REFRAMING ETERNITY: HOW VICTORIOUS WILL JESUS ACTUALLY BE?
Speaker: Scott Kardash
"...the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost (those perishing)." (Slide 1)
Right, so we worship a mighty God who never changes. And you saw at the end there, every knee will bow. And that's a picture of how all this is going to end. And today I wanted to give you an idea of my journey. And so I want to talk to it from a more personal point of view of some changes I've made in how I view the Bible and what it teaches, and how all this is going to end, and even my view of God. And I want to take you through some elements which have been linchpins in that, in how I read the Bible. Hopefully you'll get something from that yourself, or at least food for thought. Over the last few times I've just summarised, when I've spoken here, what I've been talking about because it kind of leads into this.
THE PARADIGM SHIFT: VIEWING OUR CHRISTIAN LIFE DIFFERENTLY (Slide 2)
So viewing our Christian life differently is what I've been doing. And so previously I had a separation lens, and I think many of us have had that growing up in a traditional church where salvation is a legal loophole or transactional ticket to escape to a distant heaven. Prayer was calling up to the sky to reach a distant and perhaps reluctant God.
Discipleship was trying hard to obey the rules of a far-off boss. So it was an upward straining. And love was kind of a moral to-do list to be nice to others. You know, "I don't really like that person, but I feel like, you know, I probably should because God told me to." So if you look at that left-hand side... in a sense, it's all about sin management, right? So think of the Ten Commandments, it was all about sin management, where your heart necessarily hadn't changed, but you didn't do things because you were told not to do things, even though you wanted to.
On the right-hand side, the lens changes completely to where the law isn't written on stone anymore, it's written on our hearts. If I don't lust after a woman, I won't be committing adultery. If I'm out there working to generate income to give generously to other people, then I'm not going to be out there stealing. So I don't need a rule to stop stealing. If I'm not angry with people and I'm loving them, I'm not going to be tempted to murder them. That's the difference between living out of the law, where it's written on stone, and where the law is written on our hearts.
On the oneness side, there's a lifelong process of healing, transformation, and being united with God right now, not when we get to heaven. Tuning into the divine presence that is already holding you together. So nothing exists outside of God. In Him we have our being and we live and move in Him. There's no such thing as we're separated from God, He's separate from us, and we're existing outside of God. The Bible teaches that's impossible. He's everywhere, and without Him life isn't even sustained.
Waking up to the reality, to the vine. Who's the vine? The vine is Jesus. And allowing His life to flow through you. So that's the downward flow, not the upward flow of striving. And living in harmony with our shared biological and spiritual reality, we are members of one body. And ultimately, Christ is all in all. And in other passages, it says God is all in all.
So that's the end game. And we're all on a journey to get there. Everybody is on a different stage of that journey. Some haven't begun, some are going in completely the wrong direction, and others are well along the way of that journey. And it's the Holy Spirit which prompts us to do that. So we can ignore the Holy Spirit or we can follow Him.
MAPPING THE FINAL STATE OF CREATION (Slide 3)
And I wanted to present three common views of how this will all end. Eternal conscious torment... that was a view that I was firmly cemented in for most of my life, and I had good reasons for believing that. Annihilationism, where people get wiped out who are not saved, should we say, and restorative justice or ultimate reconciliation. And today I want to talk through what shifted me from that left-hand side to the right-hand side.
If we just look at what is the view of God's justice: eternal torment says retributive vengeance, right? So there's no restoration in view there. Annihilation: capital punishment, or being extinguished or deleted. And restorative justice: healing and setting broken things right. If we look at the Bible and the pattern of the Bible, it's all about restoration. So things get destroyed and then they're restored. That's a consistent pattern, whether He's talking about nations or people, we see that as the theme.
Purpose of divine fire: eternal torment says it's endless physical and spiritual agony. Annihilation: utter destruction of the soul. And restorative justice says it's purifying, consuming the dross, consuming those things in us that are in opposition to God.
The final state of evil: evil is memorialised and preserved forever in cosmic quarantine in the eternal torment view. So there's no total victory of Christ in this view. We have a whole segment of the population, probably a large number, in this eternal separation view. So some people would say eternal torment, others would say, "No, no, they're just separated from God," which, you know, I don't think the Bible teaches that at all. It's not possible to be separated from God.
And then annihilation: evil is uncreated, but death gets the final victory over a portion of humanity. We're told that death is destroyed, but annihilationism says death wins. And restorative justice: evil is eradicated, the image-bearer is reconciled, and God is truly all in all.
We will have all come from different backgrounds and come to our own conclusions. Today is just really about the journey I've taken and how I've got to this point. Because I was adamant that eternal conscious torment was taught in the Bible, because I read the Bible carefully, because I wanted to challenge that myself to see, can this possibly be true? Because we talk about a loving God, but is He really going to torment people endlessly with no hope of redemption? Well, if the Bible really teaches that, I'm prepared to believe it. But what I've discovered over time is that I don't think the Bible does teach that. And I think there are good reasons why we've been led down that path.
DECONSTRUCTING THE VOCABULARY OF THE GRAVE (Slide 4)
So we look at the vocabulary of the grave. Some of the confusion came in with the translations into English. Originally, the Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek. It was then translated into Latin. So there were some issues in that translation where some of the meanings of some of the words changed, like "forever", and then from Latin into English. And so a lot of the English words were drawn from that Latin view.
But if we even just take the example of Sheol, or the Greek is Hades, the definition is the realm of the dead, the grave, a temporary holding place, not a torture chamber. So it was a neutral place in the Old Testament. But if you look at the King James Version, King James translates Sheol as "hell" 31 times, "the grave" 31 times, and "the pit" three times. So it can be confusing if you've got these different terms in the original language that are all translated as one word. And it translates Gehenna as "hell". Jesus mainly talked about Gehenna.
But if we look at Genesis 37 as an example, Jacob mourns, "I will go down into the grave unto my son." So that's the word Sheol. And in Psalm 139, "If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there." If we've got these two views being presented to us, it can be confusing. And then we have in Acts, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell." Christ Himself was in hell for three days. This is where we get some of this doctrine creeping in about hell, and it's not distinguishing what these places actually are in the original language.
THE SEQUENCE OF REVELATION 20 (Slide 5)
And then if we look at Hades and what happened with Hades, we're told in Revelation exactly what's going to happen, and it's not an endless destination. You remember the parable of Lazarus and the rich man? So they were in Hades, not in the lake of fire. It says Hades. And there's this chasm between paradise and where the rich man is, he's suffering. But Revelation tells us that Hades will be emptied out, and Hades and death will be thrown into the lake of fire. So Hades is not a permanent abode for anyone. It will be emptied and Hades will be disposed of.
So if we look at Revelation 20, "Death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them." That's Hades, death and Hades delivered up the dead which were in them. So hell gives up everyone it held, it's emptied for judgment.
Then there's judgment in Revelation 20:13, "And they were judged, every man, according to their works." Now, it's interesting because all the passages I see about judgment have got nothing to do with what somebody academically believed. It's got to do with what they've done in their life. So this universal accountability before the throne also says God has no partiality.
Destroyed in Revelation, the next verse, "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire." Hell itself is thrown away. This is the second death. All right, so something that's emptied and then cast into the fire cannot be the eternal destination.
RE-MEASURING THE DIMENSIONS OF 'FOREVER' (Slide 6)
All right, so what about passages that speak of eternal fire and forever? So have a look at the original words there. If we look at aionios, which is the Greek, or in Hebrew, it's olam. They're both translated as "forever", meaning pertaining to an age or epoch. It describes the quality of the age to come, not necessarily infinite mathematical duration.
So it functions in a very similar way to the English word "tall". So you can have a tall man, you can have a tall building... they're not the same height. That's how this word functions. So if it's pertaining to God, sure, of course it's eternal, there's no bounds there. But if it's pertaining to other things, then there certainly can be bounds; in fact, there are bounds.
So if we look at Romans 16, it says, "since the world began," aionios, a time with a definitive beginning. So that didn't have an endless beginning, from the beginning of time until now. Jonah says the earth was about him "forever" (olam), but he was actually delivered exactly three days later. He wasn't in there actually forever. He was in there for a period of time. And Exodus 40 says the Aaronic priesthood ordinances were established "forever", and it culminated and ended in Christ.
So translating aionios strictly as endless duration creates a severe biblical contradiction. And in fact, it can be misleading for us when we read in our English Bibles where the translators just put "forever" against every single instance of this word. And there are some areas where they can't do that because it won't make sense. But in general, that's where a lot of our doctrines come from.
DISTINGUISHING ESSENCE FROM REACTION (Slide 7)
And another penny that dropped for me was God's essence being love. Love is what He is. And in 1 John, it tells us that's His essence. It's not that He does love. It's not one of His attributes. It's not like it's just something He does because He thinks He has to. He IS love. And so because of that, everything He does has to emanate from that place of love.
If we talk about anger, we talk about wrath... we can all agree with mercy, grace, faithfulness, holiness, maybe righteousness. But what about justice, anger, and wrath? If we can get our minds around the fact that they have to be generated out of who God is, not an action that we think in our lives, how we would interpret that. So if I was angry, my anger is probably going to be quite different to God's anger because I may not be loving at that time. Whereas it's not possible for God to not be loving. So these actions are always framed for the benefit of the person He's doing it to. Ultimately, that's what love is. Love is not doing something for your sake, it's doing something for the other person's sake.
If we look at wrath in this case, or anger from that framework, love is God's very nature and unchanging constitution. God doesn't change. But in His temporary reactions to sin or rebellion, or people's actions which are actually destructive to themselves or other people, "His anger is but for a moment," but it has a purpose. "The Lord will not cast off forever." So He's not going to abandon people.
When Jesus left to ascend, He said, "I will not leave you as orphans." And then He sent the Holy Spirit. So the benefit we have that nobody in the Old Testament had was the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. That's a key difference. So you can see why the law was important, because people couldn't change their hearts, they didn't have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them. We do, and we just think it's normal. But actually, my sense is that what people felt in their being before the Holy Spirit is going to be quite a different experience than the one we have now. And I think we kind of take it for granted a lot of the time. I know I do.
So wrath is His functional, temporary opposition to the sin that ravages His creation. Unending wrath contradicts His revealed nature. Divine wrath is a severe, restorative reaction serving the ultimate purposes of His love. Right, so there's a reason for this. It's not just we've offended Him because He's God and we're not. That's a medieval concept which has crept into a lot of our thinking about God.
THE MECHANICS OF THE REFINER'S FIRE (Slide 8)
Then God's described as a consuming fire or a refiner's fire. How does that work? And we can take the example of a silversmith because this is where that imagery comes from. So what are the mechanics of this? So we have the image-bearer, you and me, with accumulated sin or dross or garbage in our lives, or it could be a disordered or a corrupted soul that needs to be realigned. I've spoken before about the fact we are spirit and body, and our soul is the expression of those, right? So throughout life, our soul can get damaged.
This is what this refiner's fire is doing. It's described as a crucible or divine consuming fire. So in Malachi, it says, "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." And Paul used the analogy... you might remember there was gold, silver, and stone, and straw, wood, stubble, three things that burn. This is where it gets burnt. What it leaves is the gold, silver, and stone.
And then the output, output number one: destruction. Unworthy works, the false self, the weeds are burned up, and it's the ruin of the Adamic nature. So when we read "destruction", that's what's being destroyed. It's our false self.
And on the other side, the other thing that comes out is salvation, essentially. Salvation is not where you go when you die. Salvation is being restored to who God made you to be. That's what salvation is. It's being saved out of being a slave to sin and being a slave to Christ. Not walking in the flesh, walking in the Spirit. That's what salvation is. So the core person remains and is made in His likeness. "He shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire." So that's what that's talking about. God's consuming fire destroys the sin and the false self, rescuing the image-bearer beneath.
Okay, that was a key concept for me, because we read "destruction" in the Bible. I used to read "destruction" and go, "Well, they're gone. They're destroyed. God's rejected them. If He doesn't really love them, why should I?" So that can generate a "them and us" mentality. Like, I'm saved, I've got the truth, I believe the right things, I'm going to go to heaven when I die. These other people, well, hopefully they'll find their way.
THE TRUE PURPOSE OF DIVINE JUSTICE (MISHPAT) (Slide 9)
And then justice or punishment. There are two words in Greek that were commonly used for punishment. One is timoria and the other one is kolasis. Now this was actually very key for me as well. Because timoria is retributive punishment. It's used three times in the New Testament. Paul used it twice when he was out there persecuting people and killing them, basically. He felt he had the authority to inflict timoria on these Christians who were basically blaspheming. It was retributive punishment. There was nothing restorative about that. And in Hebrews 10, it also uses that word too to say, these people who once had the Holy Spirit and experienced Christ and had come into the knowledge of truth, then trod over the cross all over again... don't you think they deserve timoria? There's a retributive warning there. So that was the author of Hebrews, but it's never described as what God actually does.
It's kolasis which is described that way everywhere else. So it says, for instance, in 2 Corinthians 5, "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body..." And the goal is biblical justice demands total accountability. Judgment is corrective pruning aimed at setting right what is broken, not immortalising evil in a cosmic torture chamber.
So the torture chamber is a bit of a characterisation, but putting somebody in hell forever and tormenting them serves no purpose. What purpose can it serve? It can't serve any purpose. They're there forever. They can't repent. Even if they did repent, it wouldn't matter. They're stuck there and they're just being caused to suffer by God. God's causing that. Well, to me, that goes right against the character of God. And the root of kolasis, it's an agricultural term. It means pruning. So when we prune a plant, it's for the benefit of the plant, so the plant will thrive and grow after the pruning.
ONGOING WRATH VS. ULTIMATE MERCY (Slide 10)
The restorative model, it's kind of almost offensive to some people. How does the New Testament hold together the ongoing wrath and ultimate mercy? John 3:36, "...whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him." Okay, so it's pretty severe. But John there is describing a present, ongoing condition, not an irrevocable destiny. Wrath remains only as long as unbelief persists. So the purpose of wrath is to bring people into the knowledge of the truth. There's a purpose behind it. It's a redemptive purpose. That's why it's there.
And in Romans 11, there's a lot of kind of harder language earlier in Romans, but it culminates in this: "For God has consigned all to disobedience..." Why? "...so that he may have mercy on all." None of us go through this life perfect or unopposed to God. And we all have been disobedient, and the "all" means "all". So we're all consigned to disobedience, and He's going to have mercy on all. This is what the Bible teaches. The scope of the fall perfectly matches the scope of divine mercy.
THE SINGULAR INSTRUMENT OF COSMIC PEACE (Slide 11)
But we need to just make one thing really clear, because this concept of universal reconciliation never bypasses the cross of Jesus. In fact, it demands it. The blood of the cross is central. That's the things on earth, things in heaven, it encompasses everything. When we think of the scope of Jesus' mission, He wasn't just going to try His hardest to convince 10% of the people made in His image to believe in Him. His scope was cosmic. He came to reconcile all things, all people, and all of creation back to Him. That's why He came. He didn't come for just a few people that happened to be in the right place at the right time and heard the right sermon and put up their hand at the end of a service.
And by the way, He's got a lot of time too. God is endless, and He talks about more than one age to come. In Ephesians it talks about ages. So we don't know. We don't know how many ages there are to come. But God has actually got time on His side to show people who He is and wake them up to the reality that there is no life outside of Him. Because a lot of people just don't know that. They're walking around just thinking, "Oh well, I'm my own person, and when I'm facing God, I'm going to shake my fist at Him and tell Him exactly what I think." Well, I just cannot see that happening. You're standing in front of the Creator of everything, who's the sustainer of your life. And to have this kind of idea that you're going to be angry at Him, it just doesn't sit with me.
I was talking to someone the other day and they talked about their grandmother who was 83 and on a deathbed and about to die. And she had been opposed to God her whole life, a devout atheist, like just completely angry and opposed to God. He said a few minutes before she died, she looked up and said, "He's here, He's here." Then she could see Jesus in front of her, realised who He was. All that cynicism completely melted away because she had a first-hand revelation of who Jesus actually is. We can get all academic and theoretical about what we might say to God if we're angry at Him. I don't think that's going to be reality when we actually face Him.
In Colossians it says, "For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell; And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself..." So universal reconciliation does not bypass the cross; it demands it. Nobody is saved apart from the shed blood and finished redemptive work of Jesus Christ. It's quite different to the baggage that the term "universalism" carries with it, which is "it doesn't matter what you do, all paths lead to God," right? That's not true. Eventually, God will bring us all through that path, which is Christ, who is the vine.
THE ULTIMATE HORIZON OF 1 CORINTHIANS 15 (Slide 12)
We're told what the ultimate horizon is because Paul actually gives us this total view from the beginning to the end. In 1 Corinthians 15, he starts with the fall: "For as in Adam all die..." That's totally inclusive, right? There is nobody left that doesn't die. But the fall, Genesis chapter 3, we often start there, but we don't start at Genesis 1 when God created everything and ultimately said, "It's very good." Very good. He said it was good, good, good, very good. And then we get to chapter 3, and then we have the fall with the serpent. And my view is that God will restore everything back to being very good, right? He's not going to have pockets that are not very good.
So Stage 2, the reversal: "...even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Because that's a promise of what the work of Christ will do.
And Stage 3, the defeat of death: Christ reigns until all enemies are abolished. "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." So ultimately, nobody will go through this painful experience of people dying, either those around them or them themselves. That's not part of the future plan.
And then the telos, the end state or the goal, is Christ hands the kingdom to the Father "that God may be all in all," right? So that means all things in all people. So we have this end-state view where Jesus has actually completed His work. So He starts out to save the lost, and the end state is that He hands the kingdom back to the Father. So I think a lot of us miss that. He hands it back to God and His job is done. He's not going to hand back, "Well, I tried my best and I got 10%, I hope that's okay." No, God has to be all in all, and we know that because 1 Corinthians gives us that view. So if billions remain in permanent death or endless torment, death is never truly defeated, and God is not all in all.
THE OPEN GATES OF REVELATION (Slide 13)
And then we move past that, because I think a lot of Christians think that Revelation stops at chapter 20 [1] when it talks about the lake of fire and they're in there forever and ever, and we talked about that meaning from age to age, perhaps. But they don't keep reading and read about the New Jerusalem, where the gates of the city of New Jerusalem "shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there." So where does the light come from? It comes from God, because He's there in the city. These cities in these ancient times had walls and gates for a reason, and it wasn't to keep people in, it was to keep people out. If the gates are open, it gives people an opportunity who are outside to come in. But the gates never shut there. So it's got gates, but they never shut. There's always an invitation to come in, as we'll see in a minute.
"The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." Why do the nations need healing if they're already in the New Jerusalem? Well, obviously, the redemptive process still continues there. The nations and the kings of the earth are specifically referenced here as being in total rebellion against God, against Christ, throughout the whole story of the Bible. So that phrase, "kings of the earth and nations", is used consistently about people in rebellion to God. Prior to the thousand-year reign (and when Satan's final rebellion is consumed by fire at the end of it), it says they were slaughtered by the Lamb. [2] So Jesus slaughters them, and then the next view is the New Jerusalem. And so you could safely assume those people were thrown into the lake of fire. But then later on, they appear inside the New Jerusalem... same phrase, "the nations and the kings of the earth", inside the New Jerusalem, giving glory to God. Complete turnaround from where they were before. It's not forced submission, it's worshipping God because they understand who He is.
And look at the ongoing invitation: "The Spirit and the Bride say, Come. Let the one who is thirsty come." This is right at the end of Revelation. So the gates are open. There's healing available inside. And it's not just God or the Spirit saying "Come", it's also the Bride. Who is the Bride? The church. The church is giving an invitation for those outside the city to come in through the open gates.
This view where it's only the church who are actually saved... well, yeah, we're the firstfruits. Believers are described as the firstfruits of what? A greater harvest. We're described as those who have come into the knowledge of the truth, and others have not yet come into that knowledge. So the gates remain open, the Spirit and the Bride still inviting those outside the city to wash their robes, because nobody gets in unless they wash their robes in the blood of Christ, and enter.
[Note 1 - Speaker Correction: While speaking, I accidentally said "chapter 19", whereas the lake of fire judgment is in Revelation chapter 20 (as shown on Slide 13).]
[Note 2 - Speaker Correction: While speaking, I said that the kings of the earth were slaughtered by the Lamb "at the end of the thousand-year reign." In Revelation, the slaughter of the kings of the earth by the Rider on the White Horse occurs in Revelation 19:19-21 (just prior to the thousand-year reign), while the final rebellion at the end of the thousand-year reign is consumed by fire from heaven in Revelation 20:7-9.]
THE FATE OF EVIL (Slide 14)
And I often get asked this question, and people like to pick edge cases when I talk to them, right? So, "What about the devil and his demons, right? Maybe everyone can get saved, but what about the devil? Like, he's too far gone, right?" And in fact, in 1 John, it says, "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." So part of the reason Jesus came, and part of that restoration process, is to destroy the works of the devil. And what were his works? Steal, kill, destroy. They are not works of God, to destroy and kill. They're the works of the devil. And so God came to destroy that. And so when Jesus died and was resurrected, He conquered sin, He conquered death, and He conquered the powers of darkness. That's what He achieved on the cross.
The theological dilemma, though, for an eternal conscious torment view that I used to hold, was that if Satan and evil are preserved forever in endless torment, evil is memorialised and immortalised. If Christ truly destroys the works of the devil, evil must cease to exist entirely. Some people maybe interpret Satan or the devil to be kind of evil, the embodiment of evil, or an actual creature. I personally think that he's a specific being.
And so the resolution is: whether one views the devil as a creature who ultimately yields, or as the embodiment of evil that is completely eradicated, the biblical outcome is identical. God makes all things new. Evil is abolished, not preserved.
If we look at the most evil person we can think of, we've all got examples. And even in your past life, in your life, you might think, "I'm a completely different person to how I was back then." And we could probably all relate to that, how we've changed throughout life. Well, we are all made in God's image, but we've drifted out of God's likeness, right? So we're made in God's image and His likeness. Jesus' job here is to restore us back into His likeness. That's essentially the sanctification process. That's what the refiner's fire does, to get us back to how we were originally designed.
And my view is, it might be a bit controversial, but Satan was designed to be a really supreme being. And that ultimately, I think God will... I don't think he'll be deleted. Maybe he will be, we're not told what happens to Satan, but I can see the pattern is one of redemption, getting all of His creation back to the original design where things were very good. We all know people where that might be hard to accept, that that's going to happen to them.
THE RHYTHM OF THE BIBLICAL NARRATIVE (Slide 15)
And if we look at the rhythm of the biblical narrative, like we step back and look at from Genesis to Revelation: Creation was inherently good. We had the Fall, fracturing not just people, but the cosmos. That's where we got thorns and thistles and that sort of thing coming in, and corruption, disease, and all this stuff coming in. And then Judgment, which is real, severe, and painful, but it's not where it ends. The end is in Restoration: ultimate, total reconciliation.
And there's a really good case study here because people say, "What about Sodom?" You know, the smoke was going up forever and ever. And in Jude, it says Sodom underwent the punishment of "eternal fire". And it sounds pretty severe. But we know that the fire is not still burning in Sodom. In fact, they found Sodom. They can see the evidence of the fire that was there, but the smoke's not still going up, and the fire's not still going up.
And then Ezekiel says, he explicitly says... this is God talking: "I will restore the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters, and they will return to their former state." Even Sodom and Gomorrah. So the stereotypical evil people in the Bible, He will restore them. This is the pattern of Scripture.
And we look at Scripture in these terms, and we can apply this pattern and understanding to passages that we're reading, particularly that talk about destruction, judgment, wrath, anger. We can then hopefully bring into view a restoration. And you remember the case where Paul said, "I threw this guy out of the church." He was committing sexual immorality and it was well known, and people were just accepting it. He said, "I booted him out of the church." Why? To hand him over to Satan, right? Okay, well, that's pretty severe. Yeah, that was severe. But why? For the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved. [3] And in fact, we see in the next letter that he wrote that he was restored. He actually came back into the church as a restored person in that area. That is the pattern of Scripture.
[Note 3 - Speaker Correction: While speaking, I misspoke and said "that his flesh may be restored." The actual wording in 1 Corinthians 5:5 is "for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord."]
QUESTIONS TO PONDER (Slide 16)
And so I just want to leave you with perhaps three questions to ponder:
1. If Paul says God will ultimately be "all in all", in what sense is He all in all if a portion of His creation remains in eternal rebellion?
2. At what point does the Good Shepherd give up on the lost sheep? Does His pursuit end at the moment the physical body dies?
3. When John hears "every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth" praising the Lamb (Rev 5:13)... who is missing from that chorus?
It's pretty comprehensive. "Under the earth" speaks of people who have passed away, and "on the earth" of people who are still living, and "in heaven", all these other beings that are there in heaven. It's all-encompassing, all-inclusive.
And the way the song ended there was a quote out of Isaiah 45, which is "every knee will bow". And Paul quotes that at least two or three times in the New Testament, Isaiah 45. But Isaiah says why: because they're swearing allegiance. It's not like God has got His foot on their neck getting them to admit that they were wrong. They are swearing allegiance. The kings of the earth are giving glory to God in the new creation. There's no pockets of rebellion left. Everybody understands. Everyone's coming to the knowledge of the truth. Truth is a person. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth..." He is the truth. Jesus is truth. Coming into the knowledge of the truth. And so once you've come into that knowledge of who God actually is and who you are in Him, then the whole mindset can change.
REFRAMING ETERNITY - PRACTICAL CONCLUSION (Slide 17)
From a practical point of view, what I found is it's changed the way I view who God is in my life. He's not this judge waiting to bring down the gavel on me every time I might make a mistake in life. But He does want to correct me. He doesn't want me to persist in whatever that is that's keeping me apart from Him. He wants to bring me back. He's searching for the lost sheep. If I'm perishing in some way, He wants to restore me back.
And my view of other people has actually changed as well, because I did have an "in or out", "you're either in or you're out" mentality. I lived in Japan for three years and saw all these millions and millions of people. They're all "out". God might get to them one day, but they're really unreceptive to the Christian message, and there are reasons for that. I think 1% of Japan are Christian. And I think one of the reasons is because of the way the gospel's been shared with them. Because they're into ancestor worship, if they accept the Christian message, then all of their ancestors are burning in hell forever. That's a hard pill to swallow.
And in fact, we all know people who have passed away that have not understood who Jesus is in this life. I count about eight reasons why the Bible tells us people cannot accept the gospel message in this life. Some of the reasons are God preventing them. God's preventing them. "He sends them a strong delusion that they may not believe," it says. Well, if that's the case, how can you then hold them accountable and burn them in hell forever? Well, actually no, it's an act of judgment, and the outcome of that is to restore them back.
So if I'm having a conversation, it doesn't matter who it is now, I don't view them as they're either in or out and I've desperately got to try to share the gospel so they don't burn in hell forever, they have to make a decision. There's a desperation in that conversation, which is very off-putting for somebody if they know you've got an agenda and that's the reason you're talking to them. But it's a sincere desperation. You can see a lot of the street evangelists have this kind of view. And they are very sincere about what they do, and I respect them for it.
But they also criticise the broader church for holding a view of eternal conscious torment, while not being out there actively warning anyone about it. A lot of people who hold this view are quiet about it and they don't want to make a fuss or whatever, so they don't want to rock the boat, so they don't say anything to people. Well, you know, if you really held that view, as Ray Comfort would say... Ray Comfort's out there every day. You might see him on YouTube. He's out there every day witnessing to people because he doesn't want anyone to go to hell. And he's very sincere about that.
But the gospel message is... it's got a carrot and a stick. It's mainly a stick. "Heaven or hell? Heaven or hell? Where are you going? Heaven or hell?" Because he wants people to not go to hell. But he's very critical of most of the church who actually are quite passive about sharing that fear with non-believers. And as I say, I think that kind of a gospel has done a lot of damage to those who accept it and those who reject it. Because we have a lot of Christians living in fear: "Have I committed the unforgivable sin, or have I done something which will prevent God from ultimately restoring me?" Well, it's pretty hard to do. There is the unforgivable sin, which is probably a topic for another day.
But what I've found is I can now have much better conversations with people, because I don't view the person as "they're outside and I have to get them in," like it's kind of my job to do that. No, the Holy Spirit convicts. And when I'm talking to somebody, I just see them as someone else who's on a different stage of the journey to me. Whether they're a believer or an unbeliever, we're all at different stages of that journey. And ultimately, that's why Jesus came, to bring us on that journey. The Holy Spirit is there to complete that journey. And that's what the sanctification process is.
