Article by Keith Sherlin, ThD; PhD; © Christicommunity
TOPIC: ANNIHILATION OF THE LOST & UNIVERSALISM (ESCHATOLOGY)QUESTION: “Is it not possible that all people who die without Christ will either be annihilated in hell or eventually saved and brought to heaven?”ANSWER: This question dives to the heart of our good nature in Christ and loving hearts for all of people. Thank you for asking this question. Because we as believers in Christ truly love people we desire good for them. Therefore, we often and naturally ask at various times could it be possible that God would at least annihilate the lost so as to stop the eternal pain and suffering that they receive in judgment in hell. Or we ask sometimes would God at some point save those in hell and take them to heaven after a period of suffering. I’ll answer these two questions collectively in four points below. First, let us think for just a moment on who we are and where we all exist in this world. I am speaking of something we call metaphysics. That is a big term. But hang in here with me and let me explain it. It basically just means this: what is the ultimate real beyond this physical world. Is there anything more to this world than the physical matter we can see, feel, and touch right here and now? That is a metaphysics issue. For us who embrace Christ as the Lord Jesus we answer that question with a resounding yes. God is the ultimate real. And not only is he the ultimate real but we actually exist in his mind and move and live in him.That may sound strange to some. However, either we exist and live in the mind of God or we do not. We cannot be in his mind and not in his mind. It is an either or issue. Either we exist in his mind or we exist somewhere else outside of his mind. Scripture tells us where we exist and live. The Bible says, “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). God thought out us (created us by forethought) and all of history in his mind. There (or here) in his mind we right now dwell and exist. We walk, live, and do life in his mind. We exist in him. I am typing these words on a keyboard in my library in SC while doing so within the mind of God. A sobering thought, is it not? Second, because we are in God, and yet sinful, there had to be an atoning sacrifice to keep us from being immediately judged and destroyed by God. God cannot tolerate anything unholy as he is perfect, mature, holy, and just in all aspects of his being. God’s Word says, “You are too just to tolerate evil; you are unable to condone wrongdoing” (Habakkuk 1:13 NET). Some translations state, “You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness” (NKJV). The point God makes in that text has to do with God’s holiness. He remains separate from sin. He does not think in sinful ways, he does not approve of it, nor does he allow sinful beings and their sinful lives into his presence, at least not without something that stands in between him and that sinful being. This is where the cosmological atonement of Christ surfaces in this conversation. Someone might read that above and think and/or assert, “Well Keith if that is true how did Satan go into the presence of God to ask to attack Job? And does not God see all the sinful deeds of the world of lost people? If he cannot look upon it and tolerate it how is it that he seems to do just that? If we truly do live and move in him as you suggest then does not God see what we do being inside of his mind?” Great points and questions that anyone who knows their Bible would ask. The answer is that if God were just holy and only holy then none would survive. As soon as Satan sinned and as soon as Adam sinned God would have snuffed them out and condemned them to immediate judgement. His full wrath would come down upon them so as to fulfill his heart and mind of justice. Living inside of him God would enact swift, stern, and sustaining judgment upon the offenders violating his essence and being. But God, being omniscient as he is, knew prior to sin entering into his creation (that exists in his mind) that such a terrible act would occur and therefore he in Christ made an atonement for that. Christ was the lamb of the universe slain before the creation of the world. This cosmological atonement covers the universe. The Bible says the lamb of God, Christ, was “slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8b NKJV). Though some technical Greek matters come into discussion there on this text, I agree with Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse that however we take this term we must see that “the death of Christ was ever known to God” (Revelation: An Expositional Commentary, p. 239). God provided an atoning sacrifice in his mind before the disruption of the universe, i.e. before Satan and Adam ever sinned. Third, what does this cosmological atonement of Christ do? Does it guarantee that all shall be eternally saved? Does this mean that all shall be annihilated and removed from existence? I do not think the best understanding of Scripture yields either of those options. The cosmological atonement of Christ covers all of the world in a sphere of grace that is temporal for a season for some and eternal for others. We see it referenced by Paul in various places. For example, we read this: “God . . . is the Savior of all men, especially of believers” (1 Tim. 4:10). All receive some grace, some only receive all of the grace. This sphere of dual grace has to exist because we live and move inside of God. Christ’s temporal grace reconciles God to the world but does not restore all to God. It covers all sin for all of the universe but does not eternally cancel sin for all. It covers all but does not immediately cleanse all. Covering and cleansing differ radically, so widely different as heaven and hell. Let me explain a bit further how this atonement applies to this universe. God in providence of grace sustains the entire universe that exists in his mind. He is justified in giving life sustenance to all because of this grace that stems from Christ’s death, a death set in God’s mind before earthly history began. All who live are saved to a degree (1 Tim. 4:10) yet only believers are saved eternally or especially saved (1 Tim. 4:10). By this grace all receive some life. Romans 5:18 teaches us this when it highlights that through Christ’s one act of righteousness “there resulted in justification of life for all men” (NASB). We who live and have any moment of life do so because of the death of Christ and his grace that gives God the justification not to immediately kill us. As Acts 17:25b teaches us that God “gives to all people life and breath and all things” (NASB). Again, we see that life, our existence, all things exist as they are right now because of the covering, reconciling, gracious atonement of Jesus Christ for the entire universe. Yet, refer back to the Habakkuk text above again (1:13). God will not tolerate sin. Yet he tolerates us in sin? How can this be? God does so because he is NOW justified to do so because of Christ’s atoning grace. We exist in God, even temporally in Christ, and live and move because of atoning grace. It justifies God’s act of giving grace, at least temporally for a time with those who never receive eternal grace. It gives him the justification to apply sustenance through providence to all. Hebrews 1:3 speaks to this universal, encompassing, wide sweeping providence of God where he “upholds the universe by the word of his power.” Interestingly when reading this in the Greek the term “universe” used in the English Standard Version translates the Greek term “πάντα.” That is the same term used in Colossians 1:16-17 when describing the all encompassing creative acts of Christ as well as the all encompassing positioning of those same created aspects. Everything in the universe (πάντα) has been “created through him and for him and he is before all things, and IN HIM all things hold together” (Col. 1:16-17; emphasis mine). This concept is also highlighted by Paul’s statement mentioned by Luke in Acts 17:28, “In him (Ἐν αὐτῷ) we live and move and have our being.” The entire universe, including all people, exists in God and in Christ since Christ is God, Yahweh. So the cosmological atonement of Christ does two things: (1) it covers the universe (but does not by itself cleanse it); and (2) it enables God to tolerate those in sin while temporal grace covers the universe in that sin. But the key to this is that we know it is only temporary for those who do not receive eternal grace. That leads us to the fourth point. We know that both universalism and almost certainly annihilationism too are not true because Jesus Christ taught us that heaven and hell will have the same duration for each sphere (Matt. 25:46). Look carefully at this text: “These [the goats who represent the lost] will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous [the sheep who represent believers] into eternal life” (Matt. 25:46). However long that eternal time is in regard to heaven must be the same time frame in regard to the time frame for hell. The term is the same in both sentences. Jesus uses the same term to describe both heaven and hell. If you believe heaven is forever (without end) for the believers then it must, to be consistent, also have that same time frame for the unbelievers, the messengers of Satan who too shall dwell there in the lake of fire with Satan the chief messenger of sin (Rev. 20:10). Though God gives common, temporal, and covering grace (not the same as cleansing grace) to all people and the entire universe for now, we know that temporal grace shall not last forever. Time will run out and at the end of God’s temporary time of patience there shall be a time of excoriating judgment. God will then remove that temporal covering and tolerance of sin and unholiness will cease. He shall condemn, crush, and carry out a cataclysmic course of judgment upon the nations of the world (Rev. 6-19), this earth as a whole (2 Peter 3:10), and then upon even Satan and all who reject his Son Jesus Christ (Rev. 20:11-15). Even though everyone stands in Christ temporally today (2 Cor. 5:19; Col. 1:16-20), and consequently inside of the mind of God as well (Acts 17:28), this season does not cleanse one from the eternal stain of sin. Just like OT sacrifices that were a temporary covering for sin until Christ came to give eternal cleansing (Hebrews 9:13-14 & 10:1-14) so too today there remains a temporary covering for all of the universe. God has reconciled himself to the world of sinners in Christ (2 Cor. 5:19) but not each person has been reconciled to God. He is to us (and why he gives life to all as a symbol of that) but they are not to him, i.e. they have not received his Son Jesus Christ. They therefore stand in temporal grace though at the same time are already eternally condemned by refusing to believe in Christ as Lord and Savior (John 3:18). That temporal covering from Christ will not cleanse a sinner who needs eternal grace and eternal purification. Though reconciled in one sense (God to us) a lost person is not restored (individually reconciled to God and eternally cleansed). Though covered he or she is not cleansed. He or she must come to the eternal grace of Christ by receiving the eternal Christ as Lord and Savior in order to share in eternal grace. Otherwise such a person shall live and dwell in the patience of God’s temporal grace in Christ only to at the end of that season of temporal grace experience the dreadful wrath falling upon him or her, an eternal wrath.Thanks for asking. Hope this helps. Keith Sherlin; ThD; PhD