gracEmail
Edward Fudge

WHAT IS CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY?
A sister from an independent Christian church in Idaho writes: "In a recent gracEmail, you mentioned a book you were co-authoring on the subject of final punishment, your part being to present the biblical case for conditional immortality. What exactly do you mean by 'conditional immortality?'"
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"Immortality" means deathlessness, and anyone who is "immortal" is incapable of dying. According to the Bible, God "alone possesses immortality" inherently or in his own nature (1 Tim. 6:16). Human beings are not naturally "deathless" or "immortal." We are mortal human creatures who owe our existence every moment to God who made us (Gen. 2:7; Acts 17:25, 28). We cannot survive death by ourselves. Nothing about us is inherently death-proof. Our immortality is conditional on God who gives it.

Despite this grim and humbling reality, humans seemingly have always tried to discover or to obtain immortality apart from God. The Egyptians embalmed their dead and Hindus taught reincarnation. Greek philosophers theorized that every human possesses a mortal body but also an immortal or deathless "soul," which has always existed and will never cease to be. During the second and third centuries after Jesus, certain converted Greek philosophers brought a form of this pagan notion into the church.

Based on this premise that the human "soul" cannot die but will live somewhere forever, these church fathers concluded that the wicked will suffer everlasting conscious torment. This teaching, which makes God the supreme torturer of the universe, overlooks the fact that whenever Scripture ascribes immortality or incorruptibility to humans it always refers:

* to the saved, never to the lost;
* to the body, never to a disembodied soul or spirit;
* to the Resurrection state, never to the present order

(Rom. 2:7; 1 Cor. 9:25; 15:52, 53, 54; 2 Tim. 1:10; 1 Pet. 1:4). The traditional doctrine of hell also ignores the regular affirmation of Scripture from first to last that God is his creatures' only source of existence, and that those who finally refuse God's grace and gift of life will "die," "perish" and be "destroyed" (Gen. 3:4; Ezek. 18:4; Mal. 4:1-3; Matt. 10:28; 2 Thes. 1:9; Rev. 21:8).

In the end, the phrase "conditional immortality" is nothing but a shorthand way of saying that God is God and we are not; that "the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 6:23); and that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

For more on final punishment, click here.