This document discusses different perspectives on interpreting passages in the Bible about hell and universal salvation. It acknowledges that the Bible contains threads of both eternal judgment/punishment and universal salvation. It considers options such as viewing these as incompatible, privileging the hell passages, or privileging the universal salvation passages. It also explores principles of interpretation like considering rhetorical context, canonical unfolding over time, and reading parts in light of the whole grand biblical narrative. The document advocates being humble and realizing one's theology is an attempt to thoughtfully draw on the full range of biblical insights rather than repeat any single author.

1. 2. Hermeneutics and Hell
Biblical Interpretation and Universal Salvation
GOSPEL CONVERSATIONS (July 2019)

2. Do universalists
rejecttheBible?
 This is a debate about the interpretation of the Bible,
not the truth of the Bible

3. Do universalists
rejecttheBible?
 This is a debate about the interpretation of the Bible,
not the truth of the Bible

4. Reading theBible
ain’t always
straightforward
 1. It is God’s redemptive purpose for the world (and
therefore his will) to reconcile all sinners to himself
 2. It is within God’s power to achieve his redemptive
purpose for the world
 3. Some sinners will never be reconciled to God, and
God will condemn them to hell for ever

5. TwoThreads
 The Bible has two counter-balancing threads
 Thread 1: judgement, condemnation, and punishment/
destruction/torment (of some/many/most)
 Thread 2: salvation for all
 One issue is how to relate them to one another

6. Thread1:
Eschatological
punishment
 Matt 25:46: “Then they [goats] will go away to eternal
punishment, but the righteous [sheep] to eternal life.”
 Mark 9:47–48: “And if your eye causes you to
stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the
kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and
be thrown into hell, where ‘the worms that eat them do
not die, and the fire is not quenched.’”
 2 Thess 1:9: “They will be punished with everlasting
destruction and shut out from the presence of the
Lord and from the glory of his might . . . .”
 Rev 21:8: “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile,
the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who
practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they
will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning
sulfur. This is the second death.”

7. Thread2:
‘universal
salvation’
 Col 1:1–20: “For God was pleased to have all his
fullness dwell in him [Christ], 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.”
 Rom 5:18–19: “Just as one trespass [Adam’s] resulted
in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous
act [Christ’s] 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.”
 Phil 2:10–11: “. . . that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the
earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ
is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

8. Option A:
TheBibleteaches
incompatible
futurevisions
 Some argue that the Bible teaches both views and that
they do not fit together. What then?
 (i) Some leave it at that
 (ii) Some then opt for one thread and reject the other
 (iii) Some find a way to make a place for both

9. J.A.T.Robinson
IntheEnd,
God…
 Eschatology is a function of our doctrine of God: it is
“the explication of what must be true of the end, both
of history and of the individual, if God is to be the God
of biblical faith.”
 From our perspective, those confronting the gospel face
a real choice with two real destinies: life or destruction
 But from God’s perspective, in the end all will choose
life

10. Option B:
Read‘universal
salvation’ inthe
light of‘hell’
 ‘Traditionalism’: We know what the ‘hell’ passages
mean, so the ‘universalist’ passages cannot mean what
they seem to
 ‘Universalist’ texts are reinterpreted to harmonize
them with ‘hell’ passages

11. Denny Burk
“Eternal
Conscious
Torment”
 Securing the Archimedean point: ten passages that
Burk thinks settle the debate (Isa 66:22–24; Dan 12:2–
3; Matt 18:6–9; 25:31–46; Mark 9:42–48; 2 Thess 1:6–
10; Jude 7, 13; Rev 14:9–11; 20:10, 14–15)

12. Option C:
Read‘hell’ inthe
light of‘universal
salvation’
 Makes the case for universalist interpretations of
‘universal salvation’ passages
 Interprets ‘hell’ passages in the light of them and in
light of other biblical-theological themes (e.g., God’s
holy love, etc.)

13. Elhanan
Winchester
(1751–97)
 We need a way to hold all biblical teachings together,
not “in any way to explain away or weaken, the force of
either the threatenings or promises, set forth in this
wondrous book”
 The promises affirm universal salvation (Eph 1:9–10;
Col 1:19–20; Rev 5:13; Rom 5:18–20, etc.)
 The promises have theological principles underpinning
them
 The ‘hell’ passages do not teach everlasting hell.

14. Rhetoric:
hyperbole
 Don’t ignore rhetoric
 Rhetoric of wrath. Biblical texts can threaten
punishment in very end-of-the-road terms,
only to speak of restoration afterwards

15. Rhetorical
context
 If a speech aims to persuade its audience through
warnings of coming judgment, it may not mitigate that
warning
 The presence or absence of post-destruction hope must
be argued for on other grounds

16. Canonical
Context
 The meanings of texts cannot be limited to authorial
intention but can ‘unfold’ and ‘expand’ in the light of
developing canonical and salvation-historical contexts
 Use of OT in NT. E.g., Isaiah 45 in Philippians 2

17. Canonical
trajectoriesi
 Doctrine of Trinity is not explicitly formulated in the
Bible but develops from following the lines of diverse
biblical teachings to the place where they meet

18. Canonical
trajectoriesii
 Universal salvation as a way of thinking through the
implications of biblical teachings
 Universal salvation as a way of holding together
diverse biblical teachings

19. Canonical
trajectoriesiii
 Questions of hell and universal salvation cannot be
limited to biblical passages about ‘hell’ or ‘universal
salvation’—for the issues are entangled with countless
other biblical ideas.
 Divine love and justice
 Sin and Christ’s defeat of sin
 Human freedom and divine sovereignty

20. TheGrand
Narrative
 The parts of the grand biblical metanarrative need to
be understood in the light of the whole, and the whole
in the light of the parts
 So eschatological punishment needs to find a
narratively intelligible place in the wider ecology of the
story

21. Behumble:
Theseareour
theologies
 When we do theology with the Bible open we are not
simply interested in the theology of Paul or John; often,
we are also looking to craft a theology that draws on
the authoritative insights of the full range of biblical
authors
 Karl Barth: our theological task is not to repeat what
the apostles and prophets said, but to say what we
have to say in light of what the apostles and prophets
said (CD I/2, 16)
 Thus, our Bible-based theologies are our theologies