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Continuing
LEHRE UNO VVEHRE
MAGAZIN FUER Ev.-LuTH. HOMILETIK
THEOLOGICAL Q UARTERLY-THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY
Vol. xvn September, 1946 No.9
CONTENTS
Page
The Hades Gospel and the Apocatastasis Gospel. Th. Engelder 641
Luther and the War Against the Turks. George W. Forell ______ 676
Outlines on the Standard Epistle Lessons ____ _ _____ __ ________ ________ ____ 694
Miscellanea ______ -___ ___ ____ - __ ___ __________ _ __ ______ _ __ __ ______ __ ______ ______________ ____ _ 704
Theological Observer _____ __ _ -__ ___ ___ ____ ________ ____ _______ ___ __ _______ _____ ___ ____ _____ 714
Ein Prediger muss IDeht alleln wei-
den, also class er die Schafe unter-
weise. wie sIe rechte Christen sollen
seln. sondem auch daneben den Woel-
fen 'lDehren , dass sie die Schafe nicht
angreifen und mit falscher Lehre ver-
fuehren und Irrtum elnfuehren.
L uther
Es ist keln Ding. das die Leute
mehr bel der Kirche behaelt denn
die gute Predigt. - Apolouie, Art. 24
If the trumpet give an uncertain
sound. who shall prepare himself to
the battle? -1 COT. 14:8
Published by the
Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States
CONCORDIA. PUBLISHING BOUSE, St. Louis 18, Mo.
Panrrs.D IN "IJ". S. A..
Concordia
Theological Monthly
Vol. XVII SEPTEMBER, 1946
The Hades Gospel
and the Apocatastasis Gospel
By TH. ENGELDER
No.9
The Hades gospel proclaims that some men will get an-
other chance for conversion in yonder life. The apocatastasis
gospel proclaims that all inmates of hell, including the fallen
angels, will finally be saved.
The Universalist Profession of Belief, adopted at Win-
chester 1803, declares: "1. We believe that the Holy Scrip-
tures of the Old and New Testaments contain a revelation
of the character of God and of the duty, interest and final
destination of mankind. 2. We believe that there is one God,
whose nature is love, revealed in one Lord Jesus Christ, by
one Holy Spirit of grace, .vho will finally restore the whole
family of mankind to holiness and happiness. 3...." "This
statement of belief in the ultimate success of the divine ad-
ministration, the final holiness and sanctification of all souls ...
was made known and declared to all the world as an Evangel
in the articles of 1803. . .. 'Hail,' then, we say to the men of
Winchester, these preachers of an Unlimited Gospel. To save
the glory and honor of God we must believe in the salvation
of all his children. . .. About one hundred and :fifty years
ago men began to think and act whose hearts were intuitive of
the love of an All-Father, and as they advanced in thought
and fervor of soul, they could not but proclaim a gospel of
gladdest news. . .. Nearly all the superstitions have gone
at one blow. The devil troops to an infernal jail. The fires
of hell are extinguished. A substitutional sacrifice disappears.
41
642 HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL
God is not to be propitiated, but served and loved and en-
joyed." (The Winchester Centennial, 1803-1903, pp. 21, 38,
50, 60, 154.) "Let those who impugn the Gospel of Eternal
Hope remember that it was openly preached by the 'Father
of Fathers' - Gregory of Nyssa - whose writings were re-
ferred to by the Council of Ephesus as the great bulwark of
the Church against heresy. . .. He taught that the soul, hav-
ing an affinity to God, must ultimately return to God." (F. W.
Farrar, Eternal Hope, pp. 159, 161.)
This Evangel, "the gospel of gladdest news," has found
many heralds. "Not only speculative theologians, such as
Origen and Schleiermacher, but also Bible theologians, Zin-
zendorf, Bengel, Blumhardt, preached it." (A. Koeberle, Das
Evangelium und die Raetsel der Geschichte, p. 72.) The list
includes Gregory Nazianzen, J. Scotus Erigena, the Anabap-
tists Denk and Hetzer, the Schleiermacherians Nitsch, Schwei-
zer, etc., Archbishop Tillotson, Charles Kingsley, John Foster,
the pietistic mystic J. W. Petersen, the Berleburger Bibel,
C. F. Oetinger (theosophist), etc., etc. (See Th. Traub, Von
den Letzten Dingen, p. 272. W. Rohnert, Die Dogmatik del"
Ev.-Luth. Kirche, p.620. Meusel, Kirchl. Handlexikon, s. v.
Wiede'rbring1mg Aller Dinge, Schaff-Herzog Encycp. of ReI.
Kn., s. v. Punishment, Future, etc.) Other Origenists will be
mentioned later. "The new light has been gaining ground
steadily for a hundred years. . .. We venture the prediction
that by the end of another hundred years the idea of an
endless punishment in any form, medieval or modern, will be
obsolete among all Protestant churches. . .. The Universal
Fatherhood of God is now proclaimed from the housetops of
Orthodoxy, and while many of the clear-sighted recognize this
as logically involving Universalism, it is accepted neverthe-
less." Thus The Winchester Centennial, pp. 39, 40, 44.
We submit a few typical statements. Charles H. Eaton:
"The doctrinal teaching of the Universalist Church is (1) The
universal fatherhood and the universal brotherhood revealed
in a universal Savior. . .. (4) The certainty of punishment,
having for its object the final recovery of all men. . .. (8) The
reunion of all in the everlasting life. . .. When God was
represented as an infinite demon, gluttoning himself with the
agonies of the damned, burning forever in flames of fire and
brimstone, the Universalists said such views of God are blas-
HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL 343
phemous. God is an infinite Father." (Why I Am What
I Am, pp. 71, 75.) Dr. S. Shepard: "We (the Universalists)
believe that this is a universe of absolute justice, and that
every soul will meet with justice, working out its problems
until in some way it comes to a stage of high development
and harmony with God." (See J. A. Weber, Religions and
Philosophies, p.198.) The Unitarians have stated their creed
thus: "There is a general consensus upon the unipersonality
of God, the strict humanity of Jesus, the essential dignity and
perfectibility of human nature, the natural character of the
Bible, and the hope for the ultimate salvation of all souls,
in distinction from the views traditionally taught on these
points." 1 Theodore Parker, while he acknowledged that the
doctrine of eternal punishment was taught in the New Testa-
ment, rejected it and came at last to say of the whole theology
which includes this idea of endless punishment that it "sneers
at common sense, spits upon reason, and makes God a devil."
(See A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology, p.599.) The Bible
Champion, Oct., 1922, p. 386, quotes a Unitarian writer thus:
"Heaven and earth and stars in their infinite number, all
worlds that roll through the great Creator's space, would raise
one universal shout of horror at the endless punishment of
sinners. . .. An eternal hell would make the God inflicting it
more reprobate and more deserving of such pangs than any
human being, though we should imagine one uniting in him-
self the crimes of all the Caesars and the Borgias, the Haps-
burgs and the Bourbons, the Sultans and the Tsars." Dr.
Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard: "The religion of the
future will reject all the old teachings concerning rewards and
eternal punislunents. In particular, the new religion will not
believe in a hell, where God punishes sin eternally. The God
of the future will be a God of mercy and of goodness and of
grace." (See Lutheraner, 1924, p.424.)
Bishop Ewing of Argyll and the Isles: "Unless this (apoca-
tastasis) be held as a matter of faith and not as a speculative
dogma, it is practically valueless. With me this final victory
is not a matter of speculation at all, but of positive faith; and
to disbelieve it would be for me to cease altogether either to
1 It has been said that the Unitarians teach that man is too good to
be eternally damned, while the Universalists teach that God is too good
to damn man eternally.
644 HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL
trust or to worship God." (See F. W. Farrar, Eternal Hope,
p.218.) Harris Franklin Rail: "So far we have talked about
the saints and their hope of heaven; but what about the
sinners and the Church's teaching as to judgment and hell? ...
We must cast out some unchristian ideas that have remained
too long in Christian thought. . .. This world is not so much
a place for the testing as for the making of men; that is
God's great concern. And why should he be limited to this
world? The physical fact of death does not at a stroke change
these mixed and unformed lives into pure saints or sinners.
If the world to come has place for growth and change, that
may mean change of direction. We cannot believe that a
Christlike God will ever turn away from men who turn to
him, or cease in his effort to win men from death to life."
(A Faith for Today, p. 258 ff.) "The time was," said Pastor
W. H. Burns at a Methodist conference in Detroit on Oct. 31,
1938, "when I was a boy, that I believed that the world was
made in six days. I was taught and believed in literal hell fire.
But none of us believe these things today. We have made
advancement in doctrine and faith." In a sermon preached
in Grace Methodist Church, St. Louis, March 22, 1931, Dr.
James Crowther declared: "I believe in a Christlike God.
Jesus taught us that God is love. . .. Mankind can never
reverence, much less love, a God who consigns his offspring
to the eternal torments of the damned. Only a theologian
could do that, and God is not a theologian, but a father and
a friend." Walter Rauschenbusch: "No man, in any human
sense of justice, has deserved an eternity of hell." (A Theology
for the Social Gospel, p. 233.) And the Liberal Catholic Church
has this creed: "We believe that God is Love, and Power,
and Truth, and Light; that perfect justice rules the world;
that all His sons shall one day reach His feet, however far
they stray." (See Popular Symbolics, p. 208. - "The Liberal
Catholic Church encourages among its adherents the freest
play of scientific and philosophic thought," says its spokesman
in Weber, op. cit., p.74.) "We affirm," say the Spiritists in
their Declaration of Principles, "the moral responsibility of
the individual and that he makes his own happiness or un-
happiness as he obeys or disobeys nature's psychic laws.
We affirm that the doorway to reformation is never closed
against any human soul, here or hereafter." (Census of Rd.
Bodies, 1926. Part II, p.1319.)
HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL 645
There are those who do not teach restorationism (or the
related doctrine of annihilationism) directly, but speak of it
as a possibility, and speak of it in a way which indicates that
in their heart they believe in it. Vernon F. Storr, Archdeacon
of Vvestminster: "The idea of an eternal fixity of condition,
whether for weal or woe, does not appeal to us. . .. Another
assumption made by the Universalist is that 'it is never too
late to mend.' It may be so. The fate of the hardened sinner
must remain an enigma. . .. The Bible throws little light upon
the subject." (Do Dead Men Live Again? pp. 209, 225.) Syd-
ney Cave: "Our Lord expressed this risk in terms of apoc-
alyptic symbols. These symbols speak of loss that men need
much to fear, but from them, in the opinion of most scholars,
no theory of eternal punishment can be derived." (What Shall
We Say of Christ? p.l77.) W. E. Channing (Unitarian):
"1 have spoken of the pains and penalties of moral evil, or of
wrong-doing, in the world to come. How long they will en-
dure, I know not. Whether they will issue in the reformation
of happiness of the sufferer, or will terminate in the extinc-
tion. of his conscious being, is a question on which Scripture
throws no clear light." (Channing's Works, p.353.) "Bei
den TLeologen der Aufklaerung koennen wir eine allmaehlig
sich vollziehende Au£loesung der alten Lehre von den ewigen
Strafen und damit des Dualismus, der den Gedankengang
del' Orthodoxie praegte, wahrnehmen. lIier wird von der
Moeglichkeit und dell' Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass die Verdamm-
ten sich bessel'n koennen, gesprochen." The rationalists in the
period of "enlightenment" spoke of the possibility and prob-
ability of the moral improvement of the damned. (G. Aulen,
Das christliche Gottesbild, p. 300. - Here is a curiosity: "Die
Verdammten stehen, wenn sie sich bessern, hinter denen, die
von Anfang an selig sind. Eben dadurch aber, dass sie hinter
denen stehen, erkennen sie in all Ewigkeit ihre Strafe. . . .
Einige Theologen der Aufklaerung, wie Wegscheider, stellen
sich VOl', dass die Bestraften bei fortgesetzter Besserung den
Platz einnehmen koennen, der frueher von Seligen niederer
Grade eingenommen war. Wegscheider denkt sich deutlich
das Ganze zunaechst als ein ausgebildetes Befoerderungs-
system." Ibid.) Julius Mueller: "While it may be open to
the sinner in the next world, as in this, to turn to God by a
free act of will, it is nevertheless true that the tendency of
646 HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL
sin is to perpetuate itself, and therefore that eternal punish-
ment is possible." (Schaff-Herzog, l. cit.) The Lutheran,
May 14, 1941: "Is there a hell? . .. In rejecting the extreme
of material hell fire we should not go to the other extreme
of explaining away hell itself. . .. In the moral order of
a loving God, however, we have the hope that final mercy will
prevail. Retribution may give way to reformation; justice
to mercy. Divine Love, we like to believe, will triumph in
eternity. Humanity's case is in the hands of the all-wise,
all-gracious God, in Christ, the Savior-Judge." C. M. Jacobs:
"But does not this clause of the Creed suggest - I will not
venture to say that it teaches - another possibility? He
descended into Hades, the place of the departed, that He
might be their Savior too. . .. 0 God of the living and the
dead, open our minds to the greatness of Thy Son, Jesus
Christ, that we may never make His Gospel smaller than
it is; help us to hope steadfastly in Thee, not only for our-
selves, but for the whole race of men, for whom He died; and
make us sure that all mankind shall see the glory which
Thou hast revealed in Him." (The Faith of the Church, p. 62.)
Friedrich Nitzsch: "Ueber den Ausgang des Gerichts an den
Gottlosen ist schwer etwas auszusagenj ewige Verdamnis ist,
wei! infolge der menschlichen Freiheit kein Mensch zur Auf-
gabe seines Widerstandes und Ergreifung der Gnade ge-
zwungen werden kann, ebenso moeglich wie die schliessliche
Bekehrung aller Verlorenen." (See W. Oelsner, Die Ent-
wicklung der Eschatologie, p. 53.) Seeberg's teaching is sum-
marized by Oelsner (p.75) thus: "Die Verdamnis aber als
ewige anzusehen, verbieten schwere Bedenken: der Par-
ticularismus des Hells wuerde das Boese als wesentlich ewig
in den Bereich des Gotteswillens hineinrueckenj will aber
der Ailwirksame, dass das Boese ueberwunden werde, so darf
er auch nicht ruhen, bis dieser Zweck so erfuellt ist, dass
endlich jeder Wille das Gute will." Just what does Bishop
Stewart of Chicago teach as to eternal damnation? We read
in The Living Church, March 10, 1934: "The recent question-
naire issued by a professor of Northwestern University deal-
ing with a literal belief in a burning hell, the verbal inerrancy
of the Holy Scriptures and the creation, is ridiculed by
Bishop Steward of Chicago, in a statement published in The
Diocese. 'It is simply incredible that such questions should
HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL 647
be offered as tests of modernism,' says the Bishop. 'They
have nothing to do with what is technically known as modern-
ism. One does not go about hoarsely and excitedly and mod-
ernistically announcing that the world is round and not fiat.
One does not toss back and forth at night feverishly asking
whether he dare accept the new theory of Copernicus that
the sun moves. We have always supposed that intelligent per-
sons could accept their Lord's teaching about hell as about
heaven without accepting the poetical scenery of sulphur and
smoke on the one hand and pearly gates and golden streets
on the other. For the past 50 years or so no intelligent clergy-
man of the Church has held a theory of verbal inspiration of
the Scriptures. And no one with even a whiff of theological
learning confuses the cosmic significance of the Eternal Logos
with His mission as the Incarnate Jesus of Nazareth born of
the Virgin Mary. Nor has the Church with its theories of
the poena sensus and the poena da7llni ever dogmatized on
the character of infernal combustion.' "
Some in this group teach both eternal damnation and
apocatastasis. Peter Sterry, for instance, one of Cromwell's
chaplains, a mystic, has this in his Catechism: "Q. What be-
comes of those who believe not in Christ? A. They lie under
wrath while they live. Their souls are in prison with the
devils at their death. At the end of the world their bodies
are raised and joined to their souls; both are brought to
judgment, both are cast into the lake that burns with fire and
brimstone." The second part of the Catechism, however, uses
somewhat different language, and in a letter to a friend he
says: "Jesus Christ, as the universal Person, and Spirit in
which all these subsisted, which alone truly subsisted in All,
by dying, carried down the whole offended and polluted
world into death; in that death all things are dissolved into
their first principle, into the Divine Unity, into the Unity of
the Eternal Spirit: Thus are the sins and the sinners no more
for ever; thus all sins, sinners, wrath are swallowed up in
the first unity of the Eternal Spirit, which is the fountain of
Beauty, the fountain of Love." E. H. Plumptre, who quotes
this, says: "These two extracts seem to contradict each other."
(The Spirits in Prison, p. 193 f.)
Some in this group even go so far as to assert that Scrip-
ture itself teaches both doctrines - eternal damnation and
648 HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL
apocatastasis. H. Martensen, Bishop of Seeland, Denmark:
"This antinomy meets us if we turn to Holy Scripture; no
definite solution is given of it there. There are texts which,
if they be taken in their full and literal import, most dis-
tinctly refer to eternal damnation. Matt. 25: 41; Mark 9: 44;
Matt. 12: 32; 1 John 5: 16. These texts, if they be taken with-
out reservation or refinement, clearly express the idea of a
condemnation in which there is no cessation, to which there
is no end. But on the other hand, there are contrasted ex-
pressions of Scripture, which have an equal claim to be taken
in their full sense. 1 Cor. 15: 26-28; Eph. 1: 10; 1 Cor. 15: 22.
If we take these texts without limiting their full and obvious
import, we shall not be far from the idea of a universal restora-
tion; for the apostle says expressly all, not some. Cpo Matt.
19: 26. This apparent contradiction in the language of Scrip-
ture shows that Scripture itself does not afford us a final
dogmatic solution of the question." (Christian Dogmatics,
p .. 475.) According to Martensen the Christian preacher
would and should preach eternal damnation on one Sunday
and on the following Sunday the final restoration of all men.
P. Althaus follows the same line of thought. "Drei verschiedne
Zukunftsbilder traegt die dogmatische Ueberlieferung uns zu:
den dualistischen Ausgang in ewiges Leben und ewigen Tod,
die Vernichtung der Heillosen und die Wiederbringung aller .
. . . Es ist bezeichnend, dass jede der drei genannten Lehren
Gedanken der Heiligen Schrift fuer sich anfuehren kann." He
adds: "Die Lehre von der Apokatastasis oder Wiederbrin-
gung, wenn sie den Anspruch macht, erschoepfende Beschrei-
bung des Endes zu sein, ist und bleibt Vorwitz." He also adds:
"Wenn Gottes Erwaehlen den Glauben wirkt, wie soUte die
Demut uns nicht gewiss machen, dass die Liebe Gottes jedes
anderen sich ebenso annehmen wird wie unser! . .. Wir
fluechten immer wieder zu der Gewissheit der gnaedigen
Macht, die alle heimfuehrt." He concludes with the statement:
"Gewiss kann nur das eine wahr sein," only one of these
thoughts expressed in Scripture can be true. (Die Letzten
Dinge, pp. 175-189.) And Folke Holmstroem calls this
method of teaching both truths - "die Vorstellung eines dop-
pelten Ausgangs" and "die zuversichtliche HofInung einer
endlichen Wiederbringung aller" (Althaus, p.186) a stroke
of genius - "Althaus' genialer Griff." (Das Eschatologische
HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL 649
Denken der Gegenwart, p.308.) Dr. Adolf Koeberle seems
to have the same idea: "In the New Testament the two
thoughts' run parallel" (op. cit., pp. 70-73). - See the item
in CONe. THEOL. MONTHLY, 1937, p. 214 f.: "Bejaht die Schrift,
was sie verneint?" 2
1
This apocatastasis gospel is a vicious teaching. It directly
denies the plain teaching of Scripture. Holy Scripture tells
the wicked, the unbelievers, that they shall be cast into the
fire of hell, to suffer eternal damnation. Jesus will say to
them on the Day of Judgment: "Depart from Me, ye cursed,
into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."
"These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the
righteous into life eternal" (Matt. 25: 41,46). Jesus spoKe
2 We submit some statements by infidels, atheists, agnostics, who
deny not merely the eternity of damnation, but hell itself. Their violent
language is fully matched by that of some of the liberal theologians. We
are not classifying these with the atheists, but are calling attention to
the similarity of language both groups employ. Bertrand Russell's book:
"Why I Am Not a Christian" declares: "There is one very serious defect
to my mind in Christ's moral character, and that is that he believed in
hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly
human can believe in everlasting pUlllshment. . .. Jesus goes on, in
Matt. 13: 42, about the wailing and gnashing of teeth. It comes in one
verse after another, and it is quite manifest to the reader that there is
a certain pleasure in contemplating wailing and gnashing of teeth or
else it would not occur so often." (Quoted in Sydney Cave, op. cit.,
p.145.) On the occasion of Luther Burbank's funeral in 1926, at which
in compliance with his wish the famous tribute of Robert Ingersoll at
the grave of the great agnostic's brother was read, the papers reported:
"Appearing in the pulpit of the First Congregational Church in San
Francisco, Burbank declared he had 'nominated himself an "infidel" so
as to cause people to think.' . .. The idea that a good God would send
people to a burning hell is utterly damnable to me. The ravings of
insanity; superstition gone to seed. I don't want to have anything to do
with such a God. I am a lover of men and Christ as a man and his
work, and all things that help hmnanity, but nevertheless, just as he
was an infidel then, I am an infidel today." David Friedrich Strauss:
"Das J enseits ist der letzte Feind, welchen die spekulative Kritik zu
bekaempfen und womoeglich zu ueberwinden hat." (See A. Hoenecke,
Ev.-Luth. Dogmatik, IV, p.311.) "Mark Twain makes Satan reproach
God as one who 'mouths justice and invented hell; mouths mercy and
invented hell; . . . mouths morals to other people and has none him-
self; ... frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all.''' William Adams
Brown quotes this in Beliefs That Matte?·, p.285, in this connection:
"There is, for example, the doctrine of everlasting punishment. . .. But
this doctrine of retribution, morally defensible and even necessary as it is,
was associated with a conception of future punishment so appalling both
in its quality and in its duration as to make the thought of the future
a nightmare for many sensitive spirits. . .. We can understand the
bitterness with which Mark Twain makes Satan, etc. Much may be
lost with the loss of the life after death. At least we are delivered from
the hell of our fathers."
650 HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL
through His Prophet: "Many shall awake, some to everlast-
ing life, and some to shame aJ.1.d everlasting contempt" (Dan.
12: 2). Jesus declared in the days of His earthly ministry:
"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he
that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath
of God abideth on him" (John 3: 36). "It is better for thee
to enter life with one eye rather than having two eyes to be
cast into hell fire. It is better for thee to enter life halt or
maimed than having two eyes to be cast into everlasting fire ...
into the fire that shall never be quenched, where their worm
dieth not and the fire is not quenched" (Matt. 18: 8-9; Mark
9: 42-48). Jesus, who will have all men to be saved, had His
holy Apostles write these words: "The Lord Jesus shall be
revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire
taking vengeance on them that obey not the Gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting
destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory
of His power" (2 Thess. 1: 7-9). And these words: "To whom
is reserved the blackness of darkness forever" (Jude 13).
And these words: "The smoke of their torment ascendeth
up forever and ever . . . tormented day and night forever and
ever" (Rev. 14: 11; 20: 10). St. John exhausts the resources
of the human language to express the concept of the end-
lessness of damnation: "8(~ LOV~ ulwvuc:; LWV ULWVWV," "for the
aeons of the aeons," "von Ewigkeit zur Ewigkeit" (Luther).
And there is Heb. 9: 27! Man's eternal fate is not decided at
some period in the aeons of eternity, but at the moment of
his death.3 - "Scripture teaches the fact of eternal damnation
so clearly and emphatically that no one can deny it unless he
rejects the authority of Scripture." (F. Pieper, Christliche
Dogmatik, III, p.611.) And Delitzsch writes: "There is no
3 Under the compulsion of Holy Scripture the Athanasian Creed
confesses: "They that have done good shall go into life everlasting; and
they that have done evil, into everlasting fire. This is the catholic faith,"
the creed of Christendom. And the Augsburg Confession, Art. 17: "They
condenm the Anabaptists, who think that there will be an end to the
punishments of condemned men and devils." And the Apology: "Christ
shall condenm the ungodly to be punished with the devil without end."
And the Large Catechism: "They abide in eternal wrath and damna-
tion." (Triglotta, p.697.) And the Westminster Confession, Chapter 33:
"The wicked, who know not God and obey not the Gospel of Jesus
ChriJ;t, shall be cast into eternal torments and be punished with ever-
lasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory
of His power." And the Heidelberg Catechism, Q.52: "Who shall cast
all His and my enemies into everlasting condemnation," etc.
HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL 651
teaching which flouts Holy Scripture more flagrantly than
the apocatastasis." (Biblische Psychologie, p.412. See Pro-
ceedings, Texas Dist., 1907, p.51.)
There are those among the restorationists who admit that
Scripture teaches eternal damnation, but openly declare that
they do not accept Scripture as the authoritative Word of
God. Theodore Parker readily acknowledged that eternal
punishment is taught in the New Testament. He declared:
"There is no doubt that Jesus Christ taught the endless suf-
fering of the wicked. But I do not accept the doctrine on
His authority." (See The Bible Companion, October, 1922,
p. 383.) He would not accept it because it "sneers at com-
mon sense, spits upon reason and makes God a devil." Charles
Eaton, who denounces this teaching as "blasphemous," goes
on to say: "God is immanent in human nature also. . .. God
has never left Himself without a witness. Inspiration is not
and cannot be confined to any favored or selected prophets. . . .
To limit revelation to the Bible is to finally destroy religion."
(Why I Am, p.68.) Lewis B. Fisher (Universalist), who
declares that this doctrine "made the universe a chamber of
horrors and a madhouse for countless sensitive people," that
"theology should not make the universe an insane asylum
and God hateful," also says: "We, with all Protestants, have
affirmed the liberty of each soul to think for itself, itself to
judge what is truth, to follow its 'inner light,' accountable to
no human authority, but to God only," and, "Jesus never
wrote a word, and never asked anyone else to do so. All we
know is what his reporters have handed to us, in reports
written from fifty to a hundred years after his birth." (Which
Way? pp.15, 66, 118, 124.) This book is "a plain statement
of what Universalists are believing now, in this new age, with
its new Bible, its new science ... its new theology." (Preface.)
Dr. S. Shepard, quoted above, says: "Such details as the
origin and nature of the Bible, the birth, death, and resurrec-
tion of Jesus are matters upon which each individual must
form his own opinions, probably changing them from time
to time." (See Weber, op. cit., p. 199.) "Archbishop Tillotson
saw reason to believe that God might restore the lost by the
superabundance of His mercy, though he considered that the
letter of Scripture pointed the other way." (See Farrar, op.
cit., p.175.) Archdeacon Storr, quoted above, says: "The
652 HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL
older traditional belief in hell and in endless punishment was
based upon a literal acceptance of certain passages in the
Bible. But the growth of modern Biblical scholarship has
profoundly altered our view of inspiration. We no longer
feel that a statement is necessarily true because it is in the
Bible," (Op. cit., p, 208.)
The conservatives among the restorationists will not, of
course, use such coarse language. They recognize the author-
ity of Scripture, But at this point they refuse to bow to the
authority of Scripture. Anyone who in the face of the clear
statement of Scripture that "these shall go away into ever-
lasting punishment" insists that no man will suffer everlasting
punishment, is certainly not bowing to the authority of Scrip-
ture. While the left wing openly declares that the authority
of Scripture may be rejected, the right wing, which stands
for the authority of Scripture, is virtually brushing it aside.
The only difference between the two wings is that the left
wing denies more, many more, Scriptural truths than the
right wing. F. S. Downs is right in saying: "Better renounce
the authority of the Bible at once than trifle in this way with
its most solemn fact." (The Heart of the Christian Faith,
p.200.)
True, most restorationists deny that they are rej-ecting
the authority of Scripture and insist that Scripture does not
teach the endlessness of damnation. A few, indeed, as we
have pointed out above, admit that Scripture plainly teaches it,
but the great majority claim that neither Jesus nor any of
His Apostles taught it. L. B. Fisher: "No candid person can
believe that the doctrine of endless hell torments is taught
in the Bible. . .. The Bible, rightly understood, is a Uni-
versalist book. . .. It is worth noting that the Bible never
once spoke of everlasting death, or everlasting hell." (Op. cit.,
pp. 68, 74, 95.) Farrar: "The silence of St. Paul as to any
such doctrine in such passages as Rom. 2: 8-9; 5: 21; 6: 23; Gal.
5: 21; 6: 8; Phil. 3: 18-19; the reticence of St. John in such
passages as 1 John 3: 14-15; 5: 16 - in all which places the
nature of the subjects handled would have led the Apostles
to make explicit mention of endless torment, had they em-
braced any such belief - cannot by any possibility be the
result of accident. 'That the doctrinal writings of these three
chief teachers of the Gospel (St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. John)
HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL 653
are wholly destitute of any assertion of the endless misery
of sinners in the literal sense,' says Mr. White, 'can be verified
by every reader.''' (Op. cit.) p. 218 f.) "It seems to me
that . , . endless torments are nowhere clearly taught - the
passages which appear to teach that doctrine being either
obviously figurative or historically misunderstood." (Op. cit.,
p.227.) In the Christian Century of Jan. 7, 1934, Prof. H. L.
Willett answered the question: "Does it not seem a strange
and repellent idea that Jesus should have given his sanction
to the Jewish doctrine of eternal punishment? I am thinking
particularly of his references to the 'fire that is not quenched,'
'these shall go away into everlasting punishment,''' thus:
" .. , His primary purpose was not the portrayal of the future
life. He never issued a blueprint dealing with that sub-
ject.. . He used the Jewish figures of speech or the frame-
work of the picture, but went straight to the heart of the
matter by his insistence that as long as willful evil persists in
the disposition of any life, there will be the consequent suf-
ferit"lg." The Pulpit Commentary on Luke 16: 19 ff.: "Be-
tween a soul thus godless and the holy dead, who are at rest
in the Lord, there is a great gulf fixed. But to press this into
an argument for a hell of endless torment is to overstep the
limits of parabolic interpretation." (P. 74.) 4 Sydney Cave
relies upon Higher Criticism to prove the thesis that the
Bible does not teach eternal damnation. In answer to B. Rus-
sell, who had quoted Matt. 13: 42 to show "the serious defect
in Christ's moral character" (see above), he writes: "The
words of Jesus which he (B. R.) claims teach everlasting
punishment are, indeed, perplexing, and on them have been
based terrific theories which contradict our Lord's central
teaching of the unwearying, holy love of God. Mr. Russell
deals with the passages on the lines of the crudest and most
ignorant fundamentalism, and ignores altogether the differ-
ence between the earlier and more authentic version of these
sayings in St. Mark and St. Luke and that given in St. Mat-
thew, which, as we have seen, represents the harsher teach-
ing of Palestinian Christianity; actually this phrase ('wailing
4 On page 81, however, we read: "Jesus Christ was using current
language and familiar imagery to intimate to us that the man who has
lived a selfish and worldly life will meet with severe condemnation and
grievous penalty in the next world, a penalty in regard to which he has
no right to expect either mitigation or release."
654 HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL
and gnashing of teeth'), though found six times in Matthew,
is not found in Mark and only once in Luke. And he treats as
genuine sayings which, as even a glance at the Revised Version
margin would have told him, 'are omitted by the best ancient
authorities' (Mark 9:44-46)." (Op.cit., p.176.-We don't
understand. The marginal note in the American Standard
Version and in the Revised Standard Version reads: "Verses
44 and 46: 'where their worm dieth not and the fire is not
quenched' - which are identical with verse 48 - are omitted
by the best ancient authorities. Would not verse 48 make the
saying genuine?) - There is nothing to the plea that Scrip-
ture often uses figurative language in describing the eternal
things. In the nature of the case Scripture is compelled to
use much figurative language. Moreover, there is nothing
obscure about such figurative language as "their worm dieth
not." Besides, Scripture employs a lot of language which is
not figurative. Every single word in the statement: "The
wrath of God abideth on him" must be taken in the most
proper sense. Not a single word in the statement: "These
shall go away into everlasting punishment" is a figurative ex-
pression. - No, the Apostles did not always, in describing
the future punishment, add the adjective "endless." They
used that word often enough elsewhere. And Paul found the
words "indignation," "wrath," "tribulation," "anguish" suffi-
ciently strong for the purpose at hand. It is a good thing
that Farrar himself, as he wrote his books, did not apply the
law he lays down for the Apostles. - No comment is necessary
on Cave's and the Higher Critics' manipulation of Scripture.
Scripture does not teach eternal damnation, say the
restorationists, for the word atffivLO~, translated "eternal," does
not mean what the Greek scholars and the Greek laymen,
the English scholars and the English laymen, have always
understood it to mean - everlasting, endless, eternal. They
consider this one of their strongest points. They write long
chapters on it. The word, when used in connection with
damnation, punishment, hell, can only mean "for a certain
period," never an infinite period. We read in Which Way?:
"The third word that Canon Farrar declared should be ex-
punged from our English Bible is the word 'everlasting.'
Presumably he meant that that word should not be applied
to sin and to its punishments as necessarily meaning endless."
HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL 655
(P. 95. - The two other words are "hell" and "damnation.")
"The true version of Matt. 25: 46 is: 'These shall go away into
the punishment of the ages, and the righteous into the life
of the ages." (P.97.) "As to 'everlasting,' while it was
many times applied to life and to salvation, it is worth noting
that the Bible never once spoke of everlasting death, or ever-
lasting hell." (P.95.) Farrar: "It has been so ably proved by
so many writers that there is no authority whatever for
rendering aeonian 'everlasting,''' "Jeremy Taylor declared
that the word 'everlasting' signifies only to the end of its
proper period." (Op. cit., p. 62, 197.) Koeberle: "Zinzendorf,
Bengel, und Elumhardt haben darauf hingewiesen: das neu-
testamentliche Wort aionios, das wir gem mit 'ewig' ueber-
setzen und wodurch die Kirche zu der Lehre von einer
ewigen Verdammnis gekommen sei, dieses Wort bedeute in
Wahrheit ja: einen Weltalter-Abschnitt lang waehrend." (Op.
cit., p. 72.)
That will not do. In the language of the world and in
the Bible our word sometimes means "enduring for a long
period," but usually it means "endless, enduring forever and
ever - eternal." There cannot be a moment's doubt that
when Scripture declares that the unbeliever shall receive
"everlasting" punishment, it means "everlasting," for it uses
the same word when it speaks of the "eternal" life, which
receives believers at the end of the present aeon. "These
shall go away into everlasting (atcOvLOv) punishment, but the
righteous into life eternal (aLcOvLOv) " (Matt. 25: 46) . The
restorationists, since they are not materialists, believe in the
life eternal. They have no trouble with Matt. 25: 46 b. But it
surely troubles them when their theory compels them to
make the "everlasting" in Matt. 25: 46a mean a period which
will come to an end. In the words of The Australian Lutheran:
"Holy Scripture teaches the endlessness of this conscious suf-
fering in hell. Objectors say that the word translated eternal,
everlasting, literally means nothing more than age-long, long
time. But let the reader note that the word aionios (eternal,
everlasting) is used of the future life of the believer, of God's
own being, of the blessings of the Gospel. In all these cases
even our opponents do not think of limiting its duration. Six
times it is used of the punishment of the wicked (Matt. 18: 8;
25: 41,46; Mark 3: 29; 2 Thess. 1: 9; Jude 7). What valid
656 HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL
reason is there for arbitrarily limiting its duration here?
To limit its duration in Matt. 25: 46, where the same word is
used for the reward of the righteous, is impossible ... , 'For-
ever and ever' in Rev. 20: 10 literally means 'unto the ages of
the ages,' that is, age rolli'·1.g upon age in endless succession."
(See the Luthemn Witness, 1939, p. 165.) Otto von Gerlach,
who is for the Hades gospel, writes: "The same adjective is
used in describing 'punishment' and 'life.' Augustine ::::::ys,
De Civ. Dei, XXI: 23: 'How is it possible to account eternal
punishment to be a fire of long duration, and eternal life to
be without end, since Christ comprised both in the very same
passage, in one and the same sentence, saying, "These shall
go into eternal punishment, but the righteous into life eter-
nal?'" If both are eternal, either both must be understood
to be lasting with an end or both perpetual without end.
For like is related to like; on the one side eternal punishment,
on the other, eternal life. But to say in one and the same
sentence, life eternal shall be without end, punishment eternal
shall have an end, were too absurd; hence, since the eternal
life of the saints shall be without end, punishment eternal
too shall doubtless have no end to those whose it shall be."
(Das Neue Testament mit erklaerenden Anmerkungen, p. 160.)
And Archdeacon Storr, who is at heart for the apocatastasis
gospel, writes: "Whatever may be the meaning of 'aeonian,'
we must note that the word is used in the New Testament of
the fate both of the good and the bad, and we cannot logically
give it one meaning in one case, and a different meaning in
the other case. We may revolt against the idea of endless
punishment; but if we are basing our argument upon the mean-
ing of special words, we must remember that the same ad-
jective is used of both life and penalty." (Gp. cit., p. 229.) 5
5 We have space for a few more statements. Professor Moses
Stuart: "If then the words aion and aionios are applied sixty times in
the New Testament to designate the continuance of the future existence
of the righteous and at least twelve times to designate the continuance
of the future misery of the wicked, by what principle of interpreting
language does it become possible for us to avoid the conclusion t.hat
aion and aionios have the same sense in both cases? The result seems
to me to be plain and philologically and exegetically certain. It is fuis ~
we must either admit the endless misery of hell or give up the endless
happiness of heaven." (See The Bible Champion, Oct., 1922, p.383.)
The Pulpit Commentary, on Matt. 18: 8-9: "Everlasting fire. . .. It is
not morally expedient to minimize the force of such terms by disputing
about the exact connotation of 'aeonian.' When we remember that the
words are spoken by the loving and pitiful Savior, we must allow that
HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL 657
Then, too, the paraphrastic terms used Mark 9: 43-46: "Their
worm dieth not," "The fire shall never be quenched," and
Rev. 14: 11: "The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for-
ever and ever," and John 3: 36: "The wrath of God abideth
on him," force us to take aionion punishment to mean 'un-
ending' damnation. And, finally, the very nature of the com-
ing aeon, as distinguished from the present aeon, is timeless-
ness, endlessness. Dr. A. L. Graebner says: "AtwvLO~ can here
refer to but one aeon, the ulwv !!EAArov, utwv hELVO~, as it
describes that which is to come at the end of the world, when
the present aeon, ulwv oii'to~, shall be over and past. And the
coming aeon is endless, eternity. And among the words that
shall abide when heaven and earth shall pass away is also this:
'They shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the
righteous into life eternal.' " (Theol. Quarterly, 1902, p. 143.)
And Jesus will speak these words at the Last Judgment. It will
they point to some dreadful reality." On Matt. 25:46: "Apparently Jesus
meant to convey by these words the impression which every simple-
minded, unbiased reader receives from them, that the duration of the
punishment of the lost equals the duration of the blessedness of the
saved. The word translated 'everlasting' in the one clause and 'eternal'
in the other is the same in both clauses. . " The bliss pronounced and
the punishment threatened would be understood to last so long as the
subject of them lasts unless explicit intimation were given that it would
not be so." Dr. VV. R. lnge, dean of St. Paul's, in his contribution to the
symposium What Is Hell? puts it thus: "It is hardly too much to say
that heaven and hell stand and fall togethel·. Those who refuse to
believe in the possibility of final reprobation will usually be found ready
to secularize religion, and to substitute some dream of 'a good time
coming' for the blessed hope of everlasting life. . .. It is then that we
face the dread alternative, the choice which, so far as we know, is
for us endless in its results." He has no patience with those who would
try to make words like "eternal" mean anything else than eternal. (See
The Literary Digest, April 5, 1930. The Pl'esbyterian, June 5, 1930.) -
Schaff-Herzog pronounces the verdict: "Whatever these words, XOAa<1L;;,
aLoovLov, may be made to mean under the stress of a theory" (our italics),
the plain meaning which they carry upon their face is that which the
Church has always put upon them. . .. These words (Matt. 25: 46) cannot
be explained away by speculation, or deprived of their obvious meaning
by exegesis." - Kittel's Woerterbuch: "1m Neuen Testament wird aLoovw;;
in der Bedeutung ewig gebraucht von Gott. Als Gottespraedikat enthaelt
aLoovw;; nicht nur den Begriff der unbegrenzten anfangs- und endlosen
Zeit, sondern zugleich den der die Zeit transzendierenden Ewigkeit. . . .
In diesem Sinn wird es gebraucht von den goettlichen Guetern und
Gaben - CHO't'l]QLCI. aLoJVw,;, Heb. 5: 9; Mark 16 (kurzer Schluss). . . .
Enthaelt aLoovw~ in diesen Ausdruecken den voUen Begriff der goett-
lichen Ewigkeit, so bedeutet es in 'to nUQ 'to aLoovLOv, Matt. 18: 8; 25: 41;
Jude 7; XOACl.O"L'; aLoovLO;;, Matt. 25: 46, zunaechst nur niemals aufhoerend,
endlos. Aber ein Ausdruck wie xQL!LCI. aLoovLOv, Heb. 6: 2 ... zeigt, dass
auch hier das rein zeitliche Verstaendnis nicht ausreicht. Zum Gedanken
der ewigen Strafe vergleiche Apk. 14: 11; 20: 10."
42
658 HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL
not be reversed at some later period. The ulwv f1EMOOV knows
no change.
Does Scripture teach eternal damnation? Dr. E. B. Pusey,
Canon of Christ Church, makes this significant statement:
"They who deny that any of the words used of future punish-
ment in Holy Scripture express eternity would do well to
consider whether there is any way in which Almighty God
could have expressed it, which they would have accepted as
meaning it." (What Is of Faith As to Everlasting Punishment?
p. 44. - A reply to Dr. Farrar's book.) 6
The restorationists not only deny that Scripture teaches
eternal damnation, but also assert that Scripture teaches the
ultimate salvation of the damned. They quote Acts 3: 21:
"Until the times of restitution of all things." 7 But the
MO%U'tU