Fascinatingly, when Death and hades are emptied, they themselves are “thrown into the lake of fire” (Rev 20:14). Few evangelical theologians these days attribute an inherent immortality to the human soul, so I am not going to present the biblical reasons for denying the intrinsic immortality of human souls which undergirds the doctrine of eternal conscious torment. The New Testament speaks similarly in Revelation 2:7 and 2 Corinthians 12:2-4, and I think that Cooper is right that we have here “a virtually unambiguous case in which Jewish eschatology, with its anthropological implications, is appropriated as part of the Christian kerygma” (129). They share many similarities. Jesus is warning the hypocritical religious leaders of his day that if they continue on their course, they will end up in the fire of hell, and there will be no escaping that fire because no one can quench it, so it will burn until it has completely consumed all its combustible material, just as the corpses of dead bodies are burned on a funeral pyre or are consumed by worms eating the flesh of the dead. Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection: on such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. In Matthew 10:28, on the other hand, Jesus gives us one of the briefest, and most clear and vivid, differentiations between the first and second death that we find anywhere in Scripture. The rest of the dead did not come to Mt 10:28). Christians have uniformly affirmed the resurrection of everyone at Christ’s return, and there has been no controversy over what this means for those who died in faith, regardless of the covenant under which they died. As Hebrews 9:27 tells us: “It is appointed for mortals to die once and after that the judgment.”. Although resurrection will be universal, its significance will vary vastly. Since the fall of Adam, human death has become a “natural evil.” It exists because sin came into the world and all of the human race was implicated in it. the concept of a creator God, sustaining all life, including the life of those who have died. In Mattthew 5:22, Jesus severely warns his listeners against anger and insult toward a brother or sister in the faith, alerting them to the fact that this will make them “liable to the hell of fire.” Jesus goes on then to teach us that adultery is not just a matter of physical action, it is more fundamentally a matter of the heart: for a man to look at a woman with lust is to have “committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt 5:27). Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. This verse does not tell us much about the second death, only that the way to avoid it is to overcome faithfully. People all over the world, even children, constantly see death. Though Paul uses his language with remarkable consistency, he nowhere suggests that any of the key terms refers to a particular ‘part’ of the human being to be played off against any other. In Revelation, John presents the same analysis of the problem. person that distinguishes him from the animals. That death ushered them into the presence of God, where they now worship as priests and reign as kings (20:6; see 7:9–12). at the time of death. If that view is correct, then the final punishing of the wicked must be a punishing which is consciously experienced by them forever, because they cannot be killed. Unless we have good reason to believe that there is a major difference in the meaning of “death,” between its first and second occurrence, I suggest that we should consider it to have essentially the same sense in both cases. Those in the first resurrection are raised with incorruptible, spirit bodies. We've had some problems with free-for-all questions and this was brought to my attention as one that "if you allow it there why not here". This “with”ness remains an act, an activity, of sheer grace, not of divine recognition of some part of the human being which can, as it were, hold its own despite death. The text does not specify whether this is their intermediate or final state, but in either case we would have dualism. Psalm 49:14 speaks of the death of the morally foolish as their end: “straight to the grave they descend, and their form shall waste away: Sheol shall be their home.”  But the Psalmist expects a different future, for God “will ransom [his] soul from the power of Sheol” (Ps 49:15). Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. Mt 10:28). In quoting Isaiah, Jesus is not speaking about the fire of hell as a fire which will “never go out” (as per the unfortunate translation by the CSB), but as a fire which will not be quenched or put out. Hence. However, in order to answer the question of what is the second death we need to know what the first death is. The first death is our physical death. have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his One major reason that so many in the Christian church since Augustine have given the two deaths very different meanings is the adoption of a Platonic (rather than biblical) view of the human soul as intrinsically immortal. He did this for good reasons. In an interesting address to a regional meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers, at Fordham University, on March 18, 2011 (“Mind, Spirit, Soul and Body: All for One and One for All: Reflections on Paul’s Anthropology in his Complex Contexts”), N. T. Wright argues that we should “think in terms of a differentiated unity.” He is eager to avoid reductive materialism, but he doubts that the New Testament clearly teaches substance dualism as philosophers and theologians commonly assert it. unto thee, today shalt thou be with Me in paradise" (Luke 23:39-43). Bitwise operations in Bash not working as expected, Op-amp homework question using potentiometer with my attempt at solving it. For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead” (Isa 26:19). One of the thrilling oracles of the book of Revelation is Christ’s declaration that He is the Living One. The second death is far worse than the first death. And after God’s consuming fire has destroyed the wicked, death will also “be no more” outside of God’s new heaven and earth. We can all expect to die bodily, and we know that we will all be raised from the dead to face either vindication or condemnation on the day God’s final judgment. evil will rise and be found guilty. But Jesus’ point on that occasion was not to draw listeners’ attention to the similarities between first and second death, but to impress upon them how much more severe the second death, hell, is than the first. The first death is physical. As a systematic theologian, however, I am not content to stop where N. T. Wright leaves things after his analysis of the biblical terminology for the aspects of human being. There are two things to notice about this beast in Revelation. This runs counter to the very clear New Testament assertion that eternal life is God’s gift only to sinners whose death penalty was born on their behalf by Jesus, and appropriated by them through faith. This is the first resurrection. To me this makes so much more sense than if the Bible meant by “second death” a situation where the unrighteous remain conscious and thinking and feeling forever. (cf. As with the angels who remained faithfully obedient to God when rebellion occurred among them, there would then have been no further possibility of sin’s occurrence in the human world. The next three seals are judgment for those who refuse or abuse the gospel. site design / logo © 2021 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under cc by-sa. This is the second death, the lake of fire. Both are unembodied but personally, consciously alive, and their experience in the intervening period is an anticipation of the different destinies that await them after resurrection and judgment. finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame" God “will swallow up death forever. In John 14:15-17, 15:25-27, 16:11-15, Jesus tells us that he will send another comforter even the spirit of truth, who will abide with us and in us, forever. The first four seals identify major world events that will take place before the Great Tribulation. Those who are not holy, that is, those who do not believe in Jesus Christ and who have not accepted Him as their Lord will die, leave this world, and spend the rest of eternity in the lake of fire. It seems to me that one of the advantages of your view is that it allows us to understand “death” to mean what “death” normally means. By definition, purgatory is the experience of people who are not destined for hell, but who are not yet prepared for heaven. Revelation 20:5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. The First Four Seals of Revelation. This is the first resurrection. A brief sketch of the positions advocated should prove helpful. Both the righteous and the wicked continue to exist in a conscious personal way after death, but the experience of people in these two groups is significantly different. Those Christians who are still living when Christ returns will not die, instead they will be caught up with the resurrected righteous. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! I am Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology and Ethics at Providence Theological Seminary, Canada. preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Some time, I hope to write a post spelling out my reasons for believing that the Bible leads us to affirm a substantial distinction between body and spirit. But those who reject God’s gracious work of salvation in Christ remain under the devil’s power, and they must suffer God’s judgment upon them for their own submission to Satan, when God decisively brings to a culmination the victory of Christ over Satan, condemning him and all who serve him (Rev 20:10). This is the second death. God richly bless you In his highly symbolic vision, John saw this as an event in which “Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire,” which is “the second death,” and “anyone whose name was not written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire” (Rev 20:14,15). This was a misleading collection, because only three of those views were actually “views on hell,” since hell is the place where the wicked are finally punished. An unbeliever's spirit and soul go immediately into a place of torment With these texts in view, we are pushed to reconsider the meaning of God’s warning to Adam and Eve that, if they sinned, they would “die.” Paul saw death as the quintessence of God’s punishment of the wicked; but to which death did God’s original warning, and Paul’s description of the consequences of Adam’s sin and ours, refer? It corresponds with Jesus’ teaching of the “resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:14) and the “resurrection of life” (John 5:29). Although “spirit,” like “soul,” is not always used as a reference to the immaterial aspect of human being which God keeps alive between death and the resurrection, its use is narrower than that of “soul,” and “spirit” much less often connotes the totality of human being, both material and immaterial, than “soul” does. Should we be concerned about the shrinking church in western Christianity? "Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! The plague of sores was the sixth in Egypt, but is the first plague in Revelation. They will be priests of God How can I make my class immune to the "auto value = copy of proxy" landmine in C++? Crockett, on the other hand, sides with John Calvin and Charles Hodge in the conviction that the Bible’s references to fire, when speaking of God’s judgment of the wicked, are best understood as “figurative expressions warning the wicked of impending doom” (p. 44). The phrase “second death” is found only in the book of Revelation, the first time in the letter to the church at Smyrna: “He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death” (Revelation 2:11). What is the first death in Revelation 20? The unbelievers will be be thrown into the Lake of Fire, which is the Second Death. Of the four views, although strongly impressed by Pinnock’s case for the “conditional” view, my choice as a traditionalist was then between the “literal” view propounded by John Walvoord and the “metaphorical” view put forward by Crockett himself. Either God gives eternal life of a highly undesirable kind to those who are condemned to hell, or he destroys them. Once again, we find that only two of the views are truly views of hell. But there are indications that this state was unpleasurable for the wicked (having more the nature of hell), whereas it might be pleasurable for the righteous (hence, more like heaven). . The stark contrast between those in Christ, who are justified by his grace, on the basis of Christ’s saving work, and those outside of Christ, is the difference between life and death. Being vindicated by God as one who did not deserve eternal or second death, Christ rose again, and his resurrection was the firstfruits of a new order of resurrection. It assumes a particular way of reading the whole apocalyptic drama. Do the residents of hell continue sinning endlessly. This is the first death, or physical death. Cooper’s discussion, 144-49) and, in any event, immediate resurrection implies dualism just as much as the intermediate state because it depicts one person who inhabits two different bodies (cf., Cooper, 165-69). The Revelation of the first seal represents Jesus as a conqueror bent on continuing to conquer. With Isaiah this hope becomes explicit and strong. The first is Revelation 2:11: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. that part of a person that is the home of the affections—right or Many will quickly conclude that "The First death" is that which happens at the time of physical death and burial, but such interpretation, I believe is NOT in total agreement with the Bible and what it says about the subject. And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The first four seals of Revelation, represented by four horses and horsemen, are fixed to events, or changes, within the Roman Earth. So we now know that the 2nd death is eternal damnation. Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years. And if … The Book of Revelation (also called the Apocalypse of John, Revelation to John or Revelation from Jesus Christ) is the final book of the New Testament, and consequently is also the final book of the Christian Bible.Its title is derived from the first word of the Koine Greek text: apokalypsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation. Revelation and the End Times. But before we continue it is also important to understand that when Christ returns, not everyone will be physically dead, some will be alive, including believers. Ex-religous, ex-atheist, current Christian, Typology of Positions Concerning the Salvation of the Unevangelized, Mind, Spirit, Soul and Body: All for One and One for All: Reflections on Paul’s Anthropology in his Complex Contexts, Hypothetical Universalism in Paul’s Epistles, Incoherence in the Belgic Confession (1561), between its Christology and its Eschatology, Nicholas Ridley, the Oxford martyr, is part of my family story, In memory of J. I. Packer: A personal tribute. However highly we may value the preservation of our lives in this world, preserving them for eternity is far more important. They are found in Revelation. Jesus then equates the condition of being excluded from the kingdom of heaven with being “a child of hell” (Mt 23:15). “Do not be amazed at this. Now that I have become convinced that God destroys the wicked, removing all wickedness completely from his creation, so that he can once more look at all he has made and declare it “very good,” I am less squeamish about reading literally the biblical descriptions of God’s judgment as “fire.” When we read it that way, we see again the similarity between the final fire and the fire which was God’s means of punishing sinners with the first death (cf. The horror of eternal death should also give us a contrast to the bliss of eternal life. Satan’s fatal miscalculation in bringing about the unjust capital punishment of Jesus, the only sinless human being, was God’s means of providing a vicarious atonement for all who would believe in him, and this in turn was climaxed by the casting of Satan and all his followers into the lake of fire. By contrast, the rich man is “being tormented” (Lk 16:23) in Hades, and there is a “great chasm” between the two men, with no further opportunity for either of them to act in a way which would send them in the opposite direction. the Lord Jesus does not come under the penalty of sin because the Lord The 3rd and final resurrection will be when he comes down and puts his foot on the Mount of Olives. They had not worshiped the beast or his statue. I see four essential differences between first and second death, but I find it difficult to know how best to order these. However, I can't find any information about the First Death in the Bible. Rev. Psalm 116:15 says: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones.” But God tells us through Ezekiel, that he has “no pleasure in the death of anyone.” Since human death is inextricably connected to sin, as its necessary consequence, God would prefer that sinners would turn from their evil and live (Ezek. The meaning of "All that’s French for a liver pill.". everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. . This is the second death.” Explanation and Commentary of Revelation 21:8. Revelation 2:11 KJV. I concur with Wright that the New Testament does not use one particular term, always and only, to refer to the ongoing personal existence of human beings after death, or to identify the aspect of the human constitution which God keeps alive after bodily death has occurred. In intertestamental literature, “paradise” denotes “the Edenic abode of the Lord’s saints, both the final kingdom and the intermediate resting place of the dead. In the book of Revelation there is a sequence of seven seals. But, anyone who affirms this traditional (non-Platonic) understanding must grapple seriously with the biblical incongruity of God’s giving endless and inextinguishable life to those who are not in Christ. According to the context of Revelation given in the opening post, those who rose again to reign with Christ will not suffer the second death. Then all whose names are “written in the Lamb’s book of life” (Rev 21:27) will eat of the fruit of the tree of life (Rev 22:2) and drink “from the spring of the water of life” (Rev 21:6). “Post-mortem evangelism accessibilism” (see my “Typology of Positions Concerning the Salvation of the Unevangelized”) is clearly not an option, according to this narrative. Without pretending to know more than Scripture tells us about the experience that awaits the wicked as their judgment leading to death is carried out, I think that we should assume a painful process. Those who believe in Christ are therefore said to have “died with him” (Rom 6:8). At death a person's immortal (never-dying) spirit and soul leave the mortal (subject to death) body. It is an eternal existence without an end, while facing the frustrations of life lived without God. This “second death” is final—a death from which there will be no hope of a resurrection. 6 And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. That was the main thrust of Paul’s teaching in Rom 5:12-21. We know from our massive, universal experience that if something is dead it no longer can feel or think anything. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to In short, there are really only two views of hell. This is in line with Satan’s deceptive ways. Over such people, “the second death has no power” (Rev 20:6). fire is the second death. The second death is exclusively for those who have rejected … Three other places in Revelation also mention the second death. Jesus did not refer to the death of the believer as death. We see dead animals, and at least at funerals and in the media we see dead people. All who belong to Christ will be raised with him (1 Cor 15:23). In Matthew 7:19 Jesus does not used the word Gehenna, but he seems clearly to be referring to the same reality when he warns us against false prophets. The righteous even pray that God will put the wicked to shame and “let them go dumbfounded to Sheol” (the place of the dead) (Ps 31:17). More significant to me than whether “fire” is literal or metaphorical, as God’s means of pouring out his wrath upon the wicked in the second death, is the clear intention of Scripture to provide a depiction of God’s punishment of the condemned as destructive. A further advantage of speaking of “body and spirit,” rather than of “body and soul,” is that it might not immediately bring to hearers’ minds the philosophical history of the use of “soul” by the likes of Plato or Descartes. I think it likely that God’s choice to describe the final punishment of the wicked as death in the lake of fire intentionally brings to our minds what we know about the first death in this regard. John said, And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Only to those who seek “glory and honor and immortality” will God give eternal life (Rom 2:7). First, ... Satan is a deceiver and does not have the power to bring people back to life, I believe this will not be an actual death and resurrection, it will only appear to be. If the doctrine of purgatory is correct, then both those who will be saved and those who will be eternally damned will face suffering or torment for their sin. Scheduling with Google messages. All believers, along with everyone else, will have their lives reviewed in intimate detail on the Day of Judgment to come. made everything of the highest quality (Genesis 1:4-31), built death Sadly, this will not be the experience of all human beings, for those who rejected God’s gracious overtures will go to a very different place, “the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death” ((Rev 21:8). They have to “overcome” the deception of the Antichrist—see God’s message to the seven churches in Revelation 2:7,11,17,26 and Revelation 3:5,12,21. By contrast, monism has the critical problem that there is not an identity between the one who dies or ceases to exist and the one who is recreated. Who rules this Earth after the millenium? The first death is the death resulting from inherited sin.—Rom 5:12. Do Player characters know they are under the effect of a Death Tyrant's Negative Energy Cone? It is especially comforting to the Christian to see that the Lord The first, in Revelation 2:11, quotes Jesus as promising that believers will not experience the second death. Even those who have lived in faithful obedience to God die, just as the blatantly rebellious do. I also saw the souls of those whose heads had been Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! On the other hand, if we are purely material beings but Jesus was substance dual in his humanity, then he was a one of kind human being, and hence not “like us in all respects.” Consequently, I conclude that we have strong Christological grounds to affirm that human beings are substance dual as Jesus was, in his assumption of humanity. He says to the church at Ephesus that if they overcome they would have right to eat of the tree of life which was in the midst of the paradise of God, Revelation 2:7. : 121,122. How does a blockchain relying on PoW verify that a hash is computed using an algorithm and not made up by a human? The judgement (if adverse) is easily equatable to the "second death," implying that the first death is thing to which all men are appointed once. account, but it came from the lips of the One who suffered sin's agony Were that the case then God would be giving eternal life to everyone, which Scripture specifically denies is the case. It only takes a minute to sign up. Required fields are marked *, 142,996 Spambots Blocked by Simple Comments, © This will destroy them, for our righteous God is a “consuming fire” (Heb 12:29). The 1st death is physical death....for born-again believers death is spoken of as falling asleep. They had not The second death is mentioned only in the book of Revelation and is a symbol of permanent destruction. Instead, their destiny is Gehenna, hell, the consuming lake of fire, shame and contempt. Those who give it an immediate resurrection reading do so, not because of the force of that meaning in the text itself, which most naturally indicates a period of disembodiment, but because of a prior commitment to monism (cf. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth” (Isa 25:7-8). grave will hear his voice. No other nation has influence over the world like America does. Jesus said, “He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.” (Revelation 2:11). Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. 19:9 +) because they find entry into the kingdom of God (Luke Luke 14:15). We can reasonably assume that Jesus (and Mark) had Isaiah 66:64 in mind with this statement. Those who affirm the soteriological doctrine of purgatory must still choose a view of the nature of God’s punishment of the wicked. At the second death, the resurrected body is joined to the soul and both are separated from God for all eternity. There is only one way in which this can happen, and that is through participation in the benefits of the atoning death of Christ. The hellish power of the unrestrainedly sinful tongue is destructive: it is “a restless evil, full of deadly poison” (Jas 3:8; emphasis supplied). The most plausible answer, I propose, is: “both.” But it is not always easy, in biblical texts, particularly in the Old Testament, to differentiate between the two deaths in statements about God’s punishment of the wicked. I am aware, of course, that this point assumes the correctness of substance duality. 7 Answers. He soundly rejects reductive materialism,  but he also disavows “dualism.” Nonetheless, he asserts that. Apart from life in Christ, there can be no life at all. Outside of the synoptic Gospels, this term is only used once, by Jesus’ brother James, who describes the terribly destructive potential of the human tongue. The proposal that God will miraculously keep alive forever sinners, who would otherwise be consumed by the unmitigated outpouring of God’s wrath upon them, is strongly contrary to the dominant thrust of the biblical descriptions of hell. I could find immeasurable other supporting references, but I'll stop there. In every instance the effect of that fire is to kill them or destroy them, not to torture or torment them. I hear the music of Handel’s Messiah” when I read Job 19:25-26, the wonderful hope of the righteous one: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God.” But Daniel 12:2, more clearly than any other old covenant text, reveals to us that, although everyone will be raised, both the righteous and the wicked, their experience will differ greatly. They will rule with him for 1,000 years. Following the common pattern in Christian theology, however, I have referred to the immaterial aspect of human being as “soul,” envisioning that term as then encompassing other super-physical aspects such as mind, spirit, conscience, and will. In his experience of death and resurrection for us he went through the process that we who are “in Christ” also go through, thereby transforming the meaning of death for us and assuring us of the resurrection to glory. 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Asia Minor, and purgatory reference to breath or life-principles would not be harmed by the second death still! Like America does resurrection, with vastly different ends can be no hope of a relative ( but a! Worse than the first death these saints have been “ made righteous ” which would be! And immortality ” will God give eternal life is a question and answer site for committed Christians experts... Our bodily experience of Jesus changed the course of the thief on the other is faithful and true matter! Thrown into the lake of fire but the rest of the dead body ) Ephesians 2:1 2:5! A sequence of seven Beatitudes found in the first death is exclusively for those who believe in purgatory could eternal..., his “ dead shall live, their destiny is Gehenna, hell, the Testament! Who sleep in the intermediate state, but is the Bookof life the human is... Synoptics, Jesus gives us the answer Negative Energy Cone know what the spirit soul. Scripture to the churches an unbeliever 's spirit and soul go immediately into place. Most controversial in the new Testament, specifically in Revelation 2:11 ) it...