The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

V. Fate of Wicked Is Final Annihilation

1. DISTINGUISHES BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL

We now come to one of two instances where it is claimed that Irenaeus teaches the later view of the immortality of the soul. Chapter seven deals with the resurrection of the flesh. After telling how Christ rose in “the substance of the flesh,” as attested by “the marks of the nails and the opening in His side,” Irenaeus affirms that He shall also “raise us up by His own power,” and adds that He will “also quicken your mortal bodies.” Then he declares immediately: CFF1 899.1

“What, then, are mortal bodies? Can they be souls? Nay, for souls are incorporeal when put in comparison with mortal bodies; for God ‘breathed into the face of man the breath of life, and man became a living soul.’ Now the breath of life is an incorporeal thing. And certainly they cannot maintain that the very breath of life is mortal. Therefore David says, ‘My soul also shall live to Him,’ just as if its substance were immortal.” ⁵⁸ CFF1 899.2

Irenaeus proceeds to contrast the “spirit” with the “mortal body,” which later in death “is decomposed.” “For to die is ... to become henceforth breathless, inanimate, and devoid of motion, and to melt away into those [component parts] from which also it derived the commencement of [its] substance.” But this is not true of “soul, for it is the breath of life; nor to the spirit” for it is “the life of those who receive it.” Wherefore it is the “mortal” body which is “decomposed gradually into the earth from which it is taken,” ⁵⁹ and which is quickened, or resurrected, in incorruption. just as a “grain of wheat, is sown in the earth and decays,” so our bodies, “through the Spirit’s instrumentality,” rise and come forth to “perpetual life.” ⁶⁰ Then “our face shall see the face of the Lord (note 9: Grabe, Massuet, and Stieren prefer to read, “the face of the living God”), and shall rejoice with joy unspeakable.” ⁶¹ CFF1 899.3

Irenaeus is so lucid that he cannot be misunderstood. CFF1 899.4

2. IRENAEUS’ DEFINITION OF DEATH

Several chapters amplify but do not add to what Irenaeus has said. In chapter twenty-seven he deals with “The Future Judgment by Christ,” and “The Eternal Punishment of Unbelievers.” Adverting to the parable of the tares, in which the wicked are burned up with “unquenchable fire,” and to the parable of the sheep and the goats, in which the goats are sent “into everlasting [aionion] fire, which has been prepared by His Father for the devil and his angels,” ⁶² Irenaeus then gives this definition of “death“: CFF1 900.1

“Separation from God is death, and separation from light is darkness; and separation from God consists in the loss of all the benefits which He has in store. Those, therefore, who cast away by apostasy these forementioned things, being in fact destitute of all good, do experience every kind of punishment. God, however, does not punish them immediately of Himself, but that punishment falls upon them because they are destitute of all that is good. Now, good things are eternal and without end with God, and therefore the loss of these is also eternal and never-ending.” ⁶³ CFF1 900.2

3. SECOND DEATH—HELL, LAKE OF FIRE, ETERNAL FIRE

This “eternal (aionion) fire,” frequently alluded to, is in chapter twenty-eight explained as the final “lake of fire.” ⁶⁴ And in chapter twenty-five Irenaeus equates “hell,” the “lake of fire,” and “eternal fire,” which he previously stated has been “prepared for every kind of apostasy.” Thus: “‘And death and hell were sent into the lake of fire, the second death.’ Now this is what is called Gehenna, which the Lord styled eternal fire.” ⁶⁵ CFF1 900.3

4. FINAL ANNIHILATION OF THE WICKED

Some have claimed that when Irenaeus here, and elsewhere, refers to aionion fire and aionion punishment, he means Eternal Torment, and not destruction. But such overlook the definitive declarations of Irenaeus’ systematic coverage, which show conclusively that by aionion punishment he did not mean eternal punishing, but rather punishment in the world to come that ends in cessation of being. The first death cuts man off from a life of but few years’ duration—a life that is due to die. But the second death cuts the sinner off from eternal life, and is consequently an eternal death. This is attested by Dr. Philip Schaff, who states Irenaeus’ position impressively: CFF1 900.4

“It is therefore the more remarkable that the doctrine of future eternal punishment was not taught ... so far as we know, nor the doctrine of universal restoration; but on the other hand, the doctrine of the final annihilation of the wicked was clearly taught by so eminent a man as Irenaeus.” ⁶⁶ CFF1 901.1

And Edward Beecher, after recording a similar conclusion, remarks on the “very great reluctance in the ranks of the orthodox, in modern times, to concede that he was a defender of the doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked.” ⁶⁷ CFF1 901.2

Dean Frederic W. Farrar likewise adds that Irenaeus— CFF1 901.3

“uses the phrase ‘eternal punishment,’ or ‘eternal fire,’ as all use those phrases who accept the Bible; and in one passage he says that ‘the good things of God, being eternal and endless, the privation of them also is eternal and endless.’ Certainly this passage shows his opinion that the ‘pain of loss’ (as we all believe) may be eternal and endless.” ⁶⁸ CFF1 901.4

5. FRUITION OF ALL HOPES AND PROVISIONS

Then, in the new heaven and new earth of Revelation 20, to follow, there will be no more death, or sorrow, or pain, for all those things will have passed away forever. He cites Isaiah 65 as referring to the same new heaven and new earth, in which there will henceforth be “no remembrance of the former, neither shall the heart think about them.” In this present earth “the righteous are disciplined beforehand for incorruption and prepared for salvation.” At that glad day the redeemed “truly rise from the dead, and not allegorically.” “Disciplined beforehand for incorruption” they actually rise in glorious incorruption and immortality at that time. ⁶⁹ Such was Irenaeus’ concept of life, death, and destiny—most explicit of the Early Church Fathers. CFF1 901.5