A Canonical Guide to Every Passage Discussed in This Book
How to use this index. Passages are listed in canonical order, from Genesis through Revelation, followed by a separate section for the non-canonical text of 2 Clement. Each entry lists the chapter(s) and appendix or appendices where the passage is discussed, with internal links. The primary treatment of each major objection text — the chapter where it receives its fullest discussion — is marked in bold. Other entries show where the passage appears in supporting roles, cross-references, or intertextual arguments.
Old Testament
Genesis
Genesis 4:1
Chapter 9 (the relational sense of “knowing” in biblical idiom)
Genesis 5:24
Chapter 21 (Enoch “taken” by God; parallel to Psalm 49:15)
Exodus
Exodus 32:32–33
Chapter 11 (Old Testament background for the Book of Life as a civic register that can be erased)
1 Samuel
1 Samuel 23 (the Keilah episode)
Chapter 7 (God tells David what Saul and the men of Keilah would do — a biblical example of counterfactual knowledge / middle knowledge)
Job
Job 3:3
Chapter 23 (a godly sufferer cursing the day of his birth — Semitic hyperbole, not a metaphysical claim)
Psalms
Psalm 6:5
Chapter 22 (the Old Testament Sheol-silence tradition)
Psalm 6:8
Chapter 9 (“Depart from me, all you workers of evil” — the lament/judgment idiom behind Matthew 7:23)
Appendix A (captivity led captive; background for Ephesians 4:8)
Psalm 69:28
Chapter 11 (Old Testament register language; names can be blotted out)
Psalm 73:24
Chapter 22 (a glimmer of hope beyond Sheol-silence in the canonical trajectory)
Psalm 88:10–12
Chapter 22 (the Old Testament Sheol-silence tradition)
Psalm 95 (via Hebrews 3:7–4:11)
Chapter 5 (“Today, if you hear his voice” — a “today” that is extended, not snapped shut); Chapter 6
Proverbs
Proverbs 11:7
Chapter 19 (primary treatment: a proverbial generalization about a wicked life’s failed hopes, not an absolute on the offer’s span)
Proverbs 14:32
Chapter 19 (“the righteous finds refuge in his death” — within Proverbs itself, death is not uniformly hopeless)
Proverbs 26:4–5
Chapter 19 (proverbs qualify one another — the proverbial-generalization principle)
Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes 3:21
Chapter 20 (Qoheleth professes ignorance of what comes after death)
Ecclesiastes 11:1–6 (esp. 11:3)
Chapter 20 (primary treatment: the falling tree is an “under the sun” image of uncertainty, not an afterlife proverb)
Isaiah
Isaiah 2:10, 19, 21
Chapter 12 (the Septuagint apo prosōpou idiom — destruction proceeding from God’s glory, not banishment from it)
Isaiah 26:19
Chapter 22 (“your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise” — resurrection hope within Isaiah that brightens Hezekiah’s dim picture)
Isaiah 38:9–20 (esp. 38:18)
Chapter 22 (primary treatment: Hezekiah’s personal lament, not a divine verdict on the offer’s span)
Isaiah 45:22–25
Appendix D (background for Philippians 2:10–11; “every knee shall bow”)
Isaiah 49:8
Chapter 5 (the Old Testament background Paul quotes in 2 Corinthians 6:2); Appendix A
Isaiah 55:1–9 (esp. 55:6)
Chapter 18 (primary treatment: an exilic invitation, not a metaphysical death-clock)
Jeremiah
Jeremiah 20:14
Chapter 23 (a godly sufferer cursing the day of his birth — parallel to the woe-form of Matthew 26:24)
Lamentations
Lamentations 3:31–33
Chapter 2 (the Lord will not cast off forever — intertextual tension with deadline readings)
Daniel
Daniel 12:1
Chapter 11 (Old Testament Book of Life background)
Daniel 12:2
Chapter 22 (explicit resurrection hope in the canonical trajectory)
Daniel 12:10
Chapter 10 (the likely Old Testament background for Revelation 22:11 — exhortation to faithfulness, not frozen destinies)
Amos
Amos 3:2
Chapter 9 (“You only have I known” — the relational, covenantal sense of “knowing”)
Jonah
Jonah 2:6
Appendix B (Jonah’s “forever” that lasted three days — olam applied to a bounded reality)
New Testament
Matthew
Matthew 5:14
Chapter 17 (“You are the light of the world” — the “day” of opportunity extends past Jesus’ earthly hours)
Matthew 7:15–23 (esp. 7:21–23)
Chapter 9 (primary treatment: “I never knew you” addresses false discipleship, not the dying or the unevangelized); Chapter 8
Matthew 11:20–24 (esp. 11:21, 23)
Chapter 7 (the woes on Chorazin, Bethsaida, Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom — Jesus reasoning in counterfactuals of creaturely freedom; the exegetical anchor for the book’s fullest treatment of middle knowledge)
Matthew 12:22–32 (esp. 12:31–32)
Chapter 7 (primary treatment: the blasphemy against the Spirit; the “age to come” forgiveness clause; the fullest treatment of middle knowledge)
Matthew 12:40
Appendix A (the sign of Jonah — three days in the heart of the earth)
Matthew 25:1–13
Chapter 8 (primary treatment: the ten virgins — the shut door is the parousia, not individual death)
Matthew 25:46
Appendix B (“eternal punishment” / kolasin aiōnion — the parallelism debate; kolasis as corrective chastisement); Chapter 16
Matthew 26:20–25 (esp. 26:24)
Chapter 23 (primary treatment: “better not to have been born” — Semitic woe-form hyperbole, not a doctrine of Judas’s eternal duration)
Mark
Mark 3:28–30
Chapter 7 (synoptic parallel to Matthew 12:31–32; Mark lacks the “age to come” clause)
Chapter 7 (synoptic parallel to Matthew 12:31–32; Luke also lacks the “age to come” clause)
Luke 13:22–30 (esp. 13:24–28, 29)
Chapter 8 (primary treatment: the narrow door — people coming “from east and west” enlarge the company of the saved; the door shuts at the parousia, not at death)
Luke 15 (the parables of the lost sheep, lost coin, lost son)
Chapter 3 (the literary context of Luke 16 — a God who searches until He finds)
Luke 16:1–13 (the dishonest manager)
Chapter 3 (the parable immediately before the rich man and Lazarus; the shared opening formula)
Luke 16:14
Chapter 3 (“The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things” — the editorial hinge targeting greed)
Luke 16:19–31
Chapter 3 (primary treatment: the rich man and Lazarus — on the granted-literal reading, the scene is set in temporary Hades, the chasm blocks movement but not God’s reach, and no saving offer is recorded as made and refused); Chapter 12; Chapter 16
Luke 23:32–43 (esp. 23:39–43)
Chapter 24 (primary treatment: the penitent thief — the Bible’s clearest enacted deathbed conversion and the book’s positive perimortem capstone); Chapter 5; Appendix C
John
John 3:16–21 (esp. 3:18)
Chapter 13 (primary treatment: “condemned already” is realized eschatology — a present state conditioned on present unbelief, not a verdict frozen at death)
John 3:31–36 (esp. 3:36)
Chapter 13 (primary treatment: “the wrath of God remains” describes an ongoing condition that lasts as long as unbelief lasts)
John 5:24
Chapter 13 (“has passed from death to life” — John shows the boundary between condemnation and life is crossable)
John 5:25
Chapter 17 (“the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live”)
John 8:12
Chapter 17 (Jesus as “the light of the world” — the Johannine light/darkness motif)
John 8:21–30 (esp. 8:24)
Chapter 14 (primary treatment: “you will die in your sins” describes the condition of dying without faith — it does not assert that faith becomes impossible at or after death)
John 8:28
Chapter 14 (Jesus’ “lifting up” — the universal-drawing connection)
John 9:1–7 (esp. 9:4)
Chapter 17 (primary treatment: the “night” is Jesus’ own approaching death and the close of His earthly ministry, not a universal lights-out)
John 9:5
Chapter 17 (“I am the light of the world” — the Johannine symbolism)
John 10:14
Chapter 9 (“I know my own” — the relational sense of knowing)
John 12:32
Chapter 13; Chapter 14 (“I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” — the universal drawing); Appendix D
John 17:12
Chapter 23 (Judas as “the son of destruction” — Scripture does not settle his fate as eternal conscious torment)
Appendix D (primary treatment: “one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men” — the parallel scope of the two “all”s); Chapter 2; Chapter 15
Romans 5:20
Chapter 15 (“where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” — grace transcends moral law)
Chapter 15; Appendix D (“God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all”)
Romans 14:10
Chapter 4 (the bēma in Pauline usage — a believers’ reward-tribunal)
1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians 15:22
Appendix D (primary treatment: “as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” — the Adam-Christ symmetry); Chapter 2
2 Corinthians
2 Corinthians 5:1–10 (esp. 5:8 and 5:10)
Chapter 4 (primary treatment: the bēma judges embodied earthly life and does not speak to postmortem decision; “away from the body and at home with the Lord” affirms the conscious intermediate state); Appendix C
2 Corinthians 5:18–6:2 (esp. 6:2)
Chapter 5 (primary treatment: “now is the day of salvation” is a missional appeal grounded in Isaiah 49:8, not a metaphysical deadline at death)
Galatians
Galatians 6:1–10 (esp. 6:7–8)
Chapter 15 (primary treatment: sowing-and-reaping is a general moral principle, not an exceptionless decree about eternal destinies; phthora fits conditional immortality)
Ephesians
Ephesians 1:10
Chapter 2 (God’s plan to unite all things in Christ — part of the intertextual tension)
Ephesians 4:8–10
Appendix A (“he descended into the lower regions, the earth” — the descent-ascent pattern and captivity-led-captive imagery); Appendix D
Philippians
Philippians 1:23
Appendix C (“to depart and be with Christ” — evidence for the conscious intermediate state)
Philippians 2:9–11 (esp. 2:10–11)
Appendix D (primary treatment: “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess” — whether the confession is coerced or genuine); Chapter 2
Colossians
Colossians 1:20
Appendix D (primary treatment: through Christ “to reconcile to himself all things, making peace by the blood of his cross”); Chapter 2
2 Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians 1:5–10 (esp. 1:8–9)
Chapter 12 (primary treatment: olethron aiōnion fits destruction, not eternal preservation in torment; apo prosōpou most plausibly names the Lord’s presence as the source of judgment, not banishment from it); Appendix B; Appendix C
1 Timothy
1 Timothy 4:10
Appendix D (primary treatment: God “is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe”); Chapter 2
Hebrews
Hebrews 3:7–15 (incl. 3:7–4:11; 3:13)
Chapter 6 (primary treatment: apostasy warnings that target the one who knowingly repudiates Christ, not the dying or the unevangelized); Chapter 5 (the “Today” of Psalm 95 extended: “as long as it is called ‘today’”)
Hebrews 6:4–6
Chapter 6 (primary treatment: “impossible to restore” conditioned on the present participle — a persisting state, not an irreversible metaphysical decree)
Hebrews 9:23–28 (esp. 9:27)
Chapter 2 (primary treatment: the verse times nothing, targets repetition not grace, and through its own Christ-typology of v. 28 points past the one death to more salvation); Chapter 12
Hebrews 10:26–31
Chapter 6 (primary treatment: “no longer remains a sacrifice for sins” means no additional sacrifice, not that Christ’s is withdrawn)
Hebrews 12:16–17
Chapter 6 (Esau “found no place for repentance” concerns his lost blessing and inheritance, not his eternal soul)
James
James 2:19
Chapter 1; multiple chapters (“even the demons believe — and shudder”: seeing God face-to-face removes ignorance, not freedom)
1 Peter
1 Peter 1:20
Chapter 11 (Christ foreknown “before the foundation of the world” — the parallel that supports reading Revelation 13:8 as “the Lamb slain from the foundation,” not “names written from the foundation”)
1 Peter 3:18–20 (esp. 3:19)
Appendix A (primary treatment: Christ “went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison” — the descent and the rebuttal of the “spirits = Noah’s living contemporaries” reinterpretation); Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 16
Chapter 16 (primary treatment: the wicked “kept under punishment until the day of judgment” — time-bounded confinement in the intermediate state, not a final sentence; the kolazō/kolasis word-study; the Tartarus material); Chapter 12; Appendix A; Appendix C
Revelation
Revelation 1:18
Chapter 22 (Christ holds “the keys of Death and Hades” — the New Testament transformation of the Old Testament Sheol picture)
Revelation 3:5
Chapter 11 (primary treatment: “I will never blot his name out of the book of life” — names can be blotted, so the register is a living one)
Revelation 6:9–11
Appendix C (the souls under the altar, crying out — evidence for the conscious intermediate state)
Revelation 13:8
Chapter 11 (primary treatment: the key syntactic ambiguity — does “before the foundation of the world” modify written or slain?)
Revelation 17:8
Chapter 11 (primary treatment: “whose names have not been written” reads through the same Lamb-slain syntax and the living-register background)
Revelation 20:12–15 (incl. 20:13–14)
Chapter 11 (primary treatment: the judgment opens books and the Book of Life together — relational and forensic imagery, not a closed lottery); Chapter 3 (Hades given up and thrown into the Lake of Fire — the intermediate state is temporary); Appendix C
Revelation 21:24–27 (esp. 21:25 and 21:27)
Chapter 11; Chapter 10 (the gates of the New Jerusalem are never shut; the nations walk in and the kings bring their glory — an ongoing influx, not a sealed roster)
Revelation 22:6–17 (esp. 22:11 and 22:17)
Chapter 10 (primary treatment: “Let the evildoer still do evil” is apocalyptic exhortation, not eternal fixity — bracketed by radically open invitations: “the Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come’”)
Deuterocanonical
2 Maccabees 12 (prayer for the dead)
Chapter 7 (Second-Temple categories of postmortem purgation and prayer for the dead — the cultural context in which Matthew’s “age to come” clause lands)
Non-Canonical Early Christian Texts
2 Clement 8:1–3
Chapter 25 (primary treatment: “after we have departed from the world, we can no longer confess there or repent” — a single non-canonical early sermon set against the divided patristic witness; not Scripture, not a creed, not a council)
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.16
Chapter 25; Appendix A (the apostles preaching to the dead — an early witness to posthumous proclamation)