Conditional Immortality, Soul Sleep and Annihilationism
Let my soul live, and it shall praise You; And let Your judgments help me. (Psalm 119:175 NKJV). In a long acrostic poem which mostly praises the word of God, an unknown psalmist asks the LORD to keep him alive, so that he can continue praising him, and continue learning from him. It seems a [...]
One of the earliest texts that we conditionalists turn to for support of our outlandish theories about human mortality is Genesis 3:22. Some modern translations treat the text as God making a prohibition against human access to the tree of life: “And the LORD God said, “Now that the man has become like one of [...]
Psalm 37 David encourages his listeners to realize that even though they will face adversaries, they should not worry, because all God’s enemies will eventually be destroyed. Soon they will be “no more” (10,36). Evil has no future in God’s universe. This is not a guarantee that we will never suffer in this life. It [...]
Qohelet קֹהֶלֶת , the Hebrew name the author of Ecclesiastes gives himself, wrote that life was meaningless, that so much that goes on in the world just doesn’t make sense, and that our existence seems so fleeting as to make us wonder why we even bother. Depressing stuff! And yet, plenty of Christians have managed to find [...]
The nursery rhyme asks “What are little boys made of?” — and answers “Snips & snails & puppy dogs tails and such are little boys made of.”1 Little girls fare slightly better. They are made of “sugar and spice and everything nice.” No one believes that these statements reflect the actual chemical makeup of boys and [...]
“For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten” (Ecclesiastes 9:5 KJV). Ecclesiastes 9:5 has been used as a proof-text by conditionalists from the very beginning of the debate on the afterlife. With texts like [...]
One should always read the psalms with a view toward what the human writers are feeling. The psalms are – after all – poetry, and poetry of every age seeks to pass on emotions rather than mere facts. The psalms are also part of that body of scripture referred to as wisdom literature, which means [...]
“Into your Hands I commit my spirit.” David’s statement of trust in the midst of trial was so spiritually significant that the Lord Jesus himself quoted it on the cross. Later, Stephen quoted the same text at the moment of his own death by martyrdom. What does it mean to commit one’s spirit into God’s [...]
(Genesis 2:4-17) (This message was preached at Hamilton, New Zealand, Church of Christ on the 3rd April 2011) Related posts: It is appointed unto a man once to die A Poll: What happens to the unsaved when they die? A poll: What happens to Christians when they die? Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words [...]
The Bible uses both the Flood in Noah’s day and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah to illustrate the coming judgment. Jesus said, “For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would [...]
Here is the video from last year's conference. The transcript is here: Tracing the Road to Gehenna We should be videoing this year's conference … [Read More...]
