I have noticed a curious trend among professing evangelicals to adopt the doctrine of annihilationism. That doctrine holds that the wicked who are sent to Hell are burned into nothingness. That is, contrary to the traditional belief, there is no such thing as the eternal, conscious consignment of the wicked to a state of punishment. They are annihilated, hence the name.
Historically, this doctrine has been associated with the sects, primarily the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh-Day Adventists. But in our recent times, it has become mainstream. Even the otherwise orthodox teacher, the late John Stott, adopted it. The spread is because of a growing embarrassment among many over the supposed harshness of the doctrine of an eternal, conscious punishment in Hell. I have been told that annihilationism serves to remove one stumblingblock that keeps unbelievers from accepting the Gospel.
My response is this: Removing every distinctive doctrine of Christianity would make it more palatable to unbelievers. But, what then do you have left? You have unbelief. You would certainly have no Christianity, and no Jesus. Not in any meaningful sense. The unbeliever hasn't moved to a position of faith. Rather, faith has become unbelief. I cannot accept that as a means of evangelism.
Furthermore, how does truth change in order to make it palatable to those who deny it? If someone believes that two plus two equals 749, do we stop saying that it really equals four in order to make math palatable to him? I would hope not!
The proper question is not what the unbeliever thinks, but rather what does God say?
In answer to that, we have God's word on the subject in Revelation 20:10: "[Then] 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." There is no equivocation here! The torment of the wicked is eternal. They never escape. God's justice never finds satisfaction in mere ashes.
The problem with the annihilationist assumptions about unbelievers is the acceptance that the stated reason for unbelief is the true reason. The Bible tells us that unbelief is a cover, not an issue in itself. Every person knows that there is a God, and that we are answerable to Him. The issue is that, apart from the intervention of the Holy Spirit, every person hates that knowledge, because he loves his sin. Since those two things are incompatible, he must either give up his sin or give up his knowledge of God. His choice? He chooses to suppress his knowledge of God (Romans 1:18-19). Appeasing him by doing away with the doctrine of eternal Hell does nothing to address that deliberate choice. It is like taking an antibiotic in an effort to cure a virus.
8 comments:
Chris, thanks for taking time to write on this topic. I am an evangelical Christian who used to believe in eternal torment but now believes in annihilationism (aka conditional immortality). You wrote:
"The proper question is not what the unbeliever thinks, but rather what does God say?"
I wholeheartedly agree! While I think that annihilationism has positive value for evangelism, that is not why I came to believe in it. I came to believe in it through a study of what the Bible says about the final fate of the unrighteous. Are you familiar with the biblical arguments that evangelical annihilationists put forward as evidence for this doctrine?
I don't see how Revelation 20:10 proves eternal torture for humans if the three entities listed (Satan's counterfeit trinity of the devil, the beast inhabiting the anti-Christ, and the false prophet) are not human. When humans are thrown in the lake of fire it is called the second death (Rev. 21:8).
You're building one flight of fancy on another. "Satan's counterfeit trinity"? I can see why you didn't put your name on your comment.
Well, the counterfeit trinity is just my theory. My point is, I think there is good reason to believe that the devil, the beast, and the false prophet mentioned in Rev. 20:10 are not human entities. And my name is Stephen Mende; I am sorry my name is not on the previous comment but I don't have a Blogger account.
Where do you get the idea that the Beast and False Prophet are not human?
In Revelation 11:7, the beast arises out of the bottomless pit, I don't see any human as coming out of such a location. Revelation 16:13 says that three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. I think the false prophet is the second beast described in Rev. 13 which causes all the people to worship the first beast by demonstrations of miracles; things humans by themselves could not do. The second beast rises out of the earth (Rev. 13:11) but even this does not necessarily prove it is human, It think it is likely a physical shell embodied by an evil spirit. I think if a non-human ET type entity showed up on earth it would be a pretty powerful deception that would immediately dissolve the worlds religions just as the ant-Christ exalts himself above all that called God (2 Thess. 2:4).
And as far as the counterfeit trinity is concerned, I am not the only one to hypothesize something like this. Dr. David Jeremiah, Don Stewart and others mention this as well. Think about the comparisons; the first beast has a fatal wound which is healed by the second beast (just as Jesus suffered fatal wounding and is raised by the Holy Spirit), the second beast or false prophet does miraculous signs to cause people to worship the first beast (just as the Holy Spirit draws people to worship Jesus).
Your wooden literalism is producing a lot of nonsense.
Hello, Chris! I stumbled upon your blog post and felt compelled to comment. I'm a fellow evangelical Christian and also believed in the doctrine of eternal conscious torment (or traditionalism) for most of my life. Until I actually studied the topic, that is. You make some fairly heavy accusations against annihilationism, but from what you've written here you don't appear to know much about it.
You quoted Revelation 20:10 and said, "There is no equivocation here! The torment of the wicked is eternal." To use your own words against you, "Your wooden literalism is producing a lot of nonsense." Revelation is packed with symbolic imagery such as a seven-headed dragon that symbolizes a succession of kings and lampstands that symbolize churches, etc. Often these images are explained in the text. The fiery torment of Revelation 20:10 is part of John's vision and, therefore, symbolic. To understand what the vision symbolizes, the text gives us plenty of clues.
First, we should consider the fate of the beast. Earlier in Revelation, an angel explains to John, “The beast, which you saw… will come up out of the Abyss and go to its destruction” (Rev. 17:8). This is repeated a few verses later: “The scarlet beast…is headed for destruction” (Rev. 17:11) The angel who makes these statements prefaces them by saying, “I will explain to you the mystery of the woman and of the beast” (Rev. 17:7) So, these statements are not part of John’s vision; rather, they are an explanation of the vision, so there’s no reason to think the angel means anything other than literal destruction.
Furthermore, let’s consider “death and Hades.” In John’s vision, death and Hades are personified by two horsemen, but in reality, death and Hades are not people. Hades is the realm of the dead, where disembodied spirits await the resurrection. Death, likewise, is not a conscious entity. Neither death nor Hades are capable of experiencing “torment day and night forever and ever.” So, what does death and Hades being thrown into the lake of fire symbolize? The end of death and Hades. After death is thrown into the lake of fire, God declares, “there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever” (Rev. 21:4). So, clearly death being thrown into the lake of fire symbolizes that death will be destroyed, will be no more, and gone forever. Consistency dictates that everything and everyone thrown into the lake of fire will share the same fate. If the beast being thrown into the lake of fire symbolize the annihilation and destruction of the beast, and death being thrown into the lake of fire symbolizes the destruction and end of death, then the same must be true for people who are thrown into the lake of fire.
Finally, the most important reason to interpret the lake of fire as death and not torment is because that is the explicit explanation given. After John sees death and Hades thrown into the lake of fire, he states plainly, “The lake of fire is the second death” (Rev. 20:14). Then he sees cowards, unbelievers, the corrupt, murderers, the immoral, those who practice witchcraft, idol worshipers, and liars thrown into the lake of fire and God himself states: “This is the second death” (Rev. 21:8). The grammatical structure of “the lake of fire is the second death” is identical to earlier statements like “the seven lampstands are the seven churches.” So, the statement “this is the second death” isn’t part of the vision, it’s the explanation or interpretation of the vision—given first by John and then by God himself. We cannot say “well, then the second death is actually eternal torment,” because that is interpreting the explanation in light of the vision. It would be the equivalent of saying “well, churches are actually lampstands.” Instead, we must interpret the vision in light of the explanation. Thus, the lake of fire symbolizes the death of every person thrown into it.
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