theology in pencil

Some short notes on four of the main theories against the view that the bodily resurrection of Jesus was an historical event.

The Swoon theory

Modern doctors have been known to miss a faint heartbeat & shallow breathing and declared people dead that were not dead, could this have happened to Jesus?

Evidence: Jesus died quicker than usual crucifixees, Pilate was surprised Jesus was already dead.
Against: There were no known survivors of Crucifixion – Jesus would be the first to live through the horrific event. The spear that pierced his side must have been large enough to admit a hand (noted in John’s gospel), and the water from the “blood and water” is likely to have come from the membrane surrounding his heart, thus it was a significant wound to someone at least nearing death. Roman executors were trained killing machines. All earliest secular and biblical records accept that Jesus actually died. Even if Jesus had survived to make it to the tomb, the cold tomb and strong odour of the aromatics would have killed an unconscious person. To deceive people about the resurrection would have been against Jesus’ life & teaching, and Jesus would have strongly discouraged his disciples from proclaiming something they thought to be a lie if it had not happened. Finally, the dramatic change in the life of the disciples demands that they believed an event as radical as the resurrection had taken place – they would not willingly give up their lives to become martyrs for something they believed to be a lie.

The drugged theory is similar – the plant-drug raserpine is able to put a human into a death-like state for several days, but there is no evidence to support that Jesus or his disciples knew of raserpine and could obtain it, nor does it refute the arguments against the swoon theory.

The Theft theory

This is theory that someone stole Jesus’ body – probably the disciples, but possibly the Jewish leaders of the day too.

For: The Roman soldiers guarding Jesus’ tomb claimed the disciples had stolen the body.
Against: The religious authorities did not have Jesus’ body as they would have produced it to refute the disciples’ claims of Christ’s resurrection & ascension – they saw Jesus and his followers as a threat to their position, beliefs and the precarious position of Israel under Rome. The disciples could not have stolen the body because they did not have the courage or power to overcome trained Roman soldiers (the guards did not look to have been beaten, but instead said they were asleep). The character of the disciples too – to steal the body in order to foster the idea of a resurrection would:

• be based on a desire to deceive
• be of no benefit to them who now have to reject all that they have believed concerning Christ.
• involve their willingness to die for what they know to be a lie – they simply had no personal motive.

The guards themselves could expect death for falling asleep while on watch and so they made their confession knowing that it could cost their lives – they had to come up with something. Yet if they fell asleep what evidence could they give to support their idea that it was the disciples who stole the body as the guards would not have seen them.

The Hallucination theory

The idea that the disciples corporately imagined Jesus to have appeared in front of them, and the other 500 people that Jesus appeared to.

A corporate illusion of over 500 people across multiple locations and occasions is difficult to take seriously – it would certainly be the first known instance of it ever happening in history. Secular sources substantiated witness accounts of Jesus’ appearing (eg, Josephus). Importantly, this idea does not fit with any known hallucination profile:

• Jesus appeared to varied people very different psychological make ups – not an individual psychological type or just the ones with a disposition to hallucination.
• The meeting places where they met the risen Jesus had no nostalgic value that is often found in hallucinations – again, they too were varied.
• Hallucinations sometimes a projection of ones deep desire. However the disciples were clearly not prepared for Jesus’ resurrection – it only made sense retrospectively when they put his previous sayings together – they certainly did not anticipate his resurrection: their faith had been shattered; the women who found the empty tomb had come to anoint a dead body, not rejoice in a resurrection.
• Hallucinations typically occur over a long period of time with regularity – they either re-occur more frequently or fade away over time – there were no more appearances of Jesus after his ascension.

The Wrong Tomb

The idea that they just went to the wrong tomb and that the two who said “he is not here” were merely guessing their errand and suggesting they look elsewhere for whatever body the women were looking for.

Objections: Luke records that the women saw where the body had been laid. Peter and John, and presumably the angel must also therefore have visited the wrong tomb. Jesus was buried in a private burial ground, not a public cemetery – there would probably only be one (or perhaps two) tomb(s) in a private burial area – and so difficult to misplace a tomb. The Sanhedrin would have produced the body by going to the right tomb to defeat the claims by Jesus’ disciples that He had been resurrected and thus put an end to Christianity.

Some expanded notes from my recent sermon, the God who risks: Part 2. Part 1 is more important and can be heard in .mp3 format here. Please don’t comment re God & time without at least hearing part 1.

Last time we looked at the biblical evidence that shows that God has not set the future in stone, and that it the future is not already written. That God could have created a universe where he foreknew or determined everything but the bible shows that God instead chose to create a universe that did not not have a predetermined or foreknown future, and that prophecy reveals God’s intention and is not “historiography before the event”. My intention was to show that you don’t have to believe in a fully determined or foreknown future to be a good Christian – the other views have had centuries of being proclaimed – but they are not the only evangelical view of God and His relationship to time, evil and suffering. It is important to have a robust framework that can deal with evil and suffering in our lives – I found that the classic answers of “God plans evil in order to bring about good or bring glory to himself” or “it’s a mystery” were highly unsatisfactory. What then do we do when evil or suffering comes about? Did God plan evil, or just foresee it and choose to do nothing about it? What we see the life of Jesus revealing is a God that is fighting against suffering and evil, treats sickness like an enemy. Perhaps we should instead ask “I wonder what this world would be like if God wasn’t fighting against evil?”

God doesn’t plan everything, but he does have a plan for everything that happens: Romans 8v28, in all things God is working…. Despite what happens, God can make it work for good – if we’ll let him.

Does the Open View of the future limit God? No, it is the future that is limited, not God: the future does not exist to be known. There is no expectation for God to know something that cannot be known. Therefore one can maintain an Open View of the Future and still confidently proclaim that God knows everything. To think then that so often God brings about things with miraculous timing and precision without foreknowing the future or controlling people’s decisions is mindblowing, and presents a much higher view of God than one that does so by foreknowing the future or controlling people in order to bring about what He wants.

The bible does mention predestination. It appears in the NIV 4 times (Ephesians 1 and Romans 8, and can be drawn from other Pauline writings). How can God predestine a small selection of society to salvation without controlling them or foreknowing their decisions? If a certain section of society were elected to salvation did God also leave (or more honestly, predestine) the rest to hell? Did they ever stand a genuine chance to avoid hell? If God is to judge justly people must have an opportunity to act righteously.

When Paul speaks of election in Eph 1 and Rom 8 he is speaking from his understanding of election: the national election of Israel. They were a people chosen to serve God – God would stand by them as they remained faithful to God. The key is that although the nation of Israel was elected, merely being born an Israelite was no guarantee of being part of the elect, instead one had to “keep the covenant” in order to be a “true Israelite”. Saul started out inside the elected nation and found himself on the outside, Ruth, conversely, started outside the national elect and took the invitation from God to come inside it. Paul is not speaking then of God selecting which individuals to save and which to condemn, but rather God has elected the whole of humanity – though to be clear we only become part of “the elect” when we repent and believe. What then was predestined? Eph 1 is clear: God chose us [who are] in Christ to be holy and blameless – it is difficult to make the sentence mean anything else frankly, and yet…

In fact, are we comfortable with the idea that God only selects a few people from society to save? This is something we need to be really clear about: God wants to save everyone! Yet many old theologians (and some now) would insist that God chooses who to save and who to condemn to an eternity in hell on what (from our perspective) is nothing more than luck – if God chose to save or condemn us before we were born then it really is just luck. Have we ever thought about what we in heaven will think of those in hell? Some theologians call Individual Predestination the doctrine of comfort because it is comforting for Christians to know God chose them before the world began, but it is not us Christians who need the comfort frankly – it would be better spent on those not predestined to heaven!

And if people are predestined to heaven and everyone else is left to (or predestined to) hell, what will we in heaven think of them? CH Spurgeon, a highly respected preacher and theologian just over 100 years ago said the righteous in heaven will be quite satisfied with the damnation of the lost. I used to think that if I could see the lost in hell, surely I must weep for them. Could I hear their horrid wailings, and see the dreadful contortions of their anguish, surely I must pity them. But there is no such sentiment as that known in heaven. The believer shall be there so satisfied with all God’s will, that he will quite forget the lost in the idea that God has done it for the best, that even their loss has been their own fault, and that he is infinitely just in it. If my parents could see me in hell they would not have a tear to shed for me, though they were in heaven, for they would say, “It is justice, thou great God; and thy justice must be magnified, as well as thy mercy;” and moreover, they would feel that God was so much above his creatures that they would be satisfied to see those creatures crushed if it might increase God’s glory.

If you’ve been part of evangelical churches for any length of time you will have come across this kind of teaching. This idea that believers will be happy in heaven because they’d be so satisfied in God, that they’d just forget about the people in hell, is cold, vacuous, heartless and is just not found in scripture. Anyone who can consider eternal conscious punishment without tears in their eyes does not understand what is being proposed. I don’t know how we could enjoy heaven if we knew people were experiencing eternal conscious punishment. How could I be happy in heaven if you’re not there? Classic theology would say that people are completely separated from God… so do we think God forgets them? Do you think a parent ever forgets about a child they lost? Going on the statistics for the UK for every believer there is at least another 10 who don’t believe. Which means every moment of bliss you enjoy is another 10 people experiencing conscious torment. Spurgeon may not weep – but I think we would. No, the idea of individuals predestined to salvation does not work at all, scripturally, historically or even logically.

So, besides the elect become holy and blameless, what else was predestined? We need to be sure when we read scripture not to outrun it. Acts 2 & 4 speaks of God’s plan and foreknowledge of Christ’s death and that wicked people would crucify Him. But scripture does not say which wicked people, we can infer then that wicked people would be used to murder an innocent man – as they always are – there are plenty of them around, so God did not need to specify which ones would do it. I think too that when God decided to make free humans he was also simultaneously deciding to send his Son to die for us. If you have kids you’re going to have to clean up their mess – it goes with being a parent. Paying for sin goes with making free beings – that’s just part of the cost, and God knew that. So in Acts 2v23, and ch4 Paul is affirming that Christ’s death was not a mistake but was always part of God’s plan.

One of the benefits of the Open View of the future is that we have a reasonable answer to the question: why would God create people that he foreknew would definitely go to hell? But if the future is unknowable the we can confidently say that God did not know when they were born whether people would reject God and sin, or would repent of their sin and follow Him. Their future was simply not foreknown. God truly does desire all people to be saved – just as the bible says he does! 1 Timothy 2v3-4 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. And Peter in 2 Peter 3v9: The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. With the idea that God predestines just some individuals to be saved then one cannot take Paul and Peter’s words here seriously. With an open view of the future we can assume that they mean exactly what they say.

God is attempting to draw to himself every human on the planet. Once God fully reveals himself he would be irresistible, but for us in this world God has made himself absolutely resistible – we can say no to God – the divine hiddenness has seen to that. One reason that God has hidden himself is so that people are free to say no to him. If God revealed himself fully to people then “every knee will bow”. But he doesn’t because if you’re free to say no to God then saying “Yes” to God actually means something! Why is making a free decision so important? Jesus said in Matthew 22v37, that the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and with all your mind”, that and that the whole of the Old Testament hangs on that commandment along with “love your neighbour as yourself”. Now I do a bit of computer programming and it isn’t difficult for me to make my computer tell me it loves me: I can get it to print it on the screen, I can record an audio file saying “I love you!” but that isn’t Love! The computer is just doing what it was told to do. Similarly, love, by definition, has to be freely chosen otherwise it isn’t love, it is just doing what it was told to do. Love requires the possibility that it might be withheld – that the person reaching out (in this case God) might be rejected. Love cannot be coerced – you cannot force someone to love you, to truly love you, not even God can do it – because then it isn’t love. And God being hidden from us is part of that – if God were to reveal himself fully to us he would be irresistible to us – and we wouldn’t be able to freely choose him, and our love for him would be insincere. So God, in wanting a bride that he could love and would genuinely love him back, gave us free will to choose to live as we wanted so that we could choose to reject him or love him and our decision would be genuine, our love would be genuine. And that is why free will is so important, and that is why we see so much evil & suffering in the world, because people can choose to do good and they can choose to do evil and most of us seem to do both!

Seeking a hidden God is fraught with all kinds of difficulties and frustrations. Yet in John 20 Jesus said “blessed are you who have NOT seen yet have believed” – Jesus says there are people who haven’t seen God yet they repent & believe, maybe your relationship with God feels a lot like that. I was talking with someone last week who believes in God, loves God, was asking “why doesn’t God just zap me, or something”, just wants to see more of God in his life. Well Jesus is promising to honour/bless you for hanging in there when you don’t hear anything and you can’t see God, but you keep on believing and living as a follower of Christ.

God has withheld himself and is slowly revealing himself (not just to humanity as a whole, but to you individually too) like the delicious unwrapping of the present you’ve always wanted. As history unfolded we started out thinking God was a system or a force, then we thought there were many gods and they didn’t care for us much (as some of the early creation stories show). Then Genesis comes along and reveals an ethical monotheist – a good God who loves his creation – and ultimately, and briefly in the New Testament, is revealed in Jesus who starts building the church and sends the Holy Spirit to further reveal God. So God is slowly revealing himself to humanity like the unwrapping of the most desired present to those who will humbly repent and continually seek him, and as we pursue him we see a little bit more of him, and it is slow/frustrating but we keep on seeking, and so we see a little more of him because we don’t give up, and we receive more from him, and eventually, (if through “hope deferred the heart” has not “grown sick”), eventually the draw of sin & selfishness fades into 2D black and white next to our 3D technicolour God, eventually we get the present, we see God clearly, and we get God and he gets us! So keep on keeping on seeking God – God will not withhold himself forever, but rather he promises to be found and to fulfil your longing… eventually!

We only get to live on earth, with a hidden God once – once ever in eternity – and this is it, and we’re years into it already, who knows how long we have left. It’s only now while we’re here do we get to show God our love for him without him responding immediately in a visible and clear way. We must see that this period before we see God clearly (1 Cor 13) is intended as a blessing to us, that we can genuinely give to God while we’re here and cannot see Him in a way that profoundly blesses Him and in a way that we just can’t do in heaven because then we’ll know him fully and see Him clearly. It will be so much easier to do the right thing in heaven, to be holy and righteous, and to serve God, because he’ll be right there, we’ll be living in community with him, and it won’t really be worthy of reward then, but if you do it now before he is visible, when it is difficult, through the suffering, the sin, the evil and the tragedy, if you can bless God while he withholds himself, while we are the bride-to-be of Christ, if you prepare yourself to be a worthy bride for Christ, if you cling to him through the tough times, then you’re giving to God in a way that in future you’ll never be able to give to him, you’re blessing God in a way in the midst of difficult life on earth that you’ll never really be able to do again – how much more does it mean when you cannot see God?

Jesus said “blessed are you who have NOT seen, yet have believed”. Doing life with a hidden God is a blessing.

• May you come to see God’s desire to save the whole world … and may you weep at what God desires to save people from;
• May you be in awe of the God who so often brings things together just at the right time … who didn’t need to control or foreknow the future in order to bring it about;
• May you understand this time when God is hidden to be a profound opportunity to bless God in a way that means so much to him and will never be repeated.

This is a short seminar paper presented May 2010 as part of my theological studies. The brief was to discuss a doctrinal topic that, with the supplied questions, would create discussion and debate in a small-group scenario. Thus the below could be used as a small-group resource:

The Cross: The Ransom View of the Atonement

Jesus’ death upon the cross is central to the Christian faith because it accomplished a work that reconciles us to God.¹ Jesus’ last word before He died was tetelesai, usually translated “It is finished”, which should be understood “The work is accomplished – there is nothing left to do”.² Since those beautiful words were uttered much thought has been given to precisely how the Cross could reconcile us to God. This paper shall explore a view of the atonement that was enormously popular for the first thousand years of Christianity.³

In the 2nd century, the Greek patristic writer Irenaeus argued that the death of Christ was to be regarded as a ransom and, particularly, one completed without force so that justice would be observed.⁴ His argument maintained the tradition that Adam had, through his sin, sold humanity into slavery to Satan and thus Satan’s dominion over man was just.⁵ Jesus’ death was offered as payment for the captives – an offer Satan accepted ensuring justice was done – but death could not hold a sinless person and, having given up his “rights” over sinners, Satan was left empty-handed.⁶ This idea became known as the ransom view.

Elements of this idea can be supported by Scripture: Jesus understood that his life would be given as a ransom for many⁷ – a view echoed by the Apostles Peter⁸ and Paul;⁹ and Paul speaks of all Christians being purchased at a price,¹⁰ yet the legal aspects came from tradition. The weak scriptural support together with its lack of detail (why the cross? Why not in some other manner?)¹¹ is why some theologians refuse to call it a theory of atonement.¹²

Origen asked to whom the ransom had been paid, but his conclusion that the payment had to be made to the devil (since it was he who was holding sinners to ransom)¹³ was not seriously challenged for a millennia until Anselm of Canterbury critiqued the idea to devastating effect. Anselm rightly argued that Satan was an outlaw and could never have a just claim, and that Satan’s subjugation of us was illegal therefore God was under no obligation to pay a ransom.¹⁴ Though the ransom view was replaced by Anselm’s satisfaction view it still has much to offer as a picture of a deeply mysterious event rather than an actual history.

Recently the ransom view has regained some popularity through Aulén¹⁵ who believed that the central idea of the atonement was divine conflict: Christus Victor fought against and triumphed over the evil powers to which mankind was enslaved and through Him God reconciled the world to Himself.¹⁶ This reworking of the ransom view adds perspective to the work of the cross in a way that no other theory of atonement is able because it emphasises a universe at civil war. At the cross Jesus struck a mortal blow to the enemy and Christians continue the ‘mop-up’ operation living behind enemy lines until parousia, the second coming of Christ. Cullmann ingeniously uses D-Day and VE-Day to analogise this period¹⁷ – Christians living within it face stiff resistance and so Cullman’s analogy provides a reasonable explanation to the difficulties one experiences in supplicative prayer, the now-and-not-yet of the kingdom, despite a defeated enemy.

A significant weakness with both versions of the ransom view is that humanity is presented as an innocent captive whose primary need is liberation from Satan, despite the weight of scripture indicating that our greatest enemy is our sinful nature¹⁸ – we are not just in bondage to and in need of liberation from Satan, but we are wilfully rebellious, negligent, weak and in need of inner transformation – repentance, specifically of our own sinful nature, must be the precursor to belief.

In conclusion we should remember scripture does not give complete revelation on this topic. All theories of the atonement offer insight, different emphases and, often, unique perspectives on a deeply mysterious event: no theory can claim to be the theory that explains it in entirety. The ransom view’s strength is in its expression of Christ’s victory over Satan and our subsequent liberation, but the view misrepresents humanity’s responsibility for its present state and so permits a diluted idea of repentance. While this view has much to offer in our understanding of the cross, without other theories it presents an incomplete view of the atonement.

Discussion Questions

1. What is your response when you experience difficulties in supplicative prayer? How might the Christus Victor view affect your response?

2. What implications are there for our understanding of the cross if one agrees that no theory of atonement can explain the cross in its entirety?

3. Imagine what motivations the patristic writers may have had in coming up with the ransom view? Discuss whether it is fair to suggest human nature may have played a part in its formation because the view finds blame in someone else for the state for the world, in this case Satan, rather than looking at sinful human nature?

4. The ransom view suggests that Satan did not understand that death could not hold Jesus. Did God deceive Satan? What justification is there to God withholding knowledge of the consequences of Satan accepting the ransom payment?

5. Gregory the Great suggests that Satan was not even aware of Christ’s divinity when Jesus was on earth. Consider Jesus’ interactions with Satan in scripture – is a reasonable suggestion for Gregory to make?

6. There is a suggestion that Christus Victor became popular because it tapped into our fear of a malevolent force (particularly prevalent during the world wars of the early 20th century) and that Christ the Victor has overcome that force. Are you drawn to any view of the atonement above others? Why is this? Take into account your personal, geo- and socio-political environment.

7. Is the idea of Jesus battling with Satan a reasonable one given that Jesus is God and Satan is merely a fallen angel? Would Jesus have to limit himself in some way to even up the fight or are there other factors to consider?

Footnotes

1. Romans 5v10

2. Tom Smail, Windows on the Cross (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1995), 79.

3. Gustaf Aulen, Christus Victor, 2nd ed. (London: SPCK, 1970), 6.

4. Irenaeus, adversus haerese, V.i.1; in Sources chretiennes vol. 153, ed. A. Rousseau, L. Doutreleau, and C. Mercier (Paris: Editions de Cerf, 1979), 18.19-20.20.

5. Alister McGrath, ed., The Christian Theology Reader, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2001), 328.

6. Robin Collins, Understanding Atonement: A New and Orthodox Theory, http://home.messiah.edu/~rcollins/Philosophical%20Theology/Atonement/AT7.HTM, (accessed 26-Mar-2010)

7. Matthew 20v28, Mark 10v45

8. 1 Peter 1v18

9. 1 Timothy 2v6

10. 1 Corinthians 6v20

11. Alister McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction, 4th ed. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 337.

12. Ibid, 334.

13. Ibid

14. Collins, Understanding Atonement.

15. McGrath, Christian Theology, 336.

16. Aulen, Christus Victor, 20.

17. Oscar Cullmann, Christ in Time, 3rd ed., (London: Bradford & Dickens, 1962), 84.

18. Galatians 5v16-25; 1 Peter 2v11

Bibliography
Aulen, Gustaf. Christus Victor. 2nd ed. London: SPCK, 1970.

Collins, Robin. Understanding Atonement: A New and Orthodox Theory. http://home.messiah.edu/~rcollins/Philosophical%20Theology/Atonement/AT7.HTM (accessed 26-Mar-2010)

Cullmann, Oscar. Christ in Time. 3rd ed. London: Bradford & Dickens, 1962.

Irenaeus. adversus haerese, V.i.1; in Sources chretiennes vol. 153, ed. A. Rousseau, L. Doutreleau, and C. Mercier. Paris: Editions de Cerf, 1979.

McGrath, Alister. Christian Theology: An Introduction. 4th ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.

McGrath, Alister, ed. The Christian Theology Reader. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2001.

Smail, Tom. Windows on the Cross. London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1995.

Jeremiah 18 and, consequently, Romans 9 are typically used as primary arguments for God predestining those who will be saved and those who will not. This idea of God’s sovereign choice in terms of soteriology is then typically extended to include every atom and free agent being and doing exactly as God predestines. There are a number of difficulties with this interpretation.

Read Romans 9:6-33:

6 It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 8 In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. 9 For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”
10 Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. 11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? 25 As he says in Hosea:

“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people;
and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”

26 and,

“In the very place where it was said to them,
‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”

27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:

“Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,
only the remnant will be saved.
28 For the Lord will carry out
his sentence on earth with speed and finality.”

29 It is just as Isaiah said previously:

“Unless the Lord Almighty
had left us descendants,
we would have become like Sodom,
we would have been like Gomorrah.”

30 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. 32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. 33 As it is written:
“See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall,
and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.”

Notice that Paul is talking about pottery and clay – Paul is referring to Jeremiah 18. Paul’s argument in Romans 9 draws heavily on Jeremiah 18, so how we understand Jeremiah 18 will determine how we understand Romans 9:

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 2 “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me. 6 He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.

The Lord takes Jeremiah to see a potter refashion a spoiled pot before saying he can do to Israel as this potter is doing to the pot. Since Augustine this has been used to support the idea that God controls every atom, and chooses who he is going to save and there’s nothing you can do about either – which is just slightly outrunning the scriptural evidence – and then this interpretation of Jeremiah 18 is then transferred into Romans 9 and particularly v22-23, that regardless of what the clay does God will fashion it into objects of mercy and objects of wrath as he chooses.

However, in studying Jeremiah 18:7-11 it becomes clear the text actually means the opposite:

7 If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, 8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 9 And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 10 and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.

The Lord challenges Israel in that although their sin has spoiled them, God, as a master potter, can fashion them into a new vessel through their repentance: God responds to their pliable or hardened hearts/spoiled hearts accordingly – its not about God pre-planning from before eternity, or about foreknowledge, it’s about God’s ability to respond to Israel’s choices as he sees fit. Paul then recalls this prophetic act and argument in Romans 9.

The literary and historical context of Paul’s work shows that Romans 9 is not about salvation of individuals but rather about Jewish-Gentile relations. Paul was considering establishing a new base of operations in Rome and he was concerned for the Jewish Christians. Paul is saying that God can use the Jews or the Gentiles to bring about his plan of redemption for the world in the same way that God freely chose Jacob rather than Esau through which he would make available salvation to the world (through Jacob came the 12 tribes, and eventually Jesus of course). God is free to choose to use who he wants to do great things through. The Jews hardened their hearts and would not receive Jesus, the Gentile Christians remained pliable, they were not hard-hearted. Jeremiah 18 (and consequently Romans 9) teaches us that God responds to human decision, that if people repent God will hold off judgement, but if they were favoured and rebel God is free to remove his favour and bring judgement. Paul argues, if God is to now use the pliable Gentiles rather than the hard-hearted Jews who are we to argue? The question was never about salvation but about how God was going to bring about salvation. If we strip scripture of its historical context we also strip it of its meaning.

Why would God “endure with much patience” (Romans 9:22) if God was the one that decided to spoil the vessel? Why did Calvin and Augustine (and Piper) think it was just to present a God who designs most people to spend an eternity in hell and have no chance to do otherwise? And all the while God would be telling them that He loves them? That’s not the God we love and serve. God is the very definition of justice – we have a pale glimpse of it here on earth – yet even we understand that in order to be guilty of a crime we must have the ability to have chosen otherwise. We should remember that Calvin & Augustine were products of their own time and, just like them, we all have a responsibility to interpret scripture for the times in which we live.

There are other verses that talk about an God predestining an elect (Ephesians 1, for example). Did God choose a handful to save and choose the rest go somewhere else? No, God predestined that there would be an elect and it is up to you & I to choose whether to be in that group or not. God doesn’t decide that for us.

Thus some of the primary scriptural evidence for theistic determinism appears unsound.

–
Augustine, On Free Choice of the will (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1993).

Augustine, City of God, tr. Marcus Dods (nc: Digireads, 2009).

G. Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy (Downer’s Grove: IVP, 2001).

F. Lindstrom, God and the Origin of Evil: A Contextual Analysis of Alleged Monistic Evidence in the Old Testament, (Lund: Gleerup: 1983).

J. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960).

J. Piper, The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological study of Romans 9:1-23 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983).

J. Sanders, The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence, 2nd ed. (Downer’s Grove: IVP, 2007)

T. Schreiner, “Does Romans 9 Teach Individual Election unto Salvation?” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 36, no 1 (1993).

I’ve been thinking through hell, eternal punishment, and justice for some time now. A year ago I was praying and asking God how he would feel should any person be condemned to endure an “eternity of conscious punishment” (regardless of the form that that punishment takes: passive or active), and secondly how he would feel should any person be “annihilated” (again, whatever the form: entropic or sudden). I remember as I prayed I became filled with grief and yet the intensity just increased until I was overcome by an overwhelming, phenomenal sense of grief and despair. And then it stopped. And then the grief started again, but this time it was brief, it stopped but I was left with a sense of sheer despairing emptiness.

Of course it’s not wise to base any belief on something one has felt, sure, but this was a clear, prophetic experience, and I’m really not given to prophetic experiences every week – I would say there I have had a handful of significant ones in the past decade. I took me some time to put what happened together, but I think God responded to my questions right there (which doesn’t happen very often!), but I’m very thankful that he did. I had asked how God would feel if a human were to endure Eternal Conscious Punishment and so God let me feel how he would feel for a few minutes, I was overwhelmed by grief, like nothing I had ever experienced, and the same again regarding someone being annihilated, but this time grief followed by sheer emptiness and loss. It took me a while to put it all together and make sense of what had happened, but if much of the pinnacle of God’s creation, us humans, His children, had to endure eternal conscious punishment then that phenomenal sense of grief is, I think, what God would feel – constantly.

God’s connection to his creation is a necessary fact of his divinity, and there is much within scripture that declares this. If someone is experiencing Eternal Conscious Punishment (ECP) then we can be sure that God is experiencing it too, and we can be confident too in saying that we would experience it also. Could I enjoy heaven if I knew someone was experiencing ECP? How could I be happy in heaven if you’re not there? The promise of reconciliation of God with people and the world means that we would not be isolated and protected from the fact – God promises that we’ll be more connected with him & other people, not less. Could heaven be truly enjoyed, or would it just become a safe place for mourning? This, in my mind, was the final nail in the coffin regarding unending ECP – scripturally, logically, morally and philosophically I thought it was unsound anyway, but I couldn’t quite let go of it – this experience finished it off.

The old line is that believers will be happy in heaven because they’d be so satisfied in God, they’d just forget about the people in hell. I find this abhorrent view cold, vacuous and outright anti-scriptural. I was reminded about it when I was reading Robin Parry’s blog and he found that Spurgeon articulated this isolationist view. Spurgeon, of course, was a product of his time, much like we are a product of ours, and so I should probably not judge his words so harshly. It would seem the Christianity of 1885 was a tad cold:

…the righteous in heaven will be quite satisfied with the damnation of the lost. I used to think that if I could see the lost in hell, surely I must weep for them. Could I hear their horrid wailings, and see the dreadful contortions of their anguish, surely I must pity them. But there is no such sentiment as that known in heaven. The believer shall be there so satisfied with all God’s will, that he will quite forget the lost in the idea that God has done it for the best, that even their loss has been their own fault, and that he is infinitely just in it. If my parents could see me in hell they would not have a tear to shed for me, though they were in heaven, for they would say, “It is justice, thou great God; and thy justice must be magnified, as well as thy mercy;” and moreover, they would feel that God was so much above his creatures that they would be satisfied to see those creatures crushed if it might increase God’s glory. Oh! in heaven I believe we shall think rightly of men. Here men seem great things to us; but in heaven they will seem no more than a few creeping insects that are swept away in ploughing a field for harvest; they will appear no more than a tiny handful of dust, or like some nest of wasps that ought to be exterminated for the injury they have done. They will appear such little things when we sit on high with God, and look down on the nations of the earth as grasshoppers, and “count the isles as very little things.” We shall be satisfied with everything; there will not be a single thing to complain of. “I shall be satisfied.”

From The Hope of the Future (Spurgeon’s archive), pointed out by Robin Parry.