Chapter 25

Paul and the Purifying Fire

Introduction: The Apostle Who Saw the Fire

If there is one writer in the New Testament who gives us the clearest window into the nature of God’s final judgment, it is the apostle Paul. He was, after all, a man who had his own encounter with the blinding, overwhelming presence of Christ—on the road to Damascus, when the glorified Lord appeared to him in a light so intense that it struck him blind for three days.¹ Paul never forgot that experience. He spent the rest of his life trying to explain what that light means—for believers, for unbelievers, and for the entire created order. What he wrote about fire, judgment, and the final state of humanity is some of the most important material in the entire Bible for understanding what God’s judgment actually looks like.

And here is the remarkable thing: when you gather Paul’s relevant texts together and read them carefully, a pattern emerges that fits the divine presence model more naturally than any other framework. Paul describes a fire that tests and purifies. He describes a destruction that comes from the Lord’s presence, not away from it. He describes a God whose love cannot be escaped, whose purpose is to reconcile all things, and whose final goal is to be “all in all.” These are not the words of a man who believed in an eternal torture chamber. They are the words of a man who had seen the consuming fire of God’s love firsthand—and who knew that the same light that heals the willing destroys the resistant.

In this chapter, we are going to walk through Paul’s most important texts on judgment, fire, and the final state. We will begin with the passage that is arguably the most significant Pauline text for the divine presence model—1 Corinthians 3:12–15, where Paul describes the fire that tests every person’s work. From there, we will move through Romans 2, where Paul explains the fairness of God’s judgment; 2 Thessalonians 1, where a single Greek word changes everything about how we understand hell; and a cluster of texts that scholars call the “universal scope” passages, where Paul’s vision of God’s plan stretches to include the reconciliation of all things. By the end of this chapter, I think you will see that Paul’s theology of judgment, rightly understood, points directly toward the divine presence model—and away from the idea that hell is a place of separation from God where the wicked are tortured forever.

One note before we begin. Some of the passages we will look at in this chapter have been treated briefly in earlier chapters. Here, we give them the full exegetical attention they deserve. Where a passage has already been introduced, I will build on what we covered before rather than repeating it.

1 Corinthians 3:12–15 — The Fire That Tests Every Person’s Work

Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. (1 Corinthians 3:12–15, ESV)

This passage is the single most important Pauline text for the divine presence model of hell. Read it again slowly. Notice what Paul says: there is a fire coming. That fire will test every person’s work. The things built with gold, silver, and precious stones will survive the fire. The things built with wood, hay, and straw will be burned up. And here is the crucial line: even the person whose work is completely burned up “will be saved, but only as through fire.”

What kind of fire is this? The traditional reading of eternal conscious torment has surprisingly little to say about this passage, because it does not fit the ECT framework at all. If hell is a place of unending torment for the wicked, why does Paul describe a fire that saves the person even as it destroys their work? And if the fire of judgment is merely punitive—merely designed to inflict suffering—why does Paul describe it as a testing and purifying agent that distinguishes between what is valuable and what is worthless?

The answer is that the fire Paul describes here is not the fire of a torture chamber. It is the fire of God’s presence.

As Sharon Baker observes in her discussion of this passage, Paul connects the fire of judgment directly with standing before God. She notes that since God is the consuming fire of Hebrews 12:29, and since every person will eventually stand before God to give an account of their life, to stand in God’s presence is to stand in the fire.² The fire does not exist as a separate punishment mechanism. The fire is what happens when impurity meets perfect holiness. Gold survives the refiner’s fire. Straw does not. The difference is not in the fire—the fire is the same. The difference is in what the fire touches.

Baker takes this point further, connecting the passage directly to the character of God revealed throughout Scripture: “Fire not only surrounds God, but God is a consuming fire. Fire symbolizes God’s wrath…. The fire of God burns up evil and wickedness so that it no longer exists. What remains, if anything, is pure and righteous, like silver, gold, and precious stones.”³ The fire here is not something separate from God acting against people. It is God’s own nature—his blazing holiness and love—doing what fire always does: purifying what can be purified and consuming what cannot.

Now, I should note that some scholars interpret this passage more narrowly. In Four Views on Hell, one contributor argues that Paul is not speaking about the final fate of individual souls at all, but about the integrity of gospel preaching—Paul is the “wise master builder” who laid a foundation, and other teachers build on it with materials of varying quality.⁴ Richard Hays makes a similar point, arguing that Paul is talking about the work of church leaders, not the fate of individual believers.⁵ There is real truth in this observation. The immediate context is about church leadership and the quality of ministry. Paul is warning the Corinthians that some of the teachers who have come after him are building with inferior materials.

But here is the thing: even if the primary application is to church leaders, the principle Paul articulates is universal. “Each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire.” The Day of Judgment reveals all things. The fire tests all things. And the fire that Paul describes here operates in a way that is completely consistent with the divine presence model: it purifies what is good, consumes what is worthless, and—remarkably—can save the person even when all their work is destroyed.

R. Zachary Manis picks up on this passage in his treatment of the divine presence model, noting that even for believers, the presence of Christ on the day of judgment discloses the true worth or worthlessness of everything in a person’s life. He writes that Paul “hints at this in his warning to the believers at Corinth that they must ‘take care’ how they ‘build on the foundation’ of faith in Christ.”⁶ Manis sees this passage as evidence that the day of judgment will not be entirely without pain even for believers—that the first exposure to the glorified Christ may be a refining experience for those who have built poorly, a completion of the process of sanctification. In traditional language, this might even be described as an experience of purgatory.⁷

Think about what this means for the divine presence model. If the fire of God’s presence purifies believers—burning away their wood, hay, and straw while saving them “as through fire”—then what does that same fire do to unbelievers? The divine presence model answers: the same fire that refines the willing consumes the resistant. The difference is not in the nature of the fire. The difference is in the condition of the heart that encounters it. A heart that is open to God’s love, even imperfectly, is purified by the encounter. A heart that is hardened against God’s love experiences that same encounter as torment—and, ultimately, as destruction.

Jerry Walls, writing from a purgatorial perspective in Four Views on Hell, also sees this passage as deeply significant. He notes that the experience of “escaping through the flames” involves a powerful and penetrating encounter with truth—watching the fire reveal the true character of our choices, our values, and what we have invested our lives in. Walls suggests that this experience of facing the truth would be profoundly sanctifying.⁸ Whether or not we accept Walls’s full purgatorial framework, his reading of this passage highlights something crucial: the fire of judgment is bound up with the revelation of truth, and that revelation of truth happens in the presence of Christ.

Baker draws the practical conclusion that this passage should change how we think about the final judgment for everyone, not just believers. “It seems that in the final judgment, everyone will go through the fire—through the fire that surrounds God, comes from God, and is God,” she writes. “To stand in God’s presence is to stand in the fire. Though the passage in 1 Corinthians most likely refers to the judgment of Christians, the Bible talks elsewhere about a similar judgment of unbelievers.”⁹ She is right. Paul gives us the principle; other passages extend it to all people. And the principle is profoundly consistent with the divine presence model: the fire of God’s judgment is not a separate punishment mechanism. It is the natural consequence of standing in the presence of perfect Love.

Romans 2:5–16 — The Day When God Judges the Secrets of Hearts

But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. (Romans 2:5–11, ESV)

…on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Romans 2:16, ESV)

Romans 2 is Paul’s most detailed treatment of how God’s final judgment actually works. And what he says here is deeply important for the divine presence model, for several reasons.

First, notice the language of proportionality. God “will render to each one according to his works.” This is not the language of an infinite, one-size-fits-all punishment. This is the language of a just Judge who calibrates the outcome to the individual. As Gerry Beauchemin points out, statements like “to each one according to his deeds” and the Old Testament principle of “fracture for fracture, eye for eye” are flatly incompatible with the idea that every unbeliever receives the same infinite punishment regardless of what they actually did.¹⁰ A God who judges “according to works” is a God whose judgment is measured, proportional, and fair. That fits the divine presence model. It does not fit eternal conscious torment.

Second, notice that Paul mentions immortality as something that must be sought—it is given as a reward “to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality.” As Edward Fudge observes in Two Views of Hell, whenever the Bible attributes immortality to human beings, it always describes the bodies of the saved after the resurrection—never the disembodied souls of the lost.¹¹ This is a significant point. If immortality is a gift given only to the redeemed, then the wicked do not possess it. They cannot be tormented forever because they do not live forever. This aligns perfectly with conditional immortality—and with the divine presence model’s understanding that the fire of God’s presence ultimately destroys those who cannot endure it.

Third, and most importantly for the divine presence model, notice how the passage ends: “God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.” The judgment is not merely an external courtroom proceeding. It is the exposure of what is hidden. The secrets of the heart are laid bare before Christ. As Manis writes, the divine presence model connects all of these themes: on the Day of Judgment, all are resurrected into the presence of the Lord, whose glory is a radiant light that penetrates the darkness of each person’s heart, exposing it for all to see.¹² Paul hints at this earlier in Romans 2 when he writes of the Gentiles that “they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law,” and that their conflicting thoughts will “accuse or even excuse them” on the day when God judges them.¹³

This is the judgment of transparency. Each person is judged by their own conscience, laid bare before the light of Christ. Each person’s secrets are exposed. And the result is not an arbitrary sentence handed down by an angry judge; it is the natural consequence of who you are meeting who God is. The righteous receive glory, honor, and peace. The wicked receive wrath and fury—not because God delights in punishing them, but because their hard and impenitent hearts cannot bear the light.

Paul’s language in Romans 2 fits beautifully with the divine presence model. The judgment is personal, proportional, revelatory, and grounded in the character of a God who shows no partiality. It is not a dungeon where all the wicked are thrown indiscriminately. It is a light that exposes every heart for exactly what it is.

2 Thessalonians 1:5–10 — Destruction FROM the Presence of the Lord

This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering—since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. (2 Thessalonians 1:5–10, ESV)

This passage may be the single most important battlefield in the entire debate about the nature of hell. It is also the passage where a single Greek word—apo—changes everything.

Read the ESV translation above carefully. It says the wicked will suffer “eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord.” If that translation is correct, then hell is separation from God—exactly what the traditional view and the choice model claim. And if hell is separation from God, then the divine presence model is in trouble.

But here is the critical issue: the ESV itself includes a footnote on the phrase “away from.” That footnote reads: “Or destruction that comes from…”¹⁴ That tiny footnote represents an entirely different reading of the verse—one that, I will argue, is almost certainly the correct one.

The Greek word in question is apo (from). In English, the word “from” can mean either “away from” (indicating separation) or “caused by” (indicating origin or source). Think of the sentence: “The scar on his face is from a car accident.” Nobody reads that as meaning the scar is “away from” a car accident. It means the scar was caused by the accident. The Greek word apo works in exactly the same way—it can mean either “away from” or “caused by,” depending on the context.¹⁵

So which meaning does Paul intend here? Manis provides the decisive argument in Thinking Through the Problem of Hell. He observes that the best way to determine the meaning of apo in any given verse is to compare it with other verses that have a similar grammatical structure. And there is a verse in the New Testament that uses exactly the same Greek phrase—word for word—as 2 Thessalonians 1:9. It is Acts 3:19.

“Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” (Acts 3:19, RSV)

The phrase “from the presence of the Lord” in Acts 3:19 is identical in Greek to the phrase used in 2 Thessalonians 1:9. And nobody translates Acts 3:19 to say that times of refreshing come “away from” the presence of the Lord. That would be nonsensical. The refreshing obviously comes from the Lord’s presence—it is caused by being in God’s presence.¹⁶

Why, then, should the exact same Greek phrase be translated in an entirely different way when it appears in 2 Thessalonians 1:9? Manis’s answer is blunt: it shouldn’t be. The translations that render the verse as “away from” or “shut out from” or “exclusion from” the presence of the Lord are, as Thomas Talbott puts it, “inaccurate paraphrases.” The more literal translations—the American Standard Version, the English Revised Version, and the New King James Version—simply say “from the presence of the Lord,” with no added connotation of separation.¹⁷

Talbott’s exegesis of this verse, as Manis notes, is astute. Talbott argues that “destruction away from the glory of his might” simply makes no sense, but “destruction that comes from or has its causal source in the glory of his might” makes perfectly good sense.¹⁸ Manis agrees, and he draws out the full implications for the divine presence model: “The punishment is neither artificial nor arbitrary, contrary to the way that hell is understood in traditionalism. Nor is it a punishment of separation or self-exile, as hell is understood to be in the choice model. Rather, destruction comes from the experience of being in the presence of Christ, fully revealed in glory. Jesus’ unveiling/appearing in glory is the punishment of the wicked.”¹⁹

This is a stunning conclusion, and it deserves to sink in. On the divine presence model, the destruction Paul describes in 2 Thessalonians 1 is not something that happens to the wicked in some remote corner of the universe, far from God. It happens precisely because they are in God’s presence. The revelation of Christ in glory—that blinding light Paul himself once experienced on the Damascus road—is itself the cause of their destruction. The Lord Jesus is revealed “in flaming fire,” and that flaming fire destroys those whose hearts are hardened against him.

Paul even provides a fascinating parallel in 2 Corinthians 2:15–16, where he writes that believers are “the aroma of Christ”—and that this aroma is, to some people, “an aroma that brings life,” while to others it is “an aroma that brings death.”²⁰ The same Christ, the same presence, the same “aroma”—but radically different effects depending on the condition of the person who encounters it. That is the divine presence model in miniature. And it comes straight from the pen of Paul.

I should acknowledge that some scholars disagree with this reading. In Two Views of Hell, Robert Peterson argues that the “presence” in this verse refers specifically to Christ’s glorious kingly presence among his people, and that being excluded from it means nonfellowship rather than nonexistence.²¹ Peterson contends that separation from God’s “presence” here does not require total separation from God in every respect—the wicked are still in God’s presence in the sense that they are being punished by him. This is an interesting concession, because it actually moves in the direction of the divine presence model: even Peterson acknowledges that the wicked are still, in some sense, in the presence of God during their punishment. The question is whether the text supports “exclusion from” or “caused by.” The grammatical evidence, as Manis and Talbott have shown, strongly favors “caused by.”

Robin Parry, writing from a universalist perspective in Four Views on Hell, offers yet another important observation about this passage. He notes that the word translated “destruction” (olethros) does not necessarily mean annihilation, and that the adjective aiōnios (translated “eternal” or “everlasting”) can refer to the age to come rather than to infinite duration.²² This means the passage is compatible with both conditional immortality and universal reconciliation within the divine presence framework. The destruction is real. It comes from the presence of the Lord. But the precise duration and finality of that destruction remain open questions—questions we will explore in Chapters 30 and 31.

Romans 5:18–19 — One Righteous Act for All

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:18–19, ESV)

With this passage, we move into a cluster of Pauline texts that scholars call the “universal scope” passages—texts in which Paul seems to envision the effects of Christ’s work extending to all people, not just to those who believe in this life. These passages are deeply relevant to the divine presence model because they address the ultimate purpose of God’s plan: does God intend to save some, most, or all?

Romans 5:18–19 is one of the most carefully structured parallels in all of Paul’s writing. Notice the exact symmetry: “as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.” The “all” in the first half of the sentence is universal—everyone was condemned in Adam. Paul’s grammar demands that the “all” in the second half be equally universal—everyone is offered justification and life in Christ.²³

Manis draws attention to this passage in his treatment of the atonement’s scope, noting that according to Paul, the death of Christ is a sacrifice for all humanity—it “resulted in justification and life for all people.” Christ’s death on the cross justifies everyone in the sense that all are forgiven in Christ. Moreover, his death results in life for everyone, defeating the curse in which sin reigns in death.²⁴ On the divine presence model, this means that exposure to God’s presence no longer automatically results in death for human beings. Because of Christ’s work, God’s presence is once again life-conferring to all—though how each person experiences that presence depends on the condition of their heart.

Does this passage prove universal reconciliation? Not necessarily. The scope of Christ’s atoning work and the scope of who actually receives its benefits may not be identical. The offer is universal; the response may not be. But what this passage does establish beyond any doubt is that God’s purpose in Christ is not narrow or stingy. Paul says that “where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (Romans 5:20). If sin touched every human life, grace has reached further still. The divine presence model takes this seriously. God’s love is not a limited resource. His fire is aimed at restoration, not retribution. Whether every person ultimately responds to that love—that is the question that separates conditional immortality from universal reconciliation.

Romans 8:38–39 — Nothing Can Separate Us from God’s Love

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38–39, ESV)

This is one of the most beloved passages in all of Scripture, and it carries enormous implications for the doctrine of hell. Paul is making an exhaustive list: death, life, angels, rulers, present things, future things, powers, height, depth, and “anything else in all creation.” His point could not be clearer. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Now think about what this means for the traditional view of hell. If hell is separation from God’s love—if the damned are cut off from God’s presence and consigned to a place where his love does not reach—then Paul is wrong. Death can separate us from God’s love. Sin can put us beyond the reach of divine compassion. The powers of darkness can drag us to a place where God’s love cannot follow.

The divine presence model takes Paul at his word. God’s love is genuinely inescapable. Even in hell—especially in hell—God’s love is present. That is precisely why hell is so terrible. It is not that God withdraws his love from the wicked. It is that the wicked experience God’s inescapable love as torment, because their hardened hearts cannot receive it as joy. As we saw in Chapter 14, Isaac the Syrian understood this perfectly: those who suffer in hell are suffering because they are being “scourged by love.”²⁵

Someone might object: “But Paul says ‘us’—he’s talking about believers, not about the wicked. The love that cannot be escaped is the love experienced by those who are in Christ.” That is a fair reading of the immediate context. Paul is writing to the church in Rome, encouraging persecuted believers. But notice the scope of what he claims. He does not say, “Nothing can separate believers from the love of God.” He says that nothing in all creation can separate us from that love. And the list he provides is not a list of threats to believers only. Death, life, angels, rulers, powers, height, depth—these are cosmic categories. They encompass the entire created order. If Paul means what he says, then God’s love is not limited to the sphere of the church. It extends to every corner of reality. Nothing escapes it.

Think about it this way. If God’s love is truly inescapable—if nothing in all creation can separate anyone from it—then the traditional view of hell as separation from God’s love is simply incoherent. You cannot have a place in the universe that is cut off from the love of a God whose love fills all things. The divine presence model resolves this tension beautifully: hell is not the absence of God’s love. Hell is the presence of God’s love experienced as anguish by those who hate it. The love is the same in heaven and in hell. The experience is different because the hearts are different.

Romans 8:38–39 does not tell us whether every person will eventually yield to that inescapable love. It tells us something more basic and more important: that God’s love never quits. It never gives up. It never walks away. Not even hell can separate a person from the love of God. That should reshape everything we think about the doctrine of hell.

Romans 11:32 — Mercy for All

For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. (Romans 11:32, ESV)

This single verse comes at the climax of Paul’s long argument in Romans 9–11 about the fate of Israel. After wrestling with the mystery of why so many of his fellow Jews rejected the Messiah, Paul arrives at a breathtaking conclusion: God allowed Israel to fall into disobedience so that he might show mercy to the Gentiles—and then, through that mercy, provoke Israel to jealousy and save them too. “All Israel will be saved,” Paul declares in Romans 11:26. And then he generalizes the principle: God has locked up all people in disobedience, so that he may have mercy on all.

Beauchemin highlights this text alongside many others, noting that the God Paul describes operates through both judgment and mercy to accomplish his purposes—and that his ultimate purpose is always mercy.²⁶ The disobedience is real. The judgment is real. But the purpose behind both is mercy.

Pay attention to the structure of Paul’s argument. He does not say that God consigned some to disobedience so that he might have mercy on some. Both “alls” are the same all. The very people who are locked up in disobedience are the people God intends to show mercy to. The imprisonment is temporary. The mercy is the goal. God is like a surgeon who causes pain in order to heal. The cut of the scalpel is real; the suffering of the surgery is real. But the purpose of the surgery is not suffering. The purpose is restoration.

Michael Phillips makes a similar point about the nature of divine judgment throughout the Old Testament prophets. He observes that fire in Scripture always serves a purpose beyond mere destruction. The fire burns until its objective is achieved. As Phillips notes in his reading of Malachi 3:2–3, the purifying fire burns until the sons of Levi “present right offerings to the LORD,” after which “the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.”⁴² Healing always follows the fire. That is the pattern throughout Scripture. And Romans 11:32 gives us the theological reason for that pattern: God’s judgment is always in the service of his mercy.

For the divine presence model, this is crucial. The fire of God’s presence in judgment is not an end in itself. It is a means toward mercy. It is the refiner’s fire that burns away dross—not to destroy the metal, but to purify it. Whether every last person ultimately receives that mercy is the open question between CI and UR. But Paul’s logic here is breathtaking in its scope: God’s intention is mercy for all. His method is to allow disobedience so that mercy can be shown. His judgment is in the service of his mercy, not the other way around.

No wonder Paul erupts into a doxology in the very next verse: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33). And he adds one more line that is often overlooked: “For from him and through him and to him are all things” (Romans 11:36). All things come from God, exist through God, and are destined for God. That includes the people in the fire. They came from God. They exist through God. And God’s purpose is that they return to God. When you glimpse the scope of what Paul is saying here, the only possible response is awe.

1 Corinthians 15:22–28 — God Will Be All in All

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every 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…. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:22–28, ESV)

This passage is the Mount Everest of Paul’s eschatology. It is the most comprehensive statement he ever makes about the final outcome of God’s plan for creation. And its implications are staggering.

Start with the parallel: “As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” Beauchemin highlights the grammatical structure here, noting that the “for as…even so” construction demands agreement between the two halves.²⁷ If the “all” who die in Adam really means “all humans without exception,” then the “all” who are made alive in Christ should mean the same. The word “made alive” (zōopoieō in Greek) is a word used exclusively for the giving of genuine, abundant, spiritual life—it is the verb form of zōē, the very word Jesus uses in John 3:16 and throughout the Gospel of John.²⁸ It is not a word that can be twisted to mean “resurrected in order to be destroyed.”

But Paul adds a critical qualifier: “each in his own order.” First Christ, the firstfruits. Then, at his coming, those who belong to Christ. Then the end. Paul seems to envision a process that unfolds in stages—not all at once, but in a divinely ordered sequence. Beauchemin sees in this sequence evidence that God’s plan includes a third “order” beyond believers—the subjection of all things to Christ, which happens after those who belong to Christ are raised.²⁹

And what is the end result of this process? Paul gives us the answer in verse 28: “that God may be all in all.” Think about what this phrase means. If God is to be “all in all,” then nothing stands outside his reign. Nothing remains in rebellion. The last enemy—death itself—is destroyed. Not punished forever. Not kept alive in a permanent state of suffering. Destroyed. Death is swallowed up in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54).

The traditional ECT view has a real problem here. If there are people being tormented forever in hell, then death has not been fully destroyed. Suffering continues without end. The “last enemy” has not been defeated—it has been made permanent. Paul’s triumphant cry, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55) rings hollow if billions of people remain in endless suffering. The divine presence model, by contrast, takes Paul’s language at full force. On the CI reading, death is truly destroyed because those who finally refuse God cease to exist—there is no more death because there is no more dying. On the UR reading, death is truly destroyed because every person is ultimately brought to life in Christ—death’s reign is ended completely and forever. Either way, Paul’s promise is kept: God becomes all in all, and death is no more.

How does this relate to the divine presence model? If we take the CI route, then the destruction of death means that those who finally refuse God’s love are consumed by his fire—they cease to exist, and death has no more hold on anyone. God is all in all because nothing remains that resists him. If we take the UR route, then the subjection of all things means that every heart eventually yields to God’s inescapable love, and God is all in all because every creature has been reconciled. Either way, the divine presence model provides the mechanism: it is God’s overwhelming, all-consuming love that either purifies or destroys every form of resistance. The fire accomplishes its purpose. God wins.

Philippians 2:10–11 — Every Knee Shall Bow

…so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10–11, ESV)

This is one of the most hotly debated passages in the universalism discussion, and it has direct relevance to the divine presence model. Paul’s language is sweeping: every knee, in every realm—heaven, earth, and under the earth (the realm of the dead)—will bow. Every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

The traditional reading says this is a forced, unwilling acknowledgment—the clenched-teeth confession of a vanquished enemy who has no choice but to admit defeat. But Michael Phillips challenges this reading head-on by looking at the actual Greek words Paul uses.³⁰ The word for “bow” is kamptō, which is used specifically of bending the knee in religious worship and veneration. There is a different Greek word, sunkamptō, that means to bend by compulsory force—and Paul does not use it here.³¹ Likewise, the word for “confess” is exomologeō, which carries the meaning of glad, open, public acknowledgment—the same word Jesus used when he cried out in joy, “I praise you, Father!” (Matthew 11:25).³² It is not homologeō, which could carry the sense of a reluctant admission.

Beauchemin strengthens the argument by pointing to the source from which Paul is quoting—Isaiah 45:21–25. In that passage, the bowing and confessing is explicitly linked to righteousness, justification, and glory: “He shall say, ‘Surely in the LORD I have righteousness and strength’…. In the LORD all the descendants of Israel shall be justified, and shall glory.”³³ Only a genuine believer could say, “In the LORD I have righteousness.” This is not the language of forced submission. This is the language of worship.

Paul also notes that this confession will be offered “to the glory of God the Father.” Phillips asks the obvious question: how does a forced and unwilling confession bring glory to God?³⁴ A father who forces his children to say they love him under threat of punishment is not glorified by their compliance. A father whose love is so overwhelming that his children freely come home and praise his name—that is a father who is glorified.

For the divine presence model, this passage points toward a breathtaking possibility. If the fire of God’s love is truly purifying, then perhaps the day will come when even those “under the earth”—the dead, the lost, those who have passed through the fire of judgment—will freely, joyfully, worshipfully confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Baker captures this possibility beautifully in her discussion of Otto: after the fire has done its work, a purified Otto “would naturally choose life with God” because “only something impure could reject God.”³⁵

Whether that possibility is realized for all, or whether some hearts harden irrevocably against the fire, remains the open question of this book. But Philippians 2:10–11, read in its original Greek and in its Old Testament context, gives powerful support to the hope that God’s love will ultimately triumph over every form of resistance.

Colossians 1:19–20 and 1 Timothy 2:4 — God’s Universal Purpose

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace through the blood of his cross. (Colossians 1:19–20, ESV)

…God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:3–4, ESV)

These two passages form a natural pair because they address God’s purpose and desire for creation. In Colossians, Paul declares that God’s purpose is to reconcile all things to himself through the blood of Christ’s cross—not some things, not a select few, but “all things, whether on earth or in heaven.” In 1 Timothy, Paul states plainly that God “desires all people to be saved.”

Robin Parry, writing in Four Views on Hell, makes a powerful observation about Colossians 1:19–20. He notes that the passage describes a story that runs from the creation of all things through Christ to the reconciliation of the same all things through Christ. The “all things” that were created are the “all things” that are reconciled. And this reconciliation is not a euphemism for defeat or punishment—it is described as “making peace through the blood of his cross.”³⁶ As Miroslav Volf comments, at the heart of the cross is Christ’s stance of not letting the other remain an enemy and creating space for the offender to come in.³⁷

Manis connects Colossians 1:19–20 directly to the atonement’s implications for the divine presence model: Christ’s work on the cross, which justifies all before God, somehow brings it about that exposure to the divine presence no longer automatically results in death for human beings. God’s presence, through Christ, has become life-conferring again.³⁸

Beauchemin brings together these texts with characteristic directness: the reconciliation of all things is the Father’s pleasure, and it is based solely on the power of Christ’s blood. He asks pointedly: dare we place limits on what the blood of the cross has achieved?³⁹

I should be honest: there are serious responses to the universalist reading of these texts. In Four Views on Hell, Denny Burk argues that the “all” of Colossians 1:20 cannot support universalism because the very next verses (1:21–23) make reconciliation conditional upon persevering faith: “if indeed you continue in the faith.”⁴⁰ This is a fair point. The universal scope of Christ’s work does not automatically mean that every person will be saved. It means that every person can be saved—that the blood of Christ is sufficient for all.

There is another objection worth considering. Some argue that “reconcile all things” in Colossians 1:20 means simply “to put in order”—so believers are “reconciled” by being saved, while unbelievers are “reconciled” by being judged and defeated. But as Parry rightly points out, this interpretation runs roughshod over the concept of reconciliation as Paul uses it everywhere else in his letters. In Romans 5:10, 2 Corinthians 5:18–20, and Ephesians 2:16, reconciliation consistently means the healing of a broken relationship—enemies being made friends, the alienated being brought near. Being defeated and condemned is not being reconciled.⁴³ And Paul specifies that this reconciliation was accomplished by “making peace through the blood of his cross.” You do not make peace with someone by annihilating them.

For the divine presence model, these passages establish something essential about the character of God and the direction of his purpose. God is not trying to damn as many people as possible. He desires all to be saved. His reconciling work in Christ extends to all things. Whether that universal purpose is finally realized in every individual—or whether some resist the fire of his love to the point of their own destruction—is a question about human freedom, not about God’s character. And the divine presence model works with either answer.

Synthesis: What Paul’s Fire Reveals

When you lay all of these Pauline passages side by side, a remarkable picture emerges. It is not the picture that most Western Christians have been taught. It is not a picture of an angry God consigning the wicked to an eternal torture chamber far from his presence. It is a picture of a God whose very presence is the fire of judgment—a fire that purifies the willing and destroys the resistant.

From 1 Corinthians 3, we learn that the fire of judgment tests and purifies. It burns away what is worthless and saves the person who comes through it. From Romans 2, we learn that God’s judgment is proportional, impartial, and revelatory—it exposes the secrets of every heart before the light of Christ. From 2 Thessalonians 1, we learn that the destruction of the wicked comes from the presence of the Lord, not away from it. Christ’s appearing in glory is the judgment. From the universal scope passages—Romans 5, 8, 11; 1 Corinthians 15; Philippians 2; Colossians 1; and 1 Timothy 2—we learn that God’s purpose in Christ is breathtakingly universal: to reconcile all things, to have mercy on all, to be all in all.

Each of these passages, taken individually, lends support to the divine presence model. Taken together, they constitute a compelling cumulative case. Paul did not teach eternal conscious torment. He taught a theology of judgment that is rooted in the presence, the love, and the holiness of God—a God who is himself a consuming fire.

It is worth pausing to notice something else about the cumulative picture. Paul never once describes hell as a place separate from God. He never describes God as sending people to a location where he is absent. He never uses the language of banishment to an outer region beyond God’s reach. Instead, his language consistently points in the opposite direction. The fire comes from the Lord’s presence. The judgment happens before Christ. The aroma of Christ brings death to some and life to others—but it is the same Christ, the same aroma. This is not a peripheral detail. It is the gravitational center of Paul’s eschatology. God is everywhere. His love reaches everywhere. His fire touches everything. The only question is how each heart responds when the fire arrives.

We should also notice how naturally the divine presence model resolves a longstanding tension in Pauline scholarship. On one hand, Paul writes fierce warnings about the wrath of God, the day of judgment, and the destruction of the wicked. On the other hand, he writes magnificent texts about God’s universal love, his desire to save all, and his plan to be all in all. For centuries, theologians have struggled to hold these two strands together. If God really wants to save everyone, why does he destroy the wicked? If he really destroys the wicked, how can he desire the salvation of all? The divine presence model resolves the tension by showing that the wrath and the love are not two different things. They are two different human experiences of the same divine reality. God’s love is his fire. His fire is his love. The willing experience it as purification and joy. The resistant experience it as torment and destruction. The fire never changes. God never changes. What changes is the human heart.

The fire Paul describes is not arbitrary, vindictive, or pointless. It is the fire of a refiner who wants pure gold. It is the fire of a Father whose love will not rest until every knee bows and every tongue confesses—not in forced, bitter submission, but in genuine worship, to the glory of God the Father. Whether that fire ultimately purifies every person or whether some are consumed by it is a question Paul leaves open—and so do we. What Paul does not leave open is the character of the fire. It is God’s fire. It comes from God’s presence. And its purpose is not torture but truth.

Manis captures this beautifully when he describes what he calls the two “unveilings” in Paul’s letters: the first is the voluntary opening of one’s heart to God in this life, an act of free will in response to the Holy Spirit; the second is the involuntary unveiling of Christ in glory at the end of the age, an event that all will experience regardless of their consent. For those who have been born of the Spirit, the second unveiling is everything they hoped for. For all others, it is wrath—not because God has changed, but because their hearts have not.⁴¹

This is the pattern that runs through all of Paul’s theology of judgment: the fire is the same, the love is the same, but the human heart determines the outcome. That is not the theology of eternal conscious torment. That is not the theology of separation from God. That is the divine presence model, written in the language of the apostle to the Gentiles.

Pastoral Implications: Why This Matters for the Church

If Paul’s theology of judgment is really what we have described in this chapter—if the fire is God’s presence, if judgment is the exposure of the heart, if God’s purpose is mercy for all—then the implications for how we live and how we preach are enormous.

First, it changes how we think about evangelism. We are not trying to rescue people from a God who wants to hurt them. We are inviting them to open their hearts now to a love they will encounter then—either as joy or as torment. The urgency of the gospel is not diminished by the divine presence model. If anything, it is heightened. The fire is coming. The question is not whether you will stand in it, but what will be left of you when you do. Paul understood this urgency. He spent his entire life as an apostle begging people to be reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:20)—not because God was eager to punish them, but because God’s love was already reaching for them, and the sooner they opened their hearts to it, the less painful the encounter would be.

Second, it changes how we think about justice. God’s justice, as Paul describes it, is not vindictive. It is fair, proportional, and revelatory. It “renders to each one according to his works.” A justice like that is something we can proclaim with confidence, without the nagging feeling that something is deeply wrong with a God who would punish finite sins with infinite suffering. When we tell people that God is just, we should mean it in the fullest, richest sense—that God’s justice is so good, so fair, and so thorough that it takes into account every circumstance, every motive, every secret of the heart. That kind of justice is not terrifying. It is liberating. It means nobody gets a raw deal. It means the God who judges the secrets of the heart judges them perfectly.

Third, it fills us with hope. Paul’s vision of the end is not a universe permanently divided between joy and agony. It is a universe in which God is “all in all,” death is destroyed, and every knee bows in worship. Whether the path to that end includes the destruction of the unrepentant or their eventual restoration, the end itself is glorious. God wins. Love wins. The fire accomplishes its purpose.

Fourth, it should change the way we talk about God to people who are hurting. I have met too many people—survivors of abuse, parents grieving children who died without professing faith, people struggling with depression and shame—who have been told that the God who claims to love them also maintains an eternal torture facility. Paul’s theology of judgment offers something better. It offers a God whose fire is aimed at purification, whose justice serves his mercy, whose love is so relentless that nothing in all creation can separate us from it. That is a God worth worshipping. That is a God who can be trusted. That is the God Paul met on the Damascus road—the God who knocked him flat with blinding light and then gently asked, “Why are you persecuting me?”⁴⁴

And nothing—not death, not life, not angels, not rulers, not height, not depth, not anything else in all creation—can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That is the gospel according to Paul. And it is very good news.