Beyond Heaven and Earth

by Steven H. Propp

  “A gold cross,” said Abraham, cynically. “Which just reiterates my whole point about attachment to material things, such as gold chains, diamond earrings, sports cars, beautiful women, and so on.”

  Reverend Williams shook his head gently at Abraham, and said, “My friend, don’t you think that God gave us eyes, gave us ears, gave us physical bodies, because he meant for us to experience the pleasures in the things he provided for us?” Waving his arms expansively, he added with a smile, “You don’t surely think that Heaven is going to be nothing more than angels sitting around strumming on harps for all of eternity?”

  Abraham ignored the joke, and said, “Your fellow ministers would probably think that wearing crosses and such was just ‘show’ for him, and didn’t really indicate anything about his personal beliefs.” Searching for an example, he added, “He could just as easily have worn an Egyptian Ankh, which is a sign of fertility.”

  “But he didn’t wear an Ankh,” Reverend Williams insisted, more forcefully, “He wore a cross—which is a Christian symbol!” They glared at each other for a moment.

  Throughout this entire exchange Jobran had kept quiet, but now he took advantage of the momentary silence to inject himself back into the conversation by summarizing, “So you feel that Joshua was still a Christian, even though he was advocating in his music and videos some rather ‘unchristian’ things?”

  Placing his palm flat against his chest, Reverend Williams said, with conviction, “The thing we need to remember is that it is not up to you to decide who goes to Heaven, and it is not up to me to decide—and it is certainly not up to some of my fellow ministers to decide,” and he slammed his palm forcefully on his desktop to emphasize the point, and said, “Only God can determine who goes to Heaven. And my Bible tells me that Jesus died to redeem all humanity from sin, and to deliver us into eternal life. There is nothing more that needs to be done; as the song says, ‘Jesus paid it all’; God’s love for us is unconditional.”

  Skeptically, Abraham asked, “You don’t think that God gives us commands? How about the Ten Commandments? They aren’t the ‘Ten Suggestions,’ are they?”

  Passionately, Reverend Williams said, “Do we think that any works we do can reconcile us to God? No! That is the very essence of the Christian message; God is God—he doesn’t need anything from us! If he wants to reconcile us to himself, then he has every right to do so, under whatever terms he chooses.” He chuckled softly, then added, “Of course, since you’re Jewish, I don’t necessarily expect you to understand the Christian concept of salvation.”

  Looking to Jobran for help, Abraham asked, “Don’t most Christians teach that God puts certain requirements for salvation upon them?”

  Reverend Williams interrupted, saying, “I am not concerned with what ‘other’ or ‘most’ Christians teach; I am here to proclaim the gospel that God has given to me, and that I find in my Bible.”

  “Even if it differs from what the Christian Church has historically taught throughout the centuries?” Jobran asked.

  With an exasperated look, Reverend Williams said, “The sort of ‘theology’ you are talking about is self-contradictory.” Opening his Bible again, he said, “The traditional evangelical position endorses salvation through ‘receiving Jesus as your personal saviour’—a phrase which isn’t found in the Bible, by the way, But isn’t insisting upon the need for repentance, confession, and ‘believing on the Lord Jesus Christ’ as all being essential elements for salvation, in effect demanding a ‘work’ in order to be saved?”

  Abraham looked surprised. “And I thought that I was the only one who had noticed that contradiction,” he said, nodding at Reverend Williams with renewed respect. Turning to Jobran, he said, “Hey, Jobe—you’re the Christian here, tell us: Is the traditional view of ‘salvation through faith alone’ really bogus?”

  Jobran threw up his hands, helplessly. “I’m the one that’s still trying to find out what he believes, remember?” and Abraham and Reverend Williams both laughed. Then, addressing Reverend Williams, he said, “So what you’re saying, is that it really doesn’t matter what one does in one’s lifetime; one goes to Heaven anyway. Right?” And Reverend Williams nodded, then making a “sort of” gesture with his hand. Jobran asked, “Isn’t that essentially the doctrine of Universalism, the idea that ‘Everybody is saved’?”

  Reverend Williams nodded vigorously, and said, “It has aspects which are indeed similar to the doctrines held by such persons as Elhanan Winchester of the Universal Baptists, as well as Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and also Charles Spear, a pioneer in prison reform—not to mention Georg Klein-Nicolai, James Relly, John Murray, Hosea Ballou, Nathaniel Stacy, and Thomas Whittemore.” Seeing the surprised look on the faces of Jobran and Abraham, he smiled and said, “Yes, I have studied all of them—don’t look so surprised. Some of those old dead white men actually had something important to say. And not only dead white men: Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, was also a Universalist.” To Abraham, who was sitting almost open-mouthed, he said, “Why do you look so puzzled?”

  Abraham groped for words, “Well, it’s just that the television, and newspaper article…they made you sound so, well…”

  “Superficial?” finished the Reverend, a satisfied gleam in his eye. He waved his arm around the room, which—though it had paintings, plants, and other mementos in abundance—had no books at all on its shelves, and said, “Don’t let this room fool you; this is my room for conversations, not study.” Jerking his thumb towards a door behind him, he said, “My study is in there; and if the media had bothered going in there, they would have seen that I have probably the most extensive collection of books of any private individual on the West Coast on the subjects of Universalism and Conditional Immortality, not to mention other criticisms of the traditional concept of Hell as entailing eternal conscious torment.”

  Jobran looked confused, and asked, “But if that is the case, why don’t you join forces with, say, the Unitarian Universalists? Why do you remain in your current denomination, where some of your fellow ministers are calling you a heretic, or at least heterodox?”

  “Because I am not a Unitarian,” Reverend Williams replied instantly. “Unlike many of the others I mentioned, I am a firm Trinitarian. I believe that Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are two of the three ‘persons’ that make up the Godhead, and I believe that Jesus was both wholly God as well as wholly man, just as the creeds say.” He leaned forward in his chair, and added, “You see, unlike the doctrines of Universalism that were popular in earlier centuries, my position is a Christian one, and the salvation that I preach about is a Christian salvation; salvation is not coming through Buddha or Muhammad, but through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Although some of the earlier Universalists such as John Murray had a Christian focus, they were quickly replaced by people like Ballou who forcibly attacked the doctrine of the Trinity. My doctrine, however, might be called ‘Christian or Biblical Universalism.’” With a look of agitation on his face, he added, “That’s why it bothers me when my fellow ministers call me a ‘heretic’; I have the same belief in God, in Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, in the Bible, and in faith and prayer, as they do. The only respect in which I differ from them is that I don’t think that people need to recite some formula in order to be ‘saved’—on the contrary, I believe that God has already reconciled us to himself, through Jesus.”

  Jobran nodded his head, and said, “OK, I think I’m getting it. In that case, would you extend the benefits of salvation not only to Christians, but to others as well, such as Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims?”

  Reverend Williams said, “Faithful ones, absolutely. My doctrinal position is that salvation is coming exclusively through Jesus, even though those who are saved would not necessarily call themselves ‘Christian.’” He turned in his Bible, then said, “As Paul said in First Timothy, chapter 2, ver
ses 3-6: ‘For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.’” He shut his Bible, and lay it gently on the desktop.

  “Seems pretty clear to me. It said that God will have all men to be saved, not that he would just like for that to happen.”

  “So you teach that everyone will, in the end, be saved,” Jobran said, trying to summarize.

  “No,” said Reverend Williams sharply, “And that is another critical respect in which my position is different from Unitarian Universalism—because I believe that damnation is possible.” He paused for a moment, noting the surprise on the faces of Jobran and Abraham. “The atonement of Jesus Christ has saved all people, with the exception of those who consciously and knowingly reject him. There are people who are so caught up with the doctrines of devils, who devote their lives to attacking the works of God, that they cannot possibly be saved. There are also men whose acts are so evil, they indicate that they cannot possibly be saved. The white men who killed Medgar Evers and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., for example, certainly do not merit the blessings of Heaven, nor do the Chinese Communists who torture and imprison Christian missionaries, nor do the black African leaders who are slaughtering, starving, and even selling into slavery their own people. Unreservedly wicked people, of whatever color, certainly will not be ‘saved.’”

  Abraham nodded his understanding, and said, “So you believe in Hell for such persons?”

  Reverend Williams held up his hand, and hastened to add, “It all depends on what you mean by ‘Hell.’” He again pulled on his beard, reflectively, before adding, “I certainly don’t think that the God who loved us so much that he was willing to die on the cross to save us from our sins would place us in a realm of eternal, conscious torment—particularly if there is no chance for us to repent, or redeem ourselves from it—forever and ever. What would be the point of such torment? Is perpetuating the existence of unredeemed, wicked men—coexisting with redeemed men in Heaven—somehow supposed to be glorifying to God?

  Jobran said, “So you’re an annihilationist, then? Like the Seventh-Day Adventists?”

  Reverend Williams shrugged, and said, “We prefer the term, ‘Conditional Immortality,’ but the idea is similar. We simply don’t believe that God would go to the trouble of preserving for all of eternity someone whose very existence is odious to him.”

  Abraham nodded seriously, and said, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that position before. Can you explain it?”

  Thus encouraged, Reverend Williams held up the five fingers of his right hand, and said, “There are five ‘pillars’ to my position. The first pillar of my position, and the reason that we call this ‘Conditional’ Immortality, is that we believe that God alone is immortal. God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden, but they sinned, and so God said, ‘lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever,’ God drove them out of the garden. So man does not have an ’immortal soul’—that is a concept that was taken over by early Christians from the Greeks, such as Plato. Even the twenty-third Psalm—which is so often read at funerals—doesn’t say that we shall dwell in the house of the Lord ‘forever,’ but only for ‘a long time.’”

  “I’m aware of that,” Jobran said, nodding his head.

  “The second pillar is that virtually all of the Bible verses that we’ve been taught proclaim the doctrine of unending conscious torment for the wicked really— when you look at them squarely—teach the doctrine of destruction of the wicked. Take Sodom and Gomorrha; how could you have a more wicked example than that? These cities were burned up, destroyed; 2 Peter 2:6 says they were “turned into ashes” as an example, and Jude 7 says they suffered the vengeance of God’s ‘eternal fire.’ Once they were destroyed by God, they were never seen again; that’s why they are an example to us. Or take John 3:16 again: doesn’t it say that ‘whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life’? The choice isn’t between two different kinds of everlasting life—one in Heaven, and one in Hell—the choice is between everlasting life, and perishing! The ‘wages of sin’ is what? Eternal hellfire? No! The wages of sin is death! (Rom 6:23) ‘The soul that sinneth shall die!’ (Ezek 18:4, 20) Jesus warned us to be afraid of God, who ‘is able to destroy both body and soul in hell’! (Mt. 10:28) How can God ‘destroy’ the soul if it is eternal?” Abraham and Jobran looked at each other, dumbfounded.

  Reverend Williams continued, “Traditionalists try and say that Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount was ‘the most radical of all hellfire preachers,’ when he warned that your ‘whole body should be cast into hell’ (Mt. 6:30, 18:8-9), and that in outer darkness there shall be ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ (Mt. 22:13), but how do you derive eternal, conscious torment from these words? You don’t think that men on Death Row weep and gnash their teeth before they are executed, or that a body cast into fire would burn up? The fires of Hell consume, they don’t preserve!”

  Jobran frowned, thinking, then said, “Aren’t there New Testament passages that seem to talk about eternal punishment?”

  “In the highly-symbolic Book of Revelation, or in parables, sure. How about the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31-46? The goats depart into ‘everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels,’ they ‘go away into everlasting punishment,’ but to be destroyed is ‘everlasting punishment,’ because you will never return to life! The fire is ‘everlasting’ or ‘eternal’ because all things of God are everlasting. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:1931 was spoken while Jesus was still alive, so it doesn’t tell us anything about what happens after the Final Judgment! The passages in Revelation (14:11 and 20:10) are talking about torment of the ‘devil and his angels,’ ‘the Beast,’ ‘the false prophet,’ and so on, not regular people.”

  “Hmm…” Jobran said, looking over at Abraham, who shrugged his shoulders, and said, “The Christian writings I can’t speak about, but I certainly agree that the Bible doesn’t know anything about Sheol or Hell being a place of unending torment; it’s just the place of the dead. Even admirable people like Jacob, Job, and David expected to go to Sheol when they died.”

  “I’m glad that we finally agree on something,” Reverend Williams said, smiling at Abraham. “Anyway, the third pillar—that almost all Christians already believe in—is that children who die before they reach the ‘age of responsibility,’ or persons who are mentally incapable of understanding the gospel, are saved. Thus, it is clear that, since the death and resurrection of Jesus, we start out as saved, not damned! Otherwise, you would have the Roman Catholic doctrines of ‘Original Sin,’ and that ‘unbaptized babies go to Hell’! We have to take conscious, deliberate actions in order to become damned.”

  Jobran replied, “Well, my wife was Catholic, and they’re one of the exceptions; they still believe that unbaptized babies don’t necessarily make it to Heaven. But most other Christians certainly believe that all babies do go to Heaven if they die in infancy.”

  Reverend Williams nodded, and continued, “My position also provides—this is my fourth pillar, by the way—the solution to the question that often perplexes Christians, ‘What about those who have never heard the gospel?’ God surely has the responsibility to present all persons with the gospel, yet we know that many people live and die in places where they never hear the gospel. Moreover, all true Christians believe that there is a possibility of a ‘death-bed repentance,’ leading to salvation; take the example of the thief on the cross. So in such cases, who knows but that God presents everyone with the gospel before or after death, and they may well be saved? Or more likely, what if we were already saved by the death of Jesus? Then you wouldn’t have to present every single person on ear
th with the gospel.” Pointing his finger at Jobran, he added, “Not even the Roman Catholics have ever dogmatically and infallibly proclaimed that any particular individual is actually in Hell. People hold up Judas as the ‘absolute’ example of an unredeemed person, but who knows? Even Judas, after he hanged himself, and as life was slipping away from him, might have experienced a true conversion of the heart, and God might have saved him.”

  “Might this have happened for James Earl Ray, the killer of Martin Luther King Jr.?” Abraham asked.

  “Personally, I think that Dr. King was killed by a government-authorized killer or killers—probably from the FBI—and not by Earl Ray, but yes, I believe that even Dr. King’s killers might end up in Heaven,” Reverend Williams replied. Then, with a laugh, he added, “As long as they don’t live in my neighborhood,” and Jobran and Abraham both laughed.

  Reverend Williams then said, “And my fifth and final pillar is that the notion of eternal, conscious torment—without any possibility of ultimate redemption and reconciliation—is an affront to the image of the God who loves us. In my view, it is blasphemy to suppose that God would have created people who would never have the opportunity to hear the gospel, and then condemn them to Hell; that would be as foolish and unjust as the doctrine of Predestination, wherein God does not even endow us with free will, but nevertheless predestines us to eternal torment.” Jobran nodded his agreement. Throwing up his hands in pretended bewilderment, Reverend Williams added, “Couldn’t the omniscient God have simply refrained from creating creatures that he foreknew would end up in eternal damnation? He could have created only souls that he knew would be ‘saved,’ in other words; so, in the traditional conception, why didn’t he do so?”