Here’s an article that might be of interest:
The God Who Punishes: Universalism & Matthew 25:46
Regarding the Sheep and Goats parable, Nicholas Ahern writes, “For the most part I find the universalist interpretation of this text rather strained so my intent is to offer a constructive critique that will hopefully add some light instead of heat.”
Sonia
Of course, Scripture including prophecy, will appear ‘strained’ when interpreted via the Western (as opposed to ancient Jewish) hermeneutic.
“Western ideas of prophecy involve prediction and fulfillment. The Hebrew idea of prophecy is a pattern that is repeated, multiple fulfillments with one ultimate fulfillment. Each of the multiple fulfillments is both a type of, and a lesson on, the ultimate fulfillment.”
moriel.org/Sermons/Online/Fu … rch_a.html
Here is an example: "When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
This is referencing Hosea 11:1-2
“When Israel was a youth I loved him,
And out of Egypt I called My son.
The more they called them,
The more they went from them;
They kept sacrificing to the Baals
And burning incense to idols”
But that interpretation of Hosea does not appear “strained” at all—certainly not in the sense intended in the article. It is consistent (not inconsistent or strained) with the typology of Israel being called out of Egypt in the Exodus. Jesus as the true Israel is rescued from the clutches of Herod (like Pharaoh), and he comes out of Egypt unharmed. The fact that there is a point where the analogy breaks down (Egypt was a refuge in the Messiah’s exodus/escape) is to be expected when considering how the New Testament writers generally handled the Old Testament. But it doesn’t turn the prophecy on its head. In both cases, the narrative has a clear directionality to it that is consistent, and redemptive.
In the article by Nick Ahern, the first “hurdle” given is that Matthew 25:46 is non-redemptive, containing no hint of the “strained” application to UR. What you suggest might be an “ultimate fulfillment” of this passage, would therefore be radically inconsistent with an initial fulfillment. It would mean that the stark non-reconciliation depicted in the scene would later be superseded by its opposite concept. Appealing to a Hebrew mindset offers no sanction for such an inversion. Fulfillments of prophecy, whether partial, complete, initial, intermediary or final, are always consistent with the prophecy. The device is not characterized by contradiction at all.
I didn’t have the energy to read the whole thing just now, but I wonder what he’d have to say to Ezekiel concerning the permanence of Sodom’s annihilation?
I expect he might say that the point of repopulating Sodom and her daughter cities to the South, and Samaria to the North, and causing them to flourish alongside Israel, is for the shame and disgrace of Israel having been even worse than they, as the text says. It’s not about postmortem judgment, it’s about historical fortunes in the land.
When Jude draws reference to Sodom, etc. in v7, and when Peter does also, in the parallel of 2 Peter 2:6, it is clear that the “example of what is going to happen to the ungodly” and “example [of] undergoing a punishment of eternal fire,” is harkening the destruction event of Genesis, not the later prophecy of Ezekiel. Peter is quite explicit that he’s referring to when God “condemned them to extinction,” (v6), and adament that such people on the day of judgment (v9) will be “destroyed in their destruction” (v12), just like wild animals destined to be caught and destroyed.
So on the Evangelical Conditionalist view there is no claim that Sodom as a city was “annihilated,” never again to be inhabited. Rather, wicked inhabitants at a certain point in history had God’s firey judgment rain down upon them, which has become a vivid example (to this very day in fact) of what kind of fate, according to Peter and Jude, will befall all the wicked/unsaved at the very end.
As I go through the article, I’ll comment on specific statements.
“The first major hurdle for universalists is that the text is non-redemptive. Nowhere in the context of the entire parable is there any prima facie hint of post-mortem salvation.”
*The second hurdle at least for Talbott is that his argument is self-refuting. He cites an example of “eternal” judgment, found in the book of Jude (v. 7). *
Aionios is a word that references that which is beyond site, beyond understanding, having to do with the realm of God, from God; it is often translated as “eternal” which to me confuses the meaning of the word. It is not usually meant to convey a quantity of time, but the thing having a sourse that is not of this world, but from God. Punishment passages are often couched in hyperbole and metaphor, why? Because they are meant to be understood emotionally, not technically. When I warn my children of punishment, I rarely if ever mention that it is for their good. And I put it in terms that are drastic, even using hyperbole to get my point across. It’s emotional language, not technical.
To me, the significant wording that is often overlooked is “Gentiles” and “the least of these my brothers”; is Jesus contrasting “Jew and Gentile”, “his followers vs. non-followers”, or “poor, sick, marginalized vs. rich, healthy, majority”? The context of Matthew to me leans towards “Jew and Gentile”. If it was in Luke, I’d think the “poor vs. rich” focus would be brought out. And John might pull out the “believer vs. unbeliever” perspective. But Jesus does not explain which focus He intends. In fact, I think He used this wording so that we might encounter the passage and it be a warning to us of how we treat, as a nation and as an individual, the marginalized among us, especially the Jews, other believers, and the poor.
Sadly, misinterpreting this passae to be about post-mortem salvation, those who are ultimately reconciled and those who are not, nullifies the power of this passage to call anyone to repentance. Believers say, “I’m good because Jesus saved me.” And unbelievers don’t care what it says because they don’t believe anyhow. I believe Jesus meant this passage to warn of how we believers, especially us Gentile believers, treat the Jews, other believers, and the poor and marginalized in our communities. And it is a statement against “nations” to be careful how they do the same. Nations that set themselves against the Jews, Christians, or the poor will suffer the judgment of God, eternal fire. But nations that purposefully protect and look after the marginalized, the minorities, the Jews and Christians especially, will be blessed by God, rewarded with eternal life.
Well, there is another point that turns the prophecy on its head rather more obviously and importantly than the Son being sent to Egypt to escape a wicked king: God was complaining that Israel whom He called out of Egypt keeps sinning by worshiping the Baals no matter how hard He calls them, which is why this is part of a prophesy that God will call death and hades to kill them.
(After which they will repent and be restored to God. 
But that’s a different scriptural puzzle of strange application by a canonical author.)
Matthew probably had in mind one of the rabbinic precepts that the Messiah will fulfill all scriptural prophecies even if He does so in a different way than rebel Israel did. But he also has a tendency to point to prophecies in a way that an event in his current history somehow connects to God and/or the Messiah saving rebel Israel from her sins. His application of Rachel weeping for her rebel child Ephraim, slain by God for his sins, to the slaughter of the innocent children of Bethlehem by Herod, doesn’t seem to have anything to do with being a Messianic prophecy at all, for example; but God told Jeremiah that He would comfort Rachel by giving her back slain Ephraim, now repentant for his sins, and that this wondrous deed would be accomplished by something new God would be doing involving a woman encompassing a man.
Anyway, I realize linguistic arguments by themselves about the end of Matt 25 can only go so far as opening a technical possibility of the terms not meaning some kind of hopeless punishment. That’s why I mainly focus on the narrative and thematic contexts of the judgment itself, including its connection to a prophecy from Ezekiel 34. It’s an expectation reversal test, like many parables in the Synoptics, maybe the ultimate test: will the reader or hearer interpret it what happens to the baby goats, the least of Christ’s flock there on the scene, the way the baby goats expected other leasts of Christ’s flock to be treated?–for which the baby goats are now going to be punished in ways similar to the other leasts of Christ’s flock.
It’s important not to interpret the judgment like a baby goat.
Since the first hurdle can be and should be overcome, that would undo a lot of Nicholas’ argument: the narrative and thematic contexts lead us to expect that if we are mature members of the flock of Christ we ought not to think the punishment of the least of the flock of Christ hopeless. When the baby goats are put into the condition of being excluded, imprisoned, dirty, hungry, thirsty and sick, we ought to regard the baby goats the way the Good Shepherd and His loyal flock do.
(Apparently no one ever told Nicholas about that back during his several years as an evangelical universalist, but it’s admittedly an obscure point.)
So if the terms allow for eonian punishment to mean something ultimately different in duration than the eonian life, despite the two terms being used in close comparative contrasting context, then that allows the whole interpretation to fit together cleanly. And Nicholas acknowledges, although he doesn’t bring out all the salient details, that eonian can refer to something eternal and something definitely less than eternal in close comparative contrasting context, when he refers to Romans 16:25-27.
After that, the question of whether {kolasis} refers culturally to remedial punishment by means of an agricultural metaphor or otherwise, is of not much importance. Paul certainly uses the agricultural metaphor in a explicitly hopeful punitive context at Romans 11; Jesus isn’t so obviously hopeful when he uses the metaphor in GosJohn’s final discourse; neither one use a term translated into Greek as {kolasis}. The term is used for remedial punishment handed out by the Sanhedrin in Acts 4:21; not clearly so (at least) for the angels and the unjust in 2 Peter 2:4,9; perfect love casts out fear for fear has kolas-ing in 1 John 4:18, which has some relevance to the fear of the day of judging, in that those who fear are not perfected in love but if we say we love God and hate our brother then we are a liar for God Himself is love and first loves us etc.
So the comparative usage argument from New Testament scripture is ambiguous at best; and even if the term was culturally used for remedial punishment (as the scriptures do evidence at least once), that doesn’t mean the authors were inspired to use it that way. (Similarly, neither were they necessarily inspired to use {timoria} as hopeless punishment even if the culture around them did; they might have meant the unjust come to value justice again, rather the way I like to quip that retributive punishment that doesn’t lead to re-tribution, is rather a broken meaning. )
What the ambiguity allows however is for context to indicate the usage, and unlike Nicholas (and most commenters) I add up the contexts to indicate the usage: we ought to interpret to be remedial kolasis (as the scriptures do allow the term to mean indisputably at least once elsewhere), on pain of being only baby goats ourselves.
I’m not sure about Dr. T, but Nicholas seems to miss the fairly explicit point of Jude 7 (and its Petrine parallels) that the inhabitants of Sodom were not annihilated but are still awaiting judgment along with the rebel angels. So his argument here looks very self-refuting, if Sodom and Gomorrah are meant as a specimen of the punishment of eonian fire: it didn’t annihilate them after all. They aren’t wiped out, they’re still around, and Jesus says they will be raised at the judgment to condemn people who had advantages which would surely have led Sodom to repent! – advantages which Sodom will someday in fact have. If God can rescue Israel like snatching a firebrand from a blaze after being overthrown the way God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, God can still rescue Sodom and Gomorrah like snatching a firebrand from a blaze. (Amos 4:11. Granted, due to their infidelity God was about to punish rebel Israel again, but there would be less than no point to that comparison if S&G couldn’t be rescued by God after being overthrown by God.)
Ezekiel 16:44-55 concludes a long description of many super-punishments coming to rebel Israel, for being even worse sinners than Sodom (or Samaria), with the prophesy that Israel will suffer the same destruction and captivity into which He sent rebel Sodom. The goal of this however is for Israel to become ashamed of her sins and to become a comfort to similarly punished Sodom and Samaria. Afterward God will not only free rebel Israel from captivity but also Sodom and Samaria, returning them to their former estate. Non-universalists whether ETC or anni routinely insist that Sodom was utterly killed with no survivors (except Lot, his wife and his daughters), and indeed that’s the thrust of OT and NT scriptures when talking about Sodom; but they were sent into the captivity mentioned in Jude (and the Petrine epistles). That’s the captivity and destruction God shall rescue rebel Jews and rebel Gentiles from, reconciling them with each other and with Himself, establishing a new covenant with them unlike the one Israel broke (the shame and confusion of which will ever after be a lesson to Israel for remembrance after God makes peace with them). Which is why God says in Ez 16:42, “So I shall calm My fury against you, and my jealousy will depart from you, and I shall be pacified and angry no more.” (There are some verbal similarities between the Synoptic translations of Jesus, or what Jesus said in Greek, when talking about the coming resurrection of Sodom, and this section of Ezekiel 16, too.)
So: not only not annihilated by the eonian fire, but prophesied to return, repent and be reconciled to God. Jude for whatever reason doesn’t mention that, but just because he doesn’t go on to the end of the story testified to elsewhere doesn’t mean the story of Sodom is already over. Which is a principle that annihilationists at least ought to be prepared to grant in practice here, since they haven’t been annihilated yet!
(And since they are presented as a specimen of how God will deal with rebel Gentiles, so also for the wandering angels by the same token, which all kinds of non-universalists grant when they think it counts in their favor at least. )
Since Nicholas mentions Clement of Rome in passing, the first Epistle of Clement (the 2nd being typically ignored as spurious) is appealed to by universalists as well as by ECTists or annihilationists. Clement’s remarks about the destruction of Sodom do not mention their eternal ongoing punishment afterward, nor strictly speak of their resurrection later, but this negative evidence should not be regarded as positive evidence for annihilation since taken by itself it would mean (as in indeed some have tried to claim) that Clement believed only in a partial resurrection of the good alone, which is not usually a doctrine claimed by annihilationists and for good reason (since among other things the scriptures testify clearly enough that the evildoers of Sodom were not in fact annihilated by the eonian fire, whatever might happen to them later).
On the other hand, in the same work Clement also declares (possibly citing Isaiah on this point, through whom God testified concerning the goal of His burning war against those who go out against Him with thorns and thistles) that God, whom he calls the all-merciful and beneficent Father, is free from wrath toward all His creatures and does His most abundant good toward those who have fled for refuge to His compassions (the goal of God in burning up the thorns and thistles of those who go out to war against Him, toward the beginning of Isaiah 27, mentioned even in context of God slaying Leviathan!)
From this and perhaps some other things, Tyrannius Rufinus (the principle Latin translator of Origen toward the end of the 4th century), in his controversy with Jerome (himself previously a follower of Origen and who was competing with Rufinus in properly translating him), complains that Jerome himself believes as Rufinus also apparently does that Clement of Rome was guilty of the same error as Origen, by which from the list of others who hold to this “error” he must mean universal salvation since many of the names would and did reject as errors the other teachings Origen was accused with. i.e., Jerome and Rufinus (neither one universalists themselves anymore, at least in public) both agree Clement of Rome was a universalist like other men they admired, both contemporary and among the ancients: Clement of Alexandria (Origen’s own teacher), Gregory Pontus (aka Saint Gregory of Neocaesaria, aka St. Gregory Thamaturgus the wonder-worker, honored as an apostolic teacher in the mid-late 200s, who visited Origen and returned converted to Christianity), Gregory Nazianzus (famous relative of the equally famous Gregory Nyssus, champion of Chalcedonian orthodoxy and a universalist), and Didymus the Blind (a well-known universalist whom Athanasius nominated to Origen’s seat as leader of the Alexandria catechetical school, whom Jerome so adored that he called him the Seer instead).
Rufinus’ sarcastic complaint was that Jerome was willing to overlook their “error” out of love and respect for the deepness of their faith in Christ, but wanted to condemn Origen for the same “error” whom Jerome himself had until recently followed and honored!
At any rate, Clement of Rome is not an especially powerful name to appeal to on this matter, since we possess only one very late copied text of his genuine epistle and otherwise have only occasional citations from other Patristics to work from – some of whom thought he should be ranked among Christian universalists famous to them in their day.
While Nicholas’ fourth hurdle is undermined by the narrative and thematic context of the preceding judgment (i.e. we had better expect the story goes on hopefully for the baby goats or else we are interpreting what happens to the least of Christ’s flock the way that the least of Christ’s flock expected non-salvation for the least of Christ’s flock!), and so need not be further addressed here, I do appreciate that he at least tries to appeal to some of the thematic contexts, though he limits it merely to social justice and those who do or do not care about fulfilling social justice.
Having said that, annihilation could not possibly fulfill social justice, since it results in the annihilation of the person breaking social justice, thus authoritatively breaking social justice with divine power rather than mending it somehow! A punishment that affirms what the baby goats wanted, except against themselves, would certainly be an ironic reversal of expectation, but at the cost of agreeing that the baby goats were correct in principle to utterly break social justice!–just wrong about the precise application of it.
The mature flock knows, by contrast, that the Good Shepherd expects them to work with Him in calling those still fondling their sins in prison outside the New Jerusalem to slake their thirst and wash their robes in the freely given water of life, and enter the never-closed gates of the city to eat of the log of life and be healed by its leaves.
(Nicholas’ appeal to eonian fire in other portions of Matthew, is also worth addressing but beyond the scope of my reply.)