the godless and the suffering of the godly. The psalmist’s solution is this: that at every point of life and in all circumstances, the man who has God is richer than the man without God. In the verses mentioned the godly man counts his wealth: for the present, he has the assurance that God is with him, and will not let him go (v. 23); and as he looks ahead, he sees a life ordered by divine providence (24a), and “afterward” entrance upon “glory.” The verb “receive” is also found in Psalm 49:15 and in Genesis 5:24; it is virtually a technical term for the divine act of glorification of the saints.
New Testament. As soon as we set foot in the New Testament we find a plain declaration of the bliss of the people of God and the condemnation of the unsaved. Without prejudice to the task of exegesis, surely the Lord Jesus illuminated immortality when he said, “These shall go away into eternal punishment: but the righteous into eternal life” (Matt. 25:46). Along with the clear assertion of opposite eternal destinies, the New Testament is adamant that death, the termination of life on earth, is the end of man’s probationary period. As a man dies, so his eternal destiny is decided. The Lord Jesus Christ is once more our teacher in this matter, for in his story of the rich man and Lazarus he laid particular stress on the fixity of the great gulf, and the impossibility of reversing that situation which death initiated (Luke 16:26; cf. Heb. 9:27; Rev. 20:12).
What, then, does the New Testament teach about those who die without Christ? It is useful to notice first the emphasis placed on the absolute justice of the judgment which God will pass on such. Revelation 20:12 ff. tells us that it is a judgment based on exact evidence: there is not only the “book of life,” there is also the book of human works. Often the judgment throne of God is wrongly construed at this point. It is fancied that before God’s throne those who formerly rejected God, actively or passively, will meantime have undergone a change of mind, will see the error of their ways, and desire to repent and be saved, yet be cut off from all hope. A picture containing all the poignancy of helpless anguish is thus conjured up. But Scripture in fact insists on a very different picture: that of the dead appearing before God in exactly the character of God-denying, Christ-rejecting sin which they evidenced on earth. The rich man in the Lord’s story bore in hell the same personal marks as he did in life: desire for sensual gratification, subjection of the welfare of others to his personal whim, absence of any regard for the law of God.
The judgment which God passes is in its quality “eternal” (Matt. 25:46; 2 Thess. 1:9; Rev. 20:10), and in its form “fire” (Matt. 25:41; Rev. 20:14, 15), “punishment” (Matt. 25:46), “destruction” (2 Thess. 1:9), and “the second death” (Rev. 20:14). It would seem unavoidable that the word “eternal” rules out universalism. It answers to the “great gulf fixed” in the story. While every sympathy flows like a tide towards the goal the universalist is trying to reach, he is none the less impotent against the stark assertion that the judgment passed by God initiates an eternal state of affairs. Neither of the two positions adopted by universalists effects anything at this point. They may oppose Scripture to Scripture, urging that in 1 Corinthians 15:28 the hope is held out that “God may be all in all,” and that this cannot be so if some of God’s creatures are eternally alienated from him. Or, additionally, they may urge that if any are eternally lost, the divine love is deprived of its object and is not almighty. But this is all unbiblical thinking. In the first place, in the Corinthians passage, the “all” who die “in Adam,” and the “all” who are made alive “in Christ” are not identical, and therefore the interpretation of the total exaltation of God is wrongly made out. Secondly, the Bible teaches holiness as the essential characteristic of God, and displays the truth which, possessing only a sinner’s defective notion of holiness, we find unpalatable: that God is glorified in judgment (e.g., Ezek. 10:4; Isa. 2:10; and so on). Thirdly, as against the assertion that omnipotent love guarantees the salvation of every sinner, and will after death produce such evidence of love as will win the free response of every heart, Scripture asserts that this evidence has already been given and nothing more can be expected (Rom. 5:8; cf. Mark 12:6) and that this love is specifically that which prompted God to save a people he freely and mercifully chose for himself (1 John 4:9–14).
However, accepting that an eternal issue is settled, what is the subsequent state of those condemned? Following the word “eternal,” annihilationists urge the words “death” and “destruction”: the eternal state of the unsaved is to be totally and eternally extinguished or disintegrated so as to cease to be. But firstly, it does not concur with the meaning of “death” already indicated: not annihilation, but alteration. On this meaning, just as death terminated this life but ushered in the life of the separation of body and soul, so “the second death” will terminate that existence and usher in the “lake of fire.” Secondly, it does not concur with the meaning of “destruction” in two of the other three places where the New Testament uses it (1 Cor. 5:5; 1 Thess. 5:3), where it certainly does not mean a final and complete end of conscious existence. Thirdly, such annihilation is not the lot of the devil, who in the lake of fire is “tormented day and night for ever” (Rev. 20:10), and with whom in the same fire, according to the Lord Jesus, the wicked have their portion (Matt. 25:41). Fourthly, annihilation is not necessarily—perhaps not at all—“punishment.” Conceivably the thought would bring nothing but relief to some! And, finally, annihilation is not consistent with the principles enunciated by our Lord himself in the case history of the rich man. It was his lot to know his lost eternity and to experience the pangs of it.
These things are no joy to write, and nothing but a burden to contemplate. Let them urge us on in the task of proclaiming the saving word, and all the more when we appreciate afresh the glories which God has reserved for those who love him (1 Cor. 2:9). “The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection” (Westminster Shorter Catechisim), wherein “the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:16 f.). Thus, there is the immediate prospect of the believer at death, and the ultimate prospect at the final resurrection. We are taught by the New Testament that death is followed at once by conscious enjoyment of the presence of the Lord. This was the expectation of Paul, to whom to depart and be with Christ was “better by far” (Phil. 1:23), for he would be “at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:6 ff.). It seems innate in these sayings of the apostle that he did not expect any “sleep of the soul” after death. Such was clearly not the experience of Lazarus (Luke 16:23 ff.; cf. Rev. 6:9 f.).
But even this blissful enjoyment of the Lord does not exhaust God’s purposed blessing of his people. The redemption accomplished by the Lord Jesus was total in its efficacy, the redemption of the whole man. Therefore the New Testament holds before us the prospect of “the redemption of the body” (Rom. 8:23; Eph. 1:14), the consummation of glorification, when we shall see Him and be like Him (1 John 3:2).
Glory of the Lamb. As regards the personal element in this life, the life beyond will be marked by continuity and transformation (1 Cor. 15:35 ff.), so that just as Moses and Elijah were recognized on the Mount of Transfiguration (Luke 9:30), in the same way we shall see and know our loved ones. As regards the toils of this life, there is the promise of blessed rest (Rev. 14:13); as regards its deficiencies, clothing (2 Cor. 5:1–2); as regards its trials and uncertainties, provision and security, and for its sorrows, comfort and joy (Rev. 7:14–17); in exchange for the imperfectly realized fellowship of God’s people now, there will be “the church of the firstborn” (Heb. 12:23), with their common testimony to the blood of the Lamb (Rev. 7:9); and, more than all else, there will be no longer the intermittent fellowship of the Lord, blighted by sin and defeat, but, there, the Lamb will be all the glory—sin and Satan, death, sorrow, defeat, and even temptation will be banished—the song of the redeemed will proceed not from faith but from sight, and the brightest jewel will be the word fulfilled, which says: “Forever with the Lord.”
Bibliography: H. Constable, The Duration and Nature of Future Punishment (annihilationism); J. A. T. Robinson, In the End, God (universalism); L. Boettner, Immortality; H. Buis, The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment; L. Morris, The Wages of Sin; The Biblical Doctrine of Judgment; C. Hodge, Systematic Theology; L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology.
Vice-Principal
Clifton Theological College
Bristol, England
