This is part 5 of my Actual Good News series of articles on the topic of biblical soteriology (the study of salvation). Part 4 is available here: What is death?
Please note that I’m including many of my scriptural references in the links (which are are the underlined words throughout the article), and they also link to studies with extended details that I couldn’t fit into the article, so please be sure to click all the supporting links in order to get the full picture, as well as all the Scripture references.
When Paul explained in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 what the Gospel was that his readers believed when they were saved (referring to the special “eternal” — meaning “age-pertaining,” or “eonian” — life, as we learned in Part 3 of this series, which is the type of salvation that involves being immersed into the body of Christ), he wrote that not only did they come to believe that Christ died for our sins, but also that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day. Now, every Christian out there will claim to agree that these words are true, but few of them actually understand what they mean, and can you really believe something that you don’t understand? Yes, all of us who call ourselves Bible believers agree that the words “Christ died for our sins” and “He was buried” are true, but how many Christians actually agree that “He was buried”? Most Christians believe that His body was buried, but they also believe that He Himselfwent somewhere else altogether, meaning they believe He went to another dimension called “hell” — or “hades,” depending on their preferred Bible translation — as a conscious being for those three days (based on a misunderstanding of what happens after we die, as we learned in the previous article of this series, and please read it if you’re still under the impression that the dead are conscious), even if it was in a part of “hell” known as “Abraham’s bosom,” which many also believe is referred to as “paradise” (based on another misunderstanding of another passage that I’ll discuss in an upcoming article of this series). The problem is, Paul didn’t say that only Christ’s body died. What he said was that “Christ died”; and he didn’t say that only Christ’s body was buried while He Himself went somewhere else, but rather that “He was buried,” which means that He Himself was placed in the tomb, not that He Himself went somewhere else while His body was placed in the tomb (“He was buried” is a passive statement as far as Christ’s person goes, so even if you believe that Christ Himself actually ended up in the tomb temporarily as a ghost (which would make Him the only human to ever remain conscious after death, based on everything we learned about death in Part 4 of this series), the wording of that passage can’t be interpreted to mean He followed His body to the tomb from the cross as a ghost, and then went somewhere else from there after His body was buried, or even just remained in the tomb as a ghost for three days, because the way the verse is worded tells us that He had no involvement in being buried at all, other than passively having it happen to Him; so unless his pallbearers also had some sort of mystical object or magical spell which they used to drag Him into the tomb as a ghost after He died — which wouldn’t fit with what John 19:30 says, since it says He “gave up the ghost,” not that He became a ghost — it can’t legitimately be said that “He was buried” unless He was His body and nothing more at that point). Paul didn’t just randomly include the words “He was buried” in this passage for no reason (all Scripture is inspired by God, and every word God inspired to be written down is meant to be there, which means every word is there for a reason, rather than just being arbitrarily thrown in there by the human writer as would be the case if those who believe in the immortality of the soul were correct). If Christ’s (and not just His body’s) burial wasn’t a crucial part of what Paul said his readers believed when they were saved, he would have just written that “Christ died for our sins and rose again the third day,” and left those particular words about His burial out altogether, since mentioning that fact would have then been entirely superfluous (not to mention deceptive, at least to anyone who takes the words written there seriously). There’s a reason that Paul included the words “He was buried” as something he claimed those who experience the special “eternal” life sort of salvation he wrote about have to believe, and the reason is that we have to believe (which means we have to first understand) what those specific words actually mean. (And for anyone who might still be skeptical, if Paul was trying to tell us it’s important to believe that Christ actually did lose consciousness when He died — just as He would have every time He went to sleep, unless you believe He remained fully aware of Himself and His surroundings when He slept as well — and that He Himself was buried rather than just His body while He went elsewhere, I’d like you to tell me what Paul would have needed to have written differently there in order to convince you of this.)
And before someone tries to protest, saying that Jesus had the power to resurrect Himself, which means He must have been conscious, pointing out Jesus’ claim in John 10:18 that He had power to take His life again, the word “power” in this verse in the KJV, translated from the Greek ἐξουσία/“ex-oo-see’-ah,” is just referring to the sort of right that someone in a position of authority has to have an action they wish to be completed actually be performed (and, in fact, the word literally just means “authority”). For example, just because a king is said to have the “power” to tax the citizens of his country doesn’t mean he personally goes to every single citizen of the country and forces them to give him the money directly; it just means that he has the legal authority to expect they’ll pay their taxes. Likewise, Pilate had the “power” (also translated from the Greek ἐξουσία) to crucify Jesus, but that doesn’t mean he physically performed the actual crucifixion himself with his own strength (if he did, the Greek word δύναμις/“doo’-nam-is” — which does refer to strength or ability in the Bible — would have been used in the original Greek in John 19:10-11 instead, as well as in John 10:18 if Jesus meant He actually had the ability to resurrect Himself from the dead), but instead he had his soldiers do the actual deed under his legal authority (and so, what Jesus said just meant: “I have the right to lay [my life] down, and I have the right to receive it again,” and He did receive it again, when He was woken from His sleep by His Father). Likewise, when Jesus parabolically said in John 2:19 that He would raise His body three days after His death, it’s important to remember the fact that “He was buried,” and that any passage we read about His resurrection has to be interpreted in such a way that it doesn’t contradict this crucial part of what Paul said his readers believed when they were saved, which means that Jesus could only be referring to raising His body in the sense of getting up off the slab in the tomb after His God and Father resurrected Him from the dead (which is Who the Bible says actually raised Him from the dead anyway). The context of this passage in John wasn’t about His ability to resurrect Himself to begin with; if you read the whole passage, you’ll see that it was simply about how the fact that He wouldn’t remain dead would be a sign to the people who heard Him.
Of course, some will now ask, “But doesn’t 1 Peter 3:19 say that Jesus preached to spirits in prison while He was dead?” Well, no, it doesn’t. He didn’t preach to the spirits until after His body was quickened/made immortal (which obviously couldn’t happen until after His body was resurrected from the dead), as we can see from the verse before that one. But regardless, Peter said He was preaching to spirits, not to souls. Since, as we learned in the previous article in this series, the spirits of dead humans return to God in heaven (just as Jesus’ spirit did when He died, unlike His soul, which instead was said to have figuratively gone to “hell,” demonstrating that human spirits and souls are not the same thing), the spirits He was preaching to couldn’t have been humans, which means they must have instead been disobedient spiritual beings, exactly as Peter said they were. They weren’t the spirits of humans, but rather were the spiritual beings who sinned in Noah’s time by breeding with humans (and creating the giants who became mighty men of renown, also sometimes referred to as the Nephilim), and who were then locked up in the version of “hell” sometimes known as Tartarus because of their sin. Besides, all passages have to be interpreted in light of Christ’s burial anyway, so it goes without saying that any attempts to argue that Jesus was actually conscious while He was dead are nonstarters because of that fact alone, and that any passages we think might imply He was actually still alive have to be interpreted accordingly.
But is it really so important that we should care what Paul meant when he wrote that Christ died and was buried? Well, yes, very much so! It’s only when we realize that Christ actually died and that He Himself was buried that we can truly appreciate His faith in going to the cross. You see, He knew that, unless His Father resurrected Him, He would have remained dead (meaning He would have ceased to exist permanently), and, as Paul explained in Romans 3:21–23, this is the faith that ultimately saves us: “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ[not “by faith in Jesus Christ”; this is all about Christ’s faith, not our own] unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference.” Unfortunately, because almost no Bible believers actually believe that Christ truly died for our sins and really was buried, instead believing that only His body did and was, while He Himself lived on and went somewhere else altogether, none of these people can be said to have been baptized into the body of Christ yet, since they haven’t truly believed what Paul said those who experience the special sort of salvation he wrote about will believe at the time they’re saved.
This also means that, unless one can find a way to square the doctrine of the Trinity with Christ’s actual death and burial as explained in this article, it’s impossible for a Trinitarian — or a Modalist, for the same reasons — to be a member of the body of Christ. And Christ’s actual death and burial aren’t the only scriptural basis for rejecting Trinitarianism, which I cover a little more in the next article in this series.
Please note that I’m including many of my scriptural references in the links (which are are the underlined words throughout the article), and they also link to studies with extended details that I couldn’t fit into the article, so please be sure to click all the supporting links in order to get the full picture, as well as all the Scripture references.
What is death? The answer to this question is simple: death is the absence of life. In fact, this is such a simple concept that a child could tell you this. At the end of the day, it takes religion or the occult (is there a difference?) to truly get someone to believe that death isn’t really death after all, but is instead actually life. (Religion also lies abut why we die, I should add, as we’ll learn in an upcoming article from this series.)
And if death is the absence of life, what is immortality? Well, it’s the opposite of death: life that can’t possibly ever end (or “life beyond the reach of death,” as many within the body of Christ like to put it). Of course, the fact that we still have to “put on immortality” in order to fully experience the salvation Paul wrote about means we’re not inherently immortal or “eternal” beings (in fact, Paul tells us that Christ Jesus is the only human to currently have immortality — no, I don’t believe this passage was talking about the Father, since otherwise it would seem to mean that Christ Himself, as well as the angels and other spiritual beings, could die at this point, so it appears it has to be a passage about a human and how that human is the only human who is currently immortal), but few Christians ever really stop to think about these facts particularly deeply, and so they just assume that we are inherently “eternal” and immortal, even if it’s just our souls which they assume are somehow naturally immortal.
The simple truth, however, is that immortality isn’t something we’re born with. We have to be given immortality, and it won’t be truly given to any of us until a very specific time in the future, which is all the proof one should need that no human can possibly suffer without end in the “hell” that the lake of fire will be located in, as the following points should make clear:
Immortality for humans is always connected with salvation in Scripture (only those who are finally experiencing salvation physically — in living bodies, with most of them having been resurrected from the dead first — will have “put on immortality,”or will have been made immortal, and whenever someone is made immortal it can then be said, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”, as far as they’re concerned, because death will have been swallowed up in victory for them).
Those who are going to be resurrected for the Great White Throne Judgement haven’t experienced salvation yet, so they’ll be raised as regular, mortal, biological humans.
Regular, mortal, biological humans who are set on fire burn up and die, presuming they aren’t rescued from the fire first.
There’s absolutely nothing in Scripture that tells us God will keep resurrecting people in the lake of fire perpetually so they can die over and over again without end after they’ve died a second time (which would make the lake of fire also the third and fourth and fifth deaths, and so-on-and-so-forth, rather than just the second death, which is all the Bible refers to it as in that context), and to insist that He will is quite clearly eisegesis, since there’s just nothing in the text that even implies it. (This also means that those Christians who have tried to deny a second resurrection of those who will die a second time in the lake of fire so they can be saved, by telling me, “Scripture doesn’t specifically say the words, ‘Those who die a second time in the lake of fire will also be resurrected a second time so they can be made immortal,’” can’t then turn around and say, “There’s a second and third and forth resurrection, and so-on-and-so-forth, so humans can suffer without end,” since they’ve already denied that Scripture says a second resurrection will take place at all.)
But even if humans can’t suffer in the “hell” that the lake of fire will be located in (and please read Part 2 of this series if you aren’t familiar with the meaning of that particular version of “hell” in the KJV), if we’re “eternal” beings, the way most Christians assume we are, we must still be able to suffer in another version of “hell,” which the unsaved will experience as ghosts after they die, right? This is what most Christians believe, anyway. And because of this, while “ye shall not surely die” might be the first recorded lie the devil told, it’s now being taught as truth by many people in the Christian religion who are trying to convince us that death isn’t actually death at all, but is instead actually life (“eternal life,” even), and that it’s really a friend bringing us to finally be with the Lord rather than an enemy that needs to be destroyed.
Based on all the sermons where I’ve heard preachers say things like, “When your heart stops beating, you won’t actually die; instead, you’ll move on to the next stage of your life, the place where you’ll spend the rest of eternity, and the location you’ll end up living in from that point forward depends on whether or not you choose to accept Christ before you pass on to that final destination,” it’s clear they’ve (at least temporarily) forgotten that nobody remains dead, since there’s still a resurrection of the dead in the future, prior to the Great White Throne Judgement (multiple resurrections, in fact, since for there to be a “first” resurrection, there has to also be a subsequent one, and we’re told that there indeed is one, in the passage immediately after the verses referring to the “first” resurrection), so the supposed afterlife “location” which one ends up in while they’re dead couldn’t be their final destination (presuming there even was an afterlife, of course). But in addition to this, it also demonstrates that they’re unaware of the fact that the Hebrew Scriptures (meaning the books of the Bible that are generally referred to as “the Old Testament”) tell us the dead know nothing, meaning they aren’t conscious at all (many Christians will do all sorts of theological and mental gymnastics trying to prove that these assertions made in Ecclesiastes don’t literally mean what they say, but there had been no passages in Scripture prior to those which said the dead are conscious, so there’s no basis for the idea that anyone who read these statements at the time they were written could have possibly understood that the writer instead meant the dead actually do have knowledge — although, for those who believe in the immortality of the soul, if Solomon was trying to get across to us that the dead don’t have knowledge, I’d like you to explain what he would have needed to have written differently there in order to convince you that he actually did mean they don’t have knowledge). Even in the Greek Scriptures (meaning the books of the Bible that are generally referred to as “the New Testament”), death is compared to sleep, not to being awake in an afterlife existence (outside of one very misunderstood story in the book of Luke, which I’ll discuss shortly). The book of Acts didn’t say Stephen died and went to heaven, for example. While his spirit was returned to God — not as a conscious being, though, because our spirit is just the breath of life that generates a conscious soul while in a body and isn’t conscious itself, since it’s actually our soul that is our consciousness, and spirits and souls aren’t the same thing — the book of Acts says that he himself went to sleep, not that he remained awake.
Scripture also says that David and others fell asleep — referring to their actual persons being asleep or unconscious in death — not that just their bodies decayed while they themselves remained conscious (when Scripture speaks of a person dying, it doesn’t just say their body died while they themselves continued to live; instead, it says that they themselves have died, and that the location of their very person is now “in the grave” or “in the dust,” in the very same place that everyone ends up, including all animals as well, in fact, and there’s no scriptural basis for reading these verses in any other way, at least not that I’m aware of — besides, if the immortality of the soul actually was a scriptural concept that Israelites believed is true back in “Old Testament” times, they themselves wouldn’t have implied in Scripture that the dead are unconscious and that they aren’t located in any other place than the ground). Similarly, bodily resurrection is likewise compared to waking up from sleep in Scripture, and not to a person being returned to their body to continue to be awake as they supposedly still were while they slept as well.
It’s important to remember that consciousness, at least for biological beings such as humans, can cease to exist, since one can be rendered unconscious, either by going to sleep, by fainting, or by being knocked out (and when someone is unconscious, they are no longer conscious, meaning they are no longer aware of themselves and their surroundings, which means their consciousness has temporarily ceased to exist, which is something I can’t believe I have to explain, but somehow many people I’ve discussed this with seem to miss this fact, so here we are), and if we can lose our consciousness under those common circumstances, with it ceasing to exist while we’re alive (which means we aren’t in a never-ending state of consciousness), there’s no reason to believe our consciousness could return after we die without a living and active brain to bring it back into existence the way our brains do when we awaken from unconsciousness, thus regaining consciousness. To make this really clear, let’s say that somebody was sleeping, and hence had no consciousness existing at that point (and before someone brings up REM sleep and dreaming, the subconscious processes of a physical brain that cause us to dream while we’re asleep aren’t the same thing as the consciousness we have while we’re awake, nor is there any reason to believe the neurological processes that generate dreams can occur without a living, biological brain; and one doesn’t dream the whole time they’re asleep anyway — in fact, we only dream about 20% of the time we’re asleep at night, so for approximately one third of our lives, give or take, we aren’t conscious at all), or was even knocked unconscious with a hard object or sedated for surgery. If they were to suddenly die right then while unconscious (and this hypothetical person is not in a state of REM sleep, and hence isn’t dreaming in this scenario, just to remove any doubt), would their consciousness just pop back into existence at the point of their death? There’s absolutely no reason to think it would, and the idea that death can recreate a consciousness that had stopped existing (as would be the case if this happened) really makes no sense at all.
But getting back to Scripture, it’s also important to remember that the first time those in the body of Christ are said to meet the Lord is going to be in the air in our newly quickened (meaning immortal) bodies (while living members of the Israel of God will do so at the Second Coming, and dead members of the Israel of God will do so at the resurrection of the just, 75 days after the Tribulation ends — and please compare the numbers in Daniel 12:11–13 to the numbers in Revelation 13:5 if you aren’t familiar with the 75 day difference between the end of the Tribulation and the resurrection of the just, because this is an important difference which proves that the quickening of the body of Christ takes place prior to the Second Coming, or at least prior to the resurrection of the just), which is the point from when we’re said to finally “ever be with the Lord” (and not from a previous point such as our physical death, which would be when those in the body of Christ actually began to “ever be with the Lord” if the immortality of the soul were true). In fact, the blessed hope we’re told to comfort one another with isn’t that the dead get to live happily with the Lord as ghosts in another dimension called heaven, but is rather the expectation that the dead in Christ will eventually be physically resurrected, and that all of us in the body of Christ (both those still living and those newly resurrected) will then be quickened and caught up together in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, which is when we’ll finally be in the heavens. (And the reference to “them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him” in verse 14 is just talking about the spirits of the dead members of the body of Christ that had “returned to God” now coming back to rejoin their bodies, and isn’t meant to imply that they were already enjoying being “ever with the Lord” in heaven, since our spirits aren’t actually conscious, and the verse said “them also which sleep in Jesus,” not “them also which are awake in an afterlife in Jesus” anyway; remember, it’s our souls that are our consciousness, generated by a brain in a body which is being kept alive by our spirit, and our soul can’t exist so long as our spirit is not residing within our physical body, keeping our brain alive.) It’s important to remember that the reason Paul even brought this up to begin with was to comfort those who had lost loved ones to death. If the immortality of the soul were true, he would have instead needed to have written something more along the lines of, “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which are awake in an afterlife in Jesus are with Him now, enjoying the bliss of heaven, which is where you’ll go to ever be with the Lord when you sleep as well. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”
Of course, Paul also makes it quite clear that the immortality of the soul can’t be true when he wrote, “For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable,” in 1 Corinthians 15:16-19, as well as when he talked about all the dangers he faced while evangelizing, and pointed out that there would be no reason for him to do so if there were no resurrection from the dead, because if there was no resurrection, then nobody could be saved, in which case he might as well just go live life without worrying about evangelizing. This wouldn’t be true if those who are saved go to another dimension called heaven when they die. The fact that we don’t is why he could make that claim: because without the physical resurrection we would have absolutely no hope at all, since we would cease to exist for good (we wouldn’t even have the hope of continuing on as ghosts in another dimension called “heaven” with God, since those who died in Christ would have “perished,” meaning they’re no longer existing at all, and have no hope of ever existing again either, according to this passage), which was basically the entire reason Paul wrote that chapter in his first epistle to the Corinthians to begin with.
In addition, we know that not only has David himself not gone to heaven, at least not as of the time Peter made that speech recorded in Acts 2 (which was after Christ’s resurrection and ascension, which means we also have no reason to believe he’s ended up there since then), but that nobody other than Christ Himself had either as of the time John wrote that assertion in his commentary in the book of John, which was also after Jesus ascended into heaven (Jesus’ “red letters” quote should probably end at verse 12 based on the fact that verse 13 says the Son of man was in heaven at that point, which we know Jesus wasn’t at the time He had that discussion with Nicodemus, so everything from verse 13 to 21 presumably had to have been John’s personal commentary on the topic, written after Jesus had left the earth; it’s important to remember that the book of John was a theology book rather than a history book and, unlike the Synoptic Gospels, used historical quotes of Jesus to prove theological points instead of primarily being a historical record in and of itself the way the three Synoptic Gospels were, and that John often added his own commentary to the book, even though this commentary would have indeed been inspired by God), so it seems pretty obvious that life in heaven is only for those who have been made immortal, and isn’t for those who are currently dead.
In fact, if people were to remain conscious after death, God would cease to be their God while they waited for their physical resurrection, since He is not a God of the dead, but of the living, which would make things strange for people in the supposed afterlife if they no longer had a God (although, if the immortality of the soul were true, that would be a good explanation as to why the dead can no longer praise God, or even remember that He exists, since He’d no longer be their God while they were still dead). Strangely enough, though, some Christians actually try to use this statement to support their view that the dead remain conscious, mistakenly thinking that Jesus’ statement meant the dead aren’t actually dead, but are actually still alive. If they just took the time to examine the context of the whole passage in the book of Luke, however, they’d discover that it was really about how the Sadducees, who didn’t believe in a physical resurrection of dead bodies in the future, were trying to trip Jesus up with a question about who a hypothetical person would be married to after being resurrected from the dead during the impending kingdom in the next age, when the kingdom of heaven exists in Israel for 1,000 years (although it’s translated as “that world” in the KJV; as already mentioned in some of the previous articles in this series, the word “world,” at least in the KJV, doesn’t always mean “planet” or “earth,” but in many cases — including this one in Luke, since it was translated from the Greek αἰών/“ahee-ohn’” here as well — it’s a synonym for “age,” meaning “a long period of time with a definite beginning and end,” which is why most Bible versions translate αἰών as “age” rather than “world” in this passage). To put it simply, they weren’t asking about a ghost in an afterlife dimension and whether or not she’d have to be polygamous in that imaginary realm, but were asking their question about her various marriages in order to make the idea of physical resurrection seem ridiculous. However, Jesus corrected them by not only pointing out that those people who are going to be resurrected from the dead at the beginning of that “world”/age will be immortal like the angels and hence will not be married anymore at that time (because procreation, which was normally done by married people in Israel, isn’t something immortal beings are meant to do, as we know from Genesis 6 — look up the Nephilim if you aren’t familiar with what I’m referring to, because that’s too big of a tangent for me to explain at this point), but also by using the fact that the Lord could not legitimately claim the title of “the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,”as Moses revealed Him to be, if the dead weren’t going to be physically resurrected someday, because He’s technically not the God of those who are currently dead, but is instead only the God of the living (Jesus was using prolepsis in that statement — prolepsis, as mentioned in Part 1 of this series, being a common figure of speech used throughout the Bible which means “the representation or assumption of a future act or development as if presently existing or accomplished,” calling what is not yet as though it already were, in other words, as God Himself often does — in order to prove that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will definitely be resurrected someday, because otherwise that statement about them would have been a lie since it would mean they’ll never exist again, when in fact “all live unto him” already, considering the fact that, as far as God is concerned, they’ve already been physically resurrected, at least from His timeless perspective — meaning, because God ultimately transcends space and time, He not only exists in our time, but He’s also already existing at the point in time when these three patriarchs will be resurrected as well).
The passage just can’t be read as saying the three of them were actually still alive at the time that Jesus made that statement. Verse 37 of Luke 20 (“…that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush…”) makes it very clear that Jesus is talking about the fact that these three patriarchs would eventually be physically resurrected, not that they’re actually still alive in another dimension (He didn’t say, “that the dead are living in another dimension”; He said, “that the dead are raised,” referring to a future resurrection). Jesus’ whole point is that, if they aren’t going to be raised from the dead to live again, God could not be said to be their God, because He isn’t the God of the dead but of the living. If they were actually still alive in some afterlife realm, God would have still been their God from a literal perspective rather than just a proleptic perspective at that time (and they could still thank and praise Him, contrary to what the book of Psalms says), but Jesus’ whole point was that, without a physical resurrection, He couldn’t be their God, since they’re dead and will never exist again if they aren’t going to be resurrected. Because they will be resurrected, however, God actually can be said to be their God, even if only from a proleptic perspective at present, at least as far as those of us who are bound by time are concerned.
There’s just no way to read verses 37 and 38 as meaning anything other than Jesus saying that those who have “gone to sleep” are indeed dead and unconscious until their resurrection, because the only way that Moses’ statement about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob could possibly be used as proof of a physical resurrection from the dead in the future is if the three of them have ceased to live and consciously retain knowledge for the time being. If the three of them are actually still alive in an afterlife dimension somewhere, and if Jesus’ statement about God being the God of the living rather than the God of the dead was actually Him trying to prove the idea that God is still their God because they’re actually still alive somewhere, then the resurrection of the dead would be entirely unnecessary for God to be their God, and Jesus’ argument couldn’t possibly help prove a future resurrection at all, which means they have to no longer exist as conscious beings for now or else Jesus’ entire argument proves nothing as far as what the Sadducees were challenging Him on goes. Of course, Jesus’ statement in Matthew 22:31-32 makes this even more obvious, since Jesus is recorded in that book as saying, “But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living,” making it clear that His statement about God not being the God of the dead, but of the living, is entirely about bodily resurrection (when Jesus said, “the living,” He could only have been referring to living in a physical body in the future and not to ghosts currently “living” in an afterlife realm, based on both this passage in Matthew and the one we looked at in Luke).
However, before moving on, if you still believe in the immortality of the soul after reading about Jesus’ discussion with the Sadducees, I’d like you to explain how, exactly, Jesus’ argument about God not being the God of the dead, but rather of the living, could possibly prove a future resurrection if His statement meant that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob actually are still alive in an afterlife realm somewhere. Because, unless you can do so, this statement by Jesus seems to be definitive proof that the dead aren’t actually conscious, and that no other passage in Scripture which one might believe teaches a conscious afterlife can possibly actually be intended to be interpreted that way, which means all the other “proof texts” people use to try to prove the immortality of the soul have to be interpreted in a different manner from the way most people traditionally interpret them.
And speaking of dead “Old Testament” saints, one of those “proof texts” is the story of the appearance of Moses and Elias (also known as Elijah) on “the Mount of Transfiguration,” which many Christians use to try to argue that the dead are indeed still conscious. But aside from the fact that this would make Jesus guilty of the sin of necromancy if He was talking to the ghosts of these two dead men (and Jesus never sinned, so it’s clear that this couldn’t have been what was happening there), we know that this was simply a vision to fulfill the prophecy which Jesus made immediately before this passage that they would “see the Son of man coming in his kingdom”(which is exactly what happened when they had that vision of Jesus in the glorified form He’ll exist in when the kingdom of heaven comes fully into fruition in Israel in the future), because Jesus outright said that it was just a vision.
And before someone tries to use Saul’s visit to the witch of Endor to prove the immortality of the soul, whatever the witch saw (remember, Saul didn’t see anything here), she described it as“gods ascending out of the earth,” so this was far more likely to have been a spiritual being of some sort than actually being Samuel (although the way this sort of thing was performed back then, from what I’ve been led to understand, involved a witch looking into a pit and pretending to speak to the dead in the pit, so I suppose it’s possible that God temporarily resurrected Samuel from the dead in that pit, but that wouldn’t prove the immortality of the soul either since he wouldn’t have been dead while in that pit).
Those aren’t the only passages they misuse, though, to try to prove the immortality of the soul. For example, many like to also claim that Paul said, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” Aside from the fact that this isn’t actually what Paul said at all (his actual words in 2 Corinthians 5:8 — at least as translated in the KJV — were, “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord”), if you look at the context of what he said in the previous verses, and also remember that a physical resurrection in an immortal, glorified body is what Paul was, and the living members of the body of Christ currently are (or at least should be), looking forward to, you can see that he was figuratively comparing our current mortal bodies to earthly houses, and saying that he was looking forward to no longer being “at home” in his mortal body, but instead wanted to be at home in his glorified “house not made with hands.” When Paul talked about “houses” and “homes” in these verses, as well as when he referred to being clothed there, he was talking about physical bodies, with the “house not made with hands” being a reference to his future immortal body, not to him existing as a ghost in another dimension after he dies. And so, when he wrote that he was “willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord,” he couldn’t possibly have been talking about hoping he’d die so he would be with Jesus, since he specifically wrote in verses 3 and 4 that he was not hoping for death at all (when he wrote that he wasn’t looking to be “naked” or “unclothed”), but rather that he was hoping to be given an immortal body, or to be “clothed upon” (“with our house which is from heaven,” as he explained in verse 2) so that “mortality might be swallowed up of life,” confirming that this whole passage is about mortal bodies vs immortal bodies rather than about existing as ghosts in an ethereal afterlife dimension, and that he simply meant he was looking forward to trading in his mortal body for his future immortal body, which won’t happen until the Snatching Away, which is what those of us in the body of Christ call the event when we specifically will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air (and which should not be conflated with the Second Coming, which is when Jesus returns for the Israel of God instead, about seven years later, give or take).
This is similar to the way they misuse Paul’s quote that, for him specifically at that particular time (it’s important to note that this verse isn’t talking about believers in general, but was about Paul’s unenviable circumstances at the time he wrote these words), “to live is Christ, and to die is gain,” to try to prove that he believed his death would bring him immediately to be with Christ in heaven, once again ignoring the context of the verses before these words, not to mention the verses after them as well, and the context of the surrounding verses make it pretty obvious that the “gain” Paul was referring to there would be a gain to the furtherance of the message he was preaching while in bonds, which his martyrdom would surely accomplish (the idea that the “gain” referred to going to heaven as a ghost is reading one’s presuppositions about the immortality of the soul into the passage). I’ll admit, verses 22 and 23 in the KJV aren’t the easiest for people today to understand (17th-century English isn’t something modern people always find easy to grasp), and some people will assume that by, “yet what I shall choose I wot not,” Paul meant he hadn’t yet decided which option he was going to select, as if it was up to him. But whether he lived or died wasn’t actually up to him at all — it was up to the Roman government (at least from a relative perspective, although it was ultimately up to God from an absolute perspective). Literally all Paul was saying there is that he wasn’t going to let it be known whether he’d personally rather continue living as a prisoner in bonds, which seemed to be helping the word to be spread more boldly, or whether he’d prefer to die and let his martyrdom help the cause even more than his state as a prisoner was doing, and that he was pretty much “stuck between a rock and a hard place” either way (which is basically all that “in a strait betwixt two” means), since his only options at that point appeared to be equally undesirable for him as an individual, which is why he then went on to say that he’d prefer a third option over either of the seemingly available two options, which was “having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better,” because if Christ were to come for His body while Paul was still alive, he wouldn’t have to suffer through either of the two options, but would instead get to depart the earth without dying, to “ever be with the Lord” in the heavens in an immortal body, which is a far superior option to living as a prisoner in a mortal body or to being put to death. He couldn’t possibly have been referring to dying and being with Christ in an afterlife when he wrote, “having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ,” since he’d just finished telling his readers that he wasn’t going to say whether he’d rather live or die, and that neither of the two likely options were particularly desirable for him (although he did conclude that, regardless of his preference, it seemed he was going to continue living for the time being anyway). Now, some Bible translations do make it look like he simply couldn’t decide whether he’d prefer to live or die, but he outright said that his desire was “to depart,” so those translations don’t actually make any sense if “to depart” meant “to die.” Besides, he’d already told the Corinthians that he didn’t want to be “unclothed,” meaning he didn’t want to die, but instead wanted to be “clothed upon” with the immortal body that he’ll only receive when he’s quickened, so either way, the traditional interpretation of this verse just doesn’t work. Bottom line, there’s simply no excuse for interpreting it in a way that contradicts the rest of Scripture, which the teaching that Paul would live on after his death and “ever be with the Lord” from that point rather than from the time the body of Christ is caught up together to meet the Lord in the air does in spades. It’s easy to get confused about verses like this if you ignore the context of both the surrounding verses and of Scripture as a whole, but once someone comes to realize the truth that death is actually death, and that “ye shall not surely die” is a satanic lie, they can then begin to interpret these passages in ways that are consistent with the rest of Scripture.
Christians don’t only misquote Paul in order to try to prove the immortality of the soul, however. Many also misquote Jesus as well, making Him out to have said, “If you die in your sins, where I go, you cannot come” (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Christians think they’re quoting Jesus by using those exact words, but it’s a lot). This isn’t what Jesus said at all, though. He actually said, “I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come” (or at least, that’s how the KJV renders it). First of all, this was a proclamation of fact, not an if/then proposition, as many misunderstand it to be (it helps to notice the plural “ye” in Jesus’ statement, since He was talking to, and about, unbelieving Pharisees at the time, prophesying that all those Pharisees hearing that statement would indeed die in their sins). Now, yes, in a follow-up statement (in John 8:24) He did say, “I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins,” but aside from what I already pointed out (that the Pharisees to whom Jesus made the first prophetic statement definitely would die in their sins), this doesn’t help prove the immortality of the soul either. All it proves is that the Pharisees couldn’t follow Jesus to heaven (which isn’t an afterlife realm at all, as I’ll discuss in more detail soon) — presuming that’s even the destination He was referring to — but instead they’d die while seeking to be saved by their Messiah when they needed Him most (almost certainly a reference to their desire to be delivered by their Messiah from the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 when it finally happened to them about forty years later, and how they’d seek their Messiah in vain at that time, and would die in their state of sin while looking, although not even the writer of the book of John would have known that this is what Jesus meant).
Likewise, they misread passages such as Revelation 6:9–11 to defend the idea of the immortality of the soul as well, but if this passage were meant to be read literally it would mean that martyred ghosts are all trapped underneath an altar rather than enjoying life in heaven, and that these ghosts can wear physical clothing. This passage — taken from a very figurative book of the Bible — is obviously meant to be interpreted figuratively, with the “souls” of the martyrs no more literally talking to God than Abel’s soul was talking to God from the dirt in Genesis 4:9–10 (which would have been just as unusual a place for a soul to reside, if the immortality of the soul were true, as it would be for a soul to reside underneath an altar until its resurrection), especially when taking everything else we’ve just covered into consideration.
Some also attempt to argue that the reference to the Gospel having been preached to them that are dead, as 1 Peter 4:6 mentions, means the dead must be conscious. At this point it should go without saying, based on all the passages we’ve already looked at, that there’s no question the dead are unconscious, so any passages one brings up to try to argue that they remain conscious have to be interpreted in light of the facts we’ve already covered, which means that the people mentioned in this passage who had the Gospel preached to them had to have still been physically alive at the time it was preached to them, meaning the Gospel was preached to them, and they then died at a later point.
In addition, some Christians also like to quote Hebrews 9:27 in order to argue for the existence of a conscious afterlife, because they believe it means that each individual will experience their judgement immediately after they die. This verse can’t be saying that at all, however, because we know that the judgement of individuals who have died won’t take place until after they’ve been physically resurrected from the dead at the Great White Throne (presuming they aren’t in the body of Christ, in which case they have an entirely different “judgement,” so to speak), so anyone who tries to use this verse to prove an afterlife is forgetting this minor detail. On top of that, though, this verse can’t actually be talking about humans as a whole at all, because that would contradict the rest of Scripture if it was, considering the fact that many people were recorded as being resurrected throughout the Bible who later would have died a second time as well, prior to their judgement (unless you believe that everyone raised from the dead throughout the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures other than Jesus are still physically alive today), not to mention the fact that not every human will die, as they’d all have to if we’re interpreting the whole verse consistently, so whatever this verse is talking about, it can’t mean that humans only die once, or that they’re all guaranteed to die either, as some claim, thus confirming that pretty much all of the traditional interpretations of the verse are incorrect. So what is this verse talking about? Well, considering the context of the chapter is high priests and sacrifices and being forgiven of sins after the death of another, not to mention the fact that the death of any people who aren’t high priests wouldn’t fit the context of the chapter at all, it makes sense to conclude that the word “men” in verse 27 is referring to specific men and not all humans in general. And while we should be able to figure it all out just by looking at what the KJV on its own says, it is still useful to know that the existence of the Definite Article before the word “men” in the verse in the original Greek also backs this up, making it clear that the writer of Hebrews had to have meant, “it is appointed unto the men once to die,” referring only to the death of certain men rather than to the death of all humans. So what was the point of this verse? Well, it was actually just a callback to the death of certain high priests as mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures (specifically in the books of Numbers and Joshua, as any Israelite reading a book called Hebrews back when it was written should have recognized), specifically the high priests of Israel — including Jesus, of course. Under the Mosaic law, whenever a high priest died, there was a judgement which resulted in the freedom of certain Israelite sinners, as mentioned in those passages in the books of Numbers and Joshua, and Jesus’ death as high priest resulted in the freedom of even more Israelites, which is all that this verse is getting at.
Still, other Christians will also point to a certain type of passage that they read their assumptions regarding the immortality of the soul into, in order to claim Scripture teaches the doctrine, such as the prophecy to Abram (Abraham) in Genesis 15:15, for example, which says, “And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace,” and if one weren’t aware of everything we’ve just covered, and they assumed that there is an afterlife realm which the dead end up in, it’s easy to see how somebody could read that assumption into this statement, concluding that his ancestors are in this afterlife realm, and that he would eventually join them there as well. However, there isn’t anything in the verse that actually says his fathers were in any sort of afterlife realm at all — the idea that an afterlife realm is where they were located is nothing more than an assumption one has to read into the text based on doctrinal presuppositions — and based on what we’ve now learned, they couldn’t possibly have been in one, since we now know that the dead are simply unconscious in the grave. And this fact is also confirmed in the second half of the verse, which tells us that the grave is exactly where they were, giving us the location of his fathers which Abraham would eventually go to, when it says, “thou shalt be buried in a good old age.” What most people don’t realize is that this verse is using a figure of speech known as a Synonymous Parallelism, which is where the second part of a passage in Scripture confirms, and even clarifies, what the first part is saying, using slightly different wording, in this case by telling us that Abraham would end up being buried with his ancestors after he’d lived to an old age, which means that these sorts of passages are simply talking about physical death and burial, and that they can’t be used to defend the doctrine of the immortality of the soul at all.
I’ve also heard certain Christians claim that when Job said, “But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost,” and when he then asked, “and where is he?”, that he was wondering where the dead are residing while remaining in a conscious state. But the truth is, he was simply speaking rhetorically to point out that the hypothetical dead man no longer exists, since he made it very clear in the next few verses that he believed the dead are indeed gone, at least until their future resurrection, by answering his own rhetorical question, saying, “As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up: So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands.” This response by Job to his own question — along with his later statement that he was looking forward to seeing God with his own physical eyes after his resurrection, and not that he was looking forward to doing so in an afterlife realm — should make it pretty obvious that he didn’t believe anyone who is dead is actually still awake or living at the time they “sleep.”
And some Christians also try to argue that the prophecy which says, “Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee,” in Isaiah 14:9–11 proves that there’s a conscious afterlife which some people might suffer in as well, but when you consider the facts we’ve already looked at, and also consider the original Hebrew this passages was written in, it should be pretty obvious that the English word “hell” here is being used as metonymy for “grave” (at least in Bible versions that use the word “hell” in this passage; many use a transliteration of “sheol” instead, since “hell” is translated from the Hebrew word שְׁאוֹל/“sheh-ole’” in this passage in the KJV), as the inclusion of the word “grave” in verse 11, not to mention the references to worms — which are creatures that consume corpses — should also make pretty clear. This passage was simply using the figure of speech known as personification (something done multiple times in Scripture, including in this very book by the same prophet) to taunt a human who will be known as “the king of Babylon” in the future (and who will also go by the label of “the beast” during the Tribulation; it would take too much space to get into all the details but, no, the being referred to as “Lucifer” in that passage in the KJV isn’t Satan, as most people have mistakenly assumed it is because they haven’t read the whole chapter particularly carefully and have accepted the Catholic tradition about the identity of the “king of Babylon” in this chapter, although the passage may be partially talking about the spiritual being who will also be called “the beast” at that time as well, depending on the specific verse in the passage, but either way, neither of these beings are Satan), pointing out that even someone as proud and powerful as this king ends up in the same place that nearly everyone else ends up in (the grave). And since we already know that the dead are unconscious, the reference to the other dead kings speaking to him is just more figurative language, letting this very human king know that he’d end up in the same place as them (unless you believe the other dead kings mentioned in the passage are sitting on literal thrones and ruling over an afterlife realm called “hell,” but I’m trusting that you can see just how figurative this whole passage is, and recognize that the word “hell” in this passage is obviously not referring to the inescapable place of conscious torment which most Christians believe in, especially considering the fact that nothing in the Hebrew Scriptures had ever threatened never-ending torture — much less torture in fire — prior to this prophecy, including in any other passages which used the word “hell” in them, so there’s no way that anyone who read it when it was written could have possibly interpreted this passage as talking about never-ending torment in fire either).
Some people will also bring up verses such as Psalm 139:8 and Amos 9:2 to try to prove that the Bible teaches an afterlife existence (with the word “hell” in both verses in the KJV also being translated from שְׁאוֹל; although it is, of course, transliterated as “sheol” in many other Bible versions as well). Based on everything we’ve already looked at, however, the usage of שְׁאוֹל in these verses can’t mean that ghosts actually exist consciously in this “location,” at least not without contradicting everything else we’ve now learned. If you read the verses in the context of the passages they’re a part of, it becomes obvious that שְׁאוֹל is simply being used figuratively in these verses to refer to hidden underground caverns in order to tell us that there isn’t anywhere in the universe that God isn’t, and that it wasn’t being used to teach the concept of an afterlife realm called “sheol” or “hell” at all.
However, the main passage that Christians try to use to defend the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is the story of the rich man and Lazarus, and this is really the one and only passage in the entire Bible that can possibly be used to even try to defend this doctrine, at least as far as I can find, since it’s the only passage in Scripture which actually seems to suggest that the dead might really be conscious (I don’t count the passage about the king of Babylon we looked at as actually suggesting this, since anybody paying attention when reading it can see that it’s obviously very figurative), and this is quite problematic for the popular doctrine, all things considered, especially since it only seems to suggest that the dead might really be conscious, and only when we take it at face value, because when one looks at the details of the passage a little closer, as we’re going to do, it quickly becomes apparent that it isn’t saying this at all. This passage in the book of Luke does use the word “hell” in the KJV (although many English Bible versions use the transliteration of “hades” instead, because this particular “hell” was translated from the Greek ᾅδης/“hah’-dace” in the KJV, which also happens to be the Greek translation of the Hebrew word שְׁאוֹל that we just looked at in Isaiah 14), but it’s obviously about a whole other “hell” than the one where the lake of fire will be located, since that one is going to be a physical “hole” (or valley) here on earth, and this one appears to refer to an afterlife realm of some sort (at least if one takes this story literally), which means it doesn’t seem like much about that “hell” can be applied to this one, and vice versa (although there actually is a connection one can make between the two, at least in this case, which I’ll explain shortly). And so, even if this passage were meant to be taken literally, it couldn’t be used to prove never-ending torment the way some Christians try to use it, because Revelation 20:13 tells us that anyone who is in the version of “hell” translated from the Greek ᾅδης will eventually leave it when they’re resurrected from the dead so they can be judged at the Great White Throne, and then possibly cast into the version of “hell” known as the lake of fire to die a second time, and since the “hell” translated from ᾅδης is also said to be cast into the lake of fire, according to the very next verse (which I believe is referring figuratively to being the only place people will die, or at least the only place where the dead will be located, from then on), and because something can’t be cast into itself, figuratively or otherwise, we know that this particular “hell” and the lake of fire can’t possibly be the same thing. (This also means that anyone in the “hell” that’s translated from שְׁאוֹל in the Hebrew Scriptures will also eventually leave it, because it’s the same “hell” being referred to in this passage in Revelation, which we know from the fact that Acts 2:27 — which translated “hell” from the Greek ᾅδης in the KJV — was quoting Psalm 16:10 — which translated “hell” from the Hebrew שְׁאוֹל in the KJV.)
At the end of the day, though, all the passages we’ve already covered make it quite clear that the dead can’t be conscious, which means there’s absolutely no way Jesus could have possibly meant for this story in the book of Luke to have been interpreted literally, at least not without contradicting the rest of the Bible (not to mention basic common sense about how consciousness works, as we’ve also already discussed), since to do so would mean the rich man and Lazarus actually were alive while dead, contrary to what all the passages we just looked at say. Besides, if we were to interpret this story literally, we’d have to believe that Lazarus was sitting inside Abraham’s chest, that there’s actually physical water and fire which intangible ghosts can interact with, and that there’s even gravity which they’re subject to, somehow keeping them from floating over a “great gulf,” even though there’s no matter there to be affected by gravity, since ghosts wouldn’t be made of the same sort of “material” that the living are made of (and this also brings up the question of how they even got to their respective sides of the supposedly uncrossable chasm, if this story were describing an actual afterlife realm, and why one couldn’t exit this “hell” the same way they entered it in order to re-enter it on the other side, especially since we know that everyone in the actual, literal “hell” translated from ᾅδης one day will “exit” it in order to be resurrected). Not to mention, if we did take the story literally, we’d have to believe that the rich all go to a place called hell when they die, while the poor all get saved, since there’s literally zero indication in this story that Lazarus was a believer. The reason Jesus said Lazarus went to “Abraham’s bosom” seemed to be entirely because of his suffering as a beggar, not because He’d accepted Christ as his Saviour or anything like that — and likewise, the reason the rich man was said to be suffering in “hell” was because he got to enjoy good things during his life, and not because he rejected Jesus (there was no indication that either Lazarus or the rich man had ever heard of Jesus, or even that Lazarus was a particularly virtuous man who kept the Mosaic law, if you want to try to look for other possible reasons for him getting to enjoy a better afterlife than the rich man in this story; in fact, Jesus didn’t explain anywhere in the story how to experience the positive afterlife that Lazarus got enjoy, or what to do in order to avoid ending up in the “hell” that the rich man in the story ended up in — aside from, perhaps, obeying the Mosaic law and other teachings within the Hebrew Scriptures — which you’d think He would have done if this wasmeant to be a warning about how to avoid a negative afterlife in order to experience a positive one). The fact of the matter is, no Christians actually believe any of that, which means they’re already basically interpreting the story entirely figuratively to begin with (not to mention reading numerous assumptions into the text in order to make the story fit with the theological traditions they learned from their religious teachers), so they should really just finally acknowledge that it’s 100% figurative, since they already read it that way anyway (even if they haven’t realized that they’re doing so), meant to convey a message that had nothing to do with an afterlife at all, and everything to do with potentially missing out on getting to enjoy life in the kingdom of God when it begins in Israel, just like most of Jesus’ other warnings were about, especially in light of everything else we’ve covered about the state of the dead. Jesus was basically just using this figurative story to let his audience know that the kingdom of God would be taken from the religious leadership in Israel, meaning the covetous Pharisees who were listening to him tell this story, as well as the chief priests, which the purple and fine linen on the rich man tells us he represented in this story, and that it will be given to other, “lesser” Israelites — meaning Jesus’ “lowly” disciples, along with other Israelites who are among “the least of these,” currently scattered among the nations, possibly not even realizing yet that they’re actually Israelites — who will form “a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof” in the land of Israel at the time they’re resurrected from the dead at the resurrection of the just, or if they’ve “endured to the end” and survived the Tribulation, especially if they’re among the 144,000 Israelites spread among the nations who will be sealed at that time (and the fact that some Israelites will miss out on enjoying life in the kingdom at that time is the connection between the two “hells” I mentioned earlier, since this is a story meant to convey that the religious leaders will miss out on enjoying life in the kingdom when it begins in Israel, with ending up dead in the “hell” known as the lake of fire for a period of time being at least one of the possible things that will keep them from it). Please note that I’m not insisting this is a parable, however (even though it almost certainly is one), because if I did, some Christians would argue that it can’t be a parable based on the fact that Jesus mentioned someone by name in the story, and because He’d never done so in any other parables before. And while this is a really weak argument, rather than get into that whole debate I’ll just say, since we know that basically nothing Jesus said in this passage can be read literally anyway, parable or not, it’s still entirely figurative, and leave it at that.
So, rather than going to literal afterlife realms called heaven or hell after we die, Scripture instead tells us that death is a return:
The soul returns to “hell,” meaning to nonexistence. The phrase “shall be turned into” in Psalm 9:17 in the KJV is simply a poetic translation of the Hebrew שׁוּב/“shoob,” which literally means “is returned to,” telling us that one’s soul does a U-turn back into some place or state referred to as the “hell” which is also transliterated as “sheol” in other Bible versions, since this “hell” is also translated from the Hebrew שְׁאוֹל. This verse just tells us that our sense of feeling and our consciousness (our “soul,” in other words) returns to the nonexistence from whence it came, which is all that most of the passages in the KJV which talk about people going to a place called “hell” after they die are referring to, be it passages where “hell” is translated from the Hebrew שְׁאוֹל or from the Greek ᾅδης (for those who aren’t aware, there’s no such “thing” as a soul, per se, but rather “soul” is just a word that’s used in the Bible as metonymy for our sense of feeling and/or our consciousness; for example, Scripture tells us that the “soul” of the flesh is in the blood, although the KJV translates it as“the life of the flesh is in the blood,” but if you dig a bit deeper you’ll discover that the word “life” there has the same root word translated as “soul” twice more in the same verse — נֶפֶשׁ/“neh’-fesh,” which is the Hebrew word that’s also translated as ψυχή/“psoo-khay’” in the Greek Scriptures — telling us that our sense of feeling and consciousness is dependent upon our blood while we live in these mortal bodies, which can be demonstrated by the fact that, when one loses blood to a part of their body, they lose feeling in that part of the body until the blood rushes back into it, or by how when someone loses enough blood they’ll lose consciousness and die, which could be why the KJV translators used “life” as metonymy for “soul” in that verse). Oh, and before someone brings up the fact that Psalm 9:17 is talking about “the wicked,” keep in mind that it still tells us they’ll return to “hell,” which means they had to have come from there to begin with. So regardless of who this particular verse is talking about, it still means that the “hell” which people “end up in” after they die can’t be what most Christians assume it is because it tells us that they’ve already “been there” before, figuratively speaking, meaning their consciousness/“soul” didn’t exist at one time, and it will return to that state of nonexistence again in the future, with their “soul” being figuratively “hidden or unseen” at that point, which is why it’s said that one’s soul is in “hell” when one dies, since one of the meanings of the English word “hell” is “unseen” or “place where something/someone is unseen” (and which is why the Hebrew שְׁאוֹל and the Greek ᾅδης are also both sometimes translated as “the unseen” instead of “hell,” depending on your Bible version).
The spirit returns to God Who gave it, although not as a conscious entity, since human spirits aren’t conscious on their own without a body. “Soul” (feeling and consciousness) is an emergent property of combining a human spirit with a body — as happened in Genesis 2:7 — just like combining the colours yellow and blue results in the colour green (our spirit is our “breath of life” in that verse in Genesis, with the word “spirit” being translated from the Hebrew רוּחַ/“roo’-akh” and its Greek equivalent πνεῦμα/“pnyoo’-mah” in the Bible, which also literally mean “breath” or “wind,” and which are also translated that way at times as well, including in that verse I was just referring to, but it doesn’t experience consciousness when it’s not inside a physical body).
This presents quite a dilemma for the popular view, of course. If the type of “soul” most Christians believe in was existing consciously in an actual place called hell and the “spirit” was with God, would the “soul” of an unsaved person suffer in a fiery location while the “spirit” enjoyed being with God in heaven? Remember, Scripture doesn’t discriminate between “saved” and “unsaved” spirits when it says they return to God upon death (to claim that only the saved spirits return to God is to read one’s presuppositions into the text, especially since the same book that tells us our spirits return to God when we die also tells us that everybody ends up in the same place when they die). And what does that say about us if our spirit and soul could go to separate places but are both conscious (are we made up of two conscious beings that can be split up when we die, yet only one will be punished for sin in hell while the other is in heaven with God)? This is just one more reason why the common view makes no sense. Instead, it’s better to believe what Scripture actually says: that “souls” can actually die (simply meaning that our consciousness ceases to exist when we die, as we’ve now learned). On top of that, if those who are saved “go to heaven” as soon as they die, then death isn’t really an enemy to be defeated (and, really, destroyed) at all, as Paul told us it is, but is instead actually an ally finally bringing us to God (and causing us to “ever be with the Lord” before the time Paul said this would actually occur), with our eventual physical resurrection just being icing on the cake rather than being the actual cake itself that it’s supposed to be (the resurrection and/or quickening of our human bodies has become nothing more than a small side note in most of Christendom, when it’s what we’re actually supposed to be looking forward to).
Of course, there’s another extremely important reason to believe all of the above, so please read the next article in this series to learn what that is, because it demonstrates that one can’t even join the body of Christ while believing in the immortality of the soul.
This is part 3 of my Actual Good News series of articles on the topic of biblical soteriology (the study of salvation). Part 2 is available here: What the Hinnom?
Please note that I’m including many of my scriptural references in the links (which are are the underlined words throughout the article), and they also link to studies with extended details that I couldn’t fit into the article, so please be sure to click all the supporting links in order to get the full picture, as well as all the Scripture references.
Anyone who has read the whole Bible and paid attention while doing so should be well aware of the fact that words such as “for ever,” “everlasting,” and “eternal,” when used in the less literal English Bible versions which translate the original Hebrew and Koine Greek Scriptures this way, rarely actually mean “never-ending” or “without end” the way most people assume they do. However, for those who somehow missed this fact while reading their Bibles, I’m going to demonstrate it in this article. As I mentioned in the introduction to this series, I’m using the KJV (the King James Version) for these articles, but you can use nearly any non-literal translation of Scripture to see what I’m getting at. I say “non-literal” because truly literal Bible translations such as the YLT (Young’s Literal Translation) or the CLV (the Concordant Literal Version) render these words the way they were actually meant to be understood in Scripture, as referring to a specific period of time with a definite beginning and end, even if the end date is unknown. However, I’m not claiming the KJV was mistranslated here, because one can still get the truth from less literal versions of the Bible by simply realizing that these English words in these translations generally need to be interpreted figuratively rather than literally (or qualitatively rather than quantitatively). This isn’t to say it’s impossible that these words are sometimes meant to be interpreted quantitatively rather than qualitatively in certain passages where they’re used in the KJV and other less literal Bible translations, of course (and I’m certainly not insisting that they couldn’t possibly have ever had a quantitative meaning when they were used outside of Scripture back then either), but one has to consider each instance of these words extremely carefully when reading Scripture, looking at the context of the passage, as well as of Scripture as a whole, before deciding they are meant to be interpreted quantitatively in a specific passage, so as not to contradict the rest of Scripture (since, if Scripture actually contradicted itself in any way at all, there would be no reason to even consider what the Bible has to say about this — or any other — topic in the first place, and nearly anyone who did so would likely be wasting their time).
For example, in Exodus 21:6 we read about servants who choose to remain in servitude rather than going free on the seventh year, as was their right: “Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever.” If we interpret “for ever” as literally referring to a period of time that never ends, it would either mean that the servant (or slave) in question can never die, or that the servant will have to remain in bondage to his master without end, even after both of their physical resurrections and judgements at the Great White Throne in the distant future (as well as in any afterlife in the meantime, if an afterlife actually existed, even if they both ended up in different places while dead). Since I doubt anyone believes either of these options to be the case, I trust everyone would agree that the “for ever” in this verse is actually a hyperbolic translation which really means “for a specific time period, even if the end date (the time of the servant’s death) is currently unknown,” which demonstrates that when we see the phrase “for ever” in the Bible, we can’t just automatically assume it means “without end.”
Of course, some Bible versions do say things like “for life,” or “permanently,” rather than “for ever” in this verse, but at the very least, you have to admit that עוֹלָם/“o-lawm’” (which is the Hebrew word that “for ever” is translated from in this verse in the KJV) doesn’t literally mean “without end” or “never-ending” (or at least doesn’t necessarily always mean “without end” or “never-ending”), and this tells us that just because we see “for ever” in an English translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (or even the English word “everlasting,” for that matter, which is also often translated from the same Hebrew word), it doesn’t mean that we should just automatically assume it means “without end” or “never-ending” either, which is really all I’m getting at here.
However, I have had people insist that, even if the word עוֹלָם doesn’t necessarily mean “never-ending” in an ontological sense, the word should still always be understood as meaning something along the lines of: “it’s going to be like this for as long as the thing or person in question exists.” Aside from the problems this would cause that we’ve already discussed about the servant remaining enslaved even after his death and resurrection (unless you believe the servant never exists again after his death, and there’s nothing in the text which indicates that עוֹלָם should only apply to his first life on earth if you’re going to read it this way), this assertion also ignores the fact that עוֹלָם was translated other ways which contradict this conclusion as well, such as when it was rendered as “of old” in Deuteronomy 32:7, and to insist that the word absolutely has to always be rendered in a more “perpetual” manner would also mean that verse would have needed to be translated as saying something along the lines of “remember the days that never ended,” or “remember the days that we’re still experiencing,” instead.
But is there any basis for my assertion that the word עוֹלָם doesn’t necessarily mean “without end” anywhere else in the Bible, or are those the only examples? In fact, that this word doesn’t necessarily mean “never-ending” when it’s used in the Bible can be seen in many places throughout the Hebrew Scriptures (meaning the books of the Bible that are generally referred to as “the Old Testament”). For example, Isaiah 32:14–15 says: “Because the palaces shall be forsaken; the multitude of the city shall be left; the forts and towers shall be for dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks; Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest.” Unless we’re meant to believe that Jerusalem will be left forsaken and desolate and never recover or be inhabited again, as verse 14 seems to say, we have to interpret that “for ever” as meaning a specific period of time again, just as we had to do with the previous example. And, indeed, verse 15 tells us when that “for ever” ends, stating that Jerusalem will be left deserted “for ever,” until the spirit be poured from on high.
And those weren’t the only passages to demonstrate that it doesn’t mean “never-ending” either. We also read about the fact that the Levitical priesthood will be “everlasting” in Exodus 40:15 (with “everlasting” also being translated from עוֹלָם there), yet we know from Hebrews 7:14–22 that the priesthood of Aaron’s descendants is to be replaced by Jesus Christ, who will be “a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec,” and we know from 1 Corinthians 15 that even this new priesthood which is figuratively said to last “for ever” is eventually no longer going to be necessary either (since you don’t need any priests once there’s no sin or death remaining). That this “everlasting” priesthood will eventually come to an end is also backed up by the fact that, while the believing descendants of Isaac and Jacob will reign over the people of the earth as “kings and priests” during the thousand-year period of time when the kingdom of heaven finally fully exists on earth, there almost certainly won’t be any Israelite priests on the New Earth at all, because there won’t be any need for them with no physical temple in the New Jerusalem (and, again, there definitely won’t be a need for them after the ages end and death has been destroyed, since everyone will have been quickened — meaning made immortal — at that point).
Similarly, in Isaiah 24:5 we read, “The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.” This seems to tell us that the Old Covenant (also known as the Mosaic covenant, which is the only covenant that can be broken by humans — specifically by Israelites, since the Gentile nations weren’t under the Mosaic law or connected with the covenants God made with Israel— because all the other covenants of God are unconditional) can never come to an end and be replaced by a New Covenant because it’s said to be “everlasting,” but we know from other parts of Scripture that there will be a New Covenant for those in the house of Israel and the house of Judah, and that their Old Covenant in fact began to decay when Christ died (and will indeed eventually vanish away entirely, if it hasn’t already). So we can see that “everlasting” doesn’t necessarily mean “never-ending” or “without end” when we read that word in the Bible any more than “for ever” does.
And it’s not just the Old Covenant that’s referred to as an “everlasting covenant” in the KJV. The Abrahamic covenant is too, in 1 Chronicles 16:16-18. But since we know that the specific portion of land called Canaan (now known as the land of Israel), which is what the promise in this covenant is about, will eventually cease to exist when the planet that land is located on is replaced by the New Earth, the “everlasting” period of time that this covenant consists of will also expire when our current earth does (which has to happen, since if our current universe isn’t replaced by a New Heaven and a New Earth, our current earth would get pretty dark at the time of the heat death of the universe, presuming it isn’t first engulfed by the sun when our star goes Red Giant, of course, as is believed to be likely to happen in a few billion years, give or take).
The translators of the KJV also demonstrated quite clearly that they didn’t believe עוֹלָם always means “without end” in Ecclesiastes 12:5, where they used the word עוֹלָם to say “his long home” when referring to the time someone who is dead spends in the grave. Since we know that everyone who dies will eventually be resurrected to face judgement (or enjoy salvation) one day, nobody could ever be resurrected from the dead if עוֹלָם meant ”never-ending.” (Interestingly, though, some Bible versions actually do translate the verse to say “eternal home,” confirming that the word “eternal” is meant to be read just as figuratively in those versions as it is in the KJV, unless we’re to believe there’s no resurrection of the dead.)
Now, I could go on and on with example after example of things that were said to be “for ever” or “everlasting” that eventually ended (or that are said will eventually end) in the Bible, but I trust it’s obvious by now that nearly all of the passages that are translated from the Hebrew Scriptures as saying “eternal,” “everlasting,” and “for ever” in the popular, and less literal, versions of the Bible such as the KJV have to be interpreted qualitatively and figuratively rather than quantitatively and literally (just as these English words are almost always still used by us today: as hyperbole, meaning they’re exaggerated expressions used for the sake of emphasis; for example, if I were to say, “This church service is going to last for ever because the preacher never stops talking,” I doubt you’d assume that the meeting will actually last for all eternity and that the speaker will continue preaching for all that time as well, although, if you aren’t sure about this, please ponder it for the amount of time it takes an Everlasting Gobstopper to dissolve in your mouth, perhaps while watching a video of one of the various “eternal flames” people have lit being extinguished — the jawbreaker candy might take “for ever” to be completely consumed, perhaps even longer than that video lasts, but like most things which are said to be “everlasting” or “eternal,” its time will eventually come to an end as well). Simply put, it seems the translators believed that those who read the KJV (or who heard it read aloud) are able to understand figurative language, and that they never intended for anyone to simply assume the terms “for ever” or “everlasting” should definitely be interpreted as meaning “never-ending” or “without end” when translated from the Hebrew Scriptures, with “for ever” generally just being figurative language that refers to “an age,” or to “a seemingly long period of time with a definite beginning and end” (especially when translated from the word עוֹלָם), and “everlasting” generally just meaning “age-pertaining” (“pertaining to an age or ages,” in other words), “age-during” (“taking place during an age or ages,” in other words), or even just “long lasting,” with nearly everything that’s said to be “everlasting” or said to last “for ever” eventually coming to an end. These words are quite clearly being used as hyperbole in most parts of these books in the KJV and other less literal Bible translations, and are not meant to be taken literally at all (and if you look עוֹלָם up in a concordance, you can see many more examples for yourself proving that this Hebrew word doesn’t necessarily mean “never-ending” or “without end,” and that “for ever” and “everlasting” don’t either when used in the KJV).
And with all that in mind, if “for ever” and “everlasting” don’t necessarily mean “without end” or “never-ending” in the parts of the Bible translated from the Hebrew Scriptures, it stands to reason that there’s a good chance they don’t necessarily mean that in the parts of the Bible translated from the Greek Scriptures either (meaning the parts of the Bible that are generally referred to as “the New Testament”), and that they don’t is made obvious by the fact that עוֹלָם is translated as αἰωνίων/“ahee-o’-nee-ohn” in the parts of the LXX (also known as the Septuagint, which is the earliest still-existing Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures) where it’s translated figuratively as “everlasting” in the KJV, and since αἰωνίων is often translated as “everlasting” or “eternal” in the books of the less literal Bible versions translated from the Greek Scriptures (although it’s not always translated that way either, even in the KJV, also making it clear that αἰωνίων can mean things other than “never-ending,” which is why it’s sometimes also transliterated as “eonian” — which literally means “pertaining to an eon/age or eons/ages” — depending on your Bible version), one would think this means that we shouldn’t just automatically assume the words “everlasting” and “eternal” were definitely meant to be interpreted literally in the English translations of these books either (especially since, if עוֹלָם often doesn’t mean “never-ending,” at least when it’s used in the Hebrew Scriptures, it makes no sense to then say that its Greek translation as αἰωνίων can only mean “never-ending,” as some people insist it must, when we already know from the LXX that it rarely, if ever, means that in Scripture anyway), and that neither should “for ever” or “never,” both of which are also translated from cognates of αἰωνίων: such as αἰών/“ahee-ohn’,” which literally means a singular “age,” or “a long period of time with a definite beginning and end” (and which is why it’s sometimes transliterated as “eon,” depending on your Bible version), and αἰῶνας/“ahee-ohn’-as,” which literally means plural “ages,” or “multiple periods of time, each with a definite beginning and end” (and which is why this word is sometimes transliterated as “eons,” depending on your Bible version), not to mention the fact that both of these Greek words are also translated as “age” and “ages” in different parts of less literal English translations as well — although the KJV tends to use “world” in places that refer to a single “age,” but various other less literal translations use “age” instead of “world” in those same verses — telling us that these Greek words definitely can’t only mean “without end” or “can’t ever.”
In fact, unless we want to believe there are three eternities, including a “past eternity” (aside from the examples I already linked to, we can see from the way the KJV translators rendered 1 Corinthians 2:7 to say “before the world” instead of “before for ever” or “before eternity” that they knew better than to always translate the word αἰών in a manner that denotes a period of time which never ends), as well as a “present eternity” and a “future eternity” (which the KJV translators rendered as “neither in this world, neither in the world to come” rather than “neither in this for ever or in the for ever to come” or “neither in this eternity or in the eternity to come” in Matthew 12:32), we can see that the word αἰών simply doesn’t necessarily mean “without end,” just as the KJV’s rendering of αἰωνίων as “before the world began” in 2 Timothy 1:9 instead of “before eternity began,” not to mentioned as “since the world began” in Romans 16:25 instead of “since eternity began,” proves that αἰωνίων doesn’t necessarily mean “never-ending” — and doesn’t necessarily refer to actual“eternity,” which literally means “without beginning or end” — either (in fact, I’m not aware of a single version of the Bible that renders it as “eternity” in this verse, which makes sense considering the fact that you can’t have a time before literal “eternity,” nor could literal “eternity” even have a beginning). So if anyone ever tries to claim that αἰών and/or αἰωνίων can only mean “never-ending” or some other word or phrase that denotes an endless period of time, and that it can’t possibly refer to something more temporary, simply show them the various passages we just looked at, which is all the proof one needs that this isn’t the case at all.
This all goes for when the word αἰών is translated in a sentence to say “never” as well, as already mentioned. This can be demonstrated by the way John 11:25-26 is rendered in the KJV: “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?” We know this can’t be a literal translation, because people who believed in Jesus at the time He made that statement did eventually die physically (and still do today). So unless we’re to believe that Paul actually wasn’t revealing a mystery (meaning revealing a secret which hadn’t been disclosed before he did so — for those who don’t know, “secret” is what the Greek word μυστήριον/“moos-tay’-ree-on,” which is transliterated as “mystery” in the KJV, literally means) in 1 Corinthians 15:51 when he wrote, “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,” we have to interpret the word “never” figuratively in the KJV in that passage in John, because Paul was the first to reveal the secret that some people will never die prior to being quickened. And Jesus couldn’t have been referring to the supposed “spiritual death” that most Christians believe in, because “never” literally means “not even one time,” yet Christians believe we already “died spiritually” at least once, at the time of our first sin, so it couldn’t refer to that concept even if there was such a thing as “spiritual death” (which there isn’t, but we’ll get to why that is in some of the later articles in the series), at least not without adding the word “again” to the sentence (and that word is definitely not there in the original Greek, any more than it’s there in the KJV). So unless Paul was lying about this being a secret at the time he wrote about it, the passage in John has to be a figurative translation of the Greek, simply meaning, “And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall not be dying for the age” (based on the words it’s translated from in the original Greek, since that’s a literal translation of what Jesus said), telling us that believers (at least believers saved under the Gospel of the Circumcision, since this was stated by Jesus during His earthly ministry) won’t die during the 1,000-year age they’ll enjoy in the kingdom of heaven when it begins on the earth (the reason we know it’s only referring to that one particular age rather than referring to multiple ages is because it’s translated from an Accusative Singular variation of αἰών rather than from a plural variation of the word). That’s not to say the word “never,” when translated from αἰών, can never have been meant to be interpreted literally. It’s just that one has to consider the context of the passage in question to determine whether doing so would contradict another part of Scripture, because if it would, then that obviously can’t be how God meant for it to be interpreted.
But even in passages where it might seem to make sense to interpret some of these terms literally at first glance, such as Romans 16:26 for example (which uses the phrase “the everlasting God” in the KJV), this still isn’t necessarily the case. Some would insist that to interpret it figuratively would mean that God will eventually die, but this verse isn’t actually trying to tell us that God’s life will never end in the first place. The fact of the matter is, we already know that God isn’t going to die based on earlier Scripture, such as Psalm 102:27, which told us long ago that His “years shall have no end,” so that’s not something Paul needed to explain to his readers. Instead, if we interpret the word “everlasting” consistently with its other instances in the KJV where it’s translated from αἰωνίων (meaning we interpret it as figuratively referring to a long period of time, or even as pertaining to the ages), we can see that Paul is simply telling us that God is the age-pertaining God, meaning He doesn’t just sit on high, removed from our struggles in time, but rather that He cares about — and is even intimately involved in — what happens during the ages. And those who might think this limits Him to the ages aren’t thinking things through carefully enough, since otherwise God being said to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would limit Him to being the God of those three men, and those three men alone, as well. And the same goes for passages such as Galatians 1:3-5 and Philippians 4:20, where a more consistent interpretation of the passages as figuratively saying “to our God and Father be glory for the ages of the ages” wouldn’t mean they’re telling us that God’s glory will end when the ages do, any more than the figurative interpretation of Romans 16:26 means that God’s life would end at that time; it just means that Paul was simply focusing on the glory God will finally receive — which He certainly isn’t receiving during the current age, at least not to the extent He will at that time — when the two greatest ages finally begin (those two ages being known as “the ages of the ages,” or even “the eons of the eons,” depending on your Bible translation, which, as those who are familiar with the Doctrine of the Ages — more often referred to as the Doctrine of the Eons — know, is referring to the thousand-year age, or eon, when the kingdom of heaven exists in Israel, as well as to the final age/eon on the New Earth, but I don’t have the space to get into the details of that topic here, so I’m going to leave it up to you to dig deeper into that subject if you’re at all curious to learn more; I highly recommend the book titled God’s Eonian Purpose by Adlai Loudy as a great starting point — which you can buy as a physical book, but which has also been made available by its publishers as a free PDF — although keep in mind that he made a distinction between “ages” and “eons” in his book which most others don’t, but it’s still a very worthwhile read). Simply put, with very few exceptions, the Bible doesn’t delve into details pertaining to the rest of eternity, but is instead focused almost entirely on details pertaining to the ages (even though this fact might be less obvious to people who only read less literal translations of Scripture). What occurs after the end of the ages isn’t something that God seems to want us to know about right now (other than to know that everyone will have been quickened/saved by that time), but rather He appears to want us to concern ourselves with what happens during the ages instead.
However, even if we did interpret “everlasting” and “for ever and ever” in those particular passages about God literally, the fact remains that, if we’re reading Bible versions which do use the words “for ever,” “everlasting,” and “eternal,” one has to be aware that “for ever” in those versions is still very often just figurative language that refers to “an age” or “ages,” or to “a seemingly long period of time with a definite beginning and end,” and the same goes for not only “everlasting,” but also “eternal,” which is often used as a synonym for “everlasting” in the KJV since it’s almost always translated from the same Greek word too — with one exception in the Greek Scriptures, where it’s instead translated from ἀΐδιος/“ah-id’-ee-os.” And so the bottom line is that we should always be considering the context of the passages these various words are being used in, as well as comparing these passages to the rest of Scripture, in order to determine whether these terms actually should be literally interpreted as meaning “without end” or “never-ending” (not to mention “can’t ever,” in the case of the word “never” being used) in those instances, or whether they should be interpreted figuratively instead, to make sure a literal interpretation of a less literal English translation wouldn’t contradict other parts of the Bible, in other words. And, just as the scriptural references to an “everlasting” Old Covenant can’t literally be talking about a never-ending covenant, because that would contradict the passages which talk about how it has to fade away and be replaced with by a New Covenant, scriptural references to “everlasting” judgements (or to punishments which last “for ever,” or even “for ever and ever”) can’t literally be talking about judgements and punishments which never end, because that would contradict the many passages which talk about the salvation of all humanity — passages we’ll be looking at in Part 12 of this series. (This, by the way, also means that, while we can be said to be given “eternal life” — or given “eonian life,” as it can be more literally referred to, and which it’s sometimes translated as, depending on your Bible version — at the point we believe the Gospel and are saved, this can really only be said to be the case from a relative, or perhaps proleptic, perspective, because the actual, physical experience of “eternal life” — referring to our quickening and being taken to the heavens in the case of those of us in the body of Christ, and to getting to live in the kingdom of heaven during the thousand-year reign of Christ on earth in the case of those in the Israel of God — can’t actually begin from a literal perspective until the final ages, or eons, actually commence, since we now know that the phrase really means “age-pertaining life,” or “eon-pertaining life,” when interpreted consistently with the rest of Scripture.) And even if someone simply ignored everything I covered about the Hebrew and Greek words we just looked at, because they prefer to only consider the English words in the KJV, the facts about the figurative meaning of the English words they’re translated into in the KJV should still be pretty obvious based on the passages I used to discuss them in their original languages.
Now, some Christians reading this will be thinking that, if the “everlasting life” Jesus spoke about isn’t literal never-ending life, wouldn’t this mean we won’t actually have lives that never end? That isn’t the best conclusion to draw from this fact, however, since we don’t actually need verses about “everlasting life” to tell us we’ll eventually be in a state where we’ll never die to begin with, because it isn’t figurative verses about “everlasting life” (or “life eternal”) which promise us this anyway, but rather it’s verses about our impending immortality which teach us this fact (and not all Israelites will be made immortal at the time they experience “everlasting life,” as we’ve already covered in Part 1, but will have to wait until a future time for the quickening of their mortal bodies to occur). Of course, this all makes particular sense when we consider the fact that, even in less literal translations such as the KJV, Jesus Himself said that having “life eternal” simply figuratively means “that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent,” which tells us that the term “life eternal” isn’t inherently referring to never dying anyway (at least for those He was ministering to during His time walking the earth). At the end of the day, though, while almost no Christian seems to consciously realize it, most of them are already interpreting “everlasting life” and “life eternal” in a qualitative, figurative manner rather than in a quantitative, literal manner, since, aside from believing what Jesus said “life eternal” means there, most of them also believe that all humans continue to live on without end after they die anyway, which means that being given “everlasting life” or “life eternal” isn’t required to have life that is literally, or quantitatively, everlasting or eternal (meaning a life that never ends), at least according to the theology of Christians who believe in the immortality of the soul, and hence “everlasting life” or “life eternal” can’t actually mean to never die, if they’re correct. Think about it, if we’re already “eternal” beings, in the manner that most Christians believe we are, then “life eternal” or “everlasting life” can’t literally be talking about how long we continue to exist, since we’re all going to continue existing without end regardless of whether we have “life eternal” or not, according to the most common viewpoint. And so, most Christians already interpret terms like “life eternal” and “everlasting life” in a qualitative manner, and understand that they’re both actually simply a figure of speech connected with salvation rather than literally referring to how long one continues to exist (at least in the less-literal Bible translations that use the terms), even if they hadn’t fully realized it until they read this. (And if “everlasting life” is a figurative term in these less-literal Bible translations, it makes sense to conclude that references to “everlasting punishment” must be figurative as well; and they indeed are, as I’ll prove a little later in this series of articles too.) Still, don’t those who die as believers live “for ever” in an afterlife called heaven? Well, the biblical answer to that question is “no, we don’t,” but you’ll have to read the next article in this series to understand how I can say that.
This is part 2 of my Actual Good News series of articles on the topic of biblical soteriology (the study of salvation).Part 1 is available here: Things that differ
Please note that I’m including many of my scriptural references in the links (which are are the underlined words throughout the article), and they also link to studies with extended details that I couldn’t fit into the article, so please be sure to click all the supporting links in order to get the full picture, as well as all the Scripture references.
As most people are aware, Jesus spoke about a place called hell (at least He’s recorded as having done so in the King James Bible, which is the translation of Scripture we’re using in this Actual Good News series for the reasons explained on the introductory page), but just as it is when it comes to the topic of the various different Gospels we learned about in part 1 of this series (and be sure to read that article if you aren’t aware of the fact that there are multiple sets of Gospels in the Bible), most Christians are unaware of many scriptural facts regarding the various “hells” as well (yes, there are multiple different “hells” referred to in the KJV), not to mention about death and heaven too, which you’ll discover as you read the rest of this series. Most Christians assume that anyone who doesn’t “get saved” before they die or before Jesus returns will be punished for their sins by ending up being tormented without end in an inescapable torture chamber called hell (which most believe is also a reference to a place called the lake of fire), and perhaps the most commonly quoted verses in the Bible used in order to prove the popular doctrine of never-ending torment in hell are these two parallel passages:
Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire. — Matthew 18:8–9
And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. — Mark 9:43–48
There are a couple factors here that almost nobody ever considers when reading these two passages, however. First of all, there’s nothing in the text which tells us anyone will actually remain in the hell fire Jesus warned about in those passages. Yes, they say that the fire is “everlasting” in less literal Bible translations such as the KJV, but they don’t say that the time spent in said hell fire will be never-ending, and insisting that these two passages mean any humans will be trapped in said fire without the possibility of ever leaving it requires one to read their doctrinal presuppositions about never-ending punishment into the text (it’s also important to keep in mind that the words “everlasting” and “eternal” are generally — if not always — figurative terms in these less literal Bible translations which use the words, and that they rarely, if ever, actually mean “never-ending,” as I’ll demonstrate in Part 3 of this series, although as I already hinted at in part 1, anyone who has read the whole Bible and was paying careful attention while doing so should already be well aware of this fact, since it’s actually made extremely obvious in many passages throughout the Bible versions that commonly use these words).
That’s not all, though. Jesus also didn’t say that anyone would even be conscious or suffering while in this hell fire. Of course, the fact that He didn’t say anyone would be conscious or suffering doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t be. It simply means we can’t determine these things based on these two passages alone, since they just don’t say one way or the other, but we can look to other passages in Scripture to find out. And this is where the passage in Mark comes in handy, because it gives us the key to finding the answer to this question (the mention of the “undying” worm and unquenchable fire gives it away). You see, these warnings by Jesus were actually referencing a prophecy in Isaiah 66:23-24, which said: “And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.”
Few people who read this prophecy ever seem to notice it, but there’s a word in there which tells us that Jesus wasn’t talking about ghosts (for lack of a better term) who are suffering consciously in an ethereal afterlife realm, that word being “carcases” — meaning corpses, or physical dead bodies — which are being looked upon with abhorrence (meaning contempt or aversion) by all flesh (meaning any living human, since ghosts wouldn’t have flesh, so this can’t take place in some sort of afterlife realm) that sees them either being consumed by worms or by fire on a physical planet in the future.
I should probably also quickly point out that verse 22 of Isaiah 66 tells us this prophecy actually takes place on the New Earth after the Great White Throne Judgement rather than on our current planet, but Jesus’ references to this passage in connection with people still living on this earth at the time the judgement He was referring to takes place also tells us this prophecy has a double fulfillment of sorts, or really that it needs to be interpreted with the “Mountain Peaks” of prophecy in mind, which refers to a method of interpreting certain prophecies where there can be prophetic “valleys,” meaning events taking place “within” a specific prophecy, but which were not explicitly mentioned within said prophecy and which the prophet himself is not necessarily even aware of, yet which are later revealed to us in other prophecies, with these prophetic “valleys” being situated between the prophetic “mountain peaks,” meaning the events that the prophet actually did foresee and foretell within said prophecy.
For example, while Jesus’ earthly ministry and reign as King of Israel was foreseen and foretold in various prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures, the church called the body of Christ and the current dispensation of the grace of God were entirely unknown to the prophets recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures (meaning the books of the Bible that are generally referred to as “the Old Testament”). From their perspective, all they could see was one unbroken ministry of a Messiah coming to save and lead Israel during one unbroken period of time on earth, because they couldn’t see the “valley of the church” hidden between the “mountain peaks” of Jesus’ first and second time on earth, with those “mountain peaks” even seeming like one “mountain” to them from their “vantage point.” And this can even happen within a single sentence in a prophecy, as demonstrated in Luke 4:14–21 where Jesus stopped reading Isaiah 61:1–2 before the end of the sentence in verse 2 of Isaiah’s prophecy, because the part of that prophecy about “the day of vengeance of our God” hadn’t begun at that time yet, since that part won’t begin until the Tribulation, shortly before His Second Coming. So with all that in mind, it’s important to always consider whether a prophecy might have multiple fulfillments, or even a prophetic “valley” between portions of it, when trying to interpret any prophecy in the Bible.
Now, I have heard it claimed that, while the majority of the passage in Isaiah 66 actually is referring to what happens on earth, the passage all of a sudden begins talking about an afterlife state of souls when we get to the part about the worm and the fire (or, perhaps, that the worm and fire part of the prophecy have a double-fulfillment, both on a physical planet and in an afterlife realm), and that this means whoever ends up in this particular “hell” will be dead, but will then continue on as a conscious soul in an afterlife realm to be tormented by “fire” of some sort (however that’s supposed to work without matter to combust), and by a “worm” (whether referring literally to an actual spiritual being that will somehow gnaw on their soul, or perhaps referring figuratively to simply being tormented by guilty memories of past sins, as I’ve heard it asserted by some who want to pick and choose for themselves which parts of this prophecy are literal and which parts are figurative rather than interpret the whole passage consistently) in another “hell” one enters in the afterlife. But since there’s absolutely nothing in the text that could have possibly led anyone reading it at the time it was written to interpret it as meaning it isn’t simply physical carcases being consumed by actual fire and worms (especially since there hadn’t been anything written in the Hebrew Scriptures that outright spoke of a conscious afterlife punishment), this is clearly an assumption they’ve read into the passage based on a pre-existing doctrinal bias, and so to insist that this is what the passage definitely has to mean without first considering everything else I’ll be covering in this series would be pure eisegesis.
But what was Jesus warning us about, then? Well, He wasn’t warning us about anything, because He wasn’t talking to us to begin with (unless, again, you happen to be Jewish). As we already learned from Part 1 of this series, His death for our sins, burial, and resurrection on the third day aside, Jesus’ earthly ministry and messages were technically to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel, not to Gentiles (and please go read it if you haven’t already, because understanding the contents of that article is a requirement for understanding pretty much any of the Bible). But even if we’re keeping that truth in mind, we still have to ask what Jesus was warning about in those passages, and the answer is that He was warning His Jewish audience about the possibility of missing out on enjoying something figuratively referred to in the less-literal Bible translations as “everlasting life” for a thousand years in Israel, pointing out that they might instead end up as a corpse in a valley outside Jerusalem, known as the Valley of the Son of Hinnom (often referred to today as “Gehenna,” based on the Greek translation — γέεννα/“gheh’-en-nah” — of this location in Israel), to be burned up and/or devoured by worms in rather than being buried under the ground as all Israelites would prefer to be the way they’re interred (although, because Israel largely didn’t accept Jesus as their Messiah and as the Son of God, the kingdom coming fully into effect at that time has been delayed, so His warnings are now more applicable to the generation of Israelites who will be alive at the time of the Tribulation, with it turning out that Jesus’ audience was more at risk of ending up in “hell” after the Great White Throne Judgement instead — presuming this “hell” and the lake of fire are the same thing, of course — but nobody Jesus spoke to could have known their type of salvation would be put on hold prior to Paul revealing it was being removed from them, at least until the final Gentile enters the body of Christ, at which point the prophecies about Israel’s salvation will begin coming into effect again, and, in fact, will finally be completely fulfilled).
I should also say, I’ve heard it suggested that “unquenchable fire” is actually always used figuratively in the Hebrew Scriptures as a symbol of destruction referring to a form of national judgement (but even if it isn’t always used that way, it’s definitely sometimes used that way, such as in 2 Kings 22:17; 2 Chronicles 34:25; and Isaiah 1:31, to name just three of many such examples — and just as a quick but relevant aside, it’s also important to know that something being said to “not be quenched” in Scripture doesn’t mean it never stops “burning,” whether it’s a literal or a figurative “burning,” but just means that it won’t stop “burning” until the appointed time, as those passages I just referenced in the supporting links should make obvious). This interpretation would seem to include the 587 BC fall of Jerusalem, if it is indeed the case that the fire which is not quenched is referring to a national judgement (you will have to look that one up for yourself, if you aren’t familiar with what I’m referring to there and are curious, since I don’t have the time to go into detail on it here), but it likely then would have also found a second fulfillment in AD 70, at least as far as Jesus’ warnings using the term go, considering the fact that the whole city of Jerusalem was burned, and the corpses in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom outside the city apparently ended up incinerated in that fire or consumed by worms in the valley at that time as well, or so I’ve been told by certain people at least. And if that is the case, it could theoretically mean that Jesus’ warnings about “hell” might not even be relevant to anyone alive today. That said, the lake of fire after the Great White Throne Judgement would still be something to be concerned about in that case, of course, even if this is what Jesus meant in His warnings, and also presuming there isn’t yet another fulfillment for certain people after the Tribulation ends as far as that warning goes (which is what would have to be the case if any of this was fulfilled in AD 70, as some people claim it was, because anyone who has studied history can see that the prophecies related to the Day of the Lord were not all fulfilled around AD 70, the way some Christians claim they were, considering the fact that the nation of Israel is not currently ruling the world from the land of Israel as Scripture says they will after the Tribulation ends, especially since we now know from what we learned in Part 1 that the body of Christ is not “spiritual Israel”).
Either way, though, it’s important to remember that Jesus wasn’t speaking English, so when He gave these warnings, His listeners didn’t hear the English word “hell” come out of His mouth when He spoke the words recorded in those verses we began with. Instead, they literally just heard Him say “the Valley of Hinnom” in their own language, specifically the Greek word γέεννα, as already mentioned (which itself is a translation of the Hebrew phrase גֵיא בֶן־הִנֹּם/“gah’-ee bane hin-nome’” — literally meaning “the Valley of the Son of Hinnom” in English — or, more precisely, a transliteration of גֵיא־הִנֹּם/“gah’-ee hin-nome’” — literally meaning “the Valley of Hinnom” in English — which is what the name of that location in Israel seems to have been shortened to by the time Jesus walked the earth; and even if Jesus was speaking Aramaic rather than Hebrew or Greek, they still would have simply heard Him say “the Valley of Hinnom” in that language, based on how the Greek Scriptures, meaning the books of the Bible that are generally referred to today as “the New Testament,” rendered it, at least in the original Koine Greek), and they would have — or at least should have — known this is referring to an actual location on earth that Jeremiah said would be a place of future judgement, and those who understood Scripture would have realized that Jesus was connecting the warning of judgement in the book of Jeremiah to the warning about corpses in the book of Isaiah, letting them know where Isaiah’s prophecy would take place (at least prior to the creation of the New Earth).
This is why the English word “hell” is one of those False Friends I mentioned in Part 1 (which, as I explained there, is a term that is sometimes used to refer to English words we still use today, but which can now mean something very different — in ways that the average reader is unlikely to be aware of — from what they could mean when our English Bibles were first translated), because the word originally had no inherent meaning of “inescapable torture chamber” whatsoever, even though that’s how it’s come to be used by most people today. Instead, the noun basically just meant “hole” or “pit” when used literally, or “a place where something is hidden, covered, or unseen” when used figuratively, with the verb form of the word referring to covering or hiding something (for example, to “hell a body” would mean to bury a body underground, and “helling a house” would refer to covering, or thatching, a house).
That’s not to say the English word “hell” is a bad translation in the KJV and other less literal Bible versions which use it. In fact, it’s actually a perfectly fine translation, so long as someone studying the Bible realizes that it’s strictly a figurative translation when it’s used in these particular Bible versions. For example, the Greek word γέεννα (again, literally just meaning “the Valley of Hinnom”) is translated figuratively as “hell” in these Bible versions at least partly because a valley is a long depression, meaning an elongated “hole” in the ground, so “hell” is being used in these verses as a form of synecdoche (which is a figure of speech where a term for a part of something is used to refer to the whole), since this “hell” only refers to the first half of the Greek word (the “hole,” or “valley,” half of γέεννα), with the second half (the “of Hinnom” half of γέεννα) simply being implied by the term (this is similar to the way someone might just say “the Leafs” as synecdoche for “the Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey Club,” because it’s often much faster to use just one or two words in place of something’s full name). So technically, when someone says “hell” in reference to this particular biblical location, they’re really just referring to “the hell/hole/valley of Hinnom” in Israel in a shortened, synecdochical manner, even if they themselves might not actually realize that’s what they’re doing, since they might not be aware of the facts we just covered.
Now, some people will try to disagree with what I just wrote, claiming that some Jews refer to the Valley of Hinnom (or “Gehenna”) in a figurative manner to speak of a realm in which people will be tormented consciously after they die, so as to support their argument that Jesus was using the word γέεννα as a warning about what those who don’t get saved before they die will experience while dead, but there are a couple problems with Christians using this argument, especially to support the doctrine of never-ending torment (problems which exist on top of the fact that most Jews who do use the term “Gehenna” this way don’t believe anyone will remain in said “location” or “state” permanently, which means that for a Christian to argue for a very specific Jewish usage of the term — while ignoring the actual usage of the term when it’s used this way by the people who do use it this way — is really to redefine the term to fit their own preconceived ideas, which means they have no actual basis for using it to defend their position to begin with). First, whether or not the Valley of Hinnom really was sometimes used figuratively to refer to a negative afterlife realm back during Jesus’ time on earth (and I’m not familiar with any proof that it actually was used in this manner at that particular time — and I did look for proof prior to writing this), there’s nothing in the Hebrew Scriptures to indicate it should be used that way, so to claim Jesus meant it that way wouldn’t be an argument based on what Scripture actually says so much as it would be an argument based on extrabiblical Jewish mythology, which isn’t something anyone should be basing their theology on, nor does it seem like something that the One who corrected people for teaching unbiblical theological concepts as truth by saying things like “have ye not read…?” and “it is written…” would do. And secondly, we already know that the only humans who end up spending time in this particular “hell” will be carcases, which means it has to be referring to that actual valley in Israel, so it really wouldn’t matter if some Jews in Jesus’ time were ignoring the Hebrew Scriptures and referring to the valley figuratively in that manner anyway, because this fact tells us that Jesus wouldn’t have meant it that way at all.
Everyone Jesus spoke to desperately wanted to enjoy living in Israel when the kingdom of heaven finally begins there, and the idea that Jesus’ audience members might be dead during that thousand-year time period, or that they might even have ended up weeping and gnashing their (quite physical) teeth because they’d been forced to live in figuratively “darker” parts of the world instead, if the kingdom had fully begun on earth while they were still alive, would have been a grave threat for them indeed (in addition to everything we learned in Part 1, the fact that Jesus said many will be coming from the east and the west to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven also confirms that the kingdom of heaven will be on earth, after those patriarchs have been resurrected from the dead, rather than in an afterlife realm called “heaven,” as does the fact that one could “enter into the kingdom of God with one eye,”as Jesus stated, so the “outer darkness” will obviously have to be on earth too). And the “outer darkness” can’t be referring to hell, at least not the hell we’re discussing now, because that particular hell will be within the borders of the kingdom of heaven since it will be in a valley inside Israel (at least, based on everything we’ve covered, we have no scriptural basis for assuming otherwise at this point, especially since that’s what the Greek word that the English word “hell” in these passages is translated from literally means), so it makes sense that being cast into the outer darkness would simply refer to being exiled from Israel, if one happens to be alive at that time, and missing out on getting to live in the kingdom of heaven during those thousand years. However, for those who are somehow still skeptical, if Jesus was trying to get all of the above across, I’d like you to tell me what He would have needed to have said differently in order to convince you of this.
Before moving on, though, I also need to ask, if we’re to believe that encountering a fiery judgement means being tortured, or even just punished, without end, why did Jesus then wrap up this warning by saying that“every one shall be salted with fire,” and why do so many of the references to fiery judgements throughout the Hebrew Scriptures refer to fire purifying Israel and making things right, and never to any Israelites being tortured without end in said fire, as well? (And the odd passage that could theoretically be interpreted as referencing individuals being burned up don’t say they’ll be suffering, but rather that there won’t be any part of them left after the fiery judgement is complete, also contradicting the most popular doctrine of salvation.)
But still, if this “hell” is a reference to the lake of fire, as most Christians believe it to be, wouldn’t that mean the people who end up in it will have to be suffering in it without end, contrary to what Isaiah wrote? I mean, the Bible says that unrighteous sinners will be tortured consciously in the lake of fire, and that none of them can ever leave that location, doesn’t it? Well, let’s take a look at what the Bible says about the lake of fire to determine whether that’s actually the case or not:
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. — Revelation 20:7–10
This is the one-and-only passage in the Bible which suggests that anyone will suffer without end in a location specifically referred to by name as the lake of fire (I know, there are other passages you’re assuming are referring to suffering in the lake of fire without end, but none of those passages actually use that name in them, and as you’ll learn from further articles in this series, are actually referring to something else entirely), and I trust you noticed that it’s only the devil, the beast, and the false prophet who are said to be tormented there “for ever and ever.” No other humans (in fact, no humans at all) are said to be suffering that fate in this passage. Yes, Revelation 20:15 does say “And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” too, but you’ll notice that it doesn’t say how long any of these people will remain in it for, or even that they’ll be alive while they’re in it (much less that they’ll be suffering), and to insist that the humans who are said to be cast into it in that verse will not surely die, as mortal humans normally would when set on fire, but that they’ll somehow remain alive, even though there’s nothing in the text which even implies this will happen, is the epitome of eisegesis (remember, this takes place after they’ve been resurrected from the dead for the Great White Throne Judgement, meaning they’ll be existing in the same kind of biological bodies they had before they died when they’re judged and cast into the lake of fire; they won’t be resurrected with immortal bodies at that time, because immortality for humans is always connected with salvation in Scripture, so they’ll die a second time when they’re cast into the lake of fire, just as any other mortal human would today when set on fire). This also means that “the beast” and “the false prophet” in this passage can’t be references to humans, since the beings who will go by those titles will be cast alive into the lake of fire, which means the lake of fire is going to exist here on earth, not in another dimension that ghosts exist in, and there’s nothing anywhere in the Bible to indicate that any humans who might go by these titles will be immortal (which they couldn’t be anyway since, again, immortality for humans is always connected with salvation in Scripture), so the reference to “the beast” and “the false prophet” who are being tormented in the lake of fire pretty much have to be talking about spirits who possessed certain humans rather than talking about the actual humans who will also go by those titles (presuming “the beast” and “the false prophet” who deceive the world during the Tribulation aren’t simply spiritual beings the whole time, and that no humans will actually go by those titles at all). Simply put, presuming there are humans who will go by those titles, they’ll be cast alive into the lake of fire, at which point they’ll die and burn up, leaving behind only the evil spirits who empowered them during the Tribulation, to be bound to the lake of fire for a very long time (similar to the way other spirits are currently bound in another version of “hell” translated from the Greek ταρταρόω/“tar-tar-o’-o” rather than from γέεννα, and which is sometimes instead transliterated as Tartarus, depending on your Bible version — and we know this is indeed another version of “hell” because Jude said they’re chained up “under darkness” rather than in the valley under the sun in Israel which the “hell” sometimes known as Gehenna currently is). And if they’re simply spiritual beings the whole time, with no possessed humans involved, then they themselves will be cast alive into the lake of fire and remain bound to that location for a very long time (presumably along with the other spiritual beings who are currently bound in the “hell” known as Tartarus, who will likely also be judged at the Great White Throne as well, if not at the same time the beast and false prophet are cast into that location).
This also means that if the warnings by Jesus about the “hell” sometimes known as Gehenna were a reference to the future location of the lake of fire (which I actually agree that those passages were indeed referring to), since Isaiah told us that only dead bodies would be spending time in there (at least as far as its human inhabitants go), we can say with quite some certainty that no humans in the lake of fire will be alive or suffering in there, at least not for any longer than it takes for someone to die after being set on fire (and this would fit perfectly with what we know anyway; the lake of fire is called the second death for a reason — if the “second death” could somehow be interpreted as being a reference to some form of never-ending torture, with one’s supposed “spiritual death,” whatever that means, actually being a prior “death” to this one, it should actually be called the “third death,” because everybody who ends up there will have also died physically at some point prior to experiencing this fate, and if one’s “first death” is actually a reference to their biological death prior to being physically resurrected for the Great White Throne Judgement, the second death would just be more of the same as the first death, which is biological death — which tells us there’s no good reason at all to interpret the “second death” as referring to being tortured in fire, but rather that it should simply be interpreted as meaning to literally die a second time in said fire).
As for why I personally believe that the lake of fire will be located in the Valley of Hinnom in Israel (at least during the thousand-year period of time that the kingdom of heaven exists in Israel), there are a couple reasons. The first is because I’ve noticed that the passage almost immediately prior to the reference in Isaiah to the “undying” worms and unquenchable fire is a statement that implies this will take place at least partly on the New Earth, as I already mentioned (although we do have to keep the “Mountain Peaks” of prophecy in mind here as well, as I also already mentioned, since we know that Jesus’ warnings were about the period of time when the kingdom of heaven will exist in Israel on our current planet, even if Isaiah himself may not have been aware of that fact), and it seems unlikely that there would be two places for burning corpses on the New Earth (a place called the Valley of Hinnom and a place called the lake of fire) after the Great White Throne Judgement takes place. And similarly, we know that “the beast” and “the false prophet” will be cast into the lake of fire at the end of the Tribulation, 1,000 years before the New Earth is created, and the similar point that it seems unlikely there would be two places for burning corpses in the kingdom of heaven when it’s located in Israel on our current planet would apply here too, and so it does make sense that the valley in Israel referred to as “hell” in the KJV will indeed be the future location of the lake of fire, at least prior to this planet’s destruction and the creation of the New Earth.
Before moving on, though, I should also point out, in addition to the fact that we have no basis for believing any humans will be conscious or suffering in the “hell” (again, simply meaning “hole,” or valley, in this case) that the lake of fire will be located in, or even for believing they’ll never be resurrected from their second death to go live on the New Earth at some point (which is also not a reference to an afterlife state, since nobody going to live on the New Earth will die a second time the way those cast into the lake of fire will, but is just a reference to a whole new planet to replace ours after our current planet is destroyed), there’s good reason to believe that not every human judged at the Great White Throne will even end up in the lake of fire to begin with. This idea might sound odd to some Christians, but John’s statement about those whose names aren’t written in the book of life ending up in the lake of fire would seem to be entirely unnecessary if there weren’t going to also be some people judged at that time whose names are written in the book of life, especially if the judgement itself were going to prove that they deserved to end up in the lake of fire, as most Christians assume will happen. And remember, this judgement isn’t about whether one has “gotten saved” or not. Instead, John tells us that the judgement people will face at the Great White Throne is going to be solely about their works (this also means that they’ll be judged based on whether their evil acts “outweighed” their good deeds rather than whether their actions were sinful or not, since not only are “evil” and “sin” two entirely different things — unless you believe that animals can sin — but also because all sin was taken care of some 2,000 years ago by Christ), saying in Revelation 21:8: “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” Of course, most Christians will claim that “the unbelieving” being the second category of people who are said to end up there proves that anyone who doesn’t “get saved” before they die will end up in the lake of fire, but since John said this judgement is based on works, if “the unbelieving” referred to those who didn’t “get saved,” it would also mean that believing is a work, which I doubt most Christians agree is the case. The fact that “the unbelieving” is the second category rather than the first — in a list of different categories of people who end up there — also tells us just how unlikely it is that John was simply referring to those who didn’t choose to “get saved” before they die, since if everyone who fails to “get saved” is guaranteed to end up in the lake of fire, the rest of the list would seem to be entirely unnecessary to begin with (although it’s true that, while those in the body of Christ can’t lose their salvation — since Paul told us that anyone God calls for this type of salvation will be glorified — those Israelites who are given the sort of salvation that Jesus and His disciples preached about while He walked the earth do seem to be able to lose their type of salvation, so perhaps the rest of the list technically applies strictly to them, but either way, “the unbelieving” can’t simply refer to those who didn’t get saved prior to their death, because otherwise it wouldn’t even need to be included on the list to begin with, since it would go without saying based on the fact that they were being judged at the Great White Throne in the first place).
The fact that he also says “all liars” will end up in the lake of fire, when every single human who has made it to the age where they can communicate has lied at some point in their life, also makes the rest of the list entirely superfluous, I should add, if it means that everyone who has ever told a lie will end up in the lake of fire, as most Christians claim (it stands to reason that this simply refers to those who make a lifestyle out of habitual lying, such as politicians and religious teachers, for example, since otherwise the rest of the list just wouldn’t have been necessary at all). Anyway, at least as far as Gentiles go, Jesus Himself seemed to imply that certain non-Israelites will be resurrected for this judgement yet not end up condemned themselves, but rather will condemn certain Israelites who missed out on the resurrection of the just (and they won’t have been saved the way the body of Christ or the Israel of God are, or else they would have been resurrected much earlier and missed this particular judgement altogether). And so, I would suggest that it’s probably only the worst of the worst who will end up in the lake of fire, with everyone else, likely including most of your loved ones, continuing on to live on the New Earth, even if not in immortal bodies (at least to begin with).
But don’t worry, this interpretation isn’t teaching salvation by works for those who might get to avoid the lake of fire after being judged at the Great White Throne, because those who would avoid the lake of fire at this judgement wouldn’t actually get saved at that time, since A) they missed out on the type of salvation which involved enjoying “eternal life” in Israel during the thousand years that the kingdom of heaven existed on our planet prior to this judgement, and B) they aren’t going to be quickened (meaning made immortal) when they go live on the New Earth — at least not right away — so this isn’t the sort of salvation which Paul taught isn’t by works either, because that particular salvation is all about being made immortal. All that being said, even if everyone who gets judged at the Great White Throne does end up in the lake of fire, we already know that it’s only the spiritual beings known as the devil, the beast, and the false prophet who are said to remain in the lake of fire “for ever and ever,” or who are said to be tormented in it, so there’s no reason to believe that any human whose name isn’t written in the book of life will be alive or suffering in the lake of fire, or even that they can’t ever eventually be resurrected from their second death the way they were from their first death, and then go on to live on the New Earth (whether in an immortal body or otherwise).
This is part 1 of my Actual Good News series of articles on the topic of biblical soteriology (the study of salvation). The theological facts laid out in this article are required reading in order to truly understand biblical soteriology, so make sure you read it carefully.
Please note that I’m including many of my scriptural references in the links (which are are the underlined words throughout the article), and they also link to studies with extended details that I couldn’t fit into the article, so please be sure to click all the supporting links in order to get the full picture, as well as all the Scripture references.
Before we dive into things here, I should probably quickly discuss the Bible version used throughout this and most of the other articles in this Actual Good News series. You see, as I mentioned on the introduction page to this series of articles, A) there are a number of people out there who won’t consider scriptural references from anything other than this one particular Bible version, B) because I wanted to reach the largest audience possible, C) because it’s still one of the most popular and recognizable Bible versions anyway, not to mention D) because it means I don’t have to worry about copyright issues, not to mention E) because it is my favourite Bible translation and the one I personally consider to be the most accurate anyway, all scriptural references in this article are from the KJV (the King James Version of the Bible; although, if you aren’t a fan of the way the KJV renders certain verses, please feel free to look up the supporting references in a translation of your choosing). That said, I should also point out that some of the writers of the supporting books and articles I linked to throughout this series do use other Bible versions themselves, and they don’t necessarily all feel as favourably towards the KJV as I do, but I still highly recommend reading their articles and books even if you are a KJV-Onlyist, in order to learn more details that I didn’t have the time to get into here myself. Speaking of those links, please keep in mind that just because I link to specific articles or books doesn’t mean that I agree with everything their writers and/or publishers believe and/or teach. In some cases, I link to them for the sole reason that they happen to have better supporting material on a specific point than anybody else I’ve found so far.
When considering the meaning of passages in the Bible (especially in translations which use older versions of English than most of us commonly read, speak, or understand, such as the KJV), it’s very easy to unintentionally read one’s preconceived theological beliefs into a passage (this is what’s known in theological circles as eisegesis), rather than trying to carefully determine the actual meaning of the text in question without coming at it with any preconceived ideas as to its meaning (studying Scripture this way is referred to as exegesis). This generally occurs because one has heard people they trust tell them that certain doctrines are true, and if they assume their teachers can’t be mistaken, they’ll rarely bother to look into the context of the passages they’re told prove these doctrines. This means that when they see certain words in these passages which seem to support their doctrines at first glance, they’ll just assume the inclusion of these words in the text proves that the doctrines themselves must indeed be correct, and they won’t bother to actually do any study to verify whether this truly is the case or not. Of course, as the old saying goes, a text read out of context is just a pretext for a “proof text,” so this often results in people never learning the truth about what these passages really mean.
Equally unfortunately, most people will rarely bother to compare these passages to the rest of the Bible either, in order to make sure the doctrines they’ve been taught aren’t contradicting other parts of Scripture. But even when they do try to dig a little deeper, they tend to be unfamiliar with the concept of perspectives in the Bible, especially the difference between the absolute and relative perspectives (there are more than just these two perspectives in Scripture, but these are perhaps the two most important perspectives one needs to consider in their exegesis, and yet also the least well known by Christians), which means they aren’t aware that two statements in Scripture which at first appear to disagree with (or even contradict) each other if they’re both taken literally or both interpreted figuratively can actually both be true at the same time. As a very simple example of this important hermeneutical principle, Ecclesiastes 11:3 tells us that the rain comes from clouds, while 1 Kings 17:14 says that God actually sends the rain, and we can understand that both of these statements are equally true when we recognize that God is indeed the origin of rain from an absolute perspective (since all is of God), even while the clouds are the origin of rain from a relative perspective.
And even when the perspective principle regarding the absolute vs the relative doesn’t come into play, words just don’t always mean, or at least refer to, the same thing anyway. For example, certain words (such as the word “fire,” as just one example of many) are used literally in some passages while also being used figuratively in other passages (with this difference technically being another form of perspective found in Scripture). And it isn’t just individual words that are used figuratively in the Bible. Scripture is full of figurative phrases too, including allegories, metaphors, idioms, and other forms of figurative speech that aren’t obvious from just reading the English text. This means that if one isn’t familiar with the existence of a figurative word, expression, or other figure of speech in a specific passage, they can end up completely misunderstanding what that passage actually means.
It’s also important to be aware of the fact that words known as False Friends exist in the KJV and other older Bible translations, which is a term that is sometimes used to refer to English words we still use today, but which can now mean something very different — in ways that the average reader is unlikely to be aware of — from what they could mean when our English Bibles were first translated (and while certain disingenuous types will try to distract from this fact by pointing out that the term “False Friends” has previously been described by saying, “In linguistics, false friends are words in different languages that look or sound similar, but differ significantly in meaning,” this — almost certainly purposely — misses the point entirely by ignoring the fact that the first two words of the explanation were “in linguistics,” not “in theology,” and also ignores the fact that the meaning of words and phrases can change over time, not to mention that words and terms can have multiple meanings, as is the whole point of the theological definition of False Friends in the first place). As a very simple example, “convenient” generally refers to “something which saves one trouble” when the word is used today, but when you read it in Ephesians 5:3-4 in the KJV it actually means “fitting,” because that’s what the word “convenient” meant back in 1611. Another example that really demonstrates this point is the word “let,” which generally means “allow” or “allowed” when used today (and it often did in the KJV as well). However, when you read Romans 1:13 in the KJV, this word actually means the exact opposite of that. Rather than “allowed,” Paul actually meant “prevented” in that verse. This isn’t a mistranslation, however, but is instead another False Friend, because that was another meaning of the word “let” back in 1611, even if we don’t use that obsolete definition of the word today (and if you aren’t aware of this fact, the verse can be confusing, as many other verses that include False Friends can be as well). I should add, in addition to being a False Friend, “let” is also an example of how the translators of the KJV often used the exact same English word to translate entirely different words from their original languages — with the first example of “let” we looked at being translated from the Greek ἔστω/“es’-to,” and the second example being translated from κωλύω/“ko-loo’-o” — words which could have the complete opposite meaning from one another in their original languages at times, and cases of this happening weren’t always because they’ve become False Friends in the 21st century either; in many cases, the reason for the translations seemed to be more for the sake of being poetic, as you’ll learn farther on in this article.
As another important example of a False Friend in the KJV, we have the word “heresy,” and this really is an important one to be aware of because of the series of articles you’re reading right now (since many of the truths you’re going to learn in this article and the rest of them in this series are considered to be “heretical” by most Christians). Even before getting into this one, however, it’s important to know that there are two different types of “heresies” when the word is used correctly, and that neither of them literally mean “incorrect doctrine” (just as “orthodox” doesn’t mean “correct doctrine” either) the way most people assume they do. The first type of “heresy” is the one that’s mentioned in the Bible, and it’s true that these types of “heresies” aren’t good things (at least when they take place within the body of Christ), but the literal meaning of αἵρεσις/“hah’-ee-res-is” — which is the Greek word that’s transliterated as “heresy” and “heresies” in the KJV — is simply “sect,” as the word is also translated in other verses, meaning “division” or “dissension,” and does not literally mean “incorrect doctrine” at all. In fact, “sect” was a meaning of the English word “heresy” back when the KJV was translated as well, and based on the meaning of the Greek word it was translated from, it becomes obvious that this is the meaning of the word “heresy” in the KJV, and that the word “heresy” is indeed another False Friend. That’s not to say that the specific sects referred to as “heresies” in the Bible aren’t meant to be avoided, of course, any more than it means that said sects aren’t based on incorrect doctrine, because they are on both counts. My point is simply that the word “heresy” just doesn’t mean what most people assume it does when it’s used in the Bible. This is also an example, by the way, of how the translators of the KJV sometimes used different English words to translate the exact same word from its original language (these are known as synonyms), and if one isn’t aware of what the Hebrew or Koine Greek word that an English word in the KJV has been translated from is or means, they can get just as confused as when the translators used the same English word to translate different words from Scripture in its original languages (especially when these words have become a False Friend in modern times). And so, while I know that some KJV-Onlyists will recoil in horror at this suggestion, and it is true that one often technically can determine when one of these two types of situations is happening simply by the context of a passage — as well as by when a literal (or figurative) interpretation of a specific word would contradict the literal (or figurative) usage of the same word in another place in the KJV — I would still posit that it’s wise to look up every single Hebrew or Koine Greek word when doing a careful study into a passage or topic, since, at the very least, you might miss out on some important nuance that isn’t obvious in the English translation if you don’t, but also because you might even find yourself completely misinterpreting a passage if you avoid doing so, assuming it means the exact opposite of what it actually means (and this happens all the time in real life, as the rest of this series of articles will reveal). Don’t mistake this for “correcting the Bible,” as some people think looking at Scripture in its original languages is, though. I know that many Christians assume that God made the Bible so easy to understand that a child could read just the KJV and figure out everything God wants us to know in it. And while one can learn everything necessary for salvation (and then some) by just reading their King James Bible and nothing else, the idea that that one can figure out everything God laid out in Scripture by reading just the KJV alone, with no study aids of any sort, is nothing more than an assumption they’re making — since the Bible just doesn’t say that anywhere on its pages — and it’s an assumption that is indeed contradicted by the Bible itself too, such as in Proverbs 25:2 which says, “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.”This tells us that God doesn’t necessarily make it easy to learn every scriptural truth without careful study, so it’s important to stop assuming that you know everything there is to know about the Bible just because you’ve read it in English.
And just like it doesn’t literally mean “incorrect doctrine” when it’s used in the Bible, the word “heresy” doesn’t literally mean that outside of the Bible either. Instead, when used extrabiblically, it simply means “that which is commonly accepted to be incorrect.” And just as this type of “heresy” doesn’t literally mean “incorrect doctrine” any more than the biblical type does, the word “orthodox” doesn’t mean “correct doctrine” either, but really just means “that which is commonly accepted to be true,” and there’s always been plenty of commonly accepted error out there, just as there’s always been lots of commonly rejected truth (with much of that truth being labelled as “heresy” by Christians).
For example, Galileo was technically a heretic, according to the Roman Catholic Church, because he taught that the earth wasn’t the centre of the universe, but he was still quite correct that it wasn’t. Meanwhile, Rome considered their view that our planet was the centre of the universe to be the orthodox one, but they were entirely incorrect, and they even eventually admitted that Galileo’s heresy was true after all, many centuries later (thus proving that “orthodox” doctrines taught by the Roman Catholic Church can indeed be wrong and that the things they call “heresy” can be right; and it’s important to keep in mind that, if they can be wrong about even one thing when it comes to what they refer to as orthodoxy and heresy, they could then be wrong about anything they teach is either orthodox truth or heresy).
So remember that just because something is called “heretical” by a Christian doesn’t mean it’s necessarily incorrect, and that something being called “orthodox” by a Christian doesn’t necessarily make it true. Of course, even though they refer to something else altogether from what most Christians today mean when they use the word, the things referred to as “heresies” in the English Bible translations which do use the word (sects, in other words) are things to be avoided (although that doesn’t mean sects are inherently a bad thing in and of themselves; it’s only sectarianism within the church that we need to avoid as members of the body of Christ, while sects/“heresies”outside the church might be good or bad, depending on the reason for the division). But outside of those specific things, many of the things that Christians mistakenly refer to as “heresy” or as “heretical” (or even as “heterodox,” which basically means the same thing) are actually quite true, as you’ll learn throughout this series of articles. And remember also that Jesus and all of His followers were considered to be heretics by the religious orthodoxy of their day, so consider yourself in good company when someone calls you a heretic or refers to the truths you believe as “heresy.”
There are many more False Friends in the KJV that I could get into (and I will cover some very important ones in various parts of this series of articles), but the main thing to keep in mind is that anyone using only the KJV with no study aids definitely holds multiple false doctrines because of this fact. That isn’t to say the KJV is a bad translation. The words its translators used were pretty good for the time it was translated. One just needs to be aware that it’s not a particularly literal translation, but is actually a very figurative — and even poetic — translation in various places (many of which will surprise many of you), and also of the fact that the definitions of words change over time, which all means that if one isn’t aware of a word’s definition in 1611 when it was first translated (as well as the fact that many of these words were translated figuratively), they’re going to unintentionally end up going astray.
This all means that just because you see a word in one passage, you shouldn’t automatically assume it has to be referring to the exact same thing as it does in another passage, or that you even definitely know what the word means to begin with, because it could be that it actually means something entirely different in that passage from what you’re assuming or have been taught it means. So when you’re studying your Bible, be sure to use all the study tools available to you — such as concordances, an English dictionary (I would personally recommend the Oxford English Dictionary over all others for the sake of discovering the meanings of False Friends in the KJV, because it covers definitions going back to the 17th century and even earlier), Bible dictionaries (including Hebrew and Koine Greek Bible dictionaries), internet search engines, and any other study aids you can get your hands on — in order to determine whether or not the interpretations you’ve always assumed were correct really are.
And with all that in mind, since soteriology (the study of salvation) is probably the most important subject in Scripture, we need to be very careful to make sure we’re interpreting all the passages which talk about being saved correctly. Because while most Christians assume that there’s only one type of salvation referred to in the Bible, this just isn’t true, unless you think that being saved in whatever way it is you believe that Jesus saves us today — which, according to most Christians, is being saved from some form of never-ending punishment, generally consisting of either being perpetually tormented in fire, or at least ceasing to exist permanently after the final judgement — is the exact same sort of salvation that Peter and the rest of Jesus’ disciples experienced when they were saved from drowning, that it’s the same sort of salvation the Israelites experienced when they were saved from Egyptian slavery, or that women are required to give birth in order to experience that sort of salvation from never-ending punishment, it should really be a lot more clear than it is to most Christians that the words “salvation,” “save,” and “saved” are not all referring to the same type of salvation every time they’re used in Scripture (although, if you don’t agree, I’d love to know how those are literally all the exact same sort of salvation).
In fact, that there are different types of salvation referred to in Scripture — as well as the fact that, while nobody will experience every type of salvation, we’ll all experience at least one of the different types of salvation by the end of the ages, as will be proven from Scripture in another article in this series — is important to understand when it comes to interpreting the passages where Jesus spoke about getting to enter the kingdom of heaven vs going to hell (which itself is not what most people assume it is, as you’ll also learn in other articles from this series), as well as the passages where Paul wrote about going to heaven, because when reading those passages about hell (such as Matthew 18:8-9 or Mark 9:43–48, as just two of the various examples), somebody who isn’t aware of what Jesus meant there might ask what He was warning us about, not realizing that He wasn’t warning us about anything, because He wasn’t talking to us to begin with (unless, perhaps, you’re Jewish). You see, His death for our sins, burial, and resurrection on the third day aside, Jesus’ earthly ministry and messages were technically only meant for “the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” as He told His disciples in Matthew 15:24, and not to Gentiles (yes, He did help certain Gentiles on rare occasion, but that was the exception rather than the rule). This means that, while it technically is possible for the odd Gentile who fears God and does works of righteousness to end up enjoying the type of salvation that Jesus taught about during His earthly ministry — as evidenced by the salvation of Cornelius and those other Gentiles who heard Peter preach when he visited Cornelius at his home in Caesarea — this sort of salvation is still primarily for Jews and other Israelites, and really, basically all of the rewards and judgements Jesus spoke about (including His warnings about hell, not to mention the majority of the other teachings He shared) were essentially only for and about Israelites, with the judgement of the sheep and the goats being one of the only significant exceptions (since He specifically said that one is a judgement of the nations). That’s not to say there won’t be any Gentiles in hell, but the particular warnings Jesus gave regarding hell technically weren’t for them, nor should the contents of these passages ever be taught to Gentiles as reasons they might end up in hell, because, with very few exceptions, the statements of Jesus recorded in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John weren’t directed to, or even relevant to, Gentiles at all (and if you find yourself skeptical about this claim, I will prove this fact throughout the rest of this article).
And just as the punishment referred to as hell in those passages will be “experienced,” so to speak, by certain dead people right here on earth (as I’ll also demonstrate from Scripture in another article in this series, neither living nor conscious humans can suffer in any of the biblical “hells” spoken of in the KJV, outside of, perhaps, stubbing their toe on a rock or something similar while in one specific version of “hell”), the salvation Jesus spoke about is also to be experienced right here on earth, in the kingdom of heaven (even if it might not be experienced until after one has been resurrected from the dead).
Unfortunately, because most people don’t pay particularly close attention to the specific wording in Scripture, the fact that Jesus said the salvation He taught about during His earthly ministry is to be experienced in the kingdom of heaven has confused generations of people, leading most to assume it’s a reference to an afterlife location called heaven, and others to believe it’s instead referring to a spiritual state within themselves, based on the way the KJV renders one of Jesus’ statements about the kingdom as: “the kingdom of God is within you” (which they often interpret literally, largely because they misunderstand a handful of other statements by Jesus — not seeming to realize that He generally spoke in ways which kept the masses from fully understanding what He was getting at when they were around, purposely doing so to keep them from converting and experiencing the sort of salvation He spoke about because it wasn’t meant for them, which also confirms that He wasn’t talking about the same sort of salvation Paul generally wrote about, since that sort of salvation is meant for everyone — ultimately forcing them to descend into contradiction and even outright absurdity in their interpretations of large portions of Scripture, as you’ll soon discover). This passage really shouldn’t be interpreted as meaning the kingdom is literally inside our bodies, though, because Jesus said that specifically to the Pharisees, and it doesn’t appear that they were saved when He said that to them, which means it makes far more sense to interpret this as Jesus simply telling His audience that the kingdom had been present within the midst of the people He was speaking to the whole time — in the Person of its Messiah and future King (and various Bible versions even translate it more along these lines) — and that this would be the case for as long as He remained among them in Israel (because the word “you” in the KJV is a plural word, translated from the Second Person Plural Greek word ὑμῶν/“hoo-mone’” in this verse, this should also be obvious to anyone who is aware of how the KJV renders words such as this one, because to take it literally, it would have to mean that Jesus was saying, “the kingdom of God is within all of you,” meaning every single person, including the unbelieving Pharisees, listening to Him speak). In fact, that the term “the kingdom of heaven” was really just a reference to the kingdom of God being ready to come fully into effect on the earth is made quite clear in many places throughout the Bible.
First of all, we know that Jesus’ primary message of salvation was about the coming of the kingdom of heaven and how to get to live in it when it comes fully into effect, and we also know that Jesus’ messages while He walked the earth were given in order to confirm that “the promises made unto the fathers” would indeed come true, as Paul explained in Romans 15:8 (and these were promises made primarily for the circumcision, as Paul also wrote there, meaning promises for the descendants of the “fathers” known as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: ethnic Israelites, in other words). Since the Israelites were promised a future kingdom — one ruled by Jesus, as we also learned in prophecies about Him ruling over the kingdom from the throne of David, which is a figurative term that just refers to rulership over “the house of Jacob,” meaning the descendants of Jacob who live in the actual land of Israel — and were also promised that they’d get to dwell in the very land which God gave to their fathers (meaning the land of Canaan, now known as the land of Israel), this all tells us that the kingdom in question will indeed have to be specifically located in that land of Canaan/Israel where God said it would, in fact, be located (a land that was already referred to as “the kingdom of the Lord” at one time anyway, before the nation of Israel fell and its peoples were scattered among the Gentiles and the promises of their future restoration to the land were then prophesied, such as what God promised them in the book of Jeremiah, for example), or at least that it will have to be centred within the land of Israel. (For those who don’t know, the term “the Lord” used in the phrase “the kingdom of the Lord” in 1 Chronicles 28:5 is translated in the KJV from the Hebrew יְהֹוָה/“yeh-ho-vaw’,” or more likely “yah’-way,” which is God’s actual, proper name in Hebrew, and so anybody who heard Jesus say “the kingdom of God” during His earthly ministry would have recognized it as a reference to Israel based on that verse.)
Now, some Christians try to claim that these promises were all fulfilled back in Joshua’s time, based on what Joshua 21:43-45 says about all having come to pass at that time, but there were many prophecies about the same promises connected with dwelling in the land God gave to the fathers (the land of Israel) which were written after the events in Joshua took place as well, such as the one in Jeremiah we just looked at, as well as in the book of Ezekiel (to name just two of many such examples). Besides, the promise about the land that God made is referred to as an “everlasting” covenant in various places, and even though “everlasting” rarely, if ever, actually means “never-ending” when it’s used in the less literal Bible versions which include the word (as we’ll discuss in another article, although anyone who has paid close attention while reading the Bible should really know that fact already), it does still mean that the covenant God made with Abraham regarding the actual land will last a lot longer than some Christians think (especially based on when 1 Chronicles was written, not to mention the time period it was written about, as well as the promise in the book of Jeremiah we just looked at — which also used the term in regards to the same sort of promise — all of which were after Joshua’s time), so there’s no reason to believe that the promises related to the very plot of land which God promised to Abraham and his descendants aren’t still in effect, especially since many of the details connected with these various prophecies about said land still haven’t been fulfilled yet. And remember, Ezekiel says that the land will have some pretty clear geographical boundaries on the earth, not in heaven, or even “in our hearts” (or in whichever bodily organs some people think the kingdom exists inside) when the promises God made to Israel are finally completely fulfilled, as demonstrated by the fact that the prophecy said the land would have borders from the Mediterranean Sea on the west to the Jordan on the east, with the northern boundary at Hamath, and the southern boundary at Kadesh (and if that’s supposed to refer to a supposed kingdom “within us” in some figurative manner, I’d like to know which organs in the bodies of Gentile believers that each of those locations is supposed to be referring to are, as well as what happens if someone is missing that specific body part; and if it’s not about body parts, I’d like to know what those specific geographical locations do refer to if it isn’t actual land), as well as by the fact that the land is said to contain a new temple with some pretty specific dimensions at that time as well, according to the prophecies (with a part of those dimensions carved out for priests from the tribe of the Levites — who are Israelites, not Gentiles — and I trust that nobody believes we have tiny Levites living inside of us either, which would have to be the case if the kingdom and its temple were literally within our bodies). This all confirms that the kingdom is going to be on earth, specifically within those borders that will make up the nation of Israel in the future, rather than somewhere else. And since the temple is said to be located within the borders of the land rather than the land being said to be located within the temple, if the kingdom of God actually is within us the way some Christians like to claim it is, the bodies of Gentile believers can’t be the same temple Ezekiel referred to — as some Christians also like to claim it is, based on their bad misunderstanding of Paul’s statement about those of us in the body of Christ currently being “the temple of God,” as though there can’t be more than one temple — because that would place the figurative “land” (presuming “the land” is a figurative reference to that kingdom “within us,” at least, as I’ve heard some of these Christians claim) within the figurative “temple” made up of our bodies, which is the opposite of what the prophecies in Ezekiel say. And since Ezekiel’s prophecies to Israel about the land were given after the events in the book of Joshua took place, even if the promises given beforehand were fulfilled in Joshua’s time, this means that what was recorded in the book of Joshua can’t have been the final time they’re fulfilled, but rather it means that these prophecies about the land still have to have a second, future fulfillment as well, with what happened in the book of Joshua just being the first fulfillment. (And for those who aren’t familiar with the concept, many prophecies in Scripture had more than one fulfillment, with the most famous example probably being Isaiah 7:14, which said, “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”; this prophecy had its first fulfillment when a woman who was presumably a virgin at the time the prophecy was given — although obviously no longer a virgin by the time she was pregnant — gave birth to her prophesied son, while the second fulfillment would have obviously been Mary giving birth to Jesus.)
Besides, we also know that Israel has to be where the kingdom will be located in the future because Jesus taught His disciples about the things pertaining to the kingdom of God during the 40-day period between His resurrection and His ascension up to heaven, and yet, just before He ascended to heaven, when His disciples asked Him if He’d be bringing the kingdom back to Israel at that time, Jesus didn’t correct them by asking, “Did I not just spend 40 days explaining that the kingdom will be in heaven rather than on earth?”, or, “Did I not just spend 40 days explaining that you’re already living in the kingdom?”, or even, “Did I not just spend 40 days explaining that the kingdom already exists within your bodies, which means the kingdom exists within you rather than you getting to exist within the kingdom?” (whichever of those three that somebody might happen to believe is the truth about the kingdom), but rather just said, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power,” which means He not only didn’t tell them that the kingdom was already fully in effect for Israel, He also didn’t correct their understanding that the kingdom was going to be located on earth — specifically in Israel, where it already once existed in the past (even if in a far less grand manner at that time than it will when it’s restored to Israel in the future) — which are things they should have really already understood if He’d actually just spent more than a month explaining what the kingdom was about, and that it wasn’t going to simply be located in Israel, anyway.
And Peter himself confirmed this only a short time later, in his sermon in Acts 3 when he said, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began,” telling us that the kingdom was going to be sent from heaven to take place on the earth (the various prophecies he was referring to in that sermon also make it pretty clear that “the times of refreshing” and “the restitution of all things” — a reference to the coming kingdom — is going to take place on earth too, when Jesus returns, rather than is going to take place in heaven; and this obviously hasn’t occurred yet either, as anyone who is familiar with history, or who just watches the news, can tell you, although I don’t have the space to get into all of those prophecies here, but you can look them up to see for yourself).
That’s not all, though. Jesus explained that angels “shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth” in his explanation of the parable of the wheat and the tares (after which, “the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father”). Now think about this carefully. If the kingdom of heaven is an afterlife location which people go to when they die, as most Christians assume (including many Christians who also believe that the kingdom is somehow “within us” at the same time, however that’s supposed to work), and only those who are saved can go to heaven, as most Christians also assume, this passage would make no sense, because the angels can’t “gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity” if these people are not already in the kingdom at the time of the judgement. And this doesn’t happen as each individual sinner dies, as some might try to claim in order to fit these facts into their assumptions about what the kingdom is, since the parable makes it clear that everyone involved “grew up” together in the same place, meaning on earth, and also that the judgement would involve everyone being judged together at this time as well, at “the end of the world,” meaning “the end of the age” or “end of the eon” (the KJV tends to translate the Greek word αἰών/“ahee-ohn’” — which literally means “age” or “eon” — as “world”), so this can’t refer to each sinner being judged in heaven immediately after each of their individual deaths. If “the kingdom” was a reference to the heavenly afterlife most Christians believe the saved end up in after they die, they’d have to already be saved, not to mention dead, which means this parable would be telling us that some people will become sinners in heaven some time after they die, and then be cast out of heaven into hell, presuming the “furnace of fire” actually was a reference to hell (although, contrary to what most Christians assume, the mention of a “furnace” in this context is actually quite figurative and has a very specific meaning that isn’t connected with hell or the lake of fire at all, but that’s a topic for a later article in this series, so check them all out to learn what it’s actually referring to, if you aren’t already familiar with the meaning). Or, if the kingdom was literally inside our bodies instead, it would mean that angels would have to pull tiny human sinners residing in the “kingdom” out of our bodies and cast them into some sort of literal furnace, leaving us behind. Since neither of those interpretations make any kind of sense whatsoever (not to mention since Jesus outright said in His explanation of the parable that the “field” refers to the world — this time actually referring to the planet itself, being translated from the Greek κόσμος/“kos’-mos” rather than αἰών in this verse — not to heaven, or even to our bodies), it should be pretty clear by now that the type of salvation Jesus and His disciples taught about during His earthly ministry (and that even the type of salvation His disciples taught about after His ascension into heaven, both in person and in their writings) primarily involved certain descendants of Isaac dwelling in the land of Israel and reigning over the earth and its people as “kings and priests” (presuming they’re included in Israel’s first resurrection, or are among those “that overcometh” and survive the Tribulation) during the thousand-year period of time that the kingdom of heaven exists in that part of the world (thus fulfilling a prophecy from the Hebrew Scriptures, meaning the books of the Bible that are generally referred to today as “the Old Testament”), as well as finally being able to keep the Mosaic law perfectly because the New Covenant will finally have come fully into effect for the house of Israel and the house of Judah (and since Gentiles don’t have an old covenant of any sort to be replaced with by something new, because they weren’t given any covenants to begin with, it should be pretty clear that the New Covenant is only for the members of the house of Israel and the house of Judah, as Jeremiah stated, rather than for Gentiles who aren’t descendants of either of those houses), after the believing Israelites who aren’t living there at the time have been returned from their exile back to the land of Israel. Bringing His people into the New Covenant (which was inaugurated by Jesus’ death, but which has largely been put on hold until His Second Coming because most of Israel rejected Him as their Messiah during His first time on earth, as demonstrated by the fact that Jeremiah said“they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them” when the New Covenant comes fully in effect, and that sure isn’t happening anywhere in the world yet, especially not in Israel) is how Jesus will “save his people from their sins,” as the angel put it in Matthew 1:21 — letting us know that Jesus will fulfill the prophecy in Psalm 130:8 which said, “And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities,” involving both forgiveness for their sins, as well as finally being redeemed out from among the nations and Gentiles they’ll have been living among back to God in Israel — because it’s important to remember that pretty much any reference to “His people”in Scripture is specifically a reference to faithful Israelites. And since the promises God gave concerning the house of Israel and the house of Judah are without repentance, we know that these prophecies will indeed be fulfilled for exactly the very people that they were made to (i.e., ethnic Israelites), in the exact location He said they’d take place in (i.e., the land of Israel).
And just as a quick but related aside, those Christians who claim that Gentile believers within the body of Christ are, in fact, the temple written about in Ezekiel also believe that we’re the “kings and priests” written about in Revelation and Exodus (thus making us both the temple and its priests, apparently), despite the fact that these are obviously prophecies about Israelites. But even if that were the case, since it seems unlikely that there would be any priests on the New Earth, because there presumably won’t be a need for any priests anymore at that time, what with there being no physical temple in the New Jerusalem on the New Earth, but rather God Himself, along with “the Lamb” (meaning Jesus), being the temple on the New Earth, the temple written about in Ezekiel can’t be the same “temple” written about in Revelation 21 (and we can’t currently be living on the New Earth either, as some of these Christians somehow also believe to be the case, because regardless of whether Ezekiel was referring to a literal temple made out of physical stone or to a metaphorical “temple” made up of Gentile believers, neither of those “temples” would be God and the Lamb, which means the thousand-year kingdom of heaven and the New Earth can’t actually coexist at the same time).
That said, until John wrote the book of Revelation, nobody would have known how long the type of salvation Jesus was preaching about during His earthly ministry would last, or even necessarily would have known that the kingdom of heaven might be different from the New Earth (which was prophesied about in the Hebrew Scriptures). And while it’s true that anyone who experiences this type of salvation in the kingdom of heaven will also get to go on to live in the New Jerusalem on the New Earth, at that point the specific type of salvation Jesus was teaching about would technically have come to an end, since the thousand years will have run their course. (And before moving on, I should say, yes, it’s true that the kingdom of God does also have a spiritual nature, and is not solely physical, but there is still a physical aspect to it — especially for the part of it that Israelites will be living in — as everything we’ve covered still demonstrates.)
This all means that the method of getting to enjoy this kind of salvation in Israel isn’t what most Christians have assumed either. You see, this isn’t the type of salvation which Paul taught isn’t based on works (although that is an equally valid type of salvation for those people it applies to), but rather, in addition to having to believe that Jesus is Israel’s Christ (or Messiah, with these synonyms literally just meaning “anointed”), as well as the Son of God, this sort of salvation also requires a number of other things from those who are able to do so as well. For example, it requires repentance of one’s sins (as opposed to the type of repentance Paul wrote about, which simply referred to changing one’s mind about who could actually save his readers), as well as making sure to do various sorts of good works, including baptism in water in the name of Jesus Christ (and there are multiple other types of baptisms when it comes to this type of salvation too, baptisms which don’t even include getting wet in some cases, such as a baptism with — or in — the Holy Spirit, for example, as well as a baptism with “fire,” among others), following the commandments Jesus taught His disciples during His earthly ministry, which includes the commandments within the Mosaic law, doing whatever it takes to be extremely righteous and to avoid sinning (which is presumably what Jesus meant when He told His audience to amputate body parts in order to avoid hell and enter the kingdom), and then confessing one’s sins if they slip up and do end up sinning (not to mention also forgiving others who sinned against them). In addition, they’re not only required to turn from pride and be extremely humble (since, while avoiding sin and following the Mosaic law is required of Israelites in order to get to enjoy life in the kingdom, following the law on its own doesn’t save anyone, and, in addition to faith, humility and repentance are even more required for Israelites than almost anything else), as well as having to make sure they’re both meek and poor in spirit, they also can’t be greedy or selfish (these sorts of warnings directed towards the rich are given all throughout the Bible, and since rich people can believe that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God just as easily as poor people can, it appears that being willing to give up one’s wealth in order to follow Jesus around Israel could be required of an Israelite in order for them to enter the kingdom, at least back then and as far as this type of salvation goes, since otherwise Jesus could have simply told the young man to accept Him as his personal saviour — or perhaps told him to do something that actually is a biblical concept — rather than telling him to sell all he had and give it to the poor so he could follow Jesus around the nation while He preached), and they do also have to endure to the end (of one’s life or of the period commonly known as the Tribulation, whichever comes first) as well. And that’s not all. There are many other requirements mentioned elsewhere in Scripture too, but I think you get the idea, which is that this is not the same type of salvation Paul primarily taught about.
I know that most Christians reading this will want to insist that these required works are all meant to be interpreted as being the fruit of one’s faith — or, as some claim, that Jesus actually commanded His audience members do all these things so that His more humble listeners would realize they couldn’t do what He told them to do and would have faith in His death for our sins, and His subsequent burial and resurrection, instead (which is what Paul said people who experience at least one of the types of salvation he wrote about have to believe in order to be said to be saved, yet which isn’t something anyone prior to him is ever recorded as teaching needed to be believed in order to be saved, especially not during Jesus’ earthly ministry) — but there’s absolutely zero indication in any of those passages that they aren’t meant to be interpreted literally (and that would also require us to have to make ourselves humble enough to be able to do this, which is a very difficult work in and of itself for anyone to do), particularly in light of what He said to the lawyer when He told the parable of the Good Samaritan, never once implying anywhere in Luke 10:25-37 that He didn’t mean for the lawyer to keep the law (in fact, all He said about following the Mosaic law after sharing the parable was, “Go, and do thou likewise,” in regards to the method of following the law that lawyer agreed it was referring to).
Besides, Jesus Himself said in Matthew 5:17-19, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” All has not been fulfilled yet (heaven and earth haven’t passed yet — unless you’re reading this article on a whole new planet called the New Earth, long after it was first published — and there are still many prophecies yet to be fulfilled, at least as of the time I wrote this article), so those for whom the Mosaic law is relevant to, namely Israelites, still have to follow it (or, at the very least, certainly still had to until Christ’s death, if Jesus’ statement that “it is finished” was referring to all being fulfilled, although since the current heaven and earth are still here — and there are still many unfulfilled prophecies — as of the time I’m writing this, I don’t believe it was). Nobody listening to Jesus could have possibly interpreted any of His statements as meaning that works weren’t actually still required of them anyway, since not only had a form of salvation by grace through faith apart from works not ever been taught prior to Paul doing so, at the time they were preaching to the inhabitants of Israel, not even Jesus’ disciples understood that He was going to die, which means that A) this isn’t something that Jesus’ audience members could have possibly believed is true in order to avoid the type of hell He was warning about, and B) Jesus and His disciples would have then spent three years preaching basically useless messages if the common understanding that there’s only one type and method of salvation were true, considering this would mean they didn’t once explain how to actually be saved from said “hell” fire if salvation were based solely on faith in Christ’s death for our sins, burial, and resurrection at that time the way it was for those Gentiles Paul later preached to (and people like Zacchaeus couldn’t have actually been saved, despite what Jesus said in Luke 19:8–9, which was actually in response to Zacchaeus promising to do good works in the form of making up for his previously harmful actions, not for claiming to believe in Christ’s death for our sins, which is something that wasn’t even discussed in the passage). In fact, even Jesus’ disciples couldn’t have been considered to be saved until after His death and resurrection — contrary to what Luke 10:20 seems to imply — if it were a belief which was required in order to avoid this particular hell (yes, as I alluded to before, for those who aren’t aware of this fact already, there’s more than one “hell” referred to in the KJV, and what each one is will be discussed in other articles in this series; remember, the same English word doesn’t always mean the same thing every time it’s used in the Bible, and the word “hell” in the KJV is, in fact, translated from four different words in the original Hebrew and Koine Greek Scriptures, most of which refer to different locations or concepts from one another, with the particular “hell” we’re talking about right now being translated from the Greek word γέεννα/“gheh’-en-nah,” which is why it’s often referred to today as Gehenna, and is also why it’s sometimes transliterated that way, depending on your Bible version), since not even they believed He was going to die or be resurrected until after they saw it all finally happen. This also means that Jesus’ death wasn’t something people prior to His crucifixion were looking forward to for their salvation, because despite His death being foretold in the prophecies of both Jesus and certain other prophets, there’s no scriptural basis for assuming that anybody actually was looking forward in time in faith for His death to take place to save any of them, so this common assertion has absolutely no scriptural merit either (and if people could be saved prior to Christ’s death by simply believing that He’s Israel’s Messiah and the Son of God, along with performing the requisite works of faith, of course, without having to trust in His death “for our sins” the way Paul’s Gentile converts were required to in order to be considered saved, or even having to know that His death was “for our sins” at all, there’s no good reason that I can think of to assume it couldn’t still be possible to experience the sort of salvation Jesus and His disciples taught about that way either, especially since many of His teachings about this sort of salvation and how one experiences it are connected with the future Tribulation), which means there’s no good reason to assume these commands weren’t being mentioned as actual requirements for salvation (or, at the very least, for maintaining salvation) rather than just as evidence of one’s salvation (or rather than to convince them of their inability to do what was necessary, in order to drive them to faith in a sacrifice they didn’t even know He was going to make), at least not without reading one’s preconceived doctrinal bias that there’s only one type of salvation into Scripture (which anyone with a concordance can tell you isn’t the case anyway, as we’ve already discussed). And so, anyone who is being honest with the text will admit that works are required for this type of salvation (it’s interesting how many Christians insist on interpreting the parts of Scripture which seem to be meant to be interpreted literally in a figurative manner, all the while criticizing those of us in the body of Christ for not interpreting the parts that make more sense to be interpreted figuratively in a literal manner, but they have no choice if they want to continue believing that their doctrinal assumptions are correct). This all means, while we’re aware that not everybody will experience the sort of salvation He and His disciples taught about during His earthly ministry and beyond since, based on what Jesus said, not everyone will get to live in the kingdom of heaven during the time it exists in Israel, one day even Gentiles other than Cornelius and his associates will be saved in this way because of Israelites — as Isaiah prophesied — and their rise to prominence in the future (and yes, before someone brings it up, that prophecy in Isaiah was indeed at least partially fulfilled by Jesus during His lifetime, but prophecies can have more than one fulfillment, as we’ve already learned, and this is one of them, which we know from the fact that Paul and Barnabas also fulfilled it a second time, and also from the fact that it will have an even larger fulfillment in the future, when the kingdom of heaven begins in Israel and when Gentiles can only get saved thanks to the priesthood of Israelites).
And on the topic of the disciples preaching to Gentiles before Paul, no, I don’t believe the Ethiopian eunuch was a Gentile, but rather it seems likely that he was actually an Israelite himself, of the diaspora, because not only was he visiting Jerusalem to worship like those a few chapters earlier in Acts 2 were, but also because it wasn’t pointed out in the chapter how problematic this should have been if he was a Gentile, even though such a big deal is made of Peter’s time spent going to minister to Gentiles in the same book (and he wasn’t referred to as a proselyte the way Nicolas of Antioch was just two chapters before this one either). So it seems very probable that preaching to Gentiles who weren’t already proselytes was only done one time prior to Paul doing so, almost certainly for the purpose of Peter being able to later help defend Paul’s ministry to the nations. That said, even if the eunuch actually was a Gentile proselyte, his statement of faith before his water baptism had nothing to do with trusting in Christ’s death for our sins at all — which makes sense, considering the fact that, while he was told by Philip that Jesus died, just as Cornelius and his household later learned from Peter, neither Philip nor Peter told their respective listeners that Christ’s death was for our sins, or that His death for our sins is what they needed to have faith in for their salvation — but rather he simply confessed his belief that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God, lining up exactly with what John wrote that an Israelite had to believe in order to be saved. (Yes, I’m aware that verse 37 of Acts 8 isn’t included in various modern Bible versions, but while I do personally believe it belongs there, either way, I trust you’ll notice that what I said about belief in Christ’s death being for our sinsdefinitely wasn’t mentioned in the chapter either.)
And while Paul did sometimes teach about the same sort of salvation that Jesus and His disciples were proclaiming (especially when he’s recorded as preaching to Jews in the book of Acts, as well as when he discussed the salvation of Israel in his epistles), most of the time he was either simply referring to being quickened (sometimes also referred to as being vivified, depending on your Bible version, which refers to having our mortal bodies be made immortal as happened to Jesus after His resurrection, being “made alive” beyond the reach of death, which means being incapable of dying, as well as never being subject to the corruption and the humiliation of mortality ever again, which is something that will only happen to certain people who experience the sort of salvation that Jesus taught about during His earthly ministry, at least at the time they’re experiencing their particular type of salvation — specifically those who are raised from the dead at the resurrection of the just — with those who are still living at the time they begin enjoying what the KJV figuratively refers to as “everlasting life” or “eternal life” in the kingdom of heaven not being given true immortality at that point, since those who are resurrected after Jesus returns will be like the angels, in that they’ll no longer marry nor reproduce, and won’t even be able to die ever again, and if everyone who was given “everlasting life” was quickened/made immortal right then, there wouldn’t be anyone left to fulfill the prophecies of righteous Israelites not only growing old but also having children in the city of Jerusalem in the kingdom, both on this planet and also later on the New Earth — speaking of the New Jerusalem at that point, even if nobody realized it was going to be a whole new city called Jerusalem prior to the time that John wrote about it in Revelation — as well), and finally being made truly sinless because of that immortality (which is what salvation will eventually be for those who experience the type of salvation that Paul primarily wrote about), or to experiencing that particular salvation (immortality and sinlessness) before anyone else, while reigning with Christ in the heavens (which is what the special salvation Paul wrote is “specially” for those that believe is, at least in part, and which can only be fully experienced by someone whose mortal body has been quickened, as I’ll explain in another article in this series), since the citizenship of those he wrote to is in heaven rather than in the land of Israel where the citizenship of the people Jesus preached to is located (I realize that the way the KJV renders Philippians 3:20 as saying “our conversation is in heaven” can be confusing to those who aren’t familiar with the language, but it just means “our citizenship is in heaven,” and since the citizen of a particular commonwealth has the right to go there whenever they please, as soon as we have the ability to do so — which will be when we’re quickened — we’ll almost certainly want to spend most of our time there). Those of us who get to enjoy this special sort of salvation (also referred to figuratively as “everlasting life,” or as “eternal life,” in the KJV) are the members of the church that Paul (and only Paul) referred to as the body of Christ, which consists only of those who truly understand what it means — and also truly believe — that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day, as he explained three chapters later in the same book which he called us the body of Christ in. This obviously isn’t something that anyone to whom Jesus and His disciples preached during His earthly ministry could have believed because, as we already discussed, at the time they were preaching to the inhabitants of Israel, not even His disciples knew that He was going to die, so this “method” of salvation was clearly intended for a different audience (which means that neither they, nor anyone who believed the message they proclaimed during Jesus’ earthly ministry, could be members of the body of Christ; although that’s okay, because they had membership in another church Jesus began — one which was just as special as the church that Paul was the first member of — and their church is known as the Israel of God).
Just to add some further details about the special type of salvation Paul taught to the nations, unlike the requirements for experiencing the salvation that Jesus and His disciples taught about, this kind of salvation is entirely without any requirement of works of any kind, on our part at least, as already noted. Paul was quite clear that even if we don’t do any works at all, we can still be justified, which means that the type of faith those in the body of Christ are supposed to have is not dead without works. In addition, something few are aware of is that baptism for those who enjoy this sort of salvation isn’t in water. Yes, Paul did baptize a few people in water early on, but he would have eventually stopped completely as he progressed in receiving revelations of truth from the Lord, particularly after learning the truth that there’s only one sort of immersion, or baptism, for us, which is immersion by the Holy Spirit, into the body of Christ, including into what He experienced in His body, such as His death (and he was careful to point out that Christ didn’t send him to baptize at all, which would be unusual if water baptism was necessary for the sort of salvation he was teaching the Gentiles about, as some Christians believe, and if he actually was trying to get them saved) — as opposed to the various different types of baptisms for Israel that I already mentioned, some of which involved water and some of which didn’t, telling us that not all baptisms end up getting someone wet — and so this baptism, or immersion (which is all the Greek word βάπτισμα/“baptisma” that we transliterate the English word “baptism” from means), is quite dry for us, and happens to us entirely passively at the moment we believe and are saved. (In order to try to ignore this point, some Christians claim that Paul simply meant we should only be baptized in water once in our lives rather than repeatedly, but he preceded the words “one baptism” with the words “one hope” and “one faith,” and I certainly hope nobody would think we should only have hope or faith once in our lives, as would be the case if Paul meant we should be baptized only once in our lives there, so that interpretation doesn’t really fit with the rest of the passage if we’re interpreting the whole thing consistently, which tells us he’s really just saying that there’s only one type of baptism for us — one which doesn’t involve water at all; and while not every Christian uses that interpretation, because others will instead claim that 1 Corinthians 12:13 should actually be translated as “for in one Spirit are we all baptized into one body,” but since there is now only one baptism for those in that body, and this verse still tells us that baptism into the body of Christ is what this one baptism is, if “in one Spirit” somehow were the best translation, and if it did refer to that baptism with, or of, or in the Holy Spirit, then it can’t also include getting wet, because water baptism would then be a second baptism in addition to our one baptism in or with the Holy Spirit, so this doesn’t help defend the idea of water baptism for the body of Christ at all anyway.) And while forgiving others is still something God would like us to do, it isn’t required for salvation for us the way it is for Israel since we aren’t under the Mosaic law or required to do good works in order to be saved when it comes to our type of salvation (even though, yes, God will still end up having most members of the body of Christ do good works, but we aren’t required to do them in order to be saved, or even to demonstrate that we’ve been saved — since we’ve already learned that “to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” — and since Paul told us that “we are his workmanship” in the verse where he said we’re “created in Christ Jesus unto good works,” we know that those are works God will make sure we do, or that He’ll technically do through us), the way Israelites are when it comes to their type of salvation (or the way other Gentiles are if they also want to experience the sort of salvation Jesus and His disciples spoke about — remember, Gentiles can experience the same salvation Jesus and His disciples preached about, as evidenced by Cornelius and his household, just as Jews can experience the sort of salvation Paul primarily preached about, as evidenced by Paul himself), and, in fact, we can be saved right now despite the fact that Israel is not currently a light to the Gentiles as they one day will need to be for Gentiles to be led to salvation, which will be at the time when the law shall go forth of Zion (which isn’t right now, since the law not only doesn’t go forth from Zion, but doesn’t even apply to Gentiles at present).
The differences between those various forms of salvation also tells us how important it is that one doesn’t confuse the people referred to as the body of Christ with the people called the Israel of God, or else they’re likely to misunderstand not only which teachings in the Bible apply specifically to them, but how they receive their type of salvation as well. (Some Christians believe the term “the Israel of God” is being applied to the body of Christ by Paul in that verse in Galatians 6, but as you read the rest of this article you should be able to figure out for yourself why that’s quite impossible, although I will explain why it’s impossible a little later in the article as well, so please keep reading and it will soon become clear why there are indeed two different churches going by those two different names.)
Of course, most Christians interpret the Bible with a major preconceived bias already present, which is the assumption that the whole Bible is to and about everyone. But unless you believe that everyone needs to build a literal ark out of literal gopher wood, needs to get naked when they preach, or needs to own a sword, it should be pretty obvious that there are things in Scripture which simply don’t apply to you, and based on what we just covered about the different types of salvation, it should also be obvious that there are two entirely different sets of messages for two entirely different groups of people in the Bible. And if a declaration regarding one of those particular types of salvation could be referred to as a proclamation of “glad tidings,” or a pronouncement of news which is good, aka “good news” (all of which is what the English word “Gospel” means), if there are multiple different types of salvation mentioned in Scripture, which we know there are (unless, again, you think that Jesus’ disciples being temporarily saved from dying by being saved from drowning in water is somehow the exact same sort of salvation He provided through His death for our sins), then each of those proclamations of good news would technically not be the same proclamation of good news as one another, which would mean it could be said that there’s more than one Gospel referred to in Scripture, based on the definition of the word “Gospel.” But if that’s the case, shouldn’t the Bible also say that there are multiple types of proclamations of good news, perhaps even giving each of these proclamations of good news different titles? Well, it actually does just that — and even tells us the names of these respective proclamations — in Galatians 2:7, where we’re told that they’re called the Gospel of the Uncircumcision and the Gospel of the Circumcision.
Unfortunately, since most Christians mistakenly assume that there’s really only one kind of salvation and one type of proclamation of good news anywhere in the Bible, they’ll also insist that because the next two verses in Galatians explain how both God and the pillars of the circumcision church (the Israel of God) sent Paul to the heathen (the Gentiles) while Peter and the rest focused on the circumcision (the Jews), then verse 7 must have simply been saying the exact same thing as well. But these verses were really Paul expanding on his previous statement in verse 7, by telling his readers who the primary audiences of each of the two separate proclamations of good news regarding the different types of salvation are, providing new information about what he’d just told them rather than simply being unnecessarily repetitive the way most Christians assume he was being in these verses, causing them to then read this assumption of redundancy into verses 7 through 9, ultimately leading them to believe it just meant that Paul preached the Gospel to the uncircumcision and that Peter preached the exact same Gospel to the circumcision. However, for those who insist on interpreting it this way, if Paul was trying to get across to his readers that the different types of salvation are shared through different proclamations of good news with the titles of “the Gospel of the Circumcision” and “the Gospel of the Uncircumcision,” or even perhaps different proclamations of good news with the titles of “the Gospel to the Circumcision” and “the Gospel to the Uncircumcision,” if that’s how one prefers to translate verse 7, I need to ask you to explain what he would have needed to have written differently there in order to convince you that there are indeed two separate proclamations of good news being referred to by two separate titles there, especially in light of the fact that there are obviously multiple different types of salvation referred to in different parts of the Bible, with different methods of being saved when it comes to each of them as well.
As far as what the Gospel of the Uncircumcision is, it’s simply the good news that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day, although I should quickly say that Paul also referred to this good news by various other names as well, such as “the Gospel of Christ,” as “the Gospel of the Grace of God,” and even sometimes simply as “the Gospel of God,” And, of course, those of us in the body of Christ sometimes also refer to it as Paul’s Gospel, because Paul himself called it “my Gospel,” and because one generally doesn’t call something theirs unless they’re trying to differentiate it from something that belongs to someone else, or at least trying to point out that it doesn’t belong to, or perhaps originate from, someone else; and if there was only one Gospel then Paul would have said “the Gospel” rather than “my Gospel” in those particular passages (although some have tried to use Paul’s use of the phrase “my grace” in Philippians 1:7 to try to argue that Paul using the word “my” doesn’t prove this, but this verse is actually even more proof of what I’ve been saying, because Paul was the first human to be shown the sort of grace connected with the Gospel of the Uncircumcision, as already mentioned, so this grace began with him just as this Gospel did — relatively speaking, of course; from an absolute perspective, both the grace and the Gospel we’re talking about obviously began with God and Christ, but I’m speaking from the relative perspective here, just as Paul was when he referred to “my grace” and to “my Gospel”).
As for the Gospel of the Circumcision, it was originally referred to as “the Gospel of the Kingdom,” because it was the proclamation of good news that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” which John the Baptist first proclaimed, and which Jesus and His disciples also preached while He walked the earth. From a literal perspective, this proclamation of good news meant that “the kingdom of heaven is near” (and, in fact, while Jesus was still in their midst in Israel, so was the kingdom itself, from a certain perspective, which is why “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” is what this Gospel meant from a figurative perspective, and which is also what the proclamation of this Gospel message had to transition into after Acts 13, when the kingdom was no longer literally “at hand” for Israel any longer, at least for the time being), since it was ready to come fully into effect in the near future, and would have shortly thereafter if the right qualifications were met by Israel — although that didn’t happen, as we know, so the “nearness” of the kingdom to Israel went into abeyance in Acts 13 (if not earlier). To be saved in connection with this Gospel, one has to repent and believe the proclamation of good news that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God (which is the most important part of how one believes this Gospel, although prior to Acts 13, they also would have been required to believe that the kingdom truly was “at hand” at the time), and follow this belief up with the required good works such as water baptism and following the law as well, of course. However, after Paul turned to the Gentiles in Acts 13, because the “nearness” of the kingdom to Israel was temporarily put on hold by God at that time — since the majority of Israel was blinded by God to the truth about Jesus from then on, as prophesied both in word and in type — he needed a label to distinguish between his Gospel and Israel’s Gospel, which would be why he began calling it the Gospel of the Circumcision (although most believing Israelites saved in connection with this Gospel would have just called it “the Gospel” from that time on, since they weren’t concerned with differentiating between the two Gospels themselves when preaching to their intended audience of other Israelites).
In addition, this Gospel of the Circumcision has also been referred to as “the Gospel of God” by Peter, and this has caused some confusion among certain Christians, because of the fact that Paul also referred to his Gospel by that label, but this comes down to the fact that “the Gospel of God” is a more generic term that can be used for any good news connected with God, and this is, in fact, why Paul said that the Gospel has to be rightly divided in the first place (yes, the term “the word of truth,” or “the word of the truth,” is basically always a reference to a Gospel in the Bible). Now, this is where some Christians will also (rightly) point out that the Greek word ὀρθοτομέω/“or-thot-om-eh’-o” — a variation of which “rightly dividing” is translated from in the KJV — can also be translated as “making straight” or “correctly handling” or some other similar term, in order to distract from the idea that the good news about God needs to be divided. But as you read the rest of this article, it should become pretty obvious to you why “rightly dividing” is indeed a better translation than those other options are when it comes to this verse, so I’m not even going to bother responding to that point here, because you’ll be able to see for yourself by the time you finish this article.
I should also quickly discuss the fact that their assertion about “the Gospel of God” is similar to how some will also point out that Paul referred to the Gospel he preached to the nations as “the Gospel of Christ,” as I already mentioned, but that Mark 1:1 refers to “the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” and that Paul also refers to “the Gospel of Jesus Christ” in 2 Thessalonians 1:8, in order to claim that these must all be the same Gospel. Well, as far as Paul’s reference to “the Gospel of Jesus Christ” in 2 Thessalonians 1:8 goes, he actually was referring to the Gospel of the Circumcision there, as I’ll cover in a later article in this series, which is the Gospel that the reference in Mark 1:1 would have also been connected with, so this isn’t a problem at all. And as far as his reference to “the Gospel of Christ” in Romans 15:29 goes, this label doesn’t have the word “Jesus” in it, telling us that it isn’t the same Gospel as the one in those other two passages at all, although the fact that there is more than one Gospel in the Bible should make this clear enough anyway, even if you have to finish reading this article before you’re convinced that this is indeed the case.
That there isn’t only one Gospel in the Bible really should be more obvious to more people than it currently is, though. I mean, first of all, we know that Paul didn’t learn the Gospel he preached to the nations from any mortal humans, but rather he said that he learned this Gospel directly from the glorified Jesus Christ. However, it wouldn’t make sense for him to have been persecuting the Israel of God if he wasn’t aware of their most important teaching already (the Gospel they were preaching), so the Gospel he learned directly from Christ couldn’t have been the same Gospel he was persecuting the Jewish church for preaching, because he would have had to have already known that Gospel before he ever even met Christ on the road to Damascus in order to persecute them for preaching it. Although, if you disagree, I’d like you to explain what Paul was persecuting the Israel of God for, exactly, if his Gospel was the same one they were already preaching, as well as what the Gospel he said he received not of man, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ, was. In addition, it doesn’t appear that Paul was told this Gospel by Jesus on the road to Damascus either, at least not based on what Scripture says about this encounter, yet he immediately proclaimed the same message about Jesus that Peter and the rest of the apostles were preaching after being healed by Ananias, so the obvious conclusion seems to be that the good news he later preached to the Gentiles wasn’t the same good news which Peter preached to Israel and the proselytes, and which Paul himself preached at the beginning of his ministry, as well as three years later in Jerusalem, where the apostles and Jesus’ brother James became acquainted with him for a couple weeks, and the most important part of the “him” they became acquainted with would certainly include what the Gospel he believed and preached at that time was — he wouldn’t have just been sitting around discussing sports with them for two weeks, especially since he preached with them at the time he visited with them in Jerusalem as well. (And for those who aren’t acquainted with 17th-century English, the phrase “other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother” in Galatians 1:19 in the KJV simply means “other than the apostles, I got to know nobody except for the Lord’s brother James,” which makes sense considering the fact that this James wasn’t one of the 12 apostles, and that Acts 9:26-29 says he did meet the rest of the apostles and even preached with them, as I just mentioned.) If the Gospel that Paul referred to as “my Gospel” really was the same Gospel he’d already preached with them in Jerusalem, why would he have then had to return more than a decade later to explain what the Gospel he was now preaching among the Gentiles was? Peter and the rest of the apostles (as well as James) would already be well aware of what the Gospel he preached was from his previous visit if it was the same Gospel, so for those who believe it was the same Gospel, I have to ask what the Gospel was that he preached among the Gentiles which he had to explain to them, exactly, if they already knew the Gospel he preached, and why did he have to explain it to them?
But all that aside, the definition of the word “Gospel” (or “Evangel,” as some Bible versions translate the word) really makes it clear that there’s more than one of them in the Bible anyway. Remember, the word “Gospel” refers to a pronouncement of glad tidings, or news which is good, and the word “news” quite literally refers to “a series of specific words which, when laid out in a specific order, conveys specific information about a specific subject.” This means that if you have another set of specific words which, when laid out in their own specific order, convey some other sort of specific information about that subject, you can’t say that you have the same news, regardless of whether both sets of news are good in nature, or even about the same person (for example, the news that “Joshua went to the graveyard and then returned” can’t be said to be the exact same news as “that thing you’ve been anticipating is ready to happen,” because the two messages mean something entirely different from one another since they convey entirely different pieces of information from each other: one piece of news being about an action a person took, with the other piece of news being about something the hearer or reader had been anticipating being ready to occur). Because they’re providing us with different sorts of information from one another, it means that they are, by definition, different sets of news (and that there are at least two different sets of news in existence). And since the news which is good that Jesus and His disciples preached prior to Paul’s conversion (which was the news that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand”) didn’t contain the same specific words as the news which is good that Paul later preached to the nations did (which is the news that “Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day”), nor did it convey the same specific information (since their news which is good didn’t contain anything about Christ’s death for our sins in it, which it couldn’t have because most of the people proclaiming it weren’t even aware of the fact that He was going to die at the time they preached their news), it should be very evident that the news which is good that Jesus’ disciples preached during Jesus’ earthly ministry simply can’t be said to be the same news which is good (meaning the same Gospel) that Paul taught, and so anyone who still insists there’s only one set of glad tidings/news which is good/Gospel in the Bible is simply lying to themselves at this point. Although, if anyone disagrees, I’d be very curious to hear them explain how the news which is good about Christ’s death for our sins, burial, and resurrection that Paul preached is indeed what Jesus’ disciples were preaching when they preached the Gospel of the Kingdom during Jesus’ earthly ministry, all while being unaware that He was even going to die.
And to quickly get the most common objections to the idea of there being two Gospels out of the way, first of all, some people mistakenly believe Paul was saying in Galatians 1:8–9 that anyone who preaches another Gospel will be accursed. Unfortunately, the people who use this argument not only read more into this passage than it’s actually saying, they also don’t pay close attention to the specific wording of the passage either, leading them to believe a whole doctrine that wasn’t what Paul was getting at there at all. You see, Paul wasn’t saying there is only one true Gospel there, or that nobody could ever preach a Gospel to someone other than the one he taught the body of Christ (if that were the case, nobody could ever share good news of any sort with anyone if it wasn’t about Christ’s death for our sins, His burial, and His resurrection, including good news/gospels/glad tidings about births or job promotions or any other sort of positive information). Most people who base their assumptions about there being only one Gospel on this passage have likely only read translations of Scripture which render verses 6 and 7 in the way the KJV does when it says “another gospel: which is not another” in the verses before his warning. The problem is, if one doesn’t understand that this is a very poetic sort of translation, they can easily end up very confused. Is it another Gospel or is it not another Gospel? It can’t literally be both another Gospel and not another Gospel at the same time, which tells us that this particular translation isn’t meant to be read literally.
What most people aren’t aware of is that Paul actually used two distinct Greek words rather than one in the original text (and that Paul literally just meant: “a different gospel which is not another”) in order to differentiate between any legitimate Gospels that weren’t his but were still perfectly okay to be taught to certain people to follow for salvation (as long as it wasn’t members of the body of Christ being taught that) and any illegitimate “gospels” that shouldn’t be taught by anyone at all, speaking of both a different (ἕτερος/“het’-er-os”) so-called “gospel” which isn’t actually a real Gospel at all, and another(ἄλλος/“al’-los”) actual Gospel. The word ἕτερος basically means “other of a differing sort,” while ἄλλος means “other of the same sort,” so the wording of this passage allows for the existence of another/ἄλλος true Gospel (or even true Gospels, plural) in addition to Paul’s Gospel. For those who haven’t figured it out yet, this is another example of the translators of the KJV translating two different words (which meant something quite different from one another in their original language) using the same English word in the KJV, and if one isn’t being careful in their Bible study, they can end up completely misinterpreting the passage as saying the exact opposite of what it actually means because they aren’t aware of this fact.
Simply put, Paul wasn’t saying that people who taught there are other Gospels are under a curse, since he did so himself in the very next chapter of this epistle. All he was telling his readers is that anyone who tried to get those in the body of Christ to follow the requirements of any Gospels for their salvation other than the one they had already received from him would be accursed. But Peter and the rest of the circumcision believers could preach the requirements of their particular Gospel as something to be followed to anyone that they wanted to without fear, as long as it wasn’t to existing members of the body of Christ, based on the words “unto you” in verses 8 and 9, since Paul was writing to those who had already believed his Gospel (meaning those who had already become members of the body of Christ), not to those who hadn’t. In fact, the different/ἕτερος “gospel” that Paul was warning about there was actually an adulterated mix of both Gospels, which means it was an attempt to blend the two Gospels into one (those whom Paul was condemning were trying to mix the law elements associated with the Gospel that Peter preached in with the pure grace of Paul’s Gospel, resulting in a bastardized false “gospel” that can’t help anyone). Unfortunately, this means that the evangelists and teachers of the Christian religion today who are also trying to force the contents of each of these two actual Gospels into one (by insisting that there is only one Gospel) are guilty of preaching that very same different/ἕτερος “gospel” that isn’t even another/ἄλλος (completely legitimate) Gospel at all like the Gospel that Peter preached was, bringing the curse that Paul warned about upon themselves.
And on the off chance that anyone ever tries to claim that “different” and “another” (or ἕτερος and ἄλλος) literally mean the same thing, here are some sentences to consider: 1) “the word ‘different’ is different from the word ‘another,’” 2) “the word ‘another’ is another from the word ‘different,’” 3) “the word ‘another’ is different from the word ‘another,’” 4) “the word ‘different’ is another from the word ‘different,’” 5) “the word ‘another’ is another from the word ‘another,’” and 6) “the word ‘different’ is different from the word ‘different.’” Read those, then ask yourself if those sentences all mean the same thing, or if the last five even make any sense at all. And to really drive the point home, if the two words truly did mean the same thing, the verse could also be translated as “a different Gospel which is not different,” similar to sentence number 6 above, but that would be an extremely nonsensical translation. And if the words “different” and “another” don’t mean the same thing, as those examples I just gave prove, there’s literally no way to interpret the passage as meaning Paul is saying there’s only one legitimate Gospel, because he’s clearly allowing for at least three separate messages called gospels in this passage, 1) his own Gospel, 2) another Gospel, and 3) a different “gospel,” which means the only way he could have been talking about only two messages called gospels — 1) his own Gospel, and 2) a different “gospel” — with only one being legitimate, is if “another” and “different” actually did mean the same thing. (This isn’t to say that ἕτερος and ἄλλος can’t ever be used as synonyms of one another in a more figurative manner in other places, since we already know that the same word can be used in different ways in different passages, but it should be clear by this point that Paul wasn’t using ἕτερος as another word with literally the same meaning as ἄλλος in this passage — since then he’d have been contradicting himself by saying it both was and wasn’t another Gospel at the same time — but that he was instead using the two words with different definitions intended, contrasting them with one another, in this case; and yes, I used the words “different” and “another” repeatedly in this sentence on purpose, to really drive my point home.) And even if we only look at the way the KJV renders the verse, ignoring the original Greek words, that translation is obviously still saying the same thing, just very poetically (since a literal interpretation on its own would be contradictory, as I just mentioned), so it has to be interpreted as meaning: “another” [so-called] gospel which is not [actually] another [legitimate Gospel] (with the first “another” there being in quotation marks in order to demonstrate that it still just means “different” [from any actual Gospels], when it comes to this particular translation).
Besides, anyone who has studied the Bible already believes that there were other glad tidings (again, meaning Gospels) preached in Scripture, such as the angel Gabriel’s proclamation of glad tidings regarding the impending birth of John the Baptist to Zacharias, with “glad tidings” being translated from a verb form of the same Greek word εὐαγγέλιον/“yoo-ang-ghel’-ee-on” that “Gospel” is translated from in the KJV (and that the English word “evangelism” is transliterated from), literally meaning to “preach this good news” in that passage. This means that there’s no way Paul could have been saying there’s only one message allowed to be labelled as words of good news/a Gospel/glad tidings/εὐαγγέλιον in existence or else we’d have to remove those verses discussing the other “glad tidings” from the Bible altogether, and Gabriel would have been accursed for telling Zacharias about his wife’s pregnancy, unless those various other words of good news/glad tidings are all a part of a larger, all-encompassing, progressively-revealed “Gospel” we have to believe in so we can be saved. But then John the Baptist’s birth would also have to be a part of what the body of Christ has to have faith in for their salvation (and someone who hadn’t heard of John the Baptist yet couldn’t get saved until they do if this were the case), so this obviously makes no sense, especially in light of what Paul said the Gospel he preached actually was, which means that right off the bat we already have multiple proclamations of good news/Gospels/glad tidings/εὐαγγέλιον in the Bible even before we get to any of the Gospels that one can believe when they get saved. All that being said, even if somebody somehow still hasn’t recognized that there’s more than one Gospel in the Bible after everything I’ve already covered, they should at least now recognize that the passage in Galatians we just looked at about a different gospel which is not another can’t be used to refute the idea, since its wording does at least allow for another/ἄλλος legitimate Gospel to exist, even if they somehow still don’t believe there definitely is another.
And yet, even though the idea of including all proclamations called good news/Gospels/glad tidings/εὐαγγέλιον in the Bible into one progressively-revealed Gospel makes no sense and contradicts other parts of Scripture (unless, again, people have to have faith in John the Baptist’s birth in order to be saved), anyone who does still believe there’s only one Gospel in the Bible after reading all that is pretty much forced to believe in a progressively-revealed Gospel (whether they’re consistent and include the good news about John the Baptist’s birth in what’s required to be trusted in for salvation or whether they choose to ignore consistency and leave it out). Of course, many Christians who believe there’s only one proclamation of good news/glad tidings/Gospel in Scripture actually do admit that they believe this one proclamation of good news as a whole wasprogressively revealed throughout Scripture, and that it now contains both the proclamation of good news made during Jesus’ earthly ministry (that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, along with the details of how one gets to enter it) as well as the proclamation of good news which Paul preached to the nations (that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day), and that these two different proclamations of good news are simply two parts of one all-encompassing proclamation of good news which has only been gradually revealed through progressive revelation (although not too all-encompassing, or else, again, we’d have to have faith in the birth of John the Baptist for our salvation, not to mention have to do the good works that were required in order to be saved — which included following the Mosaic law and being baptized in water — back when Jesus and His disciples preached the part of this supposedly progressively-revealed “Gospel” that they preached during Jesus’ earthly ministry, since a progressively-revealed “Gospel” would include everything connected with it in all the time periods it was supposedly being revealed throughout, because otherwise it wouldn’t be one complete set of news with one complete set of requirements that had been progressively revealed as time went on but would rather be two distinct sets of news with two entirely different sets of requirements). And while this idea isn’t actually stated anywhere in Scripture, which means they’re ultimately just making this idea up in order to support their assumption that there can’t be more than one Gospel in Scripture, at least they recognize that this would have to be the case if there really was only one Gospel recorded there, which it indeed has to be, considering the fact that what Paul referred to as the Gospel he preached among the nations included Christ’s death for our sins, burial, and resurrection, which is something that Jesus’ disciples couldn’t have included in the Gospel they preached during His earthly ministry, since they weren’t even aware He was going to die at the time, much less be resurrected, as I keep pointing out. Some of these Christians also like to say things such as, “Jesus is the Gospel,” however, and while this makes for a catchy statement that many people would automatically want to nod their heads in assent to because of how spiritual it sounds, since the Bible tells us what the two different proclamations of news which is good related to salvation made by Jesus’ disciples and later by Paul really are, and because it tells us that these proclamations of news which is good are about Jesus, not that He Himself is the proclamation of news which is good (with the first proclamation being about the identity of Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God, and the second one being about the work of Jesus through His death for our sins), unless you’re aware of a verse in Scripture which actually outright says, “Jesus is the Gospel” (which is something I’ve never seen in the Bible), we know that this is also nothing more than an assertion made in order to defend their assumption that there really is only one Gospel.
However, let’s pretend for a moment that the Bible actually did say there’s only one progressively-revealed Gospel in Scripture. If that were the case, considering the fact, again, that none of Jesus’ followers prior to Paul preached that Christ’s death was for our sins (or even that Christ was going to die in the first place, when they were proclaiming the news which is good that they preached prior to His death), or that one had to have faith in His death for our sins in order to be saved back then (which they couldn’t have since — just as a reminder for those who have somehow already forgotten since the last time I mentioned it — none of them even understood that He was going to die prior to Him doing so), this would mean the Gospel being preached before Paul’s ministry to the nations (or, at the very least, before Jesus actually died) would have been pretty useless unless those who heard the Gospel being preached back then could be saved without believing that Christ’s death was for our sins, which means anyone who believes this idea is ultimately telling us that we have to divide this one, supposedly progressively-revealed, “news which is good” into two separate halves, preached during two different periods of time, made up of two different sets of words talking about two different specific sets of things needing to be believed (and perhaps performed) in order to be said one is saved during each of those two respective periods of time: with the first half being preached during the first period of time, meaning prior to Paul joining the body of Christ (or prior to Christ’s death and resurrection, at least; but since we have no scriptural record of Christ’s death being for our sins as something that was taught as something that had to be believed in order to be able to be said one is saved by anyone before Paul did, especially based on Peter’s sermons in Acts and what John wrote in John 20:31, we have no good basis for assuming it was), and the second half being preached during the second period of time by Paul after he joined the body of Christ, taking us full circle to what I’ve been getting at all along here. Which means the bottom line here is, if there are two different proclamations (meaning two sets of words with two entirely different meanings) which were both called “news which is good” that were preached by two different sets of people during two different periods of times (as would have to be the case even if they were both a part of one progressively-revealed Gospel, and which we’ve already determined is the case anyway, one being about Jesus’ identity and the other being about His work on the cross), then, since the phrase “news which is good” is literally the definition of the word “gospel,” the existence of one progressively-revealed Gospel would still ultimately result in the existence of two Gospels after we divide that one progressively-revealed Gospel into its two respective halves, meaning its two respective proclamations of “news which is good” preached in their two respective time periods. So at the end of the day, even if we decided to somehow try to claim that there is only one Gospel, progressively revealed over time, it still technically results in two Gospels anyway, once all the facts about how it has to be divided into two entirely separate messages preached in two entirely separate time frames are taken into consideration. And with all that being said, there’s almost no point in even going over the other objections to the idea of two Gospels, because we’ve now proven that it’s impossible for there to be anything less than two Gospels in Scripture once we’ve properly divided the hypothetical progressively-revealed one Gospel into its two respective halves (since, even if two halves do equal one, you still begin with two of these halves, each called “news which is good” and each of them being a very different set of news, regardless), but for the sake of clarity, I’m still going to go over them anyway.
And so, in answer to the next most common objection, yes, it’s true, as many Christians also like to point out when trying to deny the existence of multiple Gospels in Scripture, that there is neither Jew nor Gentile for those people Paul wrote this epistle to. However, that’s only the case within the body of Christ (members of the body of Christ being those people that this epistle was specifically written to, along with all his others as well), because one’s nationality is irrelevant for those in Christ’s body, whereas, for the Israel of God, and even for Gentiles during the thousand-year kingdom, the nationality of Jews and other Israelites will remain very important. This means that, based on everything we’ve covered, it should also now be clear that Paul was reducing the scope of membership within the Israel of God in Romans 2:28–29 to include only certain Jews, not expanding it to include the Gentiles in the body of Christ as well, since “neither Jew nor Gentile” doesn’t mean “you’re all Israelites now,” considering there would then still be Jews, even if only Jews, in the body of Christ.
And yes, it’s also true — as some will point out — that while Peter didn’t teach Christ’s death as being for our sins in the book of Acts, and even taught that Jesus’ death was bad news for the Jewish people he was speaking to in the same book (rather than being the good news that it was for Paul’s Gentile audiences and that it is for us), Paul technically isn’t recorded as teaching Christ’s death as being for our sins, or as being good news, in the book of Acts either. However, the fact of the matter is that no sermon of Paul recorded in the book of Acts contains a full “Gospel message” explaining how one gets saved, which means his full Gospel message of how one is saved must have been preached “off screen,” so to speak (meaning that specific part of his messages wasn’t recorded in Acts, unless you think “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” in and of itself is enough of an explanation of how to get saved for someone who wouldn’t have known what that even meant, since he and Silas didn’t say what to believe about the Lord Jesus Christ in that verse; so while they did later explain all the details about what they meant by that statement, those specific details weren’t actually included in the book), whereas the sermons of Peter recorded in Acts are a lot more comprehensive (and while these sermons telling his audience members how they could be saved in the manner of salvation he was referring to in these sermons often did include the fact that Jesus Christ died, exactly zero of these sermons contained the information that His death was specifically for our sins — meaning why the sins of humanity have now been entirely dealt with and why nobody will be judged for their sins at their final judgement, as I’ll discuss in a later article in this series, although it’s also important to know that people will still be judged for other reasons, and that people’s sins aren’t automatically forgiven simply because of Christ’s death, as I’ll also discuss, but we’ll get to all that later — or that it was necessary to believe specifically that “this is why Christ died” in order to be saved in the way Peter meant his audience could experience salvation, meaning getting to enjoy life in the kingdom of heaven on earth in the future). So this just means that the writer of Acts didn’t include the contents of Paul’s Gospel in the book, likely because it’s primarily a Circumcision writing (meaning a book of the Bible not signed by Paul, which he did all of his epistles directed specifically to members of the body of Christ) to Israelites concerned with why the kingdom of heaven didn’t come fully into effect in the nation of Israel at that time, and not simply a general history lesson about the “early church” and nothing more, the way many assume it is.
Now, some like to also point out that Peter does mention the death and blood of Christ in one of his own epistles (in 1 Peter 1:18-19 and in 1 Peter 2:24) in a manner that was far more positive for his readers than the way he explained it in his sermons in Acts was (where it was discussed only as a negative as far as his listeners at the time were concerned). And while what Peter wrote in his first epistle technically can be considered news which happened to be good, at least as far as his written audience was concerned (which consisted only of Israelites, since it was addressed to “the strangers,” and the Greek word rendered as “stranger” in that verse — translated from παρεπίδημος/“par-ep-id’-ay-mos” — literally means “someone who comes from a foreign country into a new location to reside there by the side of the natives,” telling us that Peter was writing specifically to Israelites of the dispersion, or diaspora), it’s important to note that it wasn’t called “the good news” (or “the Gospel”) in Peter’s epistles the way the message which Paul proclaimed in 1 Corinthians 15 was, and also to note that we already know what the actual message called “the good news” which Peter taught was, at least the message called “the good news” which he preached during Jesus’ earthly ministry, and that the message which he would have called “the good news” at that time had nothing to do with Christ’s death for our sins, or even His subsequent burial and resurrection, at all, because at that time he didn’t even realize Jesus was going to die, as I trust you still remember. So yes, Peter did eventually realize the connection between Christ’s death and Isaiah 53, but not until after Jesus died and rose again, and there’s also no indication that he ever actually understood the full effect that Christ’s death for our (meaning all humanity’s) sins had the way Paul did either, with it seeming likely that he only knew the Circumcision connection to His death according to prophecy rather than the Uncircumcision connection according to the revelation of the mystery (or secret, depending on your Bible translation), which was kept secret from the time the world began until it was revealed to and through Paul. Because yes, Jesus did have to die in order for Israel’s New Covenant to come into effect, and also in order to be a propitiation for their sins (and yes, the sins of Gentiles who get saved in connection with their Gospel too), but His death accomplished so much more than that as well (and Peter and John and the other disciples certainly weren’t aware of any of what the cross accomplished until after Christ died and was resurrected, which means the Gospel they preached prior to that point couldn’t possibly have contained anything about it the way the Gospel which Paul preached did anyway). You see, the cross of Christ reached so much deeper into humanity’s need than merely bringing one small nation closer to their second birth (although that is an important result of His death and resurrection as well), getting right down to the root of humanity’s biggest problem itself. Remember, Israel’s Passover lambs were not tortured during the temple sacrifices under the Mosaic law. Rather, their throats were slit, with that being the extent of their suffering. However, the same can’t be said about Jesus Christ on the cross. His six hours of torment on the cross touched an aspect of humanity’s condition that the swift death of the Passover lambs could never reach. In fact, the depth of suffering during His time on the cross goes deeper than anything Peter or John ever understood, telling us that the whole human race is finished (the Passover lambs left Israel intact while the cross wiped out everything and everyone in its path, even if this might only apply in practice to believers in Paul’s Gospel at first, with it only applying to everyone else from a proleptic perspective until later — prolepsis being a common figure of speech used throughout the Bible which means “the representation or assumption of a future act or development as if presently existing or accomplished,” calling what is not yet as though it already were, in other words, as God Himself often does). The other apostles looked back to the patriarchs, but when Paul taught about what happened on the cross, he went all the way back to Adam in his explanations. No other writers discussed Adam when it came to dealing with sin and salvation; they wrote about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David, among others, but only Paul traced our entire spiritual history back to the first man, and only in Paul’s Gospel is the entire race made new. The Circumcision writings promise a new birth for the nation of Israel (no, being “born again” doesn’t mean what most Christians have assumed it does, as I’ll prove in a later article in this series), but the new creation Paul taught about is to the new birth what a lake is to a teacup. You see, when Jesus rose from the grave, there was a whole new creation (referred to as a new “creature” in the KJV) which came into existence, one which comes into the lives of everyone who believes Paul’s Gospel today, and which will eventually come into the lives of every human who will ever have lived (as I’ll also prove in a later article in this series). This new creation eliminates fleshly distinctions such as Gentile and Israelite, but Peter wasn’t able to teach this because he has to remain an Israelite in the kingdom, seeing as Jesus promised him that he would sit on one of twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (which also means he was not, and is not, a member of the church called the body of Christ, but is instead a member of the church called the Israel of God, and the same goes for all of the rest of the twelve apostles for the same reason). So if you want to really understand the complete result of what happened on the cross, you look to Paul’s epistles. While the Circumcision writings are indeed useful for their intended purposes, they just don’t teach us everything that the cross accomplished the way Paul’s writings do.
Some Christians also like to claim that because the churches of Judea had heard, “That he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed,” that this means Paul had been preaching the same Gospel Peter and the rest of the disciples preached. And the truth is, they’re absolutely correct, because Paul did preach the Gospel of the Circumcision to Israelites at various times, as we already covered, including at the time when the churches of Judea heard this report. But having done so doesn’t mean he couldn’t have also preached a second Gospel to the Gentiles at other times as well, so this doesn’t actually help prove that there’s only one Gospel the way they might think it does either.
This is similar to how some Christians will also point out that Paul stated to King Herod Agrippa II that he was “witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come.” Just as with the last objection, these Christians aren’t thinking about the context, which is Paul speaking to a king with Jewish ancestry about a Jewish Gospel he was in trouble for preaching to Jewish people. This statement was all about the Gospel of the Circumcision, and had nothing to do with the Gospel of the Uncircumcision at all, so his statement doesn’t actually cause any problems for the existence of a second Gospel that he preached to an entirely different audience at other times.
On a somewhat related note, certain Christians also argue that, because Paul wrote to believers in Galatia, and because Peter also wrote to believers in Galatia, these believers must have all been following the exact same Gospel and must have been members of the exact same local church (a similar argument is also sometimes made that because Paul wrote an epistle which is labelled as being to the Ephesians in our Bibles, and because John was also given a prophecy for a local church in Ephesus, that the teachings in both of these writings had to have been for and about people in the same local church — and even that they had to have been for people living in the same time period, which I say because I personally believe that the seven churches listed in Revelation are seven Jewish churches which won’t even come into existence until around the time of the Tribulation in the future, but that’s a much bigger topic than I have the time to get into here). Of course, this assertion demonstrates a serious deficiency of logic, since the idea that, just because two men wrote to people in the same general region, they had to have been writing to the exact same people in the exact same local church (and also had to have been writing about the exact same thing), is nothing more than an assumption one has to make in order to support their presupposition that there’s only one Gospel and one church spoken of in the Bible. In addition, they sometimes also argue that because Paul wrote specifically to the same audience Peter wrote to at least once, he must have taught the exact same things as Peter. And, in fact, Paul sometimes did teach the exact same things as Peter, when he taught members of the Israel of God doctrines related to their own Gospel (as we already covered). But again, that doesn’t mean he didn’t also teach different things to those under his Gospel. Besides, as we’ve also already discussed, we know from 1 Peter 1:1 exactly who Peter’s audience was anyway, and it didn’t include Gentiles since it was specifically addressed to “the strangers,” telling us that Peter was writing to Israelites living among Gentiles in Galatia and other locations, and not to the Gentile members of the body of Christ that Paul was writing to in his epistle to the Galatians at all. And just as Peter was only writing to Israelites among the diaspora in his epistles, I should also point out that James was also only writing to members of“the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad,” just as John was writing specifically to Jewish “brethren” rather than to Gentiles, and Jude, who technically didn’t specify an audience, but seemed to also be writing to people who were intimately familiar with Israel’s history, and considering the intended audience of rest of this batch of epistles, it’s very unlikely that Gentiles were included among his book’s audience either, any more than they were included in the audience of the book of Hebrews, with the name of that book clearly pointing out its intended audience — although I think it’s safe to say that all the Circumcision writings would likely still apply to all believing members of the Israel of God and not just to those among the diaspora. Simply put, while all Scripture is useful for all of us in various ways, any book of the Bible not signed by Paul is primarily to and about the Israel of God, with only Paul’s 13 epistles being specifically to and about members of the body of Christ.
Meanwhile, other people have also argued that Paul wasn’t teaching unbelievers how to get saved in his epistles, since he was writing to people who were already believers, so what he referred to in 1 Corinthians 15 as the Gospel he preached unto them wasn’t meant to teach his readers in Corinth how to get saved. And while it’s true that his written audience was primarily made up of believers, this is irrelevant, and I’m not sure why anyone would even present that as an argument against the existence of two Gospels, because Paul still outright said in that passage that it was the Gospel he preached unto them, and also that it’s the Gospel by which they are saved, so we know exactly what he preached unto them as how they’re saved, which means their argument doesn’t actually help them prove that there’s only one Gospel anyway.
That said, it is also true that chapter 15 of Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians wasn’t specifically written to teach about Paul’s Gospel (although, whether he originally intended to or not, he ended up expanding on what his Gospel meant later in the chapter regardless, as will also be discussed in more detail in a later article in this series), but was instead originally written to discuss bodily resurrection (since some of the members of the church in Corinth had stopped believing in their own literal future resurrection in physical bodies), with the specific contents of Paul’s Gospel only being included in two verses in the chapter in order to make his point that resurrection has to be literal because otherwise it would mean that Christ Himself hadn’t even risen from the dead and that they would have then believed the Gospel he preached to them when he first met them in vain if Christ hadn’t risen from the dead (since a third of the Gospel he preached to them was specifically about Christ’s resurrection). And this fact about the point of this chapter (or at least the point of the first part of the chapter) is actually important to keep in mind for when a different group of Christians attempts to claim that Peter and others were preaching the same Gospel as Paul based on verse 11, where Paul wrote the words, “Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.” If simply sharing his Gospel with his readers was why he wrote the chapter, as these particular Christians assume, their claim that “so we preach, and so ye believed” in that verse means they were preaching the same Gospel would be valid. But if you consider the context of the rest of the verses surrounding verse 11, it becomes clear that Paul was simply telling his readers (readers who already knew his Gospel, per verse 1, which means he didn’t need to share it with them again here in order to get them saved so much as to make a point) that both he and Peter saw and preached about the risen Christ, which proves that Jesus was indeed resurrected from among the dead in the same physical body, just as the Gospel he’d already told them back when he met them in person says as well, which means his readers could be reassured that they’d be raised from the dead in the future too.
So no, he wasn’t saying that both he and Peter preached the same Gospel. If that’s all his point was, he wouldn’t have needed to include all of what he did in verses 5 through 17 at all, but would have, at most, replaced verse 5 with verse 11 (and included Peter’s name in the verse) and left it there without mentioning the details about Jesus being seen by all those people after His resurrection. Besides, if sharing his Gospel was his only (or even just his main) point there, and ”so we preach, and so ye believed” actually was in reference to his Gospel, it would also mean that everything written in verses 5 through 10 was a part of his Gospel as well, and that the Good News we have to believe in order to be saved would also include the facts that Jesus was seen of Cephas and James and 500 others after His resurrection, as well as that Paul is the least of the apostles, but that he also laboured more abundantly than the rest of them, among various other details he included in those six verses, but I don’t think anyone would believe that’s all a part of the Gospel we have to believe in order to join the body of Christ rather than being a part of the explanation of why he even mentioned his Gospel in this chapter in the first place, so we can lay this misunderstanding of verse 11 to rest once and for all.
Still, it’s easy to see how someone could misunderstand verse 11, since Paul didn’t explain why he wrote the first eleven verses (or why he even mentioned his Gospel there at all) until he got to verses 12 through 17. And so, if a modern reader goes through the chapter without being aware of the controversy about resurrection among the Corinthian church back then, they could be forgiven for assuming that Paul was writing this chapter in order to share his Gospel (at least if they don’t pay close attention to the wording of verses 5 through 11). But Paul’s audience at the time definitely would have understood what he was getting at by the time they heard verses 4 or 5 being read, realizing why Paul was explaining that Jesus really did rise from the dead, and when whoever read the letter to them for the first time got to verses 12 and onwards, they almost certainly would have hung their heads in shame and concluded that, “Yes, if we believed Paul’s Gospel when he first told us in person that Christ rose again the third day after His death for our sins and burial, then physical resurrection is literally true.” Still, we shouldn’t look down on them for this, because without their mistake, Paul wouldn’t have written the most important chapter in the Bible, and we wouldn’t know what his Gospel actually even was.
It’s also sometimes pointed out that Paul had Timotheus (Timothy) circumcised, and that he even performed other actions under the Mosaic law at times as well, in order to try to argue that this means there must be only one Gospel (and sometimes also to try to prove that those of us in the body of Christ are under the law), not realizing that these facts actually help prove the exact opposite of what they assume. The reason Paul had Timothy circumcised was simply because he wanted to bring him along on a particular journey to help preach, and he knew that the Jews in the region would cause trouble for them if someone who was Jewish but hadn’t been circumcised was preaching to them. This doesn’t mean that Paul was supporting following the Mosaic law as something members of the body of Christ should do, however (as is also demonstrated by the fact that he didn’t have Titus circumcised, which he definitely would have done if following the Mosaic law was necessary for the body of Christ). So how could he have done these things, then? Well, simply because he wasn’t doing them for the sake of obeying the Mosaic law in the first place (nor was he doing them for the sake of his or Timothy’s salvation), but rather was doing them because these actions were beneficial for the spreading the Gospel of the Circumcision to other Israelites. As we’ve already discussed, Paul often preached the Circumcision Gospel to Israelites in the hopes that they as a whole would finally accept Jesus as their Messiah, and law keeping was still important for those who followed that particular Gospel (if it wasn’t, James wouldn’t have been bragging to Paul about how zealous for the law the Jewish believers in Jerusalem were, and Paul would have also chided him for not correcting them). But when he was teaching about his own Gospel instead, Paul was very careful to point out that law keeping for its own sake (or for trying to perfect oneself) was not something they should be trying to do, and that following the law simply for the sake of following the law (or even for the sake of trying to please God) leads to falling from grace (that’s not to say it’s wrong to do or avoid certain actions listed in the law for reasons other than keeping the law itself, including being circumcised for medical reasons, or avoiding murdering people because it’s against the secular law, not to mention avoiding specific actions because they’re unloving; it’s just doing so for the sake of following the Mosaic law that causes us to fall from grace — which, I should probably also point out, doesn’t mean losing one’s salvation, but just means missing out on enjoying the freedom Christ gave us, and possibly also losing out on certain rewards at the Judgement Seat of Christ, since Romans 8:30 tells us that anyone God calls for membership in the body of Christ will be justified and glorified, with absolutely zero qualifications beyond being predestined and called by God, making it very clear that it’s impossible for members of the body of Christ to lose their salvation).
I’ve also heard it claimed that, because Peter defended Paul’s specific form of ministry to the nations by saying, “But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they,”referring to Cornelius and those with him getting saved after hearing Peter preach, that every single Jew and Gentile must then all be saved in the exact same manner, and all in connection with the exact same Gospel. This is reading far more into the statement than Peter was really getting at, however. It’s important to remember that Acts is a Circumcision writing, and that Paul’s Gospel was never actually explained in the book (because its original audience wasn’t meant to understand his Gospel, since they had their own Gospel to follow). And since Peter himself didn’t really comprehend the difference between the two Gospels either (in fact, it’s quite possible he wasn’t even aware that there were two Gospels at the time he made this statement), he really couldn’t have meant anything more than: “Jews and Gentiles can both be saved by Jesus Christ if they have faith.” And this is indeed true when it comes to both Gospels, even if the faith we have in connection with Jesus is different under each Gospel, with one being about His identity, and the other being about what He accomplished.
Of course, if someone reads Peter’s statement without being aware of all the details we’ve covered in this article, and, as such, reads Acts 15 while still believing that there is only one Gospel, it’s easy to see how they’d read that assumption into Peter’s statement and think it proves their belief to be true. But anyone who is familiar with all the facts we’ve looked at so far (as well as the facts we’ve yet to look at) can see why this statement doesn’t actually prove that there’s only one Gospel or way to be saved at all, and can understand that Peter was just stating the facts about being saved by Jesus that he was aware of (keeping in mind that he never became fully aware of all the facts, because if he did, he would have ended up in the body of Christ and would eventually end up in heaven, and hence will have missed out on the specific rewards in the kingdom of heaven that he was instead looking forward to).
Some also like to point to Paul’s statement in 2 Corinthians 3:6 that God had made them “able ministers of the new testament,” and then claim that the New Covenant must apply to Gentiles after all, and, as such, everything else we’ve just covered must be wrong. Well, I’m assuming that, if you’ve made it this far into the book, you know that this can’t be the case, but does this mean the New Covenant isapplicable to Gentiles after all? No, obviously not. There is disagreement among those who do believe in the existence of multiple Gospels as to what Paul did mean here (including the idea that the terms “New Covenant” and “New Testament” actually refer to two separate concepts, and that Paul was referring to the New Testament — which some believe does apply to Gentiles, since, instead of seeing it as referring to an agreement between God and Israelites the way the term “New Covenant” does, they see the term “testament” there being used more in the sense of a “last will and testament” of someone who has died, which Jesus did do — rather than to the New Covenant, with others instead pointing out that there were very likely Israelites joining the church gatherings of the body of Christ in Corinth, and claiming that this was likely simply in connection with Paul teaching them their Gospel just as he did any time he came across Jews in his various travels, among various other interpretations that also don’t cause problems for the idea of there being multiple Gospels or the fact that the New Covenant is only for Israelites), and while I personally still haven’t decided which interpretation is more likely to be the correct one, whatever it is that he meant, being a minister of something doesn’t necessarily mean you’re partaking in that thing you’re dispensing, so this doesn’t actually disprove anything I’ve written so far, while everything you have read up until now should be enough proof that this can’t refute the fact that the New Covenant is only for Israelites, so I think it’s safe to leave it at that (although, if it is true that this was in reference to a testament rather than a covenant, the entire argument that this causes problems for the idea of two Gospels is a moot one anyway).
And finally, no, the body of Christ has not been “grafted into Israel,” nor are we now “fellowcitizens of Israel,” as many misunderstand Romans 11:1-25 and Ephesians 2:11-22 to be saying, even though, yes, Abraham is indeed said to be the “father” of those who follow the law as well as the “father” of those who simply have faith. Because — as many Christians who make the claim that believing Gentiles within the body of Christ become “spiritual Israelites,” and hence members of the Israel of God, seem to forget — Abraham had many physical descendants who weren’t Israelites, which means that being able to refer to Abraham as one’s “father,” be it physically as in the case of his biological descendants, or even just metaphorically as in the case of the members of the body of Christ, just doesn’t mean someone is also an Israelite. To be an Israelite, someone also has to be a biological descendant of Isaac and Jacob as well (presuming they don’t marry or proselytize into the actual nation of Israel instead, of course).
I should also quickly point out that this assertion about Abraham’s descendants is similar to the claim some of the same people make that, because Paul said in Galatians 3:16 that the promises made to Abraham apply to Jesus, no Israelite actually will inherit the land as they were promised to in the various supporting passages I’ve already included above. What they fail to realize is that Paul was using specific literary and rhetorical methodology there which Jews sometimes used to bring out deeper truths in Scripture that Gentiles are unlikely to be aware of based on a strictly literal interpretation of a passage in the Hebrew Scriptures (this is along the lines of the way Matthew interprets Jesus’ return from Egypt as being a fulfillment of Hosea 11:1 as well, even though, in its literal context, Hosea was obviously referring to the nation of Israel coming out of Egypt in the Exodus; this is a method of scriptural interpretation that is often used to reveal hidden or layered meaning in a passage from the Hebrew Scriptures without negating the original interpretation, or its first fulfillment in the case of prophecies). There’s a lot more that can be said about this, but ignoring these facts also ignores the fact that we aren’t claiming all Israelites will inherit the land of Israel anyway. We believe that only those Israelites who are Christ’s (meaning those who are members of the Israel of God) will inherit the land along with Christ Himself (and that those of us in the body of Christ will as well, because we’ll be in an even higher position of rulership than the Israel of God will at that time — reigning with Christ over the whole universe, which includes earth — and by extension we’ll also “inherit” the land of Israel, so to speak, along with the Israel of God, even if we’re not literally living in the land while we’re reigning from and living in heaven), which is backed up by Paul a few verses later anyway, when he wrote, “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise,” demonstrating that “seed” (which, yes, is translated from the singular Hebrew word זֶרַע/“zeh’-rah” in Genesis, but just like the singular English words “sheep” or “deer,” or even the word “seed” itself on occasion, depending on the context, can be used as a plural word as well) doesn’t only refer to Jesus but refers to all those people who are Christ’s as well, meaning both those in the Israel of God and those in the body of Christ. I should also point out that, if Jesus Himself is the only one who receives the fulfillment of the promises, the people using Joshua 21:43-45 to try to prove that all the promises were already fulfilled back in Joshua’s time are going to have some trouble continuing to use that passage to also try to prove that they can’t also be fulfilled for future Israelites too. To sum it all up, Paul wasn’t trying to redefine Israel as simply meaning “Jesus Christ” in that verse, but rather he was pointing to Him as the central figure through whom God’s promises to the Israel of God — not to mention to the body of Christ — are fulfilled, which also means that Galatians 3:16 doesn’t make the Gentiles in the body of Christ a part of the Israel of God the way some people want it to either.
In fact, we can see quite clearly that the Israel of God is a distinct group from the Gentiles in the body of Christ because Israelites are only said to be the natural olive branches in Romans 11, not the whole tree. Remember, not all of the natural olive branches are pruned out of the tree in that figurative explanation of past, present, and future events pertaining to Israel and the other nations (at least it’s still future as of the time this article was written). Instead, some of the natural olive branches remained attached to the tree (with it being these particular branches that refer to Israelites who believed the Gospel of the Circumcision, and not the trunk itself representing them) while the wild olive branch was grafted into the tree next to the remaining branches rather than replacing them. And as Paul made clear in this passage, Israel is not cast away permanently, but is only “cast away,” so to speak, temporarily, until the full complement of the nations may be entering the body of Christ (I say again, entering the body of Christ, and not entering the tree, since the whole wild olive branch is already grafted into the tree), at which point the nation of Israel will become the focus of God’s purposes once again, at the time when the pruned-out branches are grafted back into the tree. If this seems confusing, the phrase “cast away” in verse 1 was translated from a different Greek word in the KJV — ἀπωθέω/“ap-o-theh’-om-ahee” — than the phrase “casting away” in verse 15 was — which was instead translated from ἀποβολή/“ap-ob-ol-ay’” — and is referring to a more forceful and permanent thrusting away in that verse than the temporary placing aside that the hyperbolic “casting away” of verse 15 in the KJV is referring to, for anyone who might be wondering how Israel can be not cast away while also being “cast away” at the same time. If it isn’t obvious by now, this case of being both “cast away” and not cast away at the same time is yet another example of how the translators of the KJV seemed to enjoy using the same English word or phrase to refer to contrasting concepts for some reason, as we already saw by how they used the English word “another” both figuratively and literally to represent two different Greek words in their translation of Galatians 1:6-7, and the same goes for how they used the English word “fall” to refer to both “falling” and also not falling at the same time in this very chapter of Romans as well. In verse 11, Paul asked, “Have they stumbled that they should fall?”, then answered his own question by saying, “God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.” So we can see that they didn’t literally fall far away and permanently, but they did “fall,” hyperbolically speaking, with the first “fall” being translated from a variation of the verb πίπτω/“pip’-to” in the Greek, referring to falling from a height, being thrust down violently or purposefully, or even to perishing, and the second “fall” being translated from a variation of the noun παράπτωμα/“par-ap’-to-mah” in the Greek, literally referring to simply stumbling and landing gently (or at least less violently than the first word implies) beside or near something else (this word is also translated as “trespasses” in other verses in the KJV, I should add). While this contrasting usage of the same English word in the same passage in the KJV can be confusing to those who don’t understand what’s going on, it seems that the translators were having fun with words in these examples, and that they expected the readers to be able to figure out when the words are being used literally and when they’re being used figuratively in the same passages, based on an understanding that the Bible can’t contradict itself. And so, we know from what Paul wrote in this chapter that, while the nation of Israel as a whole did indeed stumble (“fall”), and has even been “cast away,” so to speak (really just meaning temporarily placed on the back burner), so that Gentiles can have an opportunity to enjoy salvation without having to go through Israel for the time being (when he wrote, “Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles…”, and, “For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world…”), he also told his readers that the nation of Israel will be restored in the future (when he also wrote, “…how much more their fulness?”, and, “…what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?”).
It also helps to understand that this passage has nothing to do with the salvation of individuals, nor does being pruned from the tree have anything to do with the idea of losing one’s salvation, which is made clear by the fact that the pruned-off natural branches were never saved to begin with and yet had to have been a part of the tree at one time in order to be pruned from it. This is also made clear by the fact that it’s a singular wild branch, as opposed to the plural natural branches. Of course, some who read the KJV might be confused by the fact that it says “a wild olive tree”in verse 17, but Paul explained in the same verse that this whole“wild olive tree” was “graffed in among them,” which means he was either referring to a single wild olive branch being grafted into the natural olive tree among the remaining natural olive branches, or to an entire (presumably much smaller) wild olive tree being grafted into the natural olive tree, trunk and all. Either way, that only one whole object — as opposed to multiple, separate wild-olive branches — was grafted into the natural tree is clarified A) by the fact that the Greek ἀγριέλαιος/“ag-ree-el’-ah-yos,” which “a wild olive tree” was translated from in the KJV, is a Singular noun, as well as B) by the fact the KJV also uses the Second Person Singular “thou” in both this verse and verse 24, rather than the more catch-all “you” that most English Bible translations used to render the Greek word σύ/“soo” in those verses. This all tells us that the single wild branch (or “wild olive tree”) grafted into the natural tree refers collectively to every single Gentile who will have lived during the entire time that the dispensation (meaning the administration, or economy) of the grace of God is in effect — since Gentiles, both saved and unsaved, are being grouped together as a singular whole in these verses — rather than simply referring to only those Gentiles who join the body of Christ (and also confirms that the “grafting into the tree” only happened one time rather than happens multiple times — as each Gentile gets saved — the way most Christians assume Paul meant). And since the whole wild branch (or “wild olive tree”) will eventually be pruned from the natural tree, as it will have to be in order for the temporarily-removed natural branches to be grafted back “into their own olive tree,” every Gentile member of the body of Christ would lose their salvation if being grafted into and pruned from the tree was connected with being saved.
And so, no, being grafted into the tree doesn’t mean that a Gentile has been grafted into Israel, or that they have become a “spiritual Israelite,” which is a completely unscriptural term anyway. Instead, I would suggest that the “wild olive tree” being temporarily grafted into the natural tree simply refers to the fact that Gentiles currently have access to God (via justification by faith) without needing Israelites to help them do so the way Gentiles will need them for in order to get to know God in the future, after the “wild olive tree” is removed from the natural tree (due to unbelief, since after the body of Christ is taken up to heaven, there will be no more believing Gentiles left in the wild olive tree). This means that Gentiles don’t replace or become a part of the church called the Israel of God at all, but rather are currently able to join the church called the body of Christ instead, at least until the full complement of the nations has entered the body of Christ (meaning until the last person called for membership in the body of Christ has been saved), at which point the dispensation of the grace of God will come to an end, the “wild olive tree” will be removed from the tree, and the only way for Gentiles to approach God again (at least for 1,000 years) will be to go through citizens of the nation of Israel. (In addition to what I wrote here, I’d also suggest reading Aaron Welch’s article on this topic, to learn even more details about this passage.)
And this also all tells us that the same goes for the idea some Christians have that Paul said Gentiles join the “commonwealth of Israel,” or become “fellowcitizens” of the nation of Israel, when they join the body of Christ. Based on everything we’ve just covered, this obviously can’t be what he meant in Ephesians 2. Besides, the word “commonwealth” (translated from πολιτεία/“pol-ee-ti’-ah” in the original Greek) has to do with actual citizenship in an actual nation, and we don’t legally become citizens of the country called Israel when we join the body of Christ (if you’re a Gentile who disagrees, try moving to Israel and telling the government there that you’re now a legal citizen of their nation because you’ve come to believe in Jesus, and let us know how well that goes). Besides, our citizenship is in the heavens, not down here on earth where Israel is located, as we’ve already established, and I don’t see the term “spiritual Israel” anywhere in the chapter (or in the Bible, for that matter), so anyone who tries to claim we’re “spiritual Israelites” is just reading their assumptions into the chapter. Instead, we’ve become “fellowcitizens” of the kingdom of God, and of the household of God (which members of the Israel of God are certainly also members of), and not of the nation of Israel itself, although the nation of Israel will become a part of the kingdom of God after Jesus returns, at which point the land will be known as the kingdom of heaven, but it certainly isn’t a part of the kingdom yet, which means that we Gentiles can’t be said to become citizens of the nation of Israel, or really even a part of Israel in any way, when we believe Paul’s Gospel, but simply become citizens of the kingdom of God.
As for those who might be wondering why I make a distinction between “the kingdom of God” and “the kingdom of heaven,” yes, I’m well aware of the fact that the term “the kingdom of heaven” seems, at least at first glance, to be used simply as a synonym for “the kingdom of God” at times in the book of Matthew (which is the only book in the Bible to use the phrase “the kingdom of heaven”), and also that the word “heaven” was a common metonym for “God” in general back then as well. However, since we now know that the book of Matthew was basically only talking about the part of the kingdom of God which will exist in Israel in the future, the fact that Paul also used the term “the kingdom of God” tells us that the kingdom as a whole is much larger than just Israel, and that it must encompass the parts of the universe that aren’t just here on earth. And since Jesus almost certainly wasn’t actually saying the words “the kingdom of heaven” when He spoke the words recorded in the book of Matthew (based on the fact that the books of Mark and Luke both used the phrase “the kingdom of God” in the parallel passages to the ones where Matthew recorded Jesus’ statements with “the kingdom of heaven” instead), it seems that God inspired Matthew to do so in order to give us a label that refers strictly to the part of the kingdom of God that would apply only to Israel. Basically, none of the references to entering the kingdom of God in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John were about the part of the kingdom of God that the body of Christ will be in after we’re caught up together in the air to be with Christ when He comes for His body (which will be heaven), but are referring to the kingdom in Israel in the future, as we’ve now learned, and so “the kingdom of heaven” can’t refer to the part of the kingdom of God which is in heaven either, since it’s specifically only used in reference to the part of the kingdom which is in Israel. So while “the kingdom of God” can technically refer to both, since both Jesus and Paul used it, anytime we see the phrase “the kingdom of heaven” used, we know it’s only referring to Israel after Jesus’ Second Coming. To put it simply, it basically just means “the kingdom [sent] from heaven.” So while it’s perfectly fine to refer to Israel during the thousand years as “the kingdom of God,” since those are the words Jesus presumably actually spoke, to make things less confusing, it’s also easier to just refer to it as “the kingdom of heaven” when discussing it ourselves. And for those who aren’t convinced, remember that the book of Matthew used both terms, so I have to assume that God inspired the use of the unique term in specific places in Matthew for a reason (I don’t believe that anything is in Scripture by accident, but rather I believe that everything written there is included a very good reason, which means that whatever reason that the writer of the book of Matthew might have had to use the term from a relative perspective, God made Him do so for His own reason from an absolute perspective, which I believe was to give us a term to use for the specific part of the kingdom of God which will be in Israel in the future).
And with all that being said, it should now be obvious why the title “the Israel of God” in Galatians 6:16 can’t possibly be referring to the body of Christ. Since there’s literally zero scriptural basis for the idea that those of us in the body of Christ are some sort of “spiritual Israel,” I trust you can now see that this can only be a reference to the circumcision church. And while the Greek word translated as “and” — καί/“kahee” — in the “and upon the Israel of God” part of the verse technically can be used to distinguish or identify a group when it’s used in Koine Greek, this particular use of καί is rare, and never actually occurs in this exact construction anywhere in the Greek Scriptures, at least based on what I could find while digging into this topic. And as far as I’ve been able to find, aside from when it refers to Jacob, the word “Israel” is never used to refer to anyone other than ethnic Israelites in Scripture anyway. And while there’s a lot more that can be said about this topic to prove this, based on everything we’ve learned in this article about the kingdom of heaven and the different types of salvation, the words “and upon” simply have to be telling us that there are two separate groups of people being spoken of by Paul in this verse (the first group being “as many as walk according to this rule,” meaning members of the body of Christ, and the second group being those known as “the Israel of God”), especially in light of everything else he’d just finished teaching in this epistle (since the whole context of this epistle contradicts any notion at all that Gentiles are now a part of Israel, because if we are, we’d also be required to keep the Mosaic law the way they’re required to, when the entire reason Paul wrote that epistle in the first place was to make sure we don’t try to follow the Mosaic law).
The Israel of God/The Gospel of the Circumcision
The body of Christ/The Gospel of the Uncircumcision
Will keep the law perfectly when the New Covenant finally comes fully into effect and replaces the Old Covenant completely (Jeremiah 31:31–34, Ezekiel 36:26–27, Micah 4:2, Hebrews 8:8–12).
Not only are we not under the law at all, and in fact should not try to keep any of it (Romans 6:14, Galatians 5:3), Gentiles were never under the Old Covenant — which was about Israelites keeping the Mosaic law — to begin with, so we don’t have an Old Covenant to be replaced with by a New Covenant the way Israel does anyway (Exodus 12:43–49, Exodus 19:3–6, Leviticus 26:46, Deuteronomy 4:8, Deuteronomy 28, Nehemiah 9:13–14, Psalm 147:19–20, Malachi 4:4 Romans 2:14–15, Romans 9:3–5, Ephesians 2:12).
Jewish believers within this church were still zealous of the law, even after the Council of Jerusalem, and they were upset that Paul was teaching Jewish members of the body of Christ to avoid practicing the Mosaic law, including circumcising (Acts 21:17–26).
Not only did Paul teach against circumcising — or any law-keeping — for Gentiles in the body of Christ, he taught against it for anyone in the body of Christ, including Jewish members, and if Paul was teaching the same thing that Peter and James and the rest of the Jewish church were, the members of their church in Jerusalem wouldn’t have been so upset at Paul for teaching against circumcising and law-keeping for Jewish members of his church when he visited them later (Acts 15:1–21, Galatians 2:1–3, Acts 21:17–26).
Spoken of by the prophets since the world began (Acts 3:21–25).
A secret until Paul (Romans 16:25, Ephesians 3:8–10).
Only 12 apostles for this church — a number with much spiritual significance to Israelites — and they were all called inside of Israel (Matthew 4:18–22, Matthew 10:2–4). Even though Judas was replaced by Matthias after being disqualified (Acts 1:12–26), no others out of the 12 were ever replaced because there will only be 12 thrones for them to sit on in the kingdom of heaven, and only 12 foundations of the wall of the New Jerusalem to be named after them on the New Earth (Matthew 19:28, Revelation 21:14).
The first apostle of our church — who is not one of the 12 apostles of the Israel of God — was called outside of Israel (Acts 9:3). This is spiritually significant because Paul was the apostle of the Gentiles (Romans 11:13).
Are supposed to eventually teach all the nations to obey everything Jesus commanded, and to baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:16–20), although — outside of Peter’s visit to Cornelius — Scripture tells us this hasn’t happened yet (Acts 11:19, Galatians 2:8–9).
The fact that Paul is called the apostle of the Gentiles, and that a whole new set of apostles were in fact sent to the Gentiles, is significant because it means the 12 apostles of the Israel of God were not the apostles of (or to) the Gentiles (Romans 11:13, Acts 14:14, 1 Corinthians 4:6–9, Ephesians 4:11), nor were the rest of the members of that church preaching to the Gentiles yet either, since the pillars of their church had agreed to leave the preaching to the Gentiles to Paul and to those with him, for the time being, which means Israel hasn’t even really begun her so-called “Great Commission,” as it’s often referred to, yet (Galatians 2:8–9, Acts 13:2).
Proclaimed among Israelites (James 1:1, 1 Peter 1:1).
Proclaimed among the Gentiles (Ephesians 3:8).
Called the little flock, and as future citizens of the New Jerusalem, which is referred to as the bride of the lamb itself after it descends to the New Earth, the saints of this church who will inhabit this city can figuratively (albeit only proleptically) also be referred to as the bride of the lamb (Luke 12:32, John 3:29, Revelation 21:9), and are also referred to as the Israel of God (Galatians 6:16).
The saints of this church are referred to as the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27, Ephesians 5:30).
Racial distinctions important (Matthew 15:26, Matthew 19:28, Revelation 21:12, Zechariah 8:22-23).
Believers known from the foundation of the world (Revelation 17:8).
Believers known before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4).
Believers called first, then chosen (Matthew 22:14).
Believers chosen first, then called (Romans 8:30).
Water baptism required (Mark 16:16, Acts 2:38).
Water baptism not required (1 Corinthians 1:17, 1 Corinthians 12:13).
Many types of baptism/immersion: John’s baptism in water unto repentance, the Lord’s baptism in water — obviously not a baptism unto repentance — water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ/the name of the Lord, baptism in the Holy Spirit, and in fire, baptism into Moses, and baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:11, 13–17, Acts 1:4–5, Acts 2:38, Acts 10:48, 1 Corinthians 10:2, Matthew 28:19).
Only one baptism/immersion: not in the Holy Spirit (or in water either), but rather by the Holy Spirit, into the body of Christ, including into what He experienced in His body, such as His death (Ephesians 4:5, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Romans 6:3–4).
Must have circumcision of the heart (Deuteronomy 10:16, Acts 7:51, Romans 2:29).
Circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ (Colossians 2:11).
Must have works, if possible between conversion and death, since faith without works is dead for them (James 2:20).
Even if we don’t have works, but only have faith, we are still justified, which means faith without works is not dead for us (Romans 4:5).
Must keep His commandments, and live as Jesus did (1 John 2:3–6).
God’s grace motivates us to live well, not the threat of losing our salvation if we don’t, as is the case for Israel (2 Corinthians 5:14–15).
Must forgive others or God will not forgive them (Matthew 6:12-15).
Should forgive one another as God has already forgiven us (Ephesians 4:32) — but even without works, we’re still justified, so we aren’t required to forgive others in order to be saved, even if it’s still good for us to do so (Romans 4:5).
Must not eat things sacrificed to idols (Revelation 2:14, 20).
Are permitted to eat things sacrificed to idols as long as conscience permits it (Romans 14:14, 1 Corinthians 8:4).
Must be an overcomer to avoid second death (Revelation 2:11).
Saved from second death by grace alone (Ephesians 2:8–9).
Hoping for grace, which will be brought to them when Jesus returns to the earth (1 Peter 1:13).
Already standing in grace (Romans 5:2).
Must be waking and watching, not sleeping (Matthew 25:1–13, Luke 12:37, Hebrews 9:28).
Whether waking or sleeping (1 Thessalonians 5:10).
Must be wise, not foolish, or will not be chosen (Matthew 25:1–13).
Few who are wise are chosen, and most who are chosen are foolish (1 Corinthians 1:26–29).
Can be put to shame at His presence if not careful (1 John 2:28).
Will all be changed for the better — meaning given glorified, immortal bodies — at His presence, which is the blessed hope all of us in this church should be looking forward to (1 Thessalonians 4:15–17, 1 Corinthians 15:52, Titus 2:13).
Will go through day of wrath (Revelation 6:1–17).
Not appointed to wrath (1 Thessalonians 1:10, 1 Thessalonians 5:9).
Will meet Christ on earth (Acts 1:11–12, Zechariah 14:4).
Will meet Christ in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17).
The resurrection of the just, also known as Israel’s “first resurrection” (Luke 14:14, Revelation 20:1–6), occurs 75 days after Jesus steps foot on the Mount of Olives (Zechariah 14:4–7, Acts 1:9–12, and compare the numbers in Daniel 12:11–13 to the numbers in Revelation 13:5 to understand the 75 day difference between these two events).
The dead in the body of Christ are first resurrected, then those who are still living will rise with them to meet Christ in the air together when He comes for our church, before He ever even gets close to the Mount of Olives (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17).
Will reign on the earth as a kingdom of priests over the nations (Exodus 19:6, Isaiah 61:6, 1 Peter 2:5–9, Revelation 2:26–27, Revelation 5:10, Revelation 20:6).
Will reign in the heavens (Ephesians 2:6–7, 2 Timothy 2:12).
Will fill earth with knowledge of God’s glory by being a light to the Gentiles and salvation to the ends of the earth (Habakkuk 2:14, Isaiah 49:6).
Will display God’s wisdom among the principalities and powers in the heavens (Ephesians 3:10–11).
The meek shall inherit the earth, and will live in the land God gave the patriarchs, which is the land of Israel (Matthew 5:5, Ezekiel 36:28).
Our citizenship is in the heavens (Philippians 3:20).
There will still be mortal “flesh and blood” humans living in the part of the kingdom of God that is on the earth, and they will even continue to reproduce, both in the thousand-year kingdom of heaven in Israel, as well as on the New Earth for a time (Zechariah 8:3–4, Isaiah 65:17–25).
Mortal “flesh and blood” is not able to inherit the part of the kingdom of God that is in the heavens (1 Corinthians 15:50–54).
The 12 apostles will judge the 12 tribes of Israel (Matthew 19:28).
Paul, not one of the 12 apostles of the church known as the Israel of God, but rather the first apostle of the church known as the body of Christ, will, along with the rest of the body, judge the whole world, as well as judge angels (1 Corinthians 6:2–3).
The cross was only bad news to those hearing the Gospel of the Circumcision — at least in the sermons recorded in Acts — and a shameful thing which needed to be repented of in order to be saved (Acts 2:22–38, Acts 3:13–15, Acts 7:52).
The cross is only good news for those hearing Paul’s Gospel, and is even something to glory in because it’s how we are saved (1 Corinthians 1:18, 1 Corinthians 15:1–4, Galatians 6:14).
As far as their Gospel is concerned, Jesus gave His life as a ransom only for “many” — meaning only for those who obey this Gospel (Matthew 20:28).
As far as our Gospel is concerned, Jesus gave His life as a ransom for all — meaning all humanity (1 Timothy 2:6).
Exhorted to remain in Him, and seem to be able to fall away and not be able to be renewed to repentance, so appear to be able to lose their sort of salvation (1 John 2:28, Hebrews 6:4–6, Hebrews 10:26–27), although since this is not the same sort of salvation that Paul primarily taught about, anyone who doesn’t experience this sort of salvation will still experience the general salvation of Paul’s Gospel (even if not the special salvation connected with his Gospel).
If we died with Christ — and if we did, we can’t un-die — we will live with Him, since He cannot disown His own body. Yes, we can “fall from grace,” so to speak — which basically just means placing oneself under the bondage of religion and rules, such as the law, and, because of doing so, missing out on enjoying the freedom Christ gave us — and it might be that we can also lose out on reigning with Him by denying Him in order to avoid suffering, but either way, we still remain His body, and He won’t amputate and disown His own body parts, and body parts can’t amputate themselves either (Galatians 5:1–4, 2 Timothy 2:11–13). Besides, Paul said that if we’re called, we will be justified and glorified, and didn’t include any qualifications in that verse, so any passages in Paul’s epistles which seem to teach otherwise must be talking about something else (Romans 8:30).
Abraham being justified by works given as an example (James 2:21–23).
Abraham being justified by faith rather than by works given as an example (Romans 4:2–3).
Gentiles will be blessed by Israel’s rise in the future (Isaiah 49:6, Zechariah 8:22-23, Acts 3:25).
Gentiles are currently blessed by Israel’s “fall” (Romans 11:11).
Now these aren’t just minor variations in terminology; these are obviously completely different messages for two completely different groups of people. Unfortunately, if one isn’t being honest with Scripture, and insists on trying to make these major differences between Paul’s teachings and the teachings in the Circumcision writings say the same thing, because their preconceived doctrines force them to have to believe they mean the same thing, they’re just not ready to interpret the rest of Scripture, and should not be teaching anyone from the Bible. In fact, not only is this concept so extremely important for believers to grasp, it’s also so central to understanding what the Bible is saying and who a particular passage is relevant to that one can’t properly interpret much of Scripture at all without beginning from this perspective. Even something like evangelism will be a confusing task for those who don’t understand that “the Great Commission” (a label that isn’t actually even found in the Bible) wasn’t meant for the body of Christ at all. Instead, rather than teaching all nations to be observing all things that Jesus commanded His disciples, and baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (which, as I already mentioned, is a whole different baptism from the one that Peter did with water, since the baptism he’s recorded as having performed in Scripture was specifically “in the name of Jesus Christ,” and would also be a command Paul would have been disobeying when he stopped baptizing people in water if it was meant for everyone to do) as the Israel of God will be called to do in the future (when the dispensation of the grace of God is complete and Israel has been saved and finally begins their ministry to be a light to the Gentiles and salvation unto the ends of the earth as they were long ago prophesied to one day be, and when Gentiles will in fact only come to know God by following the Jews — which is how they’ll finally get to be that kingdom of priests they were prophesied to one day become), we have a greater “commission” and “one baptism” (into the body of Christ), and are called to be stewards of the mysteries that were kept secret since the world began just as Paul was, and can in fact currently help other Gentiles come to God even if we’re not Jews, which is why it’s imperative to truly understand this important topic.
And that brings up another point we should consider, which is the question of why Paul was even called for apostleship in the first place. There were already 12 apostles who were given the so-called “Great Commission” to go to the nations and teach them to observe everything Jesus had commanded and to baptize them in the manner He’d prescribed (okay, technically only 11 apostles were given that command at that specific time, but it would have applied to Matthias too, after he was appointed the 12th apostle in order to replace Judas — and no, there’s no biblical basis for the idea that Paul was supposed to be the 12th apostle, as some claim, since he didn’t fit the qualifications for Judas’ replacement that Peter listed at the time), and as we learned from that list of differences in the above chart, there can only ever be 12 apostles in connection with the Israel of God, because there will only be 12 thrones for the apostles to sit on in the kingdom of heaven in Israel. This means that Paul didn’t replace anyone from the 12 when he was made the apostle of the Gentiles, but if the existing 12 apostles had already been commissioned to go to the nations, why would God then appoint a 13th apostle (Paul) to go to the nations instead, rather than having the 12 do the job that Jesus assigned to them? The only way this makes sense is if the time of the 12 to go to the nations hadn’t begun yet, and if Paul had a whole other ministry and message for the Gentiles of the nations than the ministry and message that the 12 will bring to the nations when the kingdom of heaven begins, when they’ve been resurrected from the dead after the Tribulation concludes.
Even after learning all of that, however, some Christians will still want to say things along the lines of, “I follow Jesus, not Paul” (or worse, some like to say, “I worship Jesus, not Paul,” even though literally nobody worships Paul), with some of them quoting Paul himself when he wrote, “was Paul crucified for you?”, pointing to Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 1:10-13 where he corrected his readers for saying, “I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas;” — often following their statement up by then saying they’re only of Christ. The problem is, if they only took the time to read the whole passage, they’d notice that Paul condemns saying even, “and I of Christ.” That doesn’t mean we aren’t supposed to follow Christ, as some will then accuse us of teaching when we point this fact out, but following Christ wasn’t the point of the passage, which was simply about Paul condemning sects, meaning divisions, which had begun springing up within the local church in Corinth. Besides, Paul made it quite clear in the very same book that we are to follow him, when he wrote in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” So yes, we still follow Christ, but those of us in the body of Christ follow Him by following the teachings He gave to us through our apostle: Paul.
I should add, in a last-ditch effort to defend the idea of there being only one Gospel, I’ve heard it pointed out by some Christians that the words “the Gospel” technically aren’t included in the original Greek text prior to the words “of the Circumcision” in Galatians 2:7 (which is true), and then asserted that Paul would have used those words there if he meant for it to be understood that he was referring to two separate Gospels, but based on the clear pattern of things that differ between the teachings Paul preached among the nations (including the exact words in the Gospel message he preached to them, and what those words mean) and the teachings that Peter and Jesus’ other disciples gave to Israel (including the exact words in the Gospel message they preached to them, and what those words mean, especially in the four books commonly referred to as “the Gospels” and in the book of Acts), it should be clear by now that Paul being concise in that verse doesn’t detract at all from the fact that there are at least two Gospels connected with salvation in Scripture.
Still, if somebody wants to somehow insist that there really is only one Gospel taught in Scripture after reading everything they just read in this article, I’d very much like to hear why they want Scripture to contain only one Gospel so badly. And it has to be a matter of wanting it to be true, since, at the very least, they have to not only admit that all of the passages we’ve looked at can be interpreted in such a way that supports the existence of two Gospels, but also that there’s no passage in Scripture which actually outright says there’s only one Gospel. But really, at this point it should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention that even if I missed any other passages somebody might try to use in order to argue that the disciples wereproclaiming the exact same news which is good during Jesus’ earthly ministry that Paul later proclaimed to the nations (which was the news which is good about Christ’s death for our sins, burial, and resurrection, and how those who believe this news which is good are saved), those “proof texts” simply can’t actually support their belief at all. And so, my challenge to anyone still trying to hang on to the idea that there’s only one Gospel is to answer the various questions I’ve asked throughout this article, and to provide their refutations of every single one of the scriptural interpretations and arguments I’ve brought up in support of the existence of two Gospels, including an explanation of how they reconcile the extensive list of scriptural contradictions that would seem to exist if there was only one Gospel (based on the comprehensive list of differences I’ve laid out which only seem to make sense if there are indeed at least two Gospels). In addition, I want them to write down and send to me or to whoever sent them this article (or at least write it down for themselves to consider) exactly what they believe this one Gospel is and what someone has to do in order to be saved under it, both someone who lived prior to Christ’s death and someone who lived after His resurrection (leaving no details out, and including their scriptural basis for all of it). And if what someone had to do in order to be saved under this one Gospel was different before Jesus died than it now is after He was resurrected, they also need to explain how that different thing they had to do prior to Christ’s death actually is the exact same thing Paul said the people of the nations that he declared the Gospel unto had to do in order to be considered saved (which includes believing that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day), which it would have to be if both proclamations of news which is good actually are the exact same Gospel message with absolutely no differences. So far nobody has been able to do all of the above after reading this article, as well as after reading any of my articles covering the same details I just went over in this article (a few have sent attempts at refuting a few points, but they all ignored the majority of what I wrote), and unless someone can, the idea of there being only one Gospel simply remains an assumption there’s literally zero excuse for making.
All this does bring up a very important question, however, which is why there are two Gospels in the first place, and why Jesus didn’t preach the same Gospel during His earthly ministry that Paul later preached to the nations. Well, the answer to that question is simply that He couldn’t, because if He had, nobody would be able to get saved (at least not in the manner of salvation that Paul generally referred to). You see, as we’ve already learned, the Gospel Paul preached is Christ’s death for our sins, burial, and resurrection, and this event is the very basis of our salvation (and is, in fact, the only reason anyone can be saved when it comes to the type of salvation Paul primarily taught about). This means that if Jesus had preached the same message (that His death was going to be for our sins, meaning that His death would be the basis of our salvation) as His Gospel around Israel before He died, the spiritual powers of darkness behind His death would have undoubtedly gotten wind of this, learning the truth about how we’re saved, and would not have had Him crucified after all, as Paul explained (and, in fact, would have done everything they could to keep Him from going to the cross, since they don’t want any humans being made immortal and sinless and taking their rulership from them). Yes, humans technically killed Jesus, but it was the evil spiritual beings ruling the world behind the scenes during this age who drove them to it, but only because they thought it would put an end to His eventual usurping of their leadership over humanity. Little did they realize that they were played, since His death was the main reason He was born in the first place, but that fact was well disguised by His ministry to the Circumcision (in fact, while it’s not the whole reason, it likely is still a large part of why God had a chosen people in the first place: basically, God plays the long game, and used Israel, and even the Gospel of the Circumcision, to distract the spiritual “princes of this world” from His bigger, hidden plans). And so, the answer to the question of why there might be two Gospels connected with salvation is itself yet another proof that there have to be two Gospels connected with salvation.
This page contains links to a series of articles discussing the basics of what one needs to know regarding the topic of soteriology (the study of salvation) from what’s sometimes referred to as the “Concordant” perspective — proving that what the Bible says about salvation really is good news for everyone — as well as discussing good news about life itself for those who do understand all the truths covered in the articles. For those who just want to know the absolutely most important details necessary for salvation, however, this paragraph sums it up:
Most Christians assume and teach that anyone who doesn’t do the right thing(s) before they die or before Jesus returns will be punished without end, even if doing the right thing might be as simple as choosing to believe the right thing. Want some actual Good News instead of this bad news? Well, here‘s some: You can be at peace with God because God is already at peace with you, which He proved by sending His sinless Son, Christ Jesus, to die for our sins (giving Himself as a ransom for all, and when a ransom is paid for anyone, they’re guaranteed to be set free, which means that the consequence of sin — mortality leading to eventually remaining dead permanently — has now been dealt with completely for everyone), He was buried (He was, not just His body while He went somewhere else, which means He ceased to exist as a conscious being while dead, the exact same way that we do when we die), and He rose again the third day (in the same physical — albeit now immortal and glorified — body), and so everyone who is mortal (and hence has sinned) because of what Adam did will also eventually be made immortal (and hence will be justified and made sinless) because of what Christ did, although each in their own order — first those whom God has gifted the faith to believe this Good News, then everyone else at various later points in time, even if one has to be resurrected from their death, or even their second death, before their mortal body is quickened (meaning made immortal, and immortality for humans is always connected with salvation in Scripture). Because God was in Christ, making peace with the world and not imputing our trespasses unto us, all humanity will eventually come to a knowledge of the truth and be reconciled with God, enjoying the general salvation (immortality, justification, and sinlessness) that Christ won for all of us. And if God has elected to gift you with the faith to believe this Good News, you can rest assured that He’s predestined you specifically to become a member of the body of Christ (which includes getting to enjoy the special salvation, meaning an early experience of general salvation, on top of various other benefits that only those of us in the body of Christ will be given, including life in heaven during the impending ages, after being quickened when Christ comes for His body; and if that’s you, welcome to the body). Because, yes, there are “everlasting” judgements for unbelievers (although terms such as “everlasting,” “eternal,” “for ever,” and even “never” are very figurative — referring to long periods of time, but periods of time which do eventually come to an end — when used in connection with judgement in the Bible), which means that everybody else will have to wait until a later time to enjoy their own general salvation (whether on this Earth after Jesus returns for those who are raised from the dead at the resurrection of the just, or on the New Earth at the end of the ages for everyone else). But since God truly is the Saviour (and not just the potential Saviour) of all humanity, especially (not exclusively) of believers of this Good News (meaning the members of the body of Christ, who will instead enjoy “everlasting” life, figuratively referring to getting to live through the impending final two ages), everyone will eventually get to enjoy that general salvation, even if perhaps not until the time that death has finally been destroyed (and in order for death to truly be able to be said to have been destroyed, anyone who died in the lake of fire — or even anyone who is just not immortal yet, which would mean they’re still subject to the power of death because they’re still capable of dying — at that time will need to have been resurrected from the dead and/or had their body quickened; and that resurrection from death in the lake of fire, along with that quickening of everyone’s bodies, is how death is finally destroyed, but all thanks only to Christ’s death for our sins, burial, and resurrection on the third day, which is the Good News, or Gospel, that Paul preached).
Of course, the knee-jerk reaction of most Christians who read the above Good News will be to automatically assume it can’t be true (and to claim we’re misinterpreting those scriptural references, all while quoting other, scary-sounding passages that they mistakenly think teach never-ending punishment because they don’t know what their supposed “proof texts” actually even mean — passages we actually fully believe ourselves, since we do know what they really mean). Their misunderstanding of all of the passages in question (both the passages we use to support the doctrine of the salvation of all, as well as the supposed “proof texts” that they assume teach otherwise) is partly because they’re unaware of the different types of salvation referred to in Scripture (some of which, it’s true, not everyone will get to enjoy), and partly because they don’t understand the meaning of words like “everlasting,” “eternal,” “for ever,” and “hell” when used in the Bible (as you’ll soon learn from the articles listed below, these words rarely, if ever, mean what most people assume they do when they’re used in less literal Bible translations such as the King James Version). Of course, there are other reasons too, as you’ll also soon learn, or at least you will if you take the time to read the following series of articles that explain pretty much everything you need to know about soteriology. If you’re unfamiliar with “Concordant” soteriology, I’d recommend reading these articles in the order they’re listed below, but they can technically be read in any order if you’re already familiar with the details from the articles that come before one you want to read. Either way, once you’re familiar with the doctrines in these articles, not only will you understand the basics of “Concordant” soteriology, you’ll also know far more about what the Bible actually teaches regarding heaven, hell, judgement, death, evil, sin, salvation, and the ages than pretty much any pastor, priest, missionary, or seminary professor out there.
Oh, and please make sure that you’re the one who actually reads the articles (and be sure to read all of them — in order, and carefully), rather than using a so-called “AI” service for a summary of the articles instead (and if you’re tempted to use “AI” here, please read this first).
Before you do read them, though, I should quickly discuss the Bible version I primarily used throughout these articles. You see, A) there are a number of people out there who won’t consider scriptural references from anything other than this one particular Bible version, B) because I wanted to reach the largest audience possible, C) because it’s still one of the most popular and recognizable Bible versions anyway, D) because it means I don’t have to worry about copyright issues, not to mention E) because it is my favourite Bible translation and the one I personally consider to be the most accurate anyway, all scriptural references in these articles are from the KJV (the King James Version of the Bible; although, if you aren’t a fan of the way the KJV renders certain verses, please feel free to look up the supporting references in a translation of your choosing). That said, I should also point out that some of the writers of the supporting books and articles I linked to throughout this series do use other Bible versions themselves, and they don’t necessarily all feel as favourably towards the KJV as I do, but I still highly recommend reading their articles and books even if you are a KJV-Onlyist, in order to learn more details that I didn’t have the time to get into here myself (although, if you are a KJV-Onlyist who isn’t comfortable reading books or articles that reference other Bible translations, I do have a book-length Bible study titled “Rejecting Rome: How Most Christians Choose Catholic Dogma Over Biblical Doctrine, And What To Do About It” which also covers the points that these articles do, with no supporting references other than scriptural references from the KJV, available in both PDF and ePUB formats — which are also handy if you’d prefer to read the articles as one PDF on your computer or as one eBook in your eReader, and especially if you want to print the whole thing and read it on paper). Speaking of those supporting references, please keep in mind that just because I link to specific articles or books doesn’t mean that I agree with everything their writers and/or publishers believe and/or teach. In some cases, I link to them for the sole reason that they happen to have better supporting material on a specific point than anybody else I’ve found so far.
Part 1: Things that differ (start here if you aren’t already familiar with the various different types of salvation referred to in the Bible, or are unfamiliar with “Concordant” soteriology in general)
Part 2: What the Hinnom? (find out what the “hell” that Jesus warned about the most actually is)
“I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a shit. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.”
It’s said that Tony Campolo would often begin speeches with the previous quote, and it’s a great example of how certain people get offended by the wrong things.
People all over the world, even the western world, are being persecuted solely on the basis of who they happen to be sexually attracted to. Much of the time this persecution is perpetuated by those claiming to follow Christ. People in the US are going into debt because they had the gall to get sick or be injured and require medical care, and many of the people insisting this debt should continue to be forced upon them are also Christians. Children and adults alike are going hungry all over the world, even in America, while there’s more than enough food in the world to feed every single one of them. Many women, often while they’re still just children, are forced to be sex slaves, even here in the west. People are arrested and thrown into prison every day for the crime of ingesting (or even simply possessing) a plant that God created, while actually harmful drugs are allowed to be created by greedy companies and sold to us in order to make these rich men even richer. And politicians continue to create unjust and harmful laws all over the world, again, even here in the west; and what’s worse, a large majority of people often actually support these laws because they think their deity will bless them if these rules are created and obeyed.
Most of us have become desensitized to these tragic everyday realities. Honestly, most of us really just don’t care (if we actually cared, wouldn’t we do something about it?). Yet, while these horrible things don’t phase most Christians anymore, some still get terribly offended when they hear certain sounds or read specific combinations of letters. And, let’s be honest, that’s all swearing or profanity really is.
I’m not going to exegete all the passages in the Bible about language, though I will quickly point out that saying “oh my God” isn’t taking the Lord’s name in vain since “God” isn’t even close to being the Lord’s name in Scripture (and the commandment isn’t talking about profanity either anyway; it’s basically referring to perjury after swearing not to while using the Lord’s name in your oath). Instead I’ll point out the hypocrisy, not to mention haughtiness, of having trouble with profanity.
All profanity means is “outside the temple,” ie., anything that isn’t sacred. I won’t get into the problems with the secular/sacred dualism most Christians hold to, but technically anything non-religious is “profane,” not just certain words. However, pretending for a moment that certain words are more profane than others, the idea that words can be bad in the first place quickly becomes comical when you begin to deconstruct the idea.
Let’s break it down. Is it the particular combination of letters, or the specific sound the word makes when spoken, that makes a word wrong to use? It’s obviously ridiculous to think so, otherwise the words “damn,” “hell,” and “ass” shouldn’t be read in the Bible, or said in a sermon, as they’d be just as inherently bad in Scripture or sermon as when spoken in everyday parlance.
Is it the meaning behind the word? If so, simply saying “sexual intercourse” (or “rats” or “ouch” any other number of euphemisms) would be just as bad as saying “fuck;” and “crap” or “faeces” would be just as bad as saying “shit.”
Is it the intent behind the words? For instance, is it okay to say “fuck” if you’re referring to sex, or just using it as a playful adjective, but wrong to use in anger against another person? I’m okay with this, but only as much as I am with the idea that we shouldn’t be saying anything with the intention of hurting another person (whether in anger or not), regardless of what words we’re using.
When it comes right down to it, getting offended by these “vulgar” words implies that you think you’re too good to hear everyday, common language, and that you probably need to be brought down a peg or two.
Honestly, the old childhood saying about sticks and stones is true, and words can only hurt you if you let them. But, if you really insist on being offended by certain words, how about choosing to be offended by those words intended to hurt people who don’t happen to share your particular values or preferences instead of words that simply add a bit of colour to everyday speech.
But I’ll make a compromise. Get offended by the many injustices and atrocities being committed not only around the world but even in your own backyard, and I mean offended enough to actually do something about it, and I’ll try to pretend you’re not a snob when you turn up your nose at everyday language. And I won’t even say the word uterus around you if that helps.
Have you ever wanted to come up with a good 1-2 punch from the Bible to help you win arguments about why God hates abortion? Well, now you can. Here are the only passages you need to know to turn your abortion loving friends against killing babies:
Well, that isn’t going to work if we’re going to support the death penalty and war and cops carrying guns in the line of duty. Let’s see… that obviously must be talking about murder, not simple killing. Hmm… Except that murder technically means “illegal killing,” and if abortion is legal then it can’t actually be labelled murder. Well, let’s find a better passage then.
Jeremiah 1:5 — “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.”
Great! No, wait, all that really tells us is that God knew Jeremiah before he was born. Hmm… does this mean that we exist as spirit babies before we’re born? This is going to help Mormons defend some of their theology, but all it does for the rest of us is explain that God foreknew Jeremiah’s existence and planned for him to become a prophet beforehand, so we’d better keep this one under wraps if we don’t want to have to wear special undergarments. Anyway, it doesn’t tell us that God hates abortion like we know He does from the Bible, so we’d better find those passages telling us that He does.
Psalm 139:13-16 — “For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.”
That’s a tricky passage to follow, but it’s really just more of Jeremiah 1:5, explaining God’s foreknowledge and predestination. Since most people want to keep believing in free will, it wouldn’t be a good idea to take that passage too literally anyway. Moving on…
Luke 1:39-42 — “And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda; And entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth. And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.”
Yes! “Babes” in the womb can leap when the Holy Spirit inspires them to do so. Although, on second thought, what does that have to do with abortion? Drat, I thought I was onto something there. Well, let’s see what else I can find. Hmm… I’m out of passages. Well, at least we know that God loves children and would never do anything to harm them:
Genesis 7:17-23 — “And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.“
Huh. It seems God Himself kills babies (and there’s no way there weren’t any pregnant women alive at the time of the flood, so fetuses too, it seems). But that’s different, God can kill whoever He wants, right? At least He’d never want humans to kill fetuses or children:
1 Samuel 15:3 — “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”
Whoa, God not only kills children, He commanded humans to kill children in the past (and, again, there’s no way there weren’t any pregnant women among that group of people, meaning He basically commanded certain pregnancies to be aborted in the past). Well, maybe He only loves children while they’re still in the womb. It’s a good thing we’ve got all those passages explaining that He does, isn’t it?
Disclaimer: This post isn’t meant to support either the pro-abortion or anti-abortion positions. The only point is that the Bible can’t be used to defend the idea that God hates abortion or is pro-life. God does LOTS of killing and sanctioning of killing, even of children, according to the Bible, so it isn’t in your best interest to try to use it to fight abortion.
Also, if you believe in everlasting torment in hell and the age of accountability, you should be hoping that every pregnancy ends in abortion.
There’s a very simple bit of theology that Christians don’t seem to have caught onto yet: According to the Bible, we can do whatever we want to do (1 Corinthians 6:12).
Does the Bible really tell us we’re free to sin? Yes, technically it does. We can do pretty much anything and we’re still covered by grace. In fact, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.
However… just because we CAN do whatever we want doesn’t mean we SHOULD do whatever we want. While 1 Corinthians 6:12 does tell us that everything is permitted (or lawful), it goes on to remind us that not everything is expedient or profitable. Remember, your actions are going to have consequences, both to you and to others.
And not only do we have to consider the possible negative consequences, there’s the fact that the more we give in to harmful desires, the more we can become enslaved to harmful habits. Since the Gospel is largely about freedom, being enslaved by harmful desires is no better than being enslaved by religion.
The bottom line is, don’t let any religious leader tell you you’re not allowed to do something, but it’s also a bad idea to let any habit or desire rule your life. And always consider what the consequences of your actions might be, not only to yourself, but to others as well.
That being said, not everything that we’ve been taught to believe is sinful or harmful by our religious leaders actually is sinful or harmful. The problem is, there’s a lot of confusion, and even outright misinformation, about some of the things that we’ve been taught are wrong to do. This means we should each reevaluate our ideas of what some of the things we might personally need to avoid are, but we also need to keep in mind that some of the things which might be harmful or habit forming for me might not be the same for you, and vice versa.
However, there’s still one more factor to consider. Even if we know that an activity is completely harmless to us, some of our brothers and sisters won’t have the same understanding we do, which can lead them into harmful habits themselves if they don’t understand proper balance. Similarly, many of them don’t have very strong faith in God’s grace, and publicly practicing certain activities they consider to be sinful can cause some of them to stumble at times, so abstinence, at least publicly, might be the advisable course of action in some situations (though less often than you might think. Helping someone remain “weak” in their faith isn’t necessarily doing either of you any favours). This, of course, brings up all sorts of other questions, but those will have to wait for another post.
Disclaimer: Just because something is covered by grace or is not against God’s law doesn’t mean it isn’t against one of man’s laws. This post is not meant to encourage anyone to break any of the laws of the land where they live, as unjust as certain laws may be.
On the third day of creation, God made a mistake so extreme that the world still hasn’t fully recovered.
I know, it’s hard to believe, but after two days of creating a whole universe you’d have trouble maintaining perfection too. The physics involved in creating gravity alone would be enough to drive a mere mortal crazy, but God also had to worry about about the math behind photosynthesis and metabolism and cytokinesis, not to mention quasars and globular clusters and black holes. So with all that engineering to keep straight, it’s understandable that He’d slip up and create something He never intended to make it to earth. Perhaps it was just a little side project He’d come up with for heaven that fell into the wrong pile of blueprints, but however it happened: that innocuous looking plant ended up on earth, and we’ve had to pay the price ever since.
I’m not talking about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, though one has to wonder what God was thinking there as well. No, I’m talking about a far more heinous plant that has no business existing. I’m talking about marijuana.
This plant, when ingested, causes people to relax and mellow out, and since God likes us to remain in conflict with each other (preferably by invading people in other countries and ostracizing people who believe and act differently from ourselves in our own nations), this plant goes against everything he stands for. It also helps people with chronic illnesses fight pain and nausea, and if God didn’t want these people to suffer, He would have created a plant that helps them feel better (oh, right, I’m going to have to rethink that one).
Fortunately for God, He’s got conservative leaders to help clean up His mess. Religious and political conservative leaders, for the most part, realize that God didn’t mean for this plant to grow in God-fearing nations, so they do their best to eradicate it completely from the land. Even if it’s growing naturally out in the wilderness where God originally put it, they know He couldn’t have possibly meant to put it there on purpose, and that it has to be eliminated.
Of course it’s possible that God didn’t screw up here. Perhaps He realized that people would be tempted to use His creation and that this would help support the burgeoning prison industry in America.
Either way, we need to be ever vigilant to ensure that we avoid this ungodly plant so we can remain edgy and in constant conflict with one another, and we need to continue arresting people who do use or sell it, because we don’t have nearly enough people in prison yet. And if we do need to calm down for a little while, there are all sorts of prescription drugs that God does support which we can use to medicate ourselves.
[Postscript: I can’t believe I have to say this, but some people have failed to realize that the above was satire. No, God has never made any mistakes, which means that He fully intended for this particular plant to exist on earth, and hence anyone who tries to eliminate it from their country is the one actually claiming God made a mistake.]
