I took it as that if one is not in Christ they are not restored… God interacts with them on the level without Jesus.

Now, I know some in the e/e are into the big U, but most are not. Also, I am not a universalist but am often called when I speak of the saving power of Jesus’ blood… but those are people who miss that there is a difference between forgivness and salvation.

Be blessed,
iggy

Neil

There are times when we must speak the truth in love. I do not believe that Pagitt believes that unsaved people will wind up in a place/reality/conscious experience of eternal judgment. Let him say clearly what he believes. If he does believe generally in the “saved go to heaven – lost go to hell” let him quickly say it and return to more emergent verbiage.

If he doesn’t believe that then why is he evasive? Even Driscoll intimates he is a heretic and he knows him better than all of us.

The more and more I follow this debate (all of them) it is becoming evermore apparent that this debate is more about style than substance.

This morning my daughters (9 and 6 years old) asked me where does Grandpa (muslim) go when he dies. I looked into their sweet, big, brown eyes and said “He’s gonna burn in hell forever unless he turns to Jesus”. Of course I didn’t really say that. But in my mind that’s the equivalent of telling a non-christian “Turn or Burn”. It just smacks of careless, agenda filled, propaganda.

I’ve yet to find anywhere in scripture where Jesus uses anything resembling that.

Medieval understandings are irrelevant, only the clear teachings of Scripture.

And here in lies the rub.

If memory serves me correctly we have had lengthy debate on the merits or lack there of hell being a physical place.
With no resolution mind you.

Wesley, Spurgeon, Luther, Moody – doctrinal morans.

Recognizing that this was tongue and cheek; I would like to offer that it is quite feasible that they (the aforementioned)over corrected (from what I’m not sure) and got it wrong also.

but take into account the undeniable existential fear of passing into non-existence and the idea of an eternal annihilation is pretty sucky too.

I think words like perish, forever, everlasting, etc. can be ascribed to annihilation too…

Some very faithful, godly people disagree on this issue.

There is real interesting scholarship about the word torment in light of 2nd temple Judaism…

AND…

developments from ancient church articulations of theology to the transition in the medieval period ARE pretty important…

The Fathers ARE NOT merely reflective, IMHO. They are pretty weighty considering our basic articulations of orthodoxy was hammered out by THEM. Not authoritative on par with scripture, but do carry authority. They just have to be…you wanna talk about a slippery slope? Start diminishing the role and teaching of people who gave us our christology and you can start questioning that christology…no matter how much you appeal to Scripture…

to deny that much of our protestant theology is formed out of variations on a core of medieval developments seems rash.

The history of the development of Christian doctrine is critical to understand what we have today…

Also, Augustine would take deep issue with people who “love” God for fear of hell. He would argue that is not loving God…and I think he’s right.

Meister Eckhart says: (paraphrasing)
Some people want to love God the way they love a cow. For its cheese and milk–what they get out of it. They are merely loving their own advantage. They are not loving God correctly.

In light of Augustine, I’d say we could even draw near to being open that it’s possible they aren’t just loving “incorrectly”…they’re not really loving at all.

Just something to chew on…

Again…annihilation is a mode of punishment…in light of what we know about the psyche of human beings…it could be just as potent within the framework you speak of, despite the objections raised above. It doesn’t mean it’s unsubstantive.
I think it’s better to say: Christ will come again and judge the living and the dead. It was good enough for the Church for 2000 years now…As opposed to making a particular “mode” of hell become an article of faith.

And I don’t buy that its a “slippery slope”…the conscious torment vs. annihilationist view is being seriously discussed in biblically committed circles…I don’t know if we can jump that quickly.

It would be something to research, read about and discuss sometime.

anyhoo…

blessings.

It is interesting that the cults sometimes deny hell but espouse heaven. Hell is a place (even if defining that place as a conscious reality) and it is forever. Millions of sinners have come to Christ over the centuries drawn in part by their desire to avoid hell, including my mother-in-law. We won’t have to build any new wings on our sanctuaries to accommodate the throngs that embrace Christ by that method today.

Medieval understandings are irrelevant, only the clear teachings of Scripture. To ascribe words like perish, torment, fire, forever, and gehenna as non-substantiative of any reality is wresting Scripture. The doctrine of hell is important and if removed as an article of faith it then is a precurser to other basic tenents of solid Biblical truth.

Wesley, Spurgeon, Luther, Moody – doctrinal morans.

It’s not foreign to the Texts…if you subscribe to a particular understanding of the “hell” language in the earlier NT writings, take into account the development of medieval theology, etc. etc. etc.

It’s certainly NOT a thing to say someone is a heretic over.
It just a different way of understanding the texts.

Also…
Anyone can believe in conscious eternal torment.
But it says something really disturbing if that idea gets elevated to a article of faith when there is no mechanism to enforce such a view across the sense of the Church over time…

Does that make sense?

The early church father’s didn’t have a consensus on the nature of hell…and they were taught by the apostles…

so we should allow some diversity on this…IMVHO…

Just my nickel..

A trumpet doesn’t have to try to sound like a trumpet, it is waht it is.

Neil