Conditionalism | Old Testament | Gospels and Acts | Epistles | Revelation | Responses | Miscellaneous
Christ is our lamb whose life was given in order to atone for our sins:
"For the life of the flesh is in the blood. I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement by reason of the life." (Lev 17:11).
"The next day, he saw Jesus coming to him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (Jn 1:29).
"For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place." (1 Cor 5:7).
"but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish or spot, the blood of Christ" (1 Pet 1:19).
If Christ's substitutionary work, His taking our punishment on Himself, was death, then the punishment for sin is death. Christ's punishment is what He suffered on our behalf or else an indication of what we will suffer without Him:
"even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mat 20:28).
"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." (Jn 10:11).
"But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom 5:8).
"Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit" (1 Pet 3:18).
Rethinking Hell, Rethinking Hell Live 067: Does Conditionalism Lead to Christological Heresy?, YouTube.
Chris Date, The Righteous for the Unrighteous: Conditional Immortality and the Substitutionary Death of Jesus, MJTM 18 (2016–2017) 69-92: "Meanwhile, whereas traditionalists charge conditionalism with being Christologically problematic, it seems the real danger to orthodox Christology lies in their own tendency to locate the substitutionary work of Christ in his suffering... if the finite duration of his suffering is the substitutionary equivalent to the eternity of suffering awaiting the risen, undying wicked, why did he go on to die? If 'he had paid the full penalty for our sin,' as Grudem says, what penalty was left to pay with his death?"
— Cross Purposes: Atonement, Death and the Fate of the Wicked, Part 1 and Part 2. Quotes ordered respectively: "Conditionalists point out that Jesus was indeed executed, not eternally tormented. Traditionalists, however, point out Christ wasn’t annihilated, that he did not cease to exist." "Conditionalists see the death penalty—whether temporal or eternal—as the punitive privation of this psychosomatic life."
Peter Grice, Death or Eternal Suffering—Which One Reveals how much Jesus Loves You? (A Response to Timothy Keller), (2018): "the Bible presents Jesus’ death in our place as the precise measure of God’s love, not his eternal torment (or some softened form of this). Whenever Keller isn’t trying to explain hell, he would no doubt affirm the centrality of Jesus’ death. But his claim that Christ’s demonstration of love is only comprehended through the lens of eternal suffering ends up taking the focus off Christ’s death in our place."
Terrance Tiessen, What Did Jesus Suffer "For Us and For Our Salvation"?, (2016): "I think we can identify them as: (1) the things Jesus suffered with us, and (2) the things Jesus suffered in our place, or instead of us. If we blur this important distinction, we seriously muddy the waters in regard to our doctrine of the atonement and what that teaches us about God’s judgment of unrepentant sinners."
Chris Date, Deprived of Continuance: Irenaeus the Conditionalist, 2012: "Conditionalists today could hardly put it more clearly [than Irenaeus], that whereas 'continuance … [and] length of days for ever and ever' will be gifted to the redeemed of God, those who reject him will not receive 'continuance … [and] length of days for ever and ever.' The only alternative is that they will die, never to live again."
Christopher Date, Ron Highfield, and Stephen Travis, A Consuming Passion: Essays on Hell and Immortality in Honor of Edward Fudge (Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 2015): "Still, as a late patristic voice, Lactantius of Nicomedia in Asia Minor (c. 250–330) addressed the Roman Emperor Constantine in the fourth century, vividly maintaining conditionalism. And moving into the Nicene and post-Nicene periods, Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria (c. 297–373) and most prominent theologian of his generation, championed certain aspects of conditionalism."
Daniel Sinclair, The New York Times on the Rise of Conditionalism—Al Mohler Responds, 2014: "we Evangelical Conditionalists do not take to superficial criticisms, and are willing to joust on the field of exegetical battle as well as philosophical. Our case is strong. We love the lost and the church, and are distressed by the negative impact that an erroneous doctrine has had on both. You have only partly understood the rise of Conditionalism in our day. It’s not only found within liberal circles, but among conservative bibliophiles (for instance, those aligned with Rethinking Hell) who are willing to challenge orthodoxy with scripture."
Edward White, Life in Christ: A Study of the Scriptural Doctrine On the Nature of Man, the Object of the Divine Incarnation, and the Conditions of Human Immortality, 1875, pg. 379: "He 'is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna;' and the ability to destroy the soul, to kill it outright, will be exerted by that God who is a 'consuming Fire,' and whose threats are not vain. Christ here taught the doctrine which is found substantially in the Talmud. 'The body shall be consumed, and the soul burned up, and the wind shall scatter it under the feet of the just' (Roschasciana, ch. i. quoted, by S. Cox in Salvator Mundi, pp. 71-3, which see for further evidence of Jewish belief)."
Edward William Fudge, The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment, Third Edition. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 254, 259: "Constable and Froom claim that all the apostolic fathers support the views of conditional immortality: that immortality is God’s gift through the redemption of Jesus, only the saved will live forever, and the damned eventually will exist no more... [The apostolic fathers] nowhere indicate that the wicked will be immortal, and they strongly suggest in a number of places that they will not."
Glenn Peoples, Athanasius, Atonement and Annihilation : "When a person says 'Jesus died for me,' this confession of faith has consequences whether the confessor sees what those consequences are or not. I’m drawing on Athanasius here because he explained so much of the content of why Jesus came and what his death achieved... there is only one conclusion we can draw about the consequences of not having one’s sin atoned for by the Incarnate Christ... the reversal and undoing of creation, the dissolution of our being, and the sinking back into destruction, all of these will come to us without remedy."
Graham Keith, Patristic Views on Hell―Part 1, The Evangelical Quarterly 71, no. 3 (1999): "Indeed, a century or so after Constantine we have a surprising amount of evidence indicating widespread denial of eternal [conscious] punishment within the church."
Joseph Dear, The Bible Teaches Annihilationism, 2020, pg. 88-89: "It is wrong to assume that eternal torment has been universal in church, especially in the early church, and this takes a lot of the wind out of the traditional doctrine’s sails... Eternal torment may have been the majority view throughout much of history, but it was not even close to the only view of the early church, or of the body of Christ since, so don’t even give a moment’s thought to it whenever you hear it claimed that eternal torment must be right because the church has always believed it."
— Introduction to Evangelical Conditionalism: The Doctrine of Eternal Torment was not Universal in the Early Church, 2017: "Irenaeus of Lyons is one of the most well-known and influential of all the early church fathers, and so his inclusion on this list is especially noteworthy... Irenaeus very much goes out of his way to make the point that the unsaved will not consciously exist for eternity because God wills that they should not."
Justin Martyr and the Immortality of the Soul, 2009: "Given that Justin, along with most of the Fathers of the early Church, held that the souls of the dead were gathered to some subterranean locality, neither heaven nor hell, to await the resurrection and that they condemned the belief that the dead go immediately to Heaven or Hell, by what right do the so-called 'orthodox' of today condemn the Conditionalist for not believing in the traditional view of the church... Likewise, Justin’s testimony suggests that belief in conditional immortality (or at least belief in the natural mortality of the human soul) was wide spread among Christians in Justin’s day."
Statement on Evangelical Conditionalism: "Hell is a subject that the sixteenth-century Reformers did not reach to restudy. It is a topic still crying out for serious Bible study. The evangelical conversation on Hell has been too long coming, and now that it has started, it desperately needs to grow both deeper and broader."
Glenn Peoples, An Open Letter to My Traditionalist Friends: "Patience is a great virtue, but it looks to me at times that those defending the traditionalist cause simply lack this virtue when making their case. They know what the conclusion ought to be, and they are in a great hurry to get there, so at times the relevant pieces of exegetical data just become details that must be rushed through... This, my friends, is why we are not impressed, why we don’t seem to be reacting with any urgency to rectify our views, why the church is not moving in your direction, and why I do not think the case for annihilationism has anything to worry about."
— What I would Have to Deny in Order to Teach Eternal Torment: "But if we’re going to give up the biblical stance that the wages of sin is really death and eternal life is a gift, affirming eternal torment instead, then we have to simply junk the idea that Scripture is clear on this subject, because what Scripture clearly teaches is definitely not the doctrine of eternal torment."
Arnobius of Sicca (c. A.D. 255-300), Against the Heathen: "What is this passion, so bloodthirsty, to declare implacable war on one who did not deserve it from you; to want to tear Him limb from limb if you could, who not only brought evil to no man, but spoke with equal kindness to enemies concerning the salvation that was being brought to them from God the Ruler; concerning what had to be done so that they might escape death and receive an immortality unknown to them? And when the strangeness of these things and the unheard promises troubled the minds of those who heard them and caused them to hesitate to believe, the Lord of every power and the Destroyer of death itself, allowed His human form to be killed, so that from the results they might know that the hopes which they had long entertained about the salvation of the soul were safe and that in no other way could they avoid the danger of death." (1.65).
"For they are cast in, and being annihilated, pass away vainly in everlasting destruction. For theirs is an intermediate state, as has been learned from Christ's teaching; and they are such that they may on the one hand perish if they have not known God, and on the other be delivered from death if they have given heed to His threats and proffered favours. And to make manifest what is unknown, this is man's real death, this which leaves nothing behind. For that which is seen by the eyes is only a separation of soul from body, not the last end — annihilation: this, I say, is man's real death, when souls which know not God shall be consumed in long-protracted torment with raging fire, into which certain fiercely cruel beings shall cast them, who were unknown before Christ, and brought to light only by His wisdom." (2.14).
Athanasius of Alexandria (c. A.D. 296-373), On the Incarnation of the Word: "For if, out of a former normal state of non-existence, they were called into being by the Presence and loving-kindness of the Word, it followed naturally that when men were bereft of the knowledge of God and were turned back to what was not (for what is evil is not, but what is good is), they should, since they derive their being from God who IS, be everlastingly bereft even of being; in other words, that they should be disintegrated and abide in death and corruption. For man is by nature mortal, inasmuch as he is made out of what is not; but by reason of his likeness to Him that is (and if he still preserved this likeness by keeping Him in his knowledge) he would stay his natural corruption, and remain incorrupt" (4.5).
"For it were monstrous, firstly, that God, having spoken, should prove false — that, when once He had ordained that man, if he transgressed the commandment, should die the death, after the transgression man should not die, but God's word should be broken. For God would not be true, if, when He had said we should die, man died not. Again, it were unseemly that creatures once made rational, and having partaken of the Word, should go to ruin, and turn again toward non-existence by the way of corruption... It was, then, out of the question to leave men to the current of corruption; because this would be unseemly, and unworthy of God's goodness." (6.3-4, 10).
— Discourse 2 Against the Arians, 69: "Again, if the Son were a creature, man had remained mortal as before, not being joined to God; for a creature had not joined creatures to God, as seeking itself one to join it ; nor would a portion of the creation have been the creation's salvation, as needing salvation itself. To provide against this also, He sends His own Son, and He becomes Son of Man, by taking created flesh; that, since all were under sentence of death, He, being other than them all, might Himself for all offer to death His own body; and that henceforth, as if all had died through Him, the word of that sentence might be accomplished (for 'all died 2 Corinthians 5:14 ' in Christ), and all through Him might thereupon become free from sin and from the curse which came upon it, and might truly abide for ever, risen from the dead and clothed in immortality and incorruption."
Clement of Rome (c. A.D. 35-99), 1 Letter to the Corinthians, 35, 48: "How blessed and wonderful, beloved, are the gifts of God! Life in immortality, splendour in righteousness, truth in perfect confidence, faith in assurance, self-control in holiness... For [such conduct] is the gate of righteousness, which is set open for the attainment of life... Although, therefore, many gates have been set open, yet this gate of righteousness is that gate in Christ by which blessed are all they that have entered in..."
Didache (c. A.D. 50-120), 1, 16: "There are two ways, one of life and one of death; but a great difference between the two ways... Watch for your life's sake. Let not your lamps be quenched, nor your loins unloosed; but be ready, for you know not the hour in which our Lord comes... Then shall the creation of men come into the fire of trial, and many shall be made to stumble and shall perish; but they that endure in their faith shall be saved from under the curse itself. And then shall appear the signs of the truth; first, the sign of an outspreading in heaven; then the sign of the sound of the trumpet; and the third, the resurrection of the dead; yet not of all, but as it is said: The Lord shall come and all His saints with Him. Then shall the world see the Lord coming upon the clouds of heaven."
Ignatius of Antioch (c. A.D. 50-110), Epistle to the Magnesians, 5, 10: "Seeing, then, all things have an end, these two things are simultaneously set before us — death and life; and every one shall go unto his own place... were He to reward us according to our works, we should cease to be."
— Epistle to the Smyrnaeans: "Now, He suffered all these things for our sakes, that we might be saved. And He suffered truly, even as also He truly raised up Himself, not, as certain unbelievers maintain, that He only seemed to suffer, as they themselves only seem to be [Christians]. And as they believe, so shall it happen unto them, when they shall be divested of their bodies..." (2).
"These persons neither have the prophets persuaded, nor the law of Moses, nor the Gospel even to this day, nor the sufferings we have individually endured. For they think also the same thing regarding us. For what does any one profit me, if he commends me, but blasphemes my Lord, not confessing that He was [truly] possessed of a body? But he who does not acknowledge this, has in fact altogether denied Him, being enveloped in death..." (5).
"Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes. But it were better for them to treat it with respect, that they also might rise again." (7).
Irenaeus of Lyons (c. A.D. 120-200), Against Heresies, 2.34.3: "For as the heaven which is above us, the firmament, the sun, the moon, the rest of the stars, and all their grandeur, although they had no previous existence, were called into being, and continue throughout a long course of time according to the will of God, so also any one who thinks thus respecting souls and spirits, and, in fact, respecting all created things, will not by any means go far astray, inasmuch as all things that have been made had a beginning when they were formed, but endure as long as God wills that they should have an existence and continuance... And again, He thus speaks respecting the salvation of man: He asked life of You, and You gave him length of days for ever and ever; indicating that it is the Father of all who imparts continuance for ever and ever on those who are saved."
"For life does not arise from us, nor from our own nature; but it is bestowed according to the grace of God. And therefore he who shall preserve the life bestowed upon him, and give thanks to Him who imparted it, shall receive also length of days for ever and ever. But he who shall reject it, and prove himself ungrateful to his Maker, inasmuch as he has been created, and has not recognised Him who bestowed [the gift upon him], deprives himself of [the privilege of] continuance for ever and ever. And, for this reason, the Lord declared to those who showed themselves ungrateful towards Him: If you have not been faithful in that which is little, who will give you that which is great? indicating that those who, in this brief temporal life, have shown themselves ungrateful to Him who bestowed it, shall justly not receive from Him length of days for ever and ever."
Chris Date, Dismissive of Hell, Fearful of Death: Conditional Immortality and the Apologetic Challenge of Hell: "In today’s pluralistic culture, however, atheists and adherents to a variety of non-Christian religions often dismiss the doctrine of eternal torment as absurd... Meanwhile, Scripture and human experience testify to the reality that people deeply fear death, and the Bible’s offer of immortal life is naturally appealing to them... Consequently, evangelism done from a conditionalist perspective will fare just as successfully as evangelism based on escaping eternal torment, if not more so."
Mark Corbett, Burned Up: Annihilationism versus Eternal Conscious Punishment, 2016: "Some Christians have embraced theological liberalism/postmodernism and the many errors associated with that outlook in part as a reaction against the idea that God would torture people forever. A good example is Rob Bell in his book 'Love Wins'. There are many other examples. Far from being a step towards universalism or theological compromise of some kind, the Biblical truth of annihilationism is a strong defense against these errors."
— Why our beliefs about Hell and the Doctrine of Conditional Immortality are Important, 2021: "The doctrine of conditional immortality makes the threat of hell emotionally bearable without removing it as a motivation for evangelism and missions. The Christian most well known for defending annihilationism is perhaps the late John Stott. He noted the emotional strain that belief in eternal torment causes."
Terrance Tiessen, Does annihilationism diminish our motivation for evangelism?, 2016: "Stott admitted that he found the traditional concept of hell as eternal conscious torment 'intolerable'... But Stott was thoroughly evangelical, and he knew that his question must be 'not what does my heart tell me, but what does God’s Word say?'... In face of that stumbling block to the evangelistic work of traditionalists in the western world, might it not be, therefore, that an annihilationist understanding would be considerably less scandalous, and therefore that Christian annihilationists would find themselves more eager to share the good news of Jesus’ saving work, and less reluctant to describe the consequences of rejecting Christ?"
The language of conditional immortality flows straight from the Bible and has been widely used by those who hold to the traditional view of hell who would frankly admit that they are just parroting the clear teaching of Scripture. The phrase "eternal death" exemplifies annihilation language and is frequently contrasted with "eternal life" conditioned on faith in Christ, the conditional aspect of conditional immortality, providing the two sides of conditional immortality. But this language clearly undermines and betrays their position on hell; for they hold that an embodied life of suffering is the punishment for sin, not death forever. That is why the word "death" is equivocated on and reinterpreted to mean separation instead of the loss of life.
John Calvin (1509-1564), Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.23.2, 7: "First, they ask why God is offended with his creatures who have not provoked him by any previous offense; for to devote to destruction whomsoever he pleases, more resembles the caprice of a tyrant than the legal sentence of a judge; and, therefore, there is reason to expostulate with God, if at his mere pleasure men are, without any desert of their own, predestinated to eternal death... Scripture proclaims that all were, in the person of one, made liable to eternal death."
Amandus Polanus (1561-1610), The Substance of Christian Religion: "The fall of our first parents, is the eating of the forbidden fruite, by the persuasion and subtlety of the deuill [devil], through which eating they did breake the commandement of God, and haue cast themselues and their posterity headlong into eternall death." (30)
"The couenant of workes, is a bargaine of God made with men cōcerning eternall life, to which is both a condition of perfect obedience adioyned, to be performed by man, & also a threatning of eternall death if he shal not performe perfect obedience. Gene. 2.17." (88)
"The second part of the word of God, is concerning good workes, that is to say, which prescribeth and commandeth what works are to be done by the faithfull, that so men may performe thankefulnes due to God, for the deliuerance from sin and eternall death. Phil. 1.27. Iam. 2.20. Tit. 3.8." (179)
Théodore Bèze (1519-1605), A briefe and piththie summe of the Christian faith: "We call law when it is distincte from the Gospell, a certayne doctrine whose séede is naturally written in oure hartes, the whyche neuerthelesse for a more expresse declaration, was written of God, and comprehended briefly in the. x. commaundementes, by the which he declareth to vs the obedience and perfecte ryghteousnesse, whiche we owe to his maiestye and to oure neyghbours. Under a chaungeable condition, a that is to say, eyther of lyfe eternall (so that wée haue perfectly fulfilled the whole lawe withont breakyng any one poynte) or else death eternal for lack of the entier fulfilling and accomplishing the contents of euery parcell of the commaundementes."
Christopher Blackwood (1607/8-1670), A Soul-Searching Catechism: "Qu. What death did Adams sin procure? was it only a temporal death, or was it not also eternal? A. Adams sin procured to his posterity eternal death, in respect of desert: Rom. 5.15... As the grace of God, & gift by grace, abounded unto many, that is, to eternal life, and to remission of sins; so the offence on the contrary, abounded unto eternal death" (11)
"Such as the justification is, by the second Adam, such is the condemnation by the first Adam. But the justification by the second Adam, is a justification of life, that is, of or to eternal; Therefore the condemnation by the first Adam, is a condemnation to eternal death, Rom. 5.18." (12)
"Q What is original sin? A. It is the corruption of all mankinde, by the fall of our first Parents, naturally propagated or derived unto all, making them guilty of temporal and eternal death, and other punishments, unless forgiveness be made in Christ, Rom. 3.9. to vers. 25. Rom. 5.12, 13, 14, 15. It's called original sin, because it was in being from the beginning, from the first man that ever was." (16)
Matthew Poole (1624–1679), Commentary, James 5:20: "From death: eternal death, unto which he was hastening while he continued in the error of his way, which led him toward destruction."
Westminster (1647), Ch. 3: Of God’s Eternal Decree: "3. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death."
Francis Turretin (1623-1687), Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 2.3.15: "All these are usually designated by the word “salvation,” which implies not only the possession of life (which had a place in the first covenant), but also deliverance from death (which had been introduced by sin). This is carried out in four parts, opposed to the same parts of death to which we had become liable by sin: (1) justification, which frees us from the impending curse; (2) sanctification, taking away the defilement and corruption in which we lay dead; (3) consolation and peace of conscience, sustaining us against the afflictions of life and the terrors of conscience (which in Scripture come under the term death); (4) eternal glorification, delivering us safe from eternal death and bringing us to complete happiness. "
Nehemiah Coxe (d. 1689), A Discourse of the Covenants that God made with Men, 1681: "This Punishment will be inflicted on many of the ungodly Posterity of Adam who have been guilty of no other Transgression but that of the Light and Law of Nature... Now this Punishment must be the Fruit of that Curse which is the Sanction of that Law which they were under, and which was transgressed by them, which was the Law of Creation, even the same Law that Adam was made under; and if the Law be the same, the same Penalty was incurred by the Transgression thereof; and if they are liable to eternal Death for the Transgression of this Law, there is no rational doubt but Adam was so."
Albert Barnes (1798-1870), Barnes' Notes on the Bible, James 5:20: "The word death here must refer to eternal death, or to future punishment. There is no other death which the soul is in danger of dying... This passage proves, then, that there is a death which the soul may die; that there is a condition which may properly be called death as a consequence of sin; and that the soul will suffer that unless it is converted."
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (1882), James 5:20: "The soul is obviously that of the sinner who is converted. Death, bodily and spiritual, would be the outcome of the error if he were left alone, and in being rescued from the error he is therefore saved also from death."
R. C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith, (Carol Stream: Tyndale, 1992), 248: "The Bible clearly teaches that the punishment is eternal. The same word is used for both eternal life and eternal death."
Guy P. Waters, Romans 10:5 and the Covenant of Works? (2012), 22: "The disparity extends neither to the mode (i.e., imputation) of the work of Adam and Christ impacting those whom each represents nor to the “life/death” issues that were set before each federal head. The fact that Christ purchased eternal “life” for his own, and that he did so for those who were eternally “dead” in Adam means that Christ’s work was intended to remedy what Adam had wrought (death), and to accomplish what Adam had failed to do (life)."
Earl M. Blackurn, Covenant Theology: A Baptist Distinctive, (Solid Grounds: Birmingham, 2013), Chaper 1—Covenant Theology Simplified: "He was put into and under a probationary Covenant of Works, in which God promised that obedience would be rewarded with blessing and eternal life, and disobedience would be punished with curse and eternal death (Genesis 2:7-17)."
Samuel Renihan, The Mystery of Christ: His Covenant & His Kingdom, (Founders: Cape Coral, 2020), 74: "Eternal death is the opposite of eternal life... Thus, man's cursed condition involves death, in every way, culminating in a permanent and eternal exclusion from beholding and enjoying the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."
Douglas Moo, The Letter of James, NICNT (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids: 2021), 319. Commenting on James 5:19-20: "It is by sharing with James the conviction that there is indeed an eternal death, to which the way of sin leads, that we shall be motivated to deal with sin in our lives and in the lives of others."
Christopher Love (1618-1651), Sweeter morsels both for worms and devils!: "Contemplating the doctrine of Hell, will give a check to many sins of the ungodly."
"The destruction of the old world in the universal deluge, the raining down of fire and burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah, the damnation of the rebellious angels — are all examples to the ungodly, to take heed of sinning."
"There is nothing in the world which will more check the thoughts of lust — than thoughts of the fire of Hell. If you burn in your lusts on earth — then you will burn in fire in Hell."
"Contemplating the doctrine of Hell, will give a check to the sin of gluttony. For the more you pamper your flesh, if you are wicked — you make yourselves but sweeter morsels... for worms...! Take heed of gluttony and pampering your flesh!"
"Contemplating the doctrine of Hell, will give a check to the sin of pride. Paul bids Timothy to take heed of pride — lest he fall into the condemnation of the devils [1 Tim 3:6]. That is, lest Timothy fall into the sin for which the devils were damned. The devils were cast into chains of darkness only for the sin of pride — therefore take heed of pride! It may bring you to Hell — as well as the devils! Pride cast them into Hell — so it may do to you!"
Thomas Watson (1620-1686), The Wrath of God: "To you who have a well-grounded hope that you shall not feel this wrath, which you have deserved—let me exhort you to be very thankful to God, who has given His Son to save you from this tremendous wrath. The Lamb of God was scorched in the fire of God's wrath for you! Christ felt the wrath which He did not deserve—that you might escape the wrath which you have deserved!"
"Pliny observes, that there is nothing better to quench fire, than blood. Christ's blood has quenched the fire of God's wrath for you! 'Upon me be your curse,' said Rebekah to Jacob. Just so, Christ said to God's justice, 'Upon Me be the curse—that My elect may inherit the blessing!'"
"Be patient under all the afflictions which you endure. Affliction is sharp—but it is not wrath, it is not hell. Who would not willingly drink the cup of affliction—who knows he shall never drink in the cup of damnation! Who would not be willing to bear the wrath of man—who knows he shall never feel the wrath of God!"
"Christian, though you may feel God's rod—you shall never feel God's bloody axe! Augustine once said, 'Strike, Lord, where you will—so long as my sin pardoned.' You should say, 'Afflict me, Lord, as you will in this life—seeing I shall escape the wrath to come!'"
Thomas Vincent (1634-1678), God's Terrible Voice in the City: "I suppose they may not now expect judgment, nor fear it, any more than the whole world did their drowning in Noah's day; or Sodom and Gomorrah did their burning; because deceitful sin has hardened their hearts! Long continuance in sin with impunity, has seared their consciences as with a hot iron! But they are in the greatest danger, when they sleep with the greatest security! When men grow desperately hardened against often and all reproofs—what follows but sudden destruction, and that without remedy!"
Thomas Boston (1676-1732), Human Nature in its Fourfold State: "The wrath of God is IRRESISTIBLE, there is no standing before it; 'Who can stand in Your sight, when once You are angry?' Psalm 76:7. Can the worm or the moth defend itself against him who designs to crush it? Can the worm, man, stand before an angry God? Foolish men, indeed, bid a defiance against God; but the Lord often, even in this world, opens such sluices of wrath upon them, as all their might cannot stop—they are carried away thereby, as with a flood!"
Asahel Nettleton (1783-1844), Rejoice Young Man!: "We are to remember that God always sees us — and do what we will, we can never get out of His sight, or out of His hand. Your past conduct is now recorded in Heaven — the account is gone in, and cannot be altered. It will shortly be presented to your view. The mirthful scene will now be changed. Every action will now be weighed by the omniscient Judge. Every secret thing will now appear. God will bring to the light of open day, the hidden works of darkness, and the secret counsels of all hearts. The righteous Judge will proceed to the trial on the principles of strict justice. He will now demand the uttermost farthing — absolute perfection. Without pity, or allowance for the levity of youth — He will condemn and punish for every failure of perfect obedience. An idle word, an impure thought, cannot be forgiven. For all those things, O young man — how will your present mirthful conduct then appear?"
William Plumer (1802-1880), The Rock of Our Salvation, 1867: "No one shall be so mighty, and no one shall be so lowly—as to elude the eye or the sentence of Him who shall sit upon the throne of judgment! What a massive multitude will this be—when prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, saints of all ages; when sinners, liars, infidels, blasphemers, moralists, and murderers—shall all be there; when the sea and the dry land shall give up their dead; when death and hell shall deliver up the dead who are in them; when all who lived before the flood, all who have lived since the flood, and all who shall have lived to the end of time, shall stand before God! This will be the first and the last assembly, in which are found every person whom God ever made."
Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), The Smoke of Their Torments: "My God, from this day forward help me to see through the thin curtain which covers up sin, and whenever Satan tells me that such-and-such a thing is for my pleasure, let me recollect the pain of that penalty wrapped up in it. When he tells me that such a thing is for my profit, let me know that it can never profit me to gain the whole world and lose my own soul. Let me feel it is no sport to sin, for only a madman would scatter firebrands and death, and say it is sport."
R. C. Sproul (1939-2017), The biggest problem for those in Hell: "If, however, we can take any comfort in the concept of Hell—we can take it in the full assurance that there will be no cruelty there. It is impossible for God to be cruel. Cruelty involves inflicting a punishment that is more severe or harsh than the crime. Cruelty in this sense is unjust. God is incapable of inflicting an unjust punishment. The Judge of all the earth will surely do what is right. No innocent person will ever suffer at His hand. The last judgment will be administered by a perfectly just and righteous Judge, so there will be nothing arbitrary or unjust about it."
Sam Storms, Eight Myths about Hell, 2018: "When I read about Hell in a passage like Revelation 14:9-11 I'm reading about what I deserve... In mercy He has poured out His wrath on Jesus in my place, a wrath and judgment that Jesus lovingly and willingly embraced and endured. Every single one of us deserves damnation. God owes us nothing but justice. The fact that He has given us mercy instead, and forgiveness instead of condemnation, ought to awaken in us the most heartfelt and passionate gratitude and praise."
Joseph Dear, Evangelical Conditionalism and Degrees of Punishment in Hell, Part 1 and Part 2. Quotes ordered respectively: "The idea of a day of judgment also reconciles annihilationism with the idea of a greater condemnation. While the difference does not continue into eternity, at least not in terms of conscious experience, a more terrible experience on judgment day is a form of greater condemnation." "But the fact that the fire is not as hot or the weeping and gnashing of teeth out of regret are less intense is way less significant overall than the difference between having one sin held against you (unending misery and suffering) and having no sins held against you (unending love and joy and only good things)."
Mark Corbett, Does the Character of God Require Him to Subject the Unrighteous to Eternal Conscious Torment?, 2022: "Philosophical arguments and the views of other Christians can be either right or wrong, but they should never be used to overthrow the clear and direct teaching of the Bible. And the Bible clearly teaches that the final fate of the unrighteous is for God to destroy their bodies and souls in hell (Matthew 10:28), for them to perish (John 3:16), and for them to be turned to ashes (2 Peter 2:6)."
— Hell is Payback, 2017: "If unrighteous people really did deserve to be tortured for eternity then how does God ever fulfill His promise to repay sinners? If the unrighteous “owe” an eternity of suffering as payment for their sins, then even after a million trillion years of torment they would have repaid far less than 1/1000th of 1% of the debt they apparently owe. In this view justice is NEVER complete or fulfilled."
— Does Annihilationism Make the Threat of Hell Meaningless?, 2017: "The objection that the punishment is not severe just does not pass the reality test. Imagine you had a friend who you knew was about to be captured by North Korea, imprisoned and tortured for an unknown length of time, and then executed. Would you say, 'Oh, that’s no big deal!'? And yet the annihilation of the wicked is much more severe because it will last forever!"