Topics

All topics

• Annihilationism

  A family of views holding that those who are finally impenitent are destroyed rather than kept alive in unending torment. Conditional immortality is one form of it.

  Also called: annihilation, annihilation view, extinctionism, destructionism

• Body, Soul and Spirit

  The biblical vocabulary for the parts or aspects of a human being. Christians divide over whether a person is two parts or three, and the case for conditional immortality does not depend on the answer.

  Also called: dichotomy, trichotomy, biblical anthropology, soul and spirit, nephesh

• Conditional Immortality

  The view that immortality is not native to human beings but is given by God through Christ, so that those who are finally lost do not live for ever but perish.

  Also called: CI, conditionalism, evangelical conditionalism, conditional immortality

• Death

  The end of life. Scripture names death as the wage of sin, and uses the word both of the death every person dies and of the final loss that death pictures.

  Also called: dying, mortality, the first death, thanatos

• Destruction

  The dominant biblical vocabulary for the end of the wicked. The words cover ruin as well as cessation, and the texts add language of completeness that ruin alone does not explain.

  Also called: destroy, destroyed, ruin, olethros, apoleia

• Eternal and Everlasting

  The adjective used of both life and punishment in Matthew 25:46. It can mark unending duration and it can mark the age to come, and in the New Testament it often qualifies a result that stands permanently.

  Also called: eternal, everlasting, aionios, for ever and ever, age to come

• Eternal Conscious Torment

  The view, held by the majority of the Western church for many centuries, that those who die outside Christ are raised and consciously suffer the just judgment of God without end.

  Also called: ECT, traditional view, traditionalism, eternal torment, everlasting conscious punishment

• Eternal Life

  The life of the age to come, given by God through Jesus Christ. It is unending in duration and different in kind from present life, and it is the stated alternative to perishing.

  Also called: everlasting life, life of the age to come, zoe aionios

• Fire

  The most common image for divine judgment in Scripture. Its ordinary function in the biblical texts is to consume what is put into it.

  Also called: flames, burning, fiery furnace, unquenchable fire, eternal fire

• Gehenna

  The word Jesus uses for the place of final destruction. It transliterates the name of the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, a ravine outside Jerusalem with a history of child sacrifice and slaughter.

  Also called: gehenna, valley of hinnom, valley of the son of hinnom, topheth, geenna

• Hades

  The Greek term for the realm of the dead, used in the New Testament and in the Greek Old Testament, where it usually renders the Hebrew Sheol. It is the state of the dead before the resurrection.

  Also called: hades, the realm of the dead, the grave, haides

• Immortality

  Deathlessness. In Scripture it is attributed to God alone and is presented as something human beings seek and receive rather than something they hold by nature.

  Also called: deathlessness, immortal soul, imperishability, athanasia

• Outer Darkness

  The phrase in three of Matthew’s parables for the place outside the feast, the wedding hall and the master’s house, where those who are excluded are thrown.

  Also called: outer darkness, the darkness outside, blackest darkness

• Perishing

  The word set most often paired with eternal life in the New Testament. It covers losing, being lost, and being destroyed, and it is used of people, animals and things alike.

  Also called: perish, apollumi, lost, destroy

• Punishment

  What God justly imposes at the last judgment. Scripture grades it by what the sinner knew and could have known, and names its final form as death and destruction.

  Also called: penalty, retribution, wrath, kolasis, final punishment

• Resurrection

  The raising of the dead in bodily form. Scripture describes a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous, and only the former is said to be raised imperishable.

  Also called: raising of the dead, bodily resurrection, anastasis

• Sheol

  The Hebrew word for the realm of the dead in the Old Testament. Both the righteous and the wicked are said to go there, and English versions render it grave, pit and hell inconsistently.

  Also called: sheol, the pit, the grave

• Sodom and Gomorrah

  The cities destroyed in Genesis 19, which Peter names as an example of what is coming for the ungodly and which Jude describes as undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

  Also called: sodom, gomorrah, the cities of the plain

• The Day of the Lord

  The prophetic and apostolic language for the day when God acts decisively in judgment and salvation. The New Testament ties the last judgment and the destruction of the ungodly to that day.

  Also called: day of the Lord, day of wrath, day of judgment, that day

• The Final Judgment

  The judgment of all people after the resurrection, described in Scripture as a day on which the books are opened and each person receives what is due for what was done.

  Also called: last judgment, judgment day, great white throne, day of judgment

• The image of God

  The biblical claim that human beings are made in God’s image and likeness, and so represent and reflect him in creation in a way no other earthly creature does.

  Also called: imago dei, image bearer, image bearers, made in gods image, likeness of god

• The Intermediate State

  The condition of the dead between death and the resurrection. Scripture says less about it than readers often assume, and it is nobody’s final state.

  Also called: the intermediate state, life between death and resurrection, the state of the dead

• The Lake of Fire

  The image in Revelation for the final destiny of the devil, the beast, the false prophet, Death, Hades, and those whose names are not written in the book of life. Revelation calls it the second death.

  Also called: lake that burns with fire and sulfur, lake of burning sulphur, the fiery lake, the second death

• The Second Death

  The phrase Revelation uses for the outcome of the last judgment. It names the lake of fire, and it is distinguished from the death every person dies before the resurrection.

  Also called: the second death, deuteros thanatos

• The Tree of Life

  The tree in the garden of Eden and in the New Jerusalem. Genesis links eating from it with living for ever, and Revelation places it inside the city with the unrighteous excluded.

  Also called: tree of life, the tree in the garden

• Universal Reconciliation

  The view that God will finally reconcile every person to himself, so that punishment after death is corrective and temporary and no one is lost for ever.

  Also called: universalism, universal salvation, Christian universalism, apokatastasis, ultimate reconciliation

• Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth

  The phrase Jesus uses in several parables for the response of those shut out. Weeping conveys grief elsewhere in Scripture, and gnashing of teeth conveys anger.

  Also called: gnashing of teeth, weeping and gnashing, wailing and gnashing of teeth