Chapter 18
If there is one chapter in all of Paul's letters that makes universalists sit up straight and say, "There it is—that's the whole thing right there," it is 1 Corinthians 15. And honestly? I understand why. When I was working through the universalist case for myself, this was the chapter that kept me up at night. The language is sweeping. The vision is massive. The climax—God being "all in all"—sounds like the final chord in the greatest symphony ever written, and it sounds like everybody is playing in the orchestra.
So we need to take our time here. This is not a chapter where we can afford to skim the surface and wave our hands. The universalist reading of 1 Corinthians 15 is real, it is serious, and it has been defended by careful scholars who love the Bible. If we are going to show that the conditionalist reading is stronger—and I believe it is—we have to earn that conclusion verse by verse.
I remember the first time someone walked me through the universalist reading of this chapter. We were sitting in a coffee shop, and my friend—a thoughtful pastor who had recently embraced universalism—opened his Bible to 1 Corinthians 15:22 and read it slowly. "As in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive." He looked at me and said, "How can 'all' mean something different in the second half of that sentence?" I did not have a good answer that day. It took me months of study before I did.
But I found one. And I found it not by dismissing the universalist reading but by sitting with it, wrestling with it, and then following the text more carefully than I had before. What I discovered is that Paul himself provides the answer—in the very next verse. The problem is that most of us stop at verse 22 and never let verse 23 do its work.
Here is the text that sits at the heart of the debate. Paul writes:
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For he "has put everything under his feet." Now when it says that "everything" has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all. (1 Cor. 15:22–28, NIV)
That is one of the most extraordinary passages in the entire New Testament. Paul is painting a picture of the end of all things—the grand finale of history itself. Christ reigning, enemies being defeated, death itself being abolished, and God becoming "all in all." The universalist sees in this passage the promise that every human being who ever lived will eventually be brought into the life of God. The conditionalist sees something different but no less grand: the total and complete removal of every trace of evil, rebellion, and death from God's good creation, so that everything that remains is wholly and beautifully God's.
Who is right? Let's walk through it together.
The universalist case for 1 Corinthians 15 is built on several pillars, and I want to present each one honestly, because I once found them deeply persuasive. Some of them still have real force.
The first and most obvious argument centers on the famous parallel in verse 22: "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive." The structure of this sentence is perfectly balanced. On the left side, you have Adam and death. On the right side, you have Christ and life. The word "all" (pantes in Greek) appears in both halves.1
The universalist argument is straightforward: the "all" must refer to the same group in both halves of the sentence. Everyone who dies in Adam—which is the entire human race—will be made alive in Christ. You cannot say "all die in Adam" means literally every single person and then turn around and say "all will be made alive in Christ" means only some of them. That would be a bait-and-switch right in the middle of a single sentence.2
Thomas Talbott has pressed this point with characteristic clarity. He argues that if Paul were truly that sloppy a writer—if he shifted the meaning of "all" without warning in a parallel sentence—then we would have little reason to trust him as a reliable source of theology at all.3 Robin Parry (writing as Gregory MacDonald) agrees, pointing out that the Greek grammar supports reading "in Christ" as an adverbial phrase modifying "will be made alive," not as a modifier limiting the scope of "all." In other words, the most natural reading is not "all who are in Christ will be made alive" but "all will be made alive in Christ"—that is, through Christ's work and by his power.4
The Dutch New Testament scholar Martinus de Boer strengthened this argument by observing that nobody reads the first half of the sentence as if "in Adam" limits the scope of "all." Nobody says, "All who are in Adam die," as if some people are somehow not in Adam. Every person who has ever lived is in Adam. The parallelism, de Boer insists, demands that we read the second half the same way: every person who has ever lived will be made alive in Christ.5
Now, the non-universalist has always pointed to verse 23 as the immediate qualification of verse 22. Paul says, "But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him." The phrase "those who belong to him" (hoi tou Christou) clearly refers to believers. So doesn't Paul himself limit the "all" of verse 22 to Christians?
The universalist response comes in several forms. Parry summarizes four strategies that interpreters with universalist sympathies have used:6
First, Richard Bell argues that yes, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul is only speaking about Christians. The "all" here is limited to believers. But Bell contends that Romans 5:18—which has a strikingly similar parallel structure—does not carry such a limitation, and so it must still be read in a universalist way. In other words, 1 Corinthians 15 is not the universalist text; Romans 5 is.7
Second, de Boer argues that the "all" really does mean all humans, and that "those who belong to him" in verse 23 describes a representative group rather than an exclusive one. Christians are the first wave, not the only wave.8
Third, Sven Hillert agrees with de Boer that "all" means all humans, but he makes a more subtle point. Paul's concern in this entire chapter is the resurrection of believers. The fate of nonbelievers simply is not on his radar here. He mentions "those who belong to him" because that is the group he is writing about. The fate of those outside Christ is not discussed—not because they are excluded from "all will be made alive," but because Paul has no reason to address their situation in this particular letter to this particular church.9
Fourth, and most creatively, Thomas Talbott argues that Paul actually envisions three stages of resurrection, not two. He reads verses 22–24 as a threefold procession: (1) Christ the firstfruits, (2) those who belong to Christ at his coming, and then (3) to telos—which Talbott translates not as "the end" but as "the rest" or "the remainder." On this reading, Paul is describing a grand parade of resurrections: Christ first, then believers at the second coming, and then—at some unspecified later time—the rest of humanity, who will by then have come to faith. Only when this final group has been raised can Christ hand over the kingdom to the Father.10
Parry himself is cautious about Talbott's translation of to telos, admitting that "the end" is the more likely rendering. But he insists this does not matter for the universalist case. Even if to telos means "the end" rather than "the rest," Paul's focus in this chapter is on Christians. The fate of nonbelievers is simply not in view. The universalist claim of verse 22 stands on its own, and we should not suppress it just because Paul does not unpack its full implications here.11
The second great universalist argument from this chapter comes from verse 28: "so that God may be all in all." The Greek is panta en pasin, and it is breathtaking in its scope. God will be everything in everyone. Or everything in all things. Or all things in all people. The phrase is slightly ambiguous—pasin could be masculine ("everyone") or neuter ("all things")—but on any reading, it is as sweeping a statement as Paul ever makes.12
The universalist presses the question: How can God be "all in all" if some creatures—creatures God made, creatures God loves—have been annihilated? If God is truly everything in everyone, does that not require that everyone still exists to experience God as everything? As David Bentley Hart has argued with characteristic force, "all in all" does not mean "all in what's left." It means all. In. All.13
The author of The Triumph of Mercy makes the same point from a different angle. If the last enemy to be destroyed is death (v. 26), and if death means separation from God, then the destruction of death means that no one remains separated from God. Everyone who was dead has been made alive. The very concept of death has been abolished, which means there is no one left in a state of death—including the "second death."14
A final universalist argument focuses on the nature of the "subjection" described in this passage. Paul says that all things will be placed under Christ's feet (v. 27), and then Christ himself will be subjected to the Father (v. 28). The key observation is that the same Greek word—hypotasso, "to subject" or "to place under"—is used for both the subjection of all things to Christ and the subjection of Christ to the Father.15
Nobody would suggest that Christ's subjection to the Father is forced, grudging, or violent. It is a free, loving, willing act of the Son honoring the Father. The universalist argues that the subjection of all things to Christ must be of the same nature—willing, loving, joyful. This is not the subjection of crushed enemies under a tyrant's boot. It is the glad submission of creatures finally restored to their proper relationship with their Creator. And if that submission is willing, then those who are subjected have been saved—not destroyed.16
Parry reinforces this by pointing to the connection between 1 Corinthians 15 and Ephesians 1:20–23, where the same vocabulary of subjection, feet, and powers appears, culminating in Christ filling "all in all." The cosmic scope is the same. The enemies are the same. And the result—Christ filling absolutely everything—suggests redemption, not annihilation.17
Put all of this together, and you have one of the most powerful universalist arguments in the entire New Testament. The "all" of verse 22, the destruction of death in verse 26, the willing subjection of all things in verses 27–28, and the climactic declaration that God will be "all in all"—it all points, the universalist insists, toward the ultimate salvation of every human being.
That is the case. Let me explain why I think CI offers a stronger reading—while being honest about where the universalist reading has genuine force.
I want to begin with a confession: the universalist reading of this passage is not crazy. It is not careless. It is not the work of people who do not care about Scripture. When I first encountered it—really encountered it, through Talbott and Parry—I felt the ground shift under my feet a little. The vision of God being "all in all" with every single human being participating in that fullness is genuinely beautiful, and I understand why thoughtful Christians have found it compelling.
But as I dug deeper, I became convinced that the conditionalist reading is stronger. Not on every single point—I will be honest about where CI has to work harder—but on the cumulative weight of the exegetical evidence. Let me walk through it.
The place to start is with the famous parallel: "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive." The universalist insists that "all" must mean the same group in both halves. Fair enough—but what does "all" actually mean in each half?
But here is what I think the universalist overlooks: the two halves of the sentence do not function in exactly the same way, even if the word "all" appears in both. In the first half, "all die in Adam" describes something that happens automatically, without any human choice. Nobody opts into dying. Death comes to every person as a consequence of the human condition inherited from Adam. It is universal and involuntary.18
But in the second half, being "made alive in Christ" is consistently presented throughout Paul's letters as something that involves faith, union with Christ, and the reception of a gift. Paul never treats resurrection to eternal life as an automatic process that happens to everyone regardless of their relationship with Christ. Quite the opposite: his entire theology centers on the difference between those who are "in Christ" and those who are not.19
This matters enormously. The parallelism between the two halves of verse 22 is real, and I am not denying it. But parallelism in sentence structure does not require identical functioning in every respect. Consider a similar example: "As through one man sin entered the world, so through one man grace came to all." The parallel structure is clear—one man brought something bad, one man brought something good. But the way sin and grace operate is different. Sin operates automatically, infecting every descendant of Adam without their consent. Grace operates personally, through faith and trust. Paul himself makes this distinction explicit in Romans 5, where the same Adam-Christ parallel appears. The free gift is "not like the trespass" (Rom. 5:15). The structures are parallel, but the mechanisms are not identical.
Now, a universalist might respond: "Yes, but the universalist claim is precisely that everyone will eventually come to faith. Being 'made alive in Christ' happens through faith—and the universalist believes all will come to faith in time." That is a fair point, and I acknowledge it. But it means the universalist reading of verse 22 depends on a theological assumption that must be established from elsewhere. The verse itself does not say when or how the "all" will be made alive, and—crucially—Paul's very next sentence begins to narrow the picture.
And this is where the conditionalist case becomes strongest on this particular verse. Immediately after saying "in Christ all will be made alive," Paul writes: "But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him" (v. 23).
The phrase "those who belong to him" (hoi tou Christou) is unmistakably a reference to believers. Paul uses this kind of language throughout his letters to describe those who are united with Christ through faith. There is simply no getting around the fact that Paul's own explanation of who is "made alive" centers on a specific group: people who belong to Christ.20
Now, the universalist has responses to this. I have already described them: Bell says this passage is about Christians only (and looks to Romans 5 for the universalist text); de Boer says the Christians are representative; Hillert says Paul simply does not address nonbelievers here; and Talbott sees three stages, not two.
Let me engage each of these briefly.
Bell's concession is actually quite significant. If a universalist scholar admits that 1 Corinthians 15:22 is only about Christians, then this passage—one of the most celebrated universalist proof-texts—drops out of the debate entirely. That is a major concession, and I think Bell makes it because the contextual evidence is strong.21
De Boer's "representative group" reading is creative, but it faces a problem. Paul does not say "those who belong to him are the firstfruits of a larger harvest." He simply says "those who belong to him"—and then moves on to "the end." If Paul had a wider group in mind, the natural place to mention it was right here, in his own elaboration. He did not.22
Hillert's argument is the most subtle and, in my judgment, the most interesting. His claim that Paul simply is not addressing the fate of nonbelievers in this chapter is genuinely plausible. Paul is writing to the Corinthians about problems in their community, including some who deny the resurrection. His focus is on assuring believers that their dead will rise. The fate of the wicked is not his topic.23
But here is the problem with Hillert's approach: even if Paul is not addressing the fate of nonbelievers, that does not mean verse 22 is making a universalist claim that Paul then ignores. It is equally possible—and I would argue more likely—that "all" in verse 22b is naturally limited by the context to those who are in Christ. Paul is not making a sweeping claim about every human being and then ignoring its implications. He is making a specific claim about those who are united with Christ and then spelling out what that means for them.24
Parry himself, who sympathizes with Hillert, admits something remarkable. He writes that even if 1 Corinthians 15:22 "really is a universalist claim," Paul "is only interested in using that claim to make specific points about believers."25 Think about that for a moment. On Parry's own reading, Paul drops a bombshell universalist claim into his letter and then completely ignores its implications for the rest of the chapter. I would suggest that a simpler explanation is that Paul never intended a universalist claim in the first place.
What about Talbott's three-stage reading? This is probably the most creative universalist interpretation of this passage, and Talbott himself is refreshingly honest about its tentativeness. He suggests that to telos in verse 24 should be translated "the rest" or "the remainder," creating a third group in the resurrection procession: Christ first, believers second, and then everyone else.26
The idea is genuinely intriguing. And it is not impossible—the NRSV even footnotes "the rest" as an alternative translation. But there are serious reasons to prefer the standard translation of "the end."
First, the lexicographical evidence strongly favors "the end" as the meaning of to telos. C. E. Hill has argued at length that to telos cannot mean "the rest" in this context, and Anthony Thiselton reports that the majority of scholars agree that "the remainder" falls outside the word's normal scope.27 Even Parry, who is sympathetic to universalism, does not follow Talbott here. He writes that "the end" is "far more likely" than "the rest."28
Second, the context of verse 24 naturally reads as describing the conclusion of God's cosmic plan, not a third group of people. "Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority, and power." This sounds like the finale—the wrap-up of history—not a description of a third wave of resurrections.
Third, there is no clear grammatical signal that to telos refers to people. In the preceding two stages, Paul explicitly names the participants: "Christ, the firstfruits" and "those who belong to him." If he intended a third group of people, the natural thing to do would be to name them. Instead, he simply says "the end" and immediately shifts to describing what Christ does at that end: handing over the kingdom and destroying every hostile power.29
Talbott, to his credit, does not pin the universalist interpretation entirely on this reading. And I appreciate his honesty. But I think the weight of the evidence is against it.
Now let me make a positive observation that both the universalist and the conditionalist should take seriously. When Paul describes what Christ does between his resurrection and the end, he speaks of destroying "all dominion, authority, and power" (v. 24) and putting "all his enemies under his feet" (v. 25). The last enemy to be destroyed is death (v. 26).
Notice something striking: Paul never mentions the destruction of any human beings in this passage. The enemies in view are the hostile Powers—the spiritual forces of evil—and death itself. Christ's war is against these, not against people. Even on a conditionalist reading, this passage is not about God destroying sinners. It is about God destroying the forces that enslave, corrupt, and kill sinners.30
Parry makes this point effectively: "No mention is made of the destruction of any humans. The only enemies that are in view are the Powers, sin, and death. So even if God destroys his enemies, it is in order to deliver humanity."31 I actually agree with Parry on this observation. The picture Paul paints in 1 Corinthians 15:24–28 is not a picture of sinners being annihilated. It is a picture of evil being annihilated so that life can flourish.
Where the conditionalist and the universalist part ways is on what happens to those humans who have permanently identified themselves with the forces of evil. The conditionalist says: when sin and death are destroyed, those who have clung to sin and death are destroyed with them. The universalist says: when sin and death are destroyed, every person who was entangled with them is set free. That is the real debate, and this particular passage does not settle it on its own—which is precisely why we need to look at the broader picture.
One of the more technical arguments in this passage concerns the Greek verb katargeo, which Paul uses to describe what Christ does to these hostile powers. The word appears in verse 24 ("after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power") and verse 26 ("the last enemy to be destroyed is death"). What does katargeo actually mean?32
The word has a range of meanings: "to render powerless," "to nullify," "to make ineffective," "to abolish," or "to bring to an end." The universalist typically prefers the softer end of this range—"render powerless" or "neutralize"—because this allows for the continued existence of whatever is katargeo-ed. Parry, following Walter Wink, prefers "neutralize," arguing that the Powers are not annihilated but merely stripped of their ability to harm.33
The conditionalist, by contrast, tends to favor the stronger end of the range. Anthony Thiselton argues persuasively that katargeo in this context most likely means "to abolish" or "to bring to an end so as to be no longer in existence." He places 1 Corinthians 15:24 and 26 squarely in this category, noting that BDAG (the standard Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament) assigns these verses to the definition "to cause something to come to an end, to be no longer in existence."34
The essay by Christopher Date in A Consuming Passion presses this point further. Date argues that the "destruction" of death in verse 26 is not merely a weakening or neutralizing of death but its permanent abolition—its complete and final end. And this fits naturally with the conditionalist understanding of the second death: the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14) is the means by which death itself is permanently destroyed. Death dies. And those who have chosen death over life perish with it.35
Here is the point: the language of 1 Corinthians 15 does not merely speak of a gentle "rendering powerless." It speaks of placing enemies under Christ's feet—a vivid Old Testament image of total military conquest (Ps. 110:1; Ps. 8:6). It speaks of destroying the last enemy. It speaks of a decisive, final victory. The conditionalist reads this as a real, permanent end to evil and death—not just a domestication of them.
Now we arrive at the verse that is, in my view, the strongest part of the universalist case in this chapter. Verse 28: "so that God may be all in all" (panta en pasin).
I'll be honest—this is one of those places where CI has to work harder. The phrase is genuinely sweeping, and the universalist reading has real force. If God is going to be "all in all," doesn't that mean all? If some people have been destroyed, then God is "all in what's left," which sounds like a diminished victory.36
But let me push back on this, because I think the universalist reading assumes something about the phrase that may not actually be there.
First, the phrase panta en pasin is somewhat ambiguous, as Parry himself acknowledges. It could mean "God will be everything to everyone" (taking pasin as masculine, referring to persons), "God will be all in all things" (taking pasin as neuter, referring to all reality), or "all things in all people." Thiselton, following de Boer, prefers the third option.37 The point is that the phrase does not necessarily mean "God will be everything to every individual human being who has ever existed." It can mean—and in context, I believe it does mean—that God's presence, authority, and love will pervade every aspect of the new creation without any rival, any rebellion, or any competing power.
Second, think about what the conditionalist is actually claiming. We are not saying that God's victory is partial or that something escapes his reach. We are saying that God's victory is total. Every enemy has been put underfoot. Every hostile power has been abolished. Death itself is no more. Sin is no more. Rebellion is no more. Everything that exists in the new creation is wholly, completely, fully under God's loving sovereignty. God is all in all—because "all" now refers to a creation that is entirely, without exception, God's.
Think of it this way. Imagine a gardener who spends years tending a magnificent garden. Weeds grow. Some plants are diseased. The gardener does everything possible to save every plant—transplanting, treating, nurturing. But some plants are so thoroughly consumed by disease that they cannot be saved. The gardener, with genuine grief, removes them. When the garden is finally complete—every flower blooming, every tree bearing fruit, every path clean and beautiful—it is accurate to say the gardener's vision fills the entire garden. Nothing in the garden stands outside that vision. The garden is wholly the gardener's. The fact that some diseased plants were removed does not diminish the garden. It completes it.
Or think of it in terms of a family home. A family builds a house and fills it with love. Over the years, termites invade. Mold grows in the walls. The family fights to save the house—treating the wood, replacing damaged sections, doing everything they can. Eventually, the house is restored. The termites are gone. The mold is gone. The house is clean, whole, beautiful. It would be strange to say, "Well, the family's love doesn't really fill the whole house because the termites aren't there anymore." The termites were never part of the family's vision for the house. Their removal is not a defeat. It is the victory.
On the conditionalist reading, evil, sin, and those who have permanently fused themselves to evil are not part of God's intended creation. Their removal is not a loss to the cosmos any more than the removal of a cancer is a loss to the body. God's love fills every corner of what remains—and what remains is everything God ever wanted the world to be.
A universalist might respond: "But God is not a gardener, and people are not plants. God has a relationship with every soul, and destroying a conscious being is different from pulling a weed." That is a fair objection, and I take it seriously. I will address it further when we talk about how this connects to the broader biblical picture. But for now, my point is this: "God all in all" does not logically require that every human being who ever lived must still be alive. It requires that everything which exists is wholly God's. And on the conditionalist reading, that is precisely what happens.
What about the universalist argument from the nature of subjection? Recall: the same word hypotasso is used for the subjection of all things to Christ and the subjection of Christ to the Father. If Christ's subjection to the Father is willing and loving, must not the subjection of all things to Christ be the same?
This is a clever argument, but I think it proves less than the universalist claims. Here is why.
Paul's point in verses 27–28 is about the restoration of cosmic order. Everything is placed under Christ, and then Christ places himself under the Father. The "subjection" language describes the proper ordering of reality—each thing in its right place under God's authority. But Paul does not say that every individual creature experiences this subjection in the same way. Christ's willing subjection to the Father is a unique act of the Son within the Trinity. The subjection of hostile powers to Christ is a different kind of act—it is the defeat and abolition of forces that oppose God.38
The same Greek word can describe very different realities depending on context. A child who willingly obeys a loving parent and a criminal who is arrested and placed in custody are both "subjected" to authority—but the experiences are worlds apart. The use of hypotasso in both cases does not mean the experiences are identical.39
The author of The Triumph of Mercy argues that the subjection of all to Christ must be voluntary because the same word is used for Christ's subjection to the Father.40 But this argument assumes that Paul is drawing a direct analogy between the manner of Christ's subjection and the manner of everything else's subjection. In context, I think Paul's point is simpler: the chain of authority will be complete. Everything under Christ, Christ under the Father, God over all. The structure of verse 28 is about the architecture of God's final kingdom, not about the inner experience of every being within it.
Now let me turn from responding to the universalist case to building the positive conditionalist case from the rest of 1 Corinthians 15. Because this chapter is not just about verses 22–28. It is about the nature of resurrection itself, and Paul's teaching on resurrection has profound implications for the question of conditional immortality.
Look at what Paul says later in the chapter, starting in verse 42:
So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. (1 Cor. 15:42–44)
And then the climactic declaration in verses 53–54:
For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." (1 Cor. 15:53–54)
Notice something absolutely crucial: Paul describes immortality as something that must be "put on"—something the mortal body must be "clothed with." It is not something we already possess. It is not our natural state. We are mortal, perishable creatures who need to receive immortality as a gift from God.41
This is the beating heart of the conditionalist case, and it runs right through the middle of 1 Corinthians 15. Robert Peterson, a staunch defender of the traditional view of hell, inadvertently made the conditionalist point when he observed that the language of 1 Corinthians 15 ascribes immortality to "holistic resurrected" people—and specifically to the righteous. Edward Fudge highlighted this observation as a stunning concession: if immortality is given to the resurrected righteous, then it is not given to the unrighteous. And if the unrighteous do not receive immortality, they do not live forever—in hell or anywhere else.42
Stop and let that sink in. Paul's great resurrection chapter—the chapter that is supposed to be about life for everyone—actually teaches that immortality is a specific gift, given to a specific group, under specific conditions. The perishable must "put on" the imperishable. The mortal must be "clothed with" immortality. This is not the language of something automatic. It is the language of transformation—a transformation that God performs for those who are his.
The contributors to A Consuming Passion press this observation further. They note that Paul's contrast between "perishable" and "imperishable" is not just a physical description—it is a theological statement about the difference between life lived apart from God (which stagnates into death) and life lived in God's power (which flourishes with increasing glory). Thiselton captures this beautifully: the contrast is "not a static contrast between the mortal and immortal, but one between a life that stagnates into death, and a life that is rejuvenated with increasing power."43 The resurrection body is not just a better version of the old body. It is a fundamentally different kind of existence—one that is sustained by God's Spirit rather than by the natural processes that inevitably decay.
And here is the crucial implication: if this new, immortal existence is a gift of God's Spirit, then those who are not in Christ—those who have not been "clothed with" immortality—do not possess it. They remain perishable. They remain mortal. They are not "fitted for immortality in resurrection," as the Consuming Passion essayists put it. And perishable things, left without the sustaining power of God, perish. That is what the word means.
Paul's seed metaphor in verses 36–38 reinforces this. A seed must die before it can live. But not every seed germinates. Some seeds fall on rocky ground, wither, and perish. The metaphor suggests that resurrection to new life is not automatic—it requires the right conditions. And Paul has already told us what those conditions are: being "in Christ," belonging to him (v. 23). F. F. Bruce noted that Paul could not conceive of immortality apart from resurrection—a body was essential to personality. If you do not receive the resurrection body, you do not receive immortality. Period.44
Jürgen Moltmann put it memorably: "Resurrection life is not a further life after death, whether in the soul or the spirit, in children or in reputation; it means the annihilation of death in the victory of the new, eternal life." The emphasis on bodily resurrection, as the Consuming Passion essayists observe, highlights God's love for the physical creation—a love that transforms the perishable into the imperishable for those who are his. But this transformation is a gift, not a right. And gifts can be refused.45
The essay by the contributors to A Consuming Passion captures this well. They note that throughout 1 Corinthians 15, Paul never speaks about the resurrection fate of those who are not in Christ. The chapter is entirely focused on what happens to believers. Gordon Fee puts it powerfully: "Death is the final enemy. At its destruction true meaningfulness is given to life itself. As long as people die, God's own sovereign purposes are not yet fully realized."46 The destruction of death gives meaning to life—but this does not require that every individual who ever lived receives that life. It means that death's tyranny is broken and life wins.
Here is where I want to connect 1 Corinthians 15 to the wider biblical picture, because this chapter does not exist in a vacuum.
Paul says the last enemy to be destroyed is death (v. 26). The conditionalist takes this with complete seriousness. Death is not merely "rendered powerless" in a weak sense—it is abolished, ended, finished. And Revelation 20:14 tells us how: "Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death."
Think about what is happening here. Death itself is destroyed by being thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire does not preserve death forever—it ends death. This is perfectly consistent with 1 Corinthians 15:26. And on the conditionalist reading, the second death functions the same way for the finally impenitent: it is the permanent end of their existence, not an eternal prolongation of it.47
The eternalist (ECT defender) has a serious problem here: if death is the last enemy to be destroyed, how can people go on dying (or at least suffering a living death) forever in hell? That would mean death is never truly destroyed. It would mean God's final enemy wins a kind of permanent standoff. The conditionalist does not have this problem. On the CI reading, the destruction of death in 1 Corinthians 15:26 and the lake of fire in Revelation 20:14 are describing the same reality: the permanent, total, irreversible end of death in all its forms.48
Philip Edgcumbe Hughes made this point with exceptional clarity. He argued that the eternal existence of hell as a place of conscious suffering would mean that there is a section of God's creation permanently locked in darkness, rebellion, and torment. For God to be "all in all," this simply cannot be. As Hughes wrote, the reign of Christ must bring about the permanent end of every form of evil and death—including the death of death itself. Conditionalism honors this vision; eternal torment contradicts it.49
We cannot read 1 Corinthians 15 as if Paul wrote nothing else. And when we look at Paul's broader theology, a consistent pattern emerges that supports the conditionalist reading.
Paul consistently uses the language of destruction, perishing, and death for the fate of those who reject God. Romans 9:22 speaks of "vessels of wrath prepared for destruction" (apoleia). Philippians 3:19 says of the enemies of the cross that "their end is destruction" (apoleia again). 2 Thessalonians 1:9 speaks of "everlasting destruction" (olethros aionios). Philippians 1:28 contrasts destruction with salvation as two opposite fates. Galatians 6:8 contrasts corruption/decay (phthora) with eternal life.50
This vocabulary is not incidental. E. Earle Ellis catalogued the range of nouns Paul uses to describe the final judgment of the wicked—apoleia, olethros, phthora, and related terms—and found a consistent picture of utter destruction, not of ongoing conscious existence.51 The conditionalist observes: if Paul believed that all people would eventually be made alive in Christ, why does he consistently speak of an alternative fate—destruction, perishing, death—for those who reject the gospel?
The universalist has answers for each individual text, of course. But the cumulative weight of Paul's vocabulary matters. When you step back and look at the whole pattern, Paul describes two possible outcomes: life for those who are in Christ, and destruction for those who are not. First Corinthians 15 fits this pattern. The "all" who are made alive are those who are in Christ. The rest face the second death—which is, as Paul would say, the last enemy destroyed.
And here is something else that is easy to miss. In 1 Corinthians 15:34, right in the middle of this very chapter, Paul says: "Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God—I say this to your shame." Why would Paul say this if universal salvation is guaranteed? Why would ignorance of God be something to feel shame about if everyone ends up saved regardless? Paul's tone here suggests that ignorance of God is a genuinely dangerous condition—not a temporary inconvenience that will inevitably be resolved. The urgency in Paul's voice throughout his letters only makes sense if the stakes are real and the alternative to life in Christ is genuinely final.
Consider also 1 Corinthians 15:2, right at the start of the chapter: "By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain." That conditional "if" is doing real work. Paul is not speaking as if salvation is automatic or universal. He is speaking as someone who believes the outcome depends on whether you hold fast to the gospel or let it go. This kind of language—conditional, urgent, warning—pervades Paul's writing and creates serious tension with the universalist reading of verse 22.
Before we leave this chapter, I want to connect our discussion to an important piece of shared ground between CI and UR: the postmortem opportunity. Both views in this book affirm that God gives every person who has never had a genuine opportunity to hear the gospel a real, adequate encounter with Christ after death. This is grounded in texts like 1 Peter 3:18–20 and 4:6, the Descensus clause of the Apostles' Creed, and the theological conviction that a just and loving God would not condemn someone who never had a fair chance to respond.
This matters for our reading of 1 Corinthians 15 because the conditionalist is not saying that "those who belong to him" in verse 23 refers only to people who became Christians during their earthly lives. The conditionalist position in this book includes the postmortem opportunity: many people will come to Christ after death, through God's patient and loving pursuit of every soul. Some may come to Christ during the intermediate state in Hades. Others may come during the final judgment itself—the last possible opportunity. The "those who belong to him" may include vast numbers of people who came to faith after their physical deaths.
The difference between the conditionalist and the universalist is not about the scope of God's love or the reality of the postmortem opportunity. The difference is about whether everyone will eventually say yes. The conditionalist says: God will pursue every person with relentless love, including after death. But some—perhaps very few, perhaps more than we hope—will say no, finally and permanently. And when they do, the fire of God's loving presence consumes them. They perish. Not because God stopped loving them, but because they refused to be loved.
There is one more Pauline text that sheds light on 1 Corinthians 15, and the universalist often cites it. Romans 8:19–23 speaks of all creation groaning, waiting for the "revealing of the sons of God." When the children of God are revealed in glory, creation itself "will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God" (Rom. 8:21).
The universalist reads this as supporting the vision of cosmic restoration: all creation—including every human being—will be set free. But the conditionalist reads it differently. The liberation of creation from bondage to decay is precisely what 1 Corinthians 15 describes: the destruction of death and corruption. When death is abolished, creation is free. This does not require that every individual is saved. It requires that the forces of corruption, decay, and death are permanently removed from the created order—which is exactly what CI teaches.52
The new creation is free from bondage because bondage has been destroyed. Not domesticated. Not put on a leash. Destroyed. And those who have permanently identified themselves with corruption and death are part of what is destroyed. This is not a failure of God's plan; it is its completion.
I have been honest throughout this chapter about where the universalist reading has real force. The parallel in verse 22 is genuinely striking. The phrase "God all in all" is genuinely sweeping. The subjection language is genuinely intriguing. I do not dismiss any of these arguments.
But here is why I ultimately find the conditionalist reading stronger.
First, Paul's own qualification in verse 23 limits the "all" who are made alive to "those who belong to him." The universalist must either explain this away (which requires importing assumptions from outside the text) or concede that this particular passage is not actually about universal salvation (as Bell does). Neither move is fatal to universalism, but neither is cost-free.
Second, to telos almost certainly means "the end" rather than "the rest." This removes Talbott's three-stage reading, which was the most creative universalist strategy for dealing with verse 23.
Third, Paul's consistent vocabulary of destruction, perishing, and death for those who reject God—visible throughout his letters—suggests that he envisions a genuine alternative to being "made alive in Christ." If Paul were a universalist, his language of destruction would be deeply misleading. And I do not think Paul was a misleading writer.
Fourth, the conditionalist reading makes the best sense of the relationship between 1 Corinthians 15:26 and Revelation 20:14. Death is the last enemy destroyed, and it is destroyed in the lake of fire—the second death. This connects Paul's cosmic vision with John's apocalyptic vision in a coherent way. The universalist must argue that the second death is somehow temporary or reversible, which creates tension with the language of finality in Revelation.
Fifth, and most importantly: 1 Corinthians 15:42–54 teaches that immortality is a gift that must be received. The mortal must "put on" immortality. Paul says this about the righteous—and says nothing about the wicked receiving the same gift. On the conditionalist reading, this silence is meaningful. The wicked do not receive immortality because immortality is conditional on being in Christ. Only God has immortality inherently (1 Tim. 6:16), and he gives it to those who seek it through faith (Rom. 2:7; 2 Tim. 1:10).53
A universalist reader might press one more point: "If you admit that the universalist reading has real force—that 'all in all' is genuinely sweeping, that the subjection language is intriguing, that the parallel in verse 22 is striking—then aren't you just engaging in special pleading? Aren't you forcing the text into a conditionalist mold?"
That is a fair challenge, and here is my honest answer: No, I am not forcing the text. I am reading it in light of its immediate context (verse 23), its broader Pauline context (the vocabulary of destruction), and its canonical context (the second death in Revelation). Every interpreter brings a broader theological framework to any given text. The question is not whether we bring a framework—we all do—but which framework best accounts for the full range of evidence.
When I read 1 Corinthians 15 in isolation, I can see why someone might lean toward a universalist reading. The language is big. The vision is magnificent. But when I read it alongside Paul's other letters, alongside the rest of the New Testament, and alongside the Old Testament's consistent language of permanent destruction for the wicked, I find that the conditionalist reading holds up better across the whole of Scripture. The universalist reading requires that every time Paul speaks of destruction, perishing, or death for the wicked, he is speaking in metaphors that will eventually be reversed. The conditionalist reading takes those words at face value—and then reads "all will be made alive in Christ" in light of Paul's own immediate qualifier: "those who belong to him."
Is this reading less immediately thrilling than the universalist one? Perhaps. The universalist vision of every single person eventually being saved is undeniably beautiful. But beauty alone does not make an interpretation correct. And the conditionalist vision has its own beauty—a fierce, holy beauty. It is the beauty of a God who loves every creature, who pursues every creature through every possible means including the postmortem opportunity, and who ultimately respects the freedom of those who finally, irrevocably refuse him. It is the beauty of a new creation from which every last trace of evil has been removed—not because evil was domesticated, but because it was destroyed. It is the beauty of a God who truly is all in all, because everything that exists in his kingdom exists because it said "yes" to his love.
That is the consuming fire. For those who embrace it, life without end. For those who refuse it—after every chance, every opportunity, every patient pursuit—the fire consumes. And when the smoke clears, there is only God, and light, and life. All in all.
I want to close with one final thought. We explored in Chapter 17 how Paul's argument in Romans 9–11 builds toward the declaration that God has bound all over to disobedience so that he might have mercy on all. Here in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul builds toward a different climax: God all in all. These are not competing visions. They are complementary ones. God's mercy reaches out to all—genuinely, passionately, relentlessly. And God's sovereignty brings history to a conclusion where every enemy is defeated, every trace of evil is gone, and God's presence fills every corner of reality. The universalist sees these visions and says, "Both must mean every individual is saved." The conditionalist sees them and says, "Both must mean that God's purposes are fully accomplished—which includes the permanent removal of evil and the permanent welcome of all who receive his mercy." The debate is real, the stakes are high, and the text requires our best attention. But I believe the cumulative evidence points toward conditional immortality: a vision where God's fire purifies the willing and consumes the defiant, leaving behind a creation that is entirely, perfectly, eternally God's.
↑ 1. The Greek pantes is the nominative plural of pas, meaning "all" or "everyone." Its scope must be determined by context, as it can range from "all without exception" to "all of a particular group."
↑ 2. Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God, chap. 5, "So All Will Be Made Alive in Christ." Talbott argues forcefully that the parallel structure demands the same referent for "all" in both halves of the sentence.
↑ 3. Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God, chap. 5. Talbott writes that if Paul shifted the reference of "all" without warning in a single compound sentence of parallel structure, "one wonders why anyone would trust him as a source of accurate theological information."
↑ 4. Parry, The Evangelical Universalist, chap. 4, section on 1 Corinthians 15. Parry argues that "in Christ" is an adverbial phrase modifying "will be made alive," not a restrictive modifier limiting the scope of "all."
↑ 5. Martinus C. de Boer, The Defeat of Death: Apocalyptic Eschatology in 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988), 112. De Boer's observation about the parallelism has been influential on universalist interpretations of this passage.
↑ 6. Parry, The Evangelical Universalist, chap. 4, section on 1 Corinthians 15:20–28. Parry surveys four universalist strategies for dealing with the apparent limitation in verse 23.
↑ 7. Richard Bell, "Universal Salvation," cited in Parry, The Evangelical Universalist, chap. 4. Bell's concession that 1 Corinthians 15:22 is limited to Christians is significant.
↑ 8. De Boer, The Defeat of Death, 112. De Boer construes the Christians of verse 23 as a representative group rather than an exclusive one.
↑ 9. Sven Hillert, Limited and Universal Salvation: A Text-oriented and Historical Study of Two Perspectives in Paul, ConBNT 31 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1999), 207–20. Hillert argues that Paul's focus in 1 Corinthians 15 is exclusively on believers, and the fate of nonbelievers is simply not addressed.
↑ 10. Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God, chap. 5. Talbott envisions three stages: (i) Christ the firstfruits, (ii) those who belong to Christ at his coming, and (iii) the rest (to telos), who are raised when Christ hands the kingdom to the Father. He draws on H. Lietzmann and J. Weiss for the translation of to telos as "the rest."
↑ 11. Parry, The Evangelical Universalist, chap. 4. Parry prefers the standard translation of to telos as "the end" but argues that universalism does not depend on Talbott's alternative translation.
↑ 12. Parry, The Evangelical Universalist, chap. 4. Parry notes that panta en pasin is "a little ambiguous" and could be rendered (i) "everything to everyone," (ii) "all in all things," or (iii) "all things among all people." Thiselton, following de Boer, prefers option (iii). See Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000).
↑ 13. David Bentley Hart, That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019). Hart argues forcefully that "all in all" cannot be coherently understood if some of God's creatures have been annihilated.
↑ 14. The Triumph of Mercy: The Reconciliation of All through Jesus Christ, chap. on 1 Corinthians 15. The author argues that the destruction of the last enemy (death) cannot be said to have occurred as long as any individual remains in a state of death.
↑ 15. The Greek hypotasso means "to place under," "to subject," or "to subordinate." It appears in verses 27 and 28 of 1 Corinthians 15, describing both the subjection of all things to Christ and the subjection of Christ to the Father.
↑ 16. The Triumph of Mercy, chap. on 1 Corinthians 15. The author argues that since the same word hypotasso describes Christ's subjection to the Father (which is clearly voluntary) and the subjection of all things to Christ, the subjection of all things must also be voluntary—implying salvation, not destruction.
↑ 17. Parry, The Evangelical Universalist, appendix 2. Parry notes the parallels between 1 Corinthians 15:20–28 and Ephesians 1:20–23, including: (1) the same three terms for powers in the same sequence; (2) exact agreement in the citation of Psalm 8:7b; (3) both passages concluding with the phrase "all in all." See de Boer, The Defeat of Death, 119.
↑ 18. Paul's theology of death through Adam is developed most fully in Romans 5:12–21: "Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned." The universality of death is involuntary and inescapable.
↑ 19. See, e.g., Rom. 6:3–11 (union with Christ in baptism); Rom. 8:1 ("no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus"); Gal. 3:26–28 ("all one in Christ Jesus" through faith); Eph. 2:4–10 (salvation by grace through faith). Throughout Paul, being "in Christ" is a relational category that involves faith.
↑ 20. Date, "Paul and the Annihilation of Death," in Date and Highfield, eds., A Consuming Passion, chap. 8. The phrase hoi tou Christou ("those of Christ" or "those who belong to Christ") is consistently used by Paul to describe believers. See also Gal. 5:24; 1 Cor. 3:23.
↑ 21. Bell, "Universal Salvation," cited in Parry, The Evangelical Universalist, chap. 4. Bell's willingness to concede that 1 Corinthians 15:22 is not a universalist text is a significant admission from within the universalist camp.
↑ 22. De Boer, The Defeat of Death, 112. De Boer's reading of Christians as "representative" is creative but undemonstrable from the text itself, which provides no indication of a wider group beyond "those who belong to him."
↑ 23. Hillert, Limited and Universal Salvation, 207–20. Bassler similarly notes: "As in 1 Thessalonians, the fate of nonbelievers is not in view." See Jouette M. Bassler, Navigating Paul: An Introduction to Key Theological Concepts (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 91.
↑ 24. I. Howard Marshall, "The New Testament Does Not Teach Universal Salvation," in Robin A. Parry and Christopher H. Partridge, eds., Universal Salvation? The Current Debate (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003). Marshall argues that the context of 1 Corinthians 15 limits "all" to those who are in Christ.
↑ 25. Parry, The Evangelical Universalist, chap. 4, section on 1 Corinthians 15:20–28.
↑ 26. Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God, chap. 5. H. Lietzmann and J. Weiss translate eita to telos as "then come the rest or the remainder." Talbott acknowledges that this is better understood as interpretation rather than translation.
↑ 27. C. E. Hill, "Paul's Understanding of Christ's Kingdom in 1 Corinthians 15:20–28," Novum Testamentum 30 (1988): 297–320. Hill argues at length that to telos cannot mean "the rest" in this context. Thiselton reports that "it is generally agreed" that this rendering falls outside the lexicographical scope of to telos. See Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 1231.
↑ 28. Parry, The Evangelical Universalist, chap. 4. Parry writes that "'the end' is far more likely" as a translation of to telos than "the rest."
↑ 29. Paul's rhetorical structure in verses 23–24 moves from concrete (named participants) to abstract (cosmic events). This transition signals that to telos is describing the end of the cosmic drama, not a third group of people to be raised.
↑ 30. Parry, The Evangelical Universalist, chap. 4. Parry notes that the only enemies in view in 1 Corinthians 15:24–26 are the Powers, sin, and death—not human beings.
↑ 31. Parry, The Evangelical Universalist, chap. 4, section on God's eschatological victory in 1 Corinthians 15:20–28.
↑ 32. Katargeo (καταργέω) appears extensively in Paul's letters: 1 Cor. 1:28; 2:6; 6:13; 13:8, 10, 11; 15:24, 26; Rom. 3:31; Eph. 2:15; 2 Tim. 1:10; and elsewhere. Its meaning ranges from "render ineffective" to "abolish" to "destroy completely," with context determining the precise sense.
↑ 33. Parry, The Evangelical Universalist, chap. 4. Parry draws on Walter Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 51, who prefers "neutralize" for katargeo.
↑ 34. Thiselton, 1 Corinthians: A Shorter Exegetical and Pastoral Commentary, 270. Thiselton states that "annihilate" is the appropriate translation for katargeo in 1 Corinthians 15:24 and 26, and BDAG places these verses in the category "to cause something to come to an end, to be no longer in existence." See Date, "Paul and the Annihilation of Death," in Date and Highfield, eds., A Consuming Passion, chap. 8.
↑ 35. Date, "Paul and the Annihilation of Death," in Date and Highfield, eds., A Consuming Passion, chap. 8. Date connects the destruction of death in 1 Cor. 15:26 with the lake of fire in Rev. 20:14, arguing that both describe the permanent abolition of death.
↑ 36. Hart, That All Shall Be Saved. Hart's formulation is characteristically pithy: "all in all" means all. Period.
↑ 37. Parry, The Evangelical Universalist, chap. 4. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, follows de Boer in preferring option (iii): "all things among all people."
↑ 38. The distinction between voluntary subjection (Christ to the Father) and involuntary subjection (hostile powers to Christ) is supported by the broader context of Paul's argument. The defeat of hostile powers is described in military language (Ps. 110:1 in v. 25; "under his feet" in v. 27), while Christ's self-subjection to the Father is a unique Trinitarian act.
↑ 39. The semantic range of hypotasso includes both voluntary submission (e.g., Luke 2:51, Jesus to his parents; Eph. 5:22, mutual submission in marriage) and involuntary subjection (e.g., Luke 10:17, demons subjected to the disciples). Context determines the nature of the subjection in each case.
↑ 40. The Triumph of Mercy, chap. on 1 Corinthians 15. The author argues that since the same word hypotasso describes both Christ's subjection and the subjection of all things, both must be voluntary.
↑ 41. Fudge, The Fire That Consumes, pp. 30–32. Fudge highlights the conditionalist significance of Paul's language: if mortality must "put on" immortality, then immortality is not our natural possession. It is a gift, and like all gifts, it can be withheld. See also Date, "Paul and the Annihilation of Death," in Date and Highfield, eds., A Consuming Passion, chap. 8.
↑ 42. Fudge, The Fire That Consumes, pp. 31–32. Fudge cites Robert Peterson's admission that 1 Corinthians 15 describes the imperishability and immortality of the resurrected righteous, and notes that Peterson's two observations—"that the Bible ascribes immortality to holistic resurrected people" and "that those whom 1 Corinthians 15 says will be raised imperishable and clothed with immortality are the righteous"—"faithfully and consistently applied, will eventually bring about the collapse of traditionalism."
↑ 43. Thiselton, 1 Corinthians: A Shorter Exegetical and Pastoral Commentary, cited in Date, "Paul and the Annihilation of Death," in Date and Highfield, eds., A Consuming Passion, chap. 8. Thiselton writes that the contrast between "perishable" and "imperishable" denotes "not a static contrast between the mortal and immortal, but one between a life that stagnates into death, and a life that is rejuvenated with increasing 'power.'"
↑ 44. Paul's seed analogy (1 Cor. 15:36–38) emphasizes that what is sown must die, and that God gives each seed a body "as he has chosen" (v. 38). F. F. Bruce notes that for Paul, a body of some kind was essential to personality, and immortality could not be conceived apart from resurrection. See F. F. Bruce, "Paul on Immortality," Scottish Journal of Theology 24 (1971): 457–72.
↑ 45. Jürgen Moltmann, quoted in Date, "Paul and the Annihilation of Death," in Date and Highfield, eds., A Consuming Passion, chap. 8. Moltmann's emphasis on the annihilation of death in the victory of new life dovetails with the conditionalist reading of 1 Corinthians 15.
↑ 46. Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 757. Fee's point is that the destruction of death is the key to God's sovereign purposes being fully realized.
↑ 47. The connection between 1 Cor. 15:26 ("the last enemy to be destroyed is death") and Rev. 20:14 ("death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire") has been noted by many commentators. See Fudge, The Fire That Consumes, pp. 281–82; Hughes, "Conditional View," in Rethinking Hell, chap. 4.
↑ 48. Hughes, "The True Image," in Date, Stump, and Anderson, eds., Rethinking Hell, chap. 4. Hughes argues that the perpetual existence of hell as a place of torment would mean that a section of creation remains permanently in rebellion—contradicting the promise that God will be "all in all." See also Stott, "Judgment and Hell," in Date, Stump, and Anderson, eds., Rethinking Hell, chap. 5.
↑ 49. Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, The True Image: The Origin and Destiny of Man in Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989). Hughes argues that the reign of Christ must result in the total abolition of evil and death, and that eternal conscious torment contradicts 1 Corinthians 15:28. This argument is cited in Fudge, The Fire That Consumes, and in Date, Stump, and Anderson, eds., Rethinking Hell.
↑ 50. See Rom. 9:22 (apoleia); Phil. 3:19 (apoleia); 2 Thess. 1:9 (olethros aionios); Phil. 1:28 (apoleia contrasted with soteria); Gal. 6:8 (phthora contrasted with zoe aionios). For a comprehensive treatment of Paul's destruction vocabulary, see E. Earle Ellis, Christ and the Future in New Testament History (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 193 n. 65–69.
↑ 51. Ellis, Christ and the Future in New Testament History, 193 n. 65–69. Ellis catalogs the Pauline nouns of destruction, including apoleia (Rom. 9:22; Phil. 1:28; 3:19; 2 Thess. 2:3) and olethros (1 Thess. 5:3; 2 Thess. 1:9; 1 Tim. 6:9).
↑ 52. Rom. 8:19–23. The groaning of creation and its eventual liberation from "bondage to decay" is consistent with both the universalist and the conditionalist reading. The conditionalist notes that the liberation of creation from corruption does not require that every individual is saved; it requires that corruption itself is destroyed.
↑ 53. 1 Tim. 6:16: God "alone possesses immortality." 2 Tim. 1:10: Christ "abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." Rom. 2:7: God gives eternal life "to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality." These texts consistently present immortality as God's exclusive possession, given as a gift to those who are in Christ. See Date, "Is the Soul Immortal?" in Date, Stump, and Anderson, eds., Rethinking Hell, chap. 13; Fudge, The Fire That Consumes, pp. 30–32.