Presented at Twin Lakes Church, 2015-03-18. Compared to the everlasting/eternal torment view and the annihilation or conditional mortality view. What is God's purpose in creating hell or the the lake of fire.

1. March 18, 2015
Restorationism
(AKA Christian Universalism)
by Frank DeRemer
Prior to Augustine (AD 354-430) Christians held all three views
of hell without condemning each other.
Question:
If you were captain of a ship that arrived at a sinking yacht,
that had your whole family aboard,
how many would you save?

2. I grew up in church.
Not all I heard have I found not to be Biblical:
Salvation is a one-time transaction.
No, relationship, e.g., marriage
Salvation is about “dying and going to heaven”.
No, resurrection, life on a new earth
Salvation is all about me. (benefits to me)
No, God getting his lost sons back, His kingdom
Lost coin, lost sheep, lost son
Salvation is about avoiding hell, gaining heaven.
No NT sermon makes either point

3. Jesus often mentioned avoiding hell
No, only on 4 occasions re GeHenna, not hell:
KJV, others: “gehenna” translated “hell”
Greek “Ge” land or valley; “Henna” Hinnom
“GeHenna” the Valley of Hinnom, AKA “Tophet”
Isaiah, Jeremiah: people offered babies to idols
Dead Jews of Jeremiah’s time  VoH/GeHenna
when Nebuchadnezzar sacked Jerusalem
in 586 BC
Jesus warned Jews of his time of a similar fate
by the Romans -- in AD 70

4. The Biblical timeline:
…creation; fall…
…  …
…now (building His kingdom, rescuing sons)…

heaven, with Jesus, if Jesus is your Lord

…resurrection&rapture; judgment…sentence…
Sentence:
– righteous: new earth
– wicked: punishment (hell: the lake of fire)
This we do know

5. More Bible facts:
OT: no hell, just sheol, the place/state of the dead
NT: rarely hell--hades, the place/state of the dead
Lazarus, rich man pre-resurrection interim, not hell
Paul: with Jesus after death, pre-resurrection
Paul & Revelation say we believers will be
on the new earth after the resurrection
Tartarus once; where fallen angels are now
Hades/Sheol cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14)
so not the same as the lake of fire

6. Hell:
the place of punishment, the lake of fire
after resurrection & rapture then judgment
only mentioned in a handful of places,
in apocalyptic contexts
we are told little
no epistle defines hell
as if God didn’t want to tell us much about it
Who goes there? For what purpose? For how
long?

7. Theologian Thomas Talbot: a logical approach.
Reason not from the details up to God,
putting God in a box,
but from the Bible’s big picture; fit hell into that.
Talbot’s Template –
three statements that cannot all be true:
1. God’s redemptive purpose (His will)
is to reconcile all sinners to Himself.
2. God is sovereignly able
to achieve His redemptive purpose.
3. Some sinners will never be reconciled to God.

8. 1. Arminian theology: Scores of #1 verses - some:
Ps 66:3-4; Ps 22:27,29; Ps 86:9; Isa 45:22-23;
Phil 2:10-11; Ac 3:21;
Rom 5:18; Eph 1:10; Col 1:19-20; Rev 5:13
2. Calvinist theology: Scores of #2 verses - some:
Job 42:2, Eph 1:11, Phil 3:21, Matt 19:25-26
3. A handful of verses seem to support idea #3;
they are in apocalyptic passages
(discussed below)
Remarkably, As & Cs agree on #3
and fight about how
to interpret the many #1 & #2 verses.

9. The restorationist chooses #1 & #2 as true;
the least supported, #3, is suspect.
Therefore, all eventually must be saved, even if
after the judgment and serving their sentence.
God too would save all His family, every last one!
“With God all things are possible”,
“above & beyond anything we may ask or think”.
God is like a great chess master, able to play the
entire human race at once and win.
Win them all over to His great love, even if some
require more than a lifetime to be won.

10. Possible timeline (?):
 righteous: new earth …...……. ∞
sentence …  repent?

wicked: punished 
redemptive
according to their deeds
leading to repentance:
redeemed by the blood
of Christ, as are we all

11. What about the few verses that seem to support
#3,
some sinners never reconciled with God?
Consider the words translated “eternal”:
Hebrew olam and Greek aionios.
Both refer to periods of indefinite length,
including but not limited to infinity.
Both are used of periods known to be finite.
Olam means “beyond the horizon”.
The smoke rising from Sodom was olam.
Aionios means “age enduring” or “lasting”.
Josephus: JtB was in jail aionios, three years.

12. The Parable of the Sheep and Goats:
The Final Judgment (Matt 25:31-46)
Jesus said, (the lake?)
“Depart from me, you cursed, into aionios fire
prepared for the devil and his angels.”
(he didn’t say that it was prepared for people)
See also Rev 19:20, 20:10,14,15.
Difficulty (v46):  age-related?
“and these will go away into aionios punishment,
but the righteous into aionios life.”

God-kind?

13. How could eternal torture be
“according to their works/deeds”, i.e.
proportional?
(many verses, e.g., Rev 20:12-13)
If instead all are tortured forever,
then they all get infinite punishment.
Objection: different degrees –– but 150 * ∞ = ∞
and 1,000 * ∞ = ∞
Justice is never served ––
punishment never ends, sin is always a problem
God’s intended idyllic universe
is always contaminated with unrepentant sinners
The problem of sin is never resolved/finished.
A major problem!

14. Better: God annihilates sinners after a finite time,
but God is still the loser:
Jesus came to save “that that was lost”
(it does not say only some lost)
Jesus’ sacrifice was for “all the world” ––
ineffective if all do not come to Him
(SEAL Team 6 goes for 10, saves 1; success?)
God desires that all come to salvation,
not just some (God’s heart for His kids)
Lost coin, lost sheep, lost son – owner’s loss
God’s desire thwarted if not all come, eventually..
Another major problem!

15. Restorationism
God is brilliant, to wit, creation
He can “play chess” with all humans
simultaneously
God foresaw the fall and the problem of sin
He had a plan for our good future
God’s grace is unfathomable. God is love.
Love never fails/gives up. Love wins in the end.
God’s punishments have a redemptive purpose
The duration: “according to their works”,
and until they finally “see the light”
“Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that
Jesus is Lord, TO THE GLORY OF GOD”

16. Where is it written that God cannot forgive
after judgment & punishment for deeds done?
It is neither stated that He will nor that He will not,
but His desire is for ALL to be saved.
Who set up this system? God.
Would He set up a system in which most of His sons
would be tortured forever? Or annihilated?
Is that consistent with His nature?
God is light. God is love. Love never fails.
God is sometimes angry & meets out vengeance,
but “joy comes in the morning”.
He is not anger or vengeance.
So what kind of system would He set up?

17. William Barclay, conservative evangelical scholar (AD 1907-1978):
“If God was no more than a King or Judge,
then it would be possible to speak of his triumph,
if his enemies were agonizing in hell or
were totally and completely obliterated and wiped out.
But God is not only King and Judge, God is Father ––
he is indeed Father more than anything else.
No father could be happy
while there were members of his family for ever in agony.
No father would count it a triumph
to obliterate the disobedient members of his family.
The only triumph a father can know is
to have all his family back home.
The only victory love can enjoy is the day when
its offer of love is answered by the return of love.
The only possible final triumph is
a universe loved by and in love with God.”

18. The Three Views Compared
• After the resurrection of just & unjust,
unjust are separated to themselves
• ET: Separation from God is forever
• CI: No, finite, per person, per deeds,
then allowed to cease to exist
• UR: Yes, finite, per deeds, but also
redemptive (God wooing each;
each to new earth, no rewards

19. References
Steve Gregg’s book
Hell: God’s final solution to the problem of sin, three Christian views
www.TheNarrowPath.com
lectures, Bible teaching, verse-by-verse & topical,
radio program live & archives, or
listen on KKMC 880 AM or KFIA 710 AM: 2-3 PM each workday
Steve teaches how to think critically about the Bible,
rather than indoctrinating listeners.
“Showing how to think, not what to think – about the Bible.”