July 24, 2019 Show with Dr. Tony Costa on “Conditional Immortality vs. Eternal Conscious Punishment: Is Heaven the Only Place Where Souls Will Live Forever?”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 24th day of July 2019.

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I'm thrilled to have back on the program one of my favorite guests of all time, a very dear friend of mine who has been featured on a number of special events that Iron Sharpens Iron Radio has orchestrated, not only on the air, but also in public, like public moderated debates and Bible conferences and pastors' luncheons.

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I'm speaking of Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

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Today, we are going to be addressing a theme that I've never spent a full two hours addressing on this program.

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Conditional immortality versus eternal conscious punishment. Is heaven the only place where souls will live forever?

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And this is a prelude to a future debate that we are arranging right now, which,

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God willing, will take place in October on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio for at least two days in a row with conditional immortality advocate

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Chris Date. And also, we're going to be announcing a Bible conference that Dr.

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Costa is involved in at the Church at Friendship in Hockley, Texas. And we'll be discussing that in a little bit.

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But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. Tony Costa. Well, hello,

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Chris. It's always a pleasure to be with you. Amen. The pleasure is all mine, brother. And for our listeners who perhaps haven't heard you on the show before, perhaps they are new to you, they're not very familiar with Toronto Baptist Seminary, please tell our listeners about Toronto Baptist Seminary.

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Sure. Toronto Baptist Seminary is a Reformed Baptist college or seminary in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

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And it was started in the 1930s by Dr. T .P.

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Shields. And we train men and women in theology and philosophy, ethics, biblical languages, and we also train men for the ministry, both locally in the local church and also in the mission field as well.

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Great. And if anybody wants more information about Toronto Baptist Seminary, you can go to tbs .edu,

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tbs .edu. In fact, I just had a wonderful time recently with your principal at Toronto Baptist Seminary, Dr.

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Wellam. And in fact, you were there as well. You were at the same

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Bible conference in Franklin, Tennessee. That's right. And it was a joy meeting him and his brother,

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Stephen. And hopefully I'll have them both on perhaps even at the same time sometime.

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But we are discussing a very controversial issue in the church. It is conditional immortality.

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It is an issue that is growing or a belief that is growing in popularity.

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I have personal friends that have come to adopt this view. Perhaps I am a little bit unique amongst my

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Reformed Baptist brethren in that although I am not a believer in conditional immortality,

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I'm not as radically opposed to those who do believe it as some of my friends are.

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But this is a view, if I'm not mistaken. You can correct anything that I say when

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I describe the definition as I understand it. Conditional immortality is the belief that only those who are truly regenerate, born again, those who are the true children of God, the elect, they are given the gift of immortality, the gift of eternal life.

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And therefore, that condition is that these people are of the elect, that they are regenerate.

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And those who are the reprobate, those who are going to go to hell, they will not live for eternity in hell.

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They will not suffer torturous existence, a conscious punishment for eternity.

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They will, at some point determined by God, be annihilated.

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Now, you could also correct me if I'm wrong. The difference between that view and the view that is more commonly known as annihilationism, many who embrace the latter, annihilationism, believe that at the judgment, all the lost will be instantly annihilated.

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They will be cast into the lake of fire and they will just instantly evaporate into non -existence.

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Whereas conditional immortality advocates, it seems to me, at least those that I have known and loved for quite a long time and have spoken with, they believe hell is real, hell exists, it's just not eternal.

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In fact, my late wife's pastor, who is also now in heaven,

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Don Blend, he believed in conditional immortality, but he also believed that there was a possibility that people like Hitler and some grotesque, wicked reprobates of history, they may even be in hell for a million years, but it won't be for eternity.

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Now, did I misspeak at all in that description? No, I think you represented conditional immortality well.

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There is a wide range of views within the conditional immortality camp in terms of the time where the wicked are annihilated.

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Some would seem to think that it's immediate. Others would say that there is, as you said, a punishment that is relative to the sin that they've incurred while on earth, and then they will be taken out of existence.

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It's almost like purgatory, but with a sad ending. There is no escape from that situation.

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You're simply annihilated. And I think you've also made a good point, Chris. I think we do need to highlight this, that we do have many brethren who are genuine

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Christians who hold to this view, and who have held to this view. It's not a heresy, in the sense that it does not violate the fundamental doctrines of the

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Christian faith. It's not a denial of the Trinity, or the deity of Christ, or salvation by grace alone, and so forth, the

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Atonement of Christ. And so it's not a heresy. It doesn't bar one from eternal life, if they hold to it.

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And of course, I'm thinking of people like the late John Stott. Of course, other scholars like John Stackhouse also hold to this view.

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Clark Pinnock, the late Clark Pinnock, also held to this view, but Clark Pinnock was also an open theist, and that, to me, is a much graver error.

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Right, and Clark didn't start that way. He started as an Orthodox believer. I don't mean Eastern Orthodox, I mean

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Biblically Orthodox. Yes, and also, at one time, an advocate for the

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Evangelical Church, and movement as well, but he did wander off into open theism, and died an open theist.

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And so, I would make an exception with Clark Pinnock. But we also need to understand that there are also, in the subject of annihilationism, there are cults that hold to the doctrine of annihilationism.

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They deny that the soul continues to live after death, and I believe some in the conditioning mortality camp might also hold that view, that there is no life after death until the

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Resurrection. But we do know that cults like the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Christadelphians, and also the

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Seventh -day Adventists, also hold to this view of the annihilation of the wicked. Yes, and one figure,

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I don't know if he coined the phrase or not, perhaps you could enlighten me, but a brother that I had developed a correspondence with years ago, back in the 1990s,

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Edward Fudge, he wrote a book that seems to have been a catalyst for many

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Evangelical, and perhaps even especially Reformed, even though Ed Fudge was from a

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Church of Christ background. But interestingly enough, though, in my correspondences with him over the years, he is now in heaven,

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Ed Fudge, but not very long ago. It was just a year or two ago, I believe, that he passed away.

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But he developed a view that perhaps was not classical

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Calvinism, but he was very unique in regard to the mainstream congregations within that group, the

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Church of Christ, the Restorationist movement, which have been pejoratively nicknamed

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Campbellites. He did not believe that baptism by immersion was essential for the forgiveness of sins, and he adopted some views that were very similar, or are very similar, to Reformed theology, even while remaining in a congregation in the

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Church of Christ, or at least that called itself that. But the brothers that I know who abandoned the traditional view of eternal conscious punishment,

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I think every single one of them came to adopt the belief in conditional immortality from Ed Fudge.

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Have you experienced that same thing? Yes, absolutely. I think Edward Fudge has been considered by some, as the father of modern conditional immortality.

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And by the way, brother, I don't know if there's anything you could do to improve the sound of your voice, because you sound a bit muffled.

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I don't know if you're... Okay, I will remove my headset. Maybe that might help.

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Okay, hopefully it will. Is that better? That's a million times better. Okay, very good.

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Okay, yes, I was just saying that many do consider Edward Fudge to be the father of the modern conditional immortality movement.

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And he did have a huge impact, especially with the publication of his book,

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The Fire That Consumes, and it's gone through multiple editions. So I think that was probably the book that was the major catalyst to open up the movement we know today as conditional immortality.

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In fact, there was a movie made about Ed Fudge's journey, any personal journey into the belief in conditional immortality.

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This is, even though he is from a Church of Christ background, that is not the typical view of the most commonly held view in the

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Church of Christ. In fact, he was treated with great hostility amongst his own fellow members of the

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Church of Christ, even in his own congregation, and many had viewed him as a total apostate, a false

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Christian as a result of this. Not all, obviously. And it was quite an interesting movie.

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I saw the movie. It was actually, even though Ed was not a Seventh -day Adventist, a Seventh -day

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Adventist filmmaker produced the film. Right, right.

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Well, I think Fudge's reputation is also seen in the fact that many of his scholars, even in the

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Evangelical community, have cited him eternally of Evangelical Theological Society, or JETS, Evangelical Quarterly, for example.

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So he was definitely a person that did get the attention of the

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Evangelical community, for sure. So, tell us why this was actually your idea to focus on this theme today.

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And, in fact, it was an excellent idea because, as I said, I've never spent two hours on the show discussing conditional immortality.

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So, first of all, why don't you tell us, first and foremost, why this was something pressing so greatly on your heart and mind that you wanted to address it for two hours today?

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Well, I think because it is a subject that has risen in the Evangelical movement.

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It is being discussed, and a number of people are asking the question, how could a loving

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God have people suffer eternal conscious punishment? And does this assault the very goodness of God and God's depiction in Scripture as Heavenly Father and loving and so forth?

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So I think it's an important doctrine. I think it's something that, again, as brethren in Christ, we need to discuss.

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It somewhat reminds me of the radio debate that we had on Molinism, where we discussed a view of Molinism with that of Historic Calvinism.

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So I think this is a way to get brethren to talk and to deal with this subject at hand and to let

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Scripture, at the end of the day, let Scripture decide which of these two views is compatible with what

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God has revealed in His Word. In fact, I've got to be honest, even though I am not an advocate of conditional immortality, right now it's the only belief or doctrine that I can think of that I don't believe that I wish

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I did, or that I wish was true. Right. Well, you're in good company,

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Chris, because I take the same view as you. This is the one doctrine that, if I had a decision in which doctrine

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I'd like to remove from Scripture, if I could, it would be the doctrine of eternal conscious punishment.

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And this is something that has irked, historically has irked, many Christians. I just have a quote here from C .S.

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Lewis, if I could just share that with you, Chris. This is C .S. Lewis and the problem of pain.

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In his book, he says this, and I quote, There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this.

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He's referring to eternal conscious punishment. If it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture, and especially of our

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Lord's own words, and has always been held by Christendom. And so that is what keeps me convinced that the doctrine that has been maintained by the

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Church for almost 2 ,000 years, at least definitely in the majority, so much so that it's called the traditionalist view, is that the wicked do experience conscious separation from God, which goes on into eternity.

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And so I would agree with you, Chris, this is one doctrine that even if we were to just ponder what this idea is about eternal suffering and punishment, it is something that, of course, irks us.

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It is something that makes us feel uncomfortable. But at the end of the day, I think we have to say that what

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God has revealed on this issue, we must accept without reservation. By the way, for those of my evangelical, conservative evangelical friends and acquaintances or listeners who may be mad that I have not so harsh a reaction to this belief, there are, as Dr.

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Costa said earlier, there are heroes within conservative evangelical

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Christianity, and Reformed Christianity specifically, like Dr.

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John Stott, who I don't know if he ever became a full advocate of it, but I did meet him in person years ago in the 90s when he was speaking on Long Island, New York.

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And after the event was over, I asked him face to face, do you believe in conditional immortality or annihilation?

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And his response at that time was, well, let me put it this way, and I'm paraphrasing, of course, but it was something very similar to what

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I'm saying. He said, I, at the very least, view it as an orthodox alternative view of eschatology.

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Right. And F .F. Bruce, the deceased, now in eternity with Christ, F .F.

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Bruce, he also, I don't know if he was a full advocate of it, but he at least viewed it as, within, as Hank Hanegraaff used to say, the pale of orthodoxy.

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Well, there's also Michael Green, but the late Dr. Michael Green, when I met him in Toronto, I asked him the very same question you asked

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Dr. Stott, and his response was pretty well the same. And, of course,

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Michael Green was also a moral scholar in the church and loved the

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Lord Jesus Christ, but he also espoused the same view of conditional immortality.

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Well, if you could, let's start with some scriptural references that lead you to believe that the truly biblically sound, biblically orthodox, biblically faithful understanding of the eternal destiny of the reprobate, the lost, is eternal conscious punishment.

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If you could, we might as well start there. Sure. I think that we need to understand that the highest authority, of course, on this question would be the

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Lord Jesus Christ himself. And in many of his teachings, the Lord Jesus would speak about people being told to depart from his presence, being cast out into outer darkness, thrown out, people going to a place of gnashing of teeth where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched and so forth.

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But in Matthew 25, in his parable of the final judgment, where he compares himself to a shepherd that will separate the sheep from the goats, it's very clear that he's talking about the final judgment, and to the sheep, those who have been chosen from the foundation of the world, he invites them to come and to inherit the kingdom that was prepared for them from the foundation of the world.

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But then, to the left, to the goats, he says to them in Matthew, this is Matthew 25, verse 41, he'll say to those on the left, depart from me, you cursed into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

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So we need to note that the word eternal there, aionios in the Greek, can, in many contexts, especially when it deals with the judgment, is translated eternal.

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But the final verse of Matthew 25 I think is crucial. It says, and these will go away, that is the wicked, into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

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What's important to realize here is, of course, the adjective eternal is the same word for both punishment and for life, and so if those who hold to conditioning mortality will argue that eternal punishment simply refers to the fact that they've been annihilated, well then, by terms of consistency, we have to ask the question, well, what does that mean when it refers to the righteous inheriting eternal life?

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Well, I don't know anyone in the conditioning mortality camp who would argue that eternal life does not mean eternal life, and it also refers to a quality of life, it deals with relationship with God.

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So I think it's important for us to realize that the destinations, I've always said this before, Chris, that at the end of the day, you're either in the smoking section or the non -smoking section.

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And so the destination of both these classes, both the sheep and the goats, both of the destinations are eternal.

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And also, I think the book of Revelation, as I said, you see this language about departing, being punished, and being tormented, and so forth,

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I think that Revelation chapter 14, which many in the conditioning mortality camp admit is a difficult text, one of the most difficult texts for them to deny, but there, in Revelation 14, verse 9, it says,

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If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives the mark on his forehead or on his hand, he will also drink the wine of God's wrath and pour full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the

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Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of the name.

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And so these are just two passages in particular, we could also cite Revelation 20 as well, where we're told that death and Hades will give up their dead, they will stand before God, and then they will be cast into the lake of fire, where the devil and the beast and the false prophet are.

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And so passages like these indicate, they use words like the smoke of their torment, it doesn't say their smoke, the smoke of their annihilation will go up forever, it says the smoke of their torment will go up forever, and it says they have no rest, day or night, in contrast to, of course, the redeemed, who enter into God's rest, and are in the presence of God, and so forth.

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And whenever the Lord Jesus spoke about this judgment, he spoke about Gehenna, he would speak of it in terms of a place of gnashing of teeth, a place where the worm does not die, or the maggots do not die, a place where the fire is not quenched, this is clearly not, this is not, he's not literally speaking about little maggots, he's not talking about a little fire here, because it's also described as outer darkness, and yet we know that fire emits light.

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This is language, Chris, that the Lord Jesus Christ used to describe the utter horror of separation from God.

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And it's important to realize that when we look at the development from the

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Old Testament through the intertestamental period, the Second Temple Jewish literature that we know as the

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Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha, this literature also spoke about eternal damnation, it also spoke about the soul surviving death and going into the presence of God, we also know that the

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Pharisees in the time of Jesus also held to the view of eternal punishment, that the soul of the wicked go into punishment upon death, we know that the

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Lord Jesus and the Apostle Paul both were in solidarity with the Pharisees on the question of the afterlife and the resurrection, and opposed the

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Sadducees, who denied the resurrection, that's why they were sad, you see? And so, yeah.

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I am almost certain he is a professing Calvinist or believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace.

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Right. But I am assuming he's going to respond to some of those texts, as I have heard before, that the smoke of the torment goes up forever, not the torment, and eternal punishment is not the same thing in their minds as eternal punishing.

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In other words, even if you were to be a full -blown annihilationist who believes that somebody is instantly annihilated at the resurrection of both the saved and the lost, or at least at the judgment, or even if you want to say a person who doesn't even believe in the afterlife, they will say, when you die, you're worm food, you are just eaten dust for eternity, they will say that death is eternal.

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So therefore, eternity, if a punishment is eternal, they say what the

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Bible is teaching is that there's not going to be a second chance, there's no reversal on that punishment.

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It's not going to change. So how do you respond to those? Yeah, I think that that cannot be supported by the text, particularly the one in Revelation 14, 9 -11, because they have neither rest day or night.

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Now, if someone's been annihilated, well, the pain's gone. When people die and they suffered tremendously and they're gone, a lot of folks will say, well, at least they're not suffering anymore, at least their suffering's over.

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And so the passage in Revelation 14 would be meaningless when it said that they have no rest day or night.

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Well, if they were annihilated, well, then they don't have any more pain. They would be finally at rest. So I think that that exegesis would not work.

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Now, how do you respond? Because I've heard that responded to as well, where the answer is, well, as my late wife's late pastor would say, well, as I said,

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Hitler may be in hell for a million years being tormented. So it's referring to that period, because there are conditional immortality advocates who do believe in torment, conscious torment, that it's just not eternal.

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That's right, yeah. And again, in the passage in Revelation, it refers to that torment as forever and ever.

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And that is not just forever and ever, but notice it says they have no rest day or night. And so you would think that, well, if they're eventually annihilated, well, they would eventually have some rest from that punishment.

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But I think the language is very clear there in Revelation that it is, the duration is forever. There is no end in view there when it comes to the punishment of those who have rejected the gospel.

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Now we have to go to our first break right now. If anybody would like to join us with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

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chrisarnson at gmail dot com. And please, as always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. Let's say you disagree with your pastor or your church on this issue and you don't want to draw attention to yourself or your church.

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I understand that. You may even be a pastor who disagrees with your congregation or denomination or fellowship or association of churches.

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And you obviously don't want to bring up your identity. Perhaps you disagree with our guest.

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Perhaps you are an advocate of conditional immortality and you want to disagree without identifying yourself.

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Okay, I'll let those issues pass as far as being anonymous. But if it's just a general question on theology, on eschatology, and a lot of people don't even realize this is a matter of eschatology, even though it's not involving the millennium or the rapture or the return of Christ, it's still in that category of last things.

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But if you would like to ask a general question, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

29:52

And don't go away, God willing, we're going to be back after these messages with Dr. Tony Costa and more of our critique on conditional immortality.

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We are now back with Tony Costa. He is the professor or a professor of apologetics in Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

40:22

We are discussing conditional immortality versus eternal conscious punishment. Is heaven the only place where souls will live forever?

40:29

And as I have been saying this is a prelude to a future debate God willing in October with conditional immortality advocate

40:36

Chris Date. If you have a question of your own our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

40:44

Give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence. If you live outside the USA only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

40:55

We do have a listener in Ontario Canada.

41:03

A fellow Canadian, what is the nickname for Canadians Tony? Canucks.

41:09

Yeah that's it. A fellow Canuck. And his name is also,

41:15

I thought it was Tony, it's Tom. I have to enlarge Tom's question.

41:21

And to be more specific Tom is from Waterloo, Ontario Canada.

41:28

Now I will never get that Abba song out of my mind today. Thank you

41:33

Chris for this program and welcome to Dr. Tony Costa, my former seminary professor.

41:39

As well as a dear brother in Christ whom I am very proud of. In response to those who advocate, let's see

41:47

I have to expand this to see the whole thing he's saying here. In response to those who advocate conditional immortality theology, here is my question to them.

41:58

Knowing that all that God has created is eternal, including human soul, how could they reconcile their view of conditional immortality with this biblical fact?

42:09

Well we don't have a conditional immortality advocate on the show to tell you the answer to that Tom.

42:15

But their argument is that not everything is eternal. They don't believe that the souls of the reprobate are.

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And they do believe that eternal life is only a gift granted to the elect or those who believe.

42:31

I guess it would depend upon whether the advocate of this view is a Calvinist or not.

42:37

As far as how they would phrase that. But they would believe that you have to be a

42:43

Christian to receive the gift of eternal life. But anyway, do you have anything to add to what Tom in Waterloo, Canada has said?

42:51

Yes, I think that's correct Chris. What you just said is that they don't believe that humans are by nature immortal.

43:01

They'll quote the passage in 1 Timothy 6 where it says, God who alone has immortality. And so they believe that the reason why it's called conditional immortality is that God is the one who confers that immortality to those whom he has elected.

43:17

And remember there are Arminian conditional immortality advocates, as there are Calvinist conditional immortality advocates.

43:25

So the Arminians would say, well because you made the choice to follow Jesus Christ, well then, because you've met that requirement,

43:32

God will confer immortality on you on the resurrection, at the resurrection.

43:38

Whereas those who rejected the gospel, well God does not confer immortality, God confers judgment on you for rejecting the gospel.

43:47

So yes, the position of the conditional immortality camp would be that man is not immortal by nature.

43:56

Only God has that, and God confers that by grace. Well thank you

44:01

Tom. Normally we give first time questioners a free New American Standard Bible, but this offer is only for United States residents.

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But if you have a friend within the 50 states of the United States that you'd like to have this

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United States, if indeed you have one that you want to provide for us. Well if you could return now,

44:52

Tony, to the scriptural evidence that you believe most is focused on personal eschatology, the eternal state specifically of those who are reprobate or lost.

45:11

Yeah, so we looked at Matthew 25, the final judgment, both the redeemed and the lost both go into eternal states, whether it is eternal punishment or eternal life.

45:26

We also talked about Revelation 14, where it speaks about those who worship the beast and follow the false prophet, those who join the

45:36

Antichrist, and they are tormented, the smoke of the torment will go up forever, and they have neither rest day or night, and so forth.

45:47

The other passage that I would look at is something like 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, where Paul is also talking about the eschaton, where he speaks of the parousia, the second coming of Christ, and there he talks about how the

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Lord Jesus in verse 8, in flaming fire inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our

46:10

Lord Jesus, and then he says in verse 9, they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the

46:19

Lord, and from the glory of His might. Now notice there that destruction there is described as an eternal destruction, and those in the conditional immortality camp will say, well, eternal destruction there means annihilation, that they'll be annihilated.

46:34

But it's important to note that in this passage, the context here is not about, it's spatial.

46:42

What that means is this punishment is going to take place as they are driven away from the

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Lord Jesus Christ. That is, they will experience this in the presence of the Lord, but away from the presence of the

46:55

Lord. So notice the spatial connotation. Now, the word destruction there,

47:00

Chris, and in fact the word to destroy in the Greek New Testament is apolumi. And apolumi is a very interesting word.

47:08

It can be translated lost, it can be translated to render useless, it can be translated to put an end to ruin.

47:20

Seyer points out that it means to give over to eternal misery, and so forth.

47:26

And the word to destroy does not mean annihilate. And this is a very important point.

47:32

Our friends in the other camp will say, well, destruction here refers to annihilation.

47:38

But the problem here is that the Greek word there, apolumi, will not sustain such a position.

47:45

For example, if a tornado, God forbid, were to come through Carlisle, Pennsylvania right now,

47:51

Chris, and destroy the house that you're living in, the house would be apolumi.

47:57

It would be destroyed, but it's not annihilated. It has been rendered useless.

48:03

It can no longer be used as a sustainable shelter. And so the concept here of destruction is not to take something and snuff it out of existence, it means to render it useless, to remove, if you will, the well -being of a certain thing.

48:21

And so in that passage in 2 Thessalonians 1, that concept of destruction there means that these people, those who disobey the gospel, are given up to eternal misery as they are separated from the

48:37

Lord Jesus. And I think that really underscores a very important pointer, Chris, and that is that the concept of hell as we know it is the concept of the second death.

48:48

And if you remember in Genesis chapter 2 and verse 17, the

48:53

Lord had told Adam and Eve that in the day you eat of that fruit, that forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.

49:04

And this is, I think, crucial for us to understand, that on the day they partook of that forbidden fruit, they did not drop dead, they continued to live.

49:14

In fact, Adam lived over 900 years according to Genesis. But something did happen.

49:19

They spiritually died. They were separated from God. That's why they ran from Him, they hid from Him as they heard

49:25

Him walking in the garden, and then they were evicted out of Eden. So they did spiritually die on that very day, but they continued to live physically, and then in due time they physically died.

49:39

Ephesians 2 .1, it talks about how you were once dead in trespasses and sins, but He has made you alive.

49:45

And so you can live physically, you can be a living human being, but remain dead in your sins.

49:52

What does that mean? You're separated from God. And when the Lord Jesus had invited someone to become a disciple of His, and He said,

50:00

Lord, let me first go and bury my father, the Lord said, let the dead bury their dead. And so the idea here is that the idea of death and destruction, all of these words are used to denote this concept of being separated from God.

50:17

And that's why the final judgment in Revelation 20 is called the second death. Not because they physically die again, as our friends in the other camp would say, but this is the final separation from God.

50:29

These are unregenerate people who are already dead spiritually, and then they are sentenced at the great white throne judgment, and then they are cast out into the lake of fire.

50:39

So this is the final separation from the presence of God. So death in the

50:44

Bible does not mean cessation of existence. Death denotes the concept of separation.

50:50

Yes, I had a friend who was an advocate of conditional immortality, and perhaps still is.

50:57

I just haven't spoken with him in quite a number of years. But he always used to drive home the terms death and dead, the second death, etc.

51:10

And in that way, he was seeking to prove that the person would no longer exist after at least a period.

51:19

But I used to remind him, are those who are not yet regenerate, or never will be, are they dead in their trespasses and sins?

51:31

And he used to say, yes. And I would say, are they conscious? Do they see, hear, smell and taste and feel?

51:40

Do they experience trauma and fear and terror and depression and pain?

51:47

You know what I mean? I remember I used to say that after he would say, dead is dead is dead is dead.

51:55

Well, not really. That's almost like Norman Geisler, that all means all, and that's all there is to it.

52:02

Right. God bless Norman Geisler, he's with the Lord now.

52:07

Yes, and now he's a Calvinist. We are, and Norman Geisler is in glory with Christ, and he's saying,

52:19

I wrote what? But, we're going to our midway break right now, and if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, write down your question for Dr.

52:32

Tony Costa on conditional immortality, or annihilation, or even soul sleep, which we have to make it clear that not everybody who believes in conditional immortality believes in soul sleep, or not everybody who believes in conditional immortality believes in the judgment.

52:52

So, if you have a question about any of these categories, or topics, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

53:01

chrisarnson at gmail .com, give us your first name, at least your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA, and please use this time wisely, this longer than normal break, because of Grace Life Radio and Lake City, Florida's requirement and FCC regulation, they're airing their own public service announcements and commercials during this break, while we air our own globally heard commercials.

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So, use this time wisely, and also write down the information provided by our advertisers, so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize them, which we rely upon to remain on the air.

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So, don't go away, God willing, we're going to be right back after these messages from Chris Arnett.

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Paul Washer's pastor. He's been a guest on this program a number of times. My friend that I just mentioned earlier,

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Pastor Mac Tomlinson, who is the pastor of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.

01:11:52

Pastor Lee Dodd, who is going to be my guest on Wednesday, July 31st, again on this program.

01:11:58

I've interviewed him before, and he is a wonderful brother in Christ, and he is also a pastor along with Pastor Mac Tomlinson at Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.

01:12:10

And author and pastor Nate Pickowitz. He is the pastor of the

01:12:15

Harvest Bible Church in Gilmanton, Ironworks, New Hampshire, and the author of a number of books. All of these men will be on the lineup.

01:12:22

If you want to register for the Fellowship Conference New England August 1st through the 3rd, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com

01:12:32

fellowshipconferencenewengland .com And then, my guest today, Dr.

01:12:37

Tony Costa, he's going to be speaking at a conference in Hockley, Texas. It overlaps the one

01:12:44

I just mentioned, but it's at the opposite end of the country. Hockley, Texas, obviously, is way down south, whereas the other conference in Maine is way up north.

01:12:57

So if you're closer to Hockley, Texas, this would be the conference for you. It is a conference of Providence Theological Institute, and it's being held at the

01:13:08

Church at Friendship in Hockley, Texas. That is the 2nd through the 4th of August.

01:13:15

That would be Friday the 2nd through Sunday the 4th of August. The topics at this conference that Dr.

01:13:22

Costa will be leading include the meaninglessness of life without God, the authority and inerrancy of Scripture, the

01:13:30

Promised Land and the New Covenant, What is New Covenant Theology, and the Glorious New Covenant.

01:13:37

If you want to attend this conference in Hockley, Texas, August 2nd through the 4th, go to churchatfriendship .org,

01:13:46

churchatfriendship .org, and then click Events at the top of the page, and you'll see all the information that you need.

01:13:52

Then I am going to be packing up my bags in December and heading back to my old stomping grounds in New York City.

01:13:59

That will be Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th, in Manhattan at the

01:14:04

Foundations Conference. I love this conference, and I am looking forward to attending this one during the

01:14:11

Christmas season because there's no place I'd rather be than New York City during the

01:14:16

Christmas season. The speakers at this conference include Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, Paul Washer, Rev.

01:14:23

Jeff Thomas, Rev. Armen Tamassian, who I keep reminding you I believe is going to be a household name,

01:14:28

Rev. Armen Tamassian, over the next decade amongst Reformed Christians because he is an extraordinary young man with gifts and abilities far beyond his youth.

01:14:39

Pastor Armen Tamassian, and then Richard Colwell and Andrew Quigley are two men that I've never heard preach yet.

01:14:45

I will be, God willing, this December, but because of the fact that Sermon Audio specifically handpicked these two men to be a part of this conference,

01:14:54

I am sure they must be superb. If you want to join me in Manhattan, if you are a man in ministry leadership, that is, if you want to join me at this conference, go to thefoundationsconference .com

01:15:07

thefoundationsconference .com Then I'm going to be packing up my bags again and heading down south to Atlanta, Georgia.

01:15:14

This will be held at the G3 conference, that is, will be held at the Georgia International Convention Center, specifically in College Park, Georgia, which is a suburb of Atlanta.

01:15:29

They always have an absolutely mind -blowing roster of speakers at the

01:15:34

G3 conference. I'm not only attending, but I'm also going to be manning an exhibitors booth there, so if you go, please look me up during a break at my

01:15:42

Iron Trip and Zion Radio exhibitors booth. I'll be there with my webmaster, Eric Nielsen, conducting interviews with speakers and also with attendees.

01:15:52

The speakers at this event include Kosti Hinn, nephew of notorious heretic and false teacher,

01:16:00

Benny Hinn. Kosti Hinn has abandoned and repented of the Word of Faith heresies he was raised in.

01:16:07

He's now a Reformed Baptist pastor and cessationist in California. He spends a lot of his time outside of his own pulpit exposing the

01:16:18

Word of Faith teachers for the deceiving, deadly, dangerous, and damning deceivers that they are.

01:16:26

I think I said deceiving twice, but they deserve that double amount of deception as their way of identifying them.

01:16:35

He will be there on the roster. Daryl Bernard Harrison, who is a new addition to the

01:16:40

Grace to You team at John MacArthur's ministry. David Miller, a really phenomenal old -school preacher.

01:16:47

Derek Thomas, who is a man very well known to most Reformed Christians.

01:16:53

A mutual friend of my guest, Dr. Tomi Kosta and mine, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries will be preaching there.

01:17:00

Another old friend of mine going back to the 1990s, Dr. Joel Beeky of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

01:17:08

Once again, Stephen J. Lawson and Paul Washer are on the roster at this event. Phil Johnson, the executive director of Grace to You Ministries.

01:17:17

Stephen J. Nichols, the president of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by the late

01:17:22

R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries. My friend, Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Radio. Tom Askell, the executive director of Founders Ministries, the

01:17:33

Calvinistic ministry in the Southern Baptist Convention. Votie Baucom, one of the most powerful preachers alive on the planet

01:17:40

Earth, and more. And I am so thrilled to be in the same room for the very first time ever with Dr.

01:17:47

John MacArthur, who has recently been added to the lineup. I've interviewed Dr. MacArthur once on my program, and he wrote a glowing endorsement for the show, but I've never met him face -to -face.

01:17:57

I've never been in the same room while he's been preaching. So I am very thrilled about this.

01:18:03

If you want to join me, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com to register. That's Thursday, January 16th, through Saturday, January 18th, 2020.

01:18:13

The theme is Worship Matters, and I would strongly urge you, if you have a business, a power church ministry, a church, a special event, or anything else that you want to advertise to the body of Christ, I strongly urge you to register for an exhibitor's booth, just like I will be manning, because they're expecting, as they do every year, over 5 ,000 people to attend.

01:18:35

And I believe that with John MacArthur added to the lineup, they're going to have over 6 ,000 people. That's just a gut feeling

01:18:41

I have. But if you want to join me there, not only to attend, but also to register for an exhibitor's booth, if, indeed, that applies to you, go to g3conference .com,

01:18:51

g3conference .com. And last but not least, if you love this show, you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, please go to ironsharpdesignradio .com,

01:19:00

click Support, then click Click to Donate Now. You can donate instantly with a debit or credit card in that way.

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You can also send in a check via snail mail, the old -fashioned way, to the address that appears on the screen when you click

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01:19:19

and put advertising in the subject line, and we will help you launch an ad campaign as long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with what

01:19:25

I believe. You don't have to believe identically with me, but if you're promoting something that's compatible with what I believe, we would love to help you launch an ad campaign because we really are in urgent need of your advertising dollars.

01:19:37

A caveat that I try to remember to tell you every day, please never siphon money away from your regular giving that you're accustomed to to your local church where you are a member in order to give to Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

01:19:48

Never put your family in financial jeopardy by giving to Iron Trip and Zion Radio. Those two things are commands of God providing for church and home.

01:19:56

Providing for my show is obviously not a command of God, but if you are financially blessed above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, you have extra money for benevolent reasons, for recreational reasons, or just sitting around collecting interest, please help us out.

01:20:12

Please send in as generous a check as you possibly can afford if indeed you are financially blessed above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands of providing for church and home.

01:20:24

Also, please give as frequently as you can. Some of you are giving more than once a month, and I just cannot thank you enough.

01:20:30

I can't describe in English language how grateful I am for you. Remember, if you're not a member of a

01:20:36

Bible -believing church, and you're not even looking for one prayerfully, then you need to repent of that, you need to rectify that, and you need to find a local church, and I can help you.

01:20:46

I have lists of Biblically faithful churches all over the world, so no matter where you live, or where you're going on vacation, or where your family, friends, and loved ones lived,

01:20:54

I do have lists of churches. There may be a church amongst them near your needs, whatever geographic region of the world you are looking for a church.

01:21:04

I have already helped a number of people in our audience find churches that they've joined, or visited while on vacation, or referred their loved ones to.

01:21:12

So please, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com and put something like,

01:21:18

I need a church, in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Dr.

01:21:24

Tony Costa, that's chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:21:31

and please, as always, give us your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside of the

01:21:38

USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

01:21:45

a personal and private matter. Let's see here, we have, Dr. Costa, a question for you a question for you from Pastor Bruce Bennett, I usually don't identify a person by their full name, but since he is a pastor, a friend,

01:21:59

Pastor Bruce Bennett of the Word of Truth Church, located in Farmingville, Long Island, New York.

01:22:07

He has a question, and it's obvious that my friend, Pastor Bruce Bennett, was not listening in the beginning of the show, so, you'll have some explaining to do,

01:22:19

Brucey! But he asks, Do you believe the conditionalist position is fatally heretical, wherein the adherent places himself outside the biblical orthodoxy and is subject to excommunication from the church?

01:22:36

And what about the annihilationist position? Well, perhaps for those listeners who did not listen in the beginning, just like Bruce, you could reiterate how you view these two things.

01:22:47

Sure, yes. What I stated at the outset of the show was that I don't think that this is an area that is heretical.

01:22:56

It does not affect one's standing with the Lord. It does not affect one's standing in salvation.

01:23:05

Nor does the Scripture say that if you deny eternal conscious punishment, you will not be saved, or if you hold to conditional mortality, you will not be saved.

01:23:13

This is a gray area that Christians can discuss, and that's why we're planning to have this debate in October.

01:23:21

This will be an intramural debate between brothers. And so, no, I don't think that it is a heresy.

01:23:26

I don't think that it is something that would remove us, or remove one, from the fellowship of the church. So, the answer to that question is no.

01:23:34

Isn't it interesting that if somebody is like a really phenomenal, extraordinary hero of the faith, like John Stott, I know many very conservative

01:23:50

Reformed Baptists and Calvinists, and even just conservative evangelicals who owe, in an earthly sense, their salvation to John Stott, or at least they're growing in the knowledge of the

01:24:05

Scriptures, coming to the doctrines of grace, what have you. And they'll be okay with Dr.

01:24:12

Stott believing it, even if they disagree with it, but anybody else is a heretic. We seem to show preferential treatment to giants like this, as opposed to the pastor down the street.

01:24:25

And that goes with other things, too. It's not just conditional immortality. Correct.

01:24:31

That's right. And so, the problem, I've always said, Chris, in the church is that we end up majoring in the minors, and we minor in the majors.

01:24:38

And I think it's important that we realize that we definitely have to major in the major doctrines.

01:24:46

That is, number one, the Gospel, the nature of the Gospel, and of course, the Triune God, and the

01:24:51

Deviant Lord, Jesus Christ, and so forth. These are things that, if they're not held, then your salvation is seriously called into question.

01:25:02

But when it comes to these minor issues, and I call them minor, because they do not affect our salvation.

01:25:07

Even the whole question of paedo -baptism versus credo -baptism, and so forth. It's not baptism that saves us.

01:25:13

At the end of the day, we can discuss these things as brothers. But we have to talk to each other, understand what we mean by these terms instead of mudslinging.

01:25:24

Let's sit down and discuss these things as brothers and try to understand each other. And I would say, and I'm guessing you'd likely agree, that these differences, though, would very likely, and I think that there is absolutely wisdom placed in the part of church leaders, elders, if they were to say to a brother who is a conditional immortality advocate or annihilationist, you may be a member here, but you cannot teach here.

01:26:00

If they have a strict guideline about that, I don't think that that's being over the top in this.

01:26:10

Even a denomination or a fellowship of churches that may say, we love you, brother, but you cannot be a part of our association or denomination or fellowship, even though we will have personal fellowship with you in an informal manner, etc.,

01:26:27

but you cannot be a part of our specific formal fellowship or denomination.

01:26:34

Would you agree with that? Yes, I would. If you become a member of a church, you have to hold to the church's constitution, and the church, for example, may have an amillennial view in terms of eschatology, and so if you're pre -millennial, then you have to respect that.

01:26:52

And so I think it's important to understand that there's a reason why there's membership, there's a reason why there has to be agreement on these issues, and so the elders of the church,

01:27:02

I think, are executing their office by being careful to make sure that doctrine that opposes their constitution is held in check, even if it's a minor issue, it still has to be held in check, because what that ends up doing is it does cause confusion in the church, and it can lead to conflict.

01:27:24

Well, thanks, Pastor Bruce, and I hope to see you during my next visit to Long Island.

01:27:30

I'm not sure when that will be yet, but it's always a blessing and a joy to see you and share fellowship with you.

01:27:37

Let's see here, we have Mary in Cork, Ireland, who has a question, and a comment.

01:27:46

God has promised to His people in Revelation 21, verse 4,

01:27:52

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away, the promise of no pain is not given to the unbeliever.

01:28:06

Of course, that last statement was not in the verse there, that was a comment of Mary in Cork, Ireland.

01:28:12

So she is asking, is this more evidence of an eternal conscious punishment,

01:28:20

I'm assuming. My own two cents in there would be that the conditional immortality person would say the person who is lost or reprobate does suffer, but not eternally.

01:28:35

But anything that you would like to add to that, Dr. Turner? Yes, well in Revelation 21, verse 4, the question is why is

01:28:47

God wiping away every tear? Well, if you notice what it says, you have the reversal of the curses of Eden.

01:28:54

There's no more crying, there's no more pain, there's no more death. These are the things that came about due to the fall, so what we have here is a reversal of that, with the coming of the new heaven and the new earth.

01:29:07

And when it says that death shall be no more, again, we have to stop thinking of the word death as cessation of existence, and that's where our friends in the conditional immortality camp argue that death and eternal death means cessation of existence, and I think we need to reinforce the fact that while death can mean the breakdown of the physical body, death denotes a separation.

01:29:33

In other words, there will be no more separation between men and God, in terms of the redeemed.

01:29:39

They've been redeemed, they're in the presence of God, they were worshipped in Pergam, forever before his throne, and therefore, there will be no more separation.

01:29:47

I've had people ask me, do you think that there could be another fall in the future? Well, no, because there will be no more death.

01:29:54

All these things will be forgotten, and so forth. So the blessing here is that the redeemed will never, ever be separated from God.

01:30:04

Unlike those outside the city, and John talks about in Revelation 21, but those who are outside the city, they are the dogs, the sorcerers, the adulterers, those who love lying, and so forth.

01:30:18

And so it's very clear that even in the book of Revelation, there are those who are in, and those who are out.

01:30:23

Those in Jerusalem are those who are redeemed, they enjoy the tree of life, they enjoy the water of life, which is given freely, but then there are those outside the city.

01:30:34

So it's clearly distinguishing two states. Those who are in, and those who are out.

01:30:41

But again, death means separation. In physical death, we have the separation of the soul from the spirit, or soul from the body, rather, and we see many examples of that.

01:30:53

When our Lord died, He said, Father, into our hands I commit my spirit. And spiritual death means separation from God.

01:31:00

We're all born spiritually dead. We are separated from God until God regenerates us and makes us alive in Christ.

01:31:07

And then the second death is the final separation from God that we read in Revelation 20 at the Great White Judgment.

01:31:13

So I think we really need to underscore the fact that death does not mean physical existence.

01:31:18

It means separation. By the way, I hope I don't take us too far afield.

01:31:26

Too far afield, I think is the right way to say that. This is not really connected too deeply to the subject.

01:31:37

But I have been considering for a while something that I first heard from the late

01:31:43

W .E. Best, who was a Calvinist pastor in Texas, I believe.

01:31:50

I think in some areas he might have been a hyper -Calvinist, but not in all areas. But he said that we should never view or should

01:32:03

I say, we should never call those going to hell, the reprobate, the lost.

01:32:09

He says that that word, scripturally, can only be consistently and logically be used for the elect who are not yet regenerate.

01:32:23

In other words, because lost indicates the idea that you are not where you are supposed to be.

01:32:29

You're not home. You're not where you belong. Whereas the reprobate belong in hell, and they're not lost.

01:32:37

They're reprobate. They're unregenerate. They're evil.

01:32:43

They're wicked. They're sinful. But they're not lost. How do you respond to that? Maybe you've never heard that concept before?

01:32:50

Yeah, I have heard that before. The only problem is some of the language that is used, like 2

01:32:56

Corinthians 1 .9, about those who will face eternal destruction. The word, again, the word apollumi, which also means to destroy and to kill, and it could also mean to be lost.

01:33:11

And so the reprobate in one sense are lost.

01:33:17

They're not in fellowship with God. So I think that there's more theology going on there with Best than there is exegesis of the grammar of the

01:33:29

New Testament. So I don't think Best was at his best on that. Laughter Well, he wasn't at his worst either.

01:33:39

He did say some things that were somewhat hyper -Calvinist as well. But my some of my friends who

01:33:49

I highly uphold as very brilliant men of God knew him and thought very highly of him.

01:33:57

Excuse me. Well, thank you, Mary in Cork, Ireland. Keep those questions coming from across the pond.

01:34:04

We always love to hear you, hear from you on Iron Trip and Zion Radio. We have an anonymous listener who says one of the reasons that I find myself leaning towards a belief in conditional immortality comes from Luke chapter 12, starting in verse 42.

01:34:26

And the Lord said, Who then is the faithful and sensible steward whom his master will put in chains?

01:34:38

Blessed I may have, this is a typo, I think. Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes.

01:34:48

Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions, but if that slave says in his heart,

01:34:56

My master will be a long time in coming, and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him, and at an hour when he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.

01:35:19

And that slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes, but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of flogging, will receive but few.

01:35:37

This passage is often referred to by those who believe in eternal conscious punishment, but it seems to me it is more reflective of a view of conditional immortality, because how on earth could you view or even describe somebody being punished for eternity as receiving few lashes?

01:35:57

That's a very good question. The only problem is that when we're dealing with parables, when

01:36:04

Jesus would use parables, we need to be very, very careful, because we always try to use a corresponding theory approach to the

01:36:11

Gospels, where, for example, the prodigal son, you have the father is God, and the prodigal son is this backsliding

01:36:17

Christian, and so forth. That's not exactly what that parable is trying to convey.

01:36:23

The idea is that which is lost has been found, and there's great joy, and so forth. And so, we need to be very careful here, that I think the point here of this parable is to show that even those who belong to the

01:36:37

Master, there are some of them who will receive a few beatings and so forth. Well, Roman Catholics have taken that to support purgatory, on that basis that they will receive a few lashes, those are just sins, the temporal punishment that is being inflicted on that person, and then eventually it will make it into Heaven.

01:36:57

I think that the idea that is being conveyed here is that the whole point of this parable is the people being ready for the

01:37:04

Lord's coming, so that He would come in pieces and put them with the unfaithful.

01:37:10

Notice, He's not rendered, He's not annihilated, He's not rendered, He doesn't vanish out of existence.

01:37:17

It says that He's cut in pieces, and then He's put, or placed, with the unfaithful, which implies that He still is conscious and exists.

01:37:25

And those who knew to do their Master's well, they will receive, one will receive a severe beating.

01:37:30

I believe, Chris, that at the Presence and Seat of Christ, that Corinthians 5 -10 mentions, there are going to be,

01:37:37

I think we will be awarded by the Lord, but I think at the same time we will be disciplined before the

01:37:44

Lord. I think that on that Judgment Seat of Christ, I think there's going to be a lot of tears on that day by Christ's own, as to, you know, why they were not faithful with their calling, preaching of the

01:37:56

Gospel, and so forth. And so, I think that the theme of the parable is to give us the idea that we must always be ready for the

01:38:05

Lord's return. Yes, there are going to be some who are unfaithful, reprobate, and so forth, and they're going to be destroyed.

01:38:13

But even if we appeal to this text, Chris, there's nothing in that text that suggests this person is going to be annihilated.

01:38:20

It says he'll be cut to pieces, and he's going to be placed with the unfaithful, which implies conscious existence.

01:38:26

And by the way, Anonymous, that was a typo. What you meant to say was, in verse 42, and the

01:38:34

Lord said, Who then is the faithful and sensible steward whom his master will put in charge not in chains, but I'm sure that was just an accident.

01:38:44

And we all know, too, Chris, that the faithful and wise steward, the faithful and wise slave is the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.

01:38:52

Don't even joke about that. Thank you,

01:38:58

Anonymous, and by the way, since you are a first -time questioner, you will also receive a new American Standard Bible, so please give us off the air, of course, your full name and your full address so that CBBBS can mail that to you.

01:39:14

CBBBS .com ships out all of our winners in our audience, the Bibles and the books that they win by submitting questions to our guests.

01:39:23

We are going to our final break right now. It's a shorter break than our normal breaks, so if you intend to join us on the air with a question, please go to, please send your email,

01:39:40

I should say, to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com while we still have time. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com

01:39:45

and give us your first name, city and state and country of residence if you live outside the USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter.

01:39:53

Don't go away. We'll be back with Dr. Tony Costa for our final segment on today's interview with more on the view of conditional immortality.

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Or call them at 908 -996 -7654. That's 908 -996 -7654.

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Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. The mission of Solid Ground Christian Books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to Christians in the present and future, and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world.

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New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the NASB.

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I'm Pastor Nate Pickowitz of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmont and Ironworks, New Hampshire, and the

01:48:28

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Rich Jensen of Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, New York, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Sule Prince of Oakwood Wesleyan Church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor John Sampson of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Chuck Volo of New Life Community Church in Kingsville, Maryland, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Steve Hertford of Eastport Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Roy Owens, Jr.

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of the Church in Friendship in Hockley, Texas, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.

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I'm Pastor Chuck Volo of Eastport Baptist Church in Kingsville, Florida, and the

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NASB is my

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Bible of choice.

01:51:13

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, and we are now in our final segment with Dr. Tony Costa of Toronto Baptist Seminary discussing and critiquing the view, the doctrine of conditional immortality, and we have one of your friends who has submitted a question,

01:51:31

Dr. Costa. In fact, he just was heard in that recently aired

01:51:37

New American Standard Bible ad, and he is Roy Owens, Pastor Roy Owens, Jr.

01:51:44

of the Church at Friendship in Hockley, Texas, where you will be speaking next month, and that is the 2nd through the 4th of August.

01:51:55

And Pastor Owens, Jr. says, I am in agreement with Tony Costa, however,

01:52:04

Tony, please comment on this popular belief. In Genesis chapter 3 verses 22 to 23,

01:52:13

God evicts Adam and Eve from the garden so that they could not take also the tree of life and eat and live forever.

01:52:24

Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, and now he might stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever.

01:52:38

In verse 23, Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he was taken.

01:52:47

But in Revelation 22 verse 2, access to the tree of life is restored, but only for the inhabitants of New Jerusalem.

01:52:58

Thus they are unable to live forever. So what are your comments on that? Okay, well

01:53:04

I'm glad Pastor Roy Owens brought that up. So in Genesis chapter 3 verses 22 to 23, remember there has been a separation with God.

01:53:15

There is a spiritual death that has taken place. They have eaten up the forbidden fruit, and so they are now evicted out of Eden.

01:53:21

This is very, very important because Eden is the prototype of the temple of God.

01:53:28

Eden was God's temple abode on the earth, and it was also the prototype of Israel.

01:53:33

Israel was to be Eden recreated, and of course Israel failed in that mission as well. And so with the coming of the

01:53:40

Lord Jesus, he restores to us Eden. He brings the New Jerusalem. He brings the new heaven, the new earth.

01:53:47

That's why all the Edenic imagery is used there in Revelation 21 and 22.

01:53:54

And so the tree of life, which was in the garden of Eden, is now taken away from Adam and Eve, and it is rightfully restored, as Pastor Owens pointed out in Revelation 22 verse 2.

01:54:09

Now we need to be careful again. The idea of living forever, the New Testament refers to this as eternal life, and in John 17 3 the

01:54:17

Lord Jesus said eternal life is this, that they may know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

01:54:23

And so the concept of eternal life refers to a quality of life.

01:54:29

It's a relationship that the believer has with God, and so we need to understand the context of what

01:54:36

Genesis is pointing to. Man has violated the command of God.

01:54:42

He has declared war on God, and so he is rightfully evicted. However, we've got to be careful that we don't get too ahead of ourselves.

01:54:52

There is also the Proto -Evangelium. There is that first Messianic promise in Genesis 3 15, that the seed of the woman would come, and that he would crush the head of the seed of the serpent.

01:55:05

And so this one who is to come, the seed of the woman, who is later the seed that comes from Noah's lineage, through Shem, through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and then through the house of David, this seed is the one who restores the tree of life to us.

01:55:22

And so when we speak about having eternal life, we need to understand that that is a term that refers to relationship with God that has been restored and reconciled in Christ.

01:55:34

That does not mean, however, that the wicked do not continue, that is, continue to exist in a state of punishment and conscious torment and so forth.

01:55:45

So I think we have to be careful with how we use these words. These words have powerful, they're pregnant with meaning, and we need to be careful that what we see here in the tree of life is a type of Christ as well.

01:56:01

It's no surprise that Jesus would later refer to himself as the vine. He would speak of himself as this life -giving vine, that the branches have to be attached to him and so forth.

01:56:13

So the idea of living forever, again, in the context of Scripture means living in relationship with God.

01:56:22

We've been regenerated, we've been given new life in Christ. But that does not obfuscate the fact that the wicked do continue to exist into eternity.

01:56:33

They don't have eternal life in the sense that they have this relationship with God, but they do continue in eternal punishment to exist.

01:56:42

Thank you, Pastor Roy Owens, Jr. We look forward to interviewing you sometime in the near future as well on Ion Trump and Zion Radio.

01:56:51

And send my regards to everybody at the Providence Theological Institute who have been very generous and kind to Ion Trump and Zion Radio.

01:57:00

Very quickly, we have an anonymous listener again who says, I'm quite surprised that you seem to have such a soft opposition to this view of unconditional,

01:57:10

I'm sorry, of conditional immortality because the terror of hell, eternal conscious punishment, is what drives many to flee the wrath to come into the arms of Christ through repentance and belief.

01:57:27

It seems to me people will be less fearful of the afterlife with this view.

01:57:33

That's an interesting comment. John Piper, I remember hearing him saying something very similar.

01:57:41

But this, to me, as a Reformed Christian, I don't know about you, Tony, but it seems to, at least with Reformed theology, nobody's going to prevent the elect from going to heaven.

01:57:51

Nobody's going to prevent the elect from repenting and believing. And so I don't really follow the logic that people are going to go to hell just because somebody has a different view of how long a person will be punished in the afterlife.

01:58:10

Right, right. Well, the bottom line, Chris, is we don't sell fire insurance. We're not into the fire insurance business.

01:58:17

So it's not a matter of saying, you know, you're going to face eternal damnation in hell and so forth.

01:58:24

The unbeliever doesn't care. Romans 130 says that they're God -haters. They hate God. And wherever God is, the unregenerate heart does not want to be where God is.

01:58:34

And so if you say to them that, look, you're going to face eternal punishment and so forth, well, if that means that I'm going to be away from God and so forth, so be it.

01:58:43

The unregenerate who are in hell, if they had an opportunity to come out, they would simply come out, spit in the face of God, and turn around and jump back in.

01:58:52

So it's not that they're there and they're regretting it. They're there because they have rebelled against God.

01:58:59

They've rejected the gospel, and they, by nature, hate God. And so we're not into the business of terrifying people into the kingdom.

01:59:06

The unregenerate men will not come, cannot come, unless the Father draws them to Christ and the

01:59:12

Lord Jesus raises them up on the last day. So at the end of the day, it's about God's calling. But you're absolutely right,

01:59:18

Chris. All of God's elect will, every drop of blood that Christ spilled on the cross of Calvary was not spilled in vain.

01:59:25

It will procure the salvation of all his people for whom it was intended, and they will be brought in.

01:59:33

And the churchatfriendship .org is the website for the, to find out more about the conference where Dr.

01:59:40

Tony Costa will be speaking August 2nd through the 4th in Hockley, Texas. Churchatfriendship .org.

01:59:47

And do you have any other contact information, Dr. Costa? Well, if people are interested,

01:59:53

Pastor Suley and I have put out a number of videos. It's called The Third Degree. And so if you punch in Tony Costa Third Degree on Google, you will find them there.

02:00:03

And we will be teaching a course, I'll be teaching a course on the attributes of God coming in September in Toronto at Oakwood Wesleyan Church.

02:00:12

And those, that class will be made available online for those who are outside of the

02:00:17

Toronto, Canada area. So stay tuned for that. We'll have more information posted at the

02:00:24

Oakwood Wesleyan Church website, oakwoodwesleyan .org. Thank you so much, Dr. Costa.

02:00:29

I look forward to sharing fellowship with you again soon and having you back on this program. I want to thank everybody for listening, especially those who took the time to write questions.

02:00:38

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.