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The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical & Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment

Reviewed by Terry Hinks.

There seemed a reluctance among the Ministry Today Reviewers to pick up this book with its fiery title: The Fire That Consumes. In the end it was passed to me. It took me into an area I rarely enter: a detailed evangelical debate about the exact nature of hell, based on scriptural evidence in the Old and New Testaments.

First published in 1982, the book is now in its third edition, revised and updated especially in the historical survey it provides. However, Edward Fudge (who is a practising American attorney) still focuses the discussion on what he sees as one essential issue. As he writes in conclusion: “One issue alone divides traditionalists and conditionalists: does Scripture teach that God will make the wicked immortal, to suffer unending conscious torment in hell? Or does the Bible teach that the wicked will finally and truly die, perish, and become extinct forever, through a destructive process that encompasses whatever degree of conscious torment God might sovereignly and justly impose in each individual case? The issue is simple. The evidence is also clear and uncomplicated. It points away from the first view just described, to the second view, an understanding that evangelicals (and others) in increasing numbers already have come to consider more fully biblical, and also more consistent with the character of God as we see him revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.”

I found the language of the book and the culture from which it was written very different from my own, but was interested by the story it told of a serious discussion with the evangelical family on the interpretation of scripture. The interesting challenge the book brings to Christians of all traditions concerns the recovery of the key truths within the doctrine of judgement and hell: the question of how individual lives are accountable to God and on what basis, together with the nature of God’s ultimate victory over evil and the fulfilment of God’s kingdom.

Bringing a very correct and detailed evangelical approach, Edward Fudge does move the debate along, by emphasising the need to set aside classical notions of the immortality of the soul, to approach the Bible as a whole rather than drawing out a few set texts and to recognise that Scripture often speaks in symbolic rather than literal terms. He lays to rest a picture of God as an eternal torturer, though God’s judgement remains free and fierce.

Even if I do not warm to this book, I can certainly see its value within the ongoing exploration of a neglected area of Christian doctrine.