Chapter 11

Sodom and Gomorrah—A Test Case for Final Judgment

If I asked you to picture God's judgment, what image would come to mind? For many of us who grew up in church, the answer is fire. Specifically, fire from heaven, raining down on cities that had crossed a terrible line. We picture smoke rising from a landscape that, just hours before, had been full of people going about their ordinary lives. We picture Abraham, standing on a hilltop the next morning, staring in silence at a wasteland where a bustling city used to be.

That picture comes from Genesis 19. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is one of the most referenced events in all of Scripture—one of those stories that every biblical writer seems to know by heart. Moses pointed back to it. The prophets held it up as a warning. Jesus himself used it to talk about final judgment. Peter and Jude both said it was an example—a preview—of what is coming for the ungodly at the end of the age. If you want to understand what the Bible says about God's judgment, you simply cannot avoid Sodom.

And here is what makes this chapter so interesting: both universalists and conditionalists claim Sodom as evidence for their view. Universalists point to Ezekiel 16, where God explicitly promises to "restore the fortunes of Sodom." Conditionalists point to Jude 7 and 2 Peter 2:6, where Sodom is held up as an example of total, irreversible destruction. Both sides are working with real texts. Both sides are making arguments that deserve honest engagement.

So think of this chapter as a test case. We are going to lay out every significant Sodom text in the Bible—from Genesis through Revelation—and ask a simple question: When the biblical writers point to Sodom, what are they asking us to see? Are they showing us a city that will one day be restored? Or are they showing us a city that was utterly destroyed and will never come back? The answer matters, because whatever Sodom teaches us about judgment will shape what we believe about the final judgment itself.

Let me be upfront about what I think we will find. I believe that when we look at the full sweep of Sodom's biblical story, the evidence tips clearly toward conditional immortality. Sodom is the Bible's most vivid picture of total, permanent, irreversible destruction—and the New Testament writers use it precisely for that purpose. But the universalist case is not empty, and I want to treat it with the honesty it deserves before I explain why I think it falls short.

The Universalist Position: Sodom's Story Is Not Over

The universalist argument about Sodom is built on a genuinely surprising text. Let me share it with you, because when I first encountered it during my own study, it stopped me in my tracks.

In Ezekiel 16, God is addressing Jerusalem through the prophet. He has been comparing Jerusalem to her "sisters"—Samaria and Sodom—and telling Jerusalem that she has actually been worse than both of them. Then, right in the middle of this searing rebuke, God says something that the universalist reader finds electrifying:

"However, I will restore the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and of Samaria and her daughters, and your fortunes along with them, so that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all you have done in giving them comfort. And your sisters, Sodom with her daughters and Samaria with her daughters, will return to what they were before; and you and your daughters will return to what you were before" (Ezek. 16:53–55).¹

Read that again. God says he will restore the fortunes of Sodom. Sodom—the most destroyed city in all of Scripture—will "return to what they were before." Robin Parry, writing as Gregory MacDonald in The Evangelical Universalist, makes much of this passage. He argues that even a city as "paradigmatically sinful as Sodom," one that had experienced the very punishment from which the imagery of hell was developed, could later experience restoration.² If Sodom can be restored, the universalist reasons, then no one is beyond hope. Not even those who endure the fire of final judgment.

The force of this argument becomes even stronger, the universalist says, when you notice what God says a few verses later: "Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you receive your sisters, both those who are older than you and those who are younger. I will give them to you as daughters" (Ezek. 16:60–61).⁶¹ This is not vague prophetic poetry, the universalist insists. It is a concrete promise of an everlasting covenant that includes Sodom and Samaria. God will give them to Jerusalem "as daughters." That sounds like reconciliation, not destruction.

The Triumph of Mercy pairs this passage with Jeremiah 31:34, where God promises that "they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest," and argues that these texts together point to a restoration so sweeping that no one falls outside its reach—not even the infamous citizens of Sodom.⁶² For the universalist, Ezekiel 16 is not an isolated curiosity. It is part of a broad prophetic pattern in which God's judgment always gives way to God's restoration, even for the most extreme offenders.

The universalist case does not rest on Ezekiel 16 alone. There are at least two other pillars.

Degrees of Judgment Imply Correction

Jesus' statement in Matthew 11:24 is the second pillar. Speaking about the towns that had rejected his ministry, Jesus says: "But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you."³ The universalist zeroes in on that phrase "more bearable." If judgment were simply about destruction—if the end result were the same for everyone—why would Jesus speak of degrees? Why would it be more bearable for Sodom than for Capernaum? Degrees of judgment, the universalist argues, make the most sense if judgment is corrective rather than destructive. A corrective process would naturally involve varying degrees of intensity, depending on how much correction is needed.⁴

Thomas Talbott presses this point in The Inescapable Love of God. If the fire is corrective, then it makes perfect sense that some would experience it more intensely than others—just as a surgeon might need to operate more extensively on one patient than on another. The goal is the same in both cases: healing. The intensity varies based on the severity of the condition.⁵

The "Eternal Fire" That Burned Out

The third universalist pillar involves a clever observation about Jude 7. Jude writes that "Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities… serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire."⁶ The universalist points out that the conditionalist has already conceded something crucial about this text. We agree that the "eternal fire" that fell on Sodom is not still burning. The fire did its work and went out. The results are permanent, but the process ended. The UR advocate says: Good. So you agree that "eternal fire" does not mean "fire that burns forever." It means fire whose effects endure. Now apply that same logic to the final judgment. The fire of God's purifying presence will do its work and then it will end—not because it fails, but because its work is complete. For some, that work is purification. For all, the result is restoration.⁷

Parry draws an additional line from the Old Testament prophetic pattern. The nations that experienced God's fiery judgment—including Egypt, Edom, and Babylon—are later described as coming to Jerusalem to worship God. Isaiah 19:21–25, for instance, envisions Egypt and Assyria worshiping alongside Israel. If the pattern holds, then the nations destroyed in judgment can and will be restored after judgment.⁸ Sodom, the universalist concludes, is exhibit A: the most thoroughly destroyed city in the Bible, and yet God promises to restore it.

The Triumph of Mercy adds one more layer. Its author quotes Ezekiel 16:53–55 alongside Isaiah 45:22—"Look to me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth"—and argues that the "all" truly means all, including Sodom and Samaria. He also cites Jerome, who in the early fifth century wrote that "Israel and all heretics, because they had the works of Sodom and Gomorrah, are overthrown like Sodom and Gomorrah, that they may be set free like a brand snatched from the burning."⁹

Taken together, the universalist case on Sodom looks like this: Ezekiel explicitly promises Sodom's restoration. Jesus implies corrective judgment by speaking of degrees. Jude's "eternal fire" was temporary in its burning. And the prophetic pattern consistently moves from judgment to restoration, even for the worst offenders. If Sodom is the Bible's paradigmatic case of judgment, and if even Sodom will be restored, then what grounds does the conditionalist have for claiming that anyone's destruction is permanent?

That is a serious argument, and I understand why it is compelling. I felt its pull myself when I was wrestling with these questions. But as I dug deeper into the biblical evidence, I became convinced that the universalist reading of Sodom, while clever, ultimately goes against the grain of how the biblical writers actually use Sodom. Let me show you what I mean.

The CI Response and Positive Case: What Sodom Really Teaches About Judgment

The Event Itself: A Picture of Total Destruction

Before we get into the New Testament, we need to look carefully at what actually happened to Sodom in Genesis 18–19, because the details matter more than we often realize. The narrative is so familiar that we can rush past it without seeing how much it reveals about God's character and the nature of his judgment.

The story begins with Abraham. God has decided to destroy Sodom because the city's sin is "very grave" (Gen. 18:20). But before he acts, God tells Abraham what he plans to do—and what follows is one of the most remarkable scenes of intercession in all of Scripture. Abraham bargains with God: "Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city?" God agrees to spare the city for fifty. Then Abraham pushes further. Forty-five? Forty? Thirty? Twenty? Ten?¹⁰

Each time, God agrees. If there are even ten righteous people in Sodom, he will not destroy it. But there are not ten. That is the devastating conclusion of the story. After all of God's willingness to show mercy, after Abraham's persistent intercession, the city cannot produce even ten righteous souls.

Think about what that reveals about God's character. He did not destroy Sodom eagerly. He did not rush to judgment. He gave Abraham every chance to find a reason for mercy. And when the judgment finally fell, it fell only because mercy had been genuinely exhausted.

The destruction itself was swift, complete, and devastating. Genesis 19:24–29 describes fire and burning sulfur raining from heaven, overthrowing the cities and the entire plain, including every living person and even the vegetation. The next morning, Abraham looked out over the landscape and saw "dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace."¹¹

Edward Fudge summarizes the scene powerfully in The Fire That Consumes. He quotes the nineteenth-century scholar Constable: "In the days of Abraham, four rich and populous cities flourished in the plain of Jordan. On a sudden, fire descended from heaven, and, after a period of terror, regrets, and pain, the inhabitants were deprived of life. They and their works were burnt up; and this ruined, lifeless, hopeless, condition has remained to the present time."¹²

Notice the words: ruined, lifeless, hopeless. That is what Sodom looked like the morning after God's judgment. Not a city undergoing correction. Not a population being refined. A wasteland. A pile of ashes. Rising smoke. Nothing left.

The Biblical Vocabulary of Sodom's Destruction

Fudge makes a crucial observation that we need to sit with for a moment. The destruction of Sodom gave the Bible its core vocabulary for judgment. From this single event, Scripture draws at least three powerful symbols that appear again and again throughout the Old and New Testaments.¹³

That is remarkable when you think about it. When God wanted his people to understand what final judgment would look like, he did not start with abstract theology. He did not give them a philosophical lecture about retribution and proportionality. He showed them Sodom. He burned a city to the ground and said, in effect, "Remember this. This is what it looks like when I act in judgment." And for the rest of biblical history, whenever a prophet or apostle wanted to talk about divine judgment, they reached back to that same set of images. Sodom was not just one example among many. It was the example. The prototype. The defining picture.

The first is fire and brimstone (or burning sulfur). This becomes the Bible's shorthand for complete annihilation. Every time fire and brimstone appear in Scripture—against apostates in Israel (Deut. 29:23), against Assyria (Isa. 30:33), against Edom (Isa. 34:9), against Gog (Ezek. 38:22), and against the beast, false prophet, and all the wicked in Revelation—they carry the same meaning they carried at Sodom: total, unsparing destruction.¹⁴

The second symbol is rising smoke. When Abraham looked down the next morning and saw smoke rising like a furnace, there was nothing left to burn. The smoke was not a sign that destruction was continuing—it was a sign that destruction was completed. Fudge compares it to the mushroom cloud after a nuclear detonation: "The visible smoke is a certification of accomplished destruction. There are no more cries in Sodom when Abraham views the ascending smoke. All is quiet. The sinners are all destroyed. The rising smoke testifies to their complete extinction."¹⁵

The third symbol is eternal fire—fire whose results are permanent and irreversible. Sodom was destroyed and remains destroyed. The fire did its work and stopped, but the desolation it left behind endures forever. That is the meaning Jude gives to "eternal fire" in Jude 7, and we will come back to that shortly.

How Later Biblical Writers Use Sodom

This is where the evidence becomes overwhelming. From Deuteronomy to Revelation, biblical writers point to Sodom again and again—and they consistently emphasize the same set of characteristics about its destruction. Fudge identifies at least seven.¹⁶

The destruction was inclusive. Isaiah was struck by the fact that not one person in the wicked population escaped (Isa. 1:9). Paul quoted Isaiah's words to make the same point (Rom. 9:29).¹⁷ It was sudden. Jesus pointed to the unexpectedness of the judgment as a warning: when God acts, the righteous had better run (Luke 17:26–33).¹⁸ It was complete. The fire and sulfur did not partially damage the cities. They burned them to ashes. Peter uses exactly this language: God "condemned them to extinction" by "burning them to ashes" and "made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly" (2 Pet. 2:6).¹⁹

The destruction was quick. This is an underappreciated detail. The writer of Lamentations says that the punishment of Sodom was actually more merciful than the prolonged siege of Jerusalem, because it was over in an instant (Lam. 4:6).²⁰ It was devastating, leaving behind a barren, empty wasteland void of human inhabitants—a point stressed by Moses (Deut. 29:23), Jeremiah (Jer. 49:18), and Zephaniah (Zeph. 2:9).²¹ And it was perpetual. Centuries later, prophets still pointed to Sodom's ongoing desolation as a model for what divine judgment looks like. When God warned of Babylon's coming destruction, Sodom was the example he gave (Isa. 13:19–22; Jer. 50:40).²²

Finally, the destruction was accomplished. The morning after, all that remained was smoke. "Biblical writers use this symbol in connection with later judgments" (Isa. 34:10; Rev. 14:11; 19:3), each time indicating that the work of destruction is finished and the desolation that follows is permanent.²³

Now here is the question I want you to sit with: In all of these references—from Moses to Isaiah to Jeremiah to Zephaniah to Jesus to Peter to Jude—does anyone use Sodom as an example of restoration after judgment? Not once. Every single time a biblical writer points to Sodom, they point to it as a picture of what total, irreversible destruction looks like. That is the consistent witness of Scripture.

Jude 7: Defining "Eternal Fire"

Let me take a closer look at Jude 7, because it is one of the most important texts in this entire debate. Jude writes that "Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire."²⁴

The Greek word for "example" here is deigma. Though it appears only here in the New Testament, related forms of the word appear throughout the New Testament, and they consistently mean a sample or illustration of something real.²⁵ Jude is not saying that Sodom vaguely illustrates some principle about judgment. He is saying that Sodom is itself a sample of the kind of judgment that awaits the ungodly. The fire that fell on Sodom is a real instance of "eternal fire"—and it shows us what that fire does.

And what did it do? It destroyed. Completely. Permanently. Sodom is not still burning. The fire went out a very long time ago. But the results of that fire are permanent. The cities were never rebuilt. The population was never restored. The desolation endures. That is what "eternal fire" means: not fire that burns forever, but fire that destroys forever.²⁶

Cambridge scholar Richard Bauckham confirms this reading. The still-smoking site of Sodom, even in the first century AD, "signifies that the cities will never be rebuilt. Their destruction lasts forever."²⁷ The fire's work is done. What endures is the absence of what the fire consumed.

The universalist concedes this point about the physical cities. But they argue that the people of Sodom are a different matter. The cities are gone, yes, but the souls of the inhabitants are in Hades, awaiting the final judgment, where they will encounter God's purifying fire and be restored. And that brings us to Ezekiel 16.

Before we get there, though, I want to make one more observation about Jude 7. Notice that Jude does not say the people of Sodom are a vague or general example of those who will eventually suffer the punishment of eternal fire. He says they themselves "serve as an example by undergoing" that very punishment. The language is direct. Sodom did not merely illustrate a principle. Sodom experienced the eternal fire firsthand. And that fire reduced them to nothing.⁶⁴

Fudge makes a pointed observation about how traditionalist scholars handle this text. Most of them seem almost unaware of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, despite the fact that Peter and Jude both identify it as a preview of final punishment. Those who do engage the passage often refuse to follow their own logic to its natural conclusion. Peterson, for instance, acknowledges that Sodom's citizens were "totally obliterated" but then argues that their fate cannot truly represent final punishment because they will be raised to face God's judgment.⁶⁵ We will address Peterson's argument shortly. For now, the key point is this: Jude says Sodom is an example of eternal fire. What did that fire do? It destroyed. That is the meaning of "eternal fire" in Scripture.

Ezekiel 16:53–55: The Strongest UR Text—and Why It Falls Short

I want to be honest about something. Ezekiel 16:53–55 is one of the texts that gave me the most trouble when I was working through this material. The language is striking. God promises to "restore the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters." Sodom "will return to what they were before." That sounds like restoration. It sounds like the universalist is reading the text exactly as it sits on the page.

But context matters. And when you read Ezekiel 16 carefully, from beginning to end, a different picture emerges.

The entire chapter is an extended allegory in which God compares Jerusalem to a woman he rescued, raised, and married—a woman who then became shockingly unfaithful. God says Jerusalem's "sisters" are Samaria and Sodom, and that Jerusalem has actually been worse than both of them. "You not only followed their ways and copied their detestable practices, but in all your ways you soon became more depraved than they" (Ezek. 16:47).²⁸

Now here is the key. When God says he will "restore the fortunes of Sodom," what is the purpose of that restoration in the context of the oracle? Look at the next verse: "so that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all you have done in giving them comfort" (Ezek. 16:54).²⁹ The restoration of Sodom is not the point of the oracle. The shaming of Jerusalem is the point. God is saying: "You have been so much worse than Sodom that when I restore even Sodom, you will be humiliated by the comparison." Sodom's restoration functions as a rhetorical device to magnify Jerusalem's guilt.³⁰

Does that mean the promise is not real? Not necessarily. But we need to be careful about building an entire eschatological framework on a verse whose primary function in its context is to shame Jerusalem. The passage does not tell us how this restoration will work, when it will happen, or whether it applies to the individual inhabitants of ancient Sodom or to the geographic region and its future inhabitants.

There is another possibility worth considering. The prophets sometimes use city names as shorthand for types of people or patterns of behavior. "Sodom" in prophetic literature often functions as a label for extreme wickedness (Isa. 1:10; Rev. 11:8), and "restoring the fortunes of Sodom" may mean something like "even the most wicked kinds of people will find a path to restoration through God's mercy"—a hope that the conditionalist, with our affirmation of the postmortem opportunity, can actually embrace. God's mercy extends even to those who lived like Sodom. But that does not mean every individual who persists in rejecting God after the fullest possible opportunity will avoid destruction.³¹

I will be honest: I do not think the conditionalist reading of Ezekiel 16 is as clean and simple as the universalist reading. The universalist can point to the text and say, "Look, restoration." And that is a real strength. But the CI reading is strengthened by the fact that every other time the Bible points to Sodom, it points to Sodom as an example of permanent destruction. One prophetic passage used in a shaming oracle is not enough to overturn the consistent testimony of dozens of texts across both testaments.

There is one more thing to notice about the Ezekiel passage. When God says he will restore the fortunes of Sodom, he adds a striking qualifier: "but not on the basis of my covenant with you" (Ezek. 16:61). This is a fascinating phrase. It suggests that whatever restoration God has in mind, it will be on a different basis than the Mosaic covenant. For the Christian reader, this naturally points to the new covenant in Christ. And here is the crucial question: does the new covenant guarantee the salvation of every individual, or does it provide the opportunity for salvation to all? CI says the latter. The new covenant opens the door. The postmortem opportunity ensures that even those who never heard of Christ in this life will have a chance to walk through it. But walking through the door is still a choice—and some may choose not to.⁶⁶

2 Peter 2:6: Condemned to Extinction

Peter's language is blunt. He writes that God "condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly" (2 Pet. 2:6).³²

The Greek word translated "burning them to ashes" is tephrōsas, and it means exactly what it sounds like: reducing something to a pile of ash.³³ Peter is not using metaphorical or ambiguous language. He is describing total physical annihilation. And he explicitly says this is an example—a preview, a model—of what is going to happen to the ungodly.

Fudge drives this point home with a devastating observation. If Peter is a universalist, why does he warn people by pointing to Sodom's utter annihilation as "an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly"?³⁴ If the ungodly will eventually be restored, then Sodom is not an example of their fate at all—it is at most an example of a temporary setback on the road to salvation. But Peter does not describe it that way. He describes it as a paradigm for the final outcome of the ungodly.

The universalist has a response here, and it is worth taking seriously. They point out that the Greek word Peter uses is katastrophē—"catastrophe" or "overthrow"—and they argue that this word describes what happened to the cities, not the eternal fate of the inhabitants.³⁵ That is a legitimate observation about the word itself. But the broader context of 2 Peter 2 makes it hard to sustain. Peter is building a case that God will judge the ungodly and will bring their wickedness to an end. He gives three examples: the fallen angels, the Flood, and Sodom. In each case, the point is the certainty and finality of divine judgment—not a temporary disruption followed by restoration.

Peter even draws the parallel explicitly. Just as the old world was "deluged and destroyed" by water, so "the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men" (2 Pet. 3:7).³⁶ The language is unmistakable. The coming judgment will do to the ungodly what the Flood did to the ancient world and what fire did to Sodom: destroy them completely.

Matthew 11:23–24: Degrees of Judgment and the CI Response

What about Jesus' statement that "it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment" than for the towns that rejected his ministry? Does this require a corrective view of judgment, as the universalist argues?

Not at all. Conditional immortality has always affirmed that judgment involves degrees of punishment proportional to the degree of guilt. We saw this in Chapter 5 when we discussed the fire of God's presence—following Sharon Baker's framework in Razing Hell, the fire burns more intensely for some than for others, depending on how much evil needs to be purged before the person's final end.³⁷ "More bearable" does not mean "ultimately restorative." It means the experience of judgment will be less severe for Sodom than for Capernaum, because Capernaum had received greater light and rejected it.

Think of it this way. Two patients arrive at a hospital with terminal conditions. One patient's suffering is more intense than the other's. Both conditions are fatal. The fact that one experiences more pain before death does not mean either will recover. "More bearable" describes the intensity of the experience, not the outcome.³⁸

There is something else worth noticing in Jesus' words. He does not say Sodom will be restored. He does not say Sodom will eventually be saved. He says their judgment will be "more bearable." That is a comment about relative severity, not about ultimate destiny. If Jesus wanted to communicate restoration, he had the vocabulary to do so. He chose language of comparative severity instead.

The universalist might respond: "But the very fact that Jesus mentions Sodom in connection with the day of judgment proves that the Sodomites will be present at that judgment—and if God gives them a chance to stand before him, it proves he has not written them off." I actually agree with that logic, and I think it supports the CI case powerfully. God has not written off the people of Sodom. Their physical destruction was real, but it was not the end of their story. They remain in Hades, and they will stand before Christ. The question is not whether God gives them a chance. He does. The question is whether every single one of them will accept it.

And here is a detail that strengthens the CI case. Jesus' words actually assume that the people of Sodom will be present at the day of judgment. That fits perfectly with what both CI and UR affirm: the soul survives physical death, the dead await judgment in the intermediate state, and all will stand before God at the final judgment. The Sodomites were destroyed physically by fire from heaven, but their souls exist in Hades, awaiting the resurrection and judgment.³⁹ The conditionalist affirms that they will receive a genuine postmortem opportunity to encounter God and respond to Christ. If they receive him, they will be saved. If they ultimately reject him even after that encounter, they will experience the second death.

The fact that Jesus says their judgment will be "more bearable" suggests that the Sodomites, who sinned in greater ignorance and without the direct witness of Christ's miracles, may well find it easier to respond to God's mercy in that final encounter. Perhaps many of them will be saved. I genuinely hope so. But "more bearable" does not guarantee universal salvation for every individual.⁴⁰

Abraham's Intercession: A Model of God's Heart

There is an aspect of the Sodom story that does not get nearly enough attention in this debate, and it is one of my favorite parts of the whole narrative. Go back to Genesis 18 and watch Abraham bargain with God.

Abraham asks: "Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?" And then he starts negotiating. Fifty righteous? God will spare the city. Forty-five? Yes. Forty? Yes. Thirty? Twenty? Ten?⁴¹ Each time, God agrees. He is not reluctant to show mercy. He is not looking for an excuse to destroy. He wants Abraham to give him a reason to save Sodom.

This tells us something important about the God who sends the fire. He is not eager to destroy. He is the God who asks, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?" (Gen. 18:17)—as if inviting Abraham into the decision. He is the God who agrees, again and again, to show mercy if there is even a shred of righteousness to be found.

The universalist and the conditionalist both see something true in this scene. The universalist sees a God whose mercy is so vast that he would spare an entire city for the sake of ten righteous people. I agree completely. The conditionalist sees something else as well: a God whose mercy, even at its most generous, has a relationship with reality. There were not ten righteous people in Sodom. And when mercy had been genuinely exhausted—not arbitrarily cut off, but truly exhausted—the judgment fell.⁴²

Now extend this to the final judgment. The CI view says that God does for every unsaved person what he did for Sodom—he offers every possible opportunity for repentance, including the postmortem opportunity we discussed in Chapter 29. He goes far, far further than justice requires. But if, after the fullest possible encounter with his love and truth, a person still refuses—then the second death is the result. Not because God ran out of patience. Because the person ran out of willingness.

There is a detail in the narrative that often goes unnoticed but powerfully reinforces this point. God did not simply rain fire on Sodom without warning. He sent two angels who entered the city, stayed overnight, and gave Lot's family an explicit chance to flee (Gen. 19:1–17). Lot even went to his sons-in-law and warned them. They laughed at him. They thought he was joking (Gen. 19:14). Even with angels literally dragging Lot out of the city by the hand, even with the fire about to fall, the sons-in-law chose to stay. The opportunity was real. The warning was clear. And the refusal was free.⁶³

That is the pattern that CI sees repeated on a cosmic scale at the final judgment. God sends his warnings. He provides his messengers. He gives his postmortem opportunity—a face-to-face encounter with Christ that is far more direct and powerful than any warning Lot's sons-in-law received. And if, after all of that, the person still refuses? Then the fire that purifies the willing becomes the fire that consumes the unwilling. Not because God failed. Because freedom is real.

Sodom in the Broader Biblical Narrative

One of the most telling features of the Sodom references throughout Scripture is how consistent they are. Let me walk you through the major ones, because the cumulative picture is powerful.

Moses uses Sodom as a warning about covenant-breaking. In Deuteronomy 29:23, he warns that disobedience will make the land "brimstone and salt, and a burnt-out waste, unsown, and growing nothing—an overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah."⁴³ The emphasis is on desolation so complete that nothing grows. No life. No recovery.

Isaiah uses Sodom to describe both God's judgment and God's mercy toward a remnant. "Unless the Lord of hosts had left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah" (Isa. 1:9).⁴⁴ The comparison only works if Sodom's fate was total destruction with no survivors. If Sodom will eventually be restored, the comparison loses its force.

Jeremiah uses Sodom to prophesy the fall of Babylon: "As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbor cities… so no man shall dwell there, and no son of man sojourn in her" (Jer. 50:40).⁴⁵ Again, the emphasis is on permanent uninhabitability. No dwelling. No sojourning. Ever.

Zephaniah prophesies against Moab and Ammon: "They shall become like Sodom… a land possessed by nettles and salt pits, and a waste forever" (Zeph. 2:9).⁴⁶ Forever. Waste. Like Sodom.

Jesus uses Sodom as the benchmark for judgment (Matt. 10:15; 11:23–24; Luke 10:12; 17:29).⁴⁷ In Luke 17, he draws a direct parallel between the days of Lot (when fire destroyed the unsuspecting population) and the coming of the Son of Man. The point is not that people will be corrected. The point is that people will be caught off guard by sudden, total judgment.

And then Peter and Jude, as we have seen, make Sodom an explicit "example" of what God's final judgment will look like.⁴⁸

Count the references. Count the emphasis. The consistent biblical testimony about Sodom is that it represents complete, irreversible, permanent destruction. Not a single one of these texts uses Sodom as a picture of restoration. The universalist reading of Ezekiel 16 stands alone against this mountain of evidence.

Here is an analogy that might help. Imagine you are researching a historical event, and you find fifty sources that describe it the same way—as a decisive, permanent defeat with no recovery. Then you find one source, written in a very different genre (political satire, let us say), that seems to hint that the defeated party eventually came back. Would you rewrite your entire understanding of the event based on that one source? Or would you consider the possibility that the one source is doing something different with the material than the fifty sources are? That is roughly the situation with Sodom in the Bible. The overwhelming testimony points to permanent destruction. One prophetic oracle, embedded in a shaming context, seems to promise restoration. The cumulative weight of the evidence should guide our reading.

The Parallelism Between Physical and Final Destruction

The traditionalist scholar Robert Peterson once made an argument against conditionalism that actually backfires, and I think it is worth examining. Peterson acknowledged that the people of Sodom were "totally obliterated" and "destroyed at death, never to exist again." But he argued that because they will be raised at the last day to face judgment, their physical destruction at Sodom cannot truly represent their final fate.⁴⁹

Fudge's response is brilliant. He points out that Peterson misses the parallelism. Just as the people of Sodom were destroyed at the first death, never to exist again in the present age, so those who are finally lost will be destroyed at the second death, never to exist again in the everlasting age to come.⁵⁰ The parallel is perfect. The physical destruction of Sodom is a preview of the eschatological destruction of the ungodly. The first death foreshadows the second death. Both involve total destruction. The only difference is that the second death is final in an absolute sense—there is no resurrection after it.

This is exactly what CI teaches. The people of Sodom were physically destroyed by fire from heaven. Their souls survived in Hades (because we affirm substance dualism and the conscious intermediate state). They will be raised at the final judgment and given a genuine opportunity to respond to Christ. Those who receive him will be saved. Those who do not will experience the second death—a destruction that is to the soul what Sodom's fire was to the body. Permanent. Irreversible. Final.

The concept of the "second death" is worth pausing over, because the Sodom connection illuminates it powerfully. Revelation 20:14 tells us that "death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire." As we discussed in Chapter 5, the lake of fire draws its imagery directly from the destruction of Sodom. If we want to understand what the second death looks like, Sodom is the Bible's primary visual aid. And what does Sodom look like the morning after? Ashes. Smoke. Emptiness. Not a city being slowly restored. Not inhabitants being gradually purified. Nothing. The second death, like the first death at Sodom, is a permanent end.⁶⁷

There is a profound theological symmetry here that I find deeply compelling. Physical death separated the Sodomites from their earthly existence. Their souls endured, awaiting the resurrection. The second death will separate the finally impenitent from existence altogether—body and soul destroyed in Gehenna, exactly as Jesus warned (Matt. 10:28). The first death at Sodom was a shadow. The second death is the reality it pointed toward. And just as the first death was complete and irreversible within the present age, the second death is complete and irreversible for all eternity.

The Postmortem Opportunity and Sodom

Here is where the CI position, with its affirmation of the postmortem opportunity, actually offers something profoundly hopeful for the people of Sodom—more hopeful, perhaps, than many Christians have traditionally imagined.

The people of Sodom lived and died long before Christ. They never heard the gospel. They never had the opportunity to respond to the revelation of God in Jesus. Does that mean they are automatically condemned? Both the CI and UR advocates in this book would say no. We both affirm that God, in his justice and mercy, provides every person with a genuine opportunity to encounter Christ and respond in faith—including after death.⁵¹

For the Sodomites, this means their story is not over at Genesis 19. Their bodies were destroyed, but their souls persist in Hades. At the final judgment, they will stand before God and encounter Christ. And as Jesus himself said, their judgment will be "more bearable" than the judgment of those who saw his miracles and still rejected him. That is a remarkable statement. It suggests that the Sodomites, who sinned in ignorance of Christ, may find it relatively easier to respond to God's mercy when they finally encounter it face to face.⁵²

Think about that. The CI position does not require us to believe that every person from Sodom will be destroyed. Many of them may well respond to God's love when they encounter it fully. Perhaps even most of them. We do not know, and the text does not tell us. What CI insists on is that the possibility of final rejection remains real. Some may stand in the fire of God's presence and still refuse to be purified. For them, the fire will do what fire does: consume.

In this way, CI can actually account for the hope embedded in Ezekiel 16's promise of Sodom's restoration without requiring that every individual is saved. "Restoring the fortunes of Sodom" may find its fulfillment in the many from Sodom who respond to God's mercy in the postmortem encounter. The city is "restored" in the sense that a remnant—perhaps even a large majority—of its former inhabitants enter the new creation. But the passage does not require that literally every individual is saved, and the rest of Scripture's consistent use of Sodom as a paradigm of destruction argues against reading it that way.

What About the Fire Burning Out?

The universalist makes one more move that deserves a response. They point out that CI and UR agree that the "eternal fire" of Jude 7 was not literally eternal in its burning—the fire stopped once its work was done. So why, the universalist asks, can we not apply the same logic to the fire of final judgment? The fire of God's presence will do its purifying work and then stop, and the result will be restoration, not destruction.

The answer lies in paying careful attention to what the fire did. At Sodom, the fire consumed. It did not refine or purify. Nothing was left after the fire stopped burning. The people were dead. The buildings were rubble. The land was barren. The smoke was rising from ashes, not from a city that had been renewed. When Jude says Sodom is an "example" of eternal fire, he is pointing to what the fire accomplished—total destruction with permanent results.⁵³

The conditionalist agrees that the fire of God's presence is purifying for those who submit. We affirmed that in Chapter 5, following Baker's framework. For the redeemed, God's fiery presence burns away sin and leaves the person renewed. But Sodom is not a picture of people being renewed by fire. It is a picture of people being consumed by fire. And that is precisely why the New Testament writers chose Sodom as their paradigm for final judgment—because it shows what happens when the fire meets those who will not be purified.⁵⁴

Sodom in Revelation: The Pattern Holds

The imagery of Sodom echoes powerfully through the book of Revelation, and it is worth tracing those echoes briefly because they confirm everything we have seen.

The "lake burning with fire and brimstone" in Revelation (Rev. 19:20; 20:10, 14–15; 21:8) draws its imagery directly from Sodom's destruction. Philip Hughes, in his commentary on Revelation, notes that "the imagery of this destruction, which is called 'the second death,' reflects the judgment that overtook Sodom and Gomorrah."⁵⁵ When John describes the final punishment of the wicked, he reaches for Sodom's vocabulary: fire, brimstone, smoke rising.

Revelation 14:10–11 speaks of beast-worshippers being "tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb" and says "the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever." As we explored more fully in Chapter 6, the "smoke rising forever" is borrowed from the Sodom/Edom tradition (Gen. 19:28; Isa. 34:10) and signifies accomplished destruction, not ongoing torment.⁵⁶ The smoke is a memorial of what the fire consumed. It testifies that the destruction is complete and will never be reversed.

The conditionalist reading of these Revelation passages is strengthened immensely by understanding their Sodom background. When the original readers heard about "fire and brimstone" and "smoke rising forever," they would have thought of one thing: Sodom. And they knew what happened to Sodom. It was destroyed. Completely. Permanently. That is what the second death looks like.

There is one more detail from Revelation worth noting. Interestingly, Revelation 11:8 refers to Jerusalem itself as being "spiritually called Sodom and Egypt." This shows that "Sodom" functions in the biblical imagination not just as a historical reference but as a type—a pattern of rebellion and judgment. Any city, any community, any person who follows the path of Sodom will meet the fate of Sodom. And what is that fate? Not correction. Not purification. Destruction. The pattern is consistent throughout the entire Bible, from the first mention of Sodom in Genesis to its last echo in Revelation.

An Honest Admission

Before I wrap up the conditionalist case, I want to be honest about where CI has to do some extra work on this topic.

The Ezekiel 16 passage is genuinely difficult. It does not fit as neatly into the CI framework as we might like. The language of restoration is real, and I do not think we do ourselves any favors by pretending it is not there or by dismissing it too quickly. The universalist who reads Ezekiel 16 and says, "This sounds like restoration!" is reading the text honestly.

What I have tried to show is that Ezekiel 16 is a single passage, functioning within a very specific prophetic context (the shaming of Jerusalem), and that it stands against the combined testimony of every other biblical reference to Sodom—all of which use Sodom as a paradigm of irreversible destruction. The cumulative weight of the evidence favors CI. But I want the reader who finds Ezekiel 16 persuasive for UR to know that I take the text seriously, and I do not pretend that the CI response is a slam dunk.⁵⁷

What I find most compelling is the consistency of the pattern. When Moses points to Sodom, he sees desolation. When Isaiah points to Sodom, he sees total destruction with only a remnant surviving. When Jeremiah points to Sodom, he sees permanent uninhabitability. When Jesus points to Sodom, he sees sudden, unexpected, final judgment. When Peter points to Sodom, he sees an example of what is "going to happen to the ungodly." When Jude points to Sodom, he sees an example of "the punishment of eternal fire." The pattern is relentless. Sodom means destruction.

Responding to the UR Objection on Katastrophē

A universalist reader might press one more objection that I want to address directly. They might argue that 2 Peter 2:6 uses katastrophē (overthrow, catastrophe) to describe what happened to the cities—the physical structures and geographic location—rather than the eternal fate of the inhabitants. In other words, Peter is saying that God destroyed the cities, not that he permanently destroyed the people.⁵⁸

This is a fair observation about the word, and I want to give it its due. But the argument does not survive close reading of the context. Peter has been building a case across 2 Peter 2 about the certainty of judgment for false teachers and the ungodly. His three examples—fallen angels (v. 4), the Flood (v. 5), and Sodom (v. 6)—each serve the same purpose: to demonstrate that God knows how to rescue the godly from trial and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment (v. 9).⁵⁹

In each example, the emphasis is on the fate of the ungodly people, not just the physical structures they inhabited. The angels are "kept in chains." The ancient world was "destroyed" (the people, not just the terrain). And Sodom's inhabitants were "burned to ashes" as an "example." Peter is not making an architectural observation. He is making an eschatological one: this is what God does to the ungodly. And the word he uses for their future fate later in the chapter is apōleia—destruction (2 Pet. 2:1, 3; 3:7, 9).⁶⁰

The Cumulative Case: Sodom Points to Conditionalism

Let me pull it all together.

When the biblical writers point to Sodom, they are showing us what total, irreversible destruction looks like. From that single event, Scripture draws its core imagery for divine judgment: fire and brimstone that annihilates, smoke that testifies to accomplished destruction, and "eternal fire" whose results are permanent. This imagery appears dozens of times across both testaments, and it always carries the same meaning.

The universalist case rests primarily on one passage—Ezekiel 16:53–55—which functions within a shaming oracle and does not clearly address the eschatological fate of individual Sodomites. The other UR arguments (degrees of judgment, the fire burning out) are legitimate observations but are fully compatible with the CI reading.

The conditionalist case rests on the combined testimony of Genesis, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Zephaniah, Jesus, Peter, Jude, and Revelation. All of them use Sodom the same way: as a picture of what happens when God's judgment falls in its fullness. It is sudden. It is complete. It is permanent. Nothing is left but ashes and smoke.

And yet—and this is important—the conditionalist case also makes room for genuine hope. The people of Sodom have souls that persist beyond physical death. They will be raised. They will encounter Christ. Their judgment will be "more bearable" than that of those who rejected Jesus in person. Many of them may well respond to God's love and enter the new creation. The story of Sodom is not a story of people who had no chance. It is a story of a city whose physical destruction foreshadows what happens at the end of the age to those who, even after every possible opportunity, will not be turned from their rejection of God.

The fire of God's presence purifies those who submit. It consumes those who refuse. Sodom shows us what that consumption looks like. And the New Testament writers, inspired by the Spirit, chose that picture—not a picture of restoration, not a picture of gradual correction—to illustrate the final judgment of the ungodly.

I want to close this chapter with a thought that may surprise you. The story of Sodom is not ultimately a story about destruction. It is a story about the lengths to which God will go to find a reason for mercy. Abraham's intercession reveals a God who is eager to spare. The angels who entered the city represent a God who sends his messengers directly into the worst places on earth. Lot's rescue represents a God who pulls his people out of the fire even when they are dragging their feet.

And here is the part that moves me most. Even after the fire fell, even after the cities were reduced to smoking rubble, God was not done with the people of Sodom. Their bodies were destroyed, but their souls are held in God's care, awaiting the day when they will stand before Christ and hear the offer that no one in their lifetime ever extended to them: "Come to me. I died for you. Will you let me give you life?" For many of them, perhaps for most, the answer may be yes. Jesus himself seems to hint at this when he says their judgment will be "more bearable."

The universalist and I agree that God's love extends to every person who ever lived in Sodom. Where we disagree is on whether that love will inevitably succeed in every single case. I believe it will succeed in many cases—perhaps in the overwhelming majority. But I also believe that a love that must succeed, a love that cannot be finally refused, is no longer a love that respects the beloved as a free person. And a God who will not take no for an answer, no matter how gently he asks, is a God who has substituted control for love.

The fire that fell on Sodom was terrible. The fire that awaits those who refuse God at the final judgment is more terrible still. But both fires come from the same source: a God whose holiness cannot coexist with unrepentant evil. For those who turn toward that fire in surrender, it becomes the warmth that sustains them forever. For those who turn away even in its full blaze, it becomes the fire that brings them to their end. That is the testimony of Sodom. And that is the testimony of conditionalism.