Chapter 17
In Chapter 16, we explored the philosophical architecture of the divine presence model through the careful, rigorous work of R. Zachary Manis. He gave us the logical framework—the bones, the scaffolding, the rational structure that holds the model together. But a skeleton is not a living body. And a theology that lives only in the head will never reach the heart.
That is where Sharon L. Baker comes in.
Baker’s book Razing Hell: Rethinking Everything You’ve Been Taught about God’s Wrath and Judgment approaches the same territory from a completely different angle.1 Where Manis is a philosopher constructing careful arguments, Baker is a theologian telling stories. Where Manis asks, “What is the most logically coherent account of hell?” Baker asks, “What does the character of God require us to believe about hell?” Where Manis gives us precision, Baker gives us passion. And we need both.
What makes Baker’s contribution so valuable is not merely her conclusions—which overlap significantly with Manis’s—but her method and her emphasis. Baker begins where every theology of hell should begin: with the image of God. Before she says a single word about fire or judgment or the lake of fire, she forces us to answer the most important question in all of Christian theology: Who is God? What kind of God do we worship? And does our doctrine of hell match the God revealed in Jesus Christ?
If it does not, Baker argues, then the doctrine must change. Not God.
I want to be clear about something before we go further. Baker and I do not agree on every detail. She writes from a more progressive theological perspective than I do, and she sometimes interprets Scripture in ways that I would push back on. But on the central issue—the nature of God as love, the fire of God’s presence as the reality behind both heaven and hell, and the insistence that God does not torture—Baker is an indispensable ally. She has done something that many academic theologians fail to do: she has made the divine presence model accessible, personal, and deeply moving. For that, I am grateful.2
This chapter is devoted to presenting Baker’s theological contribution in full. We will walk through her rethinking of God’s image, her rethinking of divine justice, her rethinking of forgiveness, and her powerful reinterpretation of the fire of God. We will meet Otto—her unforgettable character who walks into the blazing presence of God on the Day of Judgment. And we will see, through Baker’s eyes, what it might look like when a wicked soul encounters perfect Love face to face.
The result, I believe, is one of the most compelling and emotionally powerful presentations of the divine presence model ever written.
Baker’s argument begins not with hell but with God. And this is exactly right. If we get God wrong, we will get everything else wrong too. The image of God we carry around in our heads and hearts shapes everything we believe—about justice, about forgiveness, about salvation, and yes, about hell. As Baker puts it with characteristic bluntness, “the image of God we hold in our heads and hearts matters because that image dictates our behavior.”3
Think about that for a moment. If you believe that God is fundamentally a wrathful judge who demands blood before He can forgive, that belief shapes how you treat other people. It shapes how you think about justice in your community. It shapes how you talk to your children about God. It shapes whether you use fear or love as the primary tool of evangelism. And Baker’s point is devastating in its simplicity: the traditional doctrine of eternal conscious torment requires us to hold an image of God that does not match the God revealed in Jesus.
Baker spends the first four chapters of Razing Hell exposing the traditional images of God that undergird ECT.4 She walks through the Old Testament passages that portray God as violent, wrathful, and retributive. She examines the New Testament texts that seem to depict God as a judge who gleefully condemns sinners to eternal fire. And she shows how generation after generation of theologians have taken these images and constructed a portrait of God that looks more like a tyrant than a Father.
One of Baker’s conversation partners in the book is a student named Brooke, who captures the problem perfectly. During a discussion about the traditional images of hell, Brooke declared that traditional portrayals of divine judgment sound like a horror film, with God wielding the weapon. She asked the obvious question: if human governments consider torture a criminal action, how can we condone it just because it is God doing the torturing?5 This is not a frivolous objection. It is the moral intuition that drives Baker’s entire project.
But Baker does not simply critique. She rebuilds. In the second half of her book, she offers a thorough rethinking of God’s image, reading the Bible through what she calls “the Jesus lens.”6 The idea is straightforward: if Jesus is the perfect revelation of God, then the way Jesus acts is the way God acts. The way Jesus thinks is the way God thinks. And since Jesus never tortures anyone, never takes vengeance, and consistently responds to sinners with love, compassion, and an invitation to be reconciled—then God must be like that too.
When we read the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus, Baker argues, we see something remarkable. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not primarily a warrior God. He is a relational God—a God who travels with His people, who eats dinner with Abraham, who wrestles with Jacob, who speaks with Moses face to face, who comes to Elijah as a gentle breeze.7 The psalmist captured this when he wrote, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there” (Psalm 139:7–10).
Baker highlights three Hebrew words that reveal the deepest character of God in the Old Testament. The first is racham (compassion), a word that comes from the Hebrew word for “womb”—evoking the tender love of a mother for the child she carries.8 God’s compassion is not detached. It is visceral. It is the compassion of a mother who would rather give up her child than see him harmed, like the true mother in the story of Solomon’s judgment (1 Kings 3:16–27). The second word is shalom (peace, wholeness, harmony)—a word that summarizes, as Baker notes, God’s purpose for all of creation.9 The third is faithfulness—the unshakable, unchanging commitment of God to His creation, captured in Lamentations 3:22–23: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, and his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.”
When you put these three images together—womb-compassion, all-encompassing peace, and unfailing faithfulness—you get a portrait of God that looks radically different from the angry judge of popular imagination. You get a God who looks a lot like Jesus. And that, Baker insists, is exactly the point.
Baker drives this home with a point that deserves careful attention. She observes that the image of God we worship inevitably shapes the way we behave. If we worship a God who solves problems through violence, we will reach for violence when we face problems. If we worship a God whose primary tool is retribution, we will build our justice systems on retribution. If we worship a God who throws the majority of humanity into eternal fire, we will find it easier to justify violence against the people we consider God’s enemies. Baker points to the example of Jerry Falwell, who after the September 11 attacks explained the tragedy as God’s retribution against a sinful nation—a rationalization that only makes sense if you believe in a God whose default response to sin is violent punishment.62
The contrast with the God revealed in Jesus could not be more stark. Jesus wept over Jerusalem (Luke 13:34). He gathered sinners around dinner tables. He touched lepers and talked to outcasts. He told stories about fathers who ran to embrace prodigal sons before they could even finish their apologies. He forgave the people who nailed Him to the cross while He was still hanging on it. If this is what God looks like—if Jesus is the clearest window into the heart of the divine—then something has gone terribly wrong with a theology that ends with God doing to sinners what we would never allow any human government to do to its prisoners.
Baker also makes the interesting observation that the God of the Bible did not live on a mountaintop or under a tree, aloof from human affairs, the way the gods of the surrounding nations did. The Hebrew God traveled with His people. He was Emmanuel—God with us. This is a God defined by relationship, not by distance. And a relational God does not throw away the objects of His love. He pursues them. He woos them. He disciplines them, yes. But He never abandons them. As Paul wrote, nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38–39).
Key Argument: The image of God we hold determines the theology of hell we construct. If God is primarily a wrathful judge who demands retribution, then ECT makes sense. But if God is primarily the compassionate Father revealed in Jesus—whose deepest character is racham (womb-love), shalom (wholeness), and faithfulness—then eternal conscious torment cannot stand. Baker insists that we must start with the right image of God and then build our theology of hell from there, not the other way around.
Once Baker has redrawn the image of God, she turns to the question that always comes next: “But what about God’s justice?” This is the question that keeps many sincere Christians tethered to ECT. They reason that God is just, that sin deserves punishment, and that eternal sin against an infinite God demands eternal punishment. Baker takes this head on.
Her argument is that the Western church has imported a foreign definition of justice into its reading of Scripture. We have taken the Roman legal concept of retributive justice—the idea that justice means giving offenders what they deserve, making them pay for their crimes—and we have projected it onto God.10 But the Bible, Baker argues, tells a very different story about what justice means when God does it.
Baker contrasts retributive justice with restorative justice. Retributive justice asks, “How can we punish the offender?” Restorative justice asks, “How can we restore the relationship?”11 Retributive justice is about payback. Restorative justice is about healing. And Baker makes a strong case that the dominant vision of justice in both Old and New Testaments is restorative, not retributive.
She traces this theme through the prophets. Isaiah speaks of a divine justice that produces peace: “Justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field. The effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever” (Isaiah 32:16–20, NRSV). The prophet Amos connects justice with redemption, pointing out that God’s purpose is ultimately to restore, not to destroy (Amos 5:14–15, 24; 9:14–15). And in the New Testament, Baker observes, justice goes beyond the legal sphere altogether into the realm of reconciliation.12
Baker describes the biblical vision of justice as a chain reaction: “love forgives, forgiveness reconciles, and reconciliation restores.”13 These are not separate activities. They are one interconnected movement of divine love. When God does justice, God rescues. When God does justice, God heals. When God does justice, God reconciles enemies and makes them friends.
Now here is where this becomes directly relevant to the doctrine of hell. If God’s justice is fundamentally restorative, then what would we expect God’s final judgment to look like? Would we expect a courtroom sentencing, where an angry judge slams the gavel and condemns billions to unending torture? Or would we expect something closer to what the divine presence model describes—a final, overwhelming encounter with the God who is love, an encounter that purifies the willing and overwhelms the resistant?
Baker’s answer is clear. If God’s justice is restorative, then even God’s final judgment must be aimed at restoration, not retribution. The fire is real. The judgment is real. The consequences are real. But the purpose is restoration, healing, and reconciliation—not vengeance.14
I want to add a note here as someone who leans toward conditional immortality. Baker’s emphasis on restorative justice does not require universalism. It is possible that God’s restorative fire accomplishes everything it can possibly accomplish—and that some hearts are so hardened, so deeply entrenched in self-deception, that the fire consumes rather than purifies them. We explored this possibility in Chapter 12 when we discussed CI, and we will return to it in Chapters 30–31. For now, what matters is Baker’s central point: God’s justice is never vindictive. Even when justice leads to destruction, it is love’s justice, not wrath’s vengeance.
Baker’s third major rethinking concerns forgiveness. And here she makes one of her most provocative claims: God’s forgiveness is unconditional and universal. God has already forgiven every sin ever committed. The question is not whether God forgives. The question is whether we receive that forgiveness.15
Baker draws this conclusion from texts like 2 Corinthians 5:19: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” She also appeals to Colossians 1:14: “In [Christ] we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Her reading of these texts is that in the cross, God forgave the entire human race—past, present, and future. Every sin has already been covered. Every transgression has already been released.16
This does not mean, Baker is careful to add, that everyone is automatically saved. Forgiveness has been given, but it must be received. Reconciliation has been offered, but it requires a response. As Baker puts it, “in order for true restoration to take place, before we can step into God’s kingdom, we must choose to receive that forgiveness and reconcile with God through Jesus.”17 The gift is on the table. But it must be opened.
Baker finds this pattern in the parable of the prodigal son. The father in the story does not wait for the son to earn his way back. He does not demand penance. He does not require the son to grovel and satisfy some requirement of justice before extending forgiveness. The father sees the son from a distance, runs to him, throws his arms around him, and forgives him—before the son has even finished his prepared speech of repentance.18 That is the character of God’s forgiveness. It is free. It is first. It is unconditional.
Baker contrasts this with the traditional Western model, in which God’s forgiveness is conditional—tied to repentance, faith, and often to a particular theory of atonement in which Christ satisfies the Father’s need for retribution before forgiveness can be granted. In the traditional model, forgiveness comes after punishment. God punishes Christ in our place, and only then does God forgive. Baker calls this a distortion of the gospel.19 In her view, forgiveness is not the result of punishment. Forgiveness is the expression of love.
Now, as an evangelical, I want to be more careful here than Baker is. I affirm the reality of substitutionary atonement, though I understand it within a broader framework that includes Christus Victor, reconciliation, and healing. The cross is not merely a legal transaction—but it is not less than a genuine sacrifice in which Christ bears the penalty for our sin. Still, Baker’s core point stands: God’s default posture toward humanity is not wrath but love. God does not need to be talked into forgiving us. God is the one initiating the forgiveness.
The relevance to the doctrine of hell is obvious. If God has already forgiven every person who ever lived, then what happens at the final judgment is not a divine sentencing hearing. It is an encounter between forgiven sinners and the God who has loved them all along. The question is not whether God forgives them. The question is whether they can receive that forgiveness—whether their hearts have become so hardened, so consumed by self-deception, that they experience God’s unconditional love as torment rather than joy.
Baker uses the language of reconciliation to make this point even sharper. Forgiveness, she argues, is not the same as reconciliation. Forgiveness is one-sided—God can forgive without the sinner doing anything. But reconciliation requires two parties. God has done His part by forgiving. The sinner must do their part by receiving that forgiveness and being reconciled to God.63 Baker uses the analogy of the story of Joseph and his brothers in the book of Genesis. Joseph forgave his brothers in his heart long before they came to Egypt. But restoration did not happen until they came face to face, acknowledged what they had done, and reconciled with each other (Genesis 45–50).
This distinction between forgiveness and reconciliation has profound implications for how we understand the final judgment. On Baker’s model, every person who stands before God on the Day of Judgment stands before a God who has already forgiven them. The fire that confronts them is not the fire of an unpaid debt. It is the fire of an unreceived gift. The pain of hell is not the pain of punishment for unforgiven sin. It is the pain of a forgiven sinner who still cannot bring himself to accept the forgiveness. That is a very different kind of suffering. And it casts the entire discussion of hell in a completely different light.
And that brings us to the fire.
Baker’s treatment of fire is where her contribution to the divine presence model becomes most powerful. She builds her case on a simple but devastating observation: in the Bible, fire is consistently associated with the presence of God.20
God appeared to Abraham as a smoking furnace and a burning torch (Genesis 15:17). God appeared to Moses as a bush that burned without being consumed (Exodus 3:2–3). God led the Israelites through the wilderness as a pillar of fire (Exodus 13:21–22). God descended on Mount Sinai in fire (Exodus 19:18). God’s glory appeared as a consuming fire on the mountaintop (Exodus 24:17). And the book of Hebrews sums it all up: “Our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29).
Fire in Scripture is not a random punishment tool. Fire is what God is.
Baker then turns to what fire does in the Bible. And she finds something remarkable: fire purifies. It does not simply destroy. In Numbers 31:23, everything that can endure fire passes through the fire and is made clean. In Isaiah 6:6–7, a coal from the altar touches Isaiah’s lips and purifies him.21 In Malachi 3:2–3, God sits as a refiner’s fire, purifying His people like gold and silver. And in what Baker considers one of the most important passages for understanding the nature of divine judgment, Paul writes:
“Each one’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each one’s work. If anyone’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire” (1 Corinthians 3:13–15).
Baker draws a crucial conclusion from this passage: the fire of God’s presence burns away everything impure while leaving everything righteous and good intact. Fire does not consume, devour, or scorch what is pure and righteous. It only burns what is corrupt.22 And if God is the consuming fire, then standing in God’s presence is standing in the fire. Everyone will eventually stand before God. And to stand in God’s presence means to stand in the flames.
This is the turning point in Baker’s argument, and it is breathtaking in its simplicity. If God is fire, and if standing before God means standing in fire, and if fire purifies the good and consumes the corrupt—then what happens at the final judgment is not a courtroom sentencing. It is a purification. The fire that confronts every soul on the Day of Judgment is not the fire of some external torture chamber. It is the fire of God Himself—the blazing, unbearable intensity of perfect Love.
Insight: Baker’s key contribution is the identification of God’s fire with God’s love. The fire that burns in Scripture is not a punitive tool wielded by an angry judge. It is the essential nature of God—His love, His holiness, His presence. What the fire does to you depends on what you are made of. Gold emerges purified. Wood is consumed. The fire does not change. You do.
George MacDonald, whom Baker quotes with great affection, captures this beautifully. MacDonald wrote that God’s fire is unlike earthly fire in one critical way: it only burns at a distance. The closer you stand to God, the less the fire hurts. The farther you stand, the more it burns.23 This is a stunning reversal of the traditional picture. In ECT, the closer you are to the flames, the worse the suffering. In Baker’s model, the closer you are to God—the source of the flames—the more the fire feels like warmth and love. It is only those who flee from God, who resist His love, who hide from His presence, who experience the fire as torment.
Baker also takes up the Greek word theion, often translated “brimstone” in passages about the lake of fire (Revelation 19:20; 20:10; 21:8). She notes that this word is spelled the same as the Greek adjective meaning “divine.” In the ancient world, sulfur was used as a purifier, a cleanser, and a means of dedicating something to the gods.24 First-century readers hearing about a lake of fire and brimstone would not necessarily have imagined a torture chamber. They might well have pictured a lake of divine purification—a place where everything unholy is burned away so that what remains can be dedicated to God.
This is a point worth pausing over. Our mental image of the lake of fire has been shaped by centuries of Western art depicting screaming sinners in a pool of molten lava. But Baker asks us to reconsider the image through the lens of Scripture, ancient culture, and the character of God. What if the lake of fire is not a place separate from God where He sends people for punishment? What if it is the experience of standing in God’s fiery presence itself?
Baker does something in chapter nine of Razing Hell that I have not seen anyone else do with this level of narrative power. She tells a story. She creates a character named Otto and imagines, in vivid, gripping detail, what it might look like for a deeply wicked person to stand in the consuming fire of God’s presence on the Day of Judgment.25
I want to walk through this story carefully, because it is one of the most powerful illustrations of the divine presence model I have ever encountered.
Otto is not a minor sinner. Baker deliberately makes him as evil as possible. He is an international leader who has launched preemptive wars, terrorized nations, and caused the deaths of thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children. He is filled with arrogance, rebellion, and hatred. And now it is Judgment Day.26
Otto enters the throne room of God. What confronts him is not a judge sitting behind a bench. It is fire—blazing, blinding, overwhelming fire. His anger and rebellion turn to sheer terror. He moves closer to the flames, and as he does, he realizes something that shatters every expectation he has ever had about God.
The fire is God.
And the closer Otto gets to this fire, the more he feels—not God’s hatred, not God’s condemnation, not God’s fury—but God’s love. A love so overwhelming, so abundant, so incomprehensible that it completely undoes him. Baker describes it this way: God’s love is of such magnitude that its abundance acts as judgment, exposing his deficiency, and its purity serves as a kind of hell, revealing his depravity.27
Then Otto hears a voice from the fire. And this is where the story takes its most stunning turn. Otto does not hear what he expects. He does not hear, “You evil, vile murderer! I am going to punish you now!” Instead, he hears God say with sorrow born of love: “I have loved you with an everlasting love. But look at your life; what have you done?”28
Stop and think about that for a moment. The God of the universe—the one who has every right to condemn, every right to exact vengeance, every right to rage—speaks not with wrath but with sorrow. Not with fury but with love. This is the divine presence model in its most vivid form. Hell is not God’s anger. Hell is what happens when a wicked heart encounters perfect Love and cannot bear it.
Otto falls to his face. His hatred is replaced by remorse. And then something terrible and beautiful happens simultaneously. Otto’s life flashes before his eyes—but not like a movie. He sees his victims. He sees mothers crying for lost sons. Children begging for the return of their murdered fathers. An eighteen-year-old boy dying alone on a battlefield, calling for his mother. Otto hears their screams. He sees their battered bodies. He listens to their cries for mercy.29
And he knows that he gave none.
Yet here he stands in the fire of God, receiving what he never gave. God makes Otto go to each victim and place his hand on their heart. As he does, he feels all of their pain, all of their fear, all of their disappointment. He knows in his own body the agony he inflicted on theirs. And the last person he must touch is Jesus. When Otto places his hand on Jesus’ heart, he feels not only the pain and sorrow he has caused but also the unconditional love that Jesus has for him—for Otto, the monster, the mass murderer, the destroyer of lives.30
All the while, the fire burns. It devours Otto’s wickedness. It incinerates his evil deeds. And lest anyone think he is getting off easy, Baker is emphatic: this is hell for Otto. He weeps uncontrollably. His teeth gnash. His heart breaks with utter remorse and unmitigated repentance. He knows he can never undo the damage he has caused. The fire burns away the chaff of his evil deeds, and the pain is excruciating.31
And then, when the fire has done its work, Otto hears God say: “I forgive you. Will you be reconciled to me and to those you have wronged?”32
God asks Otto’s victims to draw near and place their hands on Otto’s heart. As they touch him, they feel his pain, his fears, his disappointments—they understand who he was, not just what he did. And because they themselves have been forgiven and embraced by the love of God, they extend that same grace to Otto, forgiving him his sins against them. Then Jesus stands before Otto, touches his heart, and says: “I have loved you with an everlasting love, and I forgive you. Will you enter into my kingdom and be restored to God?”33
And Otto says yes.
He has been judged by the fire of love. He has walked through the fire of God’s wrath. He has been purified by the fire of God’s mercy. He receives forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration, and he enters the kingdom of God—tested by fire, forgiven by grace.34
I do not mind telling you that the first time I read this story, I wept.
But Baker does not stop there. And this is one of the most important parts of her entire book for our purposes. Baker explicitly acknowledges that the story of Otto might not end with repentance and acceptance. She writes:
“The possibility exists, however, that Otto does not accept God’s offer of restoration, or that after the testing by fire, nothing remains of him at all. Nothing. In order to preserve human freedom, which God gave to us at creation, we must allow for the possibility that some people will still reject God. The fire does not eliminate the gift of human freedom.”35
This is crucial. Baker is not a dogmatic universalist.36 She holds out the real possibility that some will reject God even after experiencing the full blaze of His love. And for those who do, the consequence is not eternal torture. It is annihilation. Those who say no to God’s yes end up in the lake of fire—not for eternal torment, but for destruction.37
Baker envisions two possible scenarios for Otto if he rejects God. In the first, the fire has burned away so much of Otto’s wickedness that very little of him remains—and that remaining part still refuses God. The result is annihilation. In the second, the fire purifies Otto completely, destroying all of his evil, and what remains of him is good and righteous. A purified Otto would naturally choose life with God, because only something impure could reject Him. The fire has destroyed death in Otto, and only God’s life remains.38
Manis, in his analysis of Baker, helpfully identifies the ambiguity in her account. He observes that Baker seems to be developing a hybrid of the divine presence model and annihilationism.39 What sinners experience in the presence of a loving God is painful, but also potentially sanctifying. If the sanctification succeeds, they are restored. If it fails—if the person’s free will persists in rejecting God, or if the fire consumes everything and nothing remains—the result is annihilation.
This is, in essence, conditional immortality within the divine presence framework. And I believe it is one of the strongest possible accounts of what happens to the unrepentant at the final judgment. The wicked are not tortured by God. They are not consigned to some external fire pit by an angry judge. They are consumed by the very love of God, which they cannot endure because their hearts have been so hardened against it. The fire does not change. The heart does—or refuses to.
Key Argument: Baker’s Otto story illustrates the divine presence model in its most vivid and emotionally compelling form. In the first version of the story, Otto’s encounter with God’s love leads to repentance, reconciliation, and restoration. But Baker preserves human freedom by acknowledging that Otto might reject God even after the fire has done its work. In that case, the fire consumes him—not as an act of divine vengeance, but as the natural result of a hardened heart encountering perfect Love. This is CI within the divine presence framework: the wicked are destroyed by love, not by wrath.
Baker’s account is not only about the wicked. She also describes what the righteous experience when they encounter the same fire. And the contrast is stunning.
Baker tells a companion story about a woman named Anne, who has lived a life of genuine Christian love and virtue.40 When Anne enters the presence of God, she encounters the same fire that confronted Otto. But for Anne, the fire feels entirely different. Instead of terror, she feels the intense joy of divine love. The fire touches her, and because she has built her life on the foundation of Jesus Christ—on gold, silver, and precious stones, to use Paul’s language from 1 Corinthians 3—the fire does not burn. It warms. It embraces. It welcomes.
Baker writes that all believers will stand before the judgment seat of Christ. All will experience the burning love of God. For believers, however, the fire purifies whatever impurities remain, heals what is broken, and ushers them into the eternal joy of God’s presence.41 The fire is the same. The experience is completely different. And the difference has nothing to do with whether God loves one person more than another. The difference is entirely in the disposition of the heart.
This is the image at the center of the entire divine presence model: one fire, two experiences. The sun shines on wax and it softens. The sun shines on clay and it hardens. The sun has not changed. The material has. God’s love pours out on every soul. Those who have cultivated hearts of love, humility, and openness to God experience that love as paradise. Those who have cultivated hearts of pride, self-deception, and resistance to God experience that same love as hell.
As we saw in Chapter 15, the Orthodox Fathers understood this perfectly. Isaac the Syrian wrote that those who suffer in hell are suffering from the scourging of love. Basil the Great said that the sword of fire at the gate of paradise was terrible and burning toward the wicked but gentle and inviting toward the faithful. And Peter the Damascene said that God’s fire makes some hearts soft like beeswax and others hard like stone.
Baker arrives at the same conclusion from a completely different direction—not from the Greek Fathers but from her own careful reading of Scripture and her deep conviction that God is love. The convergence is remarkable. An Orthodox monk in seventh-century Syria and a Protestant theologian in twenty-first-century Pennsylvania, working independently from different traditions, reach the same conclusion: paradise and hell are not two different fires. They are two different experiences of the same fire.
Baker does not shy away from the difficult texts. She addresses the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31–46), the language of outer darkness and gnashing of teeth, the lake of fire in Revelation, and the concept of “eternal punishment.” Let me summarize her approach to each.
Baker points out something that many readers miss about this famous parable: Jesus separates the sheep from the goats not on the basis of correct theology or personal faith, but on the basis of whether they cared for the hungry, the naked, and the thirsty.42 The parable says nothing about receiving Jesus as Savior. Nothing about walking down a church aisle. Nothing about repenting of sin. The criterion for judgment is practical love for the least and most vulnerable.
Baker recognizes that Jesus is using hyperbolic language to make a point about kingdom living. The main message is not a detailed blueprint of the final judgment. It is a passionate call to live as people of compassion and justice.43 This does not mean the parable teaches nothing about hell. But it means we should be cautious about building our entire doctrine of hell on a parable whose primary purpose is to motivate radical generosity.
Baker tackles the phrase kolasis aionios (“eternal punishment”) in Matthew 25:46 with care. She notes that the Greek word aion and its adjective aionios do not necessarily mean “forever and ever” in the way English speakers assume. In many New Testament and Old Testament contexts, these words refer to a specific period of time—an age with a beginning and an end—rather than to unending duration.44 The “eternal punishment” of Matthew 25:46 could be understood as the punishment that belongs to the age to come—punishment that comes from God in the next age, not punishment that lasts for infinite time.
Baker also notes that the Greek word kolasis, translated “punishment,” carries connotations of testing and correction. It evokes the image of putting something to the test by rubbing it against a stone—testing whether a metal is genuine or counterfeit.45 This connects directly to Paul’s language in 1 Corinthians 3 about the fire that tests each person’s work. The “eternal punishment,” then, involves standing in the eternal fire of God as that fire tests, purifies, and burns away the chaff.
We covered the detailed exegesis of aionios and kolasis in Chapter 10, so I will not duplicate that work here. But Baker’s reading is consistent with what we found there: the biblical language of “eternal punishment” does not require the traditional ECT reading. It fits the divine presence model at least as well, and arguably much better.
Baker’s treatment of the lake of fire is especially creative. She observes that if the lake of fire is identified with the fire of God’s presence, then it is not a torture chamber but a place of divine purification. She notes that “death and Hades” are thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14–15). If the lake of fire destroys death itself, what remains? Life—life eternally in God, the only eternal one.46
Baker also connects the word theion (brimstone) to its use in ancient Greek culture as a purifying agent. She argues that first-century readers would have understood the lake of fire and brimstone not merely as a place of torment but as a lake of divine purification, in which everything unholy is burned away and what remains is dedicated to God.47
Again, Baker’s reading is provocative and imaginative. Not every exegetical detail would satisfy all scholars. But her central insight is powerful: the lake of fire in Revelation is not a place separate from God where He dumps the wicked. It is, or at least can be understood as, the fiery presence of God Himself—the same consuming fire described in Hebrews 12:29, the same fire that flows from the throne of God in Daniel 7:9–10, the same fire in which every soul will be tested according to 1 Corinthians 3:13.
One of Baker’s most important contributions is her harmonization of God’s wrath and God’s love. Traditionally, these have been treated as two different—and sometimes competing—attributes of God. God loves us, but He is also wrathful. God wants to save us, but His justice demands punishment. These are often presented as being in tension, with the cross serving as the resolution: Christ satisfies God’s wrath so that God’s love can operate.
Baker rejects this picture entirely. For her, wrath and love are not two different things. God’s wrath is His love, experienced from the wrong side.48
Baker identifies two aspects of divine wrath. The first operates during this life: God “gives us over” to the earthly consequences of our sin, as Paul describes in Romans 1:18–32. This is not God actively punishing. It is God respecting our choices and allowing the natural consequences to unfold. We explored this in Chapter 7 when we discussed the wrath of God in Scripture.
The second aspect of wrath occurs at the final judgment. Those who have not received Jesus as Savior stand in the fiery presence of God and experience the purifying flames of God’s love. Baker describes this experience as “burning love” that might feel like “burning wrath” to the one experiencing it.49 The fire is not wrath in the sense of divine anger. It is love in its most concentrated, undiluted, overwhelming form. And for the one whose heart is hardened against God, that love burns.
This is exactly what we found in the Orthodox Fathers, expressed in slightly different language. God does not change between loving mode and wrathful mode. God is always love. But love, when it encounters a heart that has turned itself inside out with self-deception and hatred, feels like fire. It feels like wrath. It feels like hell. Not because God has changed. Because we have.
I want to pause here and note something remarkable. We have now examined three major presentations of the divine presence model: Manis’s philosophical account (Chapter 16), Baker’s theological account (this chapter), and the Orthodox tradition through Kalomiros and the Church Fathers (Chapter 15). These three come from very different places. Manis is an analytic philosopher. Baker is a popular theologian influenced by Anabaptist and progressive traditions. The Orthodox writers draw on a patristic tradition stretching back to the fourth century.
And yet they converge on the same essential claims:
God is love, and His love does not change. Hell is not separation from God but the experience of God’s overwhelming presence by those who have hardened their hearts. The fire of God is His love—the same fire that purifies the righteous torments the wicked, not because God wills their suffering, but because their own condition makes the experience of love unbearable. The suffering of hell is real and terrible, but it is not inflicted by God as punishment. It is the natural consequence of a sin-hardened heart encountering perfect Love.
The convergence of these three independent lines of argument—philosophical, theological, and patristic—gives me great confidence that the divine presence model is not a modern invention. It is the recovery of something ancient and true.
Consider how unusual this is. We do not often find an analytic philosopher from a Protestant background, a popular theologian with Anabaptist sympathies, and a Greek Orthodox layman from seventh-century Syria all arriving at the same core insight about the nature of hell. These are not people who read each other’s work and copied each other’s conclusions. They started from different premises, used different methods, read different sources—and ended up in the same place. When that happens in any field of inquiry, it is a strong indicator that you have stumbled onto something real.
There are, of course, differences among them. Manis is more precise about the philosophical mechanics. Baker is more pastorally sensitive and more willing to sit with ambiguity. The Orthodox Fathers operate within a sacramental and liturgical framework that neither Manis nor Baker shares. And on the question of the final outcome—whether the fire ultimately purifies everyone (universalism) or destroys some who cannot endure it (conditional immortality)—these three voices point in slightly different directions. Baker leans toward a hopeful universalism but preserves the possibility of annihilation. Manis is agnostic, carefully showing that his model works with either outcome. The Orthodox tradition has room for both, with Gregory of Nyssa on the universalist end and other Fathers on the more cautious end.
But on the central claim—that hell is God’s love experienced as torment by those who hate Him—the agreement is complete. And I believe that agreement points us toward the truth.
Someone might object that Baker writes from a more progressive theological perspective and that her conclusions should therefore be suspect to evangelical readers. It is true that Baker sometimes approaches Scripture with different presuppositions than I do. She is more willing than I am to see certain biblical passages as reflecting the cultural assumptions of their human authors rather than the direct will of God.
But this does not invalidate her central insights. The image of God as love, the fire of God as purifying presence, the narrative of Otto standing before God’s throne—none of these depend on a progressive hermeneutic. They depend on taking seriously what Scripture says about the character of God and the nature of fire. And these insights are confirmed, as we have seen, by both the analytic philosophy of Manis and the ancient tradition of the Greek Fathers. An evangelical can learn from Baker without adopting every detail of her method, just as we can learn from the Orthodox without becoming Orthodox ourselves.50
This is a fair concern. Baker tells Otto’s story in a way that feels almost too clean—the wicked man encounters God’s love, repents, and is restored. Real human evil is messier than that. Real self-deception runs deeper. And real freedom may mean that some hearts never soften, no matter how intense the fire.
But Baker herself acknowledges this. She is not a naive optimist. She explicitly allows for the possibility that Otto rejects God and is annihilated. The story is an illustration, not a prophecy. It shows us what the divine presence model looks like in its most hopeful form. Whether every Otto in history actually responds the way Baker’s character does is a question she leaves genuinely open.51
I would add that Manis’s work on self-deception, which we will explore in Chapter 18, gives us a more realistic account of why some hearts may never yield. Baker shows us the hope. Manis shows us the hard truth. Together, they give us a full picture.
Common Objection: “Baker’s model is ambiguous—is it universalism or annihilationism?” Manis identifies a genuine lack of precision in Baker’s account.52 She seems to waver between a purgatorial universalism (the fire purifies everyone and all are eventually saved) and a conditional annihilationism (those who resist the fire to the end are destroyed). This ambiguity is not a fatal flaw—it reflects the genuine tension in the biblical data itself. The divine presence model is compatible with both outcomes. Baker’s contribution lies not in resolving this question but in showing that God’s fire is love, regardless of the final outcome.
If God has already forgiven everyone, why bother sharing the gospel? Baker addresses this directly in the final chapter of her book. She argues that the good news is not “believe in Jesus or you will be tortured forever.” The good news is that God loves you, has forgiven you, and invites you into a transformed life of love, justice, and kingdom service.53 Evangelism is not about helping people escape divine torture. It is about inviting them into the life God has always intended for them.
I would add that even on a CI reading, there is still urgent motivation for evangelism. People who do not receive Christ face either the purifying pain of encountering God’s love without the covering of grace, or the final destruction of their very being. Either way, the stakes are real. The gospel is still good news, and sharing it is still a matter of life and death—literally.
If God forgives unconditionally, and if the fire of His presence purifies sinners, then what was the point of the cross? This is a serious objection, and Baker does not fully answer it to my satisfaction. But her discussion of atonement in Chapter 11 of Razing Hell points in a helpful direction.
Baker reinterprets the Hebrew word kippur (usually translated “to atone”) as meaning “to cleanse” or “to purify.”54 On this reading, the blood of Christ cleanses us from sin, wipes it away, and purifies us. The cross is not primarily a legal transaction in which an angry Father punishes an innocent Son. It is the supreme act of divine love—God entering into the depths of human suffering to cleanse us and restore us to union with Himself.
Baker connects this to the symbolism of sacrifice in the Old Testament, where sprinkling blood signified cleansing and forgiveness, not payment of a debt.55 Jesus, as the perfect high priest, offered not the blood of goats and bulls but His own life, cleansing and purifying us from all sin as He declared from the cross, “Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing.”
I affirm a fuller doctrine of the atonement than Baker presents, including genuine substitutionary elements. But her emphasis on the purifying, cleansing, reconciling character of the cross fits beautifully with the divine presence model. The cross is not about satisfying God’s need for vengeance. It is about God’s relentless pursuit of reconciliation. And the fire of judgment is the continuation of that same pursuit—the same love that drove Christ to the cross now confronts every soul at the final judgment.
Baker’s contribution to the divine presence model is immense, and I want to draw together the key threads.
First, she teaches us that theology must start with the image of God. If we get God wrong, we will get hell wrong. The God revealed in Jesus is not a cosmic torturer. He is a Father of womb-deep compassion, unshakable peace, and unfailing faithfulness. Any doctrine of hell that requires us to believe God is less loving than the best human father is not a doctrine worth holding.56
Second, she teaches us that God’s justice is restorative, not retributive. Justice and love are not competing attributes that must be balanced against each other. They are the same thing. When God does justice, He heals, He reconciles, He restores. Even His judgment is aimed at making things right, not at getting even.57
Third, she teaches us that God’s forgiveness is unconditional and universal—given freely, before any repentance, to every person who has ever lived. The question is not whether God forgives. The question is whether we receive it.58
Fourth, she teaches us that the fire of God is the presence of God, and that fire purifies what is good and consumes what is corrupt. The difference between heaven and hell is not in the fire but in the heart. Gold emerges from the fire purified. Wood is consumed. The fire is the same.59
Fifth, she teaches us—through the unforgettable character of Otto—what the divine presence model might actually look like when the rubber meets the road. When the worst sinner imaginable stands in the consuming fire of God’s love, the result is either purification and restoration or final destruction. But in neither case is the result eternal torture. In neither case does God become a monster.60
And sixth, she teaches us that God’s fire is the same toward all, but the response determines the outcome. The redeemed experience the fire as warmth, joy, and embrace. The wicked experience it as judgment, conviction, and burning. Not because God has changed. Because they have.
We have now heard the divine presence model presented in three different voices. In Chapter 15, the ancient voice of the Orthodox Fathers gave us the vision: paradise and hell are the same river, flowing from the throne of God. In Chapter 16, Manis gave us the philosophical argument: the divine presence model meets the criteria for an adequate solution to the problem of hell better than any of its competitors. And now, in this chapter, Baker has given us the story—the vivid, heart-wrenching, beautiful story of what it might look like when a sinful soul encounters the living God.
Philosophy gives us the bones. Theology gives us the flesh. Story gives us the breath.
And the story Baker tells is one that every Christian needs to hear. Not because it is easy. Not because it softens the reality of judgment. But because it tells us something about God that the traditional doctrine of hell obscures: God’s fire is not His punishment. God’s fire is His love. And that love is the most terrifying and the most beautiful reality in the universe.
In the next chapter, we will turn to a question that is essential for the divine presence model: how do human hearts become so hardened that they cannot receive love? We will explore the psychology and theology of self-deception, the progressive hardening of the heart, and the process by which human beings turn themselves into the kind of creatures for whom the presence of perfect Love is the worst thing that could ever happen.
That is the question Manis asks in the most searching chapters of his work. And the answer, I believe, sheds light on the deepest mystery of the divine presence model: not why God sends people to hell, but why anyone would choose to stay there.61
But before we leave Baker behind, let me say one more thing. Reading Razing Hell changed something in me. Before I encountered Baker’s work, I understood the divine presence model intellectually. I could explain it. I could argue for it. But Baker’s story of Otto made me feel it. I felt the weight of standing before a God who refuses to hate you, even when you deserve it. I felt the agony of a heart being laid bare before perfect Love. And I felt the wild, impossible hope that even the worst sinner in history might, just might, turn around at the last moment and say yes.
That is the power of story. And that is why Baker’s voice is irreplaceable in this conversation. She did not give us a more clever argument. She gave us a window into the heart of God. And what we see through that window is not the torturer of the medieval imagination. It is the Father who runs down the road to embrace the son who has wasted everything—the Father whose love burns hotter than any fire, and whose fire is nothing other than His love.
↑ 1. Sharon L. Baker, Razing Hell: Rethinking Everything You’ve Been Taught about God’s Wrath and Judgment (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).
↑ 2. Baker’s work has been praised for its accessibility and theological clarity. John D. Caputo calls it “a lively, thoughtful, and accessible rethinking of one of the most disturbing notions in Christian theology.” See the endorsement in Baker, Razing Hell, back cover.
↑ 3. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 38.
↑ 4. Baker, Razing Hell, chaps. 1–4.
↑ 5. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 19–20. Baker recounts her student Brooke’s colorful reaction to the traditional doctrine of hell.
↑ 6. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 64–65. The “Jesus lens” is Baker’s term for interpreting all Scripture—including the violent passages of the Old Testament—through the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.
↑ 7. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 70–71.
↑ 8. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 74. The Hebrew word racham (compassion) derives from the word for “womb” (rechem), conveying a deeply maternal image of God’s love.
↑ 9. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 74–75. Baker draws on the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, which identifies shalom as “among the most important words in the OT.”
↑ 10. Baker, Razing Hell, chaps. 3 and 7. Baker’s argument parallels Kalomiros’s critique of the Western juridical distortion of God’s character. See Kalomiros, The River of Fire, sections IV–V.
↑ 11. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 81–82.
↑ 12. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 102. Baker writes that “New Testament justice goes beyond the legal sphere into the realm of reconciliation.”
↑ 13. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 104. Baker identifies reconciliation as the chain reaction produced by divine justice: love forgives, forgiveness reconciles, reconciliation restores.
↑ 14. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 90–94.
↑ 15. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 100–101.
↑ 16. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 100–101. Baker appeals to 2 Cor. 5:19 and Col. 1:14 as evidence that God has already forgiven the entire human race through the cross.
↑ 17. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 101.
↑ 18. See Luke 15:11–32. Baker’s reading of the parable of the prodigal son as a picture of God’s unconditional forgiveness is a recurring theme throughout her book. See Baker, Razing Hell, chaps. 4 and 8.
↑ 19. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 35–36. Baker critiques the penal substitution and satisfaction theories as distorting the image of God by making forgiveness conditional on retribution.
↑ 20. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 112–115.
↑ 21. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 113.
↑ 22. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 113–114. Baker writes that fire in Scripture “burns up whatever is evil, wicked, or sinful” and “cleanses and purifies what remains.” Manis quotes Baker on this point: see Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, p. 309.
↑ 23. George MacDonald, as quoted in Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 116–117. MacDonald’s insight is from C. S. Lewis, ed., George MacDonald: An Anthology (New York: Touchstone, 1947), 63.
↑ 24. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 143–144.
↑ 25. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 115–117. Baker acknowledges her use of fictional storytelling as a theological method, noting that even C. S. Lewis used imaginative fiction to convey theological truths.
↑ 26. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 115.
↑ 27. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 115–116.
↑ 28. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 116.
↑ 29. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 116.
↑ 30. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 116.
↑ 31. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 116–117. Baker emphasizes that this experience is not “getting off easy”—it is genuine, excruciating suffering produced by the encounter with perfect Love.
↑ 32. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 117.
↑ 33. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 117.
↑ 34. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 117.
↑ 35. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 117.
↑ 36. Baker explicitly denies being a universalist. See Baker, Razing Hell, p. 141. However, many of her earlier remarks suggest universalist sympathies. Manis observes this tension: see Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 310–311.
↑ 37. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 117.
↑ 38. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 144–145. Baker presents two variations of the lake of fire scenario, both of which preserve the essential elements of the divine presence model.
↑ 39. Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 310–311. Manis identifies Baker’s view as “a hybrid of the divine presence model and annihilationism.”
↑ 40. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 165. Baker tells the story of “Anne” to contrast the experience of a virtuous person in God’s presence with the experience of the wicked Otto.
↑ 41. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 165–166.
↑ 42. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 167–168.
↑ 43. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 168–169.
↑ 44. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 138–139. See also our detailed discussion of aionios in Chapter 10 of this book.
↑ 45. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 139. The Greek word kolasis carries connotations of testing and correction, distinct from timoria (retributive punishment). See also Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 40–41, for a discussion of this distinction.
↑ 46. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 143–144.
↑ 47. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 143–144. Baker notes that the Greek noun theion (brimstone/sulfur) is spelled identically to the adjective meaning “divine,” and that sulfur was used in the ancient world as a purifying agent.
↑ 48. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 120–122.
↑ 49. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 122–123.
↑ 50. Thomas Aquinas offers a helpful principle here: even if we misinterpret a specific passage, we cannot go wrong when we use God’s love and desire for redemption as our interpretive lens. Baker cites this principle from Aquinas. See Baker, Razing Hell, p. 36.
↑ 51. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 117. Baker’s acknowledgment that Otto might reject God even after experiencing the fire is her clearest statement that the divine presence model does not require universalism.
↑ 52. Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 311–312. Manis identifies a “lack of precision” in Baker’s account, particularly regarding whether her model involves natural consequence annihilationism or free will annihilationism.
↑ 53. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. xiv–xv, 167–180. Baker argues that using hell as an evangelistic tool distorts the gospel message, which is about transformation rather than escape from torture.
↑ 54. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 158–159. The Hebrew word kippur means “to wipe away,” “to cleanse,” or “to purify.”
↑ 55. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 158–164. Baker draws on the work of Roy Gane, Stephen Finlan, and others to reinterpret Old Testament sacrifice as primarily about purification rather than punishment.
↑ 56. Baker, Razing Hell, chap. 6. See also Kalomiros, The River of Fire, sections I–III, for a parallel argument from the Orthodox tradition.
↑ 57. Baker, Razing Hell, chap. 7. Baker’s distinction between retributive and restorative justice is one of her most important contributions to the discussion.
↑ 58. Baker, Razing Hell, chap. 8.
↑ 59. Baker, Razing Hell, chap. 9.
↑ 60. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 115–117, 144–145. Baker’s Otto story is perhaps the most vivid and emotionally powerful illustration of the divine presence model in the literature.
↑ 61. The question of self-deception and the hardening of the heart is central to Manis’s philosophical development of the divine presence model. See Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, Part II; Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “The problem of evil and the soul-making theodicy.”
↑ 62. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 37–38. Baker recounts Falwell’s statements after September 11, 2001, as an example of how a retributive image of God shapes human behavior and leads to rationalizations for violence.
↑ 63. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 102–104. Baker distinguishes carefully between forgiveness (which is one-sided and unconditional) and reconciliation (which requires a response from the forgiven party). She argues that reconciliation is the purpose of God in salvation history.