The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

VIII. Birmingham’s Major—Fire Unextinguishable Consumes Its Victims

Anglican Canon H. D. A. MAJOR, ⁷⁸ of Birmingham Cathedral, England, is similarly emphatic in maintaining that the Bible does not teach that man is indestructible by nature. Thus he writes of the “eternal fire” of Mark 9:43-49—concerning the fate of the irreformably wicked: CFF2 823.3

“The phrase Gehenna, which is used here symbolically, is derived from a notable passage with which Isaiah concludes (66”). CFF2 823.4

“In this passage the Old Testament prophet predicts the abhorred fate of the apostates. Having been slain, their bodies shall lie amidst heaps of corrupting refuse in the desecrated Valley of Hinnom. This valley, which had formerly been used in the period of the later kings of Judah as the scene of child sacrifice, had been deliberately desecrated in the period after the return from the Exile. The sewage of Jerusalem was cast there. There the corrupting worm crawled and fires were kept continually burning for the purpose of destroying the refuse. CFF2 823.5

“The word Gehenna is an actual transliteration of the Hebrew phrase, Valley of Hinnom. Unquenchable fire does not mean fire which burns for ever, but fire which cannot be extinguished until that which it has taken hold of is utterly consumed. The undying worm is not the symbol of a soul which cannot die, but is the symbol of corruption which cannot be purged.” ⁷⁹ CFF2 823.6

In this way God will “dismiss them from existence,” as it has been effectively phrased. CFF2 824.1

Thus we have heard from more Anglican, Lutheran, and Wesleyan spokesmen in Britain and on the Continent. CFF2 824.2