The Orthodox View, Purgatory, and Other Versions of Hell

If after listening to this series on hell and annihilationism I have not been able to convince you of it, here’s another option. The Orthodox church does believe that all people will continue to live on for eternity. However, I would not classify this as Eternal Conscious Torment even though it will be eternal and people will be conscious and people’s experience will be that of torment. The reason I say this though is to distinguish the Orthodox position from the mainstream believe about hell. The mainstream Protestant belief is something that resembles more Dante’s Inferno, vivid fire and torture illustrations, and Jonathan Edward’s Sinners in The Hands of an Angry God kind of vibe. Protestants say that this is God’s retributive justice and in that sense, God would have an active role in the torture process by keeping the flames burning and keeping the people from dying. But if the Protestants would say that this is instead a passive role of God to leave people in the tormenting flames by abandoning them there, then that view seems a little inconsistent to this idea that ECT is God’s retributive justice and wrath. It’s also inconsistent with the fact that energy must come from somewhere to keep the fires going. So, obviously God, who is the source of all energy, would have to actively provide that energy to keep the fires of hell burning. There are no self-sustaining energy sources and so God would have to sustain it for all eternity.

The Orthodox view, on the other hand, has a somewhat different view of the afterlife. The fires aren’t literal but they are nonetheless painful. They would say that the fire is God’s love. To those who have chosen to let God’s love into their hearts, their experience is a delightful one but to those who refuse and resist, their experience of this holy fire love is one of agony and burning. And the idea is, people who have not chosen God will stay in their rebellious heart for an eternity. As it is often attributed to C.S. Lewis, hell is locked from the inside. In this sense, they have locked themselves in hell, their hearts have forever closed themselves off to God because they’re so addicted to their sins. Like a drug addict who is offered great things but chooses to live in his miserable condition instead. But it is not only the love of God that will be torturous to them, their own sinful desires will torture them as well. Imagine having a lustful urge but never being able to gratify it. Imagine having sinful and fleshly cravings but never able to taste that which you desire. So it will be for those in hell. They are a hell unto themselves. Some even say that the demons will torture the people as well, but I’m not sure how widespread the agreement of that idea is. Basically, the idea of hell for the Orthodox is not God’s retributive wrath but God’s wrath of abandonment. God hands them over to death. For the Orthodox, death is not viewed as literal as with Annihilationism and nor is it viewed as metaphorical as with Traditionalism. Death is the disintegration and fragmentation of an individual of their entire being. Whether this progresses over time for someone becoming less and less human, I don’t know. Or whether it’s an initial breaking apart of the individual so that they remain that way forever, that is possible too. But basically, one of the keys to understanding the Orthodox position of hell is to understand the meaning of “death,” which you might be able to ascertain from some teaching on Genesis three. Death is the punishment given not retributively but more naturally, metaphysically, and consequentially for refusing the life that is in God. It is viewed as consequence rather than punishment.

Another view of hell is what is often attributed to liberal/progressive theology. The idea is that this earth is hell and hell is within you. In this way, Jesus died to set us free from ourselves, to work hell out of us, and to work hell out of the world to redeem it. And we have a responsibility also to work hell out of ourselves and out of this world by living for Jesus, loving Him, and drawing others into His love. This view of hell is more naturalistic, meaning, it is in accordance with our present physical life that we’re living. For those who hold this view, the judgement to come is seen as the judgement that we have brought upon ourselves and the work of the devil to destroy us rather than anything coming from God. In this way, the judgement to come might be something like World War III or oppressive government regimes and persecutors of the church. The book of Revelation is viewed as all symbolic, adopting the artistic form of a Greco-Roman play, filled with drama, tragedy, comedy, and chorus (per Brian Zahnd). While I would agree with some aspects of the fact that we make our own lives hell on this earth, and the fact that there are earthly/natural tortures spoken of in the book of Revelation, I don’t think that’s ultimately what hell is. I also believe the book of Revelation is highly symbolic but I wouldn’t agree with the arguments the liberal theologians present to exclude God’s retributive justice from the book of Revelation. I do not find it the least bit convincing. Maybe I will talk more about that later in another video series.

The Catholic view on hell basically aligns with what the Protestants believe on ECT. However, the Catholics would emphasis a metaphorical fire whereas the Protestants sometimes say it’s metaphorical and others say it’s a physical fire. However, in addition to this, the Catholics have what they call, Purgatory. This would be the intermediate state before hell. But only believers enter into purgatory whereas unbelievers just go to hell. The purpose of purgatory is to purge or to cleanse away your sins to prepare you for heaven. Some view it as a process and not a place and others view it as both. From what I’ve read, it seems as though God is the one doing the cleansing but yet there is also great pain and labors of prayer. Some say there’s joy there but others say you must be cleansed before entering the joy of heaven and part of the great pain in purgatory is a deep hunger for God. Purgatory is basically a place to complete your sanctification through obedience to God. St. Thomas Aquinas actually believed that the fire of purgatory is the same fire as that of hell and that purgatory surpasses the greatest pains in this present life (Simplycatholic). Does the Catholic church agree with Aquinas on this one? If they do, that is certainly frightening. But how intensely did Aquinas believe this fire is? Apparently, purgatory is just Latin for Hades. But if this is true, then where do all the unbelievers go if not Hades unless they are in a different realm within Hades? So, Aquinas did teach that there were different realms within Hades.

Now, I don’t believe in purgatory and nor do I find the Catholic arguments convincing on purgatory. Their arguments are essentially just inferences and deductions based upon what they think sounds reasonable but there is no hard proof. I think it’s more of a fill in the blank and the missing gaps of how this works so then you get the doctrine of purgatory out of that. To get this doctrine out of the Bible would not be to interpret Scripture within its context and background. They really have to strain texts like 1 Corinthians 3:12-15, Luke 12:59, Malachi 3:2-4, and Revelation 21:27 to come up with the doctrine. They also use the book of 2 Maccabees to defend the doctrine regarding prayers to the dead and also the councils of Florence and Trent. I also find it reprehensible that if Jesus saved us by the gift of His grace that we would have to endure even partially the eternal fires of hell that unbelievers partake in. It also seems contrary to grace that believers on earth have to win merit by their good works to make up for the lack of merit of people in purgatory so that they can enter heaven quicker. It also seems contrary to the grace and mercy of God that people’s prayers in purgatory works their way into the presence of heaven.

If you recall the parable of the Marriage Feast in Matthew 22, all people were invited to the wedding, as many people as could be found from the streets, both good and evil. But there was a man not dressed in wedding clothes and when they found him, he was thrown out of the banquet. But how did he not have wedding clothes if even those who were evil who were invited were enjoying the feast? And if all were invited, that would include both rich and poor. But how could the poor afford wedding clothes? They certainly could not. That leads us then to conclude that the wedding clothes which were the only acceptable entrance into the banquet were provided by the host for both the poor and for the evil men. That is to say, it is all by God’s grace and merit alone that we enter into the presence of heaven and the presence of God. For this reason, I find it totally unbelievable that there will be some long drawn-out process of purgation. Even looking at Zechariah 3 we see that Joshua, the High Priest, was wearing filthy garments which were representative of his uncleanliness but then the angel of the Lord rebuked Satan who was accusing Joshua and Jerusalem and said, “Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?” (v. 2). So, the angel of the Lord had the filthy garments removed from Joshua and said, “See, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes” (v. 4). I believe purgation will be like this, one act from God by His grace to remove our filthiness. I don’t believe it will be some extended experience of suffering. Jesus already suffered for us and being united to Him in our salvation through faith by His Spirit, we are saved and will be given entrance into heaven because Jesus is our robe of righteousness.

Having said all of this, I think we would all agree that we will all be cleansed and purified by God when we see Him face to face because we shall become just as He is and whatever work He began in us, He will complete. Will this be a drawn-out process or instantaneous? Will we have to complete our sanctification through praying for people on earth when we’re dead? Will they have to pray for us to help release us from a state of purgatory? I’m not convinced. But if I were to argue for it, then perhaps our love towards others is useful but only useful in the sense that this love is a grace bestowed upon them and this would mean that we all help each other out through love so that it is all by grace that we are cleansed and the origin of that love is God. Love produces gratitude and gratitude humility and because of this grace, love, gratitude, and humility, all pride shall be cleansed away. In addition to this, the supposed souls in purgatory are guaranteed eternal life anyway by the grace of God through Jesus Christ and this is irrevocable. The purgation process is more something that happens to us rather than something that we do to merit any good gift like Hebrews 12:14 says, “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.” Obviously, Protestants must believe in this verse and the necessity of sanctification before seeing the Lord. Does it mean we must reach “entire sanctification,” or “Christian perfection” first? (according to Wesleyanism terms). That is, must we become saints and reach theosis? (according to Orthodox terms). And when will this complete cleansing of our sanctification happen? If I were to imagine a purgatory for the believer, it might be somewhat short-lived, a sort of metaphysical cleansing of the remnants of sin to complete our sanctification but that cleansing being done by God alone. It would be like experiencing conviction of sin from the Word or a sermon but with much greater intensity because of our uncleanliness. The Bible uses words to describe this like the words of God through Jeremiah being like fire and like a hammer that smashes rock and then later the Word being spoken of as piercing through the heart and soul. Isaiah had such an experience of being undone by the Lord. He was overwhelmed by God’s presence and it was painful (Isa 6:5). Then Isaiah writes, “Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven’” (v. 6-7). So there was this moment of pain of being undone by the Lord’s presence and then came the burning coal that cleansed Isaiah instantly.

Here is another thought: If to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (as Paul says), and this also means to be with Him in paradise (as Jesus said to the thief on the cross, who was no saint, btw), and if when we see Jesus, “we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is” (as 1 John 3:2 says), then this seems to strongly imply that our sanctification will be complete when we see Jesus after we die and we will be with Him and like Him. He is the one who transforms our souls and bodies unto purity.

Then there’s this idea of Universal Reconciliation that everyone goes to purgatory and is purged of their sins so that everyone gets to go to heaven. Then there’s Universalism without purgatory and everyone just goes to heaven. Both of these views I find highly and very unbiblical, one, even heretical; the other, pretty close to heresy. I’ll just refer you to the previous videos on my playlist. Though I do not specifically mention those views on my other videos, the denial of Universalism in those videos should be self-evident.

Of all the views mentioned in this video, the Orthodox / C.S. Lewis version of hell sounds the most convincing but ultimately, I’m not convinced of that either because I believe in Annihilationism. However, the Orthodox / C.S. Lewis version of hell is certainly a better option than ECT. But to believe that, you’ll have to reconcile that view with how it fits in to the rest of your theology on God’s retributive wrath and justice and for what reason human beings are immortal.

The Bible does seem to teach an intermediate state before the final state of hell or heaven/the renewed earth. The Catholics call this purgatory and some Protestants call it Hades. What will it be like for the believer? And how long will it be? We really don’t know. The Bible does not give us enough information on it and so we can only speculate. But as the Apostle Paul says, to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord (2 Cor 5:8). Ultimately, I believe that the intermediate state for the believer is a mystery and I am content with it staying a mystery. What I do know is that I will be with Jesus when I die and that’s good enough for me.