11And I saw a great white throne and the one sitting on it. The earth and sky fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide.
Revelation 20:11
12I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. 13The sea gave up its dead, and death and the grave gave up their dead. And all were judged according to their deeds. 14Then death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the second death. 15And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire.
Revelation 20:12-15
In Gem 2373 I introduced you to a challenging verse and here we encounter the concept again, emboldened above. That’s three times now so we had better be prepared to address it head on:
The smoke of their torment will rise forever and ever, and they will have no relief day or night, for they have worshiped the beast and his statue and have accepted the mark of his name.”
Revelation 14:11
Then the devil, who had deceived them, was thrown into the fiery lake of burning sulphur, joining the beast and the false prophet. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
Revelation 20:10
And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire.
Revelation 20:15
As I have written in the title of this Gem, ‘There it is Again’. It is inescapable, the confronting thought of God consigning not only the unholy trinity, but people, human beings to unmitigated endless torture forever and ever. Allow me to spell this out clearly. To mitigate as a dictionary definition, means to make ‘something bad’ less severe, serious, or painful.
I told you in the last Gem that I would deal with this at the end of the series of Gems on Revelation. It is a doozy of a dliemma. People have enough of a problem with the notion of God judging but the idea of God handing people over to eternal torment is unthinkable. Yet that is what the Bible says three times. Or does it? Is that what is being said here? That is our challenge, well my challenge, because I am the one who started this confrontational exercise by singling it out for investigation. What on earth did I do that for? What was I thinking? Best, like many commentators, to let the hard sayings just slip by and pray that no one will notice. But for those of you who know me well, you know I can’t do that. I am writing these Gems more for myself than for you. I want to use the skills that God has given me to dig into the Word of God in order to understand it at a deeper and deeper level. To do that means to face head on whatever curly issues are raised by verses like these and their context in the Word of God.
You have to admit that this is perhaps the most confronting truth in all of Scripture. That a loving God would commit any human beings He created to endless torment simply because they didn’t choose Him. Ooh, that is a very shocking thought which would have made the pre-August-1973-atheist-me react strongly against a God like that. Now it causes me, as one who is passionate for the truth and wants to understand the Bible at the deepest level, to resolve issues like this one, which is perhaps the pinnacle of challenging Bible verses.
What is going on here? It makes any normal, thinking person want to say that’s not fair! That’s not the kind of God I thought I was following. That is certainly not gentle Jesus, meek and mild. That is an anathema, something or someone that one vehemently dislikes. On another level, technically an anathema is a formal announcement by a pope or a council of the Church, excommunicating someone or denouncing a doctrine by issuing a formal statement. So how do we explain this? I told you in the previous Gem I would address this at the end of the Gems on Revelation. I knew I needed the time to gather my thoughts together on this one and so set the time frame for the end of the Gem series on Revelation. I knew this next segment was coming up but hadn’t realised it thrusts the third challenging statement of this kind before us immediately following that which we encountered in Revelation 20:10. Now here it is again but with a different context.
Basically the experts say there are two polarised doctrines here: annihilation or eternal conscious torment. Either everyone who does not belong to God perishes in the lake of fire and ceases to exist or exists in a state of endless torture. That is “they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” or as Eugene Peterson puts it in the Message translation “they will be in torment around the clock for ages without end.”
I received this from a Gem reader:
Ian you can’t drop this shocking verse on us like this and tell us you will deal with it at the end of the Gems on Revelation. For God’s sake man, give us more than that!
Bruce
I caught up with Shelley whom I quoted in the previous Gem yesterday and she has been looking into this dilemma too. Here is some very serious help for you courtesy of Shelley.
- The first video is a panel discussion with Dan Paterson, Gavin Ortlund, Chris Date and Paul Copen. [2h 35 min]
- The second video features Gavin Ortlund investigating ‘Annihilationism’. [39 minutes]
- The third video features Gavin Ortlund asking ‘Does Hell Make Sense?’ [10 minutes]
As I wrote in Gem 2373 I will give you my summation at the end of the Gem series on Revelation. In the light of eternity, there is not long to go before that happens. I will give you hints to my thoughts along the way. I found these three videos helpful but I still want to test Scripture on this before evaluating my hunch put forward in Gem 2373.
The human race crave the experience of awe & wonder, there is no reality more breath-taking than Jesus Christ.
John Piper
How would you like to stand before God on Judgement Day and say… “It can’t be true, You don’t exist!”.
Ian
The most radical demand of the Christian faith lies in the willingness to stake your life on the present risen-ness of Jesus Christ.
Ian
We love our explanations of God more than we actually love Him with all of our heart, soul and strength.
Richard Rohr
Brethren,i am Evangenlist William Joshua Dunbar Sr. Of East Wind House Of God of All Flesh Healing and evangelistic Ministry International (EWHOGOAFI)
I’m so excited and blessed being a part of this unique Life transforming teachings of God’s Inerrant and infallible word for better understanding of His divine plan and purpose for me and the entire Ministry’s family the Sovereign LORD JESUS CHRIST our God Almighty has faithfully blessed and obligated my darling wife and I with. Please keep us in your hearts and earnest prayer for God’s supernatural intervention from all perspective.
I’m starting to realise that my first problem in trying to understand this is my comprehension of the word ETERNAL. I need to go back to the original and look at it in context, not use my English understanding of meaning ‘for ever and ever and always without end’. In the context of eternal punishment I am starting to see that punishment could mean the effect is eternal, but maybe not external conscious torment. I had no idea. I still don’t know. There is much to dig into.
These videos, Ian, give much to think about in terms of trying to understand the meaning. They have given new insights to possible meanings. I’m still working through them. However, these have given more so many more REASONS for peoples’ views and have answered much more than I’ve ever had answered before, despite asking many others over so many years. These video discussions have opened up my thought processes.
I’m still trying to decide. My current understanding has been that the position of non-believers and deliberately unrepentant believers is that once the truth is revealed to them after death, they will be consciously tormented by shame and the fact they have missed, and will reflect on all the opportunities they had in life to believe, accept and trust in God. So, He has given them their will and all hope has been removed as it is too late once this life is over, to turn back and change. There will be different degrees of mental and emotional (and physical???) torment, based upon how much they have denied God. knowing that it is too late. Eternally.
The idea that God’s fire can be a holy cleansing fire seems to apply when we allow God to cleanse us whilst we are still alive on Earth, but the flames/torment/sulfurous fire of hell is the fire of judgment. I had not thought about this much either.
Yes, much more to read/listen to/ think about… but what an important driver to keep witnessing for LIFE and to keep praying for the UNSAVED.
I’m a long way off yet in my decision of what I believe and understand. But I am on the learning/thinking journey …
Good for you Barbara for watching these videos. They will help you to sort out the meaning of the word “eternal” and the significance of “annihilationism”. Our understand of these terms and their implications help us to sort out what we believe. I think the next thing to decide who is in each of the two categories. Yes you are right, it requires us to think it all through for ourselves. I find myself in the midst of that challenge now. But you are right that there are different ways that the severity is applied. Our is to see if there is a pattern to it all in order to determine who is in each grouping. But of course we must leave to the LORD who judges justly. I am glad it is not up to me. Like Jesus said to Peter concerning John: (John 21:22) “John is of no concern to you; just keep following me!”
Ultimately we can leave it to the LORD who will judge justly. Won’t the LORD of all the earth do what it is right?
But it is advisable to try to sort out the principles involved so we end up on the right side of the ledger.