Wouldn’t a doctrine this significant and dramatic be all over the Bible? Yet it isn’t. As a matter of fact, apart from perhaps 2 verses in Revelation, you will search in vain for any notion that the unrepentant sinner is going to be kept alive forever for any reason, let alone torment.
The plain reading of Scripture seems unambiguous to me, regarding the fate of the lost in both Testaments; God destroys His enemies. The words typically used to describe His judgement are unmistakable; “cut off, destroy, consume, burned up like chaff, perish”, etc.
Consider the following sample:
“But the wicked will perish; the enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures; they vanish-like smoke they vanish away.” Psalm 37
“As smoke is driven away, so you shall drive them away; as wax melts before the fire, so the wicked shall perish before God!” Psalm 68
“For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.” Malachi 4
“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Matt 10
“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.” Matt 13
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life,” John 3
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6
“If by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly…” 2Peter 2
I could list a hundred passages, but I think we get the idea. Other than judgment and destruction there is no future for the unrepentant. This makes sense both logically and theologically. It makes sense logically because what would be the reason for God to keep alive forever rebellious sinners? The contrast in eternity is not between two destinations, Heaven or Hell, but between two conditions, living or dead.
It makes sense theologically; what did Jesus do for our sins? Did He go to eternal torment? No, He died.
I will be accused by some traditionalists (those who hold to eternal conscious torment) of being a liberal; of softening Hell, of making death and judgement no big deal. I find this notion baffling. How is any of this soft? God is terrifying. The bible makes it clear that the final judgement will be horrific, and I don’t want anyone to endure it outside of Jesus. It speaks in terms of weeping and gnashing of teeth; of terror and darkness.
Isaiah says, “And people shall enter the caves of the rocks and the holes of the ground, from before the terror of the Lord, and from the splendor of His majesty, when He rises to terrify the earth.”
In Revelation we read, “Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”
As the writer of Hebrews notes “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
For too long we have preached the Gospel as fire insurance instead of what it is; the free offer of eternal life! Preach Jesus! Give people life! This notion causes me to love God more, and to be more grateful for the gift of life and existence. I join with the biblical author when he says:
Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.”
© 2019 JD Green