Moltmann on the Last Judgment
The debate on Calvinism and the Atonement continues over at the Thinklings Weblog, which is fast becoming one of my favourite regular reads. By way of my own investigation into the matter, I wrote this article which analysed the perspective of Anglican theologian Tom Smail. Next up is German theologian Jürgen Moltmann. Moltmann is one of my favourite theologians and whilst I don’t agree with everything he says, he is a fascinating writer. One of the most significant problems with much western atonement theology is that it is concerned only with the redemption of humanity, or even worse, with only the redemption of the soul, which will be transported off to heaven (or hell) for all eternity at death. Such thinking is not only unbiblical, but it also overlooks the importance of the bodily incarnation of Jesus and also of his bodily resurrection. Christian redemption is not only about the redemption of souls, but about the redemption of the whole of creation – unless resurrected humanity plans on spending eternity being homeless. I like Moltmann’s theology because he is committed to the recovery of the biblical idea of the restoration and renewing of creation as integral to God’s plan of salvation. He goes further than Smail’s commitment to a universal hope by being a dogmatic universalist, though he makes about as good a case as any I’ve heard.Anyhow, the main issue is limited atonement and double predestination, so that’s where I’ll start. All of Moltmann’s work is centred on eschatology, but I’m reading from his systematic theological volume on eschatology called The Coming of God, published in 1996.
The Last Judgement
Moltmann begins his argument by discussing Christian ideas about the Last Judgment:
“The expectation of a Last Judgement has always had a particular fascination for the imaginations of Christians. In medieval churches, we see the final judgement represented on the outside portals and in pictures inside: on the right hand side, angels carry the righteous away to the heaven of everlasting bliss; on the left devils drag the wicked into the hell of everlasting damnation; in the middle sits Christ on the judgement seat with the two-edged sword between his lips. In this great reckoning there are only two verdicts: eternal life or eternal death. Originally, hope for the Last Judgement was a hope cherished by the victims of world history, a hope that the divine justice would triumph over their oppressors and murderers. It was only after Constantine that Judgement – now orientated solely towards the perpetrators – was interpreted as a divine criminal tribunal where evil-doers were tried, and was understood as the prototype of imperial judicial power.” (p235)
Over the centuries, the idea of judgement became a terrifying and intimidating one. It became solely orientated towards the punishment of evil (or reward for those whose punishment Christ had taken in their place) and not towards the redemption and rescue of the world from sin and evil, leading to the making of all things new. Judgement was a negative message aimed at perpetrators, not a joyous occasion that anticipates the liberation of creation from its bondage to decay, or an end to suffering and death.
Protestant theology has strongly emphasised the Last Judgement, and focussed on the double outcome of it. Believers go into heavenly bliss, whilst unbelievers are thrown into the torments of hell. Is this though a correct way to think? Or are all in the end redeemed, all saved, and all things brought into the new creation? Behind this question is the question about God:
“Does God [as] creator, go with all his created beings into life, death and resurrection – or does God stand as judge over and against those he has created, detached and uninvolved, to pardon or condemn? How can the God who loves what he has created condemn not just what is evil, destructive and godless in created beings but also these created beings themselves?” (p236)
Moltmann rightly notes that all too often we go into discussion about judgement without first of all clearly establishing what judgement is, or far more importantly who the judge is. We are not going to be judged by god, but by Jesus Christ. By ‘god’ I mean a generic omnipotent cosmic Caesar who must uphold the law of the universe at all costs, but Christian ideas about God can never deal with such vague notion. When Christians talk about God, they are talking very particularly about Jesus Christ, and it is he who must shape our ideas of what God is like. To speak of a Christian God who is not like Jesus Christ is simply idolatry, because Christ reveals God completely in everything he does.
It is Christ then who will be the judge of the universe, so we can know our judge with a great deal more certainty. What might the justice of Christ look like? Here’s Moltmann:
“[If] Jesus is the judge, can he judge according to any other righteousness than the law which he himself manifested – the law of love for our enemies, and the acceptance of the poor, the sick, and sinners? Can the righteousness of which the Last Judgement serves be any other righteousness than the righteousness of God which creates justice and redeems, the righteousness to which the law and the prophets testify, and which the apostle Paul proclaimed in his Gospel as justifying righteousness?” (p236)
It seems quite simply illogical to talk about God’s law and justice being put into practice in any way other than that which he himself has done in Christ. How does Christ treat sinners? However he does so will be the way in which we are to understand God’s justice towards sinners. Moltmann continues:
“Does theology not involve the Christian faith in inward contradictions if what is expected of the great Judgment is something different from what God has revealed in Israel’s history and the history of Jesus Christ? And what is the ultimate purpose of the Last Judgment? If Judgment is just God’s great final reckoning with the sinners and the saints, then this Judgment would indeed be ‘the Last’. Or does it serve the revelation and establishment of God’s righteousness and justice among all people and all things, so that God can build his ‘new world’ on lasting justice, and can therefore create for eternal peace? In that case the Last Judgment would not be ‘the last’ that can be expected of God; it would only be the ‘last but one’. ‘The last’ would then be his kingdom, and the new creation of all things. Just as the first thing was not sin but the primal blessing given to creation, so judgment would then not be the last thing either. What would come last would be the final blessing of the new creation in which righteousness and justice dwells.” (Pp236-7)
For Moltmann, the thrust of biblical eschatology is not about a law-court at the end of time. Rather it is about the final deliverance of creation from sin and death, which God has already begun by raising Jesus from the dead. The final judgment is not simply a question of reward and punishment, but of making Christ’s justice and love manifest throughout all creation.
Universal salvation?
Moltmann then proceeds to tackle what he calls the oldest question in theology – the question of universalism. It is an eschatological question, not a question about the temporal present, and it is a question that must be answered christologically. Origen was an early universalist, though his teaching was banned by imperial edict. Ultimately, Augustine won the day with his idea that out of the lost, the massa perditonis, only a limited number of elect (numerus electorum) would be saved. This continued into Reformed teaching, with article 17 of the Augsburg Confession declaring that at the last day of judgement the ‘believers and elect’ would be welcomed into everlasting joy, and the ungodly would be consigned to hell eternal for punishment (quite what happens to creation in Luther’s system is never made clear, but that’s for another post.) The Anabaptist doctrine that the condemned would not be eternally tormented was rejected. The Heidelberg Catechism was similar in content:
“…to throw all his and mine enemies into everlasting pains, but to translate me with all his chosen unto himself, into celestial joys and everlasting glory.” (p238)
The doctrine of universalism re-emerged in the following centuries, but out of neither humanism nor mainline Protestantism, but out of early Pietism. The little-known biblical theologian Bengel affirmed the truth of the doctrine of apokatastasis (universal salvation). He did not deny the reality of last judgment, or heaven and hell, but said that everything serves only the consummation of God’s universal kingdom. Both the bliss of heaven and the torments of hell are aeonically limited. Once God is ‘all in all’, there will be no more hells. How can all things be united under Christ if part of creation remains hostile to him? How can death be swallowed up in victory if it retains its eternal hold on humanity?
These ideas continued in nineteenth-century German revivalism through the Blumhardt family of preacher-theologians (who were very influential on Barth). They affirmed the centrality of election, but that that it had as its goal not an exclusive soteriological privilege, but the restoration of all things.
It was under the influence of the Blumhardts, that Karl Barth gained the futurist orientation, as well as his later tendency towards salvation. In doing so Barth famously disagreed with his contemporary Emil Brunner, who saw judgement as having an eternal double outcome. He criticised Barth thusly:
“Barth goes far beyond all historical universalists. Scripture does not talk about universal reconciliation; it talks about judgment, and a double outcome of judgment: salvation or damnation. So the doctrine of universalism is a denial of judgment.”
Paul Althaus tried to mediate between Barth and Brunner, by arguing that Christian theology must maintain the possibility of being eternally lost, but also trust in the ability of God to put everything to rights. God’s purpose with unbelievers is a mystery. Gerhard Ebeling sided with Brunner and was deeply hostile to Barth’s position:
“The Bible speaks unanimously about a double outcome of the final event, using the symbols of heaven and hell…The idea of a universal redemption, the apokatastasis panton goes beyond what can be specifically said in the light of the situation before God…What the end of evil will be is as hidden from us as is the explanation of its origin.”
Moltmann does deal with the Biblical arguments pro and contra universalism in due course, but before discussing both sides he takes on board the objections of to both universalism and a double outcome of judgment. If one subscribes to a universalist point of view, then one may well ask what is the point in believing and being obedient at all? What is the point in proclaiming the Gospel, or being a Christian? On the other side there are also objections: why did God affirm all of his creation as good if he is going to damn parts of it anyway? If he has made humanity in his image, does he not also hate himself? If salvation is dependent on a person’s decision of faith, isn’t God then making his judgment dependent upon human beings in which case he is now dispensable?
The Biblical arguments pro and contra universalism
In their arguments with Barth, Brunner and Ebeling appealed simply to the Bible as grounds for rejecting the doctrine of universalism, as Evangelical and fundamentalist theologians still do as they seek to be ‘true to the Bible’. Though the picture the bible presents is rather less black and white as we might like to think.
The expression apokatastasis panton occurs only in Acts 3:21, where it does not refer to universal salvation, and should not be interpreted as saying such (p240). Nevertheless, in Ephesians 1:10 we read (“to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth…”) and Colossians 1:20 (“to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.) In these passages we see that things in heaven are also reconciled to God – what or who could they be? Disobedient angels? Perhaps, but it is not only things in heaven that are reconciled through Christ, but also earthly things. “What is meant is nothing other than the restoration of all things, the homecoming of the universe in the form of what Irenaeus called the recapitulatio mundi.
The Christological hymn of Philippians 2 ends with a vision of glory where “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” If Christ rules over all, how can anything be lost? Additionally, Paul is writing from a historical perspective where Christ is (still) rejected and where humanity is largely rejecting his message of reconciliation, but ultimately this will not be the case, for everyone will acknowledge the lordship of Christ.
Similarly in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul’s great chapter on the resurrection (which contains no mention of the double outcome of judgment), he expounds the Adam Christology he later develops in Romans 5:18: (“As one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal for all men.”) by saying that “in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (15:22) Of course those who oppose such a view say that ‘all’ means only ‘all kinds’ which in these two cases would require one to perform some rather painful hermeneutical gymnastics. The universality of Adam’s sin is perfectly counterbalanced by the atoning work of Christ. To read the texts as “in Adam all (meaning everyone) die, in Christ all kinds of people (but not everyone) are made alive” is at best inconsistent and at worst dishonest. Likewise God has bound all men over to disobedience, that he have mercy on them all (Rom 11:32), although critics of Moltmann will point out rather hastily that he can be hermeneutically uncritical.
There are also of course a wealth of texts that support the double outcome of judgment rather than a universal restoration. Matt 7:13f distinguishes between the way of life and the way of destruction, Mark 16:16 speaks of the difference between those who are saved and those who are condemned, and Mark 9:45-48 talks about the unquenchable fire of hell. Matthew 25 also speaks of the wise and foolish virgins before speaking of the judgment by the Son of Man. To those on his left he says: “Depart from me you cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” But to those on his right he says “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world.” Though interestingly it is the Kingdom that was prepared from the foundation of the world, not the eternal fire.
These are of course not all the texts that deal with the issue, but they are sufficient to say that one could argue for both universal salvation and a double outcome of judgment from the Bible, so how do we reconcile the two?
Moltmann first of all considers resolution in favour of universalism. There is certainly damnation, but is it eternal? (p242) The Greek word aionios and the Hebrew word olam, mean time without a fixed end – but not time in the absolute sense of Greek metaphysics. There are also plurals of the words (aionioes and olamim), which there cannot be for timeless eternity because timeless eternity exists only in the singular. Thus it is difficult to say that ‘eternal fire’ endures for ever. For aeons maybe, but not for all eternity.
He notes the asymmetry in Matthew 25:31-45 in support of this argument. It is the Kingdom that has been prepared since before the foundation of the world, not the fire, and there is no reason to think the fire will last as long as the Kingdom (p242). Moltmann also noted that the biblical term ‘lost’, used in Paul and John’s writings, is never used in the future tense, only in the present:
“This being so, we can conclude with Walter Micahelis that what is said about judgment, damnation and ‘everlasting death’ is aeonic, and belongs to the End-time; it is not meant in an ‘eternal’ sense. For eschatologically, against the horizon of the ultimate, it is penultimate. The ultimate, the last thing is: ‘Behold I make all things new’ (Rev 21:5). In the new creation of heaven and earth there will be no more death, neither ‘natural’ death, nor ‘the death of sin’ nor ‘everlasting death’.” (p242)
Having thus tried to resolve the tension in favour of universalism, Moltmann then outlines a possible resolution in favour of a double outcome of judgment. We are not free to wildly speculate about God’s plan; we are summoned simply to obedience and faith. The biblical message is the proclamation of the Gospel, with a call for humanity to respond in faith. Universalism would make the preaching of the Gospel and the appeal to faith completely superfluous, and “dissipates the finality of faith’s decision.” (p242) If one’s salvation is contingent upon one’s faith, then the universal statements must speak only of God’s intention to save all, not that all will actually be saved. This is of course very similar to the classical Arminian position, and crucially it has not God’s saving actions at the centre of salvation, but human beings. God intends to save all, but this will not be the outcome of history. The last word is had by human decision and not by God, thus the double outcome of judgment remains.
Moltmann has not tackled the Calvinist argument for a double outcome of judgement based on divine election and predestination at this point, but he does so in due course.
Theological arguments about universal salvation versus the double outcome of judgment
Having looked (not thoroughly enough in my view) at the biblical arguments pro and contra universalism, Moltmann then moves on to some more theological issues that both cases raise:
“What speaks against a double outcome of Judgment is the experience that God’s grace is more powerful than human sin. ‘But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more’ (Rom 5:20). In God himself, love outbalanced wrath, for God is angered by human sin not although he loves human beings but because he loves them. He says No to sin because he says Yes to the sinner. He says a temporal No because in eternity he has said Yes to human beings, as the beings he has created, and his image. He judges the sins of the world so as to save the world. ‘The Lord kills in order to bring life. He brings down to hell and out again.’ (1 Sam 2:6)”
It goes without saying that Moltmann disagrees with the traditional Protestant pessimism over human nature, not because humanity is not corrupt and depraved, but because God’s grace always exceeds human depravity. Humanity is to be affirmed because it is loved and created by God, but it cannot be affirmed as it stands because it is corrupted by sin and is swamped by God’s wrath, but:
“It is not his anger which is everlasting, but his grace. ‘His anger is but for a moment, and his favour is for a lifetime.’ (Ps 30:5). God hates the sin, not the sinner; he loves the sinner, not the sin, said Augustine. God’s judgment separates the sin from the person, condemns the sin and gives the person of the sinner a free pardon. The anger with which the righteous God condemns the unrighteousness which makes people cast themselves and this world into misery is nothing other than an expression of this passionate love.
For our problem, this means that the historical particularism of the divine election and rejection must serve the universalism of salvation. His ‘Last Judgment’ has no ‘double outcome’, but serves the universal establishment of the divine righteousness and justice, for the new creation of all things. The preponderance of God’s grace over his anger, which is experienced in faith, means that Judgment and the reconciliation of the universe are not antitheses.” (p243)
Here I think Moltmann resolves satisfactorily the apparent tensions between election and judgment, and between universality and particularity. There is no need to make judgment and universality opposites. God judgments throughout history are not made for the purpose of satisfying divine honour, or for retributive punishment. They are designed to put an end to sin and evil so that justice and righteousness may abound. God’s justice is to be hoped for because it annihilates injustice, it is not to be put off as the Evil Day at the end of history.
Counting against universalism is the fact that God makes it clear that he values faith, and that this is the means through which he has determined to save humanity. God’s grace is not an irresistible force of destiny, and neither is it a compulsive power that overrides human decision and will. Moltmann actually comes very close to Wesley when he says that:
“God’s grace…is the power of love which calls men and women to faith through the Gospel, and entices them to free decision. God saves human beings not by overpowering them but by convincing them.” (p244)
At the Last Judgment then, God will respond according to how people have believed – or not believed. God takes the decision of faith seriously, perhaps more seriously than universalism does. Universalism stresses the all-compassing scope of God’s saving sovereignty, but the biblical emphasis on the need for faith seems to suggest mutuality between human faith and divine initiative, not a one-sided universal saving action.
The question over the relationship between a double outcome judgment and universalism comes down to the issue of divine and human decisions. Universalism is supremely confident in God’s Yes to humanity and his desire to save all. Calvinism also has supreme confidence in God’s ability to do as he please, though it differentiates from universalism in that it believes God has decreed to only save some (and by logical extension, to damn others). I think it would be correct to say that apart from the ‘L’ in TULIP, Calvinism logically becomes dogmatic universalism.
On the other side, those who see human decision as being key to salvation, then eternal destiny and eternal salvation are ultimately in our own hands, and God’s role as judge is reduced simply to the status of executioner of our own free will, and heaven and hell are simply icons that endorse the all-importance of human free choice. Does Christ only become our saviour when we have made a decision of faith? If this is so, then we effectively save or damn ourselves. Of course such ideas are popular in the age of Enlightenment individualism where humans believe they are the masters of their own fate and the controllers of their own destiny.
Who then makes the decision of faith? The only Christian answer can be that it is God who first makes the decision to save, and anything we do is only in response to him. If it were we who decided and not God, how could we have any assurance of salvation at all? How could we stand confidently before God based on the weight of our decisions for or against him? We can only speak confidently about salvation because it is God at the centre of the decision making process.
For humanity the great turning away from disaster to new life took place in Jesus Christ, our salvation was won at Golgotha, not when we made our own decision of faith. Our decision of faith is still significant, because it incorporates into our lives what Christ has already done. “It is not faith that creates salvation, but salvation that creates faith.” (p245)
If the decision of faith were left to human beings, God would no longer be needed. Even if we decided against Christ and dug our own graves for eternity, humanity would still be their own gods:
“’Offer and acceptance’ is a frequently used formula which brings divine grace and human decision onto the same level. [This] turns God into the purveyor of a cheap offer in the religious supermarket of ours, which has set out on the road the ‘global marketing of everything’. The customer is king, says a German tag. So then the customer would be God’s king too.” (pp245-246)
Double predestination or God’s universal election?
If we can eliminate human decision as the determining factor in the final judgment and conclude that it is God’s decision that determines human salvation, the question essentially comes down to whether or not God has in fact elected all of humanity to be saved, leading to universalism, or whether or not he has elected to save only some while damning others, thus securing an eternal double outcome in the Last Judgment. Moltmann outlines four possible conclusions that have been reached historically by various theologians.
a) True particularism. This is the stance of historical Calvinism as developed by Calvin’s followers Beza and Gomarus, and was enshrined in the Canons of Dort (1618) and then later in the Leyden Synopsis of 1628. In essence the doctrine runs as follows: Before the creation of the world, God elected one human being in Jesus Christ, whilst the rest of humanity were rejected because of their sins. Christ would be the ‘vessel’ through whom God revealed his fathomless grace, whilst the other ‘vessels’ reveal God’s righteous wrath, and both outcomes serve the glory of God. God has also chosen some to be ‘in Christ’ and so also to be vessels of his grace. Precisely who the elect are remains hidden in history, so God chooses to have the Gospel proclaimed to all. To believers, their election is perceived historically. There will not be a final revealing of who the elect are and who they are not until the final judgment, when God’s grace and wrath are manifested for all. Thus perseverantia usque ad finem – perseverance to the end – reveals in history those who are truly elect, and those who are destined for destruction are revealed by their final hardness of heart.
According to this idea, God’s decision about election is not revealed in Christ, or in the preaching of the gospel. It is revealed only partially in history, in faith and unbelief, but finally only at the Last Judgment. Calvin arrived at this conclusion after observing the double outcome of the preaching of the Gospel. It evokes faith in some, and disbelief in others, which manifests God’s eternal resolve in the present, and so anticipates the final separation at the last day. As Aristotle had taught, what is last in execution is first in resolve – the double outcome of judgment is merely an acting out of what God had already decreed since before the creation of the world.
It may be said that this doctrine of double predestination has its origins not in Christian theology or scripture, but in Aristotelian aesthetics. Antitheses create beauty in art because they are symmetrical, and so also they enhance the beauty of God and of human beings. This is found in Aristotle’s ‘theory of juxtaposition’, which Augustine introduced into theology:
“Through God’s decree, the beauty of the world is enhanced by contrasts. Truly, God would not have created no human being…whose depravity he foresaw, had he not also known how he would use that being for the benefit of the good, in order thus to grace the order of the world, as one embellishes a poem through antitheses…such contrasts are arranged against one another…so the beauty of the world is enriched through the contrasting of antitheses…so the totality of things...is beautiful even with sinners, although the sinners, if we can see them for themselves, disfigure the picture through their ugliness.” (Augustine De Civ XI:18-21)
The doctrine of double predestination then has much in common with both Aristotle and Augustine but it is still a universalist doctrine – not because all will be saved but because God is universally glorified by both outcomes of judgment. But in doing so we hear a hidden No in God’s Yes. We preach that he loves all and desires to save all, when in fact he has pushed many away since before the foundation of the world. Whether we remain hostile to God or have faith in him, he is glorified either way, and it has always been his purpose to do so.
b) Hypothetical Universalism. This idea was developed by the Calvinist theologian Moyse Amyraut during the 1600s. He began with Calvin’s idea that God intended the Gospel to be preached to everyone, even though only believers would be saved. The preaching of the Gospel itself is a hypothetical universalism, because it only saves on the condition of faith. God’s purpose is universal, but the outcome will be particularist because not will have faith. This is evident in the present in the dual effect of the gospel on believers and non-believers.
c) True universalism. This originated with Calvinist theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (yes the founding father of liberalism was a Calvinist), though he viewed the matter in completely the opposite way to Calvin, Beza and Amyraut. What is conditional is the particularism of the divine election of believers – what is unconditional is the universalism of salvation. In history God elects and rejects, but this is part of his grand eschatological plan to save all humanity. God wants to save all, he can save all and he will save all. He rejects men in order to save, abandons them to sin in order to have mercy on them and allows them to be lost that he may gather them. Unbelief is temporary, but humanity cannot eternally resist the love of God.
d) Open universalism. This idea was pioneered by Karl Barth, who after redefining the doctrine of election necessarily had to redefine the eschatological doctrine of salvation. Before God elects or rejects anyone, God has resolved to be Creator, Redeemer and Reconciler. Predestination first takes place in God himself before he determines to become the one who predestines human beings. God’s eternal resolve to be Creator, Redeemer and Reconciler is then made manifest in Christ, who reveals God completely. In Christ God
“in his free grace determines Himself for sinful man and sinful man for Himself. He therefore takes upon Himself the rejection of man with all its consequences, and elects man to participation in His own glory.” (Barth, Church Dogmatics II.2 Th.33)
God’s self-determination has taken place in eternity, and in Christ God takes upon himself the rejection of sinful man in order to give man his grace. This happens in Christ, and it is a double predestination of rejection and acceptance. Unlike Calvinism, where the double outcome of rejection and acceptance runs parallel for all humanity with the resultant eternal acceptance mirrored by eternal rejection, Barth sees the double predestination unveiled not at the Last Judgment but at the cross. Christ on the cross displays the rejection where God says No to sinful humanity, but in the resurrection God says Yes to renewed humanity. The system of No to some and Yes to others is replaced by a No to all followed by a Yes to all, because Christ has borne the sins of the whole world, not just the elect. Objectively speaking, all humanity has been reconciled to God whether they know it or not, and it is through faith that this is appropriated subjectively, but the decision to save has already been made with God and already put into effect through Christ.
Barth’s doctrine then leads to an open universalist doctrine of salvation. There is no particularism for one group over against another, but neither is there an automatic universalism. Universal salvation is not guaranteed, but it is possible because in Christ God has already said Yes to all humanity.
Christ’s death and the restoration of all things
Crucially I think that traditionally most western doctrines of eschatology have omitted creation from God’s salvific plan, and this is an omission that Moltmann seeks to redress. He does so extensively in the final 100 pages of his book, so I’m not going to cover that now (that’s for my thesis anyway). By way of reconciling election, hell, and the restoration of all things Moltmann actually goes all the way back to Martin Luther’s doctrine of Christ’s descent into hell.
Moltmann’s whole method thus far has involved giving Christological answers to eschatological questions. That is to say, to answer questions about the Last Judgment and the new creation of all things, we first have to answer questions about Jesus because it is he who will do all these things:
“…we must immerse ourselves in the depths of Christ’s death on Golgotha. It is only there that we find the certainty of reconciliation without limits, and the true ground for the hope for ‘the restoration of all things’, for universal salvation, and for the world newly-created to become the eternal kingdom...In the crucified Christ we recognize the Judge of the final Judgment, who has himself become one condemned, for the accused, in their stead and for their benefit. So at the Last Judgment we expect on the Judgment seat the One who was crucified for the reconciliation of the world and no other judge.” (p250)
This is of course a crucial point. We are not going to be judged by an anonymous divine Judge, but by Jesus Christ. How will his justice come to sinners? How will he put things to rights? We need to return to the Gospels to see how Jesus does this, so we may have confidence on the Day of Judgment. The same Son of Man who comes to seek and save that which is lost is the same Son of Man who will be our judge. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever, and to posit the notion (as some do) that Jesus came in ‘love’ the first time but that he will come in ‘wrath’ next time would leave us facing a totally different Jesus from whom we would not know what to expect, but such is the logical outworking of Augustine’s dualism in western theology. Is there a reason to assume that God’s justice towards sinners at the final judgment will be a different kind of justice to the way that Jesus manifested it? Rather than the self-glorification of God by the damnation of his own handiwork, would we not rather expect to hear ‘I do not condemn. Be free from your life of sin.’?
The eschatological courtroom is not simply a heavenly version of the courtrooms of earthly rulers and kings. God’s justice is forward-looking and creative, it is not like earthly justice that demands retaliation and retribution without also reconciling. There will not be the execution of a divine penal code in the eschatological law court, with the wicked consigned to their wickedness and the good rewarded with good. Rather:
“What we call the last judgment is nothing other than the universal revelation of Jesus Christ, and the consummation of his redemptive work…The final spread of the divine righteousness that creates justice serves the eternal kingdom of God, not the final restoration of a divine world order that has been infringed. Judgment at the end is not an end at all; it is the beginning. Its goal is the restoration of all things for the building up of God’s eternal kingdom.” (p251)
It is crucial to note that Moltmann maintains the idea of damnation and hell despite his universalist convictions. The reason this possible is because of Christ:
“[Christian theology] assumes that in his suffering and dying Christ suffered the true and total hell of God-forsakenness for the reconciliation of the world, and experienced for us to true and total damnation of sin. It is precisely here that the divine reason for the reconciliation of the universe is to be found. It is not the optimistic dream of a purified humanity, it is in Christ’s descent into hell that is the ground for the confidence that nothing will be lost but that everything will be brought back again and gathered into the eternal kingdom of God.” (p251)
If one accepts that Christ took the punishment of going to hell (either for all or for the elect) then we must come to understand hell not as a physical place of fiery torment, but simply as a place of utter darkness and godforsakeness, the very heart of sin and death. The terror of hell was of course the issue that the young Luther wrestled with. How could he become righteous enough? How could he be certain that he was one of God’s elect?
Luther’s mentor Johannes von Staupitz advised the troubled Luther that if he struggled with the idea of predestination and election, he should meditate on the wounds of Christ:
“Why tormentest thou thyself with such speculations? Look upon the wounds of Christ – there thine election is assured for thee.”
Why is this the case? Because according to Luther, in the god-forsakenness that Christ endured from Gethsemane to the cross, he suffered all the torments of hell, the rejection of God and the power of eternal death, which he does vicariously for us. It is in the crucified Christ that not only do we see Emmanuel – God with us – but also God for us:
“The Christ dying on the cross was the most assailed and the most deeply rejected of all human beings. Because he suffered our rejection in his body, we perceive our election from his wounds.”
All the hell that we should face because of sin, Christ has already faced for us. Both Luther and Calvin saw hell not as a place either beyond the grave or as a place yet to be created, but simply as an existential state of god-forsakenness. Crucially, Luther recognised that all talk of hell must also take Christ into account. Thus Luther breaks from the older tradition by seeing hell not as somewhere where Christ goes after his death but a state he falls into from Gethsemane onwards, and Calvin also took this line. The forsakenness of Christ from Gethsemane is the forsakenness of one who has been damned for all eternity. For Luther:
“The prayer in Gethsemane that was not heard was preparation for Christ’s hellish torment. That is why sweat and blood fall from him onto the earth…When he was dying on the cross, what Christ experienced was not just God’s present anger over the godless world, but also his ‘futuram iram, künftig hölle’ too (future wrath, future hell).” (p252)
Luther did not see hell as a ‘special place’; it was an existential experience of being under the angry wrath of God and so being forsaken by him. Christ ‘descends’ into hell in order to reach all that is alienated from God and under his wrath and anger, and so what was once alienated from God is reconciled with him. Christ’s descent into hell means that what was once lost has now been gathered into a relationship with God once more, and that death itself has now been finally swallowed up in victory. Luther summarised this idea thus in his 1519 sermon on preparing for death:
“Look upon the heavenly picture of Christ who for thy sake descended into hell…see in that picture thy hell is conquered, and they uncertain election made sure…Seek thyself only in Christ and not in thyself, so wilt thou find thyself eternally in him.”
Christ gives himself up for lost on the cross in order that he may go to those who are lost and bring them home. By himself enduring hell, he identified completely with those who are under God’s anger and wrath and in the resurrection has thrown open the doorway into new life for those who were lost, dead, and abandoned. Dante’s Inferno said of hell “Abandon hope, all who enter here”, yet if Christ has descended into hell and come out of it, hell can no long be a place of hopelessness. The Risen Jesus says of himself:
"Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” (Revelation 1:17-18)
The crucified and risen Jesus now holds the key to death and Hades. If Christ has come out of hell then all hell has been thrown open and Christ has destroyed its power. This is the Good News of reconciliation and hope that we are to proclaim to all.
The New Testament never speaks of a Second Coming - a second coming presupposes a Deistic God who is absent in the meantime - the word the Bible uses is Parousia, which means appearance or announcement. What will happen at the Parousia, in the twinkling of an eye, is that what Jesus has already won in his dying and rising will be made manifest to everyone and everything. Death will be swallowed up in victory, the glory of God will fill the earth, God will be all in all and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is indeed Lord of all. God’s universal grace is not a cheap grace, it is the costliest grace possible because it meant that he himself has borne the cost of sin and death, and no other. I’ll close with Moltmann’s final paragraph:
“’The Last Judgment’ is not a terror. In the truth of Christ it is the most wonderful thing that can be proclaimed to men and women. It is a source of endlessly consoling joy to know, not just that the murderers will finally fail to triumph over their victims, but that they cannot in eternity even remain the murderers of their victims. The eschatological doctrine about the restoration of all things has these two sides: God’s judgment, which puts things to rights, and God’s Kingdom, which awakens to new life.” (p255)
For a previous Moltmann article on The Holy Spirit and the Charismatic Life, go here.