In my many discussions (and sometimes quite fevered arguments) with Infernalists, Matthew 25: 41, in which Jesus tells the wicked to depart from Him into everlasting fire is brought up. I cannot tell you how many times I have had this verse thrown in my face as an ultimate response. The only problem is that non-Greek speaking translators have done a disservice to this verse, and all who read, it by translating the Greek word “aionios” to mean everlasting or eternal. There is a specific Greek word for eternal, which is “adidios.” It is used only twice in the NT.

The word aionios comes from the root word “aion,” which means “age.” This is just one of many places in the Bible where agenda appears to have driven the translation. Infernalists  insist the word aionios must always mean “eternal.” Dr. Illaria Ramelli, in her massive work on Apokatastasis, has argued that the proper understanding of aionios in this passage is “age-long” or “age-lasting.”

Young’s Literal Translation of the New Testament reads: “Then shall he say also to those on the left hand, go ye from me, the cursed, to the fire, the age-during, (aionios) that hath been prepared for the Devil and his messengers;”

Infernalists will immediately point to Matthew 25: 46 in disbelief and say, “So you mean that the life that the righteous get is not everlasting, but only age-lasting?” Yes, that is exactly what it says. Not understanding the Greek language and the use of adjectives, you have been taught to think of this verse as promising eternal life, but the context and the Greek of Matthew 25 will not support this:

What might the necessary exploration of the question of eternal damnation look like? We begin, as always, with Holy Scripture and specifically with our Lord’s parable on the Last Judgment in Matthew 25 (always the first text raised), with careful attention to v. 46 and the semantic range of two critical words—aionion and kolasis. In most English translations aionion is typically translated as “eternal” and kolasis as “punishment”:

“And these will depart into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (RSV). But aionion might also be plausibly rendered “age-during” and kolasis “chastisment”:And these shall be coming away into chastening eonian, yet the just into life eonian. (Concordant Literal New Testament)

And these shall go away to punishment age-during, but the righteous to life age-during. (Young’s Literal Translation)

And these will go to the chastening of that Age, but the just to the life of that Age. (David Bentley Hart New Testament Translation)

How then do we decide? Only by in-depth study of the myriad eschatologies of Second Temple Judaism and the New Testament. This is the kind of research that was unavailable to the patristic and medieval Fathers. It is a complex subject, and definitive answers may be impossible. Most certainly we will be left with probabilities, with each scholar reaching his or her own judgments about the eschatological beliefs of Jesus.

Kimel, “Dogma, Damnation and the Eucatastrophe of the Jesus Story.” Para. 35

It is important to realize that Matthew chapters 23–25 is a discourse about the end of the Old Covenant age. Matthew 24:3 gives us a time signature which makes this clear.[1] It is not about the end of the world. This is a serious error in translation, one that has made people think for centuries that these chapters are about the end of all time–the end of the world. The Greek word translated world in 24:3 is aion. It always means age. A new age began in AD 70. Matthew 25 is speaking of the next in a succession of ages yet to come. How many? We do not know. We know that the Bible speaks of multiple ages to come as in verses like Ephesians 2:7 “That in the ages (aion) to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”

Another mistranslation is found in Revelation 22:5 “And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.”

But Young’s Literal Translation says, “And night shall not be there, and they have no need of a lamp and light of a sun, because the Lord God doth give them light, and they shall reign–to the ages of the ages.” (aion ho aion)

Why are these things important? Because a wrong translation of a passage in the Bible creates a wrong impression of what is happening or going to happen. Thus, when Christ is speaking about the end of the age, it does not mean that the punishment is eternal. It means what it says in Greek, that the punishment is “age-lasting.” All the passages in the Bible which speak of “eternal punishment” or “eternal torment” are really speaking of a punishment which lasts for an age – “aionios.” And this dovetails with what Christ said about the duration of punishment for sinners:

Matthew 18: 34 And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due. 35 So shall also my heavenly Father do unto you, if ye forgive not every one his brother from your hearts.

There is another passage I would like to unpack. This passage, in my opinion, points to Universal Restoration – IF you ask the right questions and come to the right conclusions:

First Corinthians 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming. 24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. 27 For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. 28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

First Corinthians 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (If all are subject to death by virtue of the action of one man, then reasonably what this means is an equal restoration of that done by Adam, in which all are made alive)

23 But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming. (Now we see an order of finishing this restoration. This order suggests a succession of ages upon ages until the end is reached. Christ, the Last Adam, is made alive at His Resurrection. Those who are His are next to enter into life at His coming. This shows that there is a separation which takes place between the wicked [tares, bad fish] and the righteous [wheat, good fish]. While the righteous are enjoying the bliss of their good choice while alive, what of the wicked? They enter the smelting furnace of the Lord’s fiery love. All that is in them that is wood, hay, straw, that which is worthless, is painfully burned away. This is the next age, the one we are in now, which began with the destruction of Jerusalem.)

24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. (When does the end come? Infernalists will put all these verses together, making this one final act of God at the end of time. I believe this is wrong.)

25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. (It cannot end until this happens. All enemies are brought to subjection to Him. Who are these enemies? The next verse gives us a clue.)

26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. (Death is an enemy. It is, in fact, the primary enemy of God, for God did not create all that is with the view that death should be a part of the life which He has created. Death is against life, and life is the very being of God.

The Infernalists will respond by saying that this verse proves their point, because sinners are enemies who must be destroyed. Are we His enemies? No, we are His children–all of us. Even those who have falsely given themselves over to being children of the wicked one by their embrace of sin. Using the analogy of life on earth, even if I give myself over to another family, the blood of my family of origin runs in my veins, and no matter how far I stray from them, I am still ontologically part of the family which brought me to life. The same is true of humanity. God gives life to every person. We are all His children.)

27 For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. (This is a picture of subjection, such as a king would exercise over His subjects. Or a father over his family. To say all things indicates everyone and everything. Now how, I ask you Infernalists, are all things under His feet if there exists an eternal hell where throughout eternity sinners will curse God, wish Him dead, and have unfulfilled desire to commit sin? Is that a true picture of submission?)

28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. (All things subdued unto Him. According to this verse, there is no eternal hell in which the sinner curses God [thus forever continuing in sin] and exists in a state of perpetual rebellion. St. Paul says “when” because there is an unknown amount of time which will be needed to bring even the most hardened sinner to repentance, and to pay the last farthing of justice for the evil deeds done in this lifetime. An eternal hell filled with rebellious sinners is not in any way an example of being “subdued unto Him.” If you think it is, then you don’t understand basic language and the meaning of words.)

I cannot think of a more frustrating response to deal with when discussing Apokatastasis than that of people changing words to suit their agenda. It is as if red only means red if they want it to, but when defending eternal conscious torment, sometimes red really means green.

This is most egregious when dealing with Infernalists who love to pull out verses which they think prove the tired old saying, “Jesus talked more about hell than anyone else.” Jesus didn’t speak about hell at all, at least, not in the modern understanding of a place of eternal, burning fire. He spoke about two places which are dishonestly translated in the Bible as hell–Gehenna, and Hades. Gehenna and Hades each have a distinct meaning, and it is not hell as defined by Infernalists.

When confronted, these folks will earnestly say, “Well, Jesus may not have used the exact word hell, but that’s what He meant.” Hogwash! Jesus had a habit of using language in precisely the way it was to be understood. When He said that we must eat His Flesh and drink His Blood, He lost most of His disciples as they turned away in confusion and disgust. He would not have used Gehenna to speak about the next life. Either Sheol or Hades would have been the proper word to use. And none of these words were understood to mean the Medieval understanding of a place where sinners are “immersed in the boiling blood forever, each according to the degree of his guilt.” Infernalists can be annoyingly like Humpty Dumpty in Alice’s Wonderland: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.” And some Infernalists are quite scornful as they explain to you that even if the word Gehenna doesn’t directly mean hell, that is what Christ nonetheless intended.

Jesus was speaking to Jews, not to Roman emperors or twenty-first century evangelicals. His language therefore is to be understood in the common understanding of the day, not as we wish to see it, nor as it has been so mangled by punishment-minded clerics laboring under wretched translations of the Scriptures, or with an agenda to fulfill. When Jesus spoke, He expected those listening to Him would understand as Jews. Thus, if He was speaking about the afterlife, He would have spoken in the context of Jewish teaching and understanding at that time and would have spoken about Sheol or Hades, not about the garbage dump of Jerusalem. In addition, whenever errors, corruption of text, or plain old misunderstanding had crept into the public discourse about life and God, He corrected them. He did this elsewhere, yet for such a critical issue as one’s eternal destiny, He is strangely silent. I see nowhere He corrects the Jewish understanding of the next life and tells them to beware because there is an eternal hell of fiery torment. No Jew listening to Jesus speak of Gehenna would have thought of Dante’s lurid descriptions of the next life for the wicked.

Let’s ask a Jew what Sheol means to them:

There are, however, several biblical references to a place called Sheol (cf. Numbers 30, 33). It is described as a region “dark and deep,” “the Pit,” and “the Land of Forgetfulness,” where human beings descend after death. The suggestion is that in the netherworld of Sheol, the deceased, although cut off from God and humankind, live on in some shadowy state of existence. While this vision of Sheol is rather bleak (setting precedents for later Jewish and Christian ideas of an underground hell) there is generally no concept of judgment or reward and punishment attached to it. In fact, the more pessimistic books of the Bible, such as Ecclesiastes and Job, insist that all of the dead go down to Sheol, whether good or evil, rich or poor, slave or free man (Job 3:11-19).[6]

Rose, “Heaven and Hell in Jewish Tradition.” Para. 3–4.

In looking at Scripture and the Early Fathers, we see that the Greek speaking Fathers were the ones who predominantly understood that “aionios” means “age-lasting.” As such, they were the ones who taught Apokatastasis, while the Western, Latin-speaking Fathers went with Eternal Conscious Torment because they mistranslated the Scriptures. This is no small matter. Proper Scripture interpretation, both of the Greek and of the intent of the speaker, is critical. When the Scriptures say that the intent of God is to save all, where is the justification for creating verses which give the intent of God to damn the majority of people who ever lived? There must be a cohesive theme to the narrative we read.

What is that cohesive theme by which we should read the entirety of the Bible? It begins in Genesis 3 with the promise that God is going to send a Redeemer to rescue mankind from its separation from God and death. The whole of the Scriptures points to the coming of the One who will accomplish this. The end of the Scriptures sees the New Jerusalem opening its gates and inviting all to enter. The whole theme as shown in Christ’s life is that God is love. He never turned away anyone who came to Him for healing (“. . . and he healed them all.”)

It appears that in Western theology, (Roman Catholicism and Protestantism) the entire theme of the Bible is that God is pissed and you better duck! You are a wicked sinner, not a child of God, and everyone who has sinned is in deep trouble. God have mercy on you if you actually dare think He is loving enough to forgive and save everyone, even though passages such as Romans 5: 12-19 directly and unashamedly teach this.

Infernalism destroys that cohesiveness and makes a division between the act of God on the Cross to save all and the act of God at Judgment to damn the majority of us.

[1] And when he is sitting on the mount of the Olives, the disciples came near to him by himself, saying, ‘Tell us, when shall these be? and what is the sign of thy presence, and of the full end of the age?’