More Book Reviews - Center Church / Preaching and Preachers / And the Lamb Wins

I don't post book reviews here often enough. So here are some quick reviews of three good books I've read recently.

Center Church - Timothy Keller

Keller (senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian, New York) is one of the most influential writers on theology and church at the moment, certainly in the Reformed world. And this is the closest he has come to a magnum opus. It's essentially a 400-odd page textbook on what it means to be and do church in the specific context of city-centre ministry in a global city. I'm not there, and I don't agree with Keller on everything, but if this was a course when I was at theological college, it would have been one of the best and most helpful courses on offer. He outlines different views on just about everything, shows where the tensions are, and usually shows how to plot a third way (or a fifth way) between them.

Genuinely helpful on big-picture stuff; really clearly laid out; genuinely brilliant. There's quite a bit of stuff that can't really be put into practice when you don't have a congregation of at least hundreds including talented artists (and there's not much on how to deal with having enthusiastic but not-talented amateurs), but there's lots of stuff that is helpful in my context and at painting a vision for why and how Redeemer has done what it's done, it's great.

Preaching and Preachers - Martyn Lloyd-Jones

The way I remember it, a few years ago someone did a survey of which books on preaching today's most respected preachers valued, and this one came top despite having been out of print for 20 years. So now it's back in print, sprinkled with essay-length commendations and appreciations from the likes of John Piper.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones's book was originally a series of lectures he gave on preaching in the late 60s, and the only book it really compares to is Spurgeon's Lectures to my Students. (For what it's worth, I'd rate Spurgeon slightly above P&P, but only slightly). Preachers & Preaching is like having a brilliant but utterly eccentric tutor. If you listen to him, you'll learn a lot, but some of what he says is quite batty. He has strong opinions on almost every imaginable topic, some of which are just odd (views on the shape of the roof of buildings and how it affects spiritual health of the congregation) and some of which are challenging and thought-provoking but probably wrong (why it is wrong to debate atheists).

I can see why so many great preachers value this book so highly though. It's really good, despite the quirky bits, and I've really been encouraged, challenged and built up by reading it! Strongly recommended...

And the Lamb Wins - Simon Ponsonby

This is a book-length version of Simon's St Aldate's School of Theology sessions on eschatology and the end times. It's clearly aimed at a bright undergraduate-level audience - he gives the histories of different theories on the millennium, for example. But if you can cope with that, it's very readable and a clear overview of a number of different aspects of end-times debate. He interacts with most of the main schools of thought, gives his own opinions and backs them up well. He probably succeeded in slightly changing my opinion on Israel, for example.

There are a couple of other areas I'd like to have seen him interact with - the nature of the final judgement for example, whether there is just one or two (works & faith?). But overall this is just about the best, sanest, most Biblically faithful handling of the end times I've read. I recently compared it with Randy Alcorn's Heaven, for example, and Alcorn is better on Heaven itself, but Ponsonby is clearer, more detailed and more rigorous in just about every other respect.

Yet More Wordle

Continuing on from my last post, here are some more Wordle images from the text of the ESV translation of the Bible. I'm using the ESV because it's fairly literal - so it gives you a good idea of what the underlying words are in Hebrew and Greek. Although I'd rather use a translation which is gender-neutral when the underlying text is gender-neutral, the ESV is much more readily available in electronic format than the NRSV.

Anyway, here's a Wordle image for the gospels:

And here's Paul's letters:

Here's one for the rest of the New Testament:

Which can be subdivided into the General Letters:

And Revelation:

Here's one for the whole NT:

Hell - Getting a Balance

Overview of my stuff about Hell.

Last time I wrote about Hell, I showed that one of the extended pictures the Bible uses for Hell is eternal conscious torment. But it's important that we don't leave it at that - that we teach the "full counsel of Scripture". Because there's another important picture...

"As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me," declares the LORD, "so will your name and descendants endure. From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all people will come and bow down before me," says the LORD. "And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to the whole human race."
Isaiah 66:22-24, TNIV

We get the same picture repeated in Revelation 22:1-6 and 14-15. Inside the city is the tree of life and those who have been forgiven - who have "washed their robes" (v14). Outside are those who have not been forgiven, excluded from the tree of life and hence from eternal life.

This is the same picture as we get from thinking about the Bible's teaching on resurrection. It teaches both that everyone will be raised from the dead (Daniel 12:1-2) and that resurrection for the believer is participation in Christ's resurrection, who rose with a greater body than he had before, never to die again (1 Corinthians 15). So what does that mean for the unbeliever?

Because the Bible gives two different pictures, it is clear that at least one of them is metaphorical (incidentally, they broadly correspond to eternal conscious torment and to annihilationism). So we can see something useful if we compare the two pictures and see what is common to both.

In both, there is continued existence for the unsaved. In one case, as suffering prisoners; in the other as corpses. That is why the argument that the Lake of Fire is described as the "second death" doesn't imply annihilation - death isn't annihilation; it is the conversion of a living body into a dead body. It therefore seems only fair to say that the final state of the unsaved will be that they still exist, but only as the ruins of their former selves. This links back to what I wrote earlier about the final ruined state of the unsaved.

In both, there is shame and disgrace that lasts forever.

In one of them, God is present; in the other, they are excluded from God's presence. It seems fair to say, then, that they will be reduced to the stage where they cannot be conscious of God's presence - they will have lost the last remnants of the image of God.

At the end, all people will worship God, because the others will not be people any more.

Why I am not an Annihilationist

Overview of my stuff about Hell.

In my recent essay on Hell, despite the fact that a lot of the arguments are inconclusive, I ended up concluding that annihilationism (the belief that those who aren't saved eventually cease to exist) probably doesn't fit with what the Bible says. This is why.

John Wenham, a noted annihilationist, says that Revelation 14:9-11 is “the most difficult passage” for his point of view. It's also very hard-hitting.

And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, "If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshippers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name."
Revelation 14:9-11, ESV

Lots of scholars, particularly annihilationists, link the smoke going up for ever to the destruction of Edom in Isaiah 34:9-10. Greg Beale, who wrote quite possibly the best commentary on Revelation summarises:

The image of continually ascending smoke in Isaiah 34 serves as a memorial of God's annihilating punishment for sin, the message of which never goes out of date... Therefore, the imagery of Rev. 14:10-11 could indicate a great judgement that will be remembered forever, not one that leads to eternal suffering.

However, Beale eventually rejects this point of view on the grounds of the parallels with Revelation 20:10, where there is clearly everlasting conscious torment, at least for Satan (see later), and because of the “torment” - the word is basanismos, which is never used of annihilation.

Therefore ... “the smoke of torment” is a mixed metaphor, with “smoke” figurative of an enduring memorial of God's punishment involving a real, ongoing, eternal, conscious torment.

...

It is not the smoke of a completed destruction, but “smoke of their torment.” The nature of the torment is explained in the second part of v11: it is not annihilation but lack of rest.

I honestly cannot see a way of reading Revelation 14:9-11 in its entirety which is compatible with annihilationism. Some people (e.g. Fudge) note the smoke rising forever, but don't really consider the fact that it's the smoke of their torment. Others (e.g. Powys) see Revelation 14:9-11 as a hypothetical threat for those who go back on their belief in Jesus, but which God would never actually carry out. I cannot find anyone who comes up with a credible interpretation of this passage which doesn't involve some form of eternal conscious tormented existence for at least some of the unsaved.

The other really important passage here is the idea of the Lake of Fire in Revelation 19-21.

and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
Revelation 20:10, ESV

Gomes writes of this:

By juxtaposing the words “day and night” with “for ever and ever” in 20:10, we have the most emphatic expression of unending ceaseless activity possible in the Greek language.

Even Fudge admits that this seems to be everlasting conscious torment, though he argues that while the lake of fire torments the devil, for people, the lake of fire is annihilation, basing this on its description as the “second death” (20:14, 21:8). He argues that the Beast is an abstraction, though fails to describe what it means for an abstraction to be tormented “day and night, forever and ever.” However, as Pawson points out, it seems that at least one human – the False Prophet – does indeed suffer everlasting conscious torment.

Also thrown into the Lake of Fire are Death and Hades (20:14), anyone whose name is not written in the Book of Life (20:15) and various groups of sinners who are excluded from the New Jerusalem (21:8). It also seems that Fudge's argument that the Lake of Fire is immediate annihilation does not work. The Beast and the False Prophet are thrown into the Lake of Fire in Revelation 19:20, and are still there in 20:10, where they are joined by the devil and will be tortured for ever. Those who are excluded from the New Jerusalem and the Book of Life are thrown in in 20:15. In Revelation 21:8, we are told that their “part” will be in the lake of fire. And in Revelation 22:15, they still seem to exist, simply “outside”.

Although we need to be careful when drawing concrete conclusions from a book which uses language in such a non-concrete way, it does indeed seem that Revelation teaches some form of continued existence for the unsaved, even some form of eternal conscious torment.

Oh, and the other solid argument is that almost no-one is on record as believing annihilationism from AD 150 to 1650. As doctrines go, it looks like a late innovation to me...