There are two very different ways Christians have told the story of how everything ends.
In the first version, the one that’s especially popular in many modern Western churches, the tale begins with Jesus returning in glory. At last, everyone sees the truth and admits He is Lord. The next scene is radiant: every person is cleansed, made whole, their rebellion gone, every lie swept away. Yet just when it seems the story has reached a happy ending, the narrative takes a dark and jarring turn. In this telling, Jesus still condemns the majority of humanity to endless torment and suffering because they “believed the wrong thing” during their lifetime on earth. Love, in this version, proves to have been only temporary and conditional. Victory is partial. The promise of salvation feels like a bait-and-switch.
The second version tells a very different story. Here, too, Jesus returns in glory and every person recognizes Him. But this time, the conclusion is not a reversal; it is the fulfillment of all that came before. God becomes “all in all,” as 1 Cor. 15:28 puts it. Every tear is wiped away (Revelation 21:4). Death itself is destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26). The whole of creation is restored and made new (Romans 8:21). In this vision, love never fails, victory is total, and the good news is truly good — not for a select few, but for everyone. Heaven is imagined not as an exclusive VIP gated club for the spiritually elite but as a great family table where no chair is left empty.
These two endings come from very different sources. The vision of full restoration is rooted in the ancient Jewish understanding of God as a shepherd who does not rest until every lost sheep is home, as a healer who mends the whole world (TIKKUN OLAM). The harsher ending is a later development (mostly by Augustine of Hippo in the 4th century), shaped by Roman and Western ideas about Greek law, merciless punishment, and imperial control — a framework more interested in retribution than reconciliation.
But you see, God is merciful. He does not desire that your enemies thirst or starve forever — “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink” (Romans 12:20). That is why Jesus commanded us to “love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44). Likewise, Scripture affirms that God “does not cast off forever” (Lamentations 3:31).
Bringing a person to repentance is always the goal of any punishment that originates from a grace-led heart and an omnibenevolent mind — this is biblical purification (Malachi 3:2–3). Therefore, God’s punishment can only be understood as one of two things: sadistic if it is eternal, or restorative if it is for the sake of repentance. And since we know that in the end every heart will eventually repent because “every knee will bow” and “every tongue will give thanks” (Philippians 2:10-11; Romans 14:11), we can be confident which of the two reflects the heart of God.
This was an excerpt from “The Gospel Before Christianity: A Jewish Perspective on Jesus’ Atonement, Sacrifice, and Redemption“. Pre-order here:
