Theology in the Raw - Will God Save Everyone? A Dialogical Debate aobut Ultimate Restoration with George Sarris and Chris Date

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

George Sarris is a speaker and storyteller who is passionate about presenting Bible-based messages for believers as well as the culture at large. He’s the author of the book Heaven's Doors: Wider Than You Ever Imagined, accomplished actor and spokesperson for radio and TV commercials, industrial films and trade shows. George received his MDiv from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. Chris Date graduated from Fuller Theological Seminary, where he focused on exegesis of the Old Testament in its original Hebrew. He's an adjunct professor of Bible and theology at Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary, the founder of the Rethinking Hell resource website, and co-editor of Rethinking Hell: Readings in Evangelical Conditionalism. Register for the Exiles 2 day conference in Denver (Oct 4-5) here: https://theologyintheraw.com/exiles-denver/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of theology in the raw, the exiles of Babylon conference in Denver, Colorado. The two day conference is right around the corner, October 4th to fifth. All the information is that theology in the raw.com. You can attend live in Denver, or you can attend virtually online from wherever you are currently sitting in or whatever. Anyway. Okay. So this podcast is kind of a different, uh, theology, Rob podcasts. I haven't done one of these in a while where I host two people to kind of have a dialogical debate. Uh, the question we are going to ask is, will God save everyone? I have on two guests. Um, one is, uh, going to represent a position called ultimate restoration.

Some people call it universalism. I think that's a bit broad. I think ultimate restoration is a term that our first guest prefers. It's the one I actually prefer too. So George Saris is going to represent that position. And then my friend, Chris date is going to argue against that position. Chris Date holds to a view called conditional immortality. This isn't so much a conditional immortality versus ultimate restoration debate. It is really putting the ultimate restoration viewpoint on the table and we're going to interact with it.

I try to play a neutral referee in this conversation. My goal here is that you all would be for the next couple hours that you would be forced to wrestle with the theological and biblical evidence for ultimate restoration so that you can make up your own informed minds on whether you think it is a valid or indeed a superior view of the afterlife. So George Saris, who's going to represent the ultimate restoration view, he is a speaker, a storyteller who is passionate about presenting Bible-based messages for believers, as well as the culture at large. He's the author of the book, Heaven's Doors, wider than you ever imagined. He's also an accomplished actor

and spokesperson for radio and TV commercials, industrial films, and trade shows. And he also received a Master of Divinity from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. Chris Date is a graduate from Fuller Theological Seminary, where he focused on exegesis of the Old Testament in its original Hebrew. He's also adjunct professor of Bible and theology at Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary. He is the founder of the rethinking hell website. It's more than just a website. It's a massive resource page. He's also the co-editor of the book, rethinking hell readings and evangelical conditionalism. Chris has been on the show before, but this is George Harris's first George Harris, George Sarah's his first time.

This was a, you're going to get a lot of information here. Okay. So you, you might have to go back and relisten to parts. I mean, there's just a lot of really solid arguments for and against ultimate restoration that are presented. So this is not for the faint hearted. And then what we do is each person, George is going to present for 20 minutes. Chris is going to present for 20 minutes. George is going to respond for 10 minutes. Chris is going to respond for 10 minutes. And then there's going to be a free following dialogue. And that, that dialogue, it gets, it gets, it gets pretty, well, you'll just have to see it. It got pretty emotional and Riley. So, and I enjoyed it. And I, you know, I'm

my goal as a moderator was to remain in the background as much as I could and let them kind of hash stuff out. But I, you know, I did have to kind of jump in, try to guide the conversation a little bit. So I hope, hopefully I didn't assert my authority beyond what I should have done too much. But yeah, I think you'll enjoy this lively conversation. So please welcome back to the show, Chris state and to the show for the first time, the one early George. All right. Hey, welcome to the podcast, George and Chris state for Chris. This is welcome back to the podcast, George. Nice to meet you for the first time, at least a face to face. We've

had some email exchanges. I've already set up this conversation and some people kind of know what to expect. So George, I'll hand it over to you. You have a, I try to keep it 20 minutes ish. You've got the opening opening statement. I feel like a judge right now. Okay. I just want to thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to be here. Most of the people that I know, most of the people I've come across in my lifetime, whether it was with Campus Crusade for Christ back in the early 1970s or at seminary or since then, have never heard a biblical presentation about ultimate restoration, which is what I call it, by the

way. Some people call it universalism, universal reconciliation. I call it ultimate restoration. So I wanted to start out by giving a couple of comments and a couple of questions with regard to this issue that I hope will help put it in perspective. First of all, the current world population is about seven and a half billion people. About one third, or 2.5 billion people, claim to be Christian. That includes liberal and conservative Protestants, strict and not so strict Roman Catholics, Charismatics, non-Charismatics, Eastern Orthodox, basically anyone who claims to be Christian in one way or another.

That means that about five billion people are outside the faith currently. About two billion of those live in places where the name of Jesus Christ is unknown. So my question is, at the end of time, what percentage of the total population of the earth do you guys and do your audience believe will be in heaven? Ten percent? Twenty-%, 75%, 100% said in another way, did Jesus Christ succeed in his mission to seek and save the lost, or will most of the lost never be found? Is the greatest story ever told, the story of the creation, fall, and redemption of mankind, really a tragedy where the majority of mankind will never be

redeemed. And another question, if a manufacturing company had to throw away or destroy the vast majority of the products they made because they were defective beyond repair, would it be considered a successful company? Just to put things in perspective. I think the issue at the heart of the question of ultimate destinies is really the doctrine of God. So what does Scripture tell us about who God is in relation to salvation? First of all, it very specifically says God wants to save all mankind. The Bible specifically says that. 1 Timothy 2, 4, God desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the

truth. 2 Peter 3.9. God is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. Why? Because God is love. And God's love never fails. Unfailing love is pervasive throughout scripture. Psalm 130, verses seven and eight says, "'O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, "'for with the Lord is unfailing love, "'and with him is full redemption. "'He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.'" And that phrase, unfailing love, occurs at least 35 times in the Old Testament.

Second Chronicles 7-3, at the dedication of Solomon's temple, the priests and the people praise God by declaring, he is good, his love endures forever. And that refrain is repeated over and over throughout the Old Testament. David, who fell far short of being the man of God's own heart after the affair with Bathsheba,

expressed clearly what he thought about who God was. Says, the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will He harbor His anger forever. He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. When Jeremiah lamented over the destruction of Jerusalem, he expressed clearly what he understood about the God who had just judged His people. For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion.

So great is his unfailing love. He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men. And then God's love extends to all. When Isaiah looked to the distant future, he told us how God will treat the nations. The Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples. He will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations. He will swallow up death forever.

The sovereign Lord will wipe away tears from all faces." After telling Jerusalem that she not only walked in the ways of Sodom and Samaria and became even more depraved than they, Ezekiel explained that God will restore the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and of Samaria and her daughters and your fortunes along with them. And your sisters, Sodom with her daughters and Samaria with her daughters,

will return to what they were before, and you and your daughters will return to what you were before. John 3, 16, for God so loved the world, the angel at Jesus' birth. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Paul to the people in Corinth, as in Adam, all die,

so in Christ all will be made alive. Paul to the people in Rome, as in Adam, all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. Paul to the people in Rome, for God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. And then John in his first epistle, he said that Christ is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world. God's love is unconditional.

Paul said, you see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person, someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Well, God wants to save all mankind, but secondly, God is

able to save all mankind. Why? Because God's power is irresistible. There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord. Many are the plans of a man's heart, but it's the Lord's purposes that prevail. The lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. The Lord does whatever pleases him in the heavens and on the earth,

in the seas and all their depths. I know that you can do all things. No purpose of yours can be thwarted. Nothing is impossible with God. Why did Jesus come? He came to redeem mankind, not just part of mankind, for the Son of man came to seek and save what was lost. Jesus to the crowd after his triumphal entry, and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. For God did not send

his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. And here's a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. God wants to save all mankind. He's able to save all mankind. And God will save all mankind. Why?

Because God never gives up. Jesus told three parables to teach about God's heart. The Good Shepherd is not satisfied with 99% of the sheep. He searches until he finds the lost one. The woman with the lost coin is not satisfied with 90% of her wealth. She searches until she finds the one lost coin. The prodigal son's father was not satisfied with 50% of his family. He waited until his son, his lost son, returned and welcomed him joyfully. God is not satisfied with the restoration of 50% or 90% or even 99% of what is his and what he loves. He seeks until he finds and waits until those who are lost

are found. He's not willing that any remain forever separated from him, either by their destruction or their endless punishment. And God has told us what the end is. It was interesting, Chris, at the conference, I was talking with one of the theologians there that was standing for endless punishment, and he said, well, I can agree that God wants to save everybody and that God is able to save everybody, but you know, there may be some people that will ultimately just resist until the end. I said, well, that's theoretically possible, but God has shown us what the end will be.

Philippians 2, 9 through 11, he says, in the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. The submission is freely given. Every use in the New Testament of the word translated confess in that verse means freely, openly, wholeheartedly confess or give praise. Do you know what the four-letter word for forced love is? Rape. God doesn't rape those He created. God doesn't accept hypocritical or feigned praise either. Right after the lamb who looked as if it had been slain takes the scroll from Him who sat on the throne, and before and in anticipation of the major events that are narrated in the

book of Revelation, it says, then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and all that is in them singing to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever. Who sang the praises? Every creature. Where were they from? Everywhere in God's creation. And when did this take place

before the major events of the book of Revelation and in anticipation of what will happen in the process of redeeming all of creation and making a new creation? The New Jerusalem in the end of Revelation says, the gates of the city are always open. On no day will its gates ever be shut. The fruit of the tree of life is always available. On each side of the river stood the gates of the city are always open. On no day will its gates ever be shut. The fruit of the tree of life is always available. On each side of the river stood the tree of life bearing 12 crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. Its leaves are for the healing of the nations. At that time, there will be no more,

and you're no longer any curse. And at that time, the call is given out by those who are inside to come in. He says, the Spirit and the Bride say, Come, and let the one who hears say, Come, but the one who is thirsty, come, but the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life. The Bride are the believers who are already inside. The call is to those who are outside in the lake of purifying fire. I'll get back to that in a few minutes.

So what did the early church believe? This comes up a little bit of what we were saying at the beginning just before we came on the air. The teaching of the early church is important. They were closest to Jesus and the apostles. They read the New Testament in their native tongue. They grew the fastest and had the greatest impact on the surrounding culture of any other time in history.

They established the faith that we now profess. They wrote the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed to explain clearly what true Christians believed. They formulated the doctrines of the divinity of Christ in the Trinity, and they assembled the 27 books that we now call the New Testament. And the dominant view for the first 500 years after Christ was that God would ultimately restore all of creation to its intended

perfection. Hell was real, but it didn't last forever. His purpose was to restore, not just to punish or destroy. Just a couple of examples of some of the early church believers in ultimate restoration. Clement of Alexandria was born in Athens about AD 150 within a couple of generations of Jesus and the Apostles. He said, For either the Lord does not care for all men, and this is the case either because he is unable, which is not to be thought, for it would be proof of weakness, or because he is unwilling, which is not the attribute of a good being, or he does care for all, which is befitting for him who has become

Lord of all. For he is Savior not of some and of others not, for all things are arranged with a view to the salvation of the universe by the Lord of the universe." Gregory of Nyssa was probably the most vocal of all the early church fathers on this particular subject. He died around AD 395. He was named Father of the Fathers at the Seventh General Council in 787 AD. He also added, I believe in the life of the world to come, to the Nicene Creed. And he said, in due course, evil will pass over into nonexistence. It will disappear utterly from the realm of existence. Divine and uncompounded goodness will

encompass within itself every rational nature. No single being created by God will fail to achieve the kingdom of God. So what about a couple of specifics? Matthew 25, 46 is probably the verse that most people use to say that punishment is eternal, either in the case of endless punishment or I think what Chris thinks in terms of the consequences are eternal. He says, they will go away to eternal punishment but the righteous to eternal life. Interestingly, the word that's used there is ayoun, olam in the Hebrew. It doesn't mean never-ending. What it means is the end is not known.

It's a period of time, longer or shorter, past or future, the boundaries of which are concealed, obscure, unseen, or unknown. I use the illustration, I live in Connecticut not too far from the Atlantic Ocean, and if you stand on the edge of the beach and you look out into the horizon, it looks like the ocean goes on forever, but it doesn't. There's an end, it's just you don't know where it is. That's really what the word ion is all about. There is an end. You just don't know where it is. Jonah, in the Old Testament, the word

that's translated in the Septuagint is the same one. He said that the earth beneath barred him in forever. But it was only three days. And after that, he was released. In Jude, by the way, it should be translated, the wicked shall go away to punishment of the age to come come and the righteous into the life of the age to come. In Jude verse 7, very interesting verse, it says, in a similar way Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion.

They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. What was their punishment? They were destroyed, but then they're going to be restored, according to Ezekiel. The unpardonable sin. I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. He's guilty of an eternal sin. Interestingly, the word never is not in the Greek text. It literally says, whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven to the age. The context is the Pharisees refusing to acknowledge the miracle that Jesus had performed was from

God. They were attributing God's work to Satan. And it's impossible to experience God's forgiving grace while a person resists what God is doing and doesn. And it's impossible to experience God's forgiving grace while a person resists what God is doing and doesn't want it. But when they stop resisting and truly repent, either in this age or one of the ages, plural, to come, then forgiveness can be applied. In fact, that actually happens with most people

that have committed some kind of attributing God's work to Satan in some way or another in their lives, and yet at some point they come to the realization that God's grace is what they really need. How about the narrow gate? Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

The problem is that verse is not addressing the issue of the afterlife. The previous verse in Matthew chapter 7 verse 12, I think that's one, this is 13 and 14, the previous verse is the golden rule. Do unto others what you would have them do to you now. It's talking about pursuing a meaningful, productive life in the here and now, not pursuing the biggest house, newest car, whitest teeth, most Facebook friends, latest iPhone. And then the Lake of Fire, it says, the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

This is the second death. The devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were. And they were tormented day and night forever and ever. That sure sounds pretty bad. But what is the purpose of the lake of fire? Sulfur originally meant fire from heaven. It was used in pagan religious rites for purification. Pre-Roman civilizations used it as a medicine, a fumigant, a bleaching agent and an incense. The Romans used it as an insecticide and to purify a sick room to cleanse its air of evil. Torment meant to test the quality of something. Forever and ever, it's literally ages of the ages, it means for as long as necessary. For John and his readers, it was a refiner's fire,

not a place of unending torture or complete destruction. Its purpose was to purify and cleanse from evil. So kind of getting back to my original questions, did an all-wise, all-loving, all-powerful God create a universe that was very good in the beginning, but ends up almost very good or not very good in the end? Would the vast majority either suffer unbearable pain forever or are annihilated?

No. Why? Because who God is. God is not partial, favoring some over others. He doesn't change, acting graciously toward sinners while they're alive on earth, but then withdrawing His hand of mercy at death. He's not cruel, able to save all, but choosing rather to consign most of the human race to endless conscious suffering or annihilation. And he's not weak, desiring to save all, but ultimately powerless to do so. The greatest story ever told, the story of the creation, fall, and redemption of mankind, is not a tragedy. Sin is not more powerful than grace.

Where sin increased, grace increased all the more. Darkness is not more powerful than light. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. Evil is not more powerful than good. Paul says to overcome evil with good. Jesus Christ succeeded in his mission to seek and save the lost. All the lost will be found. Again, getting back to the conference that Chris, you sponsored, Jerry Wall said at the very end of the conference, I thought he made a very profound comment. He said, universalism is the best story.

It's the only one where true lasting bliss pervades. It's the only one with a perfect ending. And I would just add, it's the only story worthy of an all-wise, all-powerful, all-loving God who is good. Thank you, George. You are welcome. Lots to think about. I appreciate the clarity and the theological framing, lots of biblical justification.

Chris, you got 20 minutes to respond. Thanks, I appreciate it. And let me just make clear from the get go that this is a prepared opening. This is not a response to what George has just argued. That's going to come in a little bit later. And I want listeners to remember as I begin my opening and then later as I respond to George's, remember Proverbs 1817, the one who states his case first seems right until the other comes and examines him. So let's first clarify the terrain of our debate. In George's book, he writes when he's about to lay out the three views, he writes of the traditional view saying that once people die,

the final judgment takes place and their punishment is never ending. But that's not true. George here leaves out some important information, and I'm not going to speculate as to why, but its omission sets the stage in a misleading way when readers go to evaluate the biblical data. See, what George here leaves out is the issue of resurrection. Contrary to his claim in this quote, the traditional picture of hell does not begin once people die, but rather sometime later after they are resurrected. In Daniel 12, 2, for example, those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. John 5, 28 and 29, Jesus says, all who are in the tombs will come out,

some to the resurrection of life, others to a resurrection of judgment. And we can point to several other texts, but they all teach the same thing, that hell is where resurrected people are sent for judgment. And critically, in resurrection, a human who once died comes back to physically embodied life. That's just what resurrection is. So hell is where embodied and living people are sent after they are resurrected from the dead. Now, George goes on to lay out the terrain of the three views by saying that there's a second view, which is that the lost will be completely destroyed, they'll become non-existent, and then there's a third view, George's own, where those in hell will ultimately be restored to fellowship with God. Probably stemming

from that previous omission of resurrection embodied life from the equation, here George again leaves something important out of a summary of the three views. See, the traditional and universalist views both teach that after resurrecting the lost and thereby returning them to embodied life, God will make them physically immortal, and they will remain alive forever, either in hell for eternity or eventually rescued out of hell after perhaps eons of reformative misery there. So both traditionalism and universalism are forms of unconditional immortality, meaning that people don't have to meet any condition in order to be made immortal when they are raised from the dead.

God indiscriminately and universally renders everyone immortal. By contrast, my view, sometimes called annihilationism, but I prefer conditional immortality, is that only those who meet the condition of being saved through faith will be granted immortality upon rising from the dead. So what George omits from his characterization of the three views is that universalism and traditionalism both entail that the resurrected lost are rendered immortal and live forever. While in the annihilationist view, they will rise mortal and literally die a second time never to live again. And moreover, although this is somewhat secondary to the debate at hand, contrary to the to what is implied in

George's quote, the traditional view isn't the only one to qualify as endless punishment. Annihilation qualifies as well, because in my view, the final punishment is death, not the event of dying, but the resulting state, the death that is privation of life, and that punishment will indeed last forever. So we can now more clearly summarize the terrain of this debate. The question isn't what happens when an unbeliever dies. The question is what happens when a formerly dead unbeliever is resurrected back to embodied life and is then sent embodied and alive into hell. Will they remain alive forever immortal or will they die a second time as mortals? And we'll see shortly which of these views is more consistent with the biblical text, but it's important now going into this discussion that you know

universalism entails something the Bible never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever says. Namely, that resurrected humanity will, without exception, be made immortal. So now let's turn to the issue of history. It's my contention that universalists, including George, paint a false picture of the early church. You just heard him do it now. He says in his book that for the first 500 years after Christ, most Christians were universalists. And he bases this on a claim about six schools of theology in the early church. He speaks of those six schools as constituting two or comprising two that favored the universalism of origin, two that favored the universalism of Theodore, one favoring annihilationism and one favoring eternal torment. And this claim is often repeated by Universalists, but all of them, without fail, cite no more ancient evidence

than the 19th century's George T. Knight and Edward Beecher. But neither Knight nor Beecher offer any evidence whatsoever in support of their claim. And moreover, Universalists who cite them don't either. And this is important because both Knight and Beecher make it clear there were other schools beyond those six. In his article, George Knight writes of those six schools, but then he says there were other theological schools whose actual doctrine on this subject is unknown. And Edward Beecher doesn't say there were six schools, he says there were at least six

theological schools. So we can see that the six schools Knight and Beecher mentioned do not exhaustively represent the early church. There was some additional number of other schools whose view of final punishment is unknown. So universalists simply have no historical support whatsoever for their claim that the majority of Christians during this time believed in universalism. And moreover, this is really fascinating, the editor in charge of the Department of Church History for the encyclopedia that published Knight's article, this editor was named Albert Henry Newman, and he was a historian, he added this note to Knight's article, quote, the ascription of Universalism to many of the ancient theologians and institutions would be

disapproved by many scholars of the present, probably by a majority. So the very historian and scholar responsible for historical accuracy thought it appropriate to warn readers that what Knight said about the Six Schools is dubious at best. Now, there's more that can be said about this whole Six Schools argument so often repeated by Universalists, and we at Rethinking Hell have some forthcoming articles that will do just that. But for now, we can see that the unsupported, unsubstantiated 19th century claim about these six schools in the early church doesn't justify in the first place

the claim that the majority of the church was Universalist. Meanwhile, even earlier than the most ancient Universalists George can cite, namely Clementine origin of Alexandria, most other church fathers taught conditional immortality and annihilationism. This is admitted by no less than Universalist Keith Giles back when he still professed Christianity. In his book, Jesus Undefeated, Giles writes who believed conditionalism in the early church. Barnabas, Mathetace, Hermes, Irenaeus. These are all writing before Clementine origin right? And two Giles's list of early conditionalists should be added, Clement of Rome around 95 AD and Ignatius of Antioch and the writers of the Didache around 100 AD. And in our discussion time, we can look at quotes from these fathers,

but for now, let me let respected Bible teacher Steve Gregg sum up the historical state. He's somebody who's attracted to universalism, but leans conditionalists last I checked. And he sums up the historical situation this way in his book, All You Want to Know About Hell. Quote, conditionalism who's attracted universalism but leans conditionalist last I checked. And he sums up the historical situation this way in his book All You Want to Know About Hell. Quote, conditionalism was the earliest documentable view in the patristic writings, while universalism may have been dominant at a slightly later period. So here's an analogy for what George and other universalists do. English has been the language most spoken throughout the world for the past 100 years, give or take. So imagine if I said that for the past 500 years, English was the

language most spoken throughout the world. Well, that would be false and absurd, of course, because for 400 years before English became dominant, other languages held the top spot. In a similar way, George and other universalists point to a claim, a claim that as we've seen is completely unsubstantiated, that by the tail end of the first 500 years of church history, most Christians were universalists. And they treat that as if that was true of the entire 500 years, when in fact the earlier majority by far appears to have believed in annihilationism. Now, of course, universalism could be true whether the early church favored it or not, but it's important going into this discussion that viewers exercise a great deal of discernment

when it comes to the historical claims of universalists like George, because it seems to me pretty clear that universalists paint a false picture of early church history with misleading statements and false inferences from unsubstantiated 19th century claims. Now I want to turn to the Old Testament. George writes in his book, quote, the Old Testament does talk of punishment for sins, but the only form of divine punishment prominently presented there was punishment meted out on this earth.

It didn't refer to a future state. But notice that what George does here is set up a false dichotomy, as if a punishment must be either meted out on earth or somewhere else after death. But as we've already seen, final punishment in hell takes place after the dead are raised back to embodied life here on earth. So if biblical authors cite historical examples of divine punishments meted out on earth to warn of comparable divine punishments in the future, we can't rule out final punishment as

that future punishment they have in mind, since final judgment will also befall embodied living human beings on earth. George goes on to say that the first instance of punishment meted out in the Bible was that of Adam and Eve, it was their natural death. Adam ate from the tree he wasn't supposed to eat of and he died. And if there were any doubt as to what George means by death here, he makes clear. He says there were any doubt as to what George means by death here, he makes clear. He says, there were certainly additional consequences, but the main thrust of the punishment was clear. For dust you are, and to dust you will return.

The punishment was physical death. And here's one place where George and I can agree, which is awesome. George is right. But he omits something crucial. How did Adam and Eve die? Or maybe a better way to put it would be what guaranteed their eventual demise? Well, the text answers that, matter of factly.

Genesis 3 verses 22 and 23, God says, Now lest man reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. And then the narrator cuts God off and says, Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden. So notice that what secures the eventual deaths of Adam and Eve is that their access to the Tree of Life was revoked. And we ever since then have lacked access to that tree. This is critical because that tree reappears at the other end of scripture in Revelation chapter 22, where only the saved have access to its fruit. Revelation 22, one and two, the angel showed me the river of the water of life. This is in the picture of New Jerusalem, John says, and on either side of the river, the tree of life. Like all prophetic visions of the future in scripture, John's vision was symbolic. But and so we

shouldn't necessarily expect to literally eat from the tree of life and the resurrection, but it surely symbolizes what it originally represented in the garden, enduring life. And since only the saved at that time have access to it, only they will be immortal and live indefinitely. The resurrected lost, not having access to what that tree of life represents, must instead die. Now George goes on to argue that the Old Testament

is largely silent on the matter of final judgment. He says, quote, all as far as the future judgment of the wicked is concerned, all that is said explicitly in the Old Testament is that they will depart to Sheol, not knowing what their ultimate fate will be. But this just is not true. It's matter of factly untrue, because as we've already seen, Daniel says something about the ultimate fate of unrighteous people resurrected out of Sheol. Daniel 12 to those who sleep in the dust of the earth, that's Sheol, shall awake, that is come back to life, some of them unto everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. So the Old Testament contains at least Daniel's explicit statement that the unrighteous will be raised out of Sheol unto a punishment that excludes eternal life and includes everlasting contempt.

Now remember, the universalist view is that the resurrected lost will rise immortal and live forever, but here Daniel indicates that only the saved will rise unto eternal life, so the risen lost must not go on living contrary to universalism. Moreover, the word here in Daniel 12.2 translated contempt appears in only one other place in all of scripture, and that's Isaiah 66.24. contemplated contempt appears in only one other place in all of scripture, and that's Isaiah 66 24. They, that is the still living righteous, shall go out and look on the pagahrim, the dead bodies, the carcasses of the men who have rebelled against me. Their worms shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh. That word abhorrence is the only other use of Daniel 12 to his contempt in the Old Testament. And it describes how the still living righteous perceive or remember the slain wicked after they're gone.

And that's not all Isaiah says. Earlier in his prophecies and what is often mistitled Isaiah's little apocalypse, in Isaiah 25, seven to eight, God promises to swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces. Now, Isaiah may not explicitly say that this will happen at the final judgment, but we know that it will, because both Paul and John quote from this passage in Isaiah when talking about the resurrection. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, the dead in Christ will be raised imperishable,

and we shall be changed. When the perishable puts on the imperishable and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. That's a variant Septuagint translation of that passage in Isaiah. John quotes from a more mainstream translation in the Septuagint of Isaiah. In Revelation 21, 4, after the final judgment and resurrection scene, John says, God will wipe away every tear from their eyes and Hathanatos uk estai. I used to remember the Greek. I just ruined my flow. He says, and death shall be no more. Neither shall be there mourning or crying or pain anymore for the former things that passed away.

So notice that both Paul and John indicate that Isaiah's death of death will occur on the last day when the saints are raised immortal. And we'll return to Paul and John in a bit, but now that we know that that's the timeframe Isaiah has in mind, the final judgment, consider what he goes on to say in Isaiah 26. He says, Oh, Lord, our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us. They are dead. They will not live. They are shades. They will not arise. But God's dead shall live. Their bodies shall rise. So notice that Isaiah says God's people will rise and live, but Israel's oppressors will not. Now, that means either they will

never rise at all, or it means they will rise only briefly enough to be judged and then thereafter to return to the dust forever. Neither of those is compatible with universalism, but the latter is consistent with conditional immortality or annihilationism. There's a lot more I could say about the Old Testament, but in the interest of time, let me just sum up what I've argued. Universalists erect a false dichotomy between punishment on earth and punishment in the eschaton. And they claim silence in the Old Testament only by ignoring texts which indicate that the risen wicked will die and never live again.

And that brings me to the New Testament. And I want to first begin with an observation that George makes of texts in the New Testament that cite historical examples of judgment as examples of future judgment. So George observes that this is the case with the wicked in Noah's day who died when the flood came, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah who were physically destroyed and killed, and the plagues of Egypt that killed the firstborn sons of Egypt. And George goes on to observe that Jesus referred to these historical judgments as warnings of the coming judgments on Jerusalem. Well, he only offers one citation here, George does that I mean,

and that's Luke 17 22 to 37. And I agree that there, Jesus offers these Old Testament pictures of judgment as warnings of the impending judgment that befell Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans in 70 AD. But for a reason I won't speculate as to why, George doesn't mention the other places these historical judgments are cited. Peter and Jude both use these as examples of final judgment. In 2 Peter 2, 4 and 6, God didn't spare the angels who sinned, but threw them down into Tartarus to be kept in chains of darkness until judgment. And by turning the city of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes, he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly. Jude says the same thing in Jude 6 and 7, the angels who left their proper dwelling, God has kept in chains

until the judgment of the great day. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. See, both Peter and Jude here are talking about an eschatological judgment, one that awaits even fallen angels, the likes of which is described in intertestamental literature like First Enoch. This eschatological judgment isn't just human beings, it's also angelic beings, whereas the 70 AD destruction of Jerusalem was a was judgment on humans. So, and Peter and Jude both offer the slain inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as the people killed in the flood and in Egypt, as examples of what awaits human beings in that future eschatological judgment that will include fallen angels.

And importantly, Peter and Jude don't say the entire history of Sodom and Gomorrah, even extending beyond their destruction, is what serves as an example. He beyond their destruction is what serves an example. He says their destruction is what serves as an example. So if Sodom is to be restored, that's irrelevant to what Peter and Judah are saying here. Now, George goes on to address the Greek word, Colossus, translated punishment in Matthew 25, 46. And I think that he did this in his opening a moment ago. But in case I am misremembering that, he says in his book that the Greek word for punishment, Colossus, is never used for anything but remedial punishment in all Greek literature outside the Bible. This is false. Or at the very least, it's misleading. If by Greek literature, George

means specifically non-Jewish literature, then he might be right. But if he means literature in the Greek language, then he's dead wrong. The Septuagint is the Hebrew Old Testament translated into Greek in the couple of centuries leading up to the time of Christ and in it, Colossus never means pruning or remedial punishment. In Second Maccabees 438, it refers to the death penalty that Antiochus inflicts upon Andronicus. And in Third Maccabees 1, 2, and 3, it refers to the death that befell a hapless victim in a tent when Theodotus thought that it was King Ptolemy. In both of these cases and in others, the Colossus in contemporaneous Jewish literature is the death penalty, not remedial punishment.

See, it's not classical Greek literature like that of Plato written hundreds of years before the New Testament that determines what the Jewish authors of the New Testament mean by Colossus. That would be an exegetical fallacy known as semantic obsolescence, where you say a word here means what it meant hundreds of years earlier. Rather, the much more contemporaneous Jewish literature like 2nd and 3rd Maccabees tells us what Colossus meant in Koine Greek at the time the Jews wrote the New Testament. And there it refers to capital punishment, which is infamously incapable of remediation. Finally, I want to briefly mention or discuss George's treatment of the lake of fire in Revelation. And here I guess I will go about

a minute or two over 20 minutes. I apologize, but I don't think I was the only one to do that. So George points out that in Revelation 21, the lake of fire burns with fire and sulfur. And he says in his book that the word translated sulfur originally referred to fire from heaven. It's connected with sulfur because it was used in pagan religious rights for purification. This just is not true. It's it's matter of factly false.

In Jewish writings, including the Old and New Testaments, sulfur was associated far more closely than anything else with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and it appears to render the ground infertile and uninhabitable as part of their penalty. So in Genesis 19 verses 24 and 25, the Lord rains down fire and sulfur from the Lord out of heaven, and it kills the inhabitants of the cities and destroys what grew on the ground. Deuteronomy 29 23 likewise says the whole land burned out with sulfur and salt, nothing sown and nothing growing where no plant can sprout an overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah. So the fact that the lake of fire in John's vision is burning with fire and sulfur means that it symbolizes death and destruction, not purification and remediation. And that's why

John and God both interpret the imagery, the way that biblical interpreters interpret prophetic visions of the future, saying that the lake of fire symbolizes the second death. This expression appears in the Aramaic translations of the Old Testament known as the Targums, which although compiled shortly after the time of Jesus, nevertheless record an earlier oral tradition. And in the Targums, the second death is an event at which the wicked are killed, never to live again. Targum Neophyte on Deuteronomy 33, 36 is an example, may Reuben live in this world and not die in the second death in which the wicked die

in the world to come. And the Targum on Jeremiah 51, 39, similarly says they shall die the second death and shall not live for the world to come. So when John and God interpret the lake of fire as symbolizing the second death, they're telling first century Jewish readers familiar with this pre-Targummit tradition that the lake of fire symbolizes this cosmic event at which the risen wicked would literally die a second time. It's not at all a picture of remediation or purification. It's a picture of death and destruction. And there's a lot more to be said, but I'll just wrap up with this. Universalists distort the meaning of New Testament texts by committing exegetical fallacies and omitting crucially relevant passages that indicate the risen wicked will die and never

live again. Thanks. All right. Thank you, Chris. Also a lot to think about. We're just getting started. This episode is brought to you by Mitopure by Timeline. Timeline is a Swiss-based life science company and is a global leader in urolithium A research.

So I've recently been learning about urolithium A. Urolithium A is a powerful postbiotic that is nearly impossible to get just from your diet alone. And Mitopure is the first product to offer a precise dose of Urolithia A to upgrade your mitochondrial function, increase cellular energy, and improve muscle strength and endurance. One way to think about Mitopure is that they are little like Pac-Men for you JetXers, Pac-Men in your cells,

chomping up the damaged mitochondria that makes you feel old and tired, and recycling it into new healthy ones. According to Timeline, taking two soft gels a day for two months results in significant improvements in your cellular energy, muscle strength, and endurance. After four months of taking Mitopure, you'll feel yourself getting stronger,

recovering faster after a workout, and experiencing less inflammation. Now, Timeline is offering a 10% off a discount of your first order of might appear. If you go to timeline.com forward slash theology and use the code theology, you'll get 10% off your order. That's timeline. T I M E L I N E.com forward slash theology to take advantage of this offer. Go check it out. ne.com forward slash theology to take advantage of this offer. Go check it out. George, you have up to, you don't have to take the total full 10 minutes, but you have up to 10 minutes if you want to respond to Chris's.

Yeah. It's like a fire hose that comes out. Good job, Chris. That's very good. A couple of different things. I think that sometimes you're talking about my omission of resurrection, that hell is for the resurrected body. If you read my book, I'm not trying to talk about detailed things. I'm talking at the beginning when I mentioned that the traditional view is that somebody dies and they're going to go to hell or going to heaven. The idea there that I was trying to communicate is that the typical belief that people have is that when someone dies, if they have not made a profession of faith in this life, in this conscious life prior to death, then they will ultimately result in going into hell. That's what I was trying to say. I think it's

a semantic difference that you're making there. With regard to the six major schools, historically, I would just encourage you to read Ilaria Ramelli. Ilaria is brilliant. I've corresponded with her and also David Constan. They wrote the book Time and Eternity, and they're probably two of the best scholars around. But she, I mean, she lists, I have, actually I should have gotten my other notes. When I was trying to shorten this up, I got rid of a bunch of the other names of early

Christian leaders that believed in ultimate restoration. But it was not true. What you're saying that annihilation was the dominant view in the early church. That was not the case. It was really a mistaken understanding by a lot of people in more contemporary times translating the word ion as everlasting or forever instead of translating as unknown amount of time, a longer or shorter period of time that the end is not known.

So if you'll read her book, I can't remember the name of it right now. The one long book is extremely long, it's 950 pages, but she also wrote one more recently with Robin Perry that really goes through and just quotes all these early Christians who believed in ultimate restoration. So Edward Beecher was a very brilliant man. By the way, your comment about the editor in the George Knight quotation there, he was obviously trying to tell people that, hey, I know that you guys believe that ultimate, that endless punishment is the belief there. So I'm covering my rear end here by putting in this little footnote to make sure

that you know that I don't agree with that. He wasn't questioning what they were actually, he didn't really address what George Knight said. He was just questioning the fact that, hey, this is a different situation than what is normally posted up there. He knew that that would be a very strange view to most people. Destruction and death. Yeah, one of the things, you know, I listened to your talk on Remnant Radio the other day and you do a great job. By the way, you're very, very insightful in a lot of

ways. You're very scholarly. You communicate extremely well. I'm very impressed with that. But you kept on focusing on the whole idea of destruction, that destruction means the end. That's like death. You know what death means? It means the end, and yet God resurrects the dead. and yet God resurrects the dead. The whole idea of restoration, I don't understand why that becomes a difficulty when in reality it's no different than death. God resurrects the dead. God is able to restore that which is destroyed. In Daniel, the word contempt – good, interesting thing there – But again, it's contempt in the age to come or the ages to come. I'm just saying that it's not dealing. The comment in Daniel is not giving an exhaustive comment about what was the teaching in the Old Testament,

but that's the only verse in the entire Old Testament and it really relates a lot to the whole definition of Ion. You said the lost really relates a lot to the whole definition of ion. You said the lost don't have access to the tree of life. It says that specifically in Revelation 22 or 23 that the call is given out. Those who wish come and take of the tree of the water of life. It's by the bride who's in the New Jerusalem and the spirit say, come, who are they talking to? They're talking to those outside the city.

And it's not those who are believers, it's those who are non-believers. Where are they? They're the ones, the sexually immoral, the murderers, almost the same list of people that are in the lake of fire that burns sulfur and fire. Oh, and Jude, I'm not sure how you got your comment from what I said, but it says that this is the example of what happens of everlasting—or what is it? I don't have my notes right here, but that Judah is specifically saying this is an example

of eternal destruction or whatever it is there. Well, what happened? They got restored. That was the whole point, that God did restore Sodom. Death being swallowed up in victory. The early Jewish literature, by the way, in my book I quote a number of, in the end notes, a number of places in the early Jewish literature that talks about how many of the early Jews believed that Gehenna was only going to be lasting for 12 months and that only as long

as the righteous would allow it. Just a lot of stuff in there that is important. I guess just getting to the heart of the issue though, Chris, you have four children. Let me just ask you, both of you guys, I asked the question at the beginning, what percentage of those who have lived on the earth, and by the way, the estimate is that

total number of people living on the earth is about 100 billion since the beginning of recorded history. What percentage of those do you believe will be in heaven? Let me ask both of you guys, what do you think? No idea. How about you, Russie? Yeah, I mean, I have no idea.

You guys are afraid to say it. Do you believe it'll be? I mean, I would say idea. You guys are afraid to say it. Do you believe it'll be? I mean, I would say the majority would not be in heaven. Okay. How about you, Chris? Do you think the majority would not be in heaven? I won't even go that far. I have no earthly idea.

I just know from the biblical testimony that it will be some percentage less than a hundred. Okay. What I would say is, I'll just ask you, you've got four kids. If it was 75% don't make it into heaven, which three of your children would you not want to even be able to remember that they existed? If you're alluding to the memory wipe answer to the problem of hell, that's not something I hold anyway. You can't just take that for granted. How do you answer that, by the way?

Seriously, how do you answer that question that that people in heaven says I'm going to wipe away all tears? There are a lot of people that I love that are nonbelievers. I have I have I've lost two children and they were on board children, but they were children nevertheless. And I've 100% on that one. And I've grieved with them. I've grieved for them. But their loss in the past does not prevent me from enjoying the life of God in the present. And so likewise, eternity in the life of God in His presence won't prevent those who had lost loved ones who were destroyed in the final judgment from going on and enjoying their eternity.

Now, I would agree with you that what you're proposing is a much bigger problem for the doctrine of eternal torment, but I don't think it's a problem for annihilationism at all. It seems to me like a big problem for annihilationism as well as eternal torment, just because these are people that are loved by people, you know. I'll mention one other thing too. The big issue, when I was talking with, I think it was Jerry Walls back at the conference in Fuller in 2015, he was endless punishment, but the whole idea was God is a loser. I mean, the endless punishment and annihilation basically says

God loses. That sin is more powerful than grace, that death is more powerful than life, that God is the biggest loser in all of creation. Here he is, he created mankind in his image, and he can't get them through the door to eternal life. I mean, again, you guys are both, I assume you're a parent as well, Preston, is that correct? Yeah, yeah, I've got four kids. I discipline my children, and I discipline them quite definitely, but I never abandoned them.

And that's what I see is happening with the view that you have with regard to annihilation or endless punishment, is that God basically abandons those that He created. He creates them in His image, they live on this earth, they die, that's the way it goes. Just got to throw them away. But they are worth far more than that. So that's my biggest issue with regard to annihilation. I mean, you know, you can, I'm not a biblical scholar in that sense.

I'm an actor who went to seminary and I do, back in 1978, I had been on Campus Crusade for Christ's staff for four years from 1971 to 75, and then I went to Gordon Conwell Seminary from 75 to 78. I never heard anyone ever say that there was even a possibility that God would restore all of creation. That just, I never heard that. But it just seems so strange that here you've got this God who's all wise, all loving and good. And he's going to have the majority of those people that he creates are going to either be annihilated or they're going to suffer consciously forever.

George, George, we're coming up with this is, first of all, I love this back and forth right here. And I actually want to come back to this, but we're at 11 minutes and I just just stick to that. No, no, no, not at all. And I hope it do kind of return to this question in the dialogue, but Chris, yeah, you have 10 minutes and then we'll go to a free flowing dialogue. Sure.

So George suggests that in my view, God is a loser. He says that in my view, Jesus fails in his mission to seek and save all the lost. But that's just not true. For one thing, if God's goal was not to save every single individual lost person, but to save lost humankind, the human race, the human species, he very much succeeded in that mission. The human race survives just like it did the flood, even if only a small percentage of the human race ends up surviving. Moreover, not all soteriological views entail Jesus seeking and saving and trying to save every single lost person. Non-Calvinist views do, and some four-point Calvinist views do, but five-point Calvinism does not suggest,

does not believe that God seeks and tries to save every single lost person. So we'd have to enter into a debate on five-point Calvinism and the doctrine of limited atonement if we wanted to go down that road. Moreover, even if that kind of Calvinism is untrue, and if God did indeed try to save at all but doesn't successfully save them all. That doesn't make him a loser. God may have a greater good in mind that he preserves by not forcing his victory. That's exactly what the various theodicies, those are defenses of God's justice and goodness

in the face of the problem of evil. It's exactly what theodicies trade on, this notion of the greater good being more important than forcing his victory. So for example, many non Calvinists will point to what they think is the importance and transcendent value of free will, the freedom. So there are multiple different ways of responding to this God is a loser claim. And I would just frankly rather stick with the text.

George also argues very heavily from the doctrine of God. He argues that God is all loving, God is just, he wants to save all mankind, et cetera. But what this is, is an example of universalism speculating based on plausible, maybe even compelling extrapolations from the nature of God to what the fate of the wicked is. What they do, however, is avoid like a plague

the texts that actually say what the fate of the wicked is. See, this debate really needs to focus on what the text of scripture says is the fate of the wicked rather than come to a conclusion about what the fate of the wicked is by fallible extrapolations and speculations based on God's nature, and then read that conclusion into the texts that talk about the ultimate fate of all humankind.

And yes, God is love, and I don't think that God's love ever fails, but I do think that God can accept an alternative loving fate for the wicked besides their salvation for a greater good. The fact is that anybody familiar with the wide number of variety of movies and TV shows and books and so forth, will be able to easily come up with several examples in which one person will out of love, kill another person that they love. It may be to protect them from causing undue harm on themselves and others. It may be because that's the just thing for somebody that is guilty of a terrible crime. But whatever the case, execution, capital punishment can indeed

be an expression of love, even if it's not the same kind, maybe even if you want to say it's not as loving as their salvation. George makes a big deal about the many of the texts that talk about all people. But what George doesn't seem to have to evince awareness of, I'm not going to assume anything, but he doesn't appear to be aware that the Hebrew and Greek words rendered all or every can can mean every single instance of, but they equally, if not more often mean every kind of every category of I'm not making this up, just look it up in any mainstream lexicon. Look up the Greek word posp, P, alpha, sigma. Look that word up in any Greek lexicon and you'll see that one of its standard meanings is every kind of.

So what was the great scandal of the New Testament that every single human being would be saved? No, it was that salvation in God's kingdom was not limited to the Jews alone, but to the Jews and Gentiles. So when Paul says that in Adam all die and in Christ all shall be made alive, we don't have any reason for thinking he's saying that in Adam every single human being dies, even if that's true, and in Christ all shall, every single human being shall be made alive. Rather, it's just as plausible and much more fitting in the context to think that what Paul is saying is that in Adam, every kind of person dies. There are no, there's no category of person that's excluded. And likewise, every category of person will be

made alive in Christ, namely the people from, as the book of Revelation puts it, every tribe, nation, people and tongue will be saved. Isaiah 25 in the language of all peoples, the covering of overall peoples, death being swallowed up. Yeah, Jews, Gentiles, free slave, male, female, every kind of person, God will swallow up death forever, meaning that there will be people from every category of person in the eschaton living forever and they will never die again. That's what it means that death will have been swallowed up in victory and destroyed. George mentions the restoration of Sodom's and Samaria's daughters, but these

are the restorations of those cities. There's nothing in the text that suggests that every single person that died in those areas will themselves be restored. So you might imagine, for example, that imagine what's the nuclear plant that blew up in Chernobyl, Europe. Chernobyl. So imagine if, and maybe this is even happening to this day, imagine that the people of the country in which Chernobyl is found, rebuilt Chernobyl and it became even more glorious than it was at the time that power plant was just, you know, blew up. Well, they would say they restored the glories of Chernobyl. They restored it to, in fact, exceed its previous state before it was destroyed. But in no way does that imply that everybody who died in Chernobyl would be restored. So when Peter and Jude both say that the destruction

of Sodom and Gomorrah serves as an example of what awaits the ungodly, we don't get to just smuggle in their eventual restoration and assume that that's what Peter and Jude have in mind. Number one, they're talking about their destruction being exemplary, not their entire history after that. And number two, what is restored are those cities, not the inhabitants that were killed in them.

He mentions John, I think it's chapter 11, George does, in which Jesus says he will draw all people to myself. And that's right, he draws not only Jews, but also Gentiles, males, females, free, slave, et cetera. Let's see here, Philippians 2, 9, 11. Universalists often treat this passage as if it's a prophecy, a prediction that one day every single knee will bow and every single tongue will confess.

But that's just a simple mistake of exegesis. This language is the same language both here in the Greek and in the Isaiah 45, 22 and 23, which Paul quotes, not the language of will, but of shall. You might remember that some translations of the Ten Commandments will say things like thou shalt not murder. Okay. But it's the exact same verbal form as in Isaiah 45. Every tongue shall confess. It doesn't mean will. It's a statement that that's who ought to be confessed. That's to whom the knee ought to be bowed. And what does Isaiah 45 22 to 23 say? Turn to me and be saved all the ends of the earth for I am God and there is no other. To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.

So what Paul is saying is that it is Jesus who is himself incarnate God who upon his ascension became the one to whom every knee ought to bow, or every tongue ought to confess. This is not the language of prophecy and prediction, notwithstanding the attempt of universalists to claim otherwise. George mentions the ever open gates in Revelation as if that's a picture saying, well, everybody can swarm into the gates of New Jerusalem. That's not what the picture's a picture saying, well, everybody can swarm into the gates of New Jerusalem. That's not what the picture is. In fact, explicitly the picture is of the gates being open because there is no night there. See, in first century Judea, the gates of the city were closed at night because there was danger outside of the gates.

It was a way to protect the people inside. But once all of God's enemies have been destroyed and all who remain are God's people inside the city, there's no need to ever close the gates because there's no night there. We already addressed the issue of history in the early church. Just a point of correction, George often says that the word eternal in Matthew 25, 46 is ion. That's false. It's not. That ion is a noun. This is ionios. It's an adjective. And we always have to be careful when we see cognates. We can't just assume that the meaning wrapped up in one of the cognates is identical to the meaning wrapped up in another. And in

fact, this idea that callosus means of the age to come, that what Jesus is warning about in Matthew 25 is punishment of the age to come, that what Jesus is warning about in Matthew 25 is punishment of the age to come. That's an extremely highly disputed meaning of the adjective Ioneos, and I would say it's a precarious argument to hang your case on. Jude 7 does indeed say that Sodom and Gomorrah suffered the punishment of eternal fire, but it's the fire that is said to be eternal, not their destruction. It says it's the fire that is said to be eternal, not their destruction. It says it's eternal fire. It's like imagine a flamethrower, which has a little bit of flame at the end of the barrel.

And then when they shoot gas out of it, it shoots fire and it'll catch a bush on fire that you aim it at. And then when they release the trigger, that fire will still be burning at the flamethrower, but the bushes that caught on fire will eventually dissipate, it'll burn up. In the same way, the fire from God, the quintessential consuming eternal fire, that came down out of heaven from God and slayed the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. That's what eternal fire is. And Jude says that's the example of final punishment and I'm out of time. Okay. Thank you both for all of that really intriguing, provocative and thoughtful information, lots to consider.

So the way we're going to do this now, just kind of a free flowing conversation here. My only role is to listen. I might chime in if I feel like I just can't hold, hold my tongue at all. Or if I feel like I have a good question that needs to be addressed, but yeah, either one can start if you have anything to respond to that hasn't been responded to yet or anything pressing that you want to talk about. I guess the comment that God's goal is to save the human race as opposed to human beings, I guess my biggest thing is your God is too small. I'm going to save the human race. So I'm going to save, I got a big Titanic. I'm going to save the human race, so I save three of the

people off the Titanic, but most of them go down and die. It just seems to me a little bit, it just doesn't seem, that doesn't fit the God that I read about in scripture. Like the God who saved the human race in the flood? Yeah. Because he's also going to save the rest of the people. It's not just that he's going to save a few people, eight people, and the sick. It's like, okay, you're a loser. That's the bottom line.

You're a loser. You've lost billions of people and yet you think, oh, it's so good because I saved a couple of them. Let me ask you a question, George. So let's say, hypothetically speaking, that on the final day in the resurrection, you encounter God and you discover that I'm right. Hypothetically speaking, are you going to stand there and tell the God of the universe when he destroys, let's just hypothetically say, the majority of humankind because they're

lost, are you going to call him a loser to his face? I would probably ask him why he's not a loser, because I would actually say, God, I think you have just become a loser. Honestly, you know, the bottom line to me is, what I read in scripture is that there is no, there's nothing that God is unable to do. In this hypothetical scenario in which you say to God, the God of the universe, who has just miraculously made you immortal and raised you from the dead, you're going to say to him, you've just become a loser, do you expect that he would, in this hypothetical scenario he would have a valid response that you hadn't considered?

Or let me put it this way, do you? That's obviously, when you're arguing against God, God always has more knowledge and he has... Great. Then this whole issue of God allegedly being a loser, we can drop out of the argument. I don't think you can. I don't think you can, Chris, because it is too big an argument. I just think that the bottom line is, Jesus said, I came to seek and save what was lost. So most of the lost are not found.

That just, to me, it says, God, you lost them. You know, what do you claim to come and save the lost? But the lost are not found. And it just seems to me so reasonable. Many of them are found, not only the individual lost people who are found, and lost humankind is saved. The human race, which was lost, to use the language of Athanasius, shrinking back into the nothing whence they came, the human race survives. Now you can call God a loser if you want.

I'll let you do that on the final day if that turns out, if I turned out to have been right. But as it stands right now, I'm happy to answer your challenge from the God is a loser argument by saying, look, I'm just going with what the text says is going to happen to the lost on that day. Yeah, but God is going to resurrect them, I think.

And I think that he will. Well, no, you don't. Are you actually correct me if I'm wrong. I think you're misleading us. I think you're misleading us here. Do you actually believe that the lost are going to be resurrected a first time unto judgment, be slain, killed a second time, die, and then be resurrected again after that? No.

Right. So you don't actually believe they're going to be resurrected after they are slain in hell. What I mean, what I'm believing is they will be resurrected. They will go through some kind of situation. You know, that's another question, by the way. I don't see, you made a comment about one point, I wrote it down here, I can't remember where it is now—but that God is just punishing people, and they're going through all this punishment, etc., etc., etc. That's not what I see as hell. What I see as hell is a place where God works to bring a person to a point where they understand their need for God's saving grace through Christ. It's really similar to the situation of a

drug addict or an alcoholic. Why does somebody become a believer now who's been an alcoholic or whatever? It's because they realize that the consequences of their actions lead to misery. In fact, that was one of the things that the early Christian universalists talked about was that sin always leads to misery. And so therefore at some point, they're going to recognize their need for God saving grace. And at that point, they turn to him. George, I understand. I understand the claims of universalism. I'm friends with Robin Perry. He makes the exact same argument. He compares the hell of eternal torment to be like a torture

chamber, the hell of annihilation to be like a guillotine and the hell of universalism to be like a hospital where people suffer as part of their healing process. I get the claim. The problem is that claim finds no support in the pages of scripture because everywhere scripture talks about what is actually going to happen to the wicked on that last day, it's never in terms of purification and remediation, not in the case with Colossus in Matthew 25, 46, not in the case of sulfur in Revelation, and not anywhere else. Everywhere, what is promised, the resurrected lost in hell is death and destruction, not of the old man, not of the fleshly nature. There's nothing like that in

scripture, but rather the death of the people, the death of the fleshly nature. There's nothing like that in scripture, but rather the death of the people, the death of the persons there. So I understand your claim. I'm just saying that claim doesn't align with what scripture actually says is going to happen to the wicked on that day. I disagree with that. I think that it actually does.

It talks about Hades, obviously, give up the death that are the lives of the souls that are in Hades, it gives them up. Yeah, it's called resurrection, George. Yeah, exactly. Right. And then they go. I'm just saying that you're you're you're saying that destruction is complete. George, let's try this again. George, George, let's try this again. George, let's try this again.

Okay. I'm not saying that death and destruction inherently means there's no rescue. That's something you've read into what I've said. What I said is that the fate that is warned about the fate that is said by scripture to await the resurrected wicked is death and destruction like their first death. So you imagine people. I know, but that's what the text says. And I just gave you tons of examples of it in scripture. No, you did not. When Peter and Jude, when Peter and Jude say that what happened to the antediluvians and the people

inside of the mora, they were killed. They were killed, George. Judgment. It says they were killed. But they're punished. No, that's what it says about the fallen angels. That's different. What it says about the antediluvians, the people in the flood and about the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, is that they were killed. And what I'm saying, and you don't believe that the resurrected lost will be killed. So whatever death and destruction you want to say is sort of loosely applicable to whatever fate they suffer in hell, it's not death, the likes of which all throughout scripture is talked about in terms of the first death. So you end up saying the word

death and destruction mean one thing when it talks about a person dying in the flood or a person dying in Sodom and Gomorrah, but it means an entirely different, almost unrecognizable thing when it applies to the resurrected immortal lost. So, let me ask you a question, George. Can you point me to anywhere in scripture, anywhere, where it is said that humankind will universally be made immortal when they are raised from the dead? I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for.

Well, Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 says that the dead in Christ will rise and be made immortal and imperishable. We have Luke, in Luke chapter 20 verses 35 and 36, I think it is Jesus telling the Sadducees that in the resurrection, the sons of God will be unable to die anymore. We've got these in other texts which indicate that the resurrected saved will be immortal. My question for you, George, George, let me finish my question please. My question for you is similar to any of those texts which ascribe immortality to the resurrected saved. Can you point to any text that ascribes immortality to the resurrected lost?

Well, that's the whole point. You're misunderstanding what the universalist position is, or ultimate restoration. It's not that the people are unsaved are going to go on and exist forever and in some capacity. It's saying that they will ultimately come to a point where they acknowledge their need for God and accept the saving grace of God. I understand that, George, but you're not answering my question. You're not answering my question. As we've already talked about, or at least as I talked about, all three of these views believe that everybody's one day going to rise from the dead. And when people rise from the dead, they can rise in one of at least two different ways. They could either rise mortal.

We have the book of Hebrews, for example, talking about mothers whose children were raised from the dead in the Old Testament, but they weren't made immortal at that time. They were brought back to life. Lazarus, when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, he was not resurrected, he was resuscitated. That's a distinction the Bible knows nothing of. This is a false... Exactly! That's my point. Resurrection is not innately immortality confirmed. He was not resurrected, Jesus was resurrected. That's false. The book of Hebrews uses the word resurrection, Anastasis, for the people, the children in the Old Testament,

whose mothers received their life, their children back from the dead. So, resurrection in scripture is not some special kind of resuscitation which confers immortality. It's just coming back to life. So, when a person dies and is resurrected, they can come back to life in one of two ways. They can either come back still mortal and die eventually again, or they can rise immortal. And I've pointed you to a slew of texts which indicate that the saved will rise immortal, incapable of ever dying again. What I've asked you, George, is can you point me to any text in scripture which says that the lost will be raised immortal

and incapable of dying? All we can say is that the lost will not be lost. They are going to be found. That's the whole point. So the answer to my question is no, correct? I'm not sure exactly I understand your question. My question is this. What I'm saying is...

Can you... No. George, George, I'm not going to let you escape my question. Chris, what I'm saying is... No, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. George, you've at least answered my question. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. George, you've at least answered my question.

Okay. What I'm saying is that the saved, they will be saved. The people that will live forever are those who are saved. I'm saying that God is going to save all mankind. I'm going to try one more time. Here's my question. Is there anywhere in scripture that says the lost will be raised immortal the way that it says the saved will? Yes or no? The loss are going to be raised immortal. It doesn't talk about the loss

being raised immortal. I know! That's my point, George. No, but you're missing the whole point. The point is it's the saved who are going to, because they are the ones who are going to, God is going to save all mankind. That's the point that yes, they will be immortal because they are saved, not because God just raises them up so you can punish them and keep on punishing them. That's, that's horrific. You know, that's kind of a, uh, uh, almost scandalous when you think about Preston, I don't know if we want to moderate here. Let me, let me jump in. Cause I think I'm, I'm, I wanted to stay out of it for the most part. I also do want to make sure my audience is

tracking too. So let, let me try to see if I can rightly frame where I think this disagreement and maybe missing each other are let's just, I want to conceptualize kind of an order events in the afterlife, according to both of your positions. Chris, I feel like I can represent yours. Well, you have, you know, people die. There's some, perhaps some kind of intermediate state. And then when, when the Bible talks about resurrection, both the, the, the wicked and the righteous will be raised in the dead. Chris, your position is the righteous. That is a moment. They are conferred with immortality. Scripture explicitly says as much. Yes. The wicked who are also resurrected are raised in the dead.

They are not conferred with immortality. They are sent to hell where they are destroyed. Is I understand your position, is that correct so far? And then I want to try to see how Speaker 3rd 3rd 1 question when they are sent to hell the second time after the race, is it for punishment? They're never sent to hell a second time. Hell begins when the resurrected lost are thrown in or thrown in there. But, but go ahead and finish your question because I don't think that was the real crux of your question. So if I've understood your position, Chris, there I'm trying to see if...

Yeah, yes, Preston, you got it right. As I understand... The three of us here are mortal right now. I believe after we die, we and the lost will rise. But I think scripture explicitly says we will rise immortal. But nowhere does scripture say the lost will rise immortal. So I think they will rise mortal and they will literally die a second time in hell. I don't think, I do think I need clarity on George's position. So if you, I think you agree with everything he said so far. The only difference is correct me if I'm wrong, is when the lost are, when the say the wicked,

the biblical language is used, are sent to hell, that is for a time of purification. And when they are repentive, when God restores them, is there a second resurrection from hell or is it after that time of purification, then God confers immortality onto them? I think, is this kind of what your question to George is, Chris? And so what is, if your order of afterlife events, George, how would you unpack that just for the sake of clarity? We die. We stand before God's judgment. God sends us either into a position, what commonly referred to as hell, which I think is a place for remediation or for bringing a person to

a point where they understand their need. Just to be clear, resurrection, plug resurrection. I was going to ask like, where does resurrection fit? Yeah. Maybe repeat what you said and then tell us where resurrection came. A person is raised from the dead. Okay. Okay. Stands before God. And at that point, God Okay? Stands before God, and at that point God passes judgment. At that point, if you are a believer, you will go into everlasting life. If you are a non-believer or the wicked, you want it, whatever the phrase is in Scripture, then you will go into some kind of punishment. I say it's a point where the facts of you are confronted with reality more deeply than you ever have been before in a time where God works to bring you to a point where you recognize your need for God. And you're a living embodied person at this time. Yes, a living embodied person. I don't really, a living embodied, as far as I know. A resurrected person.

I don't really understand how God does all that, in all seriousness. I think the whole idea of being raised mortal, is it a physical body, is it a spiritual body? I don't know. I mean, I really don't get into that kind of stuff. This is crucial. Well, maybe, I know it's crucial for your position.

Well, it's crucial to Christianity. Christianity has always included, as an essential of the faith the physical resurrection of the dead. I understand, but how all this stuff works in terms of hell, I don't know how God's been doing that. But they're not dead people in hell. That's my point. They're resurrected living people, correct? They never cease to exist. They experience a time of...

They never cease to die. They never... Okay, you can say that if you want to. But at that point... Do you know what never cease to die means? You know they never say that if you want to. Right. And but at that point, do you know what, do you know what never cease to die means? You know what? You know, there's a word for what, for somebody who never ceases to die. Do you know what that word is? Immortal. Immortal. So wait, hold on. I, so, so the person is being punished in, in hell and when they are rescued out of hell, do you consider that a second resurrection or simply all I know is at that point, that's when they are rescued out of hell, do you consider that a second resurrection?

Or simply— I don't know exactly how God—all I know is at that point, that's when they come into the city, the New Jerusalem, and they take from the tree of life, and they eat it, and they live forever. Because God has allowed them—those who are not—let me just finish—those who are not righteous, the unrighteous, the sexually immoral, et cetera, will not be allowed into the gates of the new Jerusalem, only those who are. So it's when someone comes in and acknowledges their need for God saving grace, they come in, then they can take the water and the tree of life.

Just, just for the sake of my audience, the, the, cause you are pushing George on something. And if I can identify what you're pushing him on was for the unbeliever to be rescued out of hell, that would necessitate being conferred immortality. And you're saying there is no biblical justification for a conferring of immortality on the unbeliever who was sent to hell. Is that specifically what you're pushing on? What I said is that there's no biblical statement that the resurrected lost will be immortal. There are plenty of biblical statements that the resurrected saved will be. There are none concerning the resurrected lost. So, let me focus like a laser beam on the tree of life, because George said something really important there. And let me start this in the matter of a question. Would you agree with me, George, with what I said in my opening that it was because their

access to the Tree of Life was revoked that Adam and Eve were guaranteed death? Yeah, physical death. I agree. Great. Who in Revelation has access to the Tree of Life? Where is the Tree of Life? Is it inside or outside of the gates? I think it's inside the gates.

All right. So it's inside the New Jerusalem, which is inhabited by the saved alone. Okay. And you have the resurrected, living, physically living, lost outside of that city without access to the Tree of Life in whatever is symbolized by the Lake of Fire. Correct so far? That's correct. Okay, and those physically alive, resurrected people will spend some unspecified amount of time away from the tree of life without access to it, correct?

Okay. Before they're rescued out and then are able to come into the city and take from the tree? Sure. So that's what I'm- I don't know what the life after this bodily experience is all about. How right but we do have scripture. That's all but we do have scripture because nobody knows how the devil be raised. So in the opening of the scripture, the tree of life is there to secure indefinite physical life. Adam and Eve's access to it is revoked.

It's not just physical life, by the way. Well, so, but it's at least physical life, right? It's physical life, I agree. Okay, great, so going back to what I was saying. I'm not sure, Chris, that it is totally just physical life. But is it at least physical life, George? All right. Thank you.

So Adam and Eve, because their access to the tree of life is revoked, their eventual physical death is guaranteed, right? Okay. All right. Thank you. So Adam and Eve, because their access to the tree of life is revoked, their eventual physical death is guaranteed. Right? Okay. So when the tree of life reappears at the other end of scripture, the Jewish readers of Revelation weren't reading it in a vacuum. They were reading it with the whole Old Testament in which they were steeped in the back of their minds. So when the tree of life reappears at the other end of Revelation, they have one and only one thing in the back of their minds that that maps on to. And that is the enduring life that would have guaranteed Adam and Eve had

they continued to have access to it. And here in Revelation, only those in New Jerusalem have it. So there's no basis for saying those outside of New Jerusalem can remain physically alive and embodied indefinitely until they're eventually able to… You don't know what God can give you. God had… I'm not talking… The big issue isn't what God can do. Listen.

Good Lord. God had people living for 969 years. But because they didn't have access to the tree of life, they eventually died. I understand that. But how long is a person going to access to the tree of life, they eventually died. I understand that. But how long is a person going to be in the state of hell, what we would normally call hell? I have no idea. God is placing them dead.

Okay, good. Let's press into that. So, your proposal then would be that the people who are in hell are capable of surviving long enough to be rescued out of hell without being immortal, and then they will be granted immortality if they're rescued out. Yeah, how God works that out, I don't know, Chris. But that's not my point. But he knows that that's what Scripture talks about.

That's what Scripture teaches. Ask him, but you're... There are people outside the city that are called by the bride and the spirit to come and take of the free gift of the one and one. So that's actually not true. What you're quoting from at the end of Revelation is part of the book's epilogue. It's part of John's letter to his readers. It's not part of what's happening in the vision.

But setting that aside, setting that aside, and we can disagree on that, setting that aside, the point I'm getting at is, whereas Scripture says enduring life is secured only by access to the tree of life, and it limits access to that tree in the book of Revelation to the saved who are in New Jerusalem. You say somehow people are not done. That's why the call is given to those outside the gates. So as I was saying, you've got people living physically and embodied outside of the gates of New Jerusalem for potentially hundreds of years, but long enough, not so long that they

eventually die. And yet, and yet, scripture says over and over again, in fact, the biggest way, the biggest kind of picture that scripture paints of what awaits the lost in hell is a language of death and destruction. So what you're proposing is not only do our people, physically embodied people, able to live for potentially centuries in hell, even though they're not immortal, but moreover, physically embodied people, able to live for potentially centuries in hell even though they're not immortal, but moreover, they don't die despite the fact that over and over and over again, scripture says that's what will happen there, is that

they will die. But I mean, I think George is just interpreting the word death differently than you, right? I mean, you're assuming- Well, let's talk about that then. Let's not try to avoid it. What I'm saying is, Chris, I'm assuming that people are going to be in my physical body just like this. I'm going to live for, you know, whatever number of years. I've lived 76 years so far, and it may be a little bit longer, but who knows what's going to happen. And then we don't know what that is going to be like.

Actually, we do. You know why? Because Jesus rose from the dead and we're promised by Paul and Romans a resurrection like his. And you know what happened with Jesus's resurrection body? It was physical. In fact, it still had the holes in his. It also goes through doors. It does not go through walls. There's no text that says that. What it says is that he suddenly appears behind locked doors. But hold on, hold on. Non-resurrected people have that happen. Do you remember what happens when Stephen meets the Ethiopian eunuch? Okay, but I'm saying that they're making distinctions about what's going to happen, and you don't know what's going to happen after this. Let viewers hear the answer to that question.

What happened to Stephen after he witnessed to the Ethiopian eunuch? He was taken away. Okay. He was teleported. Okay, fine. Alright, so the fact that Jesus teleports behind closed doors does not say anything about his resurrection body. If God as the Holy Spirit causes us to like he did the... Chris, you're assuming that people can't be different than what they are right now that you're seeing.

It's hard to finish a single thought. What I'm trying to say is that we actually do know what the nature of our resurrection bodies will be because it's the nature of Jesus' resurrection body. And he has a physical body whereby he's able to be touched by doubting Thomas. He's still got the wounds with which he died and he's able to eat. So we actually do George know that our resurrection bodies will be physical bodies. The likes that we have now. The question is whether they will be made more.

Can I say that the nature of the resurrected body, I think that's a very important theological doctrine. I'm not, I personally don't know how crucial it is for this specific converse conversation. Again, not to diminish the need for a physical resurrected body, but in terms of ultimate restoration versus conditional mortality, I feel like it's a little bit of a side. I don't agree with you Preston, but what I'm trying to get at, even if we set the issue of the nature of the resurrection body aside, is that all throughout scripture, when people die, we know what that means. The functioning of their body ceases.

They cease to be conscious on earth. If it may be there's some kind of intermediate state, but their body, the thing that dies according to Jesus in Matthew 10 28, ceases to be animate. It ceases to be alive, all right? So they're no longer embodied and living. And scripture also uses that language of death to describe what will happen to the resurrected lost in hell. And these are resurrected physically embodied people. So why is it that we pretend

as though death and destruction means the termination of the functions of the physical body all throughout scripture when it refers to the first death, but when it refers to the second death, it's utterly unlike that. And it doesn't include that at all. Can I ask George a question? And so I I'm following you there, George, I'm going to throw it to you. Would you say that? Yes, yes, yes. That's all true. But you're just arguing that there will be a restoration after that death and destruction, just like there was a restoration after Speaker 3rd-rate from the first, he can resurrect from the second death. You've already denied to Preston multiple times that you don't believe in a subsequent resurrection.

So that does require two resurrections then in the act. If they literally die in hell. Oh yes. Who knows? You're trying to decide what God is going to do in hell when you don't even know what hell is all about. You don't know what hell is going to be like. You don't know what the physical structure of hell is all about.

All I know is God loves mankind. He's able loves mankind. He wants to save all mankind. He's able to save all mankind. And I think the scripture says he will save all mankind. And I think that your God is too small. What you're trying to do is say that God is saving the human race? Yeah, the vast, vast majority of the human race are not saved. When Jesus said he's going to come to seek and save the lost, when the vast, vast, vast majority

of the lost are never found? I mean, I just, that doesn't make sense to me. God, that's not the God I read about in scripture. The God I read about in scripture is all-powerful, can do all things. And for me to limit God by saying, well, you gotta have this kind of a body in the resurrection, who knows?

There's not a lot of information that's given about what the resurrection life will be like. We've got Jesus, I agree, but he can be teleported from here to there. He can eat, okay, great. Will it be that way forever? Who knows? He ascended into heaven, right? He ascended up. So what is it going to be like when He gets up into heaven? Is it the same thing? Are we going to be here on earth? Is that where – do you believe that? I don't even know if you believe that. Is that where heaven

is on earth in a physical body? Again, in an effort to understand where you both are coming from, George, it sounds like you're putting more of an emphasis on more general theological categories that we know about God from Scripture, whereas Chris, you're putting more emphasis on specific exegetical details that do speak to the afterlife and final punishment. Is that a fair summary of maybe where things- Yeah, I could probably choose. But there's not a lot that is explained about what the afterlife is all about. The whole book of Revelation is basically symbolic. Everything is symbolic in that book. You mentioned that even in your discussion with the remnant radio people, that Revelation is symbolic of all kinds of things that are happening and how do you understand that

symbolism? I mean, it's been understood in so many different ways over the course of history. Chris, do you want to respond, anything that George has... So as I explained in my opening presentation, the imagery of Revelation is a prophetic vision of the future, like all prophetic visions of the future in Scripture. And all of those visions of the future in Scripture are indeed symbolic, but divine interpreters also explain their meaning. And that happens in Revelation. An angel and John, an angel interprets for John what several of the symbols in the vision mean. For example, the seven lampstands are seven churches, the seven golden bowls of incense are the prayers of the saints. Well, John and God both interpret, they explain what the lake of fire symbolizes. They say

it symbolizes the second death. And they're using their expression. No, it doesn't symbolize the second death. It just says that people are thrown into the second death. That's false. Chris, Chris, finish your thought. Yeah, that's false. When Joseph interprets Pharaoh's employees' dreams in Genesis 40 and then Pharaoh's in

41, he says things like the three branches are three days, the seven cows are seven years. So when an interpreter of a prophetic vision of the future says X is Y, what they're saying is the thing in the image symbolizes this other thing in reality. Well, John and God both interpret the lake of fire as symbolizing the second death. And this is an expression that John's readers would have been familiar with from the oral tradition captured later in the Targums in which the second death is where the wicked would literally die a second time and be excluded from life in the age to come.

But that's not what the early Jewish believers believed. That's actually false as well. Wait, wait. So those are my book. What don't they believe? Sorry. So summer, I think I personally missed that. George believes that he's made the argument that the, that the early rabbinical documents record the Jewish view of Gehenna or whatever the final judgment as being one that lasts for 12 months after which everybody goes, everybody's rescued. But that's actually false. That is one view that some Jews had, but the same rabbinical literature, the Talmud, the Mishnah, the Tesefta,

these all say that actually there were plenty of Jews that thought the wicked would be annihilated in Gehenna. And there were some who thought that after those 12 months, some would return to life with God and others would be annihilated. So, actually, it's false to say that what I just characterized wasn't the view of any Jews. Actually, it was the view of many Jews. Yes, many Jews, but not all Jews. I never said it was all Jews. But you're giving me that impression. You're giving me that impression, Chris. No, I'm not. What I'm saying is that in the Targums, in the literature... When were the Targums written? The Targums, as I said in my opening, were compiled after the time of Christ. But scholars

across the board recognize that those Targums record an earlier oral tradition that extends earlier than the writing of the New Testament. In fact, believers in eternal torment, for example, like Nichols, anyway, will point out that the fact that the phrase second death is used so many times in Revelation is proof that that phrase had a coined meaning in the minds of his readers. But the only place in Jewish literature where we find that is in the, in the minds of his readers. But the only place in Jewish literature where we find that is in the Targums, which is an indication that the language about second death that they preserve pre existed their compilation after the time of Christ and Preston, you're you're something of a, you know, first century. So you know what I'm saying about

the Talgum Targums. I think it's accurate. Let me just say that. I mean, I'll lay out all it within first century Judaism, according to the best literature to represent first century Judaism, the two dominant views by far within their view of the afterlife was a kind of eternal conscious torment and a kind of an annihilation. I'm only vaguely aware of a kind of ultimate restoration that in my vantage point, people can fact check me on this would have been more of a minority position later on post New Testament era Judaism. But I'm not as familiar with that, George. I mean, maybe I think the, I don't know how relevant, I mean, let's just all, we can all agree there were variations of use within

Judaism. Therefore it is possible that New Testament Christianity as a sub movement within Judaism could have embraced theoretically all any three of the dominant views of hell. But the question is what that expression, second death meant in the oral tradition, tradition captured later by the Targums. And what I argued in my opening, and I could cite other examples if we want,

is that everywhere that expression appears, it describes the lost literally dying a second time. So when Jod and God interpret the lake of fire as symbolizing the second death, that's the only thing his readers could have even had in mind. And I'll add one more thing. When we look at Revelation 14, 9 to 11, which talks about smoke rising from torment forever and ever, this isn't the language of eternal torment, contrary to what the third view, the traditional view maintains. Rather, what is being used there are a convergence of symbols that reappears a few chapters later.

There's drinking God's wrath, there's being tormented in fire and sulfur and there's smoke rising forever and ever. All three of those symbols converge later in chapters 18 and 19 when this mystery Babylon woman who is blood drunk on the blood of the saints, she is made to be tormented in fire. She is said to drink God's wrath and a hallelujah chorus cries out the smoke from her rises forever. But an angel interprets the symbolism for John saying that so will the great city be thrown down with violence and be found no more.

So we can actually, we actually can get at the meaning of what revelation says if we allow its divine interpreters in the very text and the way that the imagery is used in various places in revelation to tell us what it means. This language of refining and remediation and purifying is utterly ice-agited into the text of Revelation. There's no basis for it whatsoever. Chris Can I just respond? Chris Well, can I just summarize it just so I understand, Maude? So you're saying, Chris, that the image of second death within first century Jewish Christianity would have been understood as the cessation of life, not some sort of remedial punishment. So if

that's understanding you correctly. Well, the cessation of life, the cessation and privation of life is the punishment. It's not death or punishment. It's capital punishment. Yeah. Okay. George, your thoughts on that? I was going to say is substantial numbers, whether you agree with my view that it was the dominant view or not, substantial numbers of early Christian believers, scholars who were brilliant, people who read the New Testament in their own native tongue, people who were martyred for their faith, believed that God was going to ultimately restore

all of creation. This is true. So I can say that to me, that says that there's a lot of good arguments there. Now you can tell me that, you know, this is what this means and this is what that means, but these are the people that knew the New Testament in their own language, and they wrote extensively on it,

and they believed that God was going to restore all. Is it accurate to say that all three views of hell were all represented in the early church by really smart Greek speakers? I don't know, it just seems like that kind of cancels each other out, that native Greek speakers held to various views. Yeah, but I think, if you look at the ones, Gregory Vanessa was a big one. He authored right. The Nicene Creed, right. Or one of the main architects. I mean, that's, he added the phrase. I believe in the life of the world would come to the Nicene Creed. I mean, these are people that were brilliant men. If you read, but what about, what about the epistle of Barnabas? What about the epistle to mouth? They taste. What about the

shepherd of Hermes? What about Aaron, as of Leon? What about the claimants of Rome? What about it? Well, don't worry. And get her perspective on that. I don't, I'm not, I'm not a scholar enough to discuss. I don't see, I don't see the early church as being definitive because there's just diversity within the early church. And what it does do, what it does do for, for both annihilationists and ultimate restorationists is say, I think it's a good argument against eternal conscious torment people who say like, this was always the view of the early, you know, the church. And it's like, no, that's just false. Like you can't punt to any sort of universal, sorry, that's a bit a widely held view. It's like

there was diversity. So let's go back to the text and see what the Speaker 0 4 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 let's go back to the text and see what it says. And not just diversity, Preston, but you touched on something really important. George here has postured universalism as though it's based on what the people who knew the language of the New Testament best believed, and then he cites people that are later than Barnabas, Matthais, Hermes, Irenaeus, Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch,

and the Didache. And my point is, at least some of those pieces of literature are just as good at New Testament Greek as the writers that you're favoring, and they're earlier than the writers you're favoring. So at the very least, this posture is just bloviating. It's not the case that the most trustworthy Christians when it comes to the New Testament language were the Universalists that came in the latter half of the second century. The annihilationists before them were numerous, and at least some of them understood the New Testament Greek very well. Quick response, George, and then I think it would be maybe good to get back to something more.

Yeah, I'll just say that, again, I'm not a patristic scholar and all this kind of stuff. I would just encourage you to go to Ilaria Ramelli, look it up on Amazon or wherever you get your books and read what she says, because she quotes the Diddeke and she quotes a lot of these other people and she, what her perspective is, is that a lot of what has been communicated in more modern times about what they believed earlier is incorrect because they misunderstood the meaning of ION. That's one of her big points. Okay, Scott, I'm going to go back to a previous discussion because I don't think we put a bow on it yet. Because one of Chris's main arguments is that the New Testament, while the biblical

language of destruction, death, destruction, the Greek word, opulumi and others, always, you're saying, or I would say, Chris, what you said is it never biblically speaking refers to some sort of remedial restorative punishment, right? Because that, that is a big argument. It's not quite what I said. Okay. Well, can you summarize that? And I want to give George some space to respond. Cause that, that is a significant, I think, Speaker 3 I appreciate the space both to explain myself and for George to respond. What I said is that the Greek word Colossus in Matthew 25, 46 translated punishment

never in the intertestamental Jewish Greek literature refers to pruning or remedial punishment where it refers to pruning or remedial punishment is an older classical Greek texts, not Jewish, earlier, more recent Jewish Greek texts. But you are right about the Greek verb apolimi, that when it's used in the active voice to describe what one personal agent does to another, throughout the synoptic Gospels it means slayer kill. And Jesus says that in hell, both body and psuche, life or soul, will be slain, will be destroyed, killed, just like only the body. It does say that, actually.

It doesn't. It says God can. It doesn't say that he will. Okay, but the problem with that argument that universalists so often make is that in the parallel in Luke, Luke and Matthew are both capturing the gist of what Jesus says, that he can do something. And what Luke records Jesus is saying is that God can cast into Gehenna. But we actually have quite a number of texts that say God will in fact cast people into Gehenna. So

if Luke... It's actually not. This is a myth. Preston knows this. No, it's something... obviously I understand... Preston, would you like to comment on the garbage dump myth about? It's not a myth. That's the best argument we have for it. Wait, the argument, the word Gehenna refers to a garbage dump outside Jerusalem. Yeah. It was the first time it's like what in the search 1300s or something like that, where somebody mentioned that 1100 says it's not that. Well, I mean, it's just, you're dealing with the only, the first reference we have to that interpretation of Gehenna is, yeah, 1100 years after the new Testament. So it's,

but you've got to also remember that was it a German desecrated or no, not Jeremiah. Yeah. Jeremiah seven, the valley of the sons of in them will become the valley of slaughter. Right. He desecrated that, that place. It became a terrible place to be around. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That just, it's not, it's not just the desolation of a place though. He says that God's enemies will be slain there and there won't be room to bury them. So they'll get eaten up by, by beasts and birds. This is a picture of God slaying his enemies. It's not a picture of garbage being strewn about. We're, we are dancing around and I was, I feel like my audience is like, I a really catch up. So I want to go back to the mat because we didn't mention the reference

in case people didn't know. So Matthew 10 28, Jesus says, do you not be afraid of those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul rather be afraid of the one who can destroy both body and soul and hell. Chris, you're taking that as a reference to the final state of killing, slaying, annihilating the person in hell. George, you made a comment that it just says he not that he will, but he can do it. And that's where the dis yeah. My understanding of that is totally different from what Chris believes. The word soul can also be translated life. And I talk about that in my book,

that Adolf Hitler could kill the body, right? He could kill Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He could not kill his soul in the sense of his reputation, the person who he really was. And I think that's what Jesus is saying. The problem with that, Preston and George, is that psuke never refers to a person's reputation or something like that.

Psuke doesn't mean life in the sense of like, my hopes and dreams and my visions and my reputation. Psuke means life in the sense of being alive. When he says God can destroy both psuke and, is it soma, no, that, yeah, soma much in hell, both body and psuke and hell. Again, it's not a reputation. It's not hopes and dreams and visions. It's not. It's life itself. Well, I know, but you don't have the support for that. You don't understand the ancient Middle East and what they were thinking. They were very concerned

about their reputations and with regard to the Pharisees being thrown. Okay, George, can you point me to a single place where the Greek word Suki meaning life refers to somebody's reputation? Not just, not just real quick, not just Suki, but the phrase body and soul. I do think in my opinion, this would favor what Chris is saying, not just the lexical media Suki, but the dual phrase body and soul typically in scripture, at least to my knowledge, you can fact check me, um, would refer to the material and immaterial aspect of somebody's being their, their, their life, not the reputation. I thought you mentioned, by the way, Chris, in your discussion with the people in the other program, that you did not believe that people have a body and a soul.

Yeah, I already indicated that psuché can also mean life, and that's what I think it means here. But see, that's the whole point, is that Jesus says humans can kill the body, but they can't ultimately terminate the life. Humans can't, but God can and will, and we know will because Jesus captures the gist of what Jesus says. What you're saying from before. Let me just finish. Here, let me just finish. George, wait, George, let George, you have to let Chris finish his sentence. I know he is almost going to finish, but just let him put a period on it. So what I'm saying is that when, when the fact that God can end both life and body in hell is

because when humans kill somebody in this life, that's not the end of that person's life. They're going to one day be resurrected, either unto eternal life or unto judgment. But the reason God can and will end both bodies and sukkah or lives of the wicked in hell is because when he destroys them and kills them in hell, there will be no returning from that. All right, go ahead, George. I was going to say the body, you can kill the body and the life.

But you said earlier that the body is what is all about life. So I mean, I can, I can understand what you're trying to your distinction that you're trying to make. So I understand that I misunderstood what you were saying a little bit before that. It's all it's been almost two hours. How about this? Let's, let's wrap it up. I want to give each of you, um, first of all, thank you. I know it's been lively and emotional. Um, but I, uh, I really hope this has been helpful for our audience to hear, uh, very good arguments for each position and see how you respond to each one. Let, let me give

each of you, let's just say about three minutes to kind of try to put a bow on it. And you have three minutes to convince my audience of, of your view. So what would be your best in light of the things that have been talked about? What would it be? You're the main thing you want to leave with the audience for them to consider as they're wrestling with these two views. Who do you, whom do you want to go first? Let's see. Let's, let's go with you, Chris, since you asked the question. Yeah, so as I said in my opening, firstly, universalism entails something the Bible never

says that resurrected humanity without exception will be made immortal. By contrast, the Bible says that without access to the tree of life, people's deaths are guaranteed. But in the New Jerusalem, the saved and the saved alone will have access to that fruit. Which is why, by the way, that Jesus tells the Sadducees in Luke 20, 35, and 36 that it's the sons of God in the resurrection who will be unable to die. The implication from there and many other places is that the resurrected lost will be able to die. Number two, we've seen that George, I don't think intentionally, but he unintentionally

misrepresents the early church. He treats what is claimed to be a majority view in favor of universalism toward the tail end of the first 500 years of the church and treats that as if that's true of the whole 500, when in fact the first century and a half of Christian history appear to be largely annihilationist. When it comes to the Old Testament, we hardly even got into that. Daniel 12.2 explicitly says that it's the saved who will rise unto eternal life, suggesting that the lost, when they rise, will not rise unto eternal life. And he says that they will be remembered forever in contempt, using a word, contempt, that is used in only

one other place in all of scripture. The Jews would have seen this connection like light and day. The only other place where this word is used is when it's used to describe the corpses of God slain enemies as abhorrent to the still living righteous. And it's not just that. It's also earlier in Isaiah 25 when God promises to swallow up death forever all peoples, but what that means is Jews and Gentiles. It doesn't mean every single human being, which is why in the very next chapter in Isaiah 26, Isaiah's oppressors are promised never to rise, not to rise. So, universalists erect the false dichotomy between punishment on earth and punishment in the eschaton, and they claim

that silence in the Old Testament, they claim silence in the Old Testament only by ignoring texts which indicate that the risen wicked will die and never live again. And then when it comes to the New Testament, I'll just say, as I've argued, universalists distort the New Testament data by committing exegetical fallacies like saying that what a word means 600 years prior to the New Testament on the pen of classical Greek writers is what it means 600 years later when Jewish writers are using it, when in fact Jewish contemporaries use the word to describe capital punishment.

So it's exegetical fallacies that universalism relies upon and they have to omit crucially relevant passages indicating that the risen wicked will die and never live again, like Peter and Jude, who cite the examples of the deaths of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Antediluvians as examples of the death that awaits the finally wicked. And I'll just leave it there and let George have the final word. All right, George. Bottom line is, I think you guys have a God who's too small.

That's what I really think. God is a God who is not partial, favoring some over others. He doesn't change, acting graciously towards sinners while they're alive on earth, but then withdrawing his hand of mercy at death. He's not cruel, able to save all, but choosing rather to consign most of the human race to endless conscious suffering or annihilation. And he's not weak, conscious suffering or annihilation, and he's not weak, desiring to save all, but ultimately powerless to do so. I know you disagree with that very strongly with regard to the idea of God being a loser, but from my perspective, what I see is that an all-powerful, all-loving, all-wise God who is good, if you start out with that and at the very beginning he says

that he looks on all that he created and he said it was very good, what would you expect at the end? And once again to be able to restore all of what had gone wrong and bring it back and at the very end once again look out on all that he said he created and say, it is very good. Sin is not more powerful than grace. Darkness is not more powerful than life. Evil is not more powerful than good. All right. Thank you both so much.

Lots and lots of think about, I still have about a thousand questions, but for the sake of time, we're going to have to end it here. Chris, George, thank you for the- I would encourage you to get more of a, get Robin Perry, who's really a scholar kind of scholar guy. I wrote my book, my book is directed to people in general, and I think that's a wonderful thing. I did my scholarship, I think, very carefully. And I think it, in fact, if you want to go to my website, there is a document written

by a former professor at Dallas Theological Seminary who wrote a 39-page paper specifically critiquing everything that I said and very harshly and then I have a response to that. So I would just encourage you to go there and read Critique and Response to my book because it does answer a lot of the questions that have been raised. But anyway, hey thank you both. Thank you for inviting me. Chris, thank you for inviting me to the conference in 2015, but also for taking the time to look into this issue. And I, I'm just grateful for the privilege of being able to talk to both of you guys.

Thank you both. I really appreciate it. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network. Greetings and God bless. This is Tyler Burns. And this is Dr. Jamar Tisby. And we want to invite you to check out our podcast, Pass the Mic, Dynamic Voices for a Diverse Church. Pass the Mic has been speaking directly to the core concerns of black Christians for over a decade. On our show, we've got interviews from theologians, historians, actors, activists, and so much more. Not to mention heartfelt, open dialogue on some of the heaviest issues

facing the church in the United States. Be sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you there on the next Pass the Mic. On the next Pass the Mic. every single day. And together we will break down these walls by digging deeply into God's Word in a way that you can really understand it. If this sounds like the kind of journey you want to go on, please join us on the Hearing Jesus podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.