Theological Term of the Week

annihilationism
“The teaching that after death unbelievers suffer the penalty of God’s wrath for a time, and then are ‘annihilated,’ or destroyed, so that they no longer exist. Some forms of this teaching hold that annihilation occurs immediately upon death.”1

• Scripture teaches that annihilationism is false:
  

  And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. (Matthew 25:46 ESV)

  And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10 he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.” (Revelation 14:9-11 ESV) 

• From The London Baptist Confession of Faith, 1689:

  Chapter 32: Of the Last Judgment
  
  1._____ God hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in righteousness, by Jesus Christ; to whom all power and judgment is given of the Father; in which day, not only the apostate angels shall be judged, but likewise all persons that have lived upon the earth shall appear before the tribunal of Christ, to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds, and to receive according to what they have done in the body, whether good or evil.
  
  

  2._____ The end of God’s appointing this day, is for the manifestation of the glory of his mercy, in the eternal salvation of the elect; and of his justice, in the eternal damnation of the reprobate, who are wicked and disobedient; for then shall the righteous go into everlasting life, and receive that fulness of joy and glory with everlasting rewards, in the presence of the Lord; but the wicked, who know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast aside into everlasting torments, and punished with everlasting destruction, from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.

• From Coram Deo: In Judgment by Stephen J. Wellum:

  (3) What, then, about the issue of justice and fairness? Is eternal conscious punishment unjust? There are a number of things that could be said here, but I will only mention one. In order to evaluate the justice or fairness of eternal punishment judgment must not only be viewed as retributive, which it is in Scripture, it must also be viewed in light of the person against whom we have sinned. And who is that? Of course, the answer that thunders forth from Scripture is that we have sinned against the majestic and glorious God of heaven and earth, the God of infinite worth and value. Our sin is not just against each other on a merely horizontal plane – that would be bad enough. But we have sinned first and foremost against the great and glorious God of Scripture! Why then is hell eternal? Simply, because we have sinned against God and an eternal hell is nothing less than what we rightly deserve. Sin falls short of the glory of God, and if the punishment of our sin is to be just at all and fitting with what we deserve, it must, in the end, be eternal.

  Do we not have to see all of this in light of the cross? If we look at the flip-side of divine judgment, that is, the remedy to our sin, we discover that salvation is only accomplished in nothing less than the enfleshment of God the Son and His going to a cross and laying down His life for the likes of us! And when we hear from Golgotha the cry of the Lord of Glory – “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” – do we not have to ask ourselves: if my salvation was only possible at such great cost, then why should I doubt that outside of this cross and this Christ that my punishment will be eternal?

  These are difficult issues no doubt. When we think about divine judgment, hell, and the state of the unbeliever, these are not pleasant realities. Even though I disagree with John Stott over these issues I think he is right when he writes: “I long that we could in some small way stand in the tearful tradition of Jeremiah, Jesus, and Paul. I want to see more tears among us. I think we need to repent of our nonchalance, our hard-heartedness” [David Edwards and John Stott, Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1988), 313].

• From 18 Words by J. I. Packer:

  Some hold that [the texts in scripture that mention ‘eternal destruction,’ or ‘eternal punishment,’ etc.] these texts imply the annihilation of the rejected — one searing moment in the fire, and then oblivion. But it seems clear that in reality the ‘second death’ is no more a cessation of being than is the first. For (i) the word rendered ‘destruction’ in 2 Thess. 1:9 (olethros) means, not annihilation, but ruin (cf. its use in 1 Thess 5:3). (ii) The insistence in these texts that the fire, punishment and destruction are eternal (aionios, literally ‘age-long’) and that the worm in Gehenna is undying, would be pointless and inappropriate if all that is envisaged is momentary extinction; just as it would be pointless and inappropriate to dwell on ‘unending’ pain resulting from an immediately fatal bullet wound. Either these words indicate the endlessness of torment, or they are superfluous and misleading. (iii) To the argument that aionios means only ‘relating to the age to come’, without any implications of endless duration, it seems sufficient to say that if in Matthew 25:46 ‘eternal’ life means endless bliss (and surely it does), then the ‘eternal’ punishment mentioned there must be endless too. (iv) We are told that in the ‘lake of fire’ (the ‘eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’, Matt. 25:41) the devil will be ‘tormented day and night for ever and ever’ (Rev. 20:10). That any man sent to join him will endure a similar eternity of retribution is clear from the parallel language of Revelation 14:10f.: ‘he (the beast-worshipper) shall be tormented with fire and brimstone … the smoke of their torment goes up for ever and ever; and they have no rest, day or night.’

  It seems plain that what these texts teach is not extinction, but the far worse prospect of an endless awareness of God’s just and holy displeasure. Grievous as we may find it to contemplate, and sickening as we may find the Jewish apocalyptic imagery in which Christ and the apostles speak of it (this is, after all, the post-holocaust era), and endless hell can no more be removed from the New Testament than an endless heaven can. This is why physical death (the first death) is so fearful a prospect for Christless men; not because it means extinction, but precisely because it does not mean extinction, only the unending pain of the second death. The godless man dimly senses this, through God’s general revelation (Rom. 1:32); no wonder, then, that he fears to die.

Learn more:

1. Blue Letter Bible: Will the Unbelieving Dead Become Non-Existent? (Annihilationism)
2. Got Questions.org: Is annihilationism Biblical?
3. Sam Storms: Hell and Annihilationism
4. J. I. Packer: Evangelical Annihilationism in Review
5. Mark R. Talbot: The Morality of Everlasting Punishment
6. Wayne Grudem: The Final Judgment and Eternal Punishment (mp3)

Related terms:

• exclusivism
  
• inclusivism
• pluralism
• universalism

1From Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem

Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.

Theological Term of the Week

universalism
The view that all persons will ultimately be saved, even those who die in unbelief.

• Scripture teaches that universalism is false:
  

  And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. (Matthew 25:46 ESV)

  And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10 he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.” (Revelation 14:9-11 ESV) 

• From The London Baptist Confession of Faith, 1689:

  Chapter 32: Of the Last Judgment
  
  1._____ God hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in righteousness, by Jesus Christ; to whom all power and judgment is given of the Father; in which day, not only the apostate angels shall be judged, but likewise all persons that have lived upon the earth shall appear before the tribunal of Christ, to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds, and to receive according to what they have done in the body, whether good or evil.
  
  

  2._____ The end of God’s appointing this day, is for the manifestation of the glory of his mercy, in the eternal salvation of the elect; and of his justice, in the eternal damnation of the reprobate, who are wicked and disobedient; for then shall the righteous go into everlasting life, and receive that fulness of joy and glory with everlasting rewards, in the presence of the Lord; but the wicked, who know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast aside into everlasting torments, and punished with everlasting destruction, from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.

• From Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof:

  The question of the eternity of the future punishment deserves … special consideration … because it is frequently denied. It is said that the words used in Scripture for “everlasting” and “eternal” may simply denote an “age” or a dispensation, ” or any other long period of time. Now it cannot be doubted that they are so used in some passages, but this does not prove that they always have that limited meaning. It is not the literal meaning of the terms. Whenever they are so used, they are used figuratively, and in such cases their figurative use is generally quite evident from the connection. Moreover, there are positive reasons for thinking that these words do not have that limited meaning in the passages to which we referred. (a) In Matt. 25:46 the same word describes the duration of both, the bliss of the saints and the penalty of the wicked. If the latter is not, properly speaking, unending, neither is the former; and yet many of those who doubt eternal, do not doubt everlasting bliss. 

Learn more:

1. Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry: Universalism
2. Got Questions.org: Is universalism / universal salvation Biblical?
3. Reasoning from the Scriptures Ministries: Is Universalism Biblical?
4. Richard Bauckham: Universalism: a historical survey
5. Dr. Tim Beougher: Understanding the Ism’s: Universalism, Inclusivism, Pluralism, and Exclusivism 

Related terms:

• exclusivism
  
• inclusivism
• pluralism
• annihilationism
  

Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.

Theological Term of the Week

religious pluralism
The view that no one religion has an exclusive claim on the truth, and that there are many valid paths to God and salvation.

• From scripture, Paul addresses a pluralistic culture:
  

  16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

  22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,  25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for

  “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; 

  as even some of your own poets have said,

  “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ 

  29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

  32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” 33 So Paul went out from their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them. (Acts 17:16-34 ESV)

• From The Westminster Larger Catechism:

  Question 60: Can they who have never heard the gospel, and so know not Jesus Christ, nor believe in him, be saved by their living according to the light of nature?

  Answer: They who, having never heard the gospel, know not Jesus Christ, and believe not in him, cannot be saved, be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature, or the laws of that religion which they profess; neither is there salvation in any other, but in Christ alone, who is the Savior only of his body the church.

• From Facing Pluralism Today by J. I. Packer:

  Every opportunity of highlighting the reality of God’s love, the reality of our personal Saviour, and the reality of the Christian hope of resurrection and joy, should be taken, and if the implication that there is really no place for faiths that are not faith in Jesus Christ gives offence, as it did at Athens, we like Paul must bear it. Pluralism is not the path; evangelism is; so let us maintain our witness with clarity and with a high heart, knowing what the outcome will finally be (I borrow this phrase from the title of a study course on the book of Revelation) – “the Lamb wins.” Take courage, friends; we are on the victory side.

Learn more:

1. Sam Storms: Religious Pluralism
2. John Hendryx: Is There More Than One Way to God?
3. Philip Ryken: How Can Jesus Be the Only Way?
4. D. A. Carson: The Challenges of Contemporary Pluralism (.pdf)
5. Dr. Tim Beougher: Understanding the Ism’s: Universalism, Inclusivism, Pluralism, and Exclusivism (mp3)
6. Doug Groothuis: Are All Religions Created Equal? (YouTube video)

Related terms:

• exclusivism
  
• inclusivism
• universalism
  

Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.