Death and Immortality - Words of Contrast and Plain Meaning

Words of Contrast and Plain Meaning

The strongest defense Traditionalists have to defend their view is based on non-didactic texts of the Bible like stories and prophetic literature. But if it is just on this that determines what they believe about hell, they are on very shaky ground. Surely, they know it is unwise to build an entire theological framework on a couple verses in the Bible that are not didactic. You would think it would be the opposite way around. If ECT were really true, then the didactic texts should explain it to us clearly. But the fact is, they don’t. Instead, those texts just use common and everyday type of language that the common reader would understand to mean literal death and literal perishing. If we look at the many Bible verses that are more direct and plain in meaning and in their instruction, then Conditionalism begins to make more sense.

If we take many of the Bible’s words at face-value and interpret them more literally in the places that they should be taken more literally, then we will see and understand that when Jesus was talking about life and death, that’s what He really meant — plainly.

After Adam and Eve sinned, God said that He needed to remove them from the Garden because otherwise, they would “live forever” (Gen. 3:22). In saying this, God really meant that this would have been the future for humanity if He didn’t do something to remove their immortal condition.

The famous John 3:14-16 passage says, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” To perish means the plain definition of death. God is not being cryptic here.

There are plain similarities here between those who died in the wilderness because they failed to look up on the serpent that was lifted up to those who do not look up upon the cross believing in Jesus to save them, they will likewise perish. They will die rather than have life forever. But if they look up to be saved, they will live.

Do you think Jesus was trying to confuse us when He mentioned perishing in like manner to those who died in the wilderness? After all, they died by the snake bites, right? They died. There is no way anyone would have rationally interpreted that as rotting away forever like a decomposing fruit in the dirt. But even with that analogy, the decomposition would end as some point once everything had decomposed, so the analogy doesn’t even work for any symbolic interpretation of perishing to support the ECT position.

Here are some other Bible verses with contrasted meanings which appear clear to me in speaking about actual death and immortality:

Eternal Life:

John 3:36 “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” The contrast is between eternal life and not seeing life. But if someone were to live in Hell forever, that is still seeing life, is it not?

John 5:24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” The contrast is between eternal life and death, not eternal life in heaven vs. eternal life in hell. Death is the judgement here while life is the gift that comes from believing.

John 6:40 “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” The emphasis here is on a resurrection that lasts unto eternity. It is implied who will be excluded from this resurrection of life—those who do not behold the Son and believe in Him.

John 10:28 “and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.” The contrast is between life and losing life—perishing.

John 12:25 “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.” The contrast is between keeping your life eternally or losing it (forever). Losing one’s life is not equivalent to an eternity of suffering. It is simply the forfeiting of the continuance of life.

Matthew 25:46 “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” The contrast is between life and eternal banishment from life, which is the punishment. Eternal describes the nature of the punishment, not the punish-ing. The punishment is of eternal value and consequence.

Romans 2:6-7 “God, who will render to each person according to his deeds: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life;” The word “immortality” is used to describe this condition of eternal life. Immorality is never used to describe the final state of the wicked but is instead a choice word from Paul to describe the lasting condition of believers. This is because believers will be finally immortal whereas unbelievers will not.

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The contrast is between death and life. Death is the punishment/penalty for sin whereas eternal life/immortality is the unmerited favor of God given to us freely.

Luke 18:18 “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

This is the story of the rich young ruler. When the man asked Jesus what he needed to do to inherit eternal life, what was his concept of eternal life? What was he actually asking? What was “eternal life” to him? At this point, Jesus had not died or risen from the grave and the New Testament had not been written yet so he could not have referenced that for his definition of eternal life. The man probably didn’t know Jesus either. Therefore, do you think he would have had a definition of eternal life as something other than the simple concept of living on forever? If we understand “eternal life” literally, it means to not cease existing. The rich young ruler had the wealth and he had the fame. He had it all but death still loomed in his future so what was he missing? Eternal life.

Perish:

Luke 13:5 “I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

The context of these words is the story/event of the tower of Siloam falling on people and killing them. The “likewise” is a warning to the ungodly that a removal of life would be their same fate if they failed to repent. When the disciples were in the boat in which they thought they were going to die because the storm was enormous, they said “we are perishing,” (Lk. 8:24) that is, “we’re going to be dead pretty soon here,” “we’re dying/going to die.” Their understanding of perish was to die. Elsewhere, “perish” also clearly has that literal meaning (Acts 5:37; Jude 1:11).

1 Corinthians 15:17-19 “and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” This is a hypothetical argument of what the result would be if Jesus didn’t actually raise from the dead. The result would be that those who had “fallen asleep” (aka died) believing in Christ, would have actually perished (aka ceased to exist). That is, if Jesus hasn’t been raised, then there is no life for anyone after this earthly one and therefore no hope for the future.

Stop and think about that for a moment. If Christianity isn’t true and the God of the Bible isn’t real, where does that leave us? What is our future? Eternal conscious torment? No. That is not the answer. A world without God means that your future is to perish — literally — just like the animals. This is Paul’s point: a world without Christ is a world where we have no hope because death is looming over us and we will all die like beasts.

I really don’t want to sound like a broken record here, repeating myself over and over, but I have to, because most Christians today believe in ECT, and at this point, it is completely irrational to me. But it is so engrained into our culture and thinking that it takes a broken record to get it out of our minds since we tend to find any loophole we can find to not be wrong about the things we’ve believed our entire lives. For the youngsters who don’t know what a broken record is, imagine playing a looped song on YouTube that is less than 2 seconds long for an extended period of time. That’s basically the idea.

Life and Immortality:

2 Timothy 1:8-11 “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, 9 who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, 10 but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, 11 for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher.”

The plain meaning of abolishing death is that death will be no more for those who hope in God; for when they die, they will continue living forever. They will no longer have to worry about and fear death, the death in which they used to be subject which was a slaving fear to them for all of their lives (Heb. 2:15). Indeed, the last enemy Jesus will defeat is death (1 Cor. 15:26). Since Jesus came, the good news of life and immortality has been revealed to us which is in direct contrast to the bad news of ceasing to exist. That bad news with its result is what Jesus abolished — the fact of our mortality.

Psalm 69:28 “May they be blotted out of the book of life and may they not be recorded with the righteous.”

In this psalm of David, he asks God to remove the life of certain people living on the earth who were God’s and David’s enemies. The book of life is a book which is a record of all those who are living and if you are living, your name is in this book by default. To be blotted out of this book is the same as to have one’s existence removed. See also Exodus 32:32-33.

Fire:

Matthew 3:10 “The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Matthew 3:12 “His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
Matthew 13:40 “So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age.”
Matthew 13:49-50 “the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous, and will throw them into the furnace of fire”

While these are not didactic texts, the understanding of the imagery is clear.

If a tree is thrown into a fire, what happens to it? It burns up. What happens if you throw chaff or tares into a fire? They burn up. What naturally happens if a person is thrown into a furnace of fire? They burn up. How can the phrase “burn up” be forced into meaning “exist forever”? If that’s what it really means, then all of Jesus’ and John the Baptists’ listeners were deceived in how they naturally interpreted “burn up.” Anyone who has ever had any experience with a campfire would know that if you put a source of fuel in there, it will burn up to be no more.

However, this should have been understood the same way for any Jewish listeners who were familiar with what the word “fire” symbolically meant in the book of Ezekiel. It meant destruction for the rebellious idol-worshippers to be killed by plague, famine, sword, or whatever particular destruction judgment that God would send.

The fire imagery for judgement comes from Ezekiel and Daniel, and originated all the way back to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in the book of Genesis. Jesus is simply repeating the same motif. But if this is true and ECT is never taught in the Old Testament, then ECT is not true. If it were, then we would have to say that Jesus invented something new without telling anyone that the fire imagery means something different now other than a literal death.

Death:

John 8:51 “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death.”
John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Because Jesus is the source of life and resurrection, there is life beyond the grave for those who believe in Him so that they will never die. The contrasted implication here is that one will eventually die apart from Jesus.

Hebrews 2:9 “But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.”

Jesus experienced the suffering of a literal death. That was the penalty for sin. He paid that penalty to death through experiencing death on behalf of everyone. That is, Jesus’ literal death was what it cost Him to release me from the penalty that I owed to death because of my sin. Instead of literally dying and staying dead, I can now receive the immortal life of Christ that He imparts to me through His resurrected life and through believing in Him.

James 5:20 “let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” What is the soul saved from? Eternal torment? Sin? Or does this text say that the soul is saved from death?

1 Corinthians 15:21 “For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.”

The context here is clearly speaking of the death that Adam brought to all mankind and that death being a literal death, since the whole context here is speaking of bodily resurrection, a resurrection that conquers literal death. And if 1 Corinthians 15 is talking about literal death, then we must also interpret the fall of man in the Genesis account as speaking of literal death. Jesus came to rescue us from the death that Adam brought into the world.

Revelation 2:11; 20:14; 21:8
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.”
“Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.”
“But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

What was the first death? Literally dying on this earth. So if the text calls something “second,” it must be at least somewhat like the first, right? Otherwise, why call it second? Why not just call it something completely different like—eternal conscious torment? But it isn’t called something different and it’s related to the first which strongly implies that the author is referring to an actual death—a ceasing to be. If eternal conscious torment were the actual punishment, why muddy the water with the phrase “second death”? Why not just say eternal torment? That’s far worse a punishment, isn’t it? So if it was Jesus’ or John’s intention to warn people, wouldn’t it have been more effective for them to just mention torment instead of death? After all, if people are going to make an informed decision weighing all the variables, the clear phrase of eternal torment would be quite a big thing to leave out, don’t you think?

Or better yet, take out “second” and just leave it as “death.” But wait, if they did that, then people might get the wrong idea that death is literal. Ok, so how about remove both second and death and just leave it with the lake of fire. Yeah, I mean, if the lake of fire is literal like many people who believe ECT think it is, then why does that lake of fire need to be given a specific interpretation for clarification? Oh, I got it, maybe because the lake of fire isn’t actually literal—it’s symbolic, while the interpretation of that symbolic prophetic image is the literal, which is death.

Now that sounds about right. You know, kind of like how Revelation says that the seven stars are actually just the messengers of the seven churches and the lampstands are actually just the seven churches (Rev 1:20), and the golden bowls full of incense are the prayers of the saints (Rev 5:8), or how the fine linen is just the righteous acts of the saints (Rev 19:7; 7:13-14), and how the Dragon is just the devil, Satan (Rev 12:9; 20:2). In like manner, the lake of fire just means to die a second time. Which, if the first time you died in your physical body, then the next time death comes, it takes whatever is left, since the lake of fire is the final spiritual judgment that happens before the throne of God.

It is interesting to note that in all the writings of the Apostle Paul, he never spoke of “hell” or “hades.” He referred to wrath, judgement, death, destruction, perishing, but not hell.

In the Apostle John’s writings, his choice words were death and perishing in contrast to eternal life. But he never used “hell” (Gehenna), and he only used Hades in the book of Revelation. However, it was used there in a very symbolic sense to communicate hades being done away with.

What I find clear here in the book of revelation is what “death” means as I have just reasoned above. It just doesn’t make sense for death in this context to be symbolic because the fire is the symbol here while death is the clear description of that symbol. This is consistent with the proper method of interpretation as the symbols are always given to us first and then the writer of the apocalyptic vision gives to us the interpretation of that symbol according to what was communicated to him within the vision. But that writing style and order is not just here in Revelation, it also appears in Jesus’ parables, the book of Daniel, and other prophetic literature. This means that if you decide to make the lake of fire a literal thing, then you are going against all sound reason. And if you decide to make death the symbolic thing when it is supposed to be the interpretation of the symbolic, then you are on really shaky ground.