I Have Come To Set The Earth On Fire: Universalism of Judgment and Salvation in the Old and New Testament and Second Temple Judaisms - Part 2
Today we have another guest post from Chris Criminger. Below is a short bio from him along with Part 2 of the post (Part 1 was LAST week, go check it out). Enjoy!
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BIO:
I am a retired minister and currently a chaplain in a nursing home. The past fifteen years of studying church history, patristics and Second Temple Judaism has expanded my vision of scripture and my evolving understanding of how God relates to us in this present life. The ancient Rabbis have taught me the beauty of diversity, the mystery of revelation and an expanding consciousness on a relational loving God.
Christian Universalism is such an important topic because it guides us into a more compassionate view of other people as well as a sacramental view of all reality. Everyone and everything is interconnected and love is the spiraling center of existence. I’ve learned more in the past decade by Jewish Rabbis on the meaning of my own faith and the faith of Jesus as well as being surprised how many are Rabbinic universalists. Great biblical scholars and writers like Abraham Heschel, Jonathon Sacks, Rabbi Rami Shapiro, and Amy-Jill Levine (who should be a universalist?) to name a few.
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JESUS AND FIRE
In Luke’s gospel the twelfth chapter, we read Jesus enigmatic words,
49 “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! 51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. 52 From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
Fire is often a metaphorical image for judgment, destruction, purification and renewal/restoration. Rather than trying to suggest one interpretation to a text, ancient Jewish interpretations were often multivalent with multiple meanings. Ancient Judaism recognized multiple meanings to the term Hell.12 Why not acknowledge the Scriptures teach multiple viewpoints on issues and the interpreter is to use Godly wisdom in choosing between the alternatives in their new present context?
Robin Perry rightly says in Four views of Hell (p.-128),
“the problem is that all sides can point to verses that seem to support their view. For instance, consider:
Eternal torment (Matt. 25:45; 2 Thess. 1:6 – 9; Rev. 14:11; 20:10 – 15)
Annihilation (Matt. 7:13; 10:28; John 3:16; Rom. 6:23; Heb. 10:39)
Universalism (Rom. 5:18; 11:32; 1 Cor. 15:22; Phil. 2:11; Col. 1:20)”
What Evangelical universalists then try to do is harmonize all the competing views under the big umbrella of Christian Universalism. Neither Jesus nor the early Rabbis would have problems with the diversity of the Bible like modern Christians who prefer their Scriptures to be nice and tidy within some kind of systematic theology. Although there are spiritual patterns within the Scriptures, Scripture itself defies systematic categories and early Jewish and Christian interpreters shared a common heritage of letting difficult or competing texts challenge them to dig deeper into the biblical texts and to depend upon God’s Spirit more for illumination and wisdom from above.
Modern debates for example over the meaning of Aionios both get side tracked by splitting hairs over Matthew 25:46 focusing on temporal over eternal or restorative over retributive judgment. These kind of dichotomous binary moves more reflects modern Western notions rather than the more holistic approach of ancient Rabbis and ancient Jewish followers of Jesus/Yeshua Messiah.
Nor would the parallelism of the two responses at the end of Jesus parable, which actually is more about this earthly life responses to people than the afterlife, if one is limited or unlimited, so must be the other one. But the Hebrew mindset is much different than our current hermeneutical strategies in understanding biblical texts.
Take for example Habakkuk 3:6 that uses the same word for everlasting hills and everlasting God in the same sentence in parallel form. No one would make the argument that if the hills are not endless, then neither is God. Jesus makes references to a purifying fire of judgment that all people must go through while at the same time using retributive language of people being punished until the last penny is paid.13
Jesus dire warnings when referencing judgment or Gehenna that often gets translated in modern Bibles as Hell in the afterlife is not really the point. Jesus main focus is life in the here and now and how we live our lives on earth. Jesus warning parables of upcoming judgement was about living faithfully for God in this present moment. Jesus judgment imagery is highly symbolic whereas modern debates about his imagery usually relies on a kind of crude literalism of his words, ideas, and teachings. Jesus does not teach anything on universalism although he explicitly does on universal judgement.
Paul and Fire
Paul says in First Corinthians 3:11-17,
11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw--
13 each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.
14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.
15 If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
16 Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?
17 If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.
Paul is an Apocalyptic mystic who utilizes highly symbolic and metaphorical language within his pastoral concerns.14 Paul uses a building metaphor for God’s people, Christ as the foundation, precious metals and flammable material as different qualities of works and eschatological image of fire that consumes, destroys, burns up or annihilates what is of no value while at the same time purifying what has lasting value. Saved by fire imagery are the people,15 not their works that are destroyed in the fire. Even though these leaders of the Corinthian church may suffer loss, but not lose their salvation, there still is the ominous threat of destruction in verse 17. Possibly a loss of their lives as told later in those who were making a mockery of the Lord’s Supper in chapter eleven.
The Apostle Paul uses eschatological language at times while never employing the terms Hell or Gehenna. One could say Paul presents salvation imagery and judgment imagery in which eternal punishment, annihilation and universal redemption can all be argued from Paul’s letters.16
The most convincing Pauline arguments for universal reconciliation are Rom. 5:18; 11:32; and 1 Cor. 15:22-28. Evangelical readers who reject universalism try a myriad of ways to get around Pauline universalism. Paul simply can not mean what he says in these scriptures.17 Paul says very little about the historical Jesus yet he is captivated by a vision of the cosmic resurrected Christ.
Martinus C. de Boer, says in his The Defeat of Death (1988) “One can scarcely translate…’all who are in Adam die,’ if such a translation is to imply that some people are not ‘in Adam” (p112). Robin Perry in his The Evangelical Universalist, ‘The parallelism clearly indicates that the same group is referred to in each verse, and this supports the universalist understanding of 1 Cor.15:v.22b (p.86). Christians are in this context but those who are not ‘in Christ’ are not even discussed here. De Boer says, the “all” represents an inclusivity in this text by Paul and not one of exclusivity (p.112).
All Israel will be saved and God’s promises to Israel are irrevocable is with such a strong force in Paul’s polemic for Israel that Richard Bell, The Irrevocable Call of God (2005) says, “it is unthinkable (for Paul) that an Israelite could be excluded from (God’s) final salvation.”18 Paul’s apocalyptic vision is all people are justified in his theology of the cross. All Israel will be saved, Jews and Gentiles alike. Everyone will be made alive and become a new creature in Christ.
Second Temple scholar Gabrielle Boccacini says,
“Paul’s conversion was not a conversion into another religion but a move within Judaism, and yet it was a no less dramatic experience. It reoriented Paul’s entire life and worldview and changed his understanding of Judaism. It implied a radical reassessment of what it meant to be a Jew: “Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish” (Phil 3:7–8).”19
Boccacini concludes that Paul taught three paths of salvation with his identity and mission greatly following the third path of the Messiah. Boccacini says,
“Paul did not preach two separate paths to salvation (one for Jews, one for gentiles) but rather three: righteous Jews have the torah, righteous gentiles have their own conscience, and sinners, the lost sheep of the house of Israel and among the nations who have fallen without hope under the power of evil, have Christ the forgiver.”20
Whether others agree with Boccacini three paths views, it does reveal there is diversity within Paul’s letters as well as the rest of the New Testament on this topic. Although someone else wrote the second letter of Thessalonians in Paul’s name,21 is another diverse view that more supports annihilation or the eternal punishment interpretation. 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9 says,
6 since indeed God considers it just ito repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7 and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven lwith his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those nwho do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might. (ESV)
There is some valid translation issues with moving away from or towards the presence of God in verse 9, yet the destruction and suffering or annihilation in this text is difficult to get around. Then there is Second Peter that opens the door to postmortem salvation and Jude describes “the vengeance of eternal fire” (v.7)22 There is little to nothing in several non-Pauline letters pointing towards universal salvation. Universal salvation is taught by Paul but there are only hints and silence in the rest of the New Testament.
We find many divergent and even competing voices within the development of the Hebrew Bible as well as the Newer Testament. When one adds in the voice of John who takes a more mystical cosmic approach to Jesus, we should take his words to heart in the sixteenth chapter,
7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.
8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment:
9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me;
10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer;
11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
12 "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
We should not be surprised by the polyphonic diversity of voices within the biblical scriptures. They may be hitting different notes and some may sound off key yet like the ancient Rabbis, we are challenged to to look deeper and hear the small still voice of God speaking to us as we reapply the Scriptures into our own new and unique situations. Like Paul who had a vision and new understanding of the universal Christ, so might God lead us into new territory in our own pilgrimages of faith in Christ.
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Works Cited and Read
12. See Abraham Cohen, Every Man’s Talmud (Schocken, 1995).
13. See Jesus words in Mark 9:49-50 with Malachi 3:2-3 as well as Jesus parables with punishment and judgement like Luke 12:42-48 and Matthew 5:26 in his sermon on the mount.
14. Martinus C. de Boer, Paul, Theologian of God’s Apocalypse (Cascade, 2020) and Jamie Davis, The Apocalyptic Paul (Cascade, 2022).
15. For some OT background examples, see, Amos 4:11: “I overthrew you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, And you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze;
Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the Lord.
Zechariah 3:2: The Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! Indeed, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?”
Psalm 66:12:
You made men ride over our heads;
We went through fire and through water,
Yet You brought us out into a place of abundance.
Daniel 3:25:
He said, “Look! I see four men loosed and walking about in the midst of the fire without harm, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods!”
16. Four Views of Hell. 2nd ed. (Zondervan, 2016) and Chad Bahl, ed. Deconstructing Hell (Sacrasage, 2023).
17. Some of the strongest counter arguments against Evangelical rejection of Paul’s universalism, see Thomas Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God. 2nd ed. (2014); David Bentley Hart, That All Shall Be Saved (Yale, 2019). To see how the earliest Christians understood some of these texts, see Ilaria Ramelli, A Larger Hope? Vol.1 (Cascade, 2019). The best historical theology on this topic, see Alvin Kimel, Destined for Joy (2022).
18. I am indebted to Robin Perry pointing out Richard Bell and de Boer work and Al Kimel for some excellent suggestions for this article. Any mistakes in this writing are solely my own.
19. Paul’s Three Paths of Salvation, p.59.
20. Ibid, p.216
21. Pauline disputed letters are Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, and Titus.
22. It is interesting to me that many Evangelicals interpret 1 Peter 3:18-22 as not referring to a second chance after death. The whole conversation is in the context of salvation. But however people want to interpret chapter three, chapter four is even more interesting to me. I Peter 4:6 says,
"For the gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead, that though they are judged in the flesh as men, they may live in the spirit according to the will of God" (NASB translation).
Several translations (NIV, NET, NLT as examples) add or insert the word "now" before the word dead which changes the meaning of the text. Now it means Christ preached to these people while they were alive but who are now dead. But that is not what the text actually says. The whole history of early Christianity has understood these verses as people would accept Jesus even in the after-life. The early writing of the Shepherd of Hermas, the Acts of Paul and Thelca, Perpetua's prayer for Dinocrates (Perpetua has historically been celebrated by all Christians as one of the first women martyrs), The Gospel of Nicodemus, Gregory's prayers for Trajen, and several major Christian interpreters from Origen to Gregory of Nyssa.