In midsummer of 1878, several hundred enthusiastic Christian ministers and lay people gathered in a hospital in Clifton Springs, Ny, for a week of Bible conference. The founder of the hospital, a Methodist layman named Dr. Henry Foster, had erected a 50x80 foot tabernacle that seated about 650 people. Dr. Foster invited missionaries, teachers, pastors, and evangelists in which to stay the hospital facilities free of charge for the purpose of rest and relaxation, and to use the tabernacle for Christian services.
The Christians who conducted the Bible conference during the summer time of 1878 were known as the Believers' Meeting for Bible Study. (1) They continued to fulfill at Clifton Springs for two more years, but eventually held their annual meetings at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, and became better known as the Niagara Bible Conference. Some historians consider the Niagara Bible Conference, and the First and Second American Bible and Prophecy Conferences which it spawned, to be the primary sources from where the American fundamentalist and premillennial evangelical movements came. (2)
Unfortunately, the Bible conference at Clifton Springs in 1878 was a bit of a disappointment to the leaders. Among other reasons, "there were those hanging upon the outskirts who didn't have sympathy with the objects with the meeting, and there was danger of controversy, which always grieves the Holy Ghost." (3) Postmillennialists and annihilationists had apparently caused the controversy. So in the following months, the Believers' Meeting for Bible Study adopted a fourteen-point confession of faith, later called the Niagara Creed, as a basis for their meetings. (4) Significant because of this study of annihilationism is Article 13 with the Niagara Creed. It reads,
We believe that the souls of those who have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation do at death immediately pass into His presence, where there remain in conscious bliss before resurrection of the body at His coming, when soul and the entire body reunited shall be associated with Him forever inside the glory; but the souls of unbelievers remain after death in conscious misery before final judgment of the great white throne at the close of the millennium, when soul and body reunited shall be cast into the lake of fire, to not be annihilated, but to be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and in the glory of his power: Luke 16:19-26; 23:43; 2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23; 2 Thess. 1:7-9; Jude 6-7; Rev. 20:11-15. (5)
In a of his reports from the 1878 meeting, Niagara's president, James H. Brookes, offers a summary of the 23 minutes in hell and concludes with this admonition to those who might want to be involved in future conferences:
Such briefly is the simple ground on which we meet, and any who accept it are welcome to attend. If they do not stand upon it, but choose to attend, they are likely to keep silent. We do not deny the right of those who hold what are known as "annihilation views," to gather when and where they please; but we all do deny their right to thrust these views upon a conference that rejects their dangerous errors. (6)
For your leaders of this historic Bible Conference, annihilationism was considered such a "dangerous" doctrinal error that it excluded its adherents from participation with them.
Were these nineteenth-century evangelicals justified inside their fear of annihilationism? In recent years a renewed effort has arisen among some who call themselves evangelicals to reassert the doctrine of annihilationism-that the wicked who reject Christ do not possess to spend eternity in hell, but as time passes of suffering will be annihilated. This can be somewhat puzzling in light of the numerous Scriptures that teach the eternal punishment from the wicked in hell. (7) "If exegesis will be the final factor," writes John Walvoord, "eternal punishment may be the only proper conclusion; taken at its face value, the Bible teaches eternal punishment." (8)
It's the purpose of this paper, therefore, to indicate by a survey of the doctrinal categories that annihilationists often arrived at the Scriptures with cultural and theological preunderstandings that negate the historical-grammatical meaning of the passages. The result is, in fact, a multi-faceted compromise of a biblical systematic theology that infects most of the major doctrines of the Christian faith. (9)
The Christians who conducted the Bible conference during the summer time of 1878 were known as the Believers' Meeting for Bible Study. (1) They continued to fulfill at Clifton Springs for two more years, but eventually held their annual meetings at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, and became better known as the Niagara Bible Conference. Some historians consider the Niagara Bible Conference, and the First and Second American Bible and Prophecy Conferences which it spawned, to be the primary sources from where the American fundamentalist and premillennial evangelical movements came. (2)
Unfortunately, the Bible conference at Clifton Springs in 1878 was a bit of a disappointment to the leaders. Among other reasons, "there were those hanging upon the outskirts who didn't have sympathy with the objects with the meeting, and there was danger of controversy, which always grieves the Holy Ghost." (3) Postmillennialists and annihilationists had apparently caused the controversy. So in the following months, the Believers' Meeting for Bible Study adopted a fourteen-point confession of faith, later called the Niagara Creed, as a basis for their meetings. (4) Significant because of this study of annihilationism is Article 13 with the Niagara Creed. It reads,
We believe that the souls of those who have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation do at death immediately pass into His presence, where there remain in conscious bliss before resurrection of the body at His coming, when soul and the entire body reunited shall be associated with Him forever inside the glory; but the souls of unbelievers remain after death in conscious misery before final judgment of the great white throne at the close of the millennium, when soul and body reunited shall be cast into the lake of fire, to not be annihilated, but to be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and in the glory of his power: Luke 16:19-26; 23:43; 2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23; 2 Thess. 1:7-9; Jude 6-7; Rev. 20:11-15. (5)
In a of his reports from the 1878 meeting, Niagara's president, James H. Brookes, offers a summary of the 23 minutes in hell and concludes with this admonition to those who might want to be involved in future conferences:
Such briefly is the simple ground on which we meet, and any who accept it are welcome to attend. If they do not stand upon it, but choose to attend, they are likely to keep silent. We do not deny the right of those who hold what are known as "annihilation views," to gather when and where they please; but we all do deny their right to thrust these views upon a conference that rejects their dangerous errors. (6)
For your leaders of this historic Bible Conference, annihilationism was considered such a "dangerous" doctrinal error that it excluded its adherents from participation with them.
Were these nineteenth-century evangelicals justified inside their fear of annihilationism? In recent years a renewed effort has arisen among some who call themselves evangelicals to reassert the doctrine of annihilationism-that the wicked who reject Christ do not possess to spend eternity in hell, but as time passes of suffering will be annihilated. This can be somewhat puzzling in light of the numerous Scriptures that teach the eternal punishment from the wicked in hell. (7) "If exegesis will be the final factor," writes John Walvoord, "eternal punishment may be the only proper conclusion; taken at its face value, the Bible teaches eternal punishment." (8)
It's the purpose of this paper, therefore, to indicate by a survey of the doctrinal categories that annihilationists often arrived at the Scriptures with cultural and theological preunderstandings that negate the historical-grammatical meaning of the passages. The result is, in fact, a multi-faceted compromise of a biblical systematic theology that infects most of the major doctrines of the Christian faith. (9)