DRTIMWHITE.COM

Let’s review the first four arguments for annihilation and then discuss the final argument and rebuttal.

1. There are passages (Phil 3:19; 2 Peter 3:7; 1 Thess 5:3 and 2 Thess 1:9) that teach the total destruction of the sinner.

2. “Eternal punishment” (Mt. 25:46) does not refer to eternal conscious suffering but the eternal consequences of no restoration after annihilation.

3. Sinners suffering eternally and consciously conflicts with the love of God.

4. Eternal punishment is not fair.

5. The imagery of fire is total consummation not the infliction of pain.

Annihiliationists argue that the images of Hell favor the cessation of existence in eternity. “The main function of fire is not to cause pain but to secure destruction as all the world’s incinerators bear witness” (Stott, 316). The chaff is burned up (Matthew 3:12) and also the garbage in Gehenna. Jesus used the image of Gehenna eleven of the twelve times the word is used. Evangelicals who accuse any person who preaches hell as a place of conscious torment of being sadist and savage and preaching a “doctrine of savagery” condemn Christ for He preached more on hell than heaven (Michael Green. Evangelizing Through the Local Church. Nashville: Nelson, 1992, 73). How did Jesus use the image of Gehenna?

“The word is derived from the ‘valley of Hinnom’ found in the Old Testament (Joshua 15:8; 2 Kings 23:10; Nehemiah 11:30). In that valley outside Jerusalem the Jews gave human sacrifices to pagan deities. There, too, the garbage of the city was thrown, where it bred worms. That explains why Christ referred to hell as the place where ‘their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched’ (Mark 9:44, 46, 48). This picture of an unclean dump where fires and worms never die became to the Jewish mind an appropriate description of the ultimate fate of all idolaters. Thus the word became applied to the ultimate gehenna. The Jews taught, and Christ confirmed, that the wicked would suffer there forever. Body and soul would be in eternal torment” (Lutzer, 110, 111).

Carson admits that “there is a substantial metaphorical element in the Bible’s descriptions of hell….Hell is real; the question is how far the descriptions of it are to be taken literally. Normally, we do not think of unquenchable fire and worms coexisting: the former will devour the latter as easily as they will consume people. It is hard to imagine how a lake of fire coexists with utter darkness. And if one is cast into a lake of fire, what need of chains?” (Carson 524). Stott believes that the inferences of fire and worms or maggots are the total destruction of the sinner in Hell until nothing is left (Stott, 317). Jesus did not say the worm does not die, but “their worm” dies not. This must mean the sinner also does not cease to exist to whom the worm is bound.

If language in the Bible is symbolic then the meaning of the symbol is usually given in the context as in Revelation 1:12-20. The seven golden candle stick and stars are symbols of seven churches and pastor. The context tells us the symbolic meaning the these symbols. This does not occur in reference to images of hell: fire, worms, chains, and darkness.

If fire is not quenched as Jesus preached in Mark 9:44-48, and therefore is eternal, why does the fire not consume the worm whose purpose is complete with the total destruction of wicked. Why does the fire burn eternally, if the fire has destroyed the sinner’s body?

Could chains be literal? Even if the image is not literal that does not take away the literal truth that sinners are confined to Hell for eternity. In Revelation 20:1-3, Satan, an angel, is bound with a chain for 1000 years. Could this be a literal chain binding a spirit being? Angels sometimes acquired physical bodies as in Genesis 18 and 19 whose feet were washed (18:4; 19:2) and who ate food (18:8; 19:3). So is it very possible that Satan and the unsaved will be bound with literal chains.

Sinners are cast into “the outer darkness” in Matthew 25:30 which the annihiliationists see as conflicting with literal fire in Hell. There is no more contradiction between outer darkness and eternal fire than a house going up in flames at midnight or garbage burning in Hinnom in pitch black. We cannot dismiss the images of God’s Word and especially the literal truth the images teach.

There are two passages in Revelation that refute annihiliationism. The first is Revelation 14:10-11. The worshippers of the beast and his image “will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and is image, or for anyone who receives the mark of the name.” Fudge believes that the smoke memorializes the consumed sinner: “Actually torment is meted out according to the mixture of God’s cup. Then, as the next image points out, it is forever memorialized in the smoke that remains” (Edward W. Fudge, The Fire That Consumes, Carlisle: Paternoster, 1994, 297-298). The problem with that interpretation is that the text says the unsaved have “no rest day or night” and also it is “the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever.”

The other passage in Revelation 20:10-15 which describes the Great White Throne Judgment. Stott believes the beast and false prophet are not real persons but symbols of hostility against God. This scene according to Stott predicts the ultimate destruction of enmity and resistance to God (Stott, 318). The literal hermeneutic of Scripture interprets these individuals as real persons used by Satan in the future Tribulation Period. If a person is not real and intended to be symbolic as with other symbols, then the meaning of symbolic person is given. An example is Revelation 12:1-6 which informs us that the woman symbolizes Israel and the child is Jesus. But no such meaning is given to the false prophet and the antichrist. So we must take these two individuals as real men who are eventually cast into hell. Stott believes Satan is a real person so why not these two men who assist him?

Stott who believes in a personal Devil, does not mention Satan’s suffering. If the person Satan can suffer consciously and eternally so can those who choose to follow him. The reality of at least one person suffering in Hell is proof that others will suffer as well. Stott also does not mention unsaved in verse 15: “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” How can the same fire not consume Satan and consume these followers of him?

I have written polemically concerning Hell trying to hold my emotions in check. It is difficult to write academically about a place where some of our unsaved friends and loved ones are and unless we win them to Christ others will go. We should pray for our unsaved friends and family with Paul: “My heart’s desire and prayer for Israel is that they might be saved.” When we do pray, we pray to a God who said: “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn you, turn you from your evil ways; for why will you die” (Ezekiel 33:11). We should also weep for their souls as Jesus wept over Jerusalem in Matthew 23:37-39: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that killed the prophets, and stoned them which are sent unto you, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not.” Before you click off this post, stop a minute and intercede for the salvation of that lost person that God brings to your mind (your dad, mom, brother, sister, son or daughter, neighbor, a friend from work). Pray that God will use you to prevent from them going to this place of eternal and conscious suffering. Pray that this soul for whom Christ died and provided an escape will “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.”

Let’s review the first four arguments for annihilation and then discuss the final argument and rebuttal.

1. There are passages (Phil 3:19; 2 Peter 3:7; 1 Thess 5:3 and 2 Thess 1:9) that teach the total destruction of the sinner.

2. “Eternal punishment” (Mt. 25:46) does not refer to eternal conscious suffering but the eternal consequences of no restoration after annihilation.

3. Sinners suffering eternally and consciously conflicts with the love of God.

4. Eternal punishment is not fair.

5. The imagery of fire is total consummation not the infliction of pain.

Annihiliationists argue that the images of Hell favor the cessation of existence in eternity. “The main function of fire is not to cause pain but to secure destruction as all the world’s incinerators bear witness” (Stott, 316). The chaff is burned up (Matthew 3:12) and also the garbage in Gehenna. Jesus used the image of Gehenna eleven of the twelve times the word is used. Evangelicals who accuse any person who preaches hell as a place of conscious torment of being sadist and savage and preaching a “doctrine of savagery” condemn Christ for He preached more on hell than heaven (Michael Green. Evangelizing Through the Local Church. Nashville: Nelson, 1992, 73). How did Jesus use the image of Gehenna?

“The word is derived from the ‘valley of Hinnom’ found in the Old Testament (Joshua 15:8; 2 Kings 23:10; Nehemiah 11:30). In that valley outside Jerusalem the Jews gave human sacrifices to pagan deities. There, too, the garbage of the city was thrown, where it bred worms. That explains why Christ referred to hell as the place where ‘their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched’ (Mark 9:44, 46, 48). This picture of an unclean dump where fires and worms never die became to the Jewish mind an appropriate description of the ultimate fate of all idolaters. Thus the word became applied to the ultimate gehenna. The Jews taught, and Christ confirmed, that the wicked would suffer there forever. Body and soul would be in eternal torment” (Lutzer, 110, 111).

Carson admits that “there is a substantial metaphorical element in the Bible’s descriptions of hell….Hell is real; the question is how far the descriptions of it are to be taken literally. Normally, we do not think of unquenchable fire and worms coexisting: the former will devour the latter as easily as they will consume people. It is hard to imagine how a lake of fire coexists with utter darkness. And if one is cast into a lake of fire, what need of chains?” (Carson 524). Stott believes that the inferences of fire and worms or maggots are the total destruction of the sinner in Hell until nothing is left (Stott, 317). Jesus did not say the worm does not die, but “their worm” dies not. This must mean the sinner also does not cease to exist to whom the worm is bound.

If language in the Bible is symbolic then the meaning of the symbol is usually given in the context as in Revelation 1:12-20. The seven golden candle stick and stars are symbols of seven churches and pastor. The context tells us the symbolic meaning the these symbols. This does not occur in reference to images of hell: fire, worms, chains, and darkness.

If fire is not quenched as Jesus preached in Mark 9:44-48, and therefore is eternal, why does the fire not consume the worm whose purpose is complete with the total destruction of wicked. Why does the fire burn eternally, if the fire has destroyed the sinner’s body?

Could chains be literal? Even if the image is not literal that does not take away the literal truth that sinners are confined to Hell for eternity. In Revelation 20:1-3, Satan, an angel, is bound with a chain for 1000 years. Could this be a literal chain binding a spirit being? Angels sometimes acquired physical bodies as in Genesis 18 and 19 whose feet were washed (18:4; 19:2) and who ate food (18:8; 19:3). So is it very possible that Satan and the unsaved will be bound with literal chains.

Sinners are cast into “the outer darkness” in Matthew 25:30 which the annihiliationists see as conflicting with literal fire in Hell. There is no more contradiction between outer darkness and eternal fire than a house going up in flames at midnight or garbage burning in Hinnom in pitch black. We cannot dismiss the images of God’s Word and especially the literal truth the images teach.

There are two passages in Revelation that refute annihiliationism. The first is Revelation 14:10-11. The worshippers of the beast and his image “will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and is image, or for anyone who receives the mark of the name.” Fudge believes that the smoke memorializes the consumed sinner: “Actually torment is meted out according to the mixture of God’s cup. Then, as the next image points out, it is forever memorialized in the smoke that remains” (Edward W. Fudge, The Fire That Consumes, Carlisle: Paternoster, 1994, 297-298). The problem with that interpretation is that the text says the unsaved have “no rest day or night” and also it is “the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever.”

The other passage in Revelation 20:10-15 which describes the Great White Throne Judgment. Stott believes the beast and false prophet are not real persons but symbols of hostility against God. This scene according to Stott predicts the ultimate destruction of enmity and resistance to God (Stott, 318). The literal hermeneutic of Scripture interprets these individuals as real persons used by Satan in the future Tribulation Period. If a person is not real and intended to be symbolic as with other symbols, then the meaning of symbolic person is given. An example is Revelation 12:1-6 which informs us that the woman symbolizes Israel and the child is Jesus. But no such meaning is given to the false prophet and the antichrist. So we must take these two individuals as real men who are eventually cast into hell. Stott believes Satan is a real person so why not these two men who assist him?

Stott who believes in a personal Devil, does not mention Satan’s suffering. If the person Satan can suffer consciously and eternally so can those who choose to follow him. The reality of at least one person suffering in Hell is proof that others will suffer as well. Stott also does not mention unsaved in verse 15: “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” How can the same fire not consume Satan and consume these followers of him?

I have written polemically concerning Hell trying to hold my emotions in check. It is difficult to write academically about a place where some of our unsaved friends and loved ones are and unless we win them to Christ others will go. We should pray for our unsaved friends and family with Paul: “My heart’s desire and prayer for Israel is that they might be saved.” When we do pray, we pray to a God who said: “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn you, turn you from your evil ways; for why will you die” (Ezekiel 33:11). We should also weep for their souls as Jesus wept over Jerusalem in Matthew 23:37-39: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that killed the prophets, and stoned them which are sent unto you, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not.” Before you click off this post, stop a minute and intercede for the salvation of that lost person that God brings to your mind (your dad, mom, brother, sister, son or daughter, neighbor, a friend from work). Pray that God will use you to prevent from them going to this place of eternal and conscious suffering. Pray that this soul for whom Christ died and provided an escape will “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.”

“A recent Newsweek article says, ‘Today, hell is theology’s H-word, a subject too trite for serious scholarship’” (Erwin Lutzer. One Minute After You Die. Chicago: Moody Press, 1997, 97). As politically incorrect as this subject is here are evangelical arguments for annihilation and Scriptural refutations.

1. There are passages (Phil 3:19; 2 Peter 3:7; 1 Thess 5:3 and 2 Thess 1:9) that teach the total destruction of the sinner.

Stott says “It would seem strange if people who are said to suffer destruction are in fact not destroyed” (David L. Edwards and John Stott. Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1988, 316). The original words translated “destruction” do not mean total annihilation. The word in Phil 3:19 and 2 Peter 3:7 is apoleia which is the word in used to describe the lost coin in Luke 15. The lost coin did not cease to exist but it did cease to be usable or valuable to the owner. The sinner in hell has a wasted existence when he could have glorified his creator and owner for eternity. He is lost or out of place but not annihilated.

“In 1 Thess 5:3 and 2 Thess 1:9 another word, olethros, is used of the destruction of the wicked, but again this word does not imply that something will cease to exist, for it is used in 1 Cor 5:5 of delivering a man to Satan (putting him out of the church) for the destruction of the flesh—but certainly his flesh did not cease to exist when he was put out of the church, even though he may have suffered in his body (this would be true whether we take ‘flesh’ to mean his physical body or his sinful nature)” (Grudem, 1150).

2. “Eternal punishment” (Mt. 25:46) does not refer to eternal conscious suffering but the eternal consequences of no restoration after annihilation.

In other words the annihilation is irreversible. This is the position of Edward Fudge in The Fire That Consumes and Basil F. Atkinson: “When the adjective (eternal) is used in Greek with nouns of action it has reference to the result of the action, not the process. Thus the phrase ‘everlasting punishment’ is comparable to ‘everlasting salvation.’ No one supposes that we are being saved forever. We were saved once and for all by Christ with eternal results” (Atkinson. Life and Immortality Taunton: Goodman, 1962, 101).

Salvation, however, is not limited to past deliverance. In addition to past deliverance (Eph. 2:8; Titus 3:5), salvation includes present (Heb. 7:25) and future deliverance (Romans 5:9-10; 8:23).
Most of the conservative annihilationists like Stott believe in a personal Devil. In the Mt. 25 passage, verse 41 says, “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” If a personal Devil will suffer eternally and consciously then certainly will those who choose to follow him?

3. Sinners suffering eternally and consciously conflicts with the love of God.

This is Clark Pinnock’s view, as the following quote reveals.

Let me say at the outset that I consider the concept of hell as endless torment in body and mind an outrageous doctrine, a theological and moral enormity, a bad doctrine of the tradition which needs to be changed. How can Christians possibly project a deity of such cruelty and vindictiveness whose ways include inflicting everlasting torture upon his creatures, however sinful they may have been. Surely a God who would do such a thing is more nearly like Satan than like God, at least by any ordinary moral standards, and by the gospel itself. Does the one who told us to love our enemies intend to wreak vengeance on his own enemies for all eternity? As H. Kung appropriately asks, ‘What would we think of a human being who satisfied his thirst for revenge so implacably and insatiably?’ Everlasting torment is intolerable from a moral point of view because it makes God into a bloodthirsty monster who maintains an everlasting Auschwitz for victims whom he does not even allow to die” (Clark Pinnock, The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent,” CThRev 4 Spring 1990, 246-253).

Most conservative annihilationists believe in the justice of God which demands that sin and the sinner be punished. If the conscious suffering of the unrighteous violates God’s love then there has to be instant annihilation of the wicked in hell. If this is the case then there is no punishment nor justice. The Hitlers and Stalins get away with murder and experience the same end as the Ghandis. The Word of God teaches there are degrees of suffering and punishment according to the deeds performed (Luke 12:42-48; Rev. 20:11-12). If there is no conscious suffering in Hell then there is no justice in the universe.

4. Eternal punishment is not fair.

The punishment is not equal to the crime, says the annihiliationist. It is like capital punishment for jaywalking. Our response is, because God is just so will be His punishment. This is the point of Jesus’ parable in Luke 12:42-48. Those who deserve more stripes will receive them. “But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more” (12:48).

Another reason the eternal punishment of the sinner is fair is because of the impenitence of the wicked throughout the endless ages. This scenario is suggested in Revelation 22:10-11: “And he says unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.” “If the holy and those who do right continue to be holy and to do right, in anticipation of the perfect holiness and rightness to be lived and practiced throughout all eternity, should we not also conclude that the vile continue their vileness in anticipation of the vileness they live an practice throughout all eternity?” (D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996, 533).

In Revelation 16:10-11, sinners writhing under God’s punishment, blaspheme the God who is judging them and refuse to repent. Why should we think sinners will act differently in eternity?

“In Proverbs we read of the insatiable desires of the netherworld and a man’s lust. ‘Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, nor are the eyes of man satisfied’ (27:20). An alcoholic will thirst for a drop of liquor in hell but will not get it; a drug addict will crave a shot of heroin; the immoral man will burn with sexual desire but will never be gratified. The body will be aflame with lusts, but the fire will never be quenched. It’s as if God is saying, ‘On earth you did not let Me satisfy you but turned to your own lusts; now you will find that those lust can only drive you to despair. Hell, then, is the raw soul joined to an indestructible body, exposed to its own sin for eternity” (Erwin Lutzer, Coming to Grips with Hell. Chicago: Moody Press, 1990, 36). The sinner’s sin is an “eternal sin” according to Mark 3:29 and Matthew 12:32 not to be pardoned nor forsaken in this age nor the age to come which is eternity.

“In his fantasy, The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis describes a busload of people from hell who come to the outskirts of heaven. There they are urged to leave behind the sins that have trapped them in hell—but they refuse. Lewis’s descriptions of these people are striking because we recognize in them the self-delusion and self-absorption that are ‘writ small’ in our addiction” (Keller, 78). Sinners are in hell because they choose to be there. The Rich Man in Luke 16, while requesting Lazarus go to his brothers’ house, never asked to be released.

Skeptics and evangelicals are man centered in objecting to the eternality of conscious suffering where as the Bible is God centered. The enormity of our sin against an infinite, transcendent, and holy God merits eternal punishment. “What if, from God’s viewpoint, the greatness of sin is determined by the greatness of the One against whom it is committed? Then the guilt of sin is infinite because it is a violation of the character of an infinite Being. What if, in the nature of God, it is deemed that such infinite sins deserve an infinite penalty, a penalty which on one can ever repay?” (Lutzer, One Minute After You Die. 108).

In Part Three, I will discuss the fifth argument and the Scriptural refutation: The imagery of fire is total consummation not the infliction of pain.