Summary: An exploration of what the bible and Jewish and Christian traditions says about hell, and salvation.
I was talking to someone recently and they asked for a recommendation of a book about Christian universalism. I did not have a good suggestion for them. I am a soft universalist. By that, I mean that I think that Christian universalism is real, that by Christ death and resurrection all will be saved, whether in this life or in the next. But I describe it as soft universalism because I think that this is a hope based on my understanding of the character of God more than “definitive” biblical or theological evidence. And I reject an “all paths are a way to heaven” type of universalism. So going into the book, I thought that what I know of Jersak, this would be a book that I largely agree with, but was looking for good theological and biblical thinking on the matter.
What I appreciate most about Jersak’s style is that he is very clear about the limits of what we can know. There is obviously speculation in a book about hell and the afterlife. But as Jersak walks through the bible and what we know about Jewish tradition that contributed to the Old Testament and the first century culture of the New Testament, he is careful about talkings about the limits of our understanding. This is a book that is filled with intellectual humility.
I am not completely new to the topic. There is overlap with NT Wright’s Surprised by Hope. And many books or articles I have read have talked about the differences between the concepts of Sheol, Gahanna and hell. Jersak has good intellectual humility in his presentation, but what he is doing is trying to present the development of the ideas of the afterlife as it comes, instead of reading all of scripture through the lens of modern ideas about hell. He wants to show that when we read the NT, or especially the OT, through later theological developments, then we misread scripture.
Of course, part of what he has to present is the concept of genre in scripture. Much of the passages that mention Sheol, Gahanna or hell are either parables of Jesus, or apocalyptic writing. I am not going to get into his arguments, but I am just mentioning that to say that there really is not much here that is unique, Jersak is in the mainstream with most of his biblical interpretation and his understanding of genre and his understanding of the early church.
Roughly half of the book is biblical exploration and roughly half of the book is discussion of the church theology and history. Oversimplifying his argument a bit, there is largely two streams within the church, infernalist (who believe in some type of hell as end judgement) or purgatorialists (who believe in some type of hell or purgatory as either punishment or cleansing, but that leads toward redemption.) You cannot discuss the early church without discussing the ways that early Jewish and Greek thought impacts the theological and philosophical categories of punishment, sin, justice and love. While Jersak largely presents the church thinking over time, it is also discussed thematically because developments of philosophical thought always impact the ways that different cultures understand justice and goodness of God.
Again, as I mentioned before, I am reading Thomas Oord’s Systematic Theology of Love and I have read John Armstrong’s The Transforming Fire of Divine Love, both of which have long discussions about the way that a Greek concepts about perfection and immutability have impacted the ways that the church developed its theology. Later, Calvin and others started thinking about God in judicial ways and that also impacted the way that we think of hell and salvation. And the even more modern concepts of dispensationalism, which are not specifically mentioned, but are in the background of the discussion of Evangelical thinking, have to be discussed.
I remember a couple years ago a pretty well known Christian writer, who by background and training primarily studies literature, was talking on twitter about discovering how recently premillennialism became the default understanding of much of the American Evangelical church. So a large part of what Jersak is doing in these discussions of the church’s theology over time is presenting different options that are theologically orthodox, but not rooted in only modern conceptions of theology precisely so that we can see that what is common theology now isn’t the only options.
I think I largely agree with virtually all of Her Gates Will Never Be Shut. I think his biblical exegesis is good. His theological history is good. Again, I remember on twitter a Black church leader expressing opposition to anything other than Eternal Conscious Torment understanding of hell because he thought universalism or even a more limited annihilation position was a position of privilege. He has a degree in historical theology and so I know he is not simply ignorant of historical positions and on this point I don’t think we are going to agree on this point even though there are a number of other areas were I do agree with him. Our theological positions are more than simple intellectual assent, we have other presuppositions that matter to our theology. I know I started discussing my orientation toward a soft universalism in early high school, so I also have presuppositions that are involved in my position.
Her Gates Will Never Be Shut: Hope, Hell, and the New Jerusalem by Bradley Jersak Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook