The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Holiness in Heaven: The Need for Purgation

Hi Dave! I’m happily sharpened in interacting with you!

Our core difference seems to center on how some texts annul others. I see the Bible as divine and human, producing a progressive revelation and story that culminates in Jesus (and the Gospel). So I’ve said that I too want a Christ-centered (and Gospel centered) hermaneutic. But I may be hopelessly Protestant. Since Scripture for me is what has expounded Jesus and the Gospel, contrasting those with the Bible as “trumped” and “not inspired” when it doesn’t “conform” to my sense of what Jesus did, seems too easy and problematic.
(My old prof, E.J. Carnell, in The Case for Orthodoxy argued everything should be tested in light of Romans/Galatians; but I’m equally wary of his canon within the canon.)

One, I’m suspicious of your putting an interpretation of Jesus’ deeds above what Jesus says (since his teaching has much to do with how I’d interpret the meaning of his life and death). 2nd, I too sometimes conclude that Jesus develops and reinterprets former ideas (‘trumps’ them in a sense). But I’d be slow to assume that my sense of a "Gospel’ cancels earlier themes. I’d never conclude that without first sympathetically working to see how earlier developments functioned in the whole Jesus story (and what purpose they were trying to serve). My bias is toward interpretations that make sense of the largest portion of the story. So I guess I’d prefer an "exegetical" case even for supporting rejection of a Bible writers outlook :wink: .

Here, Beck has esp. raised whether God has ‘conditions’ of righteousness, or uses painful experiences or consequences to ‘purify’ or enable us to meet vital conditions. You argue that the ‘Gospel’ is antithetical to these themes that seem to me to be consistently affirmed by Jesus and Paul, as well as the OT pattern. So amid such consistency, my own bias is against defining the Gospel such that it dismisses such realities. If indeed, I could not see how Jesus’ Good News could be consistent with conditions or requiring righteousness in us, then I too would oppose them. But I actually perceive Jesus’ message as pointed at enabling this which God has always pursued, and thus I have no reason to treat these two things as mutually exclusive.
(E.g. you say that those who reject God’s way or truth can experience “no ‘condemnation,’” but Jesus himself appears to warn the hardened that such consequences will continue to be worked out. Thus I would think that they can face such realities even though they are loved by God.)

You vividly sketch Bible pictures of the cross that you think trump such themes. But I disagree with your implied exegesis. So when you reply, “it’s too late for exegesis,” and that its’ nature is to “obscure the truth,” I can’t see what ground is left to make our mutual cases. (I didn’t grasp your conclusion that the ultimately transformed cosmos is our common ground; that doesn’t lead me to your conclusions.)

P.S. You again curiously declare that judgment’s only nature is to unilaterally “free us from suffering the slavery of sin.” But if God then is altogether opposed to experiencing such suffering, why, and where from, do you suppose it now exists? (Could one imagine that such travail in fact has a God-sent purpose?)

It seems that once a defense is made that employs a non-exegitcal approach, then the argument becomes untestable. Bereans were commended for exegeting scripture to test Paul’s words. Why should we not?

The argument that it’s not verifiable by the text is really a way of throwing out the text, yet Jesus says the text testifies of him.

It appears to me to be a red herring to avoid pursuing the validity of argument. Rather than just proclaim that exegesis has failed, one must show HOW it fails, and that will require some form of logic and exegesis. If that can’t be done then one would have to literally remove themselves from any argument that regards the text and simply proclaim their own message.

Me too Bob. This is not really, at least for me, about trying to convert each other to our respective views but perhaps it will provide some food for thought to others who are following the discussion.

It is not a simple binary of “inspired” vs “not inspired.” The self-revelation of God in the doing, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the fount of inspiration from which all inspiration flows. Some insights are very close to the source and others are further downstream in the flow of inspiration from the source. The Bible is, as your say, a progressive divine and human narrative of God acting in the world. It is in fact, a small library of distinct books rather than a monolith like the Koran. The Koran is claimed to be direct dictation passed through one man, Mohammed, in a cave. The Bible is a dynamic, collective narrative by a wide variety of writers spanning over a thousand years.

It is not about putting Jesus deeds over what he said. Much of what Jesus said before his resurrection was cryptic and not at all clear to his closest followers, the apostles. They were never clear about much of it. The fact that they scattered after his arrest and dared not be seen anywhere near Golgotha when he was crucified demonstrates this. They did not rush over to the tomb to see if his statements about his rising again (even after having witnessed Jesus resurrecting others) would be fulfilled until after some of Jesus’ female followers had gone there before them and discovered the empty tomb. The resurrection of Jesus is the key that unlocked the meaning of all that Jesus had previously said and did. Without the resurrection there would be no NT scriptures, there would be no believers and no Gospel at all to proclaim.

All there would be is the Jewish Tanakh, of interest to only a few million people at best. Orthodox and ultra Orthodox Jews who read the OT in the original Hebrew and understand the nuances of the Hebraism and Jewish thought do not conclude from that witness that Jesus of Nazareth is their long awaited Messiah. To the contrary, their reading of the scriptures concludes that Jesus does not meet any of the important criteria for identify the true Messiah. All the scriptures in the world will not lead to eternal life without the death and resurrection of Jesus, . The scriptures do not impart life, at best they are the witness to the Crucified and Resurrected One who is the Life

I do not assert that the Gospel cancels earlier themes in the biblical witness; no more than the relativity physics of Einstein and quantum physics negate the earlier Newtonian physics. Newtonian physics still has its place but it doesn’t go far and deep enough to illuminate the nature of physical reality. Likewise, the OT witness, for Christians at least, is a witness to the actual coming of the Living Word of God into the world. I do not confuse the witness with the object that is being witnessed.
So once again it is the object, Jesus Christ, of that witness that is determinative and not the other way around…

Quite frankly, I have used some exegesis in this thread by highlighting some critical texts and expounding on the etymology of certain key words both through consulting several translations and researching what Koine Greek and ancient Hebrew scholars have determined to be the original intended meaning of those words. But that approach has not been fruitful in this discussion and results in a merry go round effect. So that is why I emphasized the Gospel of Jesus Christ to be determinative and have identified its irreducible core: the death and resurrection of Jesus.

I find this all very ironic. Here we are two individuals who have the hope for the universal reconciliation and salvation of all things by God. We are both part of a very small minority on the fringe of what is considered Christian belief. Heretics even, by the reckoning of not an insignificant number of Christians. When you compare that to the entire human population of the planet our hope is held by almost a vanishingly small number of individuals. Do you really believe that through additional rigorous exegesis and debate that suddenly there will arise a general consensus, let alone a unanimous one, of the truth of universal salvation that will sweep the world before it all falls apart? The only event that will achieve such an effect will be the event of the Parousia itself, when the foundation (the slain Lamb)–the common ground upon which all things rest-- of the new creation will be beheld by all.

That understanding of judgment is found in the OT, it is the tsedeq (justice) of God as seen in the book of Judges and declared by the later Hebrew prophets like Isaiah. To judge is to save, to rescue; it is not the punitive justice of Rome or the present day “justice” dished out by the judicial systems of the world.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own choosing, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of the children of God. How are we set free from the bondage of decay? By being chastised and punished for being in a condition that God put us in? No, God takes full responsibility for all of it. How do we know this? Jesus, the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the cosmos hanging on a Roman cross for all the world to see. How do we become the Children of God? By the new birth of the resurrection. How can we hope for such an audacious and radical event as the resurrection of all–the very death of death itself that changes absolutely everything about everything? Because the Risen One is also the Crucified One who took upon Himself the full consequences of all the wrongs inflicted and suffered by all that have ever lived.

In the case of the second birth (resurrection), it is our father who went through the suffering:

We do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the originator of their salvation perfect through what he suffered… So Jesus …says:

‘Here am I, and the children God has given me.’
(Hebrews 2:9-13)

Perhaps, instead of thinking of “purification”, we might think in terms of a health check on the new(re)born creation (no needles required!).

If you want to use that analogy, I was once given general anaesthetic while part of me was cut away internally. It was like being dead. I drifted away into the blackness and knew nothing, didn’t even dream, while the dangerous tissue was removed. There was no pain, either during or after the operation. I don’t know what happened in the operating theatre. Everyone made a special effort to keep me comfortable and cheerful. I wasn’t “afflicted” and didn’t “endure” anything. All I know is that I remained healthy afterwards. And that was achieved with only the technology and kindness available in this world.

The kindness of our Father is way beyond this type of experience. More than that, he heals by, well, simply healing – we know this from how Jesus did it: he didn’t need to bring a person to complete wholeness by using the scalpel, the gamma-knife, toxic chemicals or procedures. Jesus had a very different approach, that only he could use: he didn’t need to do limited harm in order to bring about a greater good; he simply brought about the good and took the harm and pain into himself.

Hey Dave, I like your spirit and don’t expect to change your view either. Though I don’t see why you think I’d have to “really believe” exegetical discussion will produce a “unanimous” consensus," to think it has unavoidable value. I find trying to understand why two real thinkers reach different conclusions is in itself worthwhile. (Btw, I got a few days, but then will be less accessible, heading north to take a Galatians class with Durham’s John Barclay at British Columbia’s Regent College; he took his Ph.D. under Wright, but has sharply criticized some of his NP interpretations.)

Some of our differences seem to involve ascribing differnt meanings to terms, but 90+% of what you point out, I already assume, and needs no reaction. I do agree that Jesus’ words can be difficult, but assume that they were recorded with the intent of conveying important things, and I suspect that much difficulty, even when he seems especially plain, is that we’d prefer different ideas from his!

We have similar views of the Bible’s nature, and I agree on your basic idea that some “Biblical insights” are ‘truer,’ or should be more controlling than others. So clarifying where we differ is a challenge. (I do suspect, esp. with those of your formulation, that I bring a greater instinct that it is reasonable to look harder for more continuity between the OT, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospel, as well as between how we observe that God apparently administers our experience in this life’s realm, with what we may reasonably expect in the next.)

I don’t think the main difference is that I found your exegesis/etymology faulty or unhelpful. My problem was feeling that you too easily then deduce that other texts cannot be affirmed together with your cited preferred ones. Here you contrast, Jesus is the “object” that is determinative, not “the Biblical witness.” I don’t see why those must so disassociated. What do I know about your controlling ‘object’ apart from the Bible’s input? I would rather say, Jesus is the decisive focus such that after understanding him from the Bible’s story, He then is the key to rightly approaching the whole. But the Bible remains indispensable to defining what Jesus is about. (Whereas when you define needed “common ground” as the future Parousia, you then seem seem to agree that we have no available present basis for discussion.)

Arguing etymologically that Biblical ‘justice’ can’t be punitive seems to ignore the more decisive data: does the Bible itself reveal explicitly that the real issues debated here of ‘punishment,’ conditions, requirements, etc are in fact central to its’ view of how God deals with us. You then seem to conclude that God put us in our unavoidable punishing conditions of bondage and decay, so that Jesus could now responsibly “take upon himself the full consequences” of all such wrongs inflicted. My questions are, do you have any sense of why a loving Jesus would put us through such pain in the meanwhile? And what convinces you that Jesus has so exhausted all possible consequences?

Hi Melchizedek,

I suppose I have a more radical view of the extent and purpose of Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross than most others who hope for universal salvation. Sharing in Christ’s suffering is really not possible in my mind. Christ experienced the full extent of all the suffering and death since the beginning of time, 14 billion years worth. This is how I see the true nature of God revealed to the world in the crucified Jesus, not an omnipotent God but an “omni-empathetic” God who knows and feels all the pain and death of the universe and takes it (the judge who saves the world) into Himself to heal all things by emptying Himself into all of creation. What those who witnessed the crucifixion saw and what we know from their account is like the 4% of the universe that we can perceive while the vast majority is the 96% that is dark (the experience of Jesus’ godforsakenness hidden from us) which is beyond our perception and understanding.
When he is revealed to us at the Parousia we will see fully who he is and what he endured for everyone’s sake and that will transform us into the authentic image of God we were meant to be.

My concern is that when we talk about the suffering that occurs in this world is what is attributed to be the cause of that suffering. It is one thing to say that 1st century believers suffered at the hands of Rome for the sake of gospel and quite another to attribute the suffering of the infants who we thrown alive into a fire pit at Auschwitz as in any way being a chastisement from God. We need to be very careful and specific when we assert that the suffering that is rife in this world is somehow mandated by God or even allowed by Him. I don’t think you or most others on this board are doing that but a general reader who should happen across these kinds of discussions may infer that God does somehow “save” people by putting them through “hell on Earth” experiences in this world rather than saving them from such hells.

This is an interesting point; So far as I can see, he did not afflict those already afflicted in order to produce faith. But neither do I think that discipline or the lake of fire take the role of “affliction” as such; It seems that these are perhaps more circumstantial manfestations of God’s purification; sort of a “trial by fire” concept in order to strip us of that which keeps us from wholeness. By way of example; a surgeon cutting out a cancerous tumor is not afflicting his patient, yet it is a process which must be endured by the patient to become well and restored to wholeness.

The “trial by fire” concept sounds awfully pagan to me, something like trial by combat. But then of course Jesus did not merely cure the sick, he healed them, made them whole in the full sense of the word; a precursor sign of the eschatological resurrection. Modern medicine has made some significant advances in the past century but it doesn’t come close what Jesus was able to do. So I don’t think comparing the healing touch of Jesus with modern medicine is a fair comparison.

Dave,

I’m puzzled. You appear to suggest to Mel that it’d be perverse to think that suffering could be “allowed by God”? What’s the alternative? Is is to see God as heretofore unable to change the nature of our painful existence? You say, testing by “fire” seems like a pagan idea. Would you agree that Biblical writers appear to affirm this ‘pagan’ metaphor?

You seem to say that the meaning of Jesus’ hidden 'godforsakeness is that we become exempt from ‘sharing in suffering.’ That does sound as attractive as dispensationalism’s vision of a pretribulation rapture. But what basis do you see in experience or Scripture to believe this is the reality? Do you think that Jesus was actually ‘forsaken’ by God? If so, why?

Hi Dave; thanks for this reply. I think it’s very helpful in clearing up some misunderstanding!

Ah, Ok. This does make sense to me, and I agree; I just wasn’t understanding where you were going with it from the last comment. That is an important distinction for sure.

Very good point!

Yes, I suppose there is something to this. I don’t really know what else to say about it at the moment!

Yes, there seems to be an imputed worthiness or righteousness from Christ in play here, just sort of hanging out and waiting for us. It occurred to me on further reflection that this purification/ worthiness that we’re speaking of is being held in Christ where our true identity lies. I can’t help but wonder what types of circumstances are required to get us to the place where we come to an end of ourselves so that we can even see the need to begin to experience what’s already there, but I do see how it’s problematic to equate the normal circumstances of living in a fallen world to a purification process. That’s actually one of the things that got me wondering about the whole process. If the lake of fire is not a process of purification in this life, and not a final punitive judgment then what is it, precisely? How does the basanizo look and function temporally and/or eschatologically?

Sure, I can see this as a fair point, and it may indeed be something of a pagan notion as I stated it, though that is not how it was intended. The modern medicine idea is not the most accurate comparison to be sure, but my thought was not to create an exact analogy, but to try to communicate a scriptural concept; namely that it seems that some type of “death” or “loss” is what leads to life. If we want to hang on to our life (apart from Christ) then we will lose it, but if we “lose it for his sake” (let go of that which hinders us from finding the life he has for us), we will find it. I can’t help but think that’s a process, and any process can sometimes be painful as part and parcel.

I had more ideas/ thoughts on this, but for some reason I just can’t seem to get them to solidify in my head at the moment, so I’ll have to hold off until later. Perhaps further comments in the thread will jog things a bit for me.

Two arguments here seem to me contradicted by Revelation’s whole storyline: 1. That translations err on 13:8 such that the concern is not with which of us will experience “life” vs. who is sent to the ‘fire.’ 2. That the Lamb’s great worth (which is to be affirmed) means everyone already (automatically?) has the benefits of His life. Isn’t the whole book’s clearest repeated theme John’s concern for faithful obedience during coming testing because that has serious consequences?

Yes, that was part of what I was thinking; thanks for pointing that out, Bob.

Melchizedek and Bob,

I have been a bit busy with other tasks, but I am also researching and meditating on your last posts. So I will soon have a reply to both of you in the next few days.

Dave

Melchizedek and Bob,

This is my combined reply to your last posts.

The Lake of Fire is the presence of Theion, the healing, transforming life of God. It is not a place of separation from God but the actual immersion into the purifying, healing presence of God. Healing is not punitive it is restorative—and even more so it is creative, a new creation. That’s right. It is not at all what has been falsely presented in the translations. The angels (messengers of God) and the Lamb are present on the shore of the lake (limnhn, the root of which is limen, which means “harbor” and it is associated with the nearness of the shore). The Lamb is there with them in the safe harbor of the healing, transforming presence of YHWH. The Lake of Fire is not about torment (basanizo is the testing by the touchstone to determine whether the metal/object is purified), either everlasting or temporary. It is to determine whether that which is immersed into the presence of YHWH and the Lamb has been freed/purified from all that oppressed and corrupted it and is made ready for the new birth of their life that is the new creation in Jesus Christ). All that is not in the book of the life of the Lamb is brought into intimate closeness with the very source of life, YHWH and the Lamb. They are embraced by the Life, freed from all that has tormented them with fear, abandonment, nihilism and hopelessness. Then they become like little children who enter into the new creation of God.

We all live in a state of death. Our daily sustenance depends on the taking of the life of others, whether it be animals or plants. We all partake in the Babylonian systems of exploitation and oppression of the living Earth and of those who are among the least and weakest. If we do not see this then we are in profound denial about the true state of this world. The only alternative to this world of death is a world made new by a Life freely given to all. Not a life forcefully or fraudulently taken from the powerless to stave off our own inevitable deaths, but a Life freely given to all by the sole possessor of Life, YHWH and the Lamb.

Is this “automatic” is this “magic?” No, it is the very essence of agape—the love of God.

The Book of Revelation is both about the Revelation given to Jesus Christ and the revelation of Jesus Christ. The Lamb discloses the true meaning of history and defines and rewrites the history of the world. The Lamb is in complete empathetic solidarity with all those who suffer the horrors and injustices of this reality. He is the Lamb who takes all of the suffering, injustice and death away from the history of the world. He makes way for the unimpeded outpouring of the Life of YHWH into the creation to heal, transform and make new all that has been lost, tormented and killed.

There is no rapture or escape from the suffering of this world, instead there is the Lamb immersing himself into the very depths of the world’s suffering, despair and death. He takes the source of Life into the very abyss of godforsaken nothingness to transform that godforsaken place into the wellspring of God’s living waters, which fills the creation with life all bountiful. It is the faithfulness of the Lamb which goes into those depths where the faithless have fallen into and like the good shepherd will not rest until that most godless are brought into the healing presence of the safe harbor of the living presence of Theion and the Lamb. All things will be made new, all things will be written with a new story and name into the Lamb’s book of Life—the Alpha and Omega of all creation.

Dave,

My views supportive of Beck’s purgation thesis rest very little on having confidence of Revelation’s meaning. I am aware of numerous interpretations of it, but your anti-purgation one is unfamiliar, and to me seems especially contradictory to most students’ impressions of its’ dominant themes. I’m not seeing how your assertions derive from its’ text. Is there a commentary or other scholars who find in it the meaning that you do?

Bob

I think it’s time for you to defend your rejection of God’s unlimited generosity, grace, healing, and kindness.

Dave is writing about the all-sufficiency of the Lamb, the water of life freely given, the total liberation that was at the centre of Jesus’s mission, his faithfulness to his whole creation. He’s talking about the creator, the source of life, giving life in all its fulness to all without restraint. He’s showing how God behaves *exactly *how Jesus behaved – taking the pain on himself, not putting it on others, in order that they would be healed, restored, and would flourish.

Why on earth would you oppose that?

Do you honestly believe that somehow *our pain *can achieve in us something that Jesus’s death and resurrection was unable to do?

Hi Ruth,

It appears frustrating that most universalists won’t just accept your view that we experience grace’s freedom from all suffering and judgment without any conditions! I realize that you and Dave sincerely believe that this is the right view to draw from the Bible’s story. But I have already enumerated numerous passages that specify such conditions, and just now to Dave that interpretations of Revelation almost universally recognize a major theme is warning precisely of painful consequences of not meeting such conditions. I am failing to see see that you defend your view with a serious engagement of any of this substance.

My perception is that you essentially just assert that the meaning of Jesus is to contradict this broad Biblical narrative that I have defended, when as I’ve cited, Jesus himself agreed with this sobering Biblical theme. I don’t think the reason “why” most oppose what you assert is that it’s not desirable to them (I’d be thrilled to find out your view is right). I think the problem is that those who want to be faithful to Jesus perceive that you have been unable to defend your desire in light of the Bible’s narrative.

Grace be with you,
Bob

Bob

Please just answer the questions:

Ruth,

We don’t seem to be understanding each other! I just answered your first two questions as to why I reject your view that there are no conditions for experiencing God’s blessings, by pointing to my numerous citations of a whole pattern of Biblical texts that specify those conditions. I don’t know how to tell you any more clearly than that what is the reason that followers of the Biblical Christ give for reaching the beliefs that they do. ISTM the question is why you offer no answer or response to that Biblical substance (I’ve tried to be responsive to your questions; can you answer this one of mine?) On your third question: Yes, I do honestly believe that God is able to use painful experiences to test, purify, and refine us. I not only believe this is Biblical, but believe that some difficult experiences have nonetheless been growing experiences in my life.

Take a look at the life of the apostle Paul, for instance. Here was a man clearly chosen by and used of God, but his life from a human viewpoint was an absolute wreck. He suffered a LOT, but we see his response was one of joy in spite of (and in fact because of!) the suffering. God always manifests himself in His glorious power in human weakness and suffering, that is his M.O. This is why the cross is such a stumbling block!

Scripture states that Paul was given (By God, is the implication!) a demonic messenger from satan to beat on him, (The english translation is much more tame) so that he wouldn’t be filled with pride. He asked three times for God to remove this affliction from him, and God’s response was; No “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Paul then says, ‘So then, I will boast most gladly about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may reside in me.’

So, it is precisely through these (2nd Cor. 12:10) “weaknesses, insults, troubles, persecutions and difficulties” that the power of God is manifest in our lives!

Bob, It has been awhile since I’ve read it, but I think J. Preston Eby’s lake of fire series takes a similar tack; and it seems somewhat familiar from other sources as well, although I don’t recall what they are at the moment. I’m not sure that Eby takes so much an anti-purgation stance as an anti torment stance, but it’s probably worth a read.

Hi Ruth; I don’t think that he’s saying that our pain replaces something Jesus was unable to do, but rather that the experience of our process of the realization of the new life includes elements that were modeled in the death and resurrection. We share both in Christ’s death and His life; one does not come without the other. Also, see my other post here on the apostle Paul for additional example.