Patristic Universalism
"Patristic Universalism" (aka Apocatastasis), to which I subscribe, believes that one must be spiritually reborn to enter the kingdom of Heaven, and that this rebirth comes solely from an extension of interpersonal faith in Jesus Christ. It simply holds that this conversion can come in this age (which is far better) OR in the heightened crisis of the postmortem ages to come.
In other words, even after our deaths, God will continue to woo us, convince us, and vibrantly confront our issues until we finally see and embrace the irresistible truth–that Jesus Christ is the one true light and love, and in Him alone, our salvation lies. The church fathers believed that "God's fire was wise" in purging and pruning our diseased souls back to a place of pristine health.
This form of Universalism believes in a God who would never give His children the keys to a cosmic car with which they could crash, burn, and destroy themselves eternally. Rather, our dear Abba has installed spiritual guardrails, airbags, and safety equipment into the postmortem cosmos which will keep our souls from destruction no matter how hard we may have wrecked them during our earthly lives.
Simply put, Patristic Universalism believes Jesus will win all people back, come Hell or high-water. God, through Jesus Christ, will ultimately rescue and convince ALL to receive their rebirth, even if it is after (in some cases) much "gnashing of teeth," prolonged emotional anguish, and stubborn mental resistance. Many will hold out for extended periods of time, but all will eventually see that against an irresistibly virtuous God there is no eternal defense. As the lies are burned away, every soul will come to itself and behold this champion truth–Jesus Christ is God's rescuing love.
He will heal all the rebels of their rebellion.
He will cure all of His haters with His relentless love.
He will save ALL His lambs by going after them wherever they have fallen lost.
He will boast as He meets every tearful prodigal on their return journey home.
How long will God continue to convince His children to receive the light and love of His Son? …As long as it takes.
The early Church largely believed God's Hell-fire was not inflicted to destroy the lost, but rather to ultimately save them. God's "fire" was "WISE" (Clement of Alexandria) in that it revealed, cleansed and cured the lost soul of all the false identities accumulated during their fallen lifetimes. The "wood, hay and stubble" of these false identities would be "burned off" of the lost soul, but they themselves would "be saved, yet so as by fire." 1 Corinthians 3:13-15.
Hell, from this viewpoint then, was a rocky but redemptive journey to repentance and restoration. Hell was still seen as infinitely intense and unimaginably painful – – just not eternal."
God Burned Notions, Not Nations
Question: Is hell something that God created?
If so, then don't the scriptures agree that even hell cannot keep God's love away?
"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39
*What if* even though hell exists, and people do go there, that Jesus, the lamb who was slain in both time and eternity (Rev. 13:8), is still able to save because His love never fails (1 Cor 13:8), and nothing in *all creation* is able to separate us forever from His love?
God burns notions, not nations.
Here are three of my favorite early church fathers on the purging nature of God's fire. This shows how the early fathers interpreted the fire passages. The pitch-perfect usage of this symbolism is crucial to understanding the heart of God.
“Fire is conceived of as a beneficent and strong power, destroying what is base, preserving what is good; therefore this fire is called 'wise' by the Prophets … We say that the fire purifies not the flesh but sinful souls, not an all-devouring vulgar [earthly, natural] fire, but the 'wise fire' as we call it, the fire that 'pierceth the soul' which passes through it.” – Stromata VII, 2:5-12, Clement of Alexandria.
God's wise fire is “saving, disciplinary, leading to conversion” – Stromata VI, 6, Clement of Alexandria.
The great Origen agreed with his predecessor Clement:
“The Sacred Scripture does, indeed, call our God 'a consuming fire' (Heb. 12:29), and says that 'rivers of fire go before His face' (Dan. 7:10), and that 'He shall come as a refiner’s fire and purify the people' (Mal. 3:2,3). As therefore, God is a consuming fire, what is it that is to be consumed by Him? We say it is wickedness, and whatever proceeds from it, such as it figuratively called 'wood, hay, and stubble' (1 Cor. 3:12-15) which denote the evil works of man. Our God is a consuming fire in this sense; and He shall come as a refiner’s fire to purify rational nature from the alloy of wickedness and other impure matter which has adulterated the intellectual gold and silver: consuming whatever evil is admixed in all the soul.” – Against Celsus, IV, 13, Origen.
“They are purged with the 'wise fire' […] to cleanse them from the evils committed in their error […] Thus they are delivered from all the filth and blood with which they have been so filthied and defiled that they could not even think about being saved from their own perdition” – On Prayer, XXIX, 15, Origen.
And, finally the deeply revered Gregory of Nyssa: " What therefore is the scope of Paul's argument in this place [1 Cor. 15:28]? That the nature of evil, at length, be wholly exterminated, and divine, immortal goodness embraces within itself every rational creature; so that of all who were made by God, not one shall be excluded from his Kingdom. All the viciousness, that like a corrupt matter is mingled in things, shall be dissolved and consumed in the furnace of purgatorial fire; and everything that had its origin from God, shall be restored to its pristine state of purity. " Tract, in Dictum Apostoli, Tunc etiam ipse Filius subjicietur, and c.p. 137, and seqq. Gregory was one of the three great Cappadocian Fathers who protected the doctrine of the Trinity from the Arians at the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople.
How do you respond to scriptures like 2 thessalonians 1:6-9since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,
II Thessalonians 1:6-9 NKJV
What is the “everlasting destruction” mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9?
“And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power….”
Is this passage talking about “evil people” or is it talking about “evil qualities?” The word translated as “who” in verse 9 can either mean “whatever” or “whoever.” The word “them” is not in the original Greek but is supplied by the translators.
Thus, we need to refer to other Pauline passages regarding the postmortem fire of vengeance, such as 1 Corinthians 3:13-15, to clarify Paul’s thinking in this area. In this passage, the man whose works are judged “suffers loss,” but “he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.” Thus, this passage suggests that what gets punished and lost is a “whatever” and not a “whoever.” God punishes with eternal destructions evil notions, not evil nations. Remember, the ancient writers, especially Paul, used personification to describe both virtue and evil all the time.
In other words, the ancient writers used a word that can be translated as EITHER a “whoever” or a “whatever.”
The Bible authors pervasively used a literary technique called “personification.” The ancient writers personified most everything. Personification is the representation of an object, concept, trait, or quality AS IF it were a person. Again, wicked nations become wicked notions. External giants become internal strongholds of fear. Wisdom and foolishness, in the Book of Proverbs, are both personified as women lifting up their voices in the street. Consider Paul’s personification of sin ruling as a king in his body, and the “old man” and “new man” as personifications of two warring powers in the new creature after baptism.
So, for Paul to say that the personification of all the dark dynamics within us will be destroyed is a wonderful thing, not a fearful thing.
Let me propose a thought experiment to highlight this dynamic.
Assume for moment that we each have a cancerous brain tumor which is impacting our mental perceptions, morality, and moods by causing us to act erratically, selfishly, violently, and destructively. The cancer has altered our personality and created a false identity, a villainous personae with hostile intent, fearful delusions, toxic traits and unhealthy values.
Now, further assume our father is the world’s best surgeon. He has tried to treat us from our youth onward with a healthy diet, cleansing habits, and other non-invasive techniques. But, we simply have not invested in treatment. We refuse to believe we are really sick and have refused to cooperate. We have become more and more codependent towards our cancerous and false-selves. We have returned again and again to carcinogenic habits, carcinogenic thoughts, and carcinogenic actions which have so warped our perceptions.
Our brain sickness worsens over the many decades of our life. We eventually become bed ridden. We have gotten to the point where we can’t even remember who our father is. We still vaguely recognize his kind face when he comes to our bedside, but we can’t place him. Now that we have finally become totally immobile, our father enters the room. He tenderly strokes our foreheads and confidently tells us it is now time. We are too weak to resist his treatment any longer. He informs us he is going to perform surgery on us and remove and destroy the cancer within us.
When we awake from surgery, we instantly know we are different. We feel a thousand pounds lighter. Our personality has changed. No, that’s too mild a word– our personalities have been transformed into something brighter and better. An appalling appendage has been removed. We don’t recognize ourselves anymore. The memory of who we were has now been revealed as a delusion, a malignancy now removed. The old fears, the old lusts, the old hostilities, are all gone.
We now see things, everything, differently. The old “carcinogenic self,” corrupted with a thousand dark distortions, is gone. Our father-surgeon enters our recovery room with a jar in his right hand. Inside the jar is the removed tumor which has diseased our lives. He briefly jiggles the jar to show us the tumor, and then makes this statement: “This cancerous-identity will never afflict you again. I am casting him/her/it into a medical incinerator. The angelic nurses have nicknamed this incinerator ‘the lake of fire.’ This is because the sickness will be forever drowned in flames, forever submerged and contained by a wise firewall, never more to afflict any living thing.”
As we consider his words, we ask ourselves, “Wht did father refer to the tumor as a he, she, or it?” Then the answer comes. It DID have a personality. It DID have a mindset. It DID have emotions. It DID seem alive. It DID have a voice other than my own, although it was often disguised as my own. So, even it was ultimately revealed as an “it,” it also seemed to be some sort of living personage, albeit an inauthentic one.
End of the thought experiment.
So, the Thessalonians passage is simply saying that that whatever carcinogenic carnality (i.e. the wood-hay-stubble) needs to be destroyed by the Lord’s “wise fire” will, in fact, be destroyed per the 1 Corinthinan 3 passage. Again, to repeat, there the man “suffers [destructive] LOSS, but is himself saved, yet so as by fire.” This is so similar to the verse where an unrepentant sinner is “turned over to Satan for the DESTRUCTION of his flesh THAT His spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” 1 Corinthian 5:5. This is the EXACT same principle of “partial” or “piecemeal” destruction so that the spirit of the man himself may be saved. The word for “destruction” in 1 Corinthians 5:5 is the exact same Greek word used in this Thessalonians passage.
What is it the man loses, what is destroyed, what is it the man suffers? Here is the answer: the wrenching away of a false, carnal, carcinogenic, fleshly identity. It is certain we take nothing with us to the judgement flames, except the identities we have built for ourselves. What ELSE could we suffer and lose, if its not that portion of our soul NOT built on the rock of Christ. Jesus allegorically taught that poisonous appendages of our being could be severed from us and cast into postmortem flames SO THAT our CORE remaining self could fully embrace heaven. “And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.” Matthew 18:9. This passage is just Jesus informing us of the postmortem surgery to come. He will remove all malicious content from our souls.
So the text simply says that for a surgical period known only by God, His presence (what the church fathers called His “wise fire”) will purge all people with a kind of partial and remedial destruction, the exact same thing 1 Corinthians 3 and 5:5 claim above. But the only thing severed and destroyed are our sick appendages, the false and carcinogenic sin masks which we allowed to be grafted onto our souls, BUT NOT our essential selves, the authentic selves we were created to be.
Jesus IS the great physician. He makes all things new, including us. Especially us. He desires to treat, purge, and heal us NOW with our cooperation. This is better in every way. But, if not now, then the crisis heightens in the postmortem age to come. But, either way, the heavenly Father will ULTIMATELY see all men healed, restored, and reconciled so that Christ “may be all in all.” 1 Corinthians 15:22-29.
Let me address one last grammatical point to about the term translated everlasting destruction” in 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9.
“Eternal Punishment” and “eternal destruction” are the terms used in the English translation of the Bible on which most people base their view of eternal conscious torment in Hell. The former term in the Greek is “kolasis aionios,” while the latter is “olethros aionios.” Both use aionios. Let’s examine each.
So let’s start with kolasis aionios. If this term does indeed mean eternal punishment, then Hell would seem to be foreverrrrrrrrrr.
But, such is not the case. lets first consider the opinion of the great Greek scholar William Barclay, who was professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism at Glasgow University and the author of many commentaries and books, including a translation of the New Testament and the very popular Daily Study Bible Series. Barclay discusses this point regarding Matthew 25:46 in his well-known autobiography:
“One of the key passages is Matthew 25:46 where it is said that the rejected go away to eternal punishment, and the righteous to eternal life. The Greek word for punishment is ‘kolasis,’ which was not originally an ethical word at all. It originally meant the pruning of trees to make them grow better. I think it is true to say that in all Greek secular literature ‘kolasis’ is never used of anything but ‘remedial punishment.’ The word for ‘eternal’ is aionios. It means more than everlasting, for Plato – who may have invented the word – plainly says that a thing may be everlasting and still not be aionios. The simplest way to put it is that aionios cannot be used properly of anyone but God; it is the word uniquely, as Plato saw it, of God. Eternal punishment is then literally that kind of remedial punishment which it befits God to give and which only God can give.”
To summarize then, Greek word “Aionios,” which is sometimes translated as “everlasting” in Scripture (as in “everlasting punishment”), does NOT in fact mean “unending or everlasting in quantity of time.” Rather, “Aionios” speaks to an “indeterminate age set by God alone.” The word refers to a certain quality (not quantity) of being – – whether it be “aionios life” or “aionios remedial-punishment.” Aionios is always qualified by what it is describing.
For instance, the word “great,” when applied to a merciful sentence imposed by a kind-hearted judge, might refer to a small amount of time in jail. Conversely, “great,” when applied to an atrocious crime, for which the judge throws the book at the defendant, might refer to a life-sentence in jail.
Similarly, the duration and quality of aionios when applied to the life of God is entirely different than when it is applied to the chastening or punishment of God. “Great life” in God is certainly unending, since death will have been completely defeated, but the unending length is not the primary essence of that “Great life.” Rather, the limitless quality of being totally at one with the Lord is the key aspect of this “Great life.” On the other hand, “Great punishment” by God will not be unending since He punishes to correct and rehabilitate and He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 2 Pet. 3:9.
Life in God is not everlasting because it is aionios, but rather aionios is everlasting because it is referring to life in God. Conversely, aionios punishment is not temporary because aionios means temporary, but rather aionios is temporary in this context since God’s chastening is curative and incapable of being eternally resisted. “For his anger is but for a moment; His favor is for a life-time: Weeping may tarry for the night, But joy ‘cometh’ in the morning.” Psalm 30:5.
Aionios then, by itself, means an “indeterminate age,” not an “unending age.” Only the context of the passage provides guidance as to the actual quality and duration of the age.
Now to couple the same word “aionios” to the word “olethros”(destruction) in the Thessalonians passage, we need to see that it likewise mistranslates the word aionios as eternal. Plus, the sense in which “destruction” here is used is the same sense as described in 1 Corinthians 3:15 to refer to the fiery destruction of our wood, hay and stubble “false and carnal identities”, though we ourselves will be saved, yet as by fire.
The Thessalonians passage is simply saying that that whatever carnal wood-hay-stubble carnality needs to be destroyed by the Lord’s “wise fire” will , in fact, be destroyed per the 1 Corinthinan 3 passage, where, to repeat, the man “suffers [destructive] LOSS, but is himself saved, yet so as by fire.” This is so similar to the verse where a unrepentant sinner is “turned over to Satan for the DESTRUCTION of his flesh THAT His spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” 1 Corinthian 5:5. This is the EXACT same principle of “partial” or “piecemeal” destruction so that the spirit of the man himself may be saved. The word for “destruction” in 1 Corinthians 5:5, is in fact the exact same Greek word used in this Thessalonians passage. So again this “aionios destruction” refers to an age of purging in God’s purging fire of correction.
What is it the man loses, what is destroyed, what is it He suffers? The wrenching away of a false, carnal, fleshly identity. It is certain we take nothing with us to the judgement flames, except the identities we have built for ourselves. What ELSE could we suffer and lose, if its not that portion of our soul NOT built on the rock of Christ.
So the text just says that for a punishment period known only by God, His presence (what I call His wise fire) will punish believers with some kind of partial and remedial destruction, the exact same thing 1 Corinthians 3 and 5:5 claims above. But he only thing destroyed here is our evil identities, the false sin masks we she behind, BUT NOT our essential selves who we were created to be.
The Rotterham Emphasized Bible translates “kolasis aionios” in Matthew 25:46 as “age abiding correction.”
Young’s Literal Translation translates “kolasis aionios” in Matthew 25:46 as “punishment age.”
The Concordant Literal Translation translates “kolasis aionios” in Matthew 25:46 as “chastening eonian,” or “chastening age” in other words. Our English word “eon” derives from the Greek word “aionios.” Eon, as we use the word, speaks of ages or cycles of indeterminate amounts of time. The term is often used in the plural form, such as “It’s been eons since we’ve talked,” or “Eons ago the universe was formed.” The point is that we don’t even use the term today to refer to “everlasting” in the sense of never ending. Think how silly it sounds to pluralize “everlasting” into “everlastings,” yet “eon” is pluralized into “eons” all the time.