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Chapter 0
by George Sidney Hurd
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The portrayal of the sin bearing Servant, beginning in Isaiah 52:13 and continuing through chapter 53, is central to understanding what Christ accomplished upon the cross. This is where God revealed that the Messiah would Himself fulfill that which was merely foreshadowed in the sacrifices offered for the sins of the people according to the Law. It is the only place in all the Old Testament that clearly reveals that the Messiah would Himself be the sacrificial Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (Jn 1:29). It was previously alluded to when God told Abraham to offer up his only unique son Isaac, whom he loved, as a sacrifice.[1] However, here we see for the first time in detail how God laid upon Christ the iniquity of us all as a sin offering, thereby satisfying His immutable justice in order that He might be just and at the same time justify ungodly sinners like us (Isa 53:6,10-11). It was from this very passage that Philip preached the gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:28-35).
Arguments presented against the Penal Substitutionary Nature of the Sin Bearing Servant’s Suffering
1) Isaiah was wrong
The penal substitutionary nature of the sin bearing Servant’s suffering and death is so evident, as we shall see, that most opponents of Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement avoid the passage altogether. One exception is Gregory Boyd in his two-volume book The Crucifixion of the Warrior God. He first approaches the passage by saying that it most likely refers to the nation of Israel, rather than Christ, and that the New Testament authors simply applied it to Christ.[2] I would just add that Jesus also applied Isaiah 53 to Himself (Luke 22:37).
This is not a new argument. In order to oppose the Christians who saw Isaiah 53 as referring to Christ, the Jews also began to say that the suffering Servant was representative of the people of Israel, rather than the Messiah as formerly taught by the rabbis.[3] Origen, countering this claim, wisely said:
“For if the people, according to them, are the subject of the prophecy, how is the man said to be led away to death because of the iniquities of the people of God, unless he be a different person from that people of God? And who is this person save Jesus Christ, by whose stripes they who believe on Him are healed...?” [4]
Acknowledging that Isaiah portrayed God as being causally involved in the suffering Servant’s affliction, Boyd then, in so many words, says that Isaiah was simply mistaken. He said:
“Isaiah’s portrait of Yahweh directly afflict (sic) this servant is a divine accommodation to Isaiah’s fallen and culturally conditioned view of God.” [5]
In order to maintain his “cruciform hermeneutic,” Boyd must reject Isaiah’s portrayal of God as afflicting the suffering Servant, attributing it to Isaiah’s primitive Mid-Eastern mindset. I have found that most Liberals and Progressives respond in a similar manner when pressed for an explanation of what is actually being conveyed in Isaiah 53.
So, in order to detract from the obvious penal substitutionary language of Isaiah 53, Boyd first calls into question whether or not Isaiah 53 should have been applied to Christ, and then he proceeds to reject all of Isaiah’s statements which depict God as being causally involved in Christ’s suffering.
2) Punished “by” our Sins – not “for” our Sins
I have found that most opponents of Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement, if they mention Isaiah 53 at all, totally avoid any references which indicate that it was God’s will that the Servant suffer. Instead, they lift portions of verses out of their context and nuance them in such a manner as to give the impression that they only speak of what men did to Christ, rather than what God, in Christ, did for us. One will often hear them partially quote Isaiah 53:4-5 in the following manner:
“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But He was wounded for (because of) our transgressions, He was bruised for (because of) our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.” (Isa 53:4-5)
Often leaving out the first part of this passage which, as we shall see, has reference to the substitutional aspect of Christ’s atoning sacrifice, as well as the latter part that speaks of the penal aspect of the atonement, they partially quote it so as to say: “We thought He was being punished by God. But in reality, He was punished by us.”
I wasn’t able to find any article justifying the rendering of the text “because of” instead of “for” until a friend shared a link to an article written by Santo Calarco in the Clarion Journal entitled, Punished “for” or “by” our sins. Calarco says:
“The Hebrew preposition translated “for” is “min”. It does not mean “for” but “from” or “out of” or “because of”.
However, in the first place, the causal use of min, “because of,” is just one of the many uses of the word. It is also commonly used in the substitutionary sense, “for,” “on behalf of” or “for the sake of,” just as we see it rendered in nearly every translation of Isaiah 53. For example, in 1Samuel 7:8 it says: “cry unto the LORD our God for (min) us.” Or in Ruth 1:13, “it grieves me very much for your sakes (min) that the hand of the LORD is gone out against me.” As with most prepositions, their meanings greatly vary, being determined by the context in which they appear. And, as I will demonstrate, the context of the sin bearing Servant passage in Isaiah 53 is clearly that of substitution.
Even if one were to understand min here in the causal sense as “because of our transgressions and iniquities” it would still apply in the substitutionary sense, considering the fact that it was because of our sins that God’s justice required a substitutionary sacrifice.
What min does not mean is what the title of Calarco’s article states and what he wants it to mean. The preposition min never means “by” in the sense of instrumentality. In order for it to read as “by” in the sense of instrumentality, it would need the Hebrew preposition be, as in, “lest you die by (be) our hand” (Jer 11:21), or ayth: “this work was done by (ayth) our God.” (Neh 6:16).
Calarco cites the New English Translation in order to demonstrate that the translators of that version understood min in Isaiah 53:4-5 as “because of.” However, the translators included an explanatory interpolation that makes it clear that they understood Christ’s suffering as being substitutionary in nature, rather than Him having been merely victimized by wicked men. The NET translation reads:
“...we thought he was being punished, attacked by God, and afflicted for something he had done. 5 He was wounded because of our rebellious deeds, crushed because of our sins; he endured punishment that made us well; because of his wounds we have been healed.” (Isa 53:4-5 NET)
The NET Bible’s explanatory note says concerning these verses: “The words ‘for something he had done’ are supplied in the translation for clarification. ...he suffered because of his identification with them, not simply because he was a special target of divine anger.” They added that explanatory phrase to clarify that the emphasis of the passage is that the people mistakenly thought He was suffering for some evil thing that He Himself had done, when in reality He was suffering for/because of our sins, not because of His own. So not even the translation which Calarco quotes supports his claim that the text is saying that Christ merely died at the hands of sinners, rather than dying for, or in the place of, sinners.
No one would deny that Christ suffered and died at the hands of wicked men, but that is not the primary message of Isaiah 53. As we shall see, what the text is saying throughout is that Christ suffered and died as our substitute according to the will of God (Isa 53:10-11; Acts 2:23). The people thought that God was punishing Him for His own sins when in fact He was punished for, or because of, our sins. Our sins made it necessary for Him to suffer and die in our place in order to justify the many (Isa 53:11).
Arguments for the Penal Substitutionary Nature of the Sin Bearing Servant’s Suffering
1) “He shall sprinkle many nations” (Isa 52:15)
The sprinkling of the blood of the sin offering for the expiation of sins was an essential part of the Levitical sacrificial system. If someone sinned, they were to offer a lamb without blemish which was slain in their place in order to make expiation for their sin (Lev 5:5-10). Then once a year on Yom Kippur, the blood of the sacrificial animal was taken within the Most Holy Place and sprinkled upon the mercy seat, thereby making expiation for the children of Israel (Lev 16:15-16).
Here Isaiah says of the sin bearing Servant that His blood will sprinkle not only Israel, but “many nations.” He was the sacrificial Lamb of God that once-and-for-all took away the sins of the world (Jn 1:29). Peter alludes to Christ as the sin bearing Servant when he said that we were set apart “for the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1Peter 1:2). The author of Hebrews also made reference to the sprinkling of Christ’s blood saying:
“to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.” (Heb 12:24)
Christ’s blood speaks better things than that of Abel in that Abel’s blood cried out for justice, whereas Christ’s blood brought us justification.
There is some debate concerning whether “sprinkle” is the correct reading, since the Greek Septuagint Translation (LXX) says “astonish.” However, without going into detail, most scholars believe that the LXX misread the Hebrew word which meant “sprinkle” since it is nearly identical to the word for “astonish.” [6] Two other ancient Greek translations from the Hebrew, that of Theodotion (150 AD) and Aquila (130 AD), both read “sprinkle” and the 3rd century Syriac Peshitta reads “purify” which is what the sprinkling accomplishes.
Also, in the Epistle of Barnabas (70 to 135 AD) Barnabas mentions Christ’s blood of sprinkling, in the context of the Isaiah sin bearing Servant passage. [7] He seems to spiritually apply the sprinkling of the blood of Christ among the nations as being fulfilled through the ministry of the Apostles who spread the gospel beyond Israel to the nations. [8]
So Isaiah 52:15 speaks clearly of the sacrificial blood of a substitute cleansing the nations of their sins. Even if one were to go with the reading “astonish,” as a few translating committees did, it would not in any way undermine the penal and substitutionary nature of the sin bearing Servant passage. People of all nations throughout the centuries have been astonished upon hearing of all that which Christ the suffering Servant underwent on our behalf.
2) “He bore the sin of many” (Isa 53:11-12,4)
To the Jewish reader the meaning of this statement would be unmistakably that of penal substitution. The expression “to bear (nasa) one’s sin, iniquity, or guilt” was a legal term, meaning to suffer the penalty and consequences of one’s sin (Lev 24:15; 5:1; 7:18).
However, the Law provided for sin offerings in which an animal was sacrificed for the expiation of sins as a substitute, thereby removing their guilt before God:
“...God has given it (the sin offering) to you to bear the guilt of the congregation, to make atonement (expiation/propitiation) for them before the Lord?” (Lev 10:17)
In this manner, God made provision in which the sin and guilt of the offenders could be laid upon an innocent victim given as a sin offering, and in this way the animal sacrificed bore the guilt as a substitute instead of the offender, thereby expiating the sins of the people. On Yom Kippur, the Day of Expiation, the High Priest would lay the sins of the children of Israel upon the scapegoat and the goat would bear their iniquities to an uninhabited land, thereby indicating that the Lord would remove their sins as far as the east is from the west (Lev 16:20-22; Psa 103:12; Heb 10:16-18).
While it was not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins, it foreshadowed the sin bearing Servant, Jesus Christ, who would vicariously take away the sins of the world once-and-for-all (Heb 10:4-10,14).
So that which was only foreshadowed in the Levitical sacrifices, Jesus Christ, the sin bearing Servant, fulfilled, bearing our sins. Just as the sins of the people were laid upon the animal, “the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isa 53:6), and He bore our sins and iniquities in our stead (Isa 53:11-12). Peter applied this to Christ saying: “who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness — by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24). The Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures could not have made the penal substitutionary nature of Christ’s suffering and death any clearer!
The opponents of Penal Substitutionary Atonement often appeal to the LXX in verse 10, as we shall see. However, on the issue of Christ vicariously bearing our sins, the LXX is just as clear, saying in verse 11, “He shall bear their sins” (τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν αὐτὸς ἀνοίσει), and in verse 12, “he bore the sins of many” (καὶ αὐτὸς ἁμαρτίας πολλῶν ἀνήνεγκεν). The LXX is even stronger for penal substitution in verse 4 saying, “He bears our sins” (οὗτος τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν φέρειι), instead of “He has born our griefs.”
3) “It pleased the Lord to bruise Him” – “an offering for sin”
“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise (daka) Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.” (Isa 53:10)
“But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised (daka) for our iniquities.” (Isa 53:5)
Here in verse 10, we see that, not only did the Lord allow the sin bearing Servant to be bruised or crushed (daka) for our iniquities, but that it was actually His desire to bruise Him in order to make His soul an offering for sins. The word “pleased” in Hebrew is chapets, which is the same word used earlier in Isaiah 1:11 where the Lord said: “I do not delight (chapets) in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.” The reason why He did not delight in them is stated in Hebrews 10:4: “it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.” Those sacrifices only foreshadowed the once-and-for-all sacrifice of Christ for the sins of the world. Continuing in verse 5 of Hebrews 10, it tells us what the Lord did desire:
“Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: ‘Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me. 6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure. 7 Then I said, 'Behold, I have come — in the volume of the book it is written of Me --
to do Your will, O God.’ 8 Previously saying, "Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin You did not desire, nor had pleasure in them"(which are offered according to the law), 9 then He said, ‘Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God.’ ...10 By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Heb 10:5-10)
What God desired was not animal sacrifices, but rather He prepared a body for God the Son to become incarnate in order to offer Himself in our place as the once-and-for-all sacrifice for sins. It is by that will that we have been sanctified. It is not the life and ministry of Jesus that is here being referred to, although He was well-pleasing to the Father in all things. Rather, what is said to have pleased God here was the substitutionary death of Christ, giving His body as the once-and for-all sacrifice for sin. This is what Jesus meant when He cried out in Gethsemane, “not my will but Your will be done” (Matt 26:42; Luke 22:42).
While it was wicked men and not God that afflicted Christ, we see that Christ’s suffering and death was nevertheless according to God’s will. As Peter explained to the Jews on the day of Pentecost:
“Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death.” (Acts 2:23)
The wording of Isaiah 53:10 is particularly offensive to the opponents of Christ’s penal substitutionary atonement. As I previously pointed out, many of them would simply say that Isaiah was mistaken.
Others, like Keith Giles, appeal to the Greek LXX rendering of verse 10. The LXX is generally similar to other translations based upon the Masoretic Hebrew text except in verse 10 where the LXX reads entirely different. Instead of reading, “it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin,” the LXX reads:
“The Lord also is pleased to purge him from his stroke. If you can give an offering for sin your soul shall see a long-lived seed.”
Keith Giles gives a couple of reasons why he thinks we should not go with the Hebrew text, but the LXX Greek text, saying:
“Evangelicals...have no problem whatsoever using the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Old Testament scriptures in their English Bibles. Why? Because even though it was created by Jewish rabbis almost exclusively to debunk Christianity, it contains verses like this in Isaiah 53:10:..
This verse [and several others in the Masoretic text] suggest that God was the one who caused Jesus to suffer on the cross. This makes Evangelicals happy because they embrace the doctrine of Penal Substitutionary Atonement Theory.
So, what’s wrong with this verse? Well, it came a few hundred years after the birth of the Christian faith and it radically re-writes the older Septuagint text which was used and quoted by Jesus himself. [That’s right.]
The Septuagint text which pre-dates the Masoretic actually teaches us that God’s response to the crucifixion of Jesus was to “cleanse [or heal] him of the injury” and that it was not God, but ‘you’ [or ‘us’] who made him ‘a sin offering.’” [9]
According to him, we should reject the common rendering of verse 10 because our translations are all based upon the later Hebrew Masoretic text which was altered by the Jewish rabbis hundreds of years later in order to debunk Christianity. However, what he fails to mention is that the Masoretic text is practically identical to the Hebrew 1Q Isaiah scroll found in the Qumran caves near the Dead Sea in 1947, which dates back to around the same time that the LXX was compiled. The following is a comparison:
1Q Isaiah scroll:
“Yet it pleased Yahweh to bruise him. He has caused him to suffer. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his offspring. He will prolong his days, and Yahweh’s pleasure will prosper in his hand.” (Isaiah Scroll 1QIsaa)
Masoretic text:
"Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand."
LXX:
“The Lord also is pleased to purge him from his stroke. If you can give an offering for sin your soul shall see a long-lived seed.”
Whatever one might say against the Masoretic text, it certainly cannot be argued that the Jewish rabbis altered Isaiah 53:10 in order to oppose the Christian message, since it agrees with the Isaiah Dead Sea scroll which predates Christ by about 200 years. Also, it points to Christ as the suffering Messiah in a much clearer manner than the LXX.
Also, while it is true as Giles says, that Jesus and the New Testament authors frequently quoted from the Greek LXX, they can also be seen to have quoted from the Hebrew text on numerous occasions. Mike Winger points out a couple of instances where the New Testament authors favored the Hebrew over the LXX when alluding to Isaiah 53. They are as follows:
Matthew 8:17
“He took our weaknesses and bore our sicknesses.”
τας ασθενειας ημων ελαβεν και τας νοσους εβαστασεν
Isaiah 53:4 Hebrew:
“He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”
Isaiah 53:4 LXX
“He bore our sins and was grieved on our account.”
οὗτος τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν φέρει καὶ περὶ ἡμῶν ὀδυνᾶται
Matthew here favors the Hebrew text rather than the LXX. Also, Paul alludes to the Hebrew instead of the LXX in Romans 5:19.
Romans 5:19
“by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous.”
Isaiah 53:11 Hebrew:
“My righteous Servant shall justify many.”
Isaiah 53:11 LXX
“to justify the just one who serves many well.”
δικαιῶσαι δίκαιον εὖ δουλεύοντα πολλοῖς
Just as we often do today, they normally used a translation in the common language of the time, which was Koine Greek, but whenever the translation deviated from the original, they went with the original.
Much more could be said concerning the penal substitutionary nature of Isaiah 53, but due to space limitations I will just briefly comment on the phrase “an offering for sin.” What would a Jew understand by the reference to Him making His soul an offering for sin? The Hebrew word is ‘asham, and is used 33 times throughout the Old Testament referring specifically to a sin or trespass offering, usually involving the sacrifice of a spotless substitutionary lamb for the expiation of sins committed.
Jesus, as the sinless Lamb of God, offered up His soul as an offering for the sins of the world! Because of His once-and-for-all sacrifice we are now justified freely by God’s grace. To me, such an unspeakable gift brings great joy and a deep sense of gratitude. I am appalled and grieved to see so many in this generation who show nothing but contempt for such a glorious truth. I personally believe that those teachers who aggressively oppose Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement are those whom Paul referred to as “enemies of the cross of Christ” (Phil 3:18). I believe that they are in danger of becoming liable of counting the blood of the covenant by which we were sanctified as a common thing, often even saying that one could be saved even if Christ hadn’t shed His blood in our place (Heb 10:29).
In the next blog I will be considering some of the forensic motifs that are used in Scripture which demonstrate the penal aspect of the atonement. While God’s redemptive plan has restored relationships as it’s final goal, such a relationship would not be possible apart from Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement which satisfied God’s immutable justice, thereby making it possible for Him to be just and justify sinners, the objects of His love.
[1] God did this, not only to test Abraham, but primarily to emphasize that He did not require human sacrifices: that He Himself would provide the ultimate sacrificial lamb (Gen 22:8). That is why Abraham prophetically called the place on mount Moriah where he offered up Isaac “the Lord will provide”:
“And Abraham called the name of the place, The-Lord-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, ‘In the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided’” (Gen 22:14). I believe that mount Calvary, where God provided the ultimate sacrifice of Himself in the person of the Son, will be seen to have been the very same place where Abraham offered up his son Isaac.
[2] Greg Boyd says: “Though Isaiah is likely referring to the nation of Israel as Yahweh’s “suffering servant” in Isaiah 53, NT authors as well as Christian Bible interpreters throughout history have understood this servant to be a prophetic reference to the crucified Christ.” Boyd, Gregory A. The Crucifixion of the Warrior God: Volumes 1 & 2 (pp. 865-866). Fortress Press. Kindle Edition.
[3] https://www.gotquestions.org/suffering-servant-Isaiah-53.html
[4] Origen, Against Celsus, Chapter 55
[5] Boyd, Gregory A.; Boyd, Gregory A.. The Crucifixion of the Warrior God: Volumes 1 & 2 (p. 867). Fortress Press. Kindle Edition.
[6] https://textandcanon.org/part-1-the-servant-sprinkles-many-as-anointed-priest/
[7] Epistle of Barnabas, Chapter 5: “For to this end their Lord endured to deliver up His flesh to corruption that we might be sanctified through the remission of sins, which is effected by His blood of sprinkling. For it was written concerning Him… ‘He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities: with His stripes we are healed. He was brought as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb which is dumb before its shearer.”
[8] Epistle of Barnabas, Chapter 8, commenting on the typology of the sprinkling of the blood of the red heifer sacrifice in Numbers 19, Barnabas says :
“The calf is Jesus: the sinful men offering it are those who led Him to the slaughter. But now the men are no longer guilty, are no longer regarded as sinners. And the boys that sprinkle are those that have proclaimed to us the remission of sins and purification of heart. To these He gave authority to preach the Gospel, being twelve in number...”
[9] https://www.futurechurchnow.com/2021/03/11/how-evangelicals-changed-the-bible-to-support-their-beliefs-by-keith-giles/comment-page-1/
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The portrayal of the sin bearing Servant, beginning in Isaiah 52:13 and continuing through chapter 53, is central to understanding what Christ accomplished upon the cross. This is where God revealed that the Messiah would Himself fulfill that which was merely foreshadowed in the sacrifices offered for the sins of the people according to the Law. It is the only place in all the Old Testament that clearly reveals that the Messiah would Himself be the sacrificial Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (Jn 1:29). It was previously alluded to when God told Abraham to offer up his only unique son Isaac, whom he loved, as a sacrifice.[1] However, here we see for the first time in detail how God laid upon Christ the iniquity of us all as a sin offering, thereby satisfying His immutable justice in order that He might be just and at the same time justify ungodly sinners like us (Isa 53:6,10-11). It was from this very passage that Philip preached the gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:28-35).
Arguments presented against the Penal Substitutionary Nature of the Sin Bearing Servant’s Suffering
1) Isaiah was wrong
The penal substitutionary nature of the sin bearing Servant’s suffering and death is so evident, as we shall see, that most opponents of Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement avoid the passage altogether. One exception is Gregory Boyd in his two-volume book The Crucifixion of the Warrior God. He first approaches the passage by saying that it most likely refers to the nation of Israel, rather than Christ, and that the New Testament authors simply applied it to Christ.[2] I would just add that Jesus also applied Isaiah 53 to Himself (Luke 22:37).
This is not a new argument. In order to oppose the Christians who saw Isaiah 53 as referring to Christ, the Jews also began to say that the suffering Servant was representative of the people of Israel, rather than the Messiah as formerly taught by the rabbis.[3] Origen, countering this claim, wisely said:
“For if the people, according to them, are the subject of the prophecy, how is the man said to be led away to death because of the iniquities of the people of God, unless he be a different person from that people of God? And who is this person save Jesus Christ, by whose stripes they who believe on Him are healed...?” [4]
Acknowledging that Isaiah portrayed God as being causally involved in the suffering Servant’s affliction, Boyd then, in so many words, says that Isaiah was simply mistaken. He said:
“Isaiah’s portrait of Yahweh directly afflict (sic) this servant is a divine accommodation to Isaiah’s fallen and culturally conditioned view of God.” [5]
In order to maintain his “cruciform hermeneutic,” Boyd must reject Isaiah’s portrayal of God as afflicting the suffering Servant, attributing it to Isaiah’s primitive Mid-Eastern mindset. I have found that most Liberals and Progressives respond in a similar manner when pressed for an explanation of what is actually being conveyed in Isaiah 53.
So, in order to detract from the obvious penal substitutionary language of Isaiah 53, Boyd first calls into question whether or not Isaiah 53 should have been applied to Christ, and then he proceeds to reject all of Isaiah’s statements which depict God as being causally involved in Christ’s suffering.
2) Punished “by” our Sins – not “for” our Sins
I have found that most opponents of Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement, if they mention Isaiah 53 at all, totally avoid any references which indicate that it was God’s will that the Servant suffer. Instead, they lift portions of verses out of their context and nuance them in such a manner as to give the impression that they only speak of what men did to Christ, rather than what God, in Christ, did for us. One will often hear them partially quote Isaiah 53:4-5 in the following manner:
“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But He was wounded for (because of) our transgressions, He was bruised for (because of) our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.” (Isa 53:4-5)
Often leaving out the first part of this passage which, as we shall see, has reference to the substitutional aspect of Christ’s atoning sacrifice, as well as the latter part that speaks of the penal aspect of the atonement, they partially quote it so as to say: “We thought He was being punished by God. But in reality, He was punished by us.”
I wasn’t able to find any article justifying the rendering of the text “because of” instead of “for” until a friend shared a link to an article written by Santo Calarco in the Clarion Journal entitled, Punished “for” or “by” our sins. Calarco says:
“The Hebrew preposition translated “for” is “min”. It does not mean “for” but “from” or “out of” or “because of”.
However, in the first place, the causal use of min, “because of,” is just one of the many uses of the word. It is also commonly used in the substitutionary sense, “for,” “on behalf of” or “for the sake of,” just as we see it rendered in nearly every translation of Isaiah 53. For example, in 1Samuel 7:8 it says: “cry unto the LORD our God for (min) us.” Or in Ruth 1:13, “it grieves me very much for your sakes (min) that the hand of the LORD is gone out against me.” As with most prepositions, their meanings greatly vary, being determined by the context in which they appear. And, as I will demonstrate, the context of the sin bearing Servant passage in Isaiah 53 is clearly that of substitution.
Even if one were to understand min here in the causal sense as “because of our transgressions and iniquities” it would still apply in the substitutionary sense, considering the fact that it was because of our sins that God’s justice required a substitutionary sacrifice.
What min does not mean is what the title of Calarco’s article states and what he wants it to mean. The preposition min never means “by” in the sense of instrumentality. In order for it to read as “by” in the sense of instrumentality, it would need the Hebrew preposition be, as in, “lest you die by (be) our hand” (Jer 11:21), or ayth: “this work was done by (ayth) our God.” (Neh 6:16).
Calarco cites the New English Translation in order to demonstrate that the translators of that version understood min in Isaiah 53:4-5 as “because of.” However, the translators included an explanatory interpolation that makes it clear that they understood Christ’s suffering as being substitutionary in nature, rather than Him having been merely victimized by wicked men. The NET translation reads:
“...we thought he was being punished, attacked by God, and afflicted for something he had done. 5 He was wounded because of our rebellious deeds, crushed because of our sins; he endured punishment that made us well; because of his wounds we have been healed.” (Isa 53:4-5 NET)
The NET Bible’s explanatory note says concerning these verses: “The words ‘for something he had done’ are supplied in the translation for clarification. ...he suffered because of his identification with them, not simply because he was a special target of divine anger.” They added that explanatory phrase to clarify that the emphasis of the passage is that the people mistakenly thought He was suffering for some evil thing that He Himself had done, when in reality He was suffering for/because of our sins, not because of His own. So not even the translation which Calarco quotes supports his claim that the text is saying that Christ merely died at the hands of sinners, rather than dying for, or in the place of, sinners.
No one would deny that Christ suffered and died at the hands of wicked men, but that is not the primary message of Isaiah 53. As we shall see, what the text is saying throughout is that Christ suffered and died as our substitute according to the will of God (Isa 53:10-11; Acts 2:23). The people thought that God was punishing Him for His own sins when in fact He was punished for, or because of, our sins. Our sins made it necessary for Him to suffer and die in our place in order to justify the many (Isa 53:11).
Arguments for the Penal Substitutionary Nature of the Sin Bearing Servant’s Suffering
1) “He shall sprinkle many nations” (Isa 52:15)
The sprinkling of the blood of the sin offering for the expiation of sins was an essential part of the Levitical sacrificial system. If someone sinned, they were to offer a lamb without blemish which was slain in their place in order to make expiation for their sin (Lev 5:5-10). Then once a year on Yom Kippur, the blood of the sacrificial animal was taken within the Most Holy Place and sprinkled upon the mercy seat, thereby making expiation for the children of Israel (Lev 16:15-16).
Here Isaiah says of the sin bearing Servant that His blood will sprinkle not only Israel, but “many nations.” He was the sacrificial Lamb of God that once-and-for-all took away the sins of the world (Jn 1:29). Peter alludes to Christ as the sin bearing Servant when he said that we were set apart “for the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1Peter 1:2). The author of Hebrews also made reference to the sprinkling of Christ’s blood saying:
“to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.” (Heb 12:24)
Christ’s blood speaks better things than that of Abel in that Abel’s blood cried out for justice, whereas Christ’s blood brought us justification.
There is some debate concerning whether “sprinkle” is the correct reading, since the Greek Septuagint Translation (LXX) says “astonish.” However, without going into detail, most scholars believe that the LXX misread the Hebrew word which meant “sprinkle” since it is nearly identical to the word for “astonish.” [6] Two other ancient Greek translations from the Hebrew, that of Theodotion (150 AD) and Aquila (130 AD), both read “sprinkle” and the 3rd century Syriac Peshitta reads “purify” which is what the sprinkling accomplishes.
Also, in the Epistle of Barnabas (70 to 135 AD) Barnabas mentions Christ’s blood of sprinkling, in the context of the Isaiah sin bearing Servant passage. [7] He seems to spiritually apply the sprinkling of the blood of Christ among the nations as being fulfilled through the ministry of the Apostles who spread the gospel beyond Israel to the nations. [8]
So Isaiah 52:15 speaks clearly of the sacrificial blood of a substitute cleansing the nations of their sins. Even if one were to go with the reading “astonish,” as a few translating committees did, it would not in any way undermine the penal and substitutionary nature of the sin bearing Servant passage. People of all nations throughout the centuries have been astonished upon hearing of all that which Christ the suffering Servant underwent on our behalf.
2) “He bore the sin of many” (Isa 53:11-12,4)
To the Jewish reader the meaning of this statement would be unmistakably that of penal substitution. The expression “to bear (nasa) one’s sin, iniquity, or guilt” was a legal term, meaning to suffer the penalty and consequences of one’s sin (Lev 24:15; 5:1; 7:18).
However, the Law provided for sin offerings in which an animal was sacrificed for the expiation of sins as a substitute, thereby removing their guilt before God:
“...God has given it (the sin offering) to you to bear the guilt of the congregation, to make atonement (expiation/propitiation) for them before the Lord?” (Lev 10:17)
In this manner, God made provision in which the sin and guilt of the offenders could be laid upon an innocent victim given as a sin offering, and in this way the animal sacrificed bore the guilt as a substitute instead of the offender, thereby expiating the sins of the people. On Yom Kippur, the Day of Expiation, the High Priest would lay the sins of the children of Israel upon the scapegoat and the goat would bear their iniquities to an uninhabited land, thereby indicating that the Lord would remove their sins as far as the east is from the west (Lev 16:20-22; Psa 103:12; Heb 10:16-18).
While it was not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins, it foreshadowed the sin bearing Servant, Jesus Christ, who would vicariously take away the sins of the world once-and-for-all (Heb 10:4-10,14).
So that which was only foreshadowed in the Levitical sacrifices, Jesus Christ, the sin bearing Servant, fulfilled, bearing our sins. Just as the sins of the people were laid upon the animal, “the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isa 53:6), and He bore our sins and iniquities in our stead (Isa 53:11-12). Peter applied this to Christ saying: “who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness — by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24). The Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures could not have made the penal substitutionary nature of Christ’s suffering and death any clearer!
The opponents of Penal Substitutionary Atonement often appeal to the LXX in verse 10, as we shall see. However, on the issue of Christ vicariously bearing our sins, the LXX is just as clear, saying in verse 11, “He shall bear their sins” (τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν αὐτὸς ἀνοίσει), and in verse 12, “he bore the sins of many” (καὶ αὐτὸς ἁμαρτίας πολλῶν ἀνήνεγκεν). The LXX is even stronger for penal substitution in verse 4 saying, “He bears our sins” (οὗτος τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν φέρειι), instead of “He has born our griefs.”
3) “It pleased the Lord to bruise Him” – “an offering for sin”
“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise (daka) Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.” (Isa 53:10)
“But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised (daka) for our iniquities.” (Isa 53:5)
Here in verse 10, we see that, not only did the Lord allow the sin bearing Servant to be bruised or crushed (daka) for our iniquities, but that it was actually His desire to bruise Him in order to make His soul an offering for sins. The word “pleased” in Hebrew is chapets, which is the same word used earlier in Isaiah 1:11 where the Lord said: “I do not delight (chapets) in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.” The reason why He did not delight in them is stated in Hebrews 10:4: “it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.” Those sacrifices only foreshadowed the once-and-for-all sacrifice of Christ for the sins of the world. Continuing in verse 5 of Hebrews 10, it tells us what the Lord did desire:
“Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: ‘Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me. 6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure. 7 Then I said, 'Behold, I have come — in the volume of the book it is written of Me --
to do Your will, O God.’ 8 Previously saying, "Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin You did not desire, nor had pleasure in them"(which are offered according to the law), 9 then He said, ‘Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God.’ ...10 By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Heb 10:5-10)
What God desired was not animal sacrifices, but rather He prepared a body for God the Son to become incarnate in order to offer Himself in our place as the once-and-for-all sacrifice for sins. It is by that will that we have been sanctified. It is not the life and ministry of Jesus that is here being referred to, although He was well-pleasing to the Father in all things. Rather, what is said to have pleased God here was the substitutionary death of Christ, giving His body as the once-and for-all sacrifice for sin. This is what Jesus meant when He cried out in Gethsemane, “not my will but Your will be done” (Matt 26:42; Luke 22:42).
While it was wicked men and not God that afflicted Christ, we see that Christ’s suffering and death was nevertheless according to God’s will. As Peter explained to the Jews on the day of Pentecost:
“Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death.” (Acts 2:23)
The wording of Isaiah 53:10 is particularly offensive to the opponents of Christ’s penal substitutionary atonement. As I previously pointed out, many of them would simply say that Isaiah was mistaken.
Others, like Keith Giles, appeal to the Greek LXX rendering of verse 10. The LXX is generally similar to other translations based upon the Masoretic Hebrew text except in verse 10 where the LXX reads entirely different. Instead of reading, “it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin,” the LXX reads:
“The Lord also is pleased to purge him from his stroke. If you can give an offering for sin your soul shall see a long-lived seed.”
Keith Giles gives a couple of reasons why he thinks we should not go with the Hebrew text, but the LXX Greek text, saying:
“Evangelicals...have no problem whatsoever using the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Old Testament scriptures in their English Bibles. Why? Because even though it was created by Jewish rabbis almost exclusively to debunk Christianity, it contains verses like this in Isaiah 53:10:..
This verse [and several others in the Masoretic text] suggest that God was the one who caused Jesus to suffer on the cross. This makes Evangelicals happy because they embrace the doctrine of Penal Substitutionary Atonement Theory.
So, what’s wrong with this verse? Well, it came a few hundred years after the birth of the Christian faith and it radically re-writes the older Septuagint text which was used and quoted by Jesus himself. [That’s right.]
The Septuagint text which pre-dates the Masoretic actually teaches us that God’s response to the crucifixion of Jesus was to “cleanse [or heal] him of the injury” and that it was not God, but ‘you’ [or ‘us’] who made him ‘a sin offering.’” [9]
According to him, we should reject the common rendering of verse 10 because our translations are all based upon the later Hebrew Masoretic text which was altered by the Jewish rabbis hundreds of years later in order to debunk Christianity. However, what he fails to mention is that the Masoretic text is practically identical to the Hebrew 1Q Isaiah scroll found in the Qumran caves near the Dead Sea in 1947, which dates back to around the same time that the LXX was compiled. The following is a comparison:
1Q Isaiah scroll:
“Yet it pleased Yahweh to bruise him. He has caused him to suffer. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his offspring. He will prolong his days, and Yahweh’s pleasure will prosper in his hand.” (Isaiah Scroll 1QIsaa)
Masoretic text:
"Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand."
LXX:
“The Lord also is pleased to purge him from his stroke. If you can give an offering for sin your soul shall see a long-lived seed.”
Whatever one might say against the Masoretic text, it certainly cannot be argued that the Jewish rabbis altered Isaiah 53:10 in order to oppose the Christian message, since it agrees with the Isaiah Dead Sea scroll which predates Christ by about 200 years. Also, it points to Christ as the suffering Messiah in a much clearer manner than the LXX.
Also, while it is true as Giles says, that Jesus and the New Testament authors frequently quoted from the Greek LXX, they can also be seen to have quoted from the Hebrew text on numerous occasions. Mike Winger points out a couple of instances where the New Testament authors favored the Hebrew over the LXX when alluding to Isaiah 53. They are as follows:
Matthew 8:17
“He took our weaknesses and bore our sicknesses.”
τας ασθενειας ημων ελαβεν και τας νοσους εβαστασεν
Isaiah 53:4 Hebrew:
“He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”
Isaiah 53:4 LXX
“He bore our sins and was grieved on our account.”
οὗτος τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν φέρει καὶ περὶ ἡμῶν ὀδυνᾶται
Matthew here favors the Hebrew text rather than the LXX. Also, Paul alludes to the Hebrew instead of the LXX in Romans 5:19.
Romans 5:19
“by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous.”
Isaiah 53:11 Hebrew:
“My righteous Servant shall justify many.”
Isaiah 53:11 LXX
“to justify the just one who serves many well.”
δικαιῶσαι δίκαιον εὖ δουλεύοντα πολλοῖς
Just as we often do today, they normally used a translation in the common language of the time, which was Koine Greek, but whenever the translation deviated from the original, they went with the original.
Much more could be said concerning the penal substitutionary nature of Isaiah 53, but due to space limitations I will just briefly comment on the phrase “an offering for sin.” What would a Jew understand by the reference to Him making His soul an offering for sin? The Hebrew word is ‘asham, and is used 33 times throughout the Old Testament referring specifically to a sin or trespass offering, usually involving the sacrifice of a spotless substitutionary lamb for the expiation of sins committed.
Jesus, as the sinless Lamb of God, offered up His soul as an offering for the sins of the world! Because of His once-and-for-all sacrifice we are now justified freely by God’s grace. To me, such an unspeakable gift brings great joy and a deep sense of gratitude. I am appalled and grieved to see so many in this generation who show nothing but contempt for such a glorious truth. I personally believe that those teachers who aggressively oppose Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement are those whom Paul referred to as “enemies of the cross of Christ” (Phil 3:18). I believe that they are in danger of becoming liable of counting the blood of the covenant by which we were sanctified as a common thing, often even saying that one could be saved even if Christ hadn’t shed His blood in our place (Heb 10:29).
In the next blog I will be considering some of the forensic motifs that are used in Scripture which demonstrate the penal aspect of the atonement. While God’s redemptive plan has restored relationships as it’s final goal, such a relationship would not be possible apart from Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement which satisfied God’s immutable justice, thereby making it possible for Him to be just and justify sinners, the objects of His love.
[1] God did this, not only to test Abraham, but primarily to emphasize that He did not require human sacrifices: that He Himself would provide the ultimate sacrificial lamb (Gen 22:8). That is why Abraham prophetically called the place on mount Moriah where he offered up Isaac “the Lord will provide”:
“And Abraham called the name of the place, The-Lord-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, ‘In the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided’” (Gen 22:14). I believe that mount Calvary, where God provided the ultimate sacrifice of Himself in the person of the Son, will be seen to have been the very same place where Abraham offered up his son Isaac.
[2] Greg Boyd says: “Though Isaiah is likely referring to the nation of Israel as Yahweh’s “suffering servant” in Isaiah 53, NT authors as well as Christian Bible interpreters throughout history have understood this servant to be a prophetic reference to the crucified Christ.” Boyd, Gregory A. The Crucifixion of the Warrior God: Volumes 1 & 2 (pp. 865-866). Fortress Press. Kindle Edition.
[3] https://www.gotquestions.org/suffering-servant-Isaiah-53.html
[4] Origen, Against Celsus, Chapter 55
[5] Boyd, Gregory A.; Boyd, Gregory A.. The Crucifixion of the Warrior God: Volumes 1 & 2 (p. 867). Fortress Press. Kindle Edition.
[6] https://textandcanon.org/part-1-the-servant-sprinkles-many-as-anointed-priest/
[7] Epistle of Barnabas, Chapter 5: “For to this end their Lord endured to deliver up His flesh to corruption that we might be sanctified through the remission of sins, which is effected by His blood of sprinkling. For it was written concerning Him… ‘He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities: with His stripes we are healed. He was brought as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb which is dumb before its shearer.”
[8] Epistle of Barnabas, Chapter 8, commenting on the typology of the sprinkling of the blood of the red heifer sacrifice in Numbers 19, Barnabas says :
“The calf is Jesus: the sinful men offering it are those who led Him to the slaughter. But now the men are no longer guilty, are no longer regarded as sinners. And the boys that sprinkle are those that have proclaimed to us the remission of sins and purification of heart. To these He gave authority to preach the Gospel, being twelve in number...”
[9] https://www.futurechurchnow.com/2021/03/11/how-evangelicals-changed-the-bible-to-support-their-beliefs-by-keith-giles/comment-page-1/
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+The Testimonies of Near-Death Experiences
by George Sidney Hurd
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The following is an extract from The Triumph of Mercy
Near-death experiences refer to the visions related by those whose souls have left their bodies while being close to death. Although there are records in existence of these experiences since before the time of Christ by individuals of many different religions of the world, they have been much more frequent in the last few decades. In 1981, a survey in the United States revealed that 15% of Americans reported having had near-death experiences. With improved urgent care and life support systems, those figures have increased even more in recent years. In a survey conducted in hospitals by Kenneth Ring, he discovered that a third of those who were close to death or pronounced clinically dead and came back, reported having had a transcendental experience. [1] Although the majority of these experiences are positive, some had negative experiences where they found themselves in hell or purgatory.
I have read extensively on the subject during the last 20 years. In October of 2013, I was hospitalized for 17 days and for three days I was between life and death. Due to the immune suppressants I take to prevent the rejection of my transplanted liver, an insect bite developed into an abscess and quickly became life threatening. After flying out of the jungle in a small plane I was received by an ambulance in Villavicencio, and after 4 hours on the winding highway I arrived at the hospital in Bogota, where they drained the abscess, removing over a liter of infected material. My blood was poisoned with a bacterium called staphylococcus aurous, which often causes death.
During those three days I left my body three times. Each time I would fall abruptly back into my body and would feel its limitations in my weakened state. While out of body, I floated over beautiful terrains and saw colors I had never seen since my days on LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs during the 1960s, and I saw geometric images that defied the imagination. In one instance I found myself talking to someone dressed in white just before reentering my body. I knew that we had been conversing for some time, but I don’t remember the conversation, except for the last part when I was about to pass through a veil, beyond which I could see the hospital with sleeping patients in different beds. I knew it was time to reenter my body, and I remember asking the person in white how I would know if I had entered the right body. He said that I would know when I repeated the number “361.”
The next moment I felt myself fall abruptly into a body and startled I lifted my head, looking around the room and at my body in an effort to determine where I was. I couldn’t even recognize my own body and was feeling quite agitated. It was 2:00 a.m. and there was a nurse beside me taking my vital signs. She told me to be still. I looked around the room again but couldn’t tell where I was. When I saw the monitor, I saw several numbers and looked for “361” but they were all different numbers. I looked around the room and at my body once again and then looked back at the monitor just as it registered my temperature. It read 36.1 Centigrade. As soon as I repeated “361” out loud, I suddenly recognized my own body.
I confess that that was a very strange experience. I don’t even remember most of the conversation. I just remember that I was in a place where there was much light, and I had a sense of peace and well-being. The person I was with emanated love and wisdom. I would have concluded that I was just hallucinating if it were not for the fact that I was given the sign “361” before returning to my body and seeing it appear later on the monitor.
While I do not discount the authenticity of some of these out of body experiences as encounters with the spiritual realm, I do not believe that we should let these subjective experiences have any influence upon the formation of our doctrines concerning the afterlife – especially when these experiences are not in agreement with the Scriptures. The fact is that much of what individuals report having seen and heard in near-death experiences directly contradicts the Bible.
Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). Though there are many testimonies of both Christians and non-Christians that confirm these words of Jesus, the vast majority of those who have had near-death experiences worldwide are of other religions or even atheists who testify of having gone towards the light and having had ecstatic experiences without any mention whatsoever of Jesus Christ. Because of this, many, giving more weight to these subjective experiences than to the words of Jesus Himself, have ceased to believe that it is necessary to come to God through Christ. For them, it is no longer essential to put one’s faith in Jesus Christ, since Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Indigenous animists and even Atheists, have found themselves in heaven in these experiences without the need for repentance and faith in Christ.
The Scriptures are very clear in emphasizing the need of holiness to be in the presence of the Lord:
“Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.” (Heb 12:14)
“Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Gal 5:19-21)
“For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” (Eph 5:5-6)
“Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there)…. 27 But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.” (Rev 21:25,27)
In spite of these clear declarations of the Scriptures, even some pastors say - based upon the testimonies of persons who have had near-death experiences, that holiness of life is not necessary in order to inherit the kingdom of God at death. I just finished reading a book written by a pastor concerning near-death experiences called: “Revealing Heaven – The Christian Case for Near-Death Experiences” by John W. Price. [2] Based upon testimonies of pleasant near-death experiences related by practicing homosexuals, he relegates the prohibition of these practices, and many others which are censured in the Scriptures, to “cultural taboos” that have been converted into “religious dogmas.”
We must decide whether we are going to base our convictions upon subjective near-death experiences or by what the word of God says. The Bible is very clear concerning these sins:
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.” (1Cor 6:9-10)
“as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” (Jude 7)
“But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” (Rev 21:8)
The present day increase in the frequency of these near-death experiences and visions is in part due to improved urgent care and life support systems, making it possible to revive more individuals from the brink of death. However, another factor that we should take into account is the source of the revelations. They return with revelations from the spirit realm, but are they always true revelations of spiritual realities beyond this life? Paul warns us that “Satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light” (2Cor 11:14). I am convinced that, at least in part, the increase of these experiences in these last days; especially the revelations which contradict the word of God, are revelations of deceiving spirits of whom we have been warned in Scriptures:
“for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.” (2Tim 4:3,4)
Paul says here that they will not endure sound teaching, but rather, according to their own desires, they will seek out teachers for themselves who will tell them myths instead of the truth. And where do these fables originate? From the imagination of the teachers, or is there something more sinister hidden behind their fables? In another passage Paul reveals the true source of many of these teachings:
“Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.” (1Tim 4:1)
Without discounting the reality that many of the near-death experiences are genuine encounters with God and revelations of heaven and hell; as with any revelation, vision, prophecy or miracle, we need discernment so as not to believe every spirit but rather to test the spirits to see if they are of God (1John 4:1). In 1John 4:3 John says that every spirit that doesn’t confess Jesus is not of God, but rather is antichrist. The great majority of revelations of near-death experiences are antichrist because they exclude the need of Christ for salvation. They are very similar to the increasingly frequent revelations from communications given by “extra-terrestrials” and supposed messages received from the dead - phenomenon which are also on the rise in these last days.
In the same way that we need to exercise discernment concerning revelations of heaven, we also need discernment concerning supposed revelations of hell. We must examine them in the light of the Scriptures. Many of these revelations deceive by taking from the Word, but others deceive by adding details which are not found in Scripture. I have read or heard many testimonies of visions of hell and the most outstanding characteristic to me is their many conflicting details. They often contain details which are not in Scripture, contradict the Word, or defy all logic.
Jesus said of the eonian fire, that it was prepared for the devil and his angels. The obvious idea expressed here is that it is a place of punishment prepared for them, where they will be tormented along with all of the unjust among mankind who will also be punished there with them. Nevertheless, the typical testimony of hell describes it as if hell belonged to Satan and as though the demons and fallen angels were the tormentors rather than the tormented.
Many give descriptions of worms eating the bodies of the tormented. In the case of the seven Colombian youth who describe what they saw in hell, the worms were giants, although the rest who mention worms describe them as normal in size. [3] These testimonies which describe worms in hell seem to have been influenced by misapplications of texts which simply speak of corpses being consumed by maggots:
“And they shall go forth and look upon the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me. For their worm does not die, and their fire is not quenched. They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh." (Isa 66:24)
This passage is a judgment declared against those who come against Jerusalem. It is not a description of the torments of hell. It simply says that those near Jerusalem will see the corpses of their enemies being eaten by worms and consumed by fire and their stench will be an abhorrence to all who pass by. The worms do not die off, and the fire doesn’t go out until the corpses are fully consumed. We see a similar description of the corpse of the king of Babylon being eaten by worms in Isaiah 14 verses 10 and 11 where it says:
“They will all respond, they will say to you, ‘You also have become weak, as we are; you have become like us.’ 11 All your pomp has been brought down to the grave, along with the noise of your harps; maggots are spread out beneath you and worms cover you.”
Here, as in Isaiah 66, he is speaking of the decomposition of corpses. Here it refers to the corpse of the king of Babylon. It is saying that all who were awed by his splendor will be amazed to see his despicable death. In verses 18 through 20 it gives more detail saying:
“All the kings of the nations lie in state, each in his own tomb. 19 But you are cast out of your tomb like a rejected branch; you are covered with the slain, with those pierced by the sword, those who descend to the stones of the pit. Like a corpse trampled underfoot, 20 you will not join them in burial.” (Isa 14:18-20 NIV)
It should be obvious that what is being described here is not the king’s soul being tormented in hell, but rather his dead corpse in a heap with others slain in battle, being consumed by maggots. It speaks of him as being deprived of his own royal tomb, which was an important legacy for great kings. Such a despicable death for the mighty king of Babylon would have caused great wonder to all who observed his end. If it caused worldwide astonishment to see the end of dictators like Hitler, Saddam Hussein and Gadhafi, one can just imagine how it would be for a world ruler like the king of one of the greatest empires of the ancient world.
Therefore, the testimonies of hell which describe disembodied souls being eaten by worms are not based upon what the Scriptures actually teach. They were most likely influenced by hellfire sermons which misinterpreted the verses which speak of maggots consuming the corpses of the dead. These descriptions can also be produced by deceiving spirits who are known for misapplying Scriptures to their own advantage in order to malign the character of God.
There is a website where one can read of visions of hell from several different world religions. [4] On their page that is dedicated to the Christian hell there are some 30 visions of hell within Christianity from 100 years before Christ up to the fifteenth century. The belief in purgatory was promoted and formally adopted by the Catholic Church in the eleventh century. It is interesting to observe that the visions subsequent to that usually included not only a description of hell, but also of purgatory, although today, at least among Protestants, there is no longer mention of purgatory in their testimonies. During the dark ages, most of the visions and near-death experiences were negative, telling of torments, fire and darkness. Nowadays, in a time when hellfire and condemnation is no longer focused upon in most pulpits, the majority relate pleasant experiences of light, peace and love.
One testimony I listened to was of a young girl who attended a legalistic church who said she was shown a place in hell reserved for women who had short hair and wore pants during their lifetime and died without repenting. Knowing that many of those with long hair and long dresses were also gossips and slanderers, I wondered how it would be decided which compartment in hell would be most appropriate for each one.
Others, who attended churches where tithing was imposed, testified to seeing people swimming in a lake of molten lava with signs on their chests which said: “I didn’t tithe.” It is very common to hear testimonies in which sin groups are compartmentalized in hell – one place for those who didn’t tithe, another place for fornicators, another for liars, etc., etc. This would not be logical since most would fall into several different categories. The fornicator most likely didn’t tithe either, and probably lied, slandered and wore pants and makeup as well. Judgment will be according to all one´s works and not just one predominate category.
This concept of categories does not come from Scripture but from other religions such as the Hindus and Buddhists, and from writers with a morbid imagination like Dante. A woman who sold many copies of her book on her supposed visions of hell, described hell as a lake of fire about the size of a football field. I couldn’t help wondering how all would be able to fit in a lake the size of a football field if 90% of humanity, plus Satan and his angels and the demons are in it. One best-seller said that in hell nobody had any memory of God. On the other hand, many others say that that which most torments those in hell is not being able to stop thinking about God, while knowing that there no longer exists the possibility of being reconciled to Him.
Some testimonies giving details of hell have been exposed as intentional fraud to mock Christians for their gullibility. Others were invented by “evangelists” in order to have more converts. Others have gained a fortune selling their books and videos of their supposed visions of hell.
I think it is worthy of note that nearly all who have had negative near-death experiences of hell were delivered and allowed to come back into their bodies when they cried out to God for mercy. This would be in agreement with Christian Universalism and the Scriptures we have seen thus far:
“The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. 9 The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.” (Ps 145:8-9)
“For the Lord will not cast off forever. 32 Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. 33 For He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” (Lam 3:31-33)
“Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him.” (2Sam 14:14 NIV)
In my teens, under the effects of hallucinogenic drugs, I had several hellish experiences. Nevertheless, looking back on those experiences now with a clearer perspective and with a personal knowledge of God, I do not attribute those hellish experiences to God, but rather to the enemy. We should not derive our beliefs concerning hell from visions and near-death experiences. Paul said that even if an angel from heaven were to preach another gospel different from the pure good news of Jesus Christ, let him be accursed (Gal 1:8). Neither should our convictions be based upon the imagination of writers like Dante, but solely upon the Word of God. Even then, we need to learn to distinguish between that which is literal and that which is metaphorical.
Most of all, we need our eyes opened to be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height - to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that we may be filled with all the fullness of God (Eph 3:18-19). Many of God’s people do not comprehend the immensity of His love. Instead of opening up to receive the fullness of God, they open themselves up to fear motivated religion and end up being instead “filled with all the fullness of fear” - fear of a sadistic and angry god. The enemy is not only our accuser, accusing us before God, but he is also God’s accuser, accusing God before us. He does everything within his power to blind our eyes so that we cannot see the good news of the gospel in all its glory. Many of the descriptions of hell discount the salvific work of the cross of Christ and limit the love and mercy of God, which endure forever.
I personally have arrived at the conclusion that the majority of the testimonies of hell do not agree with the testimony of Scripture and do not produce good fruit in the lives of those impacted by them. There are no examples in Scriptures of “evangelizing” lost souls with threats of hell, traumatizing people with graphic details of endless torments in order to motivate them to accept Christ. The threat of hell was used in the dark ages by institutionalized religion in order to keep the masses in line and the coffers full, but that is not what we find in the early Church. Jesus said: “But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself” (John 12:32 NIV). [5] Think about it; what was it that drew you to Christ – the threat of hell or the love of God in Christ Jesus?
As Christians, what is it that transforms us into the image of Christ? The fear of hell? Many ministers enslave the people of God, using the fear of hell as a whip to drive them to work harder and give more, but does that really make us more like Christ? We can only become like Him through a personal relationship with Him – a relationship based upon love and trust. Fear-based religion often produces dead works, but only a relationship of love can produce the fruits of a life transformed by His presence.
For an article more specifically related to supposed visions of Hell, see my blog, Are Modern Visions of Hell of God?
[1] Kenneth Ring, Life at Death
[2] John W. Price, Revealing Heaven – A Christian Case for Near-Death Experiences, Kindle format
[3] www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3CwknAC8RI
[4] http://www.hell-on-line.org
[5] The word “men” is not in the Greek text but was added by the translators.
--
The following is an extract from The Triumph of Mercy
Near-death experiences refer to the visions related by those whose souls have left their bodies while being close to death. Although there are records in existence of these experiences since before the time of Christ by individuals of many different religions of the world, they have been much more frequent in the last few decades. In 1981, a survey in the United States revealed that 15% of Americans reported having had near-death experiences. With improved urgent care and life support systems, those figures have increased even more in recent years. In a survey conducted in hospitals by Kenneth Ring, he discovered that a third of those who were close to death or pronounced clinically dead and came back, reported having had a transcendental experience. [1] Although the majority of these experiences are positive, some had negative experiences where they found themselves in hell or purgatory.
I have read extensively on the subject during the last 20 years. In October of 2013, I was hospitalized for 17 days and for three days I was between life and death. Due to the immune suppressants I take to prevent the rejection of my transplanted liver, an insect bite developed into an abscess and quickly became life threatening. After flying out of the jungle in a small plane I was received by an ambulance in Villavicencio, and after 4 hours on the winding highway I arrived at the hospital in Bogota, where they drained the abscess, removing over a liter of infected material. My blood was poisoned with a bacterium called staphylococcus aurous, which often causes death.
During those three days I left my body three times. Each time I would fall abruptly back into my body and would feel its limitations in my weakened state. While out of body, I floated over beautiful terrains and saw colors I had never seen since my days on LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs during the 1960s, and I saw geometric images that defied the imagination. In one instance I found myself talking to someone dressed in white just before reentering my body. I knew that we had been conversing for some time, but I don’t remember the conversation, except for the last part when I was about to pass through a veil, beyond which I could see the hospital with sleeping patients in different beds. I knew it was time to reenter my body, and I remember asking the person in white how I would know if I had entered the right body. He said that I would know when I repeated the number “361.”
The next moment I felt myself fall abruptly into a body and startled I lifted my head, looking around the room and at my body in an effort to determine where I was. I couldn’t even recognize my own body and was feeling quite agitated. It was 2:00 a.m. and there was a nurse beside me taking my vital signs. She told me to be still. I looked around the room again but couldn’t tell where I was. When I saw the monitor, I saw several numbers and looked for “361” but they were all different numbers. I looked around the room and at my body once again and then looked back at the monitor just as it registered my temperature. It read 36.1 Centigrade. As soon as I repeated “361” out loud, I suddenly recognized my own body.
I confess that that was a very strange experience. I don’t even remember most of the conversation. I just remember that I was in a place where there was much light, and I had a sense of peace and well-being. The person I was with emanated love and wisdom. I would have concluded that I was just hallucinating if it were not for the fact that I was given the sign “361” before returning to my body and seeing it appear later on the monitor.
While I do not discount the authenticity of some of these out of body experiences as encounters with the spiritual realm, I do not believe that we should let these subjective experiences have any influence upon the formation of our doctrines concerning the afterlife – especially when these experiences are not in agreement with the Scriptures. The fact is that much of what individuals report having seen and heard in near-death experiences directly contradicts the Bible.
Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). Though there are many testimonies of both Christians and non-Christians that confirm these words of Jesus, the vast majority of those who have had near-death experiences worldwide are of other religions or even atheists who testify of having gone towards the light and having had ecstatic experiences without any mention whatsoever of Jesus Christ. Because of this, many, giving more weight to these subjective experiences than to the words of Jesus Himself, have ceased to believe that it is necessary to come to God through Christ. For them, it is no longer essential to put one’s faith in Jesus Christ, since Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Indigenous animists and even Atheists, have found themselves in heaven in these experiences without the need for repentance and faith in Christ.
The Scriptures are very clear in emphasizing the need of holiness to be in the presence of the Lord:
“Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.” (Heb 12:14)
“Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Gal 5:19-21)
“For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” (Eph 5:5-6)
“Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there)…. 27 But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.” (Rev 21:25,27)
In spite of these clear declarations of the Scriptures, even some pastors say - based upon the testimonies of persons who have had near-death experiences, that holiness of life is not necessary in order to inherit the kingdom of God at death. I just finished reading a book written by a pastor concerning near-death experiences called: “Revealing Heaven – The Christian Case for Near-Death Experiences” by John W. Price. [2] Based upon testimonies of pleasant near-death experiences related by practicing homosexuals, he relegates the prohibition of these practices, and many others which are censured in the Scriptures, to “cultural taboos” that have been converted into “religious dogmas.”
We must decide whether we are going to base our convictions upon subjective near-death experiences or by what the word of God says. The Bible is very clear concerning these sins:
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.” (1Cor 6:9-10)
“as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” (Jude 7)
“But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” (Rev 21:8)
The present day increase in the frequency of these near-death experiences and visions is in part due to improved urgent care and life support systems, making it possible to revive more individuals from the brink of death. However, another factor that we should take into account is the source of the revelations. They return with revelations from the spirit realm, but are they always true revelations of spiritual realities beyond this life? Paul warns us that “Satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light” (2Cor 11:14). I am convinced that, at least in part, the increase of these experiences in these last days; especially the revelations which contradict the word of God, are revelations of deceiving spirits of whom we have been warned in Scriptures:
“for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.” (2Tim 4:3,4)
Paul says here that they will not endure sound teaching, but rather, according to their own desires, they will seek out teachers for themselves who will tell them myths instead of the truth. And where do these fables originate? From the imagination of the teachers, or is there something more sinister hidden behind their fables? In another passage Paul reveals the true source of many of these teachings:
“Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.” (1Tim 4:1)
Without discounting the reality that many of the near-death experiences are genuine encounters with God and revelations of heaven and hell; as with any revelation, vision, prophecy or miracle, we need discernment so as not to believe every spirit but rather to test the spirits to see if they are of God (1John 4:1). In 1John 4:3 John says that every spirit that doesn’t confess Jesus is not of God, but rather is antichrist. The great majority of revelations of near-death experiences are antichrist because they exclude the need of Christ for salvation. They are very similar to the increasingly frequent revelations from communications given by “extra-terrestrials” and supposed messages received from the dead - phenomenon which are also on the rise in these last days.
In the same way that we need to exercise discernment concerning revelations of heaven, we also need discernment concerning supposed revelations of hell. We must examine them in the light of the Scriptures. Many of these revelations deceive by taking from the Word, but others deceive by adding details which are not found in Scripture. I have read or heard many testimonies of visions of hell and the most outstanding characteristic to me is their many conflicting details. They often contain details which are not in Scripture, contradict the Word, or defy all logic.
Jesus said of the eonian fire, that it was prepared for the devil and his angels. The obvious idea expressed here is that it is a place of punishment prepared for them, where they will be tormented along with all of the unjust among mankind who will also be punished there with them. Nevertheless, the typical testimony of hell describes it as if hell belonged to Satan and as though the demons and fallen angels were the tormentors rather than the tormented.
Many give descriptions of worms eating the bodies of the tormented. In the case of the seven Colombian youth who describe what they saw in hell, the worms were giants, although the rest who mention worms describe them as normal in size. [3] These testimonies which describe worms in hell seem to have been influenced by misapplications of texts which simply speak of corpses being consumed by maggots:
“And they shall go forth and look upon the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me. For their worm does not die, and their fire is not quenched. They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh." (Isa 66:24)
This passage is a judgment declared against those who come against Jerusalem. It is not a description of the torments of hell. It simply says that those near Jerusalem will see the corpses of their enemies being eaten by worms and consumed by fire and their stench will be an abhorrence to all who pass by. The worms do not die off, and the fire doesn’t go out until the corpses are fully consumed. We see a similar description of the corpse of the king of Babylon being eaten by worms in Isaiah 14 verses 10 and 11 where it says:
“They will all respond, they will say to you, ‘You also have become weak, as we are; you have become like us.’ 11 All your pomp has been brought down to the grave, along with the noise of your harps; maggots are spread out beneath you and worms cover you.”
Here, as in Isaiah 66, he is speaking of the decomposition of corpses. Here it refers to the corpse of the king of Babylon. It is saying that all who were awed by his splendor will be amazed to see his despicable death. In verses 18 through 20 it gives more detail saying:
“All the kings of the nations lie in state, each in his own tomb. 19 But you are cast out of your tomb like a rejected branch; you are covered with the slain, with those pierced by the sword, those who descend to the stones of the pit. Like a corpse trampled underfoot, 20 you will not join them in burial.” (Isa 14:18-20 NIV)
It should be obvious that what is being described here is not the king’s soul being tormented in hell, but rather his dead corpse in a heap with others slain in battle, being consumed by maggots. It speaks of him as being deprived of his own royal tomb, which was an important legacy for great kings. Such a despicable death for the mighty king of Babylon would have caused great wonder to all who observed his end. If it caused worldwide astonishment to see the end of dictators like Hitler, Saddam Hussein and Gadhafi, one can just imagine how it would be for a world ruler like the king of one of the greatest empires of the ancient world.
Therefore, the testimonies of hell which describe disembodied souls being eaten by worms are not based upon what the Scriptures actually teach. They were most likely influenced by hellfire sermons which misinterpreted the verses which speak of maggots consuming the corpses of the dead. These descriptions can also be produced by deceiving spirits who are known for misapplying Scriptures to their own advantage in order to malign the character of God.
There is a website where one can read of visions of hell from several different world religions. [4] On their page that is dedicated to the Christian hell there are some 30 visions of hell within Christianity from 100 years before Christ up to the fifteenth century. The belief in purgatory was promoted and formally adopted by the Catholic Church in the eleventh century. It is interesting to observe that the visions subsequent to that usually included not only a description of hell, but also of purgatory, although today, at least among Protestants, there is no longer mention of purgatory in their testimonies. During the dark ages, most of the visions and near-death experiences were negative, telling of torments, fire and darkness. Nowadays, in a time when hellfire and condemnation is no longer focused upon in most pulpits, the majority relate pleasant experiences of light, peace and love.
One testimony I listened to was of a young girl who attended a legalistic church who said she was shown a place in hell reserved for women who had short hair and wore pants during their lifetime and died without repenting. Knowing that many of those with long hair and long dresses were also gossips and slanderers, I wondered how it would be decided which compartment in hell would be most appropriate for each one.
Others, who attended churches where tithing was imposed, testified to seeing people swimming in a lake of molten lava with signs on their chests which said: “I didn’t tithe.” It is very common to hear testimonies in which sin groups are compartmentalized in hell – one place for those who didn’t tithe, another place for fornicators, another for liars, etc., etc. This would not be logical since most would fall into several different categories. The fornicator most likely didn’t tithe either, and probably lied, slandered and wore pants and makeup as well. Judgment will be according to all one´s works and not just one predominate category.
This concept of categories does not come from Scripture but from other religions such as the Hindus and Buddhists, and from writers with a morbid imagination like Dante. A woman who sold many copies of her book on her supposed visions of hell, described hell as a lake of fire about the size of a football field. I couldn’t help wondering how all would be able to fit in a lake the size of a football field if 90% of humanity, plus Satan and his angels and the demons are in it. One best-seller said that in hell nobody had any memory of God. On the other hand, many others say that that which most torments those in hell is not being able to stop thinking about God, while knowing that there no longer exists the possibility of being reconciled to Him.
Some testimonies giving details of hell have been exposed as intentional fraud to mock Christians for their gullibility. Others were invented by “evangelists” in order to have more converts. Others have gained a fortune selling their books and videos of their supposed visions of hell.
I think it is worthy of note that nearly all who have had negative near-death experiences of hell were delivered and allowed to come back into their bodies when they cried out to God for mercy. This would be in agreement with Christian Universalism and the Scriptures we have seen thus far:
“The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. 9 The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.” (Ps 145:8-9)
“For the Lord will not cast off forever. 32 Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. 33 For He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” (Lam 3:31-33)
“Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him.” (2Sam 14:14 NIV)
In my teens, under the effects of hallucinogenic drugs, I had several hellish experiences. Nevertheless, looking back on those experiences now with a clearer perspective and with a personal knowledge of God, I do not attribute those hellish experiences to God, but rather to the enemy. We should not derive our beliefs concerning hell from visions and near-death experiences. Paul said that even if an angel from heaven were to preach another gospel different from the pure good news of Jesus Christ, let him be accursed (Gal 1:8). Neither should our convictions be based upon the imagination of writers like Dante, but solely upon the Word of God. Even then, we need to learn to distinguish between that which is literal and that which is metaphorical.
Most of all, we need our eyes opened to be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height - to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that we may be filled with all the fullness of God (Eph 3:18-19). Many of God’s people do not comprehend the immensity of His love. Instead of opening up to receive the fullness of God, they open themselves up to fear motivated religion and end up being instead “filled with all the fullness of fear” - fear of a sadistic and angry god. The enemy is not only our accuser, accusing us before God, but he is also God’s accuser, accusing God before us. He does everything within his power to blind our eyes so that we cannot see the good news of the gospel in all its glory. Many of the descriptions of hell discount the salvific work of the cross of Christ and limit the love and mercy of God, which endure forever.
I personally have arrived at the conclusion that the majority of the testimonies of hell do not agree with the testimony of Scripture and do not produce good fruit in the lives of those impacted by them. There are no examples in Scriptures of “evangelizing” lost souls with threats of hell, traumatizing people with graphic details of endless torments in order to motivate them to accept Christ. The threat of hell was used in the dark ages by institutionalized religion in order to keep the masses in line and the coffers full, but that is not what we find in the early Church. Jesus said: “But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself” (John 12:32 NIV). [5] Think about it; what was it that drew you to Christ – the threat of hell or the love of God in Christ Jesus?
As Christians, what is it that transforms us into the image of Christ? The fear of hell? Many ministers enslave the people of God, using the fear of hell as a whip to drive them to work harder and give more, but does that really make us more like Christ? We can only become like Him through a personal relationship with Him – a relationship based upon love and trust. Fear-based religion often produces dead works, but only a relationship of love can produce the fruits of a life transformed by His presence.
For an article more specifically related to supposed visions of Hell, see my blog, Are Modern Visions of Hell of God?
[1] Kenneth Ring, Life at Death
[2] John W. Price, Revealing Heaven – A Christian Case for Near-Death Experiences, Kindle format
[3] www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3CwknAC8RI
[4] http://www.hell-on-line.org
[5] The word “men” is not in the Greek text but was added by the translators.
- Published on
by George Sidney Hurd
The following is an excerpt from The Triumph of Mercy
“And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matt 25:46)
“And these shall be going away into chastening eonian, yet the just into life eonian.” (Concordant Literal Version)
The argument presented by traditionalists is that, if the punishment is not eternal, then neither can the life of the just be eternal, since the same word “eternal” is used of both in the same verse. But aionios does not in itself express “eternity” in the New Testament, even when referring to eternal life. This fact is recognized even by many who hold to the doctrine of eternal punishment. Ellicott’s Commentary on the Whole Bible says the following on Matthew 25:46:
“Everlasting punishment - life eternal. The two adjectives represent the same Greek word, aionios. It must be admitted (1) that the Greek word which is rendered "eternal" does not, in itself, involve endlessness, but rather, duration, whether through an age or succession of ages, and that it is therefore applied in the N.T. to periods of time that have had both a beginning and ending.” [i]
Marvin Vincent, in Vincent’s New Testament Word Studies, says the following concerning the eonian life and eonian punishment in this verse:
“Zooee aionios ‘eternal life,’ which occurs 42 times in the New Testament, but not in the Septuagint, is not endless life, but life pertaining to a certain age or aeon, or continuing during that aeon. I repeat, life may be endless. The life in union with Christ is endless, but the fact is not expressed by aionios.
Kolasis aioonios, rendered ‘everlasting punishment’ (Matt 25:46), is the punishment peculiar to an aeon other than that in which Christ is speaking.” [ii]
Also, the duration expressed by the adjective aionios in each instance depends upon the noun that accompanies it and not upon its proximity with another occurrence of the same adjective. For example, if we were to say, “the eonian hills belong to the eonian God” we would not mean by that that the hills have the same duration as God, even as we wouldn’t understand the phrase, “my long legs are going to get uncomfortable on such a long trip,” as meaning that my legs are the same length as the trip.
Apart from Matthew 25:42, we have another instance in Scriptures where aionios is also used two times in the same verse, and yet the duration in each case is different:
“in hope of eternal (aionios) life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began (pro kronon aionion “before the times eonian”).” (Titus 1:2)
In this case the King James Version translators hid the second occurrence of aionios by translating “before times aionion” as before “before time began.” However, in both instances it is the same word aionios; the first in singular and the second in plural, (agreeing with its noun “times”). The Concordant Literal Version translates it correctly:
“in expectation of life eonian, which God, Who does not lie, promises before times eonian.” (Titus 1:2 CLV)
In the first place, we know that “the times” are measurements of time created by God and have no relationship with eternity. Eternity doesn’t have “times,” but rather time was created in eternity. In eternity before creation there were no days. Before the moon existed, there were no months. Before the sun, there were no years. Eternity doesn’t have times and ages. The ages were created by God:
“has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds (aionios, “the ages”).” (Heb 1:2)
In second place, returning to Titus 1:2, it doesn’t make sense to say that God promised eternal life before eternity, since eternity doesn’t have a beginning or end. But it does make sense to say that He promised before the times of the ages. So, the first occurrence of aionios in Titus 1:2 is “eonian life” or “life of the ages,” referring to future ages, while the second occurrence, “before eonian times” or “before the times of the ages,” refers to all past ages since the beginning of time. Aionios doesn’t speak of the same duration (or even the same time period) in both occurrences. Therefore, the argument that “aionios correction” must have the same duration as “aionios life” because it appears in the same verse is not a valid argument.
Although we know that the just will receive immortality in the resurrection, zoe aionios (translated “life eternal”), only means “eonian life” or “the life of the ages.” Everlasting life is expressed by other words such as “immortality,” “incorruptible” or “for the age and beyond,” as we see in Daniel 12:2,3:
“And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting (olam) life, some to shame and everlasting (olam) contempt. 3 Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever (olam a-ad “olam and beyond”).” (Dan 12:2-3)
A literal translation better expresses the distinction between “age during” or “eonian,” and “eonian and beyond”:
“And the multitude of those sleeping in the dust of the ground do awake, some to life age-during, and some to reproaches--to abhorrence age-during. 3 And those teaching do shine as the brightness of the expanse, and those justifying the multitude as stars to the age and forever (lit. “and beyond”).” (Dan 12:2,3 Young’s Literal Translation)
In these two verses we see that the eonian life of the just continues beyond the shame and self-contempt of the unjust. The same can be said of Matthew 25:46.
Also, we see that the punishment cannot be eternal because of the meaning of the Word translated “punishment.” The Greek word (kolasis) means “corrective punishment” in contrast with timoreo which often expresses “vindictive punishment or torture.” William Barclay, a Greek scholar, in his commentary, The Daily Study Bible and New Testament Words says the following of kolasis:
“The Greek word for punishment here [Mt. 25:46] is kolasis, which was not originally an ethical word at all. It originally meant the pruning of trees to make them grow better. I think it is true to say that in all Greek secular literature kolasis is never used of anything but remedial punishment.” [iii]
Thomas Talbott, professor of Philosophy in the University of Willamette in Oregon and author of “The Inescapable Love of God” explains:
“According to the Aristotle, there is a difference between revenge and punishment; the latter (kolasis) is inflicted in the interest of the sufferer, the former (timoria) in the interest of him who inflicts it, that he may obtain satisfaction. Plato also appealed to the established meaning of kolasis as support for his theory that virtue could be taught: ‘For if you will consider punishment (kolasis)…and what control it has over wrong-doers, the facts will inform you that men agree in regarding virtue as procured.’ Even where a punishment may seem harsh and unforgiving, more like retribution than parental chastisement, this in no way excludes a corrective purpose. Check out the punishment that Paul prescribes in I Corinthians 5:5. One might never have guessed that, in prescribing such a punishment—that is, delivering a man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh—Paul had in mind a corrective purpose, had Paul not explicitly stated the corrective purpose himself (“that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus”). So as this text illustrates, even harsh punishment of a seemingly retributive kind can in fact serve a redemptive purpose.” [iv]
The majority of the Pharisees believed in eternal punishment, as does the traditional Church today, but they did not use the phrase “kolasis aionios” (eonian correction) that Jesus used. In order to express everlasting vindictive punishment, they used the phrases “aidíos timoria” (eternal torture), “eirgmos aidíos” (eternal prisons), and “timorion adialeipton” (unending torment). The Jewish historian Josephus (AD 37-100), said of the Pharisees: “They believe that the evil spirits are kept in eternal prisons (eirgmon aidíon). The Pharisees say that all souls are incorruptible, but while the souls of good men are taken to other bodies, the souls of wicked men are subjected to eternal punishment (aidíos temoría).” In another place he says of the Essenes, “…they consign the souls of the evil to a dark and tempestuous place, full of endless torture (timoría adialeipton), where they suffer an “immortal torment” (athanaton timorion).” Josephus always used aidíon (eternal) and athonaton (immortal) and timoría in reference to eternal punishment. In the Bible, however, the word aidíos “eternal” and athonaton “immortal” are not used in reference to the punishment of the unjust. When Jesus spoke of the punishment of the unjust, He said, “correction eonian” (kolasin aionion) which are terms used by Josephus and the Pharisees to refer to temporal and corrective punishments, and He avoided terms then in use to describe eternal punishment. He always spoke of a correctional punishment with a positive end in view. [v]
The renown Greek scholar Archbishop trench in Trench's New Testament Synonyms, also explains the difference between the vindictive punishment timoria and the corrective punishment kolasis:
“Punishment: timoria, kolasis
Timoria… The classical use of timoria emphasizes the vindictive character of punishment. It was punishment that satisfied the inflictor’s sense of outraged justice and that defended his own honor or that of the violated law. The meaning of timoria, then, agrees with its etymology.
Kolasis refers to punishment that is designed to correct and better the offender. Thus, Plato uses kolaseis and noutheteseis together. Several times in one passage in the Protagoras, Plato's use illustrates the distinction we have drawn.” [vi]
This explains why the early Church Fathers who were Greek speaking had no problem understanding that kolasis referred to correctional punishment with limited duration. Clement of Alexandria AD 150 to AD 215 says of God’s punishment of the wicked:
“But God does not punish, for punishment is retaliation for evil. He chastises, however, for good to those who are chastised, collectively and individually.” [vii]
“Punishment is, in its operation, like medicine; it dissolves the hard heart, purges away the filth of uncleanness, and reduces the swellings of pride and haughtiness; thus restoring its subject to a sound and healthful state.” [viii]
“God's punishments are saving and disciplinary leading to conversion…and especially since souls, although darkened by passions, when released from their bodies, are able to perceive more clearly because of their being no longer obstructed by the paltry flesh.” [ix]
Even when kolasis is used in a context which appears to be purely vindictive and penal, one must keep in mind that the root meaning of the word kolasis is correction. In the judgments of any just society, penalties are not purely vindictive but also correctional in nature. While those condemned to serve a sentence in penitentiaries, correctional institutions, or reformatories are being punished for their crimes, the primary objective is to reform - to produce penitence and correction in order to ultimately restore the offender to society.
Although dictatorships have existed which administer vindictive punishment without reformative motives, they are rightly considered to be primitive, barbaric and unjust by any civilized society. How much more can we say of God’s own judgments that they are good! (Ps 119:39). Even the best correctional institutions often fail to reform some of the most obstinate individuals, but contrary to the traditional doctrine of eternal reprobation for the majority, God’s judgments will ultimately restore even the most obstinately rebellious:
“Say to God, ‘How awesome are Your works! Through the greatness of Your power Your enemies shall submit themselves to You. 4 All the earth shall worship You and sing praises to You; They shall sing praises to Your name.” (Psalm 66:3-4)
Contrary to what traditionalists would have us believe, every biblical example of God’s judgments are for correction and end in restoration. Fiery wrath and perpetual desolations are declared upon Israel and Judah, only to be followed up by their final restoration (Jer 25:9, cf. Jer 29:10; Ezek 22:17-23,31 cf. Ezek 36:24-26; Jer 30). This is not only true of God’s elect, but also of the nations. From Jeremiah 45 thru 51 we see apparently irremediable destruction declared against nations such as Egypt, Moab, Ammon and Elam followed up by promises of restoration (cf. Isa 19:22). The very nations in Revelation which come up against Christ in His coming will walk in the light of the New Jerusalem in the post White Throne Judgment new earth (Rev 21:24-26). If even Sodom and those who were disobedient in the days of Noah are restored, how can we still insist that the judgment of the nations and the White Throne Judgment will not finally result in restoration? (Ezek 16:53-54; 1Peter 3:19-20).
All nations whom You have made
Shall come and worship before You, O Lord,
And shall glorify Your name. (Ps 86:9)
If God’s punishment were purely vindictive and for His own benefit and pleasure, then one might argue that His punishment could last forever, although eternal vengeance would still be unjust, excessive and contrary to God’s loving nature. However, seeing that the word Jesus used is “correction” (kolasis), it is evident that it could not last forever. A punishment for the purpose of correction only lasts until the desired result has been achieved – the correction of the offender. Once corrected, the eonian correction ceases. It may last a very long time or a rather short time, depending upon the time necessary to accomplish its purpose. In Jonah’s case it lasted for an eon of just three days. Justice always suspends punishment when the correction has been achieved. According to the meaning of the word kolasis, we see that the punishment in Scriptures is always a measured punishment, according to the works of each one. Even in the eschatalogical lake of fire, each one receives only that which is his part:
“But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part (meros) in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” (Rev 21:8)
The expression “their part” (meros) does not correspond with an infinite punishment. That which is “a part” is a measured punishment. The prodigal son said to his father: “Father, give me the portion (meros) of goods that falls to me” (Luke 15:12). The same Greek word meros is used in each instance. We get our English word “merit,” which refers to that which one deserves; a portion or part pertaining to someone. Their part is limited to what corresponds to each one – no more, no less. If the punishment were infinite, then it couldn’t be said to be a part or portion. Jesus said of the evil servant: “and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 24:45-51). Again, we see that it is a portion and not infinite. Here the phrase “will cut him in two” simply means “cut or lacerate.” It was common practice to scourge disobedient servants, leaving them lacerated, but they didn’t normally dismember them. If a master were to cut his servant in two for disobeying, what benefit would it be to him? He would just have one less servant. Kenneth Wuest’s translation gives the more logical meaning: “and he shall scourge him severely and shall appoint his part with the actors on the stage of life who play the role of that which they are not.” [x]
There is another phrase utilized in the Scriptures for punishment which also limits the duration of punishment. “Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny” (Matt 5:26 cf. Luke 12:59). In the context of this parable Jesus is speaking of “hell (Gehenna) fire” (v. 22), and He said that one will not get out till. A punishment cannot be forever and at the same time last until, but it can be an eonian or age during punishment, lasting until. Forever does not have an end, but an age or ages last until the purpose for the age or ages has been fulfilled – whether it should be three days or millenniums. Another example we find is in Matthew 18:34-35:
“And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. 35 So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.” (Matt 18:34-35)
If we do not forgive others their debts against us, then our Father will deliver us to torments, however, not eternally, but rather until. Nor is it without significance that Jesus refers to God in this instance as Father, emphasizing His paternal correction. Also, in the Lord’s Prayer we see that the forgiveness being referred to is paternal and not penal or judicial (Matt 6:14-15). What father among mankind would continue punishing beyond that which is necessary for the correction of his child? Didn’t Jesus say that we are evil fathers in comparison to Him? The traditional Church has degenerated to the point of presenting our Father God as infinitely more cruel than the worst earthly father. Jesus, in contrast, said that every sin will be forgiven men (Matt 12:31). Also, we see in Scriptures that the wrath of God is not eternal as tradition teaches, but rather “until”:
“The anger (wrath) of the Lord will not turn back Until He has executed and performed the thoughts of His heart. In the latter days you will understand it perfectly.” (Jer 23:20)
On still another occasion Jesus made it clear that correction only lasts as long as necessary. It is found in Matthew 21:31:
“…tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you.” (Matt 21:31)
Here Jesus presents two groups of individuals: 1) Those who already knew they were sinners, (tax collectors and harlots) and 2) sinners who thought they were holy (self-righteous, religious scribes and Pharisees). Many would say that neither category would ever enter the kingdom of Christ, but Jesus said that both groups will enter, but those in the first group enter before those of the second group for the obvious reason that those of the second group are slower to recognize their need for the Savior. Without holiness no one will see the Lord (Heb 12:14), but the correction only lasts until one comes to repentance, faith and holiness.
Another important consideration is the morphology of the noun “punishment,” (kolasis). According to the Greek scholar A.T. Robertson, when Greek substantives end in –ria, -ma, or –sis as in kolasis, they are nouns which lay emphasis upon the result of an action rather than the action itself. [xi] These Greek nouns expressing result are translated into English with the endings –ment and –ion. Words like “punishment,” “judgment,” “atonement,” “salvation,” “redemption,” “destruction,” etc., all lay emphasis upon the result of an action. Although it includes any action necessary to its accomplishment, the emphasis is always upon the end result. Christ’s redemptive work was completed within hours, but the abiding result is eternal redemption. A father’s punishment of his child results in his child’s having been corrected. Therefore, the morphology of the noun kolasis implies a punishment with a final result or end. This is not compatible with “eternal punishing” or “eternal destroying,” as traditionalists understand it. Eonian correction does not mean eonian action but eonian results. How can we speak of the results of an action which continues for eternity without ever coming to completion? There are no results unless the action accomplishes its purpose.
Returning to our consideration of Matthew 25:46, it is important to understand that Jesus isn’t referring to the Great White Throne Judgment mentioned in Revelation 20, which will take place at the end of the 1,000 year millennial reign of Christ, but rather he is referring to a separation of those of the nations who will be alive on the earth at the time of the Second Coming of Christ, when He begins His reign on the earth. Notice the timing of the judgment in Matthew 25 verses 31 through 34. Jesus begins saying:
“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33 And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” (Matt 25:31-34)
Here we see in verses 35-40 that those who treated the brothers of Jesus kindly are the sheep who will be permitted to enter into the kingdom of Christ , while those who did not treat his brethren kindly are the goats who will not be permitted to enter alive into the kingdom but will go into eonian correction. He is not talking about eternal salvation but rather about the separation of the nations which will take place right after His Second Coming. The entrance isn’t based upon having put one’s faith in Christ, but upon their treatment of His brethren. And who are the brothers of Jesus? Many think they are the persecuted Jews living during the great tribulation. Without discounting the probability that it includes them, [xii] we see that those who are actually called the brethren of Jesus are those who make up His Church; those born in His likeness:
“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (Rom 8:29, cf. Heb 2:11)
The “brethren” of Jesus, therefore, are those of the new creation – Christ Jesus being the first-born among them. We become His brethren and enter the kingdom of heaven through the new birth - not for our treatment of the brethren. This passage only has reference to those of the nations who will be alive in the time of the Second Coming; they are not Christians (the brethren) who have already been born again and possess eternal life. The brethren will have already been caught up to meet Christ in the air in His Second Coming. Those being separated here are living individuals of the nations who will either be permitted to enter into the life of the age/s or sent into eonian correction, depending upon their treatment of believers. Matthew 24 and 25 is a response of Jesus to the question made by the disciples concerning the end of the age (Matt 24:3). Jesus is speaking specifically of a separation of those who are alive after the great tribulation when Christ returns (Matt 24:29, cf. 25:31). Nor does He say that they will be transformed in that moment, receiving glorified bodies. It simply says that the sheep will be granted entrance into the kingdom of Christ – “the eonian life” or the “life of the age/s.” John 3:36 says that those who have believed in Jesus already, in this present age, have the eonian life for having believed in Him. In 1John 5:11,12 it says:
“And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (1John 5:11,12)
We who have believed don’t have to wait until Christ comes to know whether or not we will enter into eonian life because in Christ we already possess it. We are no longer of the nations but rather the Church of the firstborn ones, the brothers of Jesus.
[i] Ellicott's Commentary on the Whole Bible (Matt. 25:46)
[ii] Vincent's Word Studies in the New Testament - Additional note on aion and aionios in 2Thessalonians 1:9
[iii] William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible and New Testament Words
[iv] from Gerry Beauchemin, Hope Beyond Hell
[v] Hanson, J.W. (2014-09-16). Universalism: The Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church During Its First 500 Years (Kindle Location 585). . Kindle Edition.
[vi] Trench's New Testament Synonyms: Punishment
[vii] Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, Chapter 16
[viii] Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 1.8 as cited in Thayors Léxicon.
[ix] Clement of Alexandria, Hanson, John Wesley, Universalism: The Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years. p. 117
[x] The New Testament: An Expanded Translation by Kenneth S. Wuest Copyright © 1961 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
[xi] Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament, p.152.
[xii] see my book “Focusing in on End Times Events”.
The following is an excerpt from The Triumph of Mercy
“And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matt 25:46)
“And these shall be going away into chastening eonian, yet the just into life eonian.” (Concordant Literal Version)
The argument presented by traditionalists is that, if the punishment is not eternal, then neither can the life of the just be eternal, since the same word “eternal” is used of both in the same verse. But aionios does not in itself express “eternity” in the New Testament, even when referring to eternal life. This fact is recognized even by many who hold to the doctrine of eternal punishment. Ellicott’s Commentary on the Whole Bible says the following on Matthew 25:46:
“Everlasting punishment - life eternal. The two adjectives represent the same Greek word, aionios. It must be admitted (1) that the Greek word which is rendered "eternal" does not, in itself, involve endlessness, but rather, duration, whether through an age or succession of ages, and that it is therefore applied in the N.T. to periods of time that have had both a beginning and ending.” [i]
Marvin Vincent, in Vincent’s New Testament Word Studies, says the following concerning the eonian life and eonian punishment in this verse:
“Zooee aionios ‘eternal life,’ which occurs 42 times in the New Testament, but not in the Septuagint, is not endless life, but life pertaining to a certain age or aeon, or continuing during that aeon. I repeat, life may be endless. The life in union with Christ is endless, but the fact is not expressed by aionios.
Kolasis aioonios, rendered ‘everlasting punishment’ (Matt 25:46), is the punishment peculiar to an aeon other than that in which Christ is speaking.” [ii]
Also, the duration expressed by the adjective aionios in each instance depends upon the noun that accompanies it and not upon its proximity with another occurrence of the same adjective. For example, if we were to say, “the eonian hills belong to the eonian God” we would not mean by that that the hills have the same duration as God, even as we wouldn’t understand the phrase, “my long legs are going to get uncomfortable on such a long trip,” as meaning that my legs are the same length as the trip.
Apart from Matthew 25:42, we have another instance in Scriptures where aionios is also used two times in the same verse, and yet the duration in each case is different:
“in hope of eternal (aionios) life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began (pro kronon aionion “before the times eonian”).” (Titus 1:2)
In this case the King James Version translators hid the second occurrence of aionios by translating “before times aionion” as before “before time began.” However, in both instances it is the same word aionios; the first in singular and the second in plural, (agreeing with its noun “times”). The Concordant Literal Version translates it correctly:
“in expectation of life eonian, which God, Who does not lie, promises before times eonian.” (Titus 1:2 CLV)
In the first place, we know that “the times” are measurements of time created by God and have no relationship with eternity. Eternity doesn’t have “times,” but rather time was created in eternity. In eternity before creation there were no days. Before the moon existed, there were no months. Before the sun, there were no years. Eternity doesn’t have times and ages. The ages were created by God:
“has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds (aionios, “the ages”).” (Heb 1:2)
In second place, returning to Titus 1:2, it doesn’t make sense to say that God promised eternal life before eternity, since eternity doesn’t have a beginning or end. But it does make sense to say that He promised before the times of the ages. So, the first occurrence of aionios in Titus 1:2 is “eonian life” or “life of the ages,” referring to future ages, while the second occurrence, “before eonian times” or “before the times of the ages,” refers to all past ages since the beginning of time. Aionios doesn’t speak of the same duration (or even the same time period) in both occurrences. Therefore, the argument that “aionios correction” must have the same duration as “aionios life” because it appears in the same verse is not a valid argument.
Although we know that the just will receive immortality in the resurrection, zoe aionios (translated “life eternal”), only means “eonian life” or “the life of the ages.” Everlasting life is expressed by other words such as “immortality,” “incorruptible” or “for the age and beyond,” as we see in Daniel 12:2,3:
“And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting (olam) life, some to shame and everlasting (olam) contempt. 3 Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever (olam a-ad “olam and beyond”).” (Dan 12:2-3)
A literal translation better expresses the distinction between “age during” or “eonian,” and “eonian and beyond”:
“And the multitude of those sleeping in the dust of the ground do awake, some to life age-during, and some to reproaches--to abhorrence age-during. 3 And those teaching do shine as the brightness of the expanse, and those justifying the multitude as stars to the age and forever (lit. “and beyond”).” (Dan 12:2,3 Young’s Literal Translation)
In these two verses we see that the eonian life of the just continues beyond the shame and self-contempt of the unjust. The same can be said of Matthew 25:46.
Also, we see that the punishment cannot be eternal because of the meaning of the Word translated “punishment.” The Greek word (kolasis) means “corrective punishment” in contrast with timoreo which often expresses “vindictive punishment or torture.” William Barclay, a Greek scholar, in his commentary, The Daily Study Bible and New Testament Words says the following of kolasis:
“The Greek word for punishment here [Mt. 25:46] is kolasis, which was not originally an ethical word at all. It originally meant the pruning of trees to make them grow better. I think it is true to say that in all Greek secular literature kolasis is never used of anything but remedial punishment.” [iii]
Thomas Talbott, professor of Philosophy in the University of Willamette in Oregon and author of “The Inescapable Love of God” explains:
“According to the Aristotle, there is a difference between revenge and punishment; the latter (kolasis) is inflicted in the interest of the sufferer, the former (timoria) in the interest of him who inflicts it, that he may obtain satisfaction. Plato also appealed to the established meaning of kolasis as support for his theory that virtue could be taught: ‘For if you will consider punishment (kolasis)…and what control it has over wrong-doers, the facts will inform you that men agree in regarding virtue as procured.’ Even where a punishment may seem harsh and unforgiving, more like retribution than parental chastisement, this in no way excludes a corrective purpose. Check out the punishment that Paul prescribes in I Corinthians 5:5. One might never have guessed that, in prescribing such a punishment—that is, delivering a man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh—Paul had in mind a corrective purpose, had Paul not explicitly stated the corrective purpose himself (“that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus”). So as this text illustrates, even harsh punishment of a seemingly retributive kind can in fact serve a redemptive purpose.” [iv]
The majority of the Pharisees believed in eternal punishment, as does the traditional Church today, but they did not use the phrase “kolasis aionios” (eonian correction) that Jesus used. In order to express everlasting vindictive punishment, they used the phrases “aidíos timoria” (eternal torture), “eirgmos aidíos” (eternal prisons), and “timorion adialeipton” (unending torment). The Jewish historian Josephus (AD 37-100), said of the Pharisees: “They believe that the evil spirits are kept in eternal prisons (eirgmon aidíon). The Pharisees say that all souls are incorruptible, but while the souls of good men are taken to other bodies, the souls of wicked men are subjected to eternal punishment (aidíos temoría).” In another place he says of the Essenes, “…they consign the souls of the evil to a dark and tempestuous place, full of endless torture (timoría adialeipton), where they suffer an “immortal torment” (athanaton timorion).” Josephus always used aidíon (eternal) and athonaton (immortal) and timoría in reference to eternal punishment. In the Bible, however, the word aidíos “eternal” and athonaton “immortal” are not used in reference to the punishment of the unjust. When Jesus spoke of the punishment of the unjust, He said, “correction eonian” (kolasin aionion) which are terms used by Josephus and the Pharisees to refer to temporal and corrective punishments, and He avoided terms then in use to describe eternal punishment. He always spoke of a correctional punishment with a positive end in view. [v]
The renown Greek scholar Archbishop trench in Trench's New Testament Synonyms, also explains the difference between the vindictive punishment timoria and the corrective punishment kolasis:
“Punishment: timoria, kolasis
Timoria… The classical use of timoria emphasizes the vindictive character of punishment. It was punishment that satisfied the inflictor’s sense of outraged justice and that defended his own honor or that of the violated law. The meaning of timoria, then, agrees with its etymology.
Kolasis refers to punishment that is designed to correct and better the offender. Thus, Plato uses kolaseis and noutheteseis together. Several times in one passage in the Protagoras, Plato's use illustrates the distinction we have drawn.” [vi]
This explains why the early Church Fathers who were Greek speaking had no problem understanding that kolasis referred to correctional punishment with limited duration. Clement of Alexandria AD 150 to AD 215 says of God’s punishment of the wicked:
“But God does not punish, for punishment is retaliation for evil. He chastises, however, for good to those who are chastised, collectively and individually.” [vii]
“Punishment is, in its operation, like medicine; it dissolves the hard heart, purges away the filth of uncleanness, and reduces the swellings of pride and haughtiness; thus restoring its subject to a sound and healthful state.” [viii]
“God's punishments are saving and disciplinary leading to conversion…and especially since souls, although darkened by passions, when released from their bodies, are able to perceive more clearly because of their being no longer obstructed by the paltry flesh.” [ix]
Even when kolasis is used in a context which appears to be purely vindictive and penal, one must keep in mind that the root meaning of the word kolasis is correction. In the judgments of any just society, penalties are not purely vindictive but also correctional in nature. While those condemned to serve a sentence in penitentiaries, correctional institutions, or reformatories are being punished for their crimes, the primary objective is to reform - to produce penitence and correction in order to ultimately restore the offender to society.
Although dictatorships have existed which administer vindictive punishment without reformative motives, they are rightly considered to be primitive, barbaric and unjust by any civilized society. How much more can we say of God’s own judgments that they are good! (Ps 119:39). Even the best correctional institutions often fail to reform some of the most obstinate individuals, but contrary to the traditional doctrine of eternal reprobation for the majority, God’s judgments will ultimately restore even the most obstinately rebellious:
“Say to God, ‘How awesome are Your works! Through the greatness of Your power Your enemies shall submit themselves to You. 4 All the earth shall worship You and sing praises to You; They shall sing praises to Your name.” (Psalm 66:3-4)
Contrary to what traditionalists would have us believe, every biblical example of God’s judgments are for correction and end in restoration. Fiery wrath and perpetual desolations are declared upon Israel and Judah, only to be followed up by their final restoration (Jer 25:9, cf. Jer 29:10; Ezek 22:17-23,31 cf. Ezek 36:24-26; Jer 30). This is not only true of God’s elect, but also of the nations. From Jeremiah 45 thru 51 we see apparently irremediable destruction declared against nations such as Egypt, Moab, Ammon and Elam followed up by promises of restoration (cf. Isa 19:22). The very nations in Revelation which come up against Christ in His coming will walk in the light of the New Jerusalem in the post White Throne Judgment new earth (Rev 21:24-26). If even Sodom and those who were disobedient in the days of Noah are restored, how can we still insist that the judgment of the nations and the White Throne Judgment will not finally result in restoration? (Ezek 16:53-54; 1Peter 3:19-20).
All nations whom You have made
Shall come and worship before You, O Lord,
And shall glorify Your name. (Ps 86:9)
If God’s punishment were purely vindictive and for His own benefit and pleasure, then one might argue that His punishment could last forever, although eternal vengeance would still be unjust, excessive and contrary to God’s loving nature. However, seeing that the word Jesus used is “correction” (kolasis), it is evident that it could not last forever. A punishment for the purpose of correction only lasts until the desired result has been achieved – the correction of the offender. Once corrected, the eonian correction ceases. It may last a very long time or a rather short time, depending upon the time necessary to accomplish its purpose. In Jonah’s case it lasted for an eon of just three days. Justice always suspends punishment when the correction has been achieved. According to the meaning of the word kolasis, we see that the punishment in Scriptures is always a measured punishment, according to the works of each one. Even in the eschatalogical lake of fire, each one receives only that which is his part:
“But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part (meros) in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” (Rev 21:8)
The expression “their part” (meros) does not correspond with an infinite punishment. That which is “a part” is a measured punishment. The prodigal son said to his father: “Father, give me the portion (meros) of goods that falls to me” (Luke 15:12). The same Greek word meros is used in each instance. We get our English word “merit,” which refers to that which one deserves; a portion or part pertaining to someone. Their part is limited to what corresponds to each one – no more, no less. If the punishment were infinite, then it couldn’t be said to be a part or portion. Jesus said of the evil servant: “and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 24:45-51). Again, we see that it is a portion and not infinite. Here the phrase “will cut him in two” simply means “cut or lacerate.” It was common practice to scourge disobedient servants, leaving them lacerated, but they didn’t normally dismember them. If a master were to cut his servant in two for disobeying, what benefit would it be to him? He would just have one less servant. Kenneth Wuest’s translation gives the more logical meaning: “and he shall scourge him severely and shall appoint his part with the actors on the stage of life who play the role of that which they are not.” [x]
There is another phrase utilized in the Scriptures for punishment which also limits the duration of punishment. “Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny” (Matt 5:26 cf. Luke 12:59). In the context of this parable Jesus is speaking of “hell (Gehenna) fire” (v. 22), and He said that one will not get out till. A punishment cannot be forever and at the same time last until, but it can be an eonian or age during punishment, lasting until. Forever does not have an end, but an age or ages last until the purpose for the age or ages has been fulfilled – whether it should be three days or millenniums. Another example we find is in Matthew 18:34-35:
“And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. 35 So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.” (Matt 18:34-35)
If we do not forgive others their debts against us, then our Father will deliver us to torments, however, not eternally, but rather until. Nor is it without significance that Jesus refers to God in this instance as Father, emphasizing His paternal correction. Also, in the Lord’s Prayer we see that the forgiveness being referred to is paternal and not penal or judicial (Matt 6:14-15). What father among mankind would continue punishing beyond that which is necessary for the correction of his child? Didn’t Jesus say that we are evil fathers in comparison to Him? The traditional Church has degenerated to the point of presenting our Father God as infinitely more cruel than the worst earthly father. Jesus, in contrast, said that every sin will be forgiven men (Matt 12:31). Also, we see in Scriptures that the wrath of God is not eternal as tradition teaches, but rather “until”:
“The anger (wrath) of the Lord will not turn back Until He has executed and performed the thoughts of His heart. In the latter days you will understand it perfectly.” (Jer 23:20)
On still another occasion Jesus made it clear that correction only lasts as long as necessary. It is found in Matthew 21:31:
“…tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you.” (Matt 21:31)
Here Jesus presents two groups of individuals: 1) Those who already knew they were sinners, (tax collectors and harlots) and 2) sinners who thought they were holy (self-righteous, religious scribes and Pharisees). Many would say that neither category would ever enter the kingdom of Christ, but Jesus said that both groups will enter, but those in the first group enter before those of the second group for the obvious reason that those of the second group are slower to recognize their need for the Savior. Without holiness no one will see the Lord (Heb 12:14), but the correction only lasts until one comes to repentance, faith and holiness.
Another important consideration is the morphology of the noun “punishment,” (kolasis). According to the Greek scholar A.T. Robertson, when Greek substantives end in –ria, -ma, or –sis as in kolasis, they are nouns which lay emphasis upon the result of an action rather than the action itself. [xi] These Greek nouns expressing result are translated into English with the endings –ment and –ion. Words like “punishment,” “judgment,” “atonement,” “salvation,” “redemption,” “destruction,” etc., all lay emphasis upon the result of an action. Although it includes any action necessary to its accomplishment, the emphasis is always upon the end result. Christ’s redemptive work was completed within hours, but the abiding result is eternal redemption. A father’s punishment of his child results in his child’s having been corrected. Therefore, the morphology of the noun kolasis implies a punishment with a final result or end. This is not compatible with “eternal punishing” or “eternal destroying,” as traditionalists understand it. Eonian correction does not mean eonian action but eonian results. How can we speak of the results of an action which continues for eternity without ever coming to completion? There are no results unless the action accomplishes its purpose.
Returning to our consideration of Matthew 25:46, it is important to understand that Jesus isn’t referring to the Great White Throne Judgment mentioned in Revelation 20, which will take place at the end of the 1,000 year millennial reign of Christ, but rather he is referring to a separation of those of the nations who will be alive on the earth at the time of the Second Coming of Christ, when He begins His reign on the earth. Notice the timing of the judgment in Matthew 25 verses 31 through 34. Jesus begins saying:
“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33 And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” (Matt 25:31-34)
Here we see in verses 35-40 that those who treated the brothers of Jesus kindly are the sheep who will be permitted to enter into the kingdom of Christ , while those who did not treat his brethren kindly are the goats who will not be permitted to enter alive into the kingdom but will go into eonian correction. He is not talking about eternal salvation but rather about the separation of the nations which will take place right after His Second Coming. The entrance isn’t based upon having put one’s faith in Christ, but upon their treatment of His brethren. And who are the brothers of Jesus? Many think they are the persecuted Jews living during the great tribulation. Without discounting the probability that it includes them, [xii] we see that those who are actually called the brethren of Jesus are those who make up His Church; those born in His likeness:
“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (Rom 8:29, cf. Heb 2:11)
The “brethren” of Jesus, therefore, are those of the new creation – Christ Jesus being the first-born among them. We become His brethren and enter the kingdom of heaven through the new birth - not for our treatment of the brethren. This passage only has reference to those of the nations who will be alive in the time of the Second Coming; they are not Christians (the brethren) who have already been born again and possess eternal life. The brethren will have already been caught up to meet Christ in the air in His Second Coming. Those being separated here are living individuals of the nations who will either be permitted to enter into the life of the age/s or sent into eonian correction, depending upon their treatment of believers. Matthew 24 and 25 is a response of Jesus to the question made by the disciples concerning the end of the age (Matt 24:3). Jesus is speaking specifically of a separation of those who are alive after the great tribulation when Christ returns (Matt 24:29, cf. 25:31). Nor does He say that they will be transformed in that moment, receiving glorified bodies. It simply says that the sheep will be granted entrance into the kingdom of Christ – “the eonian life” or the “life of the age/s.” John 3:36 says that those who have believed in Jesus already, in this present age, have the eonian life for having believed in Him. In 1John 5:11,12 it says:
“And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (1John 5:11,12)
We who have believed don’t have to wait until Christ comes to know whether or not we will enter into eonian life because in Christ we already possess it. We are no longer of the nations but rather the Church of the firstborn ones, the brothers of Jesus.
[i] Ellicott's Commentary on the Whole Bible (Matt. 25:46)
[ii] Vincent's Word Studies in the New Testament - Additional note on aion and aionios in 2Thessalonians 1:9
[iii] William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible and New Testament Words
[iv] from Gerry Beauchemin, Hope Beyond Hell
[v] Hanson, J.W. (2014-09-16). Universalism: The Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church During Its First 500 Years (Kindle Location 585). . Kindle Edition.
[vi] Trench's New Testament Synonyms: Punishment
[vii] Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, Chapter 16
[viii] Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 1.8 as cited in Thayors Léxicon.
[ix] Clement of Alexandria, Hanson, John Wesley, Universalism: The Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years. p. 117
[x] The New Testament: An Expanded Translation by Kenneth S. Wuest Copyright © 1961 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
[xi] Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament, p.152.
[xii] see my book “Focusing in on End Times Events”.
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Chapter 0
The centrality of Isaiah 53 to the doctrine of the Atonement
by George Sidney Hurd
Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12 is the last of four servant songs in which Christ is portrayed as the sin-bearing servant. It is by far the most referenced passage in the New Testament, being directly quoted 9 times, once by Jesus Himself (Luke 22:37; Matt 8:17; Mark 15:28; John 12:38; Acts 8:32-33; Rom 10:16; Rom 15:21; 1 Peter 2:22; 1 Peter 2:24). Apart from these direct quotes, it is alluded to some 75 times. For example, the writer of Hebrews says of Christ:
“...but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, 28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation” (Heb 9:26-28, cf. Isa 53:12).
Here the author of Hebrews presents Christ as being the vicarious sacrifice, bearing the sins of many in His first coming, alluding to Isaiah 53:12, “And He bore the sin of many.” He then goes on to say that, having put away sin once and for all by the sacrifice of Himself (Heb 7:27), when He comes the second time, it will not be as the sin bearer in which He became sin for us as our substitutionary sacrifice. Rather, when He comes again, He will come bringing salvation or deliverance to His people.
A more subtle allusion to Isaiah 53 is where Paul says: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3). While it is not a direct quote, the only place in the Old Testament Scriptures where Christ the Messiah is seen to die for our sins as a sin offering is in Isaiah 53 (Isa 53:10). The New Testament is impregnated with many such allusions to Isaiah’s Suffering Servant passage, applying it to Christ and His vicarious sacrifice of Himself for our sins.
In the next blog I will demonstrate that the terminology throughout Isaiah 53 is penal and substitutionary in nature. However, since many who oppose the doctrine accuse us of reading Isaiah 53 through the lens of Anselm and Calvin, in this blog I will be citing specific references to Isaiah 53 made by numerous Early Church Fathers which clearly demonstrate that they understood Isaiah 53 to be penal and substitutionary in nature, just as the Reformers did after them. This differs from my previous blog, The Early Fathers and Penal Substitutionary Atonement, in that here I will only be siting their specific references to Isaiah 53 which contain penal substitutionary connotations.
Epistle of Barnabas (70 to 135 AD)
“For to this end their Lord endured to deliver up His flesh to corruption (καταφθορά, kataphthora, ‘death, destruction’) that we might be sanctified through the remission (ἄφεσις, aphesis, ‘pardon, remission of penalty’) of sins, which is effected by His blood of sprinkling. For it was written concerning Him… ‘He was wounded for our transgressions (ἀνομία, anomía ‘illegality, lawlessness’) and bruised for our iniquities (ἁμαρτία, hamartia ‘sins’): with His stripes we are healed. He was brought as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb which is dumb before its shearer.” [1]
According to Clement of Alexandria and Origen, the Epistle of Barnabas was written by Barnabas, the companion of Paul (Acts 9:26-27). Here Barnabas makes reference to Isaiah 53 and employs clear penal substitutionary language. He presents Christ’s suffering and death as dying in our place, connecting it with the animal sacrificed on the Day of Atonement when its blood was sprinkled in order to make atonement/expiation for all the sins of the people (Lev 16:15-16, cf. Heb 9:13-14; 12:24; Isa 52:15). He then further demonstrates the substitutionary nature of His death by quoting Isaiah 53:5, “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.” He clearly understood the preposition “for” here in the substitutionary sense, as in “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for (huper) [2] us” (2 Cor 5:21).
As to the penal aspect of His death, we see him presenting Christ as having suffered the penalty for our transgressions against the Law. The word anomía, or lawlessness, is a legal term, and John states that all sin is anomía (1Jn 3:4). The penalty for sin or transgression is death (Gen 2:17; Ezek 18:20; Rom 6:23; Rom 5:17). Therefore, if Christ had not suffered the due penalty for our sin on the cross as our substitute, we would have been doomed to an irreversible state of death; there could have been no resurrection. The good news is that “Christ died for (huper) [3] our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day” (1 Cor 15:3-4). Paul then says that, “if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1 Cor 15:17). Why? Because His resurrection was the demonstration that, through Christ’s substitutionary death, our sins have been remitted and death’s penalty, which was hanging over us, has been lifted. Another legal or forensic term Barnabas uses is “remission” (aphesis), which refers to “a legal pardon or remission of penalty.” [4] Therefore, Barnabas clearly understood Isaiah 53 in a penal substitutionary sense.
Epistle to Diognetus (2nd century)
“He Himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for (huper) transgressors (ἄνομος, anomos), the blameless One for (huper) the wicked, the righteous One for (huper) the unrighteous... For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! That the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors (ἄνομος, anomos)!” [5]
Here reference is made to Isaiah 53:11, “My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.” That the author of this epistle understood the single righteous One as bearing the transgressions of the many in a substitutional sense is clear, considering, not only his use of the preposition huper, which expresses the idea of substitution, but also his reference to the sweet exchange in which Christ took our own sins upon Himself and covered us with His own righteousness, thereby justifying many transgressors. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor 5:21).
Additionally, the word he uses for “transgressors” is anomos which is a forensic term used to refer to those who violate God’s law. The law could not simply be set aside as some argue. As the writer of Hebrews says, according to the law, “every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty” (Heb 2:2). We are justified only because Christ bore in Himself the just penalty due to us for our sins and transgressions.
Also, here in the epistle to Diognetus, the justification being referred to is the righteousness of Christ that is imputed to us, just as the Reformers taught, rather than it being an infused righteousness, as held by the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. The author says that our sins have been covered by His righteousness – that our wickedness is hid in the righteous One, resulting in us having been justified. To speak of infused righteousness is to confuse justification with sanctification. As ungodly sinners, we were justified by faith in Christ the moment we believed, in spite of the fact that we are still in the process of being sanctified or set apart from sin by the indwelling Spirit of Christ (Rom 4:5-8; 5:18-19; 2Cor 5:21). Although we are still in a process of sanctification, our sins have been covered by His righteousness (1Cor 1:30-31; Gal 3:27).
Justin Martyr (100 to 165 AD)
“For Isaiah did not send you to a bath, there to wash away murder and other sins, which not even all the water of the sea were sufficient to purge; but… by faith through the blood of Christ, and through His death, who died for this very reason, as Isaiah himself said, when he spake thus:.. He bears our sins, and is distressed for us; and we esteemed Him to be in toil and in affliction, and in evil treatment. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. With His stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. Every man has turned to his own way; and the Lord laid on Him our iniquities.... And He shall bear our sins.” [6]
“For the whole human race will be found to be under a curse. For it is written in the law of Moses, ‘Cursed is everyone that continues not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them’… If then, the Father of all wished His Christ for the whole human family to take upon Him the curses of all, knowing that after He had been crucified and was dead He would raise Him up, why do you argue about Him who submitted to suffer these things according to the Father’s will as if He were accursed, and do not rather bewail yourselves? For although His Father caused Him to suffer these things in behalf of the human family, yet you did not commit the deed as in obedience to the will of God.” [7]
Justin Martyr here cites Isaiah 53, showing that it was the Father’s will to lay our sins on Christ that He might bear them instead of us. He also alludes to verse 10 where it says that “it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin.”
If the opponents of Penal Substitutionary Atonement mention Isaiah 53 at all, they will usually only cite the portion of verses 4 and 5, where it says: “we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions.” They then interpret it as though it said: “We thought He was stricken by God, but we were wrong. It was us who wounded Him.” However, if one continues reading the chapter, as Justin Martyr does, it becomes evident that, while He wasn’t stricken of God for His own sins, He was stricken by Him for our sins (v. 10). The Lord laid on Him our iniquities (v. 6). When Jesus cried out in Gethsemane “thy will be done,” He was referring to the Father’s will that He give His life a ransom for all. When Jesus said in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only unique Son,” He knew that meant Him giving His life for us. This is clear, considering that He had just told them that He had to be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life, referring to Him being lifted up upon the cross. This is made even more clear later on when He said: “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.’ This He said, signifying by what death He would die” (John 12:32-33). He also said that He “did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt 20:28).
These Apostolic Fathers lived in a time when the Church was under great persecution. For that reason, their focus in their epistles written to believers was more upon Christ’s victory over Satan than the forgiveness of sin. Observing this, in 1931 Gustaf Aulén concluded that Christ’s atonement is not about expiating sins but overcoming Satan. Based upon that, he came up with his new Christus Victor theory of the atonement, claiming that the Fathers never understood Christ’s atonement to be penal and substitutionary in nature. However, as we have seen, that is patently false. Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement is clearly stated by them multiple times.
Clement of Alexandria 150 to 215 AD)
“He Himself suffered for us, whom he might have destroyed for our faults’. ‘The Lord has assigned Him to our sins.” [8] (Isa 53:6)
“Mistake is a sin contrary to calculation; and voluntary sin is crime; and crime is voluntary wickedness. Sin, then, is on my part voluntary... Addressing those who have believed, he says, “For by His stripes we were healed.” [9]
Clement makes only passing allusions to the atonement of Christ, and for that reason some have concluded that the doctrine of Penal Substitution is totally absent from his writings. However, he does make a few statements which are sufficiently clear. Here I include two which allude to Isaiah 53. When he says that Christ “suffered for us” in the sense that “the Lord has assigned Him to our sins,” it is clear that he sees the suffering and death of Christ in Isaiah to be penal and substitutionary in nature, rather than Him simply suffering at the hands of wicked men (cf. Isa 53:5-6). In the second quote he uses forensic terms, referring to voluntary sin as a crime, and seems to connect release from the penalty for sins to Christ’s passion, quoting Isaiah 53:5 where it says, “by His stripes we are healed.”
Origen (184 to 254 AD)
“And since Celsus, although professing to know all about the Gospel, reproaches the Saviour because of His sufferings, saying that He received no assistance from the Father, or was unable to aid Himself; we have to state that His sufferings were the subject of prophecy, along with the cause of them; because it was for the benefit of mankind that He should die on their account, and should suffer stripes because of His condemnation... He was wounded for our sins, and bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him; by His stripes we were healed.” [10]
“And I asked to what character the expression would be appropriate, ‘This man bears our sins, and suffers pain on our behalf;’ and this, ‘But He was wounded for our sins, and bruised for our iniquities;’ and to whom the expression properly belonged, ‘By His stripes were we healed.’... For if the people, according to them, are the subject of the prophecy, how is the man said to be led away to death because of the iniquities of the people of God, unless he be a different person from that people of God? And who is this person save Jesus Christ, by whose stripes they who believe on Him are healed...?” [11]
Origin originated what later became known as the Ransom Theory of the atonement in which he speculated that Satan was tricked into accepting the death of Christ as a ransom for mankind, thinking that He would remain in Hades under his power. But Christ rose from the dead as our representative head, thereby destroying Satan’s dominion over those who believe. This is similar to the Christus Victor view, except that most who hold to the Christus Victor theory would reject the idea that a ransom was paid to the devil.
While Origin’s primary focus was upon his Ransom model, he in no way denied that Christ bore the penalty for our sins as our substitute. His quotes cited here from Isaiah 53 present Christ as bearing our sins on our behalf.
Commenting on Romans 3:24-26, Origin clearly presents Christ’s shed blood as making propitiation/expiation for our sins before God in order that He might forgive our sins without violating His own immutable justice:
“For above, Paul had said that Christ had given his very self as the redemption price for the entire human race so that he might redeem those who were being held in the captivity of their sins... Now he has added something even more profound and says, ‘God pre-determined him as a propitiation through faith in his blood.’ This means of course that through the sacrifice of himself he would make God propitious to men and through this he would manifest his own righteousness as He forgives them their past sins.” [12]
The opponents of penal substitution would have us believe that the Fathers who emphasized other benefits resulting from the atonement/expiation did so to the exclusion of Penal Substitutionary Atonement, but such is clearly not the case.
Eusebius of Caesarea (275 to 339 AD)
“So it is said: ‘And the Lord hath laid on him our iniquities, and he bears our sins.’ Thus the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, became a curse on our behalf: Whom, though he knew no sin, God made sin for our sake, giving him as redemption for all, that we might become the righteousness of God in him... And the Lamb of God not only did this, but was chastised on our behalf, and suffered a penalty He did not owe, but which we owed because of the multitude of our sins; and so He became the cause of the forgiveness of our sins, because He received death for us, and transferred to Himself the scourging, the insults, and the dishonour, which were due to us, and drew down on Himself the apportioned curse, being made a curse for us.” [13]
“He bears our sins, and is pained for us, and he was wounded for our sins, and bruised for our iniquities, so that by His stripes we might be healed, for the Lord hath given Him for our sins. So, as delivered up by the Father, as bruised, as bearing our sins, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter. With this the apostle agrees when he says, “Who spared not his own Son, but delivered him for us all.” [14]
“Psalms 88 and 69, again speaking in the Lord’s own person, tell us further that He suffered these things, not for His own sake but for ours. Thou has made Thy wrath to rest upon me, says the one; and the other adds, I paid them things I never took. For He did not die as being Himself liable to death: He suffered for us, and bore in Himself the wrath that was the penalty of our transgression, even as Isaiah says, He Himself bore our weaknesses.” [15]
Here Eusebius cites Isaiah 53 verses 6 and 12 to show that Christ, as the sin bearing servant, bore our sins, the Lord Himself having laid them upon Him. According to the Law, everyone must bear their own sins, referring to bearing the guilt and just penalty for sin (Lev 5:1; 7:18; 24:15). However, Eusebius correctly understands Isaiah 53 to be saying that Christ bore in Himself the just punishment due to us as our substitute.
Conclusion
We have seen that, in the New Testament, Isaiah 53 is the most cited passage from the entire Old Testament. We also saw how the Fathers frequently quoted from it, and how they understood it as affirming Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement in a manner amazingly similar to that of the Reformers.
In marked contrast to this, over the past few years I have read numerous popular titles opposing Penal Substitutionary Atonement, including, Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God by Brian Zahnd; A More Christlike God by Bradley Jersak; That All Shall be Saved by David Bentley Hart; Unspoken Sermons by George MacDonald, and Christus Victor by Gustaf Aulén. What stood out to me was that, as far as I was able to determine, none of them even mention one phrase from Isaiah 53. In the Monster God Debate, Brian Zahnd did mention Isaiah 53 once, admitting that he found it to be a difficult text. [16] However, it was obviously not considered problematic by any of the New Testament authors or the Early Fathers.
The only exception was Gregory Boyd’s two volume book, The Crucifixion of the Warrior God. I will consider some of his arguments in the next blog. However, his objective in writing his two-volume set wasn’t specifically to contest the belief in Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement, but rather to argue that God’s love is non-violent or cruciform. In a recent debate he had with William Lane Craig on the atonement, Did God punish Jesus on the cross?, he even seems to be in agreement with William Craig on some aspects of Penal Substitutionary Atonement.
Considering the centrality of Isaiah 53 in the New Testament and in the writings of the Early Fathers, any theory of the atonement that must bypass Isaiah 53, or nuance the plain sense of the text to fit one’s model of the atonement, should be considered suspect. In the next blog we will examine the entire passage to determine what is actually being communicated to us through Isaiah.
[1] Epistle of Barnabas, Chapter 5:1-2,
[2] The preposition huper (ὑπέρ) in this context speaks of substitution, “instead of” (cf. 1Cor 15:29; 2Cor 5:15; 2Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13; Philemon 1:13).
[3] The preposition huper (ὑπέρ) in this context speaks of substitution, “instead of” (cf. 1Cor 15:29; 2Cor 5:15; 2Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13; Philemon 1:13).
[4] Kittel’s 10 volume Theological Dictionary of the New Testament says the following concerning the forensic nature of aphesis: “To be emphasised is the legal use much attested in the papyri
aphenei tina, ‘to release someone from a legal relation,’ whether office, marriage, obligation, or debt, though never in a religious sense. In the sense of ‘to pardon’ it is construed with the accusative of person and genitive of object.
[5] Mathetes, The Epistle to Diognetus, Chapter 9
[6] Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 13
[7] Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 95
[8] Clement of Alexandria, The Paedagogus 1:8
[9] Clement of Alexandria, The Paedagogus 2:15
[10] Origen, Against Celsus, Chapter 54
[11] Origen, Against Celsus, Chapter 55
[12] Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans 2.8.1
[13] Eusebius, Demonstratio Evangélica, Chapter 10.1 trans. W.J. Ferrar,
[14] Ibid., 10:1
[15] Eusebius, Letter to Marcellenius
[16] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T27av-RF2-Y&t=179s
Brian Zahnd said: “I don’t shy away from Isaiah 53... It’s a difficult text, I get that.” 1:06.55 min.