Eternal, immortal, resurrected life—albeit in torment. This is how most Christians have thought of the final fate of the unsaved, from second-century Tatian to the Reformation’s Belgic Confession and through to today’s theologians like Wayne Grudem. This now-traditional view of hell is not one of disembodied spirits, but of resurrected, living people whom God has rendered immortal so as to endure physical and emotional torment for all eternity.
The last two posts have summed up some key New Testament passages that are foundational for the New Perspective on Paul (Rom 3:28-30; 4:12-14; Gal 2:11-16). James Dunn and others have argued from these passages that since first century Judaism was not legalistic (as shown by Sanders),
The western church, as you know, wades around in a thick sludge of individualism. We admit it. We bemoan it. But sometimes we don’t realize just how deep our individualism runs. As I peel back the many unforeseen layers of my presuppositions,
