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Justice is never satisfied until full
restitution has been paid to all the victims of injustice. It
is bad enough that our civil courts seldom recompense the
victims. But the civil courts ultimately reflect the will of
the people. If the Church had not abandoned God's true
judicial system long ago, the civil courts would not have done
so either. The laws and government of a nation simply reflect
the religious view of its citizens, except in cases where one
nation is occupying another. In the case of the judicial system itself,
how can we expect our judges to establish justice in the
courts, prescribing judgments that are neither too
lenient nor too harsh, when the Church itself prescribes an
infinite and horrible punishment upon all sinners alike,
regardless of the nature of their crime? The courts are merely
reflecting the values of the people. Which is worse, to sentence a man to five
years in prison for theft, or to sentence him to a torture
chamber for all eternity? Civil judges today know that the
punishment should vary, depending on the severity of the
crime. Yet much of the Church is still influenced by the Roman
logic that the purpose of punishment is to deter crime, rather
than to restore justice. With this mindset, it is logical that
if punishments are severe enough, law and order will be
maintained, and the people will be obedient. If they had been students of the divine law,
they would have understood that the purpose of judgment is to
restore the lawful order by restoring the lost property to the
victim, while restoring the sinner to grace and forgiveness.
In Revelation 20:11-15 we are given a
description of the great White Throne Judgment. John says, 11 And I saw a
great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose
presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found
for them. 12 And I saw the
dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and
books were opened; and another book was opened, which is
the book of life; and the dead were judged from the
things which were written in the books, according to their
deeds. Take note that these men are all judged on
the basis of their deeds. We are saved by grace apart
from our works, but when it comes to the judgment, those not
justified by the blood of Jesus Christ are judged according to
their works. God does not just lump everyone together and give
them all the same judgment, as is commonly taught. We will
prove this as we proceed. John continues: 14 And death
and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the
second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if
anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he
was thrown into the lake of fire. At first glance, this
seems to imply that everyone receives the same judgment. But
if this were so, then how could they be judged according to
their deeds? The lake of fire is a general picture of the
process of judgment-NOT a specific judgment in and of itself.
The lake of fire is the fiery law itself, and the law consists
of many different types of judgment, which fit the specific
crime committed. This is made apparent by Daniel's description
of this same White Throne Judgment in Daniel 7:9 and 10. 9 I kept
looking until thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days
took His seat; His vesture was like white
snow, and the hair of His head like pure wool. His throne
was ablaze with flames, its wheels were a
burning fire. 10 A river of
fire was flowing and coming out from before Him; thousands
upon thousands were attending Him, and myriads upon myriads
were standing before Him; the court sat, and the books were
opened. What John called "the lake of fire" in the
book of Revelation, Daniel describes as "a river of
fire." God's Throne itself is pictured as a fire, which
then flows like a river out upon the people standing before
Him. Very few today would describe the lake of fire as Daniel
did! The meaning is quite clear. The river, or
lake of fire is God's justice being administered to the
sinners. What is the nature of that justice? As always, it is
defined by God's Law, for all sin is judged by the Law. A throne is a universal symbol of the
law by which a king rules, or judges. Thus, the "fiery
Law" of Deut. 33:2 is pictured in vision form as a fiery
throne in Daniel 7:9. They are one and the same. Most people would agree that the lake of fire
is indeed God's judgment upon sinners. The real disagreement
comes in defining the nature of that judgment, that is, the
specifics of how it works out in practice. Is it a "literal"
fire? Is it a "spiritual" fire? We believe it is not literal,
but it is certainly of a spiritual nature, because the Law is
spiritual (Romans 7:14). All of our misunderstandings of the lake of
fire would easily be solved by a study of God's Law. After
all, this is the most relevant factor in this matter of
judgment. Paul says in Romans 6:23, "for the wages of sin
is death." Ezekiel 18:20 confirms this: "The person
["soul"] who sins will die." Anyone who studies the divine law will see
that death is the worst possible punishment that can be
meted out. Even when a man was guilty of multiple murder, the
maximum penalty was death. There is no sin worthy of
being burned at the stake, much less being burned in a torture
chamber for an eternity. There were some instances where the dead
body of the offender was to be cremated rather than buried
(Joshua 7:25; Lev. 21:9). This was the most dishonorable way
to die in Scripture. In the New Testament times, the bodies of
such criminals were thrown into the valley of Hinnom, which
was Jerusalem's city dump. It constantly burned, as even
modern dumps do. In the Greek, this valley was called
"Gehenna," and Jesus used it as a warning in Mark
9:42-50. 47 And if your
eye causes you to stumble, cast it out; it is better for you
to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two
eyes, to be cast into hell [gehenna],
48 where their
worm does not die, and the fire is not
quenched. Take note that the worms here are not
immortal or fireproof. The city dump constantly burned, and in
the places where no flame had yet reached, there were
countless worms, or maggots, to consume the garbage. But there
is no record that anyone was ever cast into gehenna as
a means of torture, except in ancient times, when the
Canaanites caused their children to die by fire to the god,
Molech. Jeremiah speaks of this in 32:35. 35 And they
built the high places of Baal that are in the valley of
Ben-hinnom to cause their sons and their daughters to pass
through the fire to Molech, which I had not commanded
them nor had it entered My mind that they should do this
abomination, to cause Judah to sin. This ungodly practice, performed in the
valley of Ben-hinnom (i.e., "the son of Hinnom," or
gehenna in Greek) was a direct result of their
religious doctrine of the fiery underworld, a teaching that
was well developed in Egypt, Babylon, and Canaan. The Hebrew
Bible's description of the state of the dead stands in stark
contrast, and the few times it does speak of fire are quite
obviously symbolic. When Jesus spoke of gehenna, he was
simply quoting Isaiah 66:24, where the prophet speaks of the
final battle at the end of the age. He closes with this
description, which Jesus ascribes to gehenna: 24 Then they
shall go forth and look on THE CORPSES of the men who have
transgressed against Me. For their worm shall not die, and
their fire shall not be quenched; and they shall be an
abhorrence to all mankind. This is hardly a description of eternal
punishment in some spiritual torture chamber. It is very much
an earthly scene, the kind we might expect to "go forth" and
look upon after a disastrous war. On the other hand, it
certainly is representative of the lake of fire, as we shall
see. Yet there is no indication from this verse or from Jesus'
quotation of it that men will be eternally tortured in
gehenna. Torture was not a lawful biblical
judgment. Although some parallel does exist between
gehenna (the city dump) and the lake of fire, the
valley of Ben-hinnom, or "gehenna," was nothing like a
lake. Jesus used the parallel in order to describe two
things about the lake of fire: (1) the people would be outside
the New Jerusalem; and (2) it would be a place of shame.
Beyond this, the theme ends and only resurfaces under a
different name and another kind of symbolism. John did not call it gehenna, because
the purpose of the literal gehenna did not adequately
describe the fire flowing from God's throne, nor was
gehenna a part of the temple symbolism which was John's
primary theme throughout the book of Revelation. One must always keep in mind that the book of
Revelation was written by a Hebrew. He did not interpret the
Old Testament from a Greek or Egyptian perspective. His focus
was upon heavenly things, particularly the True Temple in
heaven. The religious symbolism of the earthly temple referred
only to the heavenly reality and must be viewed in that light.
John views all of history as a fulfillment of prophecy
displayed in the ceremonies and vessels of the temple. In view of our present topic, we must study
the laver, the place of cleansing and purification for the
priests as they washed themselves (baptism), the vessels, and
the sacrifices. This "water baptism" set up in the days of
Moses, was itself only an earthly manifestation of the
heavenly baptism, the baptism of fire. And so, John points to the temple laver and
calls it the lake of fire. In essence, as we shall see, the
picture is meant to portray the Refiner's Fire,
complete with the cauldron of alloyed mineral and its
impurities, as the Refiner begins His work. The book of Revelation is written from the
perspective of a priest who is familiar with all the rites and
ceremonies that had been performed in the Temple of Jerusalem
before its destruction in 70 A.D. John was apparently a former
priest in Jerusalem. Of this we have evidence from a letter of
Polycrates (later bishop of Ephesus, where John also
ministered). His letter is preserved by Eusebius, bishop of
Caesarea in the fourth century. "For great luminaries sleep in Asia, and they will
rise again at the last day of the advent of the Lord . . .
And there is also John, who leaned on the Lord's breast, who
was a priest wearing the mitre, and martyr and teacher, and
he sleeps at Ephesus." (Eccl. Hist., III,
xxxi) A footnote explains that the word "mitre"
here is petalon, which is used in the Septuagint of the
high priest's diadem, but what it means here has never been
discovered. For some strange reason, Eusebius again quotes
Polycrates in Vol. V, ch.13, where he uses the term
"breastplate," rather than mitre. Whatever the case, it is
clear that John wrote from the perspective of a priest and may
have been revered as a sort of "high priest" of the Church in
Ephesus. Both the Tabernacle of Moses and the Temple
of Solomon used water in their lavers, rather than molten
gold. Yet the water was meant to portray molten gold. Gold is
the divine nature, and so the laver itself would portray God's
refining process. In our fleshly state, we could not survive a
baptism of fiery gold, and so water baptism became the
substitute and type of the true baptism of fire. In the days of Solomon's Temple, the laver
was called "the molten sea" (1 Kings 7:23). When gold has been
refined to its absolutely pure state, molten gold is as clear
as crystal. If Solomon would have filled the Temple's laver
with pure gold and melted it, it would have looked like "a
sea of glass like crystal" (Rev. 4:6). In Revelation 15:2
John described it as "a sea of glass mixed with
fire." What John saw in heaven was the laver, the
lake of fire, as pictured in the Tabernacle and the
Temple of Solomon. The laver was used to wash (baptize) in
order to be cleansed, or purified ceremonially. The purpose of
the law was to teach righteousness to the inhabitants of the
world. The purpose of fire is to purify. So it does not strain
our imagination in the least to consider both the laver and
the lake of fire to be for the purpose of divine purification,
rather than a place where men are tortured forever. The lake of fire is portrayed in Scripture as
the final place where the great Refiner sits to purify the
hearts of men and prepare them to dwell in the divine presence
in fellowship with God. This is the true purpose of the laver.
At present only the true priests of God and of Christ (Rev.
20:6), that is, Christians in this present age, have access to
that great laver. Even as the Levitical priests of the Old
Testament purified themselves daily at the laver, so also are
we baptized to signify that God has purified our hearts. In
that final Age, the Lake of Fire shall be applied universally
to those in need of purification. There are some who argue that the fire must
be a literal place of burning and torture, because it is often
associated with "brimstone." Revelation 21:8 says, 8 But for the
cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and
immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars,
their part will be in the lake that burns with fire
and brimstone, which is the second death. Does the "brimstone" prove that this is a
literal fire that tortures men? Actually, the very opposite is
true. Brimstone is sulphur, as any concordance will show. The
original Greek word for sulphur, or "brimstone," is
theion. Its root is theo, which is the same word
usually translated "God." (Note: Theology is the study
of God.) Sulphur, or theion, was considered to
be sacred to the ancient Greeks. It was used to consecrate for
divine service, to PURIFY, and to cleanse. They used it in
religious rites to purify their temples. They would even rub
it on their bodies to signify consecration to God. In its verb
form the word theou means "to hallow, make divine, or
to dedicate to God." And so, to a Greek reader, a lake of fire and
brimstone (sulphur) would signify a lake of divine
purification or consecration to God. Consequently, in
Virgil's classic Greek epic, The Aeneid, 741-742,
745-747) we read: "Therefore we souls are trained with
punishment And pay with suffering for old
felonies-- Some are hung up helpless to the winds; The stain of sin is cleansed for
others of us In the trough of a huge whirlpool, or
with fire Burned out of us-each one of us we
suffer The afterworld we deserve." This "fire and sulphur," taken symbolically
by the more educated or by the higher degrees of religion, was
only literalized by the uneducated. The priests generally
allowed them to be deceived, of course, because they also
believed that fear of fire was a good religious motivator. The early Christian Church of the first few
centuries after Christ knew this. This is shown by their
writings. Unfortunately, some also believed in "the doctrine
of Reserve." That is, they would withhold some teachings from
the novices until they were mature Christians. They did this
specifically with the teaching on the lake of fire, allowing
novices to take their words literally, rather than
spiritually, so that they would be better motivated to turn to
Christ. Exactly how much this contributed to the rise
of hellfire teaching is hard to say, but it certainly was a
factor. They may have justified such a practice in their
minds, but with our modern 20/20 hindsight we can see where it
led the Church in later years. The essential view that we will present here
was held by most of the early Christian Church as well. In
support of this statement, we shall endeavor to present to the
reader a few samples from the most influential of the
Christian leaders in the first few centuries. Our purpose is
to show that our view is not strange or out of step with at
least most of the early Church fathers. 1.
Clement of Alexandria (150-213
A.D.) Clement's full Latin name was Titus Flavius
Clemens and was related in some way to the Roman Emperors,
though it is not known just how. He was born in Athens and
later moved to Alexandria, the hub of Greek culture and
religion. Being very well educated, he started a Christian
school there, with the aim of explaining Christ to the Greek
world. He also wrote a book called Miscellanies, in
which "the task Clement had set himself was to make a
summary of Christian knowledge up to his time" (Donald
Attwater, Saints of the East, p. 37). As we saw in Chapter Two, Clement believed
the fire to be an instrument of God leading to conversion. He
considered the Greek idea of fire to be far more scriptural
than the Egyptian view, which one writer described as
follows: "The Egyptian Hell was particularly impressive and
highly refined . . . Confinement and imprisonment played an
important role. The tortures were bloody, and punishment by
fire was frequent and terrifying. . . . When it came to the
topography of Hell, the Egyptian imagination knew no limits. .
. Intermediate states or phases in the other-worldly process
of purification did not exist." (Jacques de Goff,
The Birth of Purgatory, pp. 19, 20) On the other hand, the Platonic Greek view
had some remarkable likenesses to the Hebrew view. The above
author attributes Clement's view on purification to Plato, who
in turn got it from Virgil and other early Greek poets.
However, the view of fire as a lawful cleanser from sin,
rather than a means of torture, is well established in the Old
Testament as well as the New. Jacques de Goff continues by
writing on page 53, "From the Old Testament, Clement and Origen took the
notion that fire is a divine instrument, and from the New
Testament the idea of baptism by fire (from the Gospels) and
the idea of a purificatory trial after death (from
Paul)." In Clement's own words, he says plainly: "God does not
wreak vengeance, for vengeance is to return evil for evil, and
God punishes only with an eye to the good." (Stromata,
7, 26) Clement headed the Christian school of
thought in Alexandria from 190-203 A.D. He had to flee for his
life during the persecution of Serverus in 203, and he spent
his remaining years teaching in Antioch and Palestine. And so
his most brilliant student in Alexandria took his place as
head of the school. His name was Origen. 2.
Origen of Alexandria (180-253 A.D.) Like his predecessor, Origen was not the
bishop of the city, and yet he was by far the most influential
Christian for the next century. He was the first to write a
systematic theological commentary on the whole Bible. He took
great pains to learn Hebrew, not only that he might better
argue the case for Christianity among the Judeans, but also
that he might correct some of the mistranslations of the
Septuagint Greek version. Around 230 A.D. he visited Antioch, Caesarea,
and Jerusalem, and though he was only a presbyter (not even a
priest), he was asked to speak from the pulpit. He accepted.
When Demetrius, the bishop of Alexandria back home, heard of
it, he was filled with envy and rage, demanding that he cease
immediately and return to Alexandria. Origen meekly returned,
and the incident was forgotten. A few years later, Origen again went on the
same trip and was this time prevailed upon to be ordained a
priest, so he could teach from the pulpit. He accepted. When
Demetrius heard of it, he was again filled with rage and envy.
Origen was excommunicated from Alexandria on the grounds that
he had emasculated himself in his youth and was therefore not
allowed to preach from the pulpit. (Origen had taken Jesus'
words in Matt. 19:12 a bit too literally in his youthful zeal,
but had repented of it afterward.) Demetrius quoted Deut. 23:1
to support his case, although he had never raised the issue in
the 20 years prior to that time. Yet the bishop of Rome at the
time agreed with the verdict, though none of the other
Palestinian or Greek churches did. Soon the issue died down
and was forgotten for another 150 years. And so Origen spent the last twenty years of
his life in Palestine, where a wealthy patron hired six
secretaries to help him write his books. His writings were the
most influential in the whole Greek world, though he was
relatively unknown in the Latin West. In his book, Against
Celsus IV, 13 Origen continues the teaching of Clement by
writing: "The Sacred Scripture does, indeed, call our God "a
consuming fire" (Heb. 12:29), and says that "rivers of fire go
before His face: (Dan. 7:10), and that "He shall come as a
refiner's fire and purify the people" (Mal. 3:2,3). As
therefore, God is a consuming fire, what is it that is to
be consumed by Him? We say it is wickedness, and whatever
proceeds from it, such as is figuratively called "wood, hay,
and stubble" (1 Cor. 3:12-15) which denote the evil works of
man. Our God is a consuming fire in this sense; and He shall
come as a refiner's fire to purify rational nature from the
alloy of wickedness and other impure matter which has
adulterated the intellectual gold and silver; consuming
whatever evil is admixed in all the soul." We dealt with the topic of the Great White
Throne Judgment earlier. In his book On Prayer XXIX, 15
Origen further writes: "They are
purged with the "wise fire" or made to pay in prison every
debt up to the last farthing . . . to cleanse them from the
evils committed in their error . . . Thus they are delivered
from all the filth and blood with which they had been so
filthied and defiled that they could not even think about
being saved from their own perdition . . ." The teachings of Clement and Origen were NOT
unusual. The basic view of the divine Fire restoring sinners
was the majority opinion for many centuries in the
Greek-speaking Christian Church. Unfortunately, many in the
Latin Church of the West did not read the Scriptures in their
Greek original, but only had a very inferior Old Latin version
which Jerome eventually re-translated as the Latin Vulgate.
And so the Latin West did not set the theological tone for the
Church until Augustine in 400 A.D. 3.
Gregory of Nazianzus (329-389
A.D.) St. Gregory was well educated in Alexandria
and Athens. Having a call to the ministry, he went to Pontus
with St. Basil, where the two compiled a collection of the
writings of Origen, called Philokalia, or "Love of the
Beautiful." Gregory was a quiet man, a perpetual student, the
kind of person who spent his whole life studying, having no
desire to make a name for himself. However, the people would
not allow this. In 361 Gregory was forcibly seized by the
people and compelled to become ordained as a priest. So much
for the quiet life. He then pastored the church at Sasima, a
village in Cappadocia. For a few months Gregory was also
bishop of Constantinople, where it is said he accomplished
more in a few months there than in twenty years in Caesarea.
Gregory was one of the four Eastern Doctors of the Church. In
addition to that, according to Robert Payne: "Of all the Fathers of the Church, he was the only
one to be granted after his death the title "Theologian,"
which until this time was reserved for an apostle -- John of
Patmos." (The Fathers of the Eastern Church, p.
179) I include these credentials to show that this
was no insignificant, back-woods, self-styled pastor. Nor was
he an ambitious, self-aggrandizing leader as many were in his
day. Gregory of Nazianzus was one of the most prominent
Christian leaders of his day and well loved for the fruit of
the Spirit, which he manifested daily and consistently. In
fact, this red-haired Cappodocian had quite a sense of humor
and was the only one who was known to have ever dared to laugh
at his friend Basil, who was very stern and austere, the
father of Eastern monasticism. At any rate, Gregory wrote this
about the lake of fire: "These (apostates), if they will, may go our way,
which indeed is Christ's; but if not, let them go their own
way. In another place perhaps they shall be baptized with
fire, that last baptism, which is not only very painful,
but enduring also; which eats up, as if it were hay, all
defiled matter, and consumes all vanity and vice."
(Orat. XXXIX, 19) Thus, he calls the lake of fire a "baptism"
whose purpose is to "consume all vanity and vice." He does say
it is "very painful," but then, I often find that laver
baptism very painful myself. Yet I submit to it, because I
know it is God's method of purification. 4.
Gregory of Nyassa (335-394 A.D.) St. Basil, the dear friend of Gregory of
Nazianzus, had a younger brother also named Gregory. He was a
bishop of Nyassa in Cappadocia. Robert Payne writes of
him: "The Emperor Theodosius had recognized him as the
supreme authority in all matters of theological orthodoxy,
and . . . he was treated with extraordinary respect."
(Robert Payne, The Fathers of the Eastern Church, p.
164) Again, the same historian says: "Of the three Cappadocian Fathers Gregory of Nyassa
is the one closest to us, the least proud, the most subtle,
the one most committed to the magnificence of man. That
strange, simple, happy, unhappy, intelligent, and
God-tormented man was possessed by angels . . . He employed
all those resources of Greek philosophy to help him in his
task . . . In Eastern Christianity his Great
Catechism follows immediately after Origen's On First
Principles. These were the two seminal works,
close-woven, astonishingly lucid, final . . . Athanasius was
the hammer, Basil the stern commander, Gregory of Nazianzus
the tormented singer, and it was left to Gregory of Nyassa
to be the man enchanted with Christ . . . Four hundred years
after his death, at the Seventh General Council held in A.D.
787, the assembled princes of the Church granted him a title
which exceeded in their eyes all the other titles granted to
men: he was called "Father of Fathers." (Ibid., pp.
168, 169) This was an ironic twist of history, for that
same council also pronounced a curse upon all who taught that
the fire of God would cleanse, rather than torture men for
eternity! One might think that perhaps Gregory was out of step
with mainstream Christian thought for believing and teaching
the restoration of all mankind, but Funk & Wagnall's New
Encyclopedia says of him, "Gregory's religious position
was strictly orthodox" (i.e., mainstream Christianity in his
day). In fact, he was called "the bulwark of the
church against heresy," taking part in the Council of
Nicea and other later Church Councils. In his book De Anima
et Resurrectione, he wrote about the nature of the second
death: "They who live in the flesh ought, by virtuous
conversation, to free themselves from fleshly lusts, lest
after death, they should again need another death to
cleanse away the remains of fleshly vice that cling to
them." In another book, Orat. In 1 Cor.
15:28, he wrote: "When all the alloy of evil that has been mixed up in
the things that are, having been separated by the
refining action of the cleansing fire, everything that
was created by God shall have become such as it was at the
beginning, when as yet it had not admitted evil . . . this
is the end of our hope, that nothing shall be left contrary
to the good, but that the Divine Life, penetrating all
things shall absolutely destroy Death from among the things
that are; sin having been destroyed before him, by
means of which, as has been said death held his dominion
over men." These are just a few of the writings of the
early Church leaders. It is well known by those who have
studied early Church writings, this was the majority view. In
fact, it was practically the ONLY VIEW for the first few
centuries after Christ and the apostles. The early Church had
quite a number of doctrinal disputes, but this issue was NOT
EVEN DISPUTED. In fact, it was taught by all the major
theologians of the day in the churches that the Apostle Paul
founded. There were six Christian theological schools
of thought known to have existed in the first few centuries.
The first and earliest was in Alexandria, where Clement,
Origen, and others clearly taught that sinners are purged by
the lake of fire. The theological school at Caesaria in
Palestine was next. The writings of both Origen and Clement
were highly esteemed there, and Origen actually lived there
during his most productive years. The school of Antioch, which had its feet
more firmly planted on the ground, disputed with Origen over
his allegorical method of interpretation, but they agreed
wholeheartedly with his view on the "lake of fire." The same
with the school founded at Edessa in the fifth century. It was only the Latin school (based in
Carthage, but which included Rome) that taught the doctrine of
endless punishment. Augustine, the "champion" of endless
torments, wrote that there were: ". . . indeed VERY MANY (who) . . . do not believe
that such things will be. Not that they would go counter to
divine Scripture." (Enchiridion, 112) Augustine was the most influential of the
Latin Church fathers. He was a teacher of Rhetoric first in
Carthage and later in Milan, Italy, where he was converted. He
then retired from teaching and moved back to North Africa,
where he was soon ordained as a priest and later as the bishop
of the town of Hippo. Before his conversion in 386 A.D. Augustine
had been of the sect of the Manichees for nine years. This was
to be both an asset and a liability to him in later years. It
was an asset in that the Manichees had been fond of quoting
Paul's views on predestination, which happened to agree with
their eastern philosophy. Augustine was to become virtually
the first Christian bishop (that we know of) since the Apostle
Paul to teach the doctrine of predestination. On the other hand, the Manichees had also
instilled in Augustine the idea that the end of all things,
the goal of history, was a final separation of the kingdom of
Light from the kingdom of Darkness. He incorporated this
teaching more fully than any before him in his idea that
eventually all sinners would be separated from all the
righteous, and that they would eternally exist in that sinful
state. Most of the Church before him, particularly in the
East, had taught that one day evil and darkness would cease to
exist, that God may be "all in all" (1 Cor. 15:28). We shall
explain this more fully in our next chapters. Augustine's rigorous views stated that God
had predestined a few for salvation but for most to be
tormented eternally. His view of predestination was later
toned down by the Roman Church, in order to accommodate fully
the view of eternal torment without portraying God to be
overly unjust. These are topics that we will deal with fully
in a later chapter as well. The Manichean sect was founded around 240
A.D. by a Persian named Mani. It was a cross between Persian,
Dualism, Buddhism and Christianity. From Persia they adopted
the idea that good and evil were both eternal forces, or
kingdoms. They were said to be of equal strength, although
each would ebb and flow at various times. At present the light
and darkness were mixed, and the goal of history was to
separate them by a wall. Yet evil would always exist, they
said, because it was eternal and therefore just as powerful as
good. Bishop Archelaus in 277 A.D. wrote a book
against the Manicheans called The Acts of the Disputation
with Mani the Heretic. He argued against Manicheanism (and
thus also against Augustine) by proving that one day all
evil-including death itself-would cease to exist (1 Cor.
15:25,26). Titus, bishop of Bostra, also wrote a book
around 364 A.D. entitled, Against Manicheans, where he
said, "The punishments of God are Holy, as they are
remedial and salutary in their effect upon transgressors;
for they are inflicted, not to preserve them in their
wickedness, but to make them cease from their sins. The
abyss . . . is indeed the place of punishment, but it is
not endless. The anguish of their sufferings compels
them to break off from their sins." Augustine's theological opponents all argued
against his views on the grounds that he had gotten his
theology from the Manicheans. Some of these charges are true,
others are not. It is clear, however, that the nine years he
spent as a Manichee oriented him to think more deeply in areas
that the Church had not thought of before that time. It
depends upon one's point of view as to whether Augustine was
justified in his various views. From our perspective, we note
only that his City of God ends with the final
separation of good and evil, light and darkness, and that both
are eternally preserved in their respective places. Augustine
would certainly not have come to this conclusion on his own;
he really did get it from the Manichees. One other very influential theologian was
Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428). He asked, "Who is so great
a fool" as to believe that God would resurrect men merely
to destroy them forever with torments? (Fragment IV) During the Dark Ages, when the doctrine of
eternal torment was "orthodox" in Europe, its judicial shadow
came with it-burning people at the stake. It was argued that
God was going to throw them into an endless torment of fire
anyway, so the Church was only initiating it a few
insignificant years early. Besides, such "justice" served to
instill fear into the hearts of people of going against the
Church in any way-not only to avoid the stake, but to avoid
the burning hell. This tactic was certainly effective; no one
can argue that point. But if one has opportunity to study the
divine justice of Bible Law, it soon becomes apparent that
such punishment is of heathen origin, rather that of the
Bible. In every nation, the popular belief about divine
justice has always served as a model for the justice of man.
In the Dark Ages, they thought they were imitating God; in
reality, however, they were imitating the heathen who burned
their children to Molech in the valley of Ben-hinnom. In Chapter Four we will show biblically that
the Greek and Hebrew words for "eternal" and "everlasting" are
mistranslations brought in through the Latin Vulgate around
400 A.D. Then we will deal with the more positive subject of
God's great Restoration. [Next
Chpt] Chapter 4: Does God Punish Endlessly? [Previous]
Chapter 2: The Sun of Righteousness, or the Fire of
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