The God of Annihilation and Passive Agreeability
I really liked Richard Foster’s article on hell. I too find hell comforting, strange as that might sound coming out of the mouth of a former Adventist. I find it comforting to know that God is just and holy. The gap in my understanding on why eternal hell is necessary is just a tangible sign of my need for repentance and of my unworthiness. When I used to say, “I just can’t believe a loving God would do that,” I realize in retrospect that I was making an apt confession of my own faithlessness and ignorance. However, I truly couldn’t believe that God would send people to eternal hell. I did not have the intellectual or spiritual capacity to do so.
I see now that I had an unbiblical definition of love; my idea of love was passive agreeability. That was an idol in my mind. That false god is not just or holy. I’m ashamed and guilty of ever believing in that passive god.
It’s comforting now to know I have a God who is higher than I am and not passively agreeable towards wickedness and sin. Your article hits that sweet spot of pastoral and systematic teaching at the same time. It was nice to read; the internet needs more of that.
—VIA EMAIL
Can’t Support Eternal Torment
I read Foster’s article on hell. I think it is disingenuous to not acknowledge that there are a growing number of Bible-believing Christians who see alternatives to the texts mentioned. Are you implying that I have not left Adventism because I hold to a doctrine of proportional punishment in a mortal body?
The proponents of an eternal torment view have never answered the question of what types of bodies the lost will be resurrected in?
Paul only talks about the redeemed being raised in immortal, incorruptible bodies. There is no support, from what I see, from some formers about an eternal spirit’s existence in outer darkness. The Westminster confession says both body and soul will be punished eternally.
Just because eternal torment is the majority view of orthodoxy doesn’t mean it is necessarily true.
During the pandemic summer of 2020 I reread Edward Fudge’s The Fire that Consumes, all 500 pages plus detailed footnotes. The arguments presented by Foster are not foolproof.
Of course I don’t object to your differing from me on this.
But what does bother me is the move in the last year toward dogmatism with at least two articles on this subject. In the early years of Proclamation! you correctly left this topic out.
Being dogmatic on this subject can cause a stumbling block to those that might leave Adventism.
I cannot fathom the idea of eternal suffering for trillions of years.
As a health care worker who has witnessed so much suffering, it is especially unbelievable, when there are legitimate scriptural alternatives to the dogma being presented.
As I said, it is the dogmatic spirit expressed in articles such as “The Biblical View of Hell” that gives me pause, not the fact that you choose to believe this doctrine.
But I have seen statements by you that at least strongly imply that we who hold to John Stott’s or Ed Fudge’s or so many others’ view of conditional immortality have not really left Adventism. That would be a problem for me supporting your ministry.
I would appreciate clarification on this matter.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: I understand your response to Foster’s article, yet I see the situation differently from you. I will attempt to address your concerns in the order you presented them.
First, the fact that “a growing number” of Christians see alternatives to the texts mentioned does not establish that growing number as authoritative. What it may suggest is that there is a morphing view of hermeneutical principles. The historical-grammatical method of hermeneutics which says that we read the Bible like we would read a normal book—in context using normal rules of grammar and vocabulary to understand the words—is the method that has historically been the preferred method of interpretation for hundreds of years among Bible-believing Christians. In recent decades, however, there has been an increase in the numbers of people who read the Bible from a more allegorical, symbolic perspective than a literal one using the normal rules of vocabulary and context.
However, allegorizing Scripture leaves the “last word” up to the reader’s own interpretation. It allows the reader to dismiss the obvious, “literal” meaning and instead to assign it a meaning that “could be” suggested by the words instead of understanding the words to mean what the words say. Context, again, plays a major role in determining how these words are understood.
Moreover, using Old Testament texts to suggest that a complete annihilation is intended actually eclipses the New Testament revelation of the afterlife. Paul says this in 2 Timothy:
Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me (2 Timothy 1:8–12).
Notice that “life and immortality” have been brought to life through the gospel of Christ Jesus. Prior to His death and resurrection, the eternal state of humans was not clearly defined. The same is true for eternal punishment. It was not clearly defined prior to the Lord Jesus’ becoming our propitiation.
Second, I do not believe we or our authors have ever implied that people who do not believe in eternal punishment “have not left Adventism”. We do not believe that to be true; many people are born again, truly, and leave Adventism while still believing in annihilation. In fact, we were among those. Over time, the Bible’s teachings became more and more clear to us as we read in all parts of Scripture, but at first we did not believe in eternal hell.
Third, people do not talk about “what types of bodies the lost will be resurrected in” because Scripture does not explain that part in detail. What we do know is what Jesus Himself said in John 5:25–29:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment (John 5:25–29).
Jesus makes no distinction between the types of resurrections, or of the bodies, of the righteous and the wicked. The difference between them is what they receive. The righteous receive LIFE, the wicked receive judgment. “Resurrection” is a physical word, not a spiritual one—not a word describing the new birth, in other words. It is a word describing the body coming to life for re-connection with one’s spirit which has been kept by God during death. When the person is resurrected for judgment, there is nothing to suggest that those resurrection bodies are any different from those of the righteous. Again, the difference between the two groups is the destination, or what they receive.
The nature of hell is not something we can fathom or intuit. It is entirely based on God and His sovereign justice. The fact that I may recoil from the idea of eternal hell, for example, does not in any way determine its true nature or endurance. Hell is not corrective or intended to teach a lesson. It is the natural consequence of our being innately dead in sin and unable to please God in any way (Rom 3:9–18 and Eph 2:3)—and it is a PREVENTABLE outcome! It is not about deeds but about unbelief and the depths of one’s enmity toward God.
Finally, I know you know us at Life Assurance Ministries enough to know that whether or not people offer financial support does not affect what we teach. We are accountable to God for the work He has given us to do, and we are under the authority of His word. What He teaches us through His living word is what we are bound to teach. We do not determine our beliefs from the teachings of theologians; we are accountable to God alone for how we handle His word. As He convicts us of His word and truth, we are under His authority to teach what we understand His word to be saying. I realize many people may not agree with the way we understand secondary doctrines, but I assure you that we are not taking our cues from supporters or from other authors or people’s reactions to Scripture. We continually pray that the Lord will keep us faithful and will teach us His word, giving us the ability to speak rightly of Him and of the reality He reveals to us through the Bible.
We answer to our Lord Jesus, and we thank Him for what He has done in your life and pray that He will continue to grow us all and to plant us deeply in His word and truth.
Your Anti-Adventist Ministry Doing the Work of the Devil
I wish to tell you what happened to me as a result of your anti-Adventist ministry.
My husband and I came to faith together, in our twenties, in the Anglican Church in South Africa in 1991, both having been raised in atheistic families.
Ten years later, in a new country, having previously become Saturday-Sabbath-observers, we joined the Adventist church because we wished to be baptized by immersion, and the Anglican Church would not as we’d both been christened as babies.
Seventeen years later, in 2017, I was part of an international non-denominational ladies’ Bible study group which was important to me as I was dealing with betrayal and slander from family members and was in need of encouragement in God’s family. Suddenly, I was privately expelled from the group, the reason being that I had “another gospel”. The leaders would not elaborate.
I was shocked as the studies we did were Biblical, and my answers were always in line with Scripture, as were everyone else’s.
Stunned and self-doubting, I phoned ministers from various denominations to check that my core understanding of the gospel was correct and was assured that my beliefs were sound.
The two group leaders finally agreed to meet with me and our Baptist pastor to see if we could resolve the matter openly. They insisted that, though I SAID I was saved by grace and gave all the right answers, I ACTUALLY was working for my salvation. They could not give examples of my errors because I “said all the right things and acted in a nice way”.
On leaving, they gave the pastor a list of your claims of what Adventists “really believe”. They had judged me according to what you wrote, even though I do not believe those things nor do any other Adventists I ever heard teaching in any of the continents where I have lived.
When I was going through personal trials, the devil kicked me while I was down, through your ministry and a couple of judgmental women.
I am sorry if you have been part of an extremist Adventist family or church, but please consider that painting everyone with a critical brush, which doesn’t apply to every believer or congregation or conference, is doing doing the work of the Accuser, and not of the Savior.
Yeshua/Jesus has restored my peace, and I wish you peace and grace too.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: I am so sorry for what you have experienced. Not knowing about the particular Bible study you were in, I can’t speak to the way they decided to deal with you, but I do not believe I would have done what they did. I am so sorry.
That being said, the reality of Adventist doctrines is hidden from “outsiders” and even from members. Since you were a convert to Adventism, I am quite certain that you never were taught the truth about their beliefs about atonement, EGW, the nature of Christ, and so forth. In fact, my experience is that people who have been Christians and have been converted into Adventism tend to hold a different worldview than do Adventists, and as the reality of Adventism becomes more and more clear, those converts become more and more dissonant.
The reality of Adventism is that, because they hold EGW to be the fulfillment of the “gift of prophecy” and place her in the center of their Fundamental Beliefs, this fact alone means that she is like a “secret door” that, when opened, reveals all of her writings that are still considered valid and part of her legacy. All of her writings—even her earliest and most-suppressed ones—are still part of her opus, and they have colored (and continue to color) the beliefs and practices of Adventism, even though the individual Adventists may have no idea whatsoever that she is the foundation of the way they think about Scripture and holy living.
Again, I can understand your HUGE confusion and anger and the feeling of being judged for something that is not YOU. I am more than sorry, and I believe that you were likely treated in ways that were hurtful and destructive. I am so very sorry.
Nevertheless, Adventism is not benign—in fact, it is not Christian at the core. That does not mean that YOU are not a Christian at the core; it just means that, as has happened with SO many other Christians before you, you were deceived into an organization that masqueraded as Christian when, in fact, it is not.
In the big picture, God has protected you by revealing this dissonance to you about Adventism. I am not, I repeat, defending that Bible study or their treatment of you. I do not know their underlying beliefs or denominational affiliation, and I believe their reaction to your Adventism was perhaps lacking in understanding of the way Adventism had influenced you. Yet I do agree with their assessment of Adventism itself. They just lost sight of YOU in the process, and I am so, so sorry.
I am going to send you a link that addresses the underlying framework of Adventism and how it is different from classic evangelical Christianity. I hope you will take the time to watch it and to ask the Lord to show you what you need to know, anchoring you in truth and reality for His glory.
Please feel free to email me anytime. I resonate with your reaction more than you know.
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