If we’re talking more broadly about the Lake of Fire, I feel it’s appropriate to post another entry from my defense of UR at the other forum. So here we go:
The passages I’m discussing in this post are sort of the “clincher” for a fair number of people. They are both in Revelation, passages that describe Hell as a “Lake of Fire.” The first, Revelation 14:9-11, reads thus:
*Then another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.” *
The second is in Revelation 20:10, and reads thus:
And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
I have seen these passages approached in various ways by different Universalists (and even by non-Universalists). But I think a little discussion of Revelation as a whole is in order. Revelation, from beginning to end, is a divine vision full of symbols and prophetic imagery. The first three chapters are letters to the churches of Asia Minor, and after that, John experiences some kind of eschatological vision. We have beasts and giant women and dragons and all sorts of other things. And the vast majority of it is symbolic. Almost all of it is prophetic imagery.
We do not really expect to see a giant beast come out of the sea, or one come from the lamb, or a giant woman with a star crown, or another giant woman named Babylon whoring herself out while riding a beast, or any of that. And I think if pressed, MOST of us in this thread would say we don’t expect people to literally be thrown into a lake of fire. The lake itself is symbolic for the reality of Hell–a circumstance of being separated from the grace of God. Most would probably express the idea that the “Mark of the Beast” is as symbolic as the “Name of the Beast” and that’s as symbolic as the Beast itself. And this is where we begin.
Now, I’ve gotten into trouble, mostly with premillennial dispensationalists, for arguing from this angle. I had one guy say, “Yeah, yeah, nothing is literal anymore!” and go on to question whether I thought the Gospels themselves were “literal.” And, yes, of course the Gospels are literal–but the parables aren’t. They’re symbolic stories. And Revelation is a symbolic vision. This is basic stuff, but I want to emphasize that I hold this perspective, and a lot of what I will say comes from this perspective, and most of historic Christianity has held this perspective.
Throughout Revelation, one finds references to the Old Testament prophets. Some have counted well over a hundred of them and some rather fewer, depending on how unambiguous one insists they must be. But the passages in question have in common an Old Testament reference that I find rather interesting. It comes from Isaiah 34:9-10, which reads as follows:
Its streams will be turned into pitch,
And its loose earth into brimstone,
And its land will become burning pitch.
It will not be quenched night or day;
Its smoke will go up forever.
From generation to generation it will be desolate;
None will pass through it forever and ever.
This is a prophecy about Edom, one of Israel’s great enemies. According to the prophecy, God will burn it up so badly that no one will pass through it forever and, indeed, that its smoke will never cease to rise. It will not be quenched, we are told, night or day. This is the same sort of language we find in the Lake of Fire, and as far as I can see, it’s being used for the same sort of purpose. How does Isaiah use this language? Is he speaking “literally” here? Is he really trying to convey the idea that Edom will never stop burning, that the land will burn and not be passed through “forever and ever”?
Of course not.
All of this language is used to say something, not about the duration of judgment, but about its magnitude. Isaiah doesn’t want to convey anything at all about how long it will last, but rather about how intense it will be. Are we to believe that John has borrowed this language, this imagery, in order to convey something utterly different? It seems doubtful to me. And for me, I could end it there. We already know the judgment will be awful. We know it will be destructive. We know it will utterly ruin those that face it. Universalists and non-Universalists agree on all those things. What we do not agree on is whether it will be eternal or forever or irrevocable. And none of that seems to be what John is trying to convey through his use of this language.
In the words of the late, great Billy Mays, “But wait–there’s more!”
Revelation, for all its symbolism, for all its sometimes esoteric visions, tells a story that really isn’t all that hard to understand. The Devil and his agents are pitted against God and His, and the former has control over two major groups of people: “the nations” and “the kings of the Earth.” Sure, there’s a remnant from the nations that’s taken out and saved, but the nations as a whole and the kings of the Earth are unequivocally the enemies of God. Every time they show up anywhere in the book, they are God’s enemies. They fornicate with the Whore of Babylon, worship the Beast and his image, and all sorts of other nasty things. They’re the bad guys.
Well, until the end of the book.
At some point, presumably after they’re thrown into the Lake of Fire (since they aligned themselves with the Beast in 19:19), we suddenly find the Kings of the Earth coming into the Holy City. What’s more, we find the nations being healed by the leaves from the Tree of Life. What’s even MORE, the nations are walking by the light of the Holy City. The ending of this book has those that were the enemies of God for the entire book, till the bitter end, finding a much happier ending than the “forever” language of the Lake would anticipate.
Now, there are other possible ways to understand this rather striking turnabout. The most common seems to be that this is a special subset of the kings and nations that weren’t hostile to God. But to insist upon that is, of course, to insist that without any discussion, John has redefined his terms. These groups are uniformly condemned and then uniformly saved. He doesn’t speak in terms of remnants, or parts, or anything like that in the relevant sections (and the fact that he does in other sections says that he could have if he wanted; he was not averse to “remnant” language).
Another possibility sometimes suggested is that these are new kings and new nations, but is that what John suggests by having them come in from outside the city (21:24)? It doesn’t seem to be. No, this seems, unless we’re willing to do some strange exegesis, to be the same group that he’s been talking about this whole time. Only this is that group reconciled at some point after the judgment and the Lake of Fire. And that can only mean one thing: that the Lake of Fire, while a terrible destination, is not the final one for those that God has set out to reconcile.
And so the end of the Book brings with it the hope of a new world, a world in which God’s purposes are fulfilled, His justice complete, His wrath spent, and His salvation brought to all. The story of Scripture–Creation, Fall, Redemption, Salvation–is brought to its intended conclusion here, and as an earlier proponent of UR wrote, “All God’s enemies shall perish, not that they cease to exist, but cease to be enemies.”
