The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

II. Comprehensive Witness of Scrolls on Man’s Nature and Destiny

It is now desirable to check the Qumran scrolls systematically with a view to tracing their unique witness on Conditionalism. We shall accordingly follow this aspect through consecutively, with documentation. If there is some repetition of thought in the several parts, this cumulative witness will but enforce the preponderance of the position maintained. CFF1 746.1

1. SINNERS “PERISH”; RIGHTEOUS “DESTINED” FOR “LIFE ETERNAL.”

The “Zadokite [or Damascus] Document”—another copy of which had previously been discovered in 1896 in a Cairo synagogue, and dated about 176 B.C. which is here cited, speaks (i, i-ii, 12) of God’s sparing a “remnant,” not consigning them “to utter extinction.” ²² (The Gaster translation is followed in all quotations.) ²³ In contrast, on “God’s judgment on the wicked” (ii, 2-13, 14-iii, 12), the Document speaks of their “pre-determined” end, and how the ancient sinners “perished,” and “became as though they had never been.” ²⁴ On the contrary, of the “righteous remnant” (iii, 12iv, 6) it says, “They that hold fast unto Him are destined for life eternal.” ²⁵ This position is sustained throughout the scrolls. CFF1 746.2

2. RIGHTEOUS STAND IN GOD’S PRESENCE FOREVER

In the “Hymn of the Initiants” (Manual of Discipline, cols. x-xi), exulting in the “Most High” as the “Fountain of all knowledge, Spring of holiness, Zenith of all glory, Might omnipotent,” ²⁶ the writer declares that “with God lies the judgment of all living, and He it is will award each man his deserts.” Note is then taken of the “Day of Requital” (note 23: “Doomsday”) for the reprobate. ²⁷ However, for the righteous God has - “chosen to posses (sic) them for ever. He has given them an inheritance in the lot of the Holy Beings, ... a fabric of holiness, a plant evergreen, for all time to come.” ²⁸ CFF1 746.3

On the contrary, the writer says his sins condemn him to “communion with... all that walk in darkness.” He adds, “For a mortal’s way is [not] of himself,” the “judgment lies with God.” ²⁹ And this is in contrast with “the favor which Thou hast assured to all the mortal elect, to stand in Thy presence for ever.” ³⁰ Then he asks, “What is mere mortal man amid Thy wondrous works?” And he answers, “He is but a molded shape, a thing nipped out of the clay, whose attachment is but to the dust.” ³¹ CFF1 747.1

3. MAN CREATED FOR ETERNITY

In the first psalm of thanksgiving (I, 5-39), God is portrayed as, in creation, calling into being “spirits immortal” in “the form of holy angels,” assigned to guide in the preservation of the order of the universe. ³² “So too” with “man,” he observes; he was “shapen of clay”—a favorite expression. He too was created “for all the days of time and for ages infinite”—“for all the years of eternity.” ³³ But, alas, he became sinful and polluted, “a spirit errant and wayward,” and thus coming under judgment. Then come the interesting words: CFF1 747.2

“All things are inscribed before Thee in a recording script, for every moment of time, for the infinite cycles of years .... No single thing is hidden, naught missing from Thy presence.” ³⁴ CFF1 747.3

But through God’s “lovingkindness” provision is made for the “spirit of man” to be “cleansed” of sin’s “taint,” that God’s “wonders may be shown forth.” ³⁵ There will be a “just sentence upon him.” ³⁶ CFF1 747.4

4. NO “ESCAPE” FOR WICKED IN “FINAL DOOM.”

In Hymn 6 (III, 19-36), the hymnodist thanks God because He has “taken a spirit distorted by sin, and purged it of the taint of much transgression, and given it a place in the host of the holy beings,” and “made a mere man [“molded of clay”] to share the lot of the Spirits of Knowledge.” ³⁷ But he notes how, for those caught in the “nets of wickedness” and “corruption,” there is—“no hope of escape; when the hour of judgment strikes, when the lot of God’s anger is cast upon the abandoned, when His fury is poured forth upon dissemblers, when the final doom of His rage falls on all worthless things; when the torrents of Death do swirl, and there is none escape.” ³⁸ CFF1 747.5

Reference is then made to “rivers of Belial“: CFF1 748.1

“Rivers that are like fire which sweeps with flaming sparks devouring all that drink their waters—a fire which consumes all foundations of clay, every solid bedrock; when the foundations of the mountains become a raging blaze, when granite roots are turned to streams of pitch, when the flame devours down the great abyss, when the floods of Belial burst forth unto hell itself.” ³⁹ CFF1 748.2

Then, he continues, “God thunders forth,” and—“the hosts of heaven give forth their voice, and the world’s foundations rock and reel; when warfare waged by the soldiers of heaven sweeps through the world and turns not back until final doom—warfare the like of which has never been.” ⁴⁰ CFF1 748.3