Is Hell Forever?

God designed you for relationship with Him and to be His image and glory on the earth. Because of sin (anything that is contrary to the character and nature of God), our relationship with God was broken and we fell short of being God's glory. The outcome of this sin is death. Jesus, God the son, is sinless and came in the flesh to live a perfect life and put sin to death on the cross. He then rose from the dead, proving victory over sin and death. When we put our faith/trust in His sacrificial death for us and His resurrection, we are saved from and forgiven of all of our sins and are granted eternal life. Regardless of your view on hell, this is the most important thing to know.

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Conditional Immortality (CI) is the view that human souls are not inherently immortal. Eternal life is a special gift granted to believers in Jesus. Those that reject Jesus do not get immortality but face final judgment, which is real, conscious, deserved and permanent, culminating in the second death (being destroyed/ceasing to exist).

Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT) holds that human souls are inherently immortal. Final judgment is real, conscious, deserved and permanent in the sense that it is consciously experienced punishing that never stops.

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In 2022, after believing in ECT for my whole life, I was presented with a biblical defense of CI. It turned out that my knowledge of the six to eight proof-text verses for ECT was about an inch deep. Once I actually dug in, I discovered that every single one points to complete destruction (annihilation). Yes, the unrighteous are raised bodily for conscious judgment on judgment day, but then they are wiped out.

In the subsequent months, I created a Google Doc with 37 biblical reasons I saw pointing to this truth. This site is a presentation of those 37 reasons.

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If you are in Christ, then you aren't going to either version of hell (ECT or CI). Here are 7 reasons why what you believe and teach about hell still matters:

1. Truth matters

   • We don’t want to say something false is true. I used to defend eternal torment, but if it is false, why would I continue to espouse it alongside biblical truth? At best it dilutes my message, at worst it is leading people away from God.

2. If God has revealed something to us, then knowing it to the extent He has made it knowable has value.

   • 2 Timothy 3:16-17 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching”, etc.
   • The doctrine of final judgment IS discussed numerous times in the Bible, so there is a reason God wants us to know what He has said about it.

3. The nature of the punishment of the unrighteous reveals to us some aspects of the character of God and our sin. It also puts a different perspective on the relative importance of non-eternal things (like, why would it matter to meet someone's basic physical needs now if they are going to spend conscious eternity in hell).

4. We will, of course, all be perfectly in agreement with God and His judgments when we get to Heaven, but a false expectation of future ECT for fellow humans causes unnecessary present emotional distress.

5. A disproportionately severe hell actually takes our focus off of Heaven.

   • Heaven deserves our focus, but I won’t want to think about my future in heaven much if those thoughts are naturally followed by thoughts of an ECT future for unbelievers.
   • Avoiding hell can become the focus of some believers. Some Christians made a decision for Christ based on not wanting to go to hell, thereby framing at least the early stage of their walk with the Lord to be out of fear rather than a response to love.
   • Many evangelicals feel compelled to evangelize because of ECT rather than because God and His gift are amazing! (see Reason #29)

6. For many, Eternal Conscious Torment does not harmonize with their view of a loving God.

   • Many claim they reject Christianity because of ECT hell, citing that God is not truly good.

   • It also can cause people to adopt doctrines for emotional reasons like

     • Universalism: “I can’t believe ECT in hell for anyone, therefore ALL must be saved”
     • or post-mortem conversion: “I can’t believe ECT in hell for people who didn’t have a clear presentation of Jesus & the Gospel, so people must be allowed to have a chance to repent after they die”
     • or “I can’t believe that God would create certain people who are predestined to ECT in hell, therefore everyone must choose to accept or reject God of their own free will.” Obviously, the Calvinist vs Arminianist debate is complicated, but ECT is an unnecessary barrier to entry for many.

7. A falsely escalated view of hell will actually make more people end up going there.

   • ECT makes hell out to be worse than it truly will be. Of course, all should agree that God’s wrath and judgment is horrible and to be avoided at all costs, but ECT takes a finite horrible experience and makes it infinite.
   • As it stands, the world (and many believers!) typically make heaven out to be much less exciting than it truly will be (e.g. harps & clouds, boredom, disembodied, etc.). The average person (with a very poor understanding of it) isn’t all that excited about ‘forever’ in heaven. Many people are neutral or only mildly favorable toward heaven vs ceasing to exist.

   • Inflated view of hell + small view of heaven = people assume they’ll probably go to heaven by default, thereby not seeking out how to attain eternal life.
     Imagine a carnival that has a game master comes to town. I tell you that his games are fair. Suppose he has four games, each with two possible outcomes:

     	Lose	Win	Odds of Winning
     Game 1	-$100	+$100	?
     Game 2	-$100,000	+$100	?
     Game 3	-$1,000	+$1,000,000,000	?
     Game 4	-$0	+$0	?

     • Game 1: You win $100 or you lose $100. Without any advanced mathematics, most kids can tell you the (fair) odds of winning this game are 50:50. A few people may view their final destination as a coin-toss: they can't predict the outcome one way or another; it could go either way.
     • Game 2: You win $100 or you lose $100,000. The presumed odds of winning this game are around 99.9%. Only the really unlucky person loses, but it's really bad if they lose. This is how the average person with an ECT framework views heaven and hell. Hell is reserved for those who must have been very, very bad (unlucky in this game analogy).
     • Game 3: You win $1,000,000,000 or you lose $1,000. The presumed odds of winning this game are only one-in-a-million. Only the incredibly lucky person wins. Anyone playing this game expects to lose. This is how heaven and hell should be viewed. The default outcome of man is hell/destruction; it is bad, but finite. No one deserves eternal life (and it is far better than we can imagine).
     • Game 4: You win $0 or you lose $0. So what's the point? This is the materialistic/atheistic view.

     Many view the afterlife like Game 2 or Game 4, but the Bible says it is more like Game 3. For those whose perceptions of heaven and hell are like Game 2, the default outcome is assumed to be winning (heaven), except for someone very unlucky (bad) and so people have less drive to learn how to win (go to heaven) instead of lose (go to hell). Stated again: because ECT makes hell out to be so horrific, nominally ‘religious’ people expect that they’ll probably go to heaven by default (“I’ve been a good person…”), thus dulling their sense of need for full repentance and trust in Jesus.

     See also Reason #19: Heaven and Hell aren't opposites.

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This overview video contains brief summaries of all 37 points and the 7 reasons I believe this matters.

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A good friend of mine used AI to create a website using my Google Doc as the source material. I was blown away by what it came up with in 3 hours. It is far more thorough and well-designed than what I've put together here and I would be remiss not to share it: AI site: The Case for Conditional Immortality

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Before I could honestly consider the scriptural case for the Bible teaching annihilation on judgment day rather than ECT, there were a few non-scriptural roadblocks that I needed to overcome:

1. Hasn’t ECT been the sole orthodox view for the entire history of the Church?
2. Don’t humans inherently have an eternal soul?
3. Doesn’t sin against an infinite God require an infinite amount of punishing?

The answer to all of these questions is ‘No’.

1. Reason #35: Conditional Immortality appears to have been the dominant view until at least 200 AD
2. Reason #36: Humans do not inherently have an eternal soul
3. Reason #37: Infinite punishing not biblical

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Quick LookMark 9:48 is just Jesus directly quoting Isaiah 66:24. Neither Jesus nor Isaiah mention suffering because it is about the destruction of dead bodies by worms and fire, which aren't stopped from completing their work of getting rid of the bodies.
Daniel 12:2 is describing emotions felt about the wicked, not by them.

1. This directly quotes Isaiah 66:24, which foreshadowed God taking vengeance on His enemies: “And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.”

   • Jesus is quoting this to bring clarity as to what ‘hell’ is. He is pulling in the context of dead bodies, utter destruction, and scornful contempt to define hell.
   • Any Jew hearing Jesus would therefore key in and understand that the eating worms and burning fire are not active elements of inflicting misery on living beings, but rather monuments of complete and utter destruction that are upon DEAD bodies. Thus the implication is that being 'thrown into hell' means that you will become like the bodies in Isaiah 66: DEAD (as in no longer alive) and that the righteous will look on them with scorn (you don’t have to be alive/conscious to be looked upon with scorn - e.g. Hitler).
   • If eternal conscious torment was what was meant by the worms and fire, Jesus would have had to make some big clarifications to the Isaiah 66 passage when pulling it in, but He doesn’t at all.
   • Because the righteous look upon them at one point in time (being described here), doesn’t mean that this moment is frozen in time forever (i.e. that we ALWAYS have to be looking at them or that they will ALWAYS be there in that exact state to continue looking upon). Notice Isaiah 66:23 “all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the Lord.” which is followed by “And they shall go out and look on…”. So if we are ‘looking on the dead bodies’, then we aren’t worshiping before the Lord (since those are two different places). So this is probably something we do once.

2. Both the worms and the fire have the job of consuming/destroying the bodies.

   • The worm feeds on dead flesh, consuming it.
   • The word ‘burns’ here implies the act of burning something up, not an experience of pain - see Reason #13.
   • The language implies that neither will fail to complete its job. If the worms died, it would mean that the body was not fully eaten. If the fire was quenched it would mean that the body was not fully turned to ashes.

3. ‘Unquenchable’ does not mean ‘will never go out’

   • Many fires go out that are not quenched - once they finish burning up their fuel. Unquenchable just means that it can’t be put out. A house fire that was unquenchable means the fire-fighters couldn’t put it out before it destroyed the entire house, not that it never stopped burning.
   • Ezekiel 20:47-48 “Behold, I am about to kindle a fire in you, and it will consume every green tree in you, as well as every dry tree; the blazing flame will not be quenched and the whole surface from south to north will be burned by it. All flesh will see that I, the Lord, have kindled it; it shall not be quenched.” (see also Jeremiah 17:27 and Amos 5:6) ← Examples of unquenchable fire that is talking about actually destroying things completely.
   • Isaiah 1:31 “And the strong shall become tinder, and his work a spark, and both of them shall burn together, with none to quench them.” It is clear that the ‘strong’ will be burned up, not tortured.
   • Jeremiah 4:4 “Circumcise yourselves to the LORD; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.”
   • Note that the NIV says in Mark 9:43b ‘the fire that never goes out’ instead of the literal translation from Greek ‘the unquenchable fire’. As shown above, this does not have the same meaning. The translators clearly presumed ECT when trying to clarify/simplify the language of the text, so one must be careful of using that phrasing as support for ECT!
4. Even if the worms and fire last forever (which isn’t probable based on the text and context - see discussion in Reason #3 A. about ‘eternal fire’ not lasting forever), ‘undying worms’ would not imply that the person must still be alive. Whether their food source was dead (CI) or alive (ECT) eternally existing worms would have to be sustained by the Lord (since they wouldn’t actually be consuming anything OR whatever they consumed was immediately replaced/recreated). Similarly, for ‘unquenchable fire’: the wicked are not fuel for the fire - the lake of fire is burning plenty before they are thrown in, so the wicked would not need to persist consciously for eternity if the flames needed to burn forever.
5. See https://rethinkinghell.com/2012/07/17/their-worm-does-not-die-annihilation-and-mark-948/ and https://rethinkinghell.com/2012/11/20/the-fire-is-not-quenched-annihilation-and-mark-948-part-2/ for more detailed discussion on undying worms and unquenchable fire.

6. Daniel 12:2 “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”

   • Note that ‘shame’ is more commonly translated ‘reproach’ and the word for ‘contempt’ here is the same as the word translated ‘loathsome’ in Isaiah 66:24 (the dead bodies were ‘loathsome’). Both reproach and contempt are emotions felt towards something. The person need not be conscious for this reproach and contempt to continue on for eternity. See also Jeremiah 23:40.
   • The focus isn’t on how the dead unrighteous feel, but on how they are viewed by others. You do not need to be alive to be an object of contempt (e.g. the name ‘Adolf Hitler’ brings ideas of contempt immediately even though he has been dead since 1945). See also Reason #4.
   • The Hebrew word for ‘life’ used in Daniel 12:2 is the basic concept of ‘being alive’ (compare with Genesis 7:11) rather than ‘full quality of existence experienced when knowing God’, so the implication is that those getting shame and everlasting contempt will not ‘be alive’ forever. Joseph Dear, Page 262

7. The similar passage in Matthew 5:29-30 says “For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.”

   • What happens to your eye or your hand if you cut it off from your body? It dies completely. The contrast seems to be one part of your body dying vs. your entire self dying (not being in eternal torment).

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Quick LookThis passage is a series of images that portray complete destruction (the smoke rising is what happens forever, not the torment).

Note that it is only referring to those who receive the mark of the beast, so this wouldn’t apply to all the other wicked being judged. Regardless, as we study this verse in context, it will point to CI and not ECT.

1. If Jesus died from drinking the cup of God’s wrath (see Reason #18), what makes us think the unrighteous will not die upon drinking it (v10)?

2. It is important to note that it does not say “they will be tormented forever”, but that the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. This is not just semantics, as “smoke rising forever” is explicitly seen elsewhere as a monument to utter destruction:

   • Isaiah 34:9-10 “Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch, her dust into burning sulfur; her land will become blazing pitch! It will not be quenched night or day; its smoke will rise forever. From generation to generation it will lie desolate; no one will ever pass through it again.”

     • Note that it says it will ‘lie desolate’ forever - not that it ‘still stands and will remain burning forever and ever’.

   • Revelation 19:3 “And again they shouted: ‘Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever.’” (Babylon was totally destroyed in Rev. 18:21)

     • “At least three symbols converge in Revelation 14:9–11, and they converge again only a few chapters later to symbolize death and destruction. John first sees that the worshippers of the beast will be made to drink God’s wrath (14:10) and be tormented with fire (v. 10), and that smoke rises from their torment forever (v. 11). This is connected with the pronounced fall of the woman Mystery Babylon (v. 8), who John later sees will be forced to drink God’s wrath (18:6) and be tormented with fire (18:9–10), a fiery torment from which smoke rises forever (19:3).” – https://rethinkinghell.com/2024/04/21/denominational-doctrine-on-damnation-the-developing-story-of-the-bible-fellowship-church/
   • In both of these cases, the [complete] destruction happens in a short timeframe and then the smoke continues to rise “forever” afterwards. It wasn’t suggesting in either case that there was undestroyed stuff that still needed to be destroyed or that they were being “destroyed” while simultaneously persisting (as ECT would claim). So a 1st century Jew would read in Revelation 14:11 "And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever." and assume that their tormenting was a one-time event that was so destructive and so final that the smoke (monument) of the event would stand forever.
   • I believe that this is a permanent monument of God’s perfect judgment of the wicked. It is not something that will be forgotten 10,000 years into eternity (since His final judgment of evil will bring Him glory, it makes sense to keep a reminder of that around).

   • ECT proponents protest that for smoke to be present forever, something has to be actively burning forever. Can God not cause the smoke to eternally rise (just like He does in Isaiah 34 and Revelation 19 above)? Plus, if He were able to hypothetically sustain the wicked forever in a flame that should be burning them up (as ECT suggests), can He not just as easily (or even more easily) cause smoke to continue rising?

     • I believe Isaiah’s prophecy of Edom has already come to pass and that there is not literally smoke still rising to this day (yet the nation is still 100% destroyed/desolate), so we already have a biblical example of “smoke rising forever” that doesn’t mean literal smoke that eternally rises.
   • Plus if they were tormented actively forever and ever “in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb”, that would imply Jesus is only partially with us in Heaven and His angels not at all (since they aren’t omnipresent and Reason #28 discusses how the wicked are not near us in Heaven).

3. “There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast…”

   • At first glance, it may seem like this is talking about a ‘restless’ state during or after their torment, but further study reveals an alternative. In the Greek there is a remarkable similarity (7 exact words with one transposition) to Revelation 4:8 “Each of the four living creatures…wings. Day and night they never stop saying: ‘Holy, holy, holy’...”,

     • 4:8  Greek: kai ouk echousin anapausin hēmeras kai nyktos
     • 14:11 Greek: kai anapausin ouk echousin hēmeras kai nyktos

A) Based on the verbal similarity, the worshipers of the beast may be a wicked antithesis to the creatures around the throne of God and so this is the state of the worshipers of the beast BEFORE their judgment, when they are on Earth worshiping the beast.

or B) this is the state of them as they are undergoing their (limited) torment in the presence of the Lord until they perish.

or C) There were no periods in the original text. Perhaps a more fitting translation could possibly be “the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever and never stops day or night - of those who worshiped the beast…”? So the smoke of their torment is everlasting incense that continues day and night in the same way that the righteous worship of the creatures around the throne is everlasting incense that continues day and night.

Any of these is perfectly compatible with the CI view that their torment doesn’t go on actively forever.

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Quick Look"Eternal fire" is what destroyed Sodom & Gomorrah.
Revelation 20:10 lists the 3 entities that will be tormented day and night forever and ever; they aren't humans.

1. Matthew 25:41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

   • Since the lake of fire was specifically ‘prepared for the devil and his angels’, not for wicked humans, unbelievers are the only ones who do not have a place that has been prepared for them (See Reason #20). It seems reasonable to conclude that the lake of fire will do something unique to the devil and his angels that it won’t do to anything else thrown in since it was specifically prepared for them (I believe that is the ‘tormented day and night forever and ever’ part as discussed in point b. below.). As spiritual, immortal beings, the devil and his angels are of a different substance than humans (who are not inherently immortal, see Reason #36), so it is not a stretch to assume it would affect them differently (both suffering torment, but humans not lasting forever).

     1. See Reason #32 for a discussion of why Satan and his angels should be subjected to a more extreme punishment than humans
     2. An alternative view (that I do not hold) is that by referencing the devil, the worst evildoer of all time, Jesus is highlighting how those on his left will share his fate.

   • Jude 7 “just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.”

     1. “Eternal fire” is used to describe a fire that didn’t last forever (the next day there was smoke and the fire was gone), but rather its impact lasted forever.

        1. Many cities are destroyed by regular fire and are then rebuilt. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by eternal fire and have never subsequently been rebuilt.
        2. ECT’s view: a person sent into the eternal fire of hell will forever burn but never actually be burned up
        3. CI’s view: a person sent into the eternal fire of hell will burn up completely, never to come back from that fate (the fire has eternal implications).
     2. See also the discussion on ‘Eternal’ in Reason #4.e
     3. See also the discussion on Sodom and Gomorrah and 2 Peter 2:6 in Reason #14
     4. See also the discussion on ‘Fire Burns Up’ in Reason #13
   • In our experience, the only time we associate the primary effect of fire as inflicting pain rather than destroying is when we have a momentary encounter with it and then are removed from it. Nothing will be removed from the lake of fire, so the burning up will be inescapable and complete.

   • An eternal, perpetually burning fire still makes sense even in the CI view where the wicked are burned up in a finite time, since the devil and his angels will be tormented there forever and ever.

     1. [REALLY WILD RANDOM THOUGHT WITHOUT SCRIPTURAL SUPPORT]: Angels/Satan are not necessarily constrained by time in the same way as humans (it appears they were created before the physical world), so might it be possible that for them a finite time punishment and then annihilation (from a human perspective) might be ‘tormented day and night forever and ever’ in their perspective? Plus, much of Revelation is figurative/metaphorical, so this vision of the lake of fire may also have elements of that (See Reason #3.b.vii. below).

2. Revelation 20:10, 14-15 “and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. … Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

   • Even though it never says that the wicked will be tormented forever and ever in the lake of fire, ECT’s argument is that the wicked are being thrown into the same place as the devil, beast and false prophet, so therefore they must suffer the same fate: “tormented day and night forever and ever.” (v10)
   • If “they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” had not been included, the reader would naturally assume that the devil, beast, false prophet, Death, Hades, and those not in the book of life would all be destroyed by the lake of fire (since that is what fire does - we’ll get there in Reason #13). But this is interjected to clarify that the lake of fire is operating on the devil, beast, and false prophet in an atypical way and they would not be destroyed. So then the question is: does this atypical operation apply to everyone in verse 10-15, or just those listed in verse 10? Read on…
   • Remember from Matthew 25:41 above that the lake of fire was specifically prepared for ‘the devil and his angels’, not for wicked humans.

   • The fact that the statement “they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” occurs in verse 10, after only those 3 are in the lake of fire is important. God could have been crystal clear if ECT were correct and just put “and they all will be tormented day and night forever and ever” at the very end of verse 15. But by putting it in verse 10, it appears to make the statement that this specifically applies only to the devil, beast and false prophet and NOT to anything else that gets thrown in. Therefore, by exclusion from the list of persons in verse 10, the wicked in verse 15 will NOT be tormented day and night forever and ever.

     • Example:
       “I planned a dancing party for Mike and Tom. They came to the party. They danced for a week straight! Nancy and Jane also came to the party.”
       It doesn’t say Nancy and Jane danced for a week straight, but it is implied that they actually did not dance for a week straight since I specifically noted that about Mike and Tom and made no mention of it for Nancy and Jane. Note that dancing for a week straight isn’t something you’d typically do at a party, so it is worthy of mention - similarly, eternal torment isn’t something that would typically happen in a fire, which is why it is mentioned in verse 10.
   • So when Death and Hades are thrown in, instead of talking about torment, it says “This is the second death”. It appears to clarify that we’ve moved on from the atypical effect of ‘tormented forever and ever’ and are describing how the lake of fire will operate on Death and Hades. Combined with Revelation 21:4 “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” It seems as though ‘death shall be no more’ aligns well with the lake of fire having destroyed Death and Hades. If Death and Hades are destroyed, then the Lake of Fire is not a magical place that prevents everything from being destroyed and it seems logical that the wicked would be destroyed too.
   • Satan, the False Prophet, and the Beast (plus Satan’s angels, c.f. Matthew 25:41) are all spiritual beings, not physical beings (see Revelation 13 for a description of the False Prophet and the Beast - they aren't a single, regular human). The wicked are spiritually dead already because of sin (their soul and body are alive for the last judgment, but not their spirit - see Reason #10), so they will not live on spiritually forever like the other spiritual beings (see also Reason #36 on mankind not being inherently eternal).
   • Revelation is filled with symbolic images. It is possible/likely that the lake of fire is a symbolic image (how can ‘Death’ literally be thrown anywhere - is it a physical/tangible thing?). If that is the case, it is even more likely that there is no physical/spiritual ‘place’ called ‘hell’ where people continue existing (see Reason #6.d. about weeping and gnashing of teeth ‘in that place’).
   • The Rich Man is in torment even before the last judgment (see Reason #5) - it seems strange that in the ECT view the lake of fire is not doing anything more than reapplying what he was already experiencing before the judgment.

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Quick Look"Eternal" things in the New Testament happen once and then have a permanent outcome. "Punishment" and "Destruction" in the Greek are nouns, not verbs.

1. 2 Thessalonians 1:9 “...punished with everlasting destruction…” actually gives us insight as to what the punishment of Matthew 25:46 is: destruction. Not torment!

2. These verses are using nouns and not verbs! They say ‘punishment’, not ‘punishing’, and ‘destruction’, not ‘destroying’ (verbs would be needed to line up with ECT).

   • ‘Eternal destroying’ wouldn’t even make sense! If the object in question is continuing to exist for eternity, even somewhere in the process of being destroyed, then it clearly isn’t ever truly destroyed (since once something is destroyed it is no longer the original thing in question). So we would then be required to say that God doesn’t really destroy the wicked (despite the numerous verses that say He does - see Reason #8).
3. Some translations say ‘everlasting’ instead of ‘eternal’ and our English inclination has shifted to interpret ‘everlasting’ as ‘actively ongoing forever’, which is not actually implied. ‘Permanent’ would probably be a better understood translation in the way we use English today.
4. The Greek word translated to ‘eternal’ can sometimes mean ‘everlasting’, but can also mean ‘of the age to come’ - making it more about the qualitative type of the thing rather than the duration.

5. Eternal ____ is not translated for ongoing active states elsewhere

   • Eternal Salvation Hebrews 5:9 "and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him"

     • The saving happened once, but the salvation stands forever.

   • Eternal Redemption Hebrews 9:12 "He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption."

     • The redeeming happened once and the redemption stands forever.

   • Eternal Inheritance Hebrews 9:15a “For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance…”

     • The inheriting happens once and the inheritance stands forever.

   • Eternal Judgment Hebrews 6:2 “... instruction about cleansing rites, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.”

     • Does it take God eternity to judge the cases of the wicked or does He do it once and it stands for eternity? The judging happens in a finite time and the judgment stands forever.
   • Eternal Sin Mark 3:29 “... but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.” Does the sin perpetually happen in the present state or does it happen once and then stand for eternity?

   • Eternal Life Matthew 25:46 “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

     • Of the 10 contrasts with ‘eternal life’ I could find, the other 9 of them have clear destruction/elimination language (see Reason #11). So do we use the 9 other references to help inform what ‘punishment’ means here, or do we use the ECT interpretation of ‘punishment’ to redefine all the others?

     • If we define ‘eternal life’ simply as ‘living that goes on forever’ (DURATION of existence), ECT has a problem: the wicked in hell are conscious/alive and they persist in that state forever, thus they are also experiencing ‘living that goes on forever’, i.e. eternal life. So ECT would have to agree that ‘eternal life’ does not simply mean ‘living that goes on forever.’

       1. Note: if ‘eternal life’ doesn’t simply mean ‘living that goes on forever’, then it follows that ‘eternal punishment’ doesn’t simply mean ‘punishing that goes on forever’ (see point d above).
     • CI and ECT will thus agree that the statement isn’t necessarily focused on the duration that the righteous will be alive but rather the quality/nature of the life they are stepping into and that it will be permanent (quite different than the nature of the life we experience presently on the Earth) as seen in John 17:3 “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” There is a richness here that goes beyond just talking about long stretches of time.
     • It naturally follows from the other ‘eternal ___’ examples above that eternal life could be described as “Fullness of life that is given at one time and the result stands forever”
     • However, the problem for ECT still stands, regardless of the definition, because John 10:10 says “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Jesus says He came so that we may both have life (‘aliveness’/existence) AND have it to the full (‘quality of existence’). By separately stating both of those, it is clear that aliveness/existence and fullness of life are two separate things, both of which Jesus gives to His followers. Therefore the wicked, receiving neither of these from Jesus, will not have aliveness/existence forever. A horrid “eternal life” in hell is NOT something that awaits the unrighteous.
     • This verse says the alternative to Eternal Life is Eternal Punishment. Not just any type of punishment. Of a different character than punishment experienced on Earth. One that is completely absent of life (rather than being conscious forever). The punishing happens once and the punishment stands forever.

6. ECT proponents sometimes argue the following based on the parallel language between life and punishment in Matthew 25:46:

   • “If eternal life is forever and ever, then eternal punishment must be forever and ever.” but what they are really saying is: “If eternal life is experienced consciously forever and ever, then eternal punishment must be experienced consciously forever and ever.” ← CI would agree with the first statement but not the second, which isn’t necessitated by the scripture.
     Or they may state it another way:
     “If eternal punishment (hell) does not go on forever, then its parallel (eternal life) would not go on forever and ever. We outright reject the latter, since heaven is forever, so therefore we reject the former.”

     • CI agrees that eternal punishment is forever and ever just like eternal life is forever and ever: it doesn’t change, the wicked are forever completely wiped out. The punishment is permanent. The difference is in defining what ‘eternal punishment’ is, as we have already seen in 2 Thessalonians 1:9.
   • Matthew 25:46 actually fits naturally with CI without any difficulties with the word ‘eternal’:
     Are the righteous in Christ given life? Yes
     Does that life last forever and ever? Yes = Eternal Life
     Are the wicked punished with death? Yes
     Are they dead forever and ever? Yes
     i.e. Does that punishment last forever and ever? Yes = Eternal Punishment
     (There are at least 6 verses that contrast eternal life with death, which should inform our reading of eternal life vs eternal punishment; See Reason #7 punishment = death)

7. There are differences in translation in 2 Thessalonians 1:9: NKJV says ‘These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,’, while the ESV says ‘away from the presence…’ and the NIV says ‘and shut out from the presence…’. I am unsure which is correct, though all align with CI:

   • If ‘away from the presence’ and ’and shut out from the presence’ is correct,
     ECT argues:

     • Paul appears to be describing their location during their everlasting punishment.
     • Therefore they must still exist. Because how could they “be” somewhere for eternity if they no longer exist?. It would be redundant to mention them being away from His presence if they were no longer existing, right?
     • Therefore, the word ‘destruction’ is something that must be able to happen with them continuing to exist. So they can’t have been annihilated.
     CI response:
     1. Note: NIVs ‘and’ is nowhere present in the Greek and has been added
     2. Being ‘away from the presence of the Lord’ it is not identifying the location of the wicked after their destruction, it is what causes the destruction! (as God is the source of life).
     3. This would be the nail in the coffin for the ECT argument about Rev. 14:11 ‘being tormented [ECT adds ‘forever’ based on the following verse] in the presence of the Lord’ (see Reason #2) since they could not forever be both in His presence and away from His presence simultaneously.

     4. It would fit perfectly with the foreshadowing that happened in Genesis 3 after the fall where Adam and Eve were shut out from the garden: the location where God walked with them, i.e. His presence, AND access to the tree of life (see Reason #21) - after which they subsequently died.

   • Alternatively, ‘from the presence’ may be correct:
     In reviewing the Greek it does seem like the NKJV is the correct translation and the ESV/NIV are not*. The word they translate to ‘away from’ or ‘shut out from’ is ‘apo’. When ‘apo’ is typically used it denotes that the thing following is the source/origin/beginning/starting place and is most often translated ‘from’ unless there is another word to change it - which there isn’t in this case (see https://biblehub.com/greek/apo_575.htm; compare with Acts 3:19). See https://rethinkinghell.com/2016/12/05/annihilation-in-2-thess-1-9-part-2-separation-or-obliteration/ for a deeper study on the Greek. In this context, it seems the better translation* might be ‘the source of their eternal destruction is the presence of the Lord and the glory of his might’ [my suggested translation*].
     *I am no Greek scholar and say this with utmost hesitancy and humility

     • The presence of the Lord is what destroys the unrighteous https://rethinkinghell.com/2016/11/14/annihilation-in-2-thessalonians-19-part-1-destroyed-by-the-glory-of-his-manifest-presence/

       1. Nahum 1:6 “Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him.”
       2. This makes sense in the context of all the Old Testament encounters people have with the pre-incarnate Christ or trips to the throne room (Genesis 32:30; Exodus 24:10–11; Deuteronomy 5:25-26; Judges 6:22–23; Judges 13:22; Isaiah 6:5; Revelation 1:17)
          e.g. Deuteronomy 5:25-26 ”But now, why should we die? This great fire will consume us, and we will die if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer. For what mortal has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and survived?”
       3. See also Psalm 68:2, Psalm 9:3, Exodus 33:20
     • But the unrighteous cannot continue existing forever in the Lord’s presence, as His presence is inside the city (Revelation 22, after the Day of Judgment in Revelation 21) and the unrighteous are not allowed into the city. So they must be destroyed in a finite time in His presence and no longer persist after that.

8. 2 Thessalonians 1:7-8 uses a combination of “flaming fire” (puri phlogos) and “vengeance” (ekdikēsin), which is only found together elsewhere in Isaiah 66:15, meaning the outcome in verse 9 is probably akin to the outcome of Isaiah 66:24 (the wicked are completely dead and lifeless):

   • “when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction,”
   • vs “For behold, the Lord will come in fire, and his chariots like the whirlwind, to render his anger in fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire will the Lord enter into judgment, and by his sword, with all flesh; and those slain by the Lord shall be many”

9. So is CI really ‘Eternal Punishment’? Is it ‘Eternal’ if it is not active, ongoing punishment? Yes, it is a final, definitive, unchanging punishment. And what is that punishment? One-time, conclusive, death/destruction which lasts for eternity.

   • Some might argue that annihilation is not ‘punishment’ because if they cease to exist they will no longer be in pain and experiencing pain. See Reason #30.
   • For creatures that were originally intended to live forever in the presence of the Lord, eternal death is certainly an eternal punishment!

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Quick LookSince the rich man's 5 brothers are still alive, this is the intermediate state, not the state after final judgment.

While this passage doesn’t say much to support the CI view, I mention it here because it does not support the ECT view either (and yet is often used in support of it).

1. Some translations have used the word ‘hell’ to translate hades, sheol, and gehenna (all different places!). The word used here is Hades, which is not Gehenna - the ‘hell’ of the final judgment. So the rich man is not in the place of final judgment (clearly seen in the next point).
2. Whether it is about a real man named Lazarus or just a made up parable, it doesn’t actually matter for the interpretation: the context makes it clear that the rich man was presently suffering this agony at a moment in time while his five brothers were still alive. This cannot take place on or after the Day of Judgment. Therefore this describes the intermediate state (Hades/sheol) prior to judgment.
3. There is no indication that the rich man was going to live forever (though he would likely be sustained that way until the Day of Judgment - see Reason #9).
4. The rich man’s experience of suffering in the intermediate state is likely akin to the experience of weeping and gnashing of teeth mentioned in other verses. It does seem reasonable to believe that if a person suffers like this in the intermediate state, that they could also suffer accordingly while they are still conscious/existing on the Day of Judgment in the time between when they are tried/judged and when they are no more. See Reason #23 for more on The Day of Judgment.
5. If this is what the suffering is like in the intermediate state, ECT’s version of eternal suffering in the lake of fire doesn’t make much sense as it is exactly the same without any added elements, i.e. does God resurrect and judge the wicked just to return them to the state they were in before the resurrection and judgment?

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Quick LookThese happen at the judgment scene, not forever.

1. ‘Gnashing of teeth’ denotes ‘anger’, not pain:

   • Job 16:9: “His anger has torn me and hunted me down. He has gnashed at me with His teeth; My adversary glares at me.” – Job talking about God’s apparent anger and hatred towards him
   • Psalm 35:16 “Like godless jesters at a feast. They gnashed at me with their teeth.” – King David referring to his enemies

   • Psalm 112:10: “The wicked will see it and be vexed. He will gnash his teeth and melt away. The desire of the wicked will perish.”

     • This Psalm sums it up nicely - when the righteous are lifted up, the wicked will “gnash their teeth and melt away” (clearly, ‘melt away’ does not connote ‘last forever’)
   • Acts 7:54 “When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him.”

‘Weeping’ (klauthmos in Greek) relays ‘sorrow’ not pain:

• Matthew 2:18 “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”
• Acts 20:37 “And there was much weeping on the part of all; they embraced Paul and kissed him,”

So ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ means ‘sorrow and anger’, rather than ‘pain’ or the reaction to pain. If one insists, however, that ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ must mean pain instead of sorrow and anger, it would still seem logical that the wrath of God could induce severe pain - the wrath experienced in the lake of fire on the Day of Judgment could be both physical and mental/emotional/spiritual pain.

2. ‘Weeping and gnashing of teeth’ is present both in a discussion with a fiery furnace (Matthew 13) and also in discussions without fire (Luke 13, Matthew 22/25). So the response is not pain from being burned up in a fire, but rather sorrow and anger from being cast away from the Lord’s presence.

3. Regardless of the meaning, some may argue that because this is a conscious response that happens in ‘hell’, that this conscious response must happen in ‘hell’ FOREVER.

   • As we will see in a moment, it is not clear that this actually happens ‘in hell’.
   • Also, the Bible nowhere says there will be "weeping and gnashing of teeth for ever and ever". The closest thing is the torment in Revelation 20:10 and that is specifically applied to the devil, beast, and false prophet (See Reason #3).

4. Luke 13:25-28 “Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ “But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ “Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ “But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out”

   • This is the experience at the Last Judgment. Just like verses 25-27 will not repeat over and over, the ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ in verse 28 will not continue perpetually, but rather happen at the time they are being thrown out.
   • The only ‘place’ that is described in the story is the house (heaven) and the wicked are not admitted in. So ‘In that place…’ is not describing a secondary ‘place’ (i.e. hell) where the wicked are subsequently sent and experience weeping and gnashing of teeth, but rather it is the judgment scene itself.

5. Matthew 13:24-30, 36-42 “ … Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

   • ‘In that place’ once again likely refers to the whole description of the Last Judgment (since that is what Jesus describes in v40-42) rather than just in the furnace. This seems most likely because the language is identical to Luke 13:28 which, along with Matthew 22:13 and Matthew 25:30, talks about the ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ but does not talk of a fiery furnace.

     • Therefore, ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ is neither confined to nor is the primary outcome of the fiery furnace. If it were, Luke’s ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ would be out of place since no furnace is mentioned.
     • It makes sense that ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ will surround all of the events of the Last Judgment (regardless of whether you believe CI or ECT), not just being thrown into the lake of fire.
     • If that is the case, then ECT’s claim that the fiery furnace does not destroy the wicked solely on the basis that ‘they subsequently must weep and gnash their teeth’ is not substantiated. The fiery furnace could then, in fact, consume them, as would be expected of a fiery furnace and as would make sense based on Jesus saying in the parable that the weeds would be burned up.
   • If you don’t agree with the point above and feel like the response must be taking place in the furnace, it is still possible to be conscious and have an emotional response upon being thrown into a fire that burns one up to nothingness. It is not necessary that the fire instantly wipe the person out (anyone who was burned alive would attest to that).
   • I believe the reason Jesus adds verse 42 is to clarify the limitations of the parable: while both the weeds and the unrighteous will both burn up entirely (the point of the parable), UNLIKE the weeds, the unrighteous will experience a conscious response in the process. It isn’t a painless annihilation (a.k.a. just a ceasing to exist).
   • Verse 42 does not suggest the unrighteous do not burn up, which would undo the entire purpose of the parable of weeds in the first place (at that point it would have been silly to even use weeds being burned as the analogy).

6. Matthew 13:47-50 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

   • As we’ll see in all of these parables, the righteous have a place prepared for them (barn, containers, house, etc.) and the wicked have none (no secondary place for them). Even when they are thrown in the furnace or lake of fire (which is specifically designed for Satan and his demons), it is only as a means of being ‘thrown away’. (See Reason #20 – The Unrighteous have no place prepared)

7. Parable of the Wedding Feast Matthew 22:1-13 “...The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city…And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’’”

   • The entire parable takes place in the normal, physical realm. Those who rejected the invitation in v5-6 are clearly destroyed/eliminated. The man in v11-12, however, gets tossed ‘into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ Between v7 and v13 we have not switched from talking about the normal, physical realm to talking about a realm where ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ will last forever.
   • If the ECT view interprets ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ as ‘eternal conscious torment’, it is problematic that everyone who rejected the invitation in v5-6 gets a lesser, finite punishment (destroyed) whereas this man without the wedding garment gets ECT. It seems much more likely that ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ should be interpreted (here and elsewhere) as ‘sorrow and anger that accompanies being shut-out from the presence of the Lord and ultimately perishing’.
   • Being tied hand and foot and tossed out of the party (source of light, protection, and sustenance) implies that the person will not survive for long.

8. Parable of the Talents Matthew 25:29b-30 “But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’” See also Matthew 8:12,

   • Once again, sorrow and anger being expressed in the darkness outside do not imply immortality.
   • ‘There will be’ does not mean ‘there will forever be’!

For a more in-depth discussion on weeping and gnashing of teeth, check out: https://rethinkinghell.com/2018/11/28/weeping-and-gnashing-of-teeth-do-not-indicate-eternal-torment/

9. Jude 1:12-13 “These people are blemishes … They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.” “reserved forever” can mean either:

   • blackest darkness has always (since the beginning of time) been reserved for them
   • their end is to be forever in blackest darkness. (linguistically, this one is less likely)

Even the latter can fit with CI since non-existence (especially being no longer in the presence of the Lord) is the blackest darkness possible.

10. 2 Peter 2:17 “These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them.” This section of 2 Peter appears to be in chronological order of things to come, so this verse (2:17) is taking place before the Day of the Lord described in chapter 3 and before 3:10-13 where the unrighteous will be ‘destroyed by fire’ (since they don’t make it to the new heaven and new earth).
11. 2 Peter 2:4,17 the darkness is for those angels "to be held for judgment". So it makes sense the wicked will also experience that darkness prior to judgment.
12. Note how darkness covers the land prior to Jesus dying on the cross (see Reason #18) - it is a symbol of impending death.
13. God is making it very clear that the punishment leading up to ‘the second death’ is no cakewalk. God does not just snap His fingers and the wicked cease to exist. The punishment is real, devastating, and to be avoided at all costs.
14. Conclusion: Both weeping and gnashing of teeth and darkness make sense in the intermediate state (Hades/sheol) as well as in response to the punishment part of the Day of Judgment, however, it doesn’t mean that they last forever.

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If you have been immersed in ECT teaching for long enough, you start viewing every passage you read through that lens. Thus you were forced to start redefining words like perish, death, and destruction to fit that view (i.e. they instead meant live forever in torment separated from God). In order to attempt to objectively evaluate CI vs ECT, I encourage you to be mindful that this redefining is not mandated by scripture unless the whole case for ECT is solidly shown in spite of the normal definition of these words. Therefore, apart from that redefinition, these verses stand in support of the CI case.

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Quick LookThroughout the Bible, the punishment for sin is death, not torment.

1. Genesis 2:17 “but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” (for a very in-depth dive into this and why ‘die’ doesn’t fit the ECT view, see page 98 in Joseph Dear’s paper)

   • The day they ate it they were separated from the tree of life (see Reason #21)
2. Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”
3. Ezekiel 18:20a “The soul who sins shall die.”

4. Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

   • Obviously, ‘death’ cannot refer to merely physical death, otherwise:
     • the physical death of the wicked would satisfy the penalty of sin
     • the righteous in Christ wouldn’t experience physical death
     
     So it must be referring to the ultimate judgment, i.e. ‘second death’ described in Revelation 20:14.
5. James 1:15 “Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”
6. All throughout the New Testament when Paul talks about what we have been rescued from it references death (not torment). Romans 5 and 6, for example.
7. See Reason #15, Reason #16, and Reason #17 for the pattern of death being the punishment for sin

Conclusion: for God to use the analogy and language of ‘death’ to imply ‘eternal conscious torment’ would be quite strange, since we all have a general revelation knowledge of what death is like: that person no longer consciously exists on earth. He could have used a handful of alternative words/pictures that would have been much more suitable to convey conscious torment.

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Quick LookThroughout the Bible, the wicked are destroyed (and this means eliminated).

1. Psalm 34:16, 21 “The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth… Affliction will slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.”
2. Psalm 37.20 “But the wicked will perish; And the enemies of the LORD will be like the glory of the pastures, They vanish—like smoke they vanish away.”
3. Psalm 37:38 “But all sinners will be destroyed; there will be no future for the wicked.”
4. Psalm 59:13a “consume them in wrath; consume them till they are no more...”
5. Psalm 145:20 “The Lord preserves all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.”
6. Isaiah 1:31 “And the strong shall become tinder, and his work a spark, and both of them shall burn together, with none to quench them.”
7. Isaiah 33:12 “And the peoples will be as if burned to lime, like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.”

8. Malachi 4:1-3 "Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the Lord Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves. Then you will trample on the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act,” says the Lord Almighty."

   • “Not a root or a branch will be left…” implies complete destruction - nothing left on any level.

   • The wicked are turned to ash

     • Just because their ashes still exist doesn’t mean the wicked will still consciously exist - God does not need to eliminate every molecule of a person from the universe for them to stop consciously existing.
     • The righteous are trampling on the ashes: does that mean the righteous have to walk into the lake of fire to do so (since ECT suggests the wicked are eternally conscious there)? Or does it make more sense (if one requires being literal) that the wicked are fully burned up in the lake of fire and their ashes are no longer ‘in hell’ but scattered to be trampled on?
9. Obadiah 15-18 “For the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations. As you have done, it shall be done to you; your deeds shall return on your own head. For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations shall drink continually; they shall drink and swallow, and shall be as though they had never been. ... and the house of Esau stubble; they shall burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor for the house of Esau,”
10. Nahum 1:6-10 “Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? … he will make a complete end of the adversaries, … He will make a complete end; trouble will not rise up a second time. … they are consumed like stubble fully dried.”

11. Luke 3:9, 17 “The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire… [He will] gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire”

    • Trees are not tormented in fire, they burn up and are destroyed. Chaff does not withstand being in the fire!
12. Luke 17:26-30 Jesus equates the Flood and Sodom & Gomorrah to the destruction of the wicked that is to come.
13. Romans 9:22 “What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?”
14. Philippians 1:28 “without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God.”
15. Philippians 3:18-19 “For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction…”
16. 1 Thessalonians 5:3 “While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape.”
17. James 4:12 “There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?”

18. 2 Peter 3:7 “By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”

    • Peter is comparing the destruction in the flood by water (verse 6) with the coming destruction by fire. We certainly don’t think of eternal, undying torment when thinking of those killed by the flood.

19. 2 Peter 2:12 “But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction”

    • The wicked are compared to wild animals in terms of how they will be destroyed (same Greek word for ‘destroy’ used). We certainly don’t believe animals will be tormented forever.
20. The list can go on and on - Psalm 58:6-11, Isaiah 5:24-25, Zephaniah 1:15-18, 2 Peter 2:1, 2 Thessalonians 1:9, Matthew 7:13, Matthew 10:28, John 17:12, etc.

QUICK TIP: you can literally copy and paste this whole list of references into the search bar of https://www.biblegateway.com/ and see all of these passages at once

21. ECT proponents argue the wicked are perpetually in a state of ‘being destroyed’ and yet never fully destroyed. But the word ‘destruction’ makes no sense if the wicked are actually existing forever and yet are never actually destroyed.

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Quick LookThe only reason we weren’t immediately destroyed after eating the fruit was that God had a plan to redeem.

1. After the day of the Lord, when all sin is judged, there will be no more redemption possible (Hebrews 9:27 “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment”), so there will be no reason to sustain the wicked any longer thereafter.

2. 2 Peter 2:9 “then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,” and 2 Peter 3:7 “But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”

   • So peoples’ souls living on in the intermediate state (see Reason #5) is not indicative of the eternality of our soul, but that God is continuing to sustain us during that time until the day of judgment, at which point they will be destroyed by fire (see Reason #13).

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Quick LookBoth body and soul of the wicked are destroyed in hell (and this doesn't mean 'kept alive forever').

1. Jesus ties together the fate of the body and soul - therefore for ECT to be true, the body of the wicked must live forever (we’ll address why that isn’t the case in Reason #22).
2. Jesus compares earthly death with what will happen in hell. What happens to the body when someone kills it? It dies. Notice Jesus doesn’t say ‘do not fear those who can torture you…’. He was comparing the ending of physical life to what will happen to body AND soul in hell (hint: the ending of life altogether).

3. Jesus uses a different word for what will happen in hell (‘destroy’) than what happens on earth (‘kill’).

   • Is Jesus suggesting the outcome in hell is less severe? Seems unlikely since kill is the strongest word He could pick for what can happen to your body on earth
     OR
   • He is suggesting the outcome in hell is MORE severe. The latter seems consistent with Him saying to fear the latter.
     Thus it is a stretch to suppose that ‘destroy’ here means less than completely do away with. Jesus’ language has no indication of eternal conscious torment.
   • The Greek word we translate to ‘destroy’ is ‘apollumi’. I got this tidbit from Chris Date with RethinkingHell.com: In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, there are 9 instances where apollumi is used in the active voice and the word clearly refers to the actions of one person or agent against another. In all 8 instances besides here in Matthew 10:28, it always refers to the literal killing of a person. See Matthew 2:13, 12:14, 21:41, 22:7, 27:20, Mark 3:6, 9:22, and Luke 6:9. So it would seem inconsistent to translate it differently here.

1. This passage seems to be saying that God first kills the unrighteous on judgment day and then throws them into the lake of fire, which aligns with Isaiah 66:24 where it is the ‘dead bodies’ that are subject to unquenchable fire and undying worms as discussed in Reason #1.

1. Some kind of ‘second death’ has to happen when Unbelievers are thrown into the lake of fire. Unbelievers are presently alive physically, but spiritually dead (separated from God) because of sin. A second death which happens after the intermediate state is inconsistent with ECT, which has unbelievers living on forever in a state where they are separated from God, in torment, and their body and soul is still alive (which is pretty much identical to the intermediate state seen with the Rich Man in Reason #5).

(NOTE: IF THE FOLLOWING DOESN’T CLICK WITH YOU, JUST SKIP IT AND MOVE ON TO Reason #11 - THERE ARE MORE STRAIGHTFORWARD BIBLICAL ARGUMENTS AHEAD)

Person = 3 parts view: body (physical), soul (mind/non-physical self), and spirit (spiritual part)

• I will use green to signify alive and red to signify dead
• CAPITALS will signify IMMORTAL vs Mortal (Mortal things are being sustained for a certain time by God but will eventually wear out/die)

• Before the fall: Body* SOUL SPIRIT (*body was to be forever sustained by God via the tree of life, discussed in Reason #21)
• Living Unbelievers: Body Soul Spirit
• Living Believers: Body Soul SPIRIT
• Jesus while on earth: Body SOUL SPIRIT
• Jesus in the grave: Body SOUL SPIRIT
• Jesus resurrected: BODY SOUL SPIRIT
• Dead Unbelievers: Body Soul Spirit
• Dead Believers: Body Soul SPIRIT
• Resurrected Unbelievers: Body Soul Spirit
• Resurrected Believers: BODY SOUL SPIRIT

• Unbelievers after being thrown in the lake of fire:

  • CI View: Body Soul Spirit - second death destroys body and soul (as Jesus said in Matthew 10:28)

  • Possible ECT Views?

    • BODY SOUL Spirit - can’t be true because the second death wouldn’t be a ‘death’ at all - there would be no death that occurs between the resurrected unbeliever state and this (they were already separated from God because of sin from birth). Also note that the body would have to be raised imperishable, which is discussed in Reason #22 as not applying to unbelievers.
    • Body SOUL Spirit - can’t be true because the fate of the body and soul in hell are tied together (Matthew 10:28). Also, is the ‘second death’ just reversing the temporary resurrection that occurred before the last judgment? Plus, if just the body dies, isn’t this what we call regular death?
    • BODY Soul Spirit - can’t be true because a physical body without a soul isn’t a person/can’t experience conscious suffering (plus fate of body and soul are tied together)

Person = 2 parts view (body + soul only) - this doesn’t make much sense to me because unbelievers are referred to as presently ‘dead’ in their sins and then we are made ‘alive’ with Christ

• Before the fall: Body* SOUL (*body was being sustained by God via the tree of life)
• After the fall/Living Unbelievers: Body Soul
• Living Believers: Body SOUL
• Jesus while on earth: Body SOUL
• Jesus in the grave: Body SOUL
• Jesus resurrected: BODY SOUL
• Dead Unbelievers: Body Soul
• Dead Believers: Body SOUL
• Resurrected Unbelievers: Body Soul
• Resurrected Believers: BODY SOUL

• Unbelievers after being thrown in the lake of fire:

  • CI View: Body Soul - second death destroys body and soul

  • Possible ECT Views?

    1. BODY SOUL - can’t be true because this is the same as believers and no ‘death’ is occurring
    2. Body SOUL - can’t be true because the fate of the body and soul in hell are tied together (Matthew 10:28) and this would just be killing the body. Also, is the ‘second death’ just reversing the temporary resurrection that occurred before the last judgment? Plus, if just the body dies, isn’t this what we call regular death? Also, the transition from a mortal to an immortal soul is what happens to believers at salvation - does it make sense for the unrighteousness to experience this? Also of note is that this is the state of dead believers - it does not make sense for it to be the eternal state of the unrighteous.
    3. BODY Soul - can’t be true because a physical body without a soul isn’t a person/can’t experience conscious suffering (plus fate of body and soul are tied together)

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1. ‘Perish’ (John 3:16, John 6:27, John 10:28. 2 Peter 3:9)

   • Note that ‘perish’ in Greek in John 3:16 is ‘apolētai’ which is a form of the root apollumi, which is translated ‘destroy’ / apolesai
2. ‘Death’ (John 5:24, John 6:50-51, Romans 5:21, Romans 6:23, Ezekiel 18:32, Proverbs 19:16)
3. ‘Pass away’ (1 John 2:17)
4. ‘Does not have life’ (1 John 5:12)
5. ‘Will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him’ (John 3:36)
6. ‘Wrath and fury’ (Romans 2:8)
7. ‘Judgment’/’be condemned’ (John 5:29)
8. ‘Depart from me’ (Matthew 7:23, Matthew 25:41 ‘... into the eternal fire’)
9. ‘Destruction’ (Matthew 7:13, Galatians 6:8, Psalm 37:28. 2 Corinthians 5:1)
10. ‘Eternal Punishment’ (Matthew 25:46) ← discussed in detail in Reason #4, but of critical importance is that if you define ‘eternal punishment’ here to mean eternal conscious torment, then you must therefore redefine all of the other words above to mean that (which becomes a lot of very complicated linguistic juggling). It is far more cohesive to say that ‘eternal punishment’ used here actually lines up with all of the other words that stand in contrast to eternal life.
11. See also Reason #4.e about the use of the word ‘Eternal’

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1. There aren’t any, which should be notably surprising given all the verses we have on judgment and the wrath of God on unrighteousness.

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Quick LookFire in the Bible burns things up (destroys them). The only things that don't burn are those that are saved by God.

1. Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, specifically 30, 38-42: “‘Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’ … The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

   • The word translated as ‘burned’ in verse 40 (katakaio) is better understood in English as ‘burned up’. Not for the purpose of inflicting pain, but for the purpose of destruction. (See also its use in Malachi 4:1-3, Revelation 8:7, Acts 19:19, Hebrews 13:11)

   • Weeds in a fire will burn up and be no more - clearly fits CI much better than ECT. This parable would not be very fitting if Jesus had meant to convey that the fate of the weeds would be eternal conscious torment.

     • Weeds are incredibly easy to burn up/destroy by fire - quite the opposite of an indestructible body prepared for enduring the suffering of hell that ECT purports.
   • The fiery furnace is burning away all of the sin. Since that is 100% of the wicked, nothing will remain (even their ‘righteousness’ is not truly good Isaiah 64:6 “and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment”). There would be nothing left to eternally weep/gnash teeth.

   • But what about “in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”?

     • See Reason #6

2. Throughout scripture ‘burning up’ is the typical meaning of fire. The only time fire doesn’t burn up is when the thing is being preserved by the Lord and it is specifically called out as abnormal

   • Exodus 3:2 “There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.”
   • Isaiah 43:2 “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.”
   • Daniel 3 - Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace
   • 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 “For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.”
   • Luke 16:24 “...send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.” ← God is sustaining the wicked in this fire until the day of the Lord (See Reason #9). See Reason #5 as to why the Rich Man was in the intermediate state, not hell.
3. Fire AND sulfur (a.k.a. brimstone) when paired together ALWAYS refers to complete destruction (see Genesis 19:24-27, Deuteronomy 29:22-23, Isaiah 34:9-10, Ezekiel 38:22, Revelation 9:17-18). It makes sense that this is how it is used in Revelation 14:10, 19:20, 20:10, 21:8 - see Joseph Dear page 121 for a very in-depth discussion
4. Hebrews 12:29 says “... for our God is a consuming fire” in reference to “the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain” in verse 27. This implies that God Himself is the fire that destroys at the end of time. And when we hear verses talking about the wicked being “consumed”, the implication is that they are ‘removed’ and no longer remain.

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Quick LookSodom and Gomorrah is a terrible example of ECT but a perfect example of annihilation on judgment day.

Note: this verse alone should give a person strong leanings towards CI as opposed to ECT.

1. What Peter highlights as our “example of what is going to happen to the ungodly”:

   • Sodom and Gomorrah turned to ash
   • Sodom and Gomorrah condemned to extinction

ECT never has the ungodly turned to ash or extinct.

2. If ECT were true, Peter probably would have highlighted these actual elements of the destruction:

   • Fire and sulfur - God used these to destroy the cities; ECT suggests they are a parallel to the eternal fire experienced by the wicked in the lake of fire.
     X Eternal active burning is the primary experience of ECT hell, yet not mentioned by Peter. Side note: unlike Sodom and Gomorrah, ECT’s “eternal fire” doesn’t actually destroy people!
   • Torment - undoubtedly, there was severe, yet temporary, pain inflicted on the inhabitants of those cities as the fire and sulfur burned them to the ground, but the suffering of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah is never mentioned in any passage, the focus is always the complete destruction.
     X Suffering/torment is the primary punishment of ECT hell, yet not mentioned by Peter.

3. What elements should have been present in Sodom and Gomorrah if it were an example of ECT?:

   • Being left in a state of semi-destruction for a long time (‘ruined’ yet ‘surviving’). (ECT suggests that the unrighteous will be reduced to a state of ‘ruin’ yet still be a person and able to experience pain)
     X The cities were fully wiped out in one day.
   • Ongoing fire. Perhaps rebuilding attempts that kept being destroyed over and over again?
     X Abraham didn’t see fire later that day, he saw smoke (the fire had finished burning everything). Also, the cities were devastated so fully that they were NEVER rebuilt.
4. Based on a-c above, Sodom and Gomorrah is a lousy example of what is going to happen to the ungodly if ECT is correct, and a perfect example if CI is correct!

5. Some ECT proponents would suggest that “the example” Peter is referring to is not the physical destruction, but rather what the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah would subsequently experience spiritually in hell. This doesn’t make sense because:

   • This view completely nullifies all physical aspects of Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction.

   • “The example” cannot be what those inhabitants will experience after the Last Judgment:

     • That hasn’t happened yet. But all of the language of Sodom and Gomorrah as an “example” frame it in past tense.
     • In ECT people aren’t turned to ash/extinct after the Last Judgment
     • It will be more bearable for S&G on judgment day than for many surrounding towns of Galilee (Matthew 10:15)

   • “The example” is unlikely intended to be what those inhabitants are currently experiencing in Hades (the intermediate state like the Rich Man) subsequent to their physical destruction:

     • This is completely unobservable, so not a good “example” to anyone alive.
     • It would be exactly the same fate as ALL of the other unrighteous who had ever lived, who would also be suffering the same thing in the intermediate state. So why call out Sodom and Gomorrah? The physical judgment was so epic that it is clearly the emphasis.
     • The intermediate state (see Reason #5) doesn’t line up with what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah (a-c above)
   • Ezekiel 16:49-50 “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before Me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.” ← “...as you have seen” makes it clear that the physical/observable judgment on Sodom is the thing to consider. They are “done away with”.
6. In other places, Sodom and Gomorrah are pictures of destruction, not torment. See Deuteronomy 29:23, Jeremiah 49:18, Zephaniah 2:9, Isaiah 13:19-22, Lamentations 4:6.
7. Conclusion: Peter is clearly referring to the physical event where God brought judgment on those cities and the resultant physical condition. Being turned to ash and condemned to extinction only makes sense with CI, not ECT.
   → Since ”[Sodom and Gomorrah is] an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly”, this alone should give strong leanings towards CI.

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Quick LookThe physical model for punishment/destruction is to completely wipe out - leave no trace of life and no hope for regrowth (nations, family lines, etc.). While there are no examples of long-term torment being used for judgment, we see countless examples of complete destruction in the Old Testament when God judges different nations. This points to the spiritual destruction to come.

1. Genesis 6 - God wipes out almost all of mankind with a massive flood (nowhere in scripture is a single mention of the suffering experienced by those who died in the flood, so ‘torment’ is not the focus, annihilation is)
2. Genesis 19 - Sodom and Gomorrah (See Reason #14)
3. Exodus 12 - At the Passover, the Israelites were saved “by the blood of the lamb”, but the Egyptians were killed (not tortured). Jesus died so that we won’t. Then, when Israel crossed the Red Sea on dry ground, Pharoah’s army was killed (not tortured).
4. Numbers 16:35 - Korah’s Rebellion: “And fire came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense.” (the earth swallows up the rest of their families)
5. 2 Kings 1:10 “Elijah answered the captain, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men!” Then fire fell from heaven and consumed the captain and his men.”

6. God’s instructions to His people on what to do with the wicked nations:

   • Deuteronomy 7:1-2 “When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction.”
   • Deuteronomy 20:16-17a “But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction…”
   • Numbers 21:2-3 “And Israel vowed a vow to the Lord and said, “If you will indeed give this people into my hand, then I will devote their cities to destruction.” And the Lord heeded the voice of Israel and gave over the Canaanites, and they devoted them and their cities to destruction. So the name of the place was called Hormah.”
   • Ezekiel 12:20 “And the inhabited cities shall be laid waste, and the land shall become a desolation; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”
   • See also the destruction of Jericho in Joshua 6 (v17, 24 “And the city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the Lord for destruction. … And they burned the city with fire, and everything in it.”) and Ai in Joshua 8 (v2, 22b “And you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king. … And Israel struck them down, until there was left none that survived or escaped.”)
7. The penalty for serious crimes in the law was death, not torture. (murder, blasphemy, adultery, etc. see various laws throughout Deuteronomy)

8. Jeremiah 7:32-33 “Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth, because there is no room elsewhere. And the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the beasts of the earth, and none will frighten them away.” ← “Gehenna” is a transliterated form of the Greek name of ‘Valley of the Son of Hinnom’. So when Jesus talks about being thrown into Gehenna, it has the connotation of being “dead bodies”, without proper burial - not conscious suffering.

   • In Jesus’ day, Gehenna was a place where trash and dead bodies were burned. No one was experiencing suffering in Gehenna.
9. Note that the only time physical torment is highlighted/used in the Old Testament is in the book of Job, and that was done by Satan, not God! Which makes perfect sense why Satan wants to convince people that God will punish via ECT (because that is how Satan operates).

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1. Animals were sacrificed (killed quickly, not tortured) in the Old Testament. Their death is what was the consequence of the sins. This was a picture of what we should have been receiving for our sin. Jesus was the final/sufficient sacrifice. See Hebrews 10:1-14 on how the sacrificial system was pointing towards Jesus.

2. Leviticus 17:11 “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.”

   • The shedding of blood (which represents/is the life of the body) is what made atonement.

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Quick LookJesus died in our place. He did not suffer eternal conscious torment in our place. If his death was substitutionary, then what it took the place of was our death. Yes, He did undergo intense physical suffering during the crucifixion, but it was ultimately his death that brought salvation.

1. If hell is eternal conscious torment, then it would be Jesus’ suffering, not death, that paid for our sins. (If, however, His death paid for it, then death is what we should have received).

   • Jesus did not suffer forever on the cross, but one might argue that since He is God, His finite time of suffering covers the infinite suffering of all believers for all time. If that is the case, wouldn’t Jesus enduring a papercut have sufficed?
   • If suffering was what was required, then why did God let Jesus die at all? It would have been unnecessary.
2. Abraham was to sacrifice (kill) Isaac, not torture him. God sent a ram to take his place, but it was a foreshadowing that Jesus’ DEATH was the sacrifice (substitution) for our sin.
3. Romans 5:8 “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
4. Romans 3:25 “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement,through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished” ← the punishment for those sins was death, i.e. “the shedding of blood”.

SIDE IDEA: In my opinion, Jesus’ physical death is a picture of the spiritual deaths of the wicked, just like His physical life is a picture of believers’ spiritual lives:

5. BACKGROUND: Jesus’ life from the time of His baptism to the transfiguration appears to paint a physical picture of our spiritual lives as believers:

   • Baptism; God said “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” Matt. 3:17 (side note: that is how God feels about us at the moment we are born again!).
   • Holy Spirit comes on Him.
   • Overcomes temptation by the Word.
   • Works miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit.
   • Transfigured to glory in an instant.

6. In the same way, Jesus’ final day appears to paint a physical picture of what the Day of Judgment will be like for the wicked (We know that Jesus suffered in our place and paid the penalty for our sins, so it seems logical to say that the things He was afflicted with are akin to what the wicked will go through. Note that Jesus talks about ‘the cup’ He has to drink - compare with the ‘cup of the wrath of God’ for the unrighteous):

   • Jesus was tried in court with a list of things He had* done (*in His case hadn’t done).
   • Jesus is convicted to death.
   • Jesus is physically tortured for a short time.
   • Jesus suffers spiritually due to being separated from God (Matthew 27:46 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”) - note that darkness covers the land during this time (seems to parallel the ‘outer darkness the unrighteous will suffer; see Reason #6).
   • Jesus cries out in thirst (seems to parallel the rich man in Hades).

   • Jesus dies of asphyxiation - unable to breathe.

     • Once we are separated from God, it will only be a short time before we no longer have any breath in us (since He is the one who breathed life into us).

NOTE: Jesus was not annihilated (His soul obviously continued on past death). But He didn’t need to be annihilated in order to paint that picture because His PHYSICAL experience is pointing to the ultimate spiritual experience that unbelievers will have: completely dying - having no life left.

His physical death points to the complete elimination of the wicked (body and soul) in hell.

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1. Once someone physically dies, they have no more conscious existence in the physical realm (What is a dead body like?)
2. If the physical is designed to point to the spiritual, then when someone spiritually dies (“second death” Revelation 20:14) they no longer have conscious existence in the spiritual realm.
3. Even if “death” is more referring to “separation” instead of ceasing to exist, as ECT claims (i.e. physical death is separation of the soul/spirit from the body (James 2:26) and the second death is separation from the Lord), annihilation still makes perfect sense: Jesus is the source of life and sustainer of all things who holds all things together (Hebrews 1:3, Colossians 1:17. 1 Corinthians 8:6), so if you are separated from Him, you are no longer sustained/held together!

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1. Dualism says: Doesn’t it make sense that Hell should be the opposite of Heaven? Both infinite in duration and one better than imaginable and the other worse than imaginable?
   NO! The gift of eternal life cannot be compared with the condemnation and death brought by sin. Eternal life is FAR greater. It is not a dualist opposite.
2. If one thinks hell is the opposite of heaven, then the more one dwells on and becomes excited about the greatness of heaven, the more one must in turn grow the horrors of ECT hell, which is not something our minds want to focus on, so we run the risk of not thinking about eternity altogether.

3. The “net outcome” of humanity in a view where Heaven and hell are opposites is infinitely negative:
   NOTE: THIS IS A PURELY PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENT AND THEREFORE REALLY HOLDS NO WEIGHT (SCRIPTURE IS WHAT REALLY MATTERS)

   • ECT: God created a universe where most people (Matthew 7:13-24) experience an infinitely bad eternity and few experience an infinitely good eternity → thus the net outcome of humanity is negative (it would be better for mankind, on the whole, to never have been created).
   • CI: God created a universe where most people will face the finite, rightly apportioned consequence of their sin and a few will be granted infinite good for eternity → thus the net outcome of humanity is positive.

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3. Matthew 25:34, 41 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. … Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

   • Who has a place prepared for them?

     1. The Righteous/Believers: the kingdom of Heaven
     2. The devil and his angels: the eternal fire
     3. The unrighteous are the only ones who do not have a place that has been prepared for them
   • Since the unrighteous are not going to endure forever, they don’t have/need a place “prepared” for them.

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1. The garden contained both the tree (physical sustenance) and the presence of the Lord (spiritual sustenance).
2. On the day they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they separated themselves from God (shame/hiding - a state of spiritual death) and so He separated them from the source of eternal physical life (the tree of life). God explicitly said He was prohibiting access to it because otherwise they would live forever (physically alive, but still separated from His presence due to their shame/hiding)
3. Thus their bodies entered into a mortal/heading-for-death state, the end result was that they eventually physically died and no longer existed in the physical realm.
4. Separation from the tree of life and the presence of the Lord results in physical and spiritual death, respectively.

5. We see the tree of life back in the picture in eternity. Apparently, we will continue to eat from it in order to sustain our bodies. As in the beginning, the tree of life is located where the presence of the Lord is.
6. Since the tree is inside the city and only accessible by the righteous, the unrighteous do not have access to it and THEREFORE do not live forever, as their separation from the tree of life and the presence of the Lord results in physical and spiritual death, respectively.
7. If the Lord wouldn’t allow Adam and Eve to live forever in their fallen state, why would He allow the wicked to live forever in conscious torment? The only way immortality is regained is through Christ…

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1. See discussion on man not being inherently immortal and God alone having immortality in Reason #36.
2. Just because peoples’ souls survive on past death into the intermediate state (e.g. rich man and Lazarus), doesn’t mean they are inherently eternal, but rather that God is sustaining them until the day of judgment. See Reason #9.
3. Even in heaven, we will need to eat from the tree of life (see Reason #21).

4. Followers of Jesus trade their mortality for immortality (1 Corinthians 15:42, 50, 52-54; 1 Peter 1:4, 23)

   • 1 Corinthians 15:42-43 “So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.”

   • 1 Corinthians 15:50 “I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” Unbelievers will not inherit an imperishable body (nor immortality: v53).

     • Because the unrighteous are not immortal, even if the beginning of their final punishment starts with darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth, or being cut to pieces, they will not live on forever in this state because they will not live on forever.

       1. Unbelievers do not have imperishable bodies.
       2. Therefore unbelievers’ bodies will die.
       3. The body and soul have the same fate in hell - “destruction” (Matthew 10:28).
       4. Therefore unbelievers’ souls must die too.
   • v20-23 Jesus raises His followers to life imperishable.
   • v24-28 Jesus destroys all of His enemies, putting them under His feet. This being put under Jesus' feet doesn't mean living/subjugated - it means destroyed/turned to ash/dust under His feet (Malachi 4:1-3).
   • v29-36 An encouragement to hold fast to the hope of the resurrection.
   • v37-49 The heavenly body will be greater than the earthly body (and v43 makes it clear that the 'imperishable' body referenced in v42 is only for believers).
   • v50 "I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable." <-- unbelievers will not inherit an imperishable body (nor immortality v53).
5. So don’t ask ‘Where will you spend eternity?’, ask instead ‘Will you get eternity?’

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1. Seems to be implying a short, one-time event

   • 2 Peter 2:1 “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.”
   • 2 Peter 3:7 “But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.” ← Seems like the judgment and destruction are both occurring on the same day
   • Zephaniah 1:15-18 “A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements. I will bring distress on mankind, so that they shall walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the Lord; their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of the Lord. In the fire of his jealousy, all the earth shall be consumed; for a full and sudden end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth.“
   • Romans 2:5 “But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” ← The wrath seems to be poured out on the day of wrath - not forever after
   • Matthew 10:15 “Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.” ← implies that the ‘day of judgment’ matters a whole lot in the scheme of things when referring to how bearable punishment will be (rather than referring to the subsequent eternal suffering as a result of the judgment determined). What happens on that single day wouldn’t make much difference if, as ECT supposes, there was an eternity of active punishment to follow.
2. Just like on the day of the flood, anyone not in Jesus (the ark) will not continue living.

3. CI results in immediate, full glory for justice administered:

   • CI view:

     • All active punishing occurs on the Day of Judgment

     • We enter into eternity with

       1. 100% of sins punished.
       2. 100% of the glory given to God for justice administered.

   • ECT view:

     • Punishment is actively administered throughout all eternity

     • Because justice trickles in forever, we enter into eternity on Day 1 with

       1. 0% of sins fully punished.
       2. 0% of the glory given to God for justice administered.

     • 10,000 years in

       1. The wicked are still suffering judgment for sins committed (meaning that for the first 10,000 years we were in heaven, that particular sin wasn’t fully punished!)
       2. God still hasn’t completed administering full justice.
     • See also Reason #37 for ECT’s problem with the doctrine of infinite offense.
   • CI and ECT should both have God using the perfect level of punishment, so God can certainly punish quickly, and yet far more intensely, and finish with the judgment so that Revelation 21 can happen. (Unless one is forced to believe that the unrighteous MUST be punished infinitely and therefore ECT is the only way - See Reason #37).

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1. Revelation 21:4 “‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

   • Does this only apply to the righteous, whilst the unrighteous continue to experience pain and mourning and weeping? No, “passed away” means those things are completely gone, not just relocated away from the place where the righteous dwell. Back in verse 1, it said “the first heaven and the first earth had passed away”. They aren’t relocated. It's the same exact word in the Greek.
   • For further study, check out Reason #28 for why the unrighteous are not “still around” after Revelation 20.

   • In the ECT view, will the righteous remember the unrighteous as they are experiencing ECT? Hard to imagine no more mourning or crying if our loved ones are actively suffering.

     • Ezekiel 33:11 “Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’”
       If God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, how much less would He take pleasure in their eternal conscious torment!

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1. The Universal Reconciliation view of hell suggests that “all” will eventually repent post-final judgment and be saved. The view appears to ignore many verses about the fate of the unrighteous and hangs its hat on a handful of verses that talk about “all”. While I believe Universalism to be wrong for a number of reasons, these verses do make more sense in a view where the only humans left in existence are the righteous:

   • 1 Corinthians 15:28 “When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.”

     • If the wicked were still around after final judgment, wouldn’t it make more sense for it to say “God may be all in some”? Is God really “all” in the unbeliever who has completely rejected Him?

   • Ephesians 1:10 “to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.”

     • If unbelievers are supposedly in a permanent conscious state of agony, ruin, sinfulness, rejection of and separation from God, is there really “unity” between ALL things? That would be the ultimate example of disunity!

   • Romans 5:18 “Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.”

     • The context of chapter 5 makes it clear that justification and life is only for all people who are saved. But if the wicked are completely wiped out, “all people who are saved” becomes synonymous with “all people” since there are no “other people” at that point.

   • Romans 11:32 “For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.”

     • Once again, it is clear from the context of chapter 11 that the “all” God has mercy on is only those who believe.

   • On the topic of “all”, let’s talk about “all” knees. Okay, so these next two passages say “every” instead of “all”, but they still line up perfectly with annihilation on judgment day.

     • Romans 14:10-11 “For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written [in Isaiah 45:23], ‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess’”

       1. While one could argue that the “all” of verse 10 is only directed towards believers since the entirety of chapter 14 is Paul speaking only of believers, it isn’t crucial to the point at hand because Paul references the judgment seat when saying every knee will bow, so it could very well be both believers and unbelievers, but it is occurring at the judgment seat (which both views of hell agree that unbelievers will experience consciously).

     • Philippians 2:10-11 has the same concept “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord”

       1. “in heaven and on earth and under the earth” is a pre-”new heaven and new earth” configuration, since heaven and earth become one in Revelation 21, so this is not describing something after the final judgment and is not suggesting that the wicked in hell are bowing and confessing for all time. Once again, this likely happens at final judgment.

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1. The penalty for sin is death (see Reason #7, Reason #16, Reason #17, and Reason #18), not suffering. If suffering could satisfy justice for sins, then the wicked should eventually have sufficiently paid their debt and be released from their torment.

   • Matthew 18:23-35 - Parable of the Unforgiving Debtor “...Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.” ← There is no implication here that the king would do something to the man to cause him to live forever, nor that the man would be able to pay off his debt from prison (or that the suffering experienced in prison was paying off the debt somehow). The insinuation of the passage is straightforward: the man would die in prison.

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1. Matthew 26:24b “But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.” ← Jesus is clearly making a distinct statement about Judas with the most likely insinuation that not all unbelievers fall under the same category.

   • Problematic for ECT: it would be better for EVERY SINGLE PERSON in eternal conscious torment if they had not been born. Therefore it would make no sense to say about Judas.
   • Problematic for Universalism: if eternal heaven is the destination of all people (and the period/experience of punishing is finite), it would not be better for anyone to not have been born. Therefore it would not be true of Judas.
   • Fits perfectly with CI: there will be varying degrees of experienced pain/punishing (followed by eternal death).

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1. Revelation 21:8 “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

   • This statement is not implying the continued existence of the wicked into the timeline of the events of chapter 21. Rather, it is a recap of what the people CURRENTLY described as cowardly, faithless will be inheriting… (in contrast to the inheritance of the conquerors in verse 7). They will experience the ‘second death’ (complete death) in the lake of fire, as described in Revelation 20:15.

2. Revelation 22:14-15 “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.”

   • Similar to Revelation 21:8, this description is of PRESENT people (since the righteous are to ‘wash their robes’ now, not after the Day of Judgment!) and does not necessarily imply that the wicked listed here are still living after the events of Revelation 20.
   • The focus of 22:15 and the word ‘Outside’ is that all of the wicked people listed are EXCLUDED from the tree of life and the city. Even if one interprets this verse as a literal moment at the beginning of the future kingdom, it wouldn’t stay that way forever. The unrighteous would die because they don’t have access to the tree of life as John specifically highlights (see Reason #21).
   • If the unrighteous are living both simultaneously ‘outside the city gates’ and ‘in the lake of fire’, are we to picture the heavenly city as descending onto the new earth and plopping right down on ‘lake-front’ property?
   • 2 Peter 3:13 “But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.”
     The wicked cannot literally be outside the gates, because the new heaven and a new earth are where righteousness dwells (clear implication is that unrighteousness does NOT dwell there).
   • See also 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Galatians 5:19-21, Ephesians 5:5. The unrighteous do not inherit the kingdom. (is God’s future kingdom limited to the city walls or does it cover the whole earth?)

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1. The perceived outcome of a doctrine does not dictate whether it is true or false. So even if one could definitively prove that ECT results in more evangelism than CI, it doesn’t make ECT true.
2. It is crystal clear that the suffering of the wicked is so intense (see Reason #23) that we should never grow cold or callous to their fate and their impending punishment would be sufficient to drive us to share the Gospel with them!

3. That being said, Hell should never be our primary driver for evangelizing … eternal life with Jesus should be!

   • ‘Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’ was a call to repentance because heaven was near/accessible. It was not a call to repentance because of impending judgment.
   • It’s like telling people in the middle of the ocean to get off their sinking dinghy because there is an amazing cruise ship welcoming them on board instead of telling them to get on a boat because of the vicious, terrifying sharks in the water (oh, and by the way, the captain of that boat is the one who made the sharks and is the one who let there be a hole in your boat).
   • Eternity with God isn’t good primarily because it’s better than the alternative (ECT) - it is good primarily because of who He is, regardless of any alternative!

4. God wants all to be saved, so that should be our heart too!

   • 1 Timothy 2:4 “who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
   • 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
   • Ezekiel 18:23 “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?”
   • Matthew 23:37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”

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1. The wicked do not just cease to exist upon dying or upon the reading of their wicked deeds. Conditional Immortality strongly affirms the full and proper punishment of the wicked on the day of judgment.

1) Finite experiences matter:

• Based on how we naturally treat animals - which few would argue have an immortal soul - everyone clearly believes that the pain experienced by a finite/mortal creature matters even if that creature may subsequently cease to exist.
• Imagine 2 prisoners on death row. For his last 24 hours, Prisoner A is treated lavishly and given every creature comfort imaginable. On the other hand, Prisoner B is tortured horrifically for his last 24 hours. No one would consider their treatment before death irrelevant.
• All of the situations we and our loved ones presently find ourselves in are finite/limited duration experiences, and yet we do not minimize or write-off the pain that is presently experienced. Yes, we are able to put it into perspective because of the hope to come, but it doesn’t make it not matter.
• The Bible makes it clear that there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth at the judgment scene (covered in Reason #6). The last judgment is consciously experienced, severe and to be avoided at all costs (Zephaniah 1:15-18, for example).

2) Exclusion from eternal life with the Lord is the ultimate punishment!

• Would anyone argue that sentencing a criminal to death by administering anesthesia and then a lethal injection would not be punishment since the person experienced no pain? If pain is the only criteria, then a series of paper cuts would be more painful than death by lethal injection and yet is a much less severe punishment!

  1. The reason the death penalty is seen as the ‘ultimate’ punishment is not because of the pain inflicted, but because it is the complete and irreversible taking away of what life/goodness would have been left to experience. In the same way, if the wicked are missing out on joy-filled eternity with their creator, annihilation would clearly fit the bill of ‘eternal punishment’.

     • See also Reason #4: ‘Eternal Punishment/Eternal Destruction’

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1. While it is strange to me that someone would propose God would hesitate to annihilate a human yet not hesitate to sustain them in torment forever, I do want to take a moment to highlight the good root to this objection: mankind IS the crowning jewel of God’s creation.

   • Man was designed to be the image and glory of God according to 1 Corinthians 11:7, that is when Adam was made, he was supposed to be what the physical world looked at and said “oh, that is what God looks like.”
   • Problem is, sin came and Adam fell short of being the glory of God per Romans 3:23.
   • Jesus came in the flesh as the sinless and perfect “image of the invisible God”, see 2 Corinthians 4:4, and did what Adam failed to do in the Garden and died for our sins to save us and restore us to being the glory of God again per 2 Corinthians 3:18.
   • Humans truly are the crowning jewel of God’s creation since we were created in His image.
2. That being said, when the image bearer is broken and has rejected the only possibility of being made whole again, the Bible says the result is complete destruction, as we discussed in Reason #8. There will be no tainted images in the age to come - it’s all or nothing.

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1. They were designed as immortal beings (as opposed to humans, who required continual sustaining by the tree of life)
2. They had a perfectly clear view of God (unlike our ‘see in a mirror dimly’ 1 Corinthians 13:12).

3. Some conditionalists believe that Revelation 20:10 is actually part of a symbolic vision (most of the book seems filled with symbolism), and that Satan and his angels will be destroyed in the lake of fire. See Joseph Dear page 127-178.

   • I don’t see the necessity for this view, although it would fit with 1 Corinthians 15:24-26 “Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”

     • Note that “all dominion, authority and power” can be destroyed without Satan being destroyed. His power/authority/dominion will be completely stripped away, but it doesn’t require him to be destroyed (just like America could lose all dominion, authority and power without every single person being killed).

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Joseph Dear page 499-517 has extensive coverage of this topic, but I just wanted to highlight a few good points:

1. Most Near Death Experiences (NDEs) are positive (a.k.a. heaven) regardless of the spiritual status/beliefs of the person who experiences it. They typically portray the afterlife as universalist/nearly universalist (all/most are saved). In this and other details, they often contradict scripture. Additionally, they often contradict each other with specific details.

   • If we (rightly) reject these “heaven” NDEs from informing our doctrine about heaven, should we not also reject the “hell” NDEs from informing our doctrine about hell?
   • If experience/new revelation disagrees with scripture, scripture wins.
2. “Hell” NDEs are often the typical “pop-culture” version of hell (pitchforks, center of the earth, fire, being tortured by demons, etc.), which is to be rejected based on scripture.
3. Why would God be sending these visions to people? Does He need them to convey some new ‘truth’ to convince people to avoid hell? No. As Abraham tells the rich man in Luke 16:31 ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ (Jesus did, and they didn’t listen; we now have more revelation than just the Old Testament, which was even said to be sufficient).

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Quick LookJesus spoke 3x as much about heaven, eternal life, and His Kingdom than He did about hell.

1. “I have heard it said by some very well-known preachers that Jesus spoke more about Hell than He did about Heaven but what are the facts? As a young minister, I had heard this so-called fact repeated many times but every time I heard it repeated something didn’t sit right with me. Many years ago, I decided to do some research to find out for myself if this was true. What I discovered was there are 1900 plus verses in the four Gospels that contain Jesus’ words. Surprisingly, only about 60 of those verses, or just three percent of them, might be construed as either directly or indirectly referring to Hell.

“On the other hand, there are more than three times as many verses in the Gospels in which Jesus references Heaven, eternal life, or his coming kingdom: 192 verses in all, or almost 10%.

“So, the evidence suggests that Jesus didn’t speak about Hell more than Heaven. In truth, he talked about Heaven three times more than He did about Hell!”

-Ed Elliott https://medium.com/@edelliott/did-jesus-talk-more-about-hell-than-he-did-heaven-7e6100b4df82

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Quick LookConditional Immortality appears to have been believed by a number of very early Church Fathers. ECT became the majority view in the 4th century.

1. No. While ECT has been the majority view for the past 1600 years, CI appears to have been the majority view until at least 300 AD. The writings of important early church fathers such as Clement of Rome (35-99 AD), Ignatius of Antioch (~35-107 AD), and Irenaeus (120-202 AD) show they held the Conditional Immortality view (and the way they discussed it indicates that there really wasn’t much debate about it at the time).

   1. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) appears to be the one who established ECT as the predominant view. He said that in his day “very many” people denied eternal torment. Augustine of Hippo, “Enchiridion,” Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 3, ed. Phillip Schaff (Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887), pg 273 - top of Chap 112. https://archive.org/details/aselectlibrary03unknuoft
   2. https://www.truthaccordingtoscripture.com/documents/death/immortality-early-church/apostolic-fathers.php has a very detailed walk-through of writings by early church fathers that clearly show support for CI.
   3. https://rethinkinghell.com/2017/09/27/introduction-to-evangelical-conditionalism-the-doctrine-of-eternal-torment-was-not-universal-in-the-early-church/ another good resource for evaluating the views of the early church fathers
   4. Here is a video with a 13 minute overview: https://youtu.be/je3AW6QeXzk [‘Church Fathers who were Conditionalists’].
   5. Although ECT proponents may FAR outnumber CI proponents because of the length of time that view has been accepted and the growth of Christianity over the years, if we let ‘majority held belief’ stand in the way of carefully examining scripture, we would find ourselves standing with the Pharisees in defense of their ‘traditions’ when Jesus was challenging them as well as standing against Martin Luther at the start of the Protestant Reformation.
   6. Note: just because early church fathers believed it, doesn’t make it true. But it does help to know that you won’t be jumping into some new age teaching/heresy by even considering the merits of CI.
   7. While Clement’s contributions may seem less explicit than those of Ignatius or Irenaeus, Joseph Dear provides an excellent analysis of his position on page 76 of The Bible Teaches Annihilationism.
   8. Ignatius in The Epistle to the Magnesians, chapter 10: Let us not, therefore, be insensible to His kindness. *For were He to reward us according to our works, we should cease to be.*
   9. The early Church Father, Irenaeus of Lyons said, in ‘Against Heresies’ (~174-189 AD) Book II, Chapter 34, Reason #3:
      “For life does not arise from us, nor from our own nature; but it is bestowed according to the grace of God. And therefore he who shall preserve the life bestowed upon him, and give thanks to Him who imparted it, shall receive also length of days for ever and ever. But he who shall reject it, and prove himself ungrateful to his Maker, inasmuch as he has been created, and has not recognised Him who bestowed [the gift upon him], deprives himself of [the privilege of] continuance for ever and ever.(1) And, for this reason, the Lord declared to those who showed themselves ungrateful towards Him: "If ye have not been faithful in that which is little, who will give you that which is great?"(2) indicating that those who, in this brief temporal life, have shown themselves ungrateful to Him who bestowed it, shall justly not receive from Him length of days for ever and ever. “ (http://www.prudencetrue.com/images/Irenaeus_Against_Heresies_Book_II.pdf page 69)

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Quick LookThe Bible teaches the mortality of man. Only God has immortality and those to whom Jesus gives it to.

1. No. The assumption throughout scripture is that man is not immortal (we are expected to die), yet somehow traditional Christianity adopted the idea of the soul being immortal.

   1. An inherently immortal soul is actually from Plato (428-347 B.C.), not the Bible!

   2. Your spirit is perishable until you are born again

      1. 1 Peter 1:23 “...since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God…” (he can't be talking about their bodies because this is before they've received their heavenly bodies).

   3. Your body is perishable until the resurrection

      1. 1 Corinthians 15:42-43 “So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.”

   4. Our existence is “like a vapor”

      1. Psalm 144:4 “Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.”

      2. Isaiah 40:6-8 “A voice says, “Cry!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”

         1. 1 Peter 1:24 quotes this immediately after saying “you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.” and then goes on to say “And this word is the good news that was preached to you.”

            1. The implication is that you were but a temporary grass/flower, but in Christ you are now imperishable.
      3. James 4:14b “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”
   5. John 6:51 “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.” ← Jesus is the only way one will live forever.
   6. Romans 2:7 “to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life;” ← Why would immortality be something sought after if we inherently had it? It appears to be a package deal with glory and honor (of which the unrighteous will obviously have neither!).
   7. Ecclesiastes 3:11 “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” ← This doesn’t mean we are eternal, it means we have a longing for or inclination towards eternal things.
   8. 2 Timothy 1:10 “which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” ← There is no immortality without Jesus!

2. God alone inherently has immortality (1 Timothy 6:15b-16a “the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see…”) (a deeper article on this: https://www.afterlife.co.nz/articles/god-alone-is-immortal/ )

   1. We are not omniscient, omni-present, omnipotent, etc. While all humans do have attributes of God like justice, compassion, love, etc. - all of those are dull reflections of His perfect attributes. The Bible nowhere declares that all humans have an eternal spirit.

   “Consider this: according to many theologians (and me), being made in God’s image gives us our sense of justice and morality. And yet, we know that without Christ, we are lost in sin and inclined towards evil. Being made in God’s image allows us to have an idea of righteousness, since God is perfectly righteous, but because of sin, we are not actually righteous like our God whose image we bear. Why could it not be that being made in God’s image allows us to have an idea of immortality, since God is immortal, but because of sin, outside of His mercy and grace in Jesus Christ we are not actually immortal like the God whose image we bear?”

   Joseph Dear - ‘The Bible Teaches Annihilationism’

   We dove into this more in Reason #22 (Conditional Immortality).

3. The serpent was the one who said “you will not surely die” Genesis 3:4. The inherent immortality of man (apart from God) is a lie from the beginning.

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Quick LookInfinite punishment is contrary to what the Bible teaches about the wages of sin (death). Varied levels of punishing is mentioned in several places and is dependent on the knowledge of the offender, not the one sinned against.

If you have spent any time in a gospel-preaching church in America, you probably have heard some form of explanation as to why our sins deserve infinite punishment. At its core, this is a necessary product of the ECT view rather than evidence for it. (Note that ‘infinite punishment’, which implies ‘forever ongoing active punishing’, is very different from ‘eternal punishment’ which is very biblical and discussed in Reason #4). Excluding the inferences made from the ECT interpretation of the primary verses in question, it is difficult to make a biblical case for sin requiring infinite punishment. You’ll notice that the usual arguments for infinite punishment often lack many scriptural references and are theological/philosophical arguments based on the nature of God. For example, this quote from Thomas Aquinas is often used (1225-1274 - Summa Theologica https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2087.htm Question 87 Article 4 Objection 2 - the following quote is a variation thereof):

“The magnitude of the punishment [of sin] matches the magnitude of the sin. Now a sin that is against God is infinite; the higher the person against whom it is committed, the graver the sin—it is more criminal to strike a head of state than a private citizen—and God is of infinite greatness. Therefore an infinite punishment is deserved for a sin committed against Him.” ← What is truly ironic about this quote is that many people use it in a way that Aquinas was not intending. While Aquinas was a proponent of ECT, if you review the section linked you will see that Aquinas writes this as a possible objection and then himself responds to it.

Or this similar quote from Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758):

“Our obligation to love, honor and obey any being is in proportion to his loveliness, honor and authority. Therefore, sin against God, being a violation of infinite obligations, must be a crime infinitely heinous and so deserving infinite punishment. If there is any evil in sin against God it is infinite evil.”

Or John MacArthur (2011 - https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/80-376/the-truth-about-hell):

“Crimes against the infinitely holy and exalted God are infinitely wicked, and the punishment fits the crime. Infinite crimes against an infinite God deserve an infinite punishment.”

Notice in all cases the lack of scriptural references as well as the immediate jump from ‘God is infinite’ to ‘sin against God requires infinite punishment’.

1. Scripture says the condition of the sinner is more important when determining judgment than the one sinned against:

   1. Luke 12:47-48a “The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows.”

      • They both do the same wrong thing, but the level of punishment is directly dependent on the servant’s knowledge, not the character or nature of the master.
      • (Note that neither servant gets an infinite number of blows)

   2. Matthew 11:20-24 “Then He [Jesus] began to upbraid the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent: Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you…”

      • These cities will receive greater punishment because they were more clearly shown God’s manifest power and yet did not repent.
   3. Luke 23:34 “And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments.”
      and John 15:22 “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.”

and John 9:41 “Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.”

• Their knowledge impacted their level of accountability

4. Romans 2:12 “All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.”

   • Once again, same sins but different condition/knowledge of the sinner

5. Romans 5:13b “but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law”

   • If the affront that sin is against God is the only concern, it should always be equally charged against humans, regardless of their understanding of it.

6. Romans 14:14 “I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.”

   • Internal conviction can cause something to be sinful that otherwise wouldn’t be. In that case it is wholly dependent on the mindset of the person committing the action rather than the action itself. NOTE: the reverse is not necessarily true: there are things that are sins even if a person doesn’t internally feel convicted about them.

7. 1 Timothy 1:13 “Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief”

   • The implication is that he would have been under more condemnation had he not acted in ignorance or unbelief

8. ‘Sin’ is dependent on the person doing the action (the same action can be sinful for some and not sinful for others - not because it wouldn’t be sinful in God’s objective sense, but because of the knowledge of the person):

   • James 4:17 “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”

     • Notice this doesn’t say: ‘If anyone fails to do the right thing it is sin.’
     • So if someone doesn’t know that they should have done some good thing, then it isn’t counted against them as sin.

   • Romans 14:23 is the same: “But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”

     • 1 Corinthians 8 - Paul himself is okay with it, but says that someone with a weak conscience would be destroyed by being led into eating meat sacrificed to idols
     • So what is the punishment for eating meat? Infinite since God is infinite? Or is it actually nothing for someone whose conscience (rightfully) allows it, and yet not nothing for someone whose conscience doesn’t allow it?

9. This rings true to the natural order of things:

   • we would punish a 2 year old differently for writing with permanent marker all over the walls than we’d punish a teenager.
   • If I maliciously kill a random stranger, the evil of the act does not depend on how important/good that person was (in Aquinas’ quote above: a ‘head of state’ rather than a ‘private citizen’), but rather on the condition of MY heart in doing the action
10. Our present view of God’s infinite/complete holiness and majesty is finite and varies greatly based on the person. 1 Corinthians 13:12 “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” Therefore, based on the verses above, our sins are not held against us as if we had full clarity.
11. This also makes sense why Satan and his demons are punished forever and ever, as they had a perfectly clear view of God (unlike our ‘see in a mirror dimly’, c.f. 1 Corinthians 13:12). See Reason #32.
12. Furthermore, if the greatness of the one sinned against is what matters, rather than the nature/character of the perpetrator, then what would it mean for God to sin against us? There would be nothing holding Him back since He is infinite and we are nothing when compared with Him! And yet, thankfully, His standard and character are SO vast, that His is completely without sin/blame against even the lowest part of His creation.

2. Mark 3:28-30 “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.””

   1. “eternal sin” most likely means that the sin is permanent/irreversible (which makes sense since the only way we repent of sin is the work of the Holy Spirit in the first place). If we took “eternal sin” to mean ‘infinite sin requiring ECT’, it would be problematic for ECT because Jesus clearly sets apart this particular sin as different from others, thereby implying ALL OTHER SINS would not be eternal/infinite - whereas ECT says that any sin committed against God is infinite.
3. https://rethinkinghell.com/2016/05/28/what-are-we-to-make-of-finite-sins-against-an-infinite-god/ ← a good article on this overall topic and includes a nice section on infinity, touched on next:

4. “Infinite punishment” is part of the backbone of ECT, and yet has a major issue if ECT is correct:

   1. ECT proponents would agree that the severity of punishment at any moment in hell is finite (since there are different levels of judgment - see verses in Point 1 above), just that the timescale is infinite.

   2. Therefore after any given finite amount of time in hell, the person has only experienced finite severity for a finite time = finite punishment. Therefore the wicked never experience infinite punishment, and thus the proposed punishment for sin (infinite) is actually never inflicted, i.e. God never fully administers justice!

      1. See Reason #23.b for how CI results in the most glory for God as well as full punishment administered for sin.

   3. At every point in time in ECT hell, the person has received less suffering (finite) than they deserve (infinite).

      1. So why wouldn’t God increase the severity of their suffering so that it is at least closer to what they deserve? This increase would logically continue until God is administering infinitely severe punishment, regardless of the level of accountability that person had (see verses above in Point 1).

5. A reasonable, common objection is that ‘how can finite magnitude sins in an 80 year life warrant eternal conscious torment?’. The typical ECT response is that a person can commit murder in a matter of seconds and yet the jail sentence is measured in decades or lifetimes.

   1. And yet, everyone will agree that 2 weeks into the sentence, the full punishment has not yet been administered; justice has not yet fully been served.
   2. The most extreme crimes don’t get life in prison, they get the death penalty. Sin is a death penalty type crime.

6. God is infinite, man is finite. Man’s sins appear finite from his own perspective. CI simultaneously satisfies infinite punishment and finite punishment whereas ECT gives infinite punishment from both God and man’s perspective:

   1. CI from the sinner’s perspective: Judgment and destruction is a finite experience of active punishing (as experienced by the unrighteous) since the amount of pain/torment they experience is limited in time and severity (as seen above, there are different severities experienced, so it cannot be infinite severity). This fits with 2 Corinthians 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” and Romans 2:6 “God will repay each person according to what they have done.” and fits the Old Testament view of commensurate retribution (‘an eye for an eye…’)
   2. CI from God’s perspective: the death experienced as the culmination of the punishment is infinite punishment in both magnitude and duration since the person is missing out on eternal life (infinite duration) in His presence (infinite good) as a consequence of their sin. The consequence/penalty is clearly infinite!
7. Rather than saying ‘God is infinitely holy, therefore punishment must be infinite’, one can just as rightly say ‘God is completely holy, therefore punishment must be complete.’ And clearly, CI is complete punishment. No need to draw the concept of ‘infinity’ in - it is unnecessary and unsupported by scripture in discussions of levels of judgment (and also problematic, as seen in Point 4 above).
8. A finite time of active suffering (CI view) does not imply that man could pay for his own sins (which would diminish the work Christ did on the cross on our behalf). The payment required is death (which is what the unrepentant gets, and that’s what Christ paid on our behalf). You cannot pay that and still be alive! (Unless you hold the keys to life, and death couldn’t hold you!)

9. In an attempt to justify the duration of hell, some proponents of ECT argue that the unrighteous in hell will continue sinning for eternity, thus deserving eternal conscious torment as the just punishment for their eternally ongoing sin.

   1. For example, here is the continuation of the above quote from John MacArthur:

“And here’s the key: sinners who go to hell never repent. They never repent. They continue to rebel. Every description of hell indicates to us that it is – listen carefully – it is not a remedial experience. It is not remedial justice. It is retributive justice. They remain God haters forever so that the punishment never catches up with the sin. Understand that? It’s really important. In hell they continue to hate God. In hell they continue to curse God. In hell they continue to mock God and blaspheme God and hate Christ. So, the punishment never catches up to the sin because the sinning never, ever, ever ceases. Understand that; that’s really important. People don’t go to hell and then never sin forever and just get punished forever. They go to hell and keep on sinning forever. So, the punishment can never catch up with the wretchedness.”

2. This view seems very problematic for a few reasons:

   1. Scripture never mentions or implies continued sinning:

      1. Jude 15 “...to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him” ← the judgment is for past sins, not future sins yet to be committed.
   2. This implies that people deserve, for sins committed in this life, finite magnitude punishment for a finite duration, and then once they get to hell they keep racking up more duration. This entirely contradicts ECT’s definition of eternal punishment as the consequence for earthly sins: “infinite duration of active punishing”. And so is it ‘eternal fire’ only because God in His foreknowledge knows they’ll keep renewing/increasing their punishment?
   3. If these residents of hell (who outnumber the residents of heaven - see Matthew 7:13) are sinning non-stop day and night, has God really beaten sin? Did Jesus defeat the enemy on the cross? Or did God just relegate evil to a separate corner of the universe (where it will happen more than ever!)? 1 Corinthians 15 says that death and sin will be swallowed up in victory, not just relocated.

   4. When are those sins judged? The Last Judgment happens before they are thrown into the lake of fire, so are there subsequent judgments? Is God constantly judging those sins? Hebrews 9:27 “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” ← this and other verses suggest a singular judgment, which would mean those future sins go unjudged

      1. “Why even have a final judgment on the last day, if there is no actual finality to it? What is even the point of having a grand judgment event, where results are based on this life, if judging must continue throughout eternity anyway?” - Joseph Dear Evangelical Conditionalism and Degrees of Punishment In Hell – Part 2
   5. MacArthur’s last sentence “So, the punishment can never catch up with the wretchedness” sure makes it sound like God’s punishing is never adequate to deal with the sins committed. Is God really that unable to punish sin properly?

10. Doctrines, and supporting arguments, must be based on scripture, not philosophy/theology or emotion (since those are from a fallible/human viewpoint)

    1. The doctrine of infinite offense/punishment is purely philosophical even though scripture agrees that our present view of sin’s wretchedness and God’s holiness is dulled.
    2. Note that complaints against ECT as ‘unfair’/’excessive’ also are typically philosophical and don’t provide any real evidence against ECT.

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