Most evangelical Christians believe that those people who are not saved before they die will be punished in hell forever. But is this what the Bible truly teaches? Do Christians need to rethink their understanding of hell? In the late twentieth century, a growing number of evangelical theologians, biblical scholars, and philosophers began to reject the traditional doctrine of eternal conscious torment in hell in favor of a minority theological perspective called conditional immortality. This view contends that the unsaved are resurrected to face divine judgment, just as Christians have always believed, but due to the fact that immortality is only given to those who are in Christ, the unsaved do not exist forever in hell. Instead, they face the punishment of the "second death"--an end to their conscious existence. This volume brings together excerpts from a variety of well-respected evangelical thinkers, including John Stott, John Wenham, and E. Earl Ellis, as they articulate the biblical, theological, and philosophical arguments for conditionalism. These readings will give thoughtful Christians strong evidence that there are indeed compelling reasons for rethinking hell.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1876.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 edition. Excerpt: ... INTRODUCTION. 'T'HE Bible was once supposed to give authoritative instruc-"-tion on some subjects on which it is now generally conceded to be silent. It was once supposed that the Bible taught a theory of the universe at variance with the Copernican astronomy. The true pattern of civil government has also been regarded as exhibited in the laws of Moses. But the progress of enlightened views respecting the application of the Bible to the subjects of human study has uniformly been in the direction of contraction. It has gradually been learned that the Bible was not given to teach all truth whatsoever, but merely all truth needful for our salvation from sin. The general question respecting the relations of the Bible to Science seems destined to receive fresh illustration in the discussion of "Eternal Punishment." It is a fit question for any reverent student of the Bible to propose, whether the Bible was intended to teach us about Eternity any more than about the Universe; whether an infinite duration is not as much beyond the Bible's actual scope as an infinite space; whether the Bible really designs more than to conduct us to the verge of a mysterious infinitude, leaving all the possibilities of the apparently boundless sea, upon which it bids us took and ponder, to be solved by our experience. While this Essay deals largely with the inquiry, whether the original language of the Bible respecting the future state has been correctly interpreted, yet taking our English Version, so excellent in the main, precisely as it stands, a question of the highest moment demands answer. A thoughtful reader, ignorant of every language but his mother English, and declining to enter into vexed questions of the interpretation of Greek and Hebrew terms, can...