When thinking about eschatology (the study of last things), many assume that these doctrines are, at best, secondary issues, or, at worst, entirely indifferent beliefs that ought not carry much weight in the Christian life. And while some eschatological views can be categorized as indifferent or secondary, much is actually of central importance; orthodoxy hangs in the balance depending on what view an individual takes.[1] The author of Hebrews makes this point:
“Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment” (Hebrews 6:1-2). Apparently, what we believe about the nature of eternal judgment matters – it is a “foundational” and “elementary doctrine of Christ.” Herman Witsius (1636-1708) puts the matter clearly. “Eternal judgment is numbered by the Apostle among the first principles and fundamental articles of our holy Religion. And since this is the last act of the reign of Christ, the brightest manifestation of his Divine glory, the anchor of Christian hope, a powerful antidote against carnal security, a check to raging lusts, and an incentive to conscientious piety, we ought surely to examine it with no less care and diligence than all the other articles of the Christian faith.”[2]
One major acidic attack corroding the church’s foundation that rests upon this elementary doctrine is the view known as Annihilationism. Simply stated, Annihilationism holds that the souls of unrepentant sinners will not endure eternal conscious torment but will ultimately be destroyed, or annihilated, so that the person ceases to exist; through judgment they cease to be. To be sure, many Annihilationists don’t deny the existence of hell and punishment, but only the duration of such. The view has found increased popularity over the last 50 years, especially with the publication of Essentials: A Liberal–Evangelical Dialogue, where the evangelical statesman John Stott tips his hat to the viability of the view. Since then, a host of voices have arisen in support of Annihilationism, perhaps the most robust defense coming from Edward W. Fudge and his The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment.
What makes the debate surrounding Annihilationism somewhat difficult is that it has multiple centers of gravity. One area of debate surrounds the use of particular words – words like “eternal” and “destruction”. There is a philological wrestling over how one understands each word. Another area of the debate surrounds the metaphysics of the human soul: is the soul truly immortal and in what sense? And then lastly, much debate surrounds the nature of God and His attributes; the question of how a good God could exact such a terrifying judgment that is unending.[3]
Much has been written in defense of orthodoxy on each of these questions so I will only highlight a few avenues of clarity to help the reader walk faithfully so that, hopefully, they can come to the same conclusion that Girolamo Zanchi (1516-1590) came to, that “we condemn and detest the error of those who argue that the fire into which the wicked are sent will at length finally be extinguished… This goes against Christ’s clear words: Depart into eternal fire (Matt. 25:41).”[4]
So what of that pesky little word eternal (aiōnios)? The argument put forth by the Annihilationists is that it does not always mean forever and ever without end, but merely an age, delineated by a beginning and end. Correctly, Fudge asserts that the word has “roots signifying time in both English (and its Latin ancestor) and in Greek. But, in biblical interpretation, the important thing is not secular etymology so much as sacred usage. How the Bible uses a word is far more crucial for understanding a passage of Scripture than all the historians of any language. We must ask how Scripture uses aiōn and aiōnios.”[5]He then proceeds to list examples of Scripture where aiōnios (and its Hebrew counterpart olam) is used but clearly does not and cannot communicate something everlasting in endurance and nature: Ex. 12:24; 29:9; Deut. 15:17; Josh 14:9; 1 Kgs 8:12-13; 2 Kgs 5:27. On this all are agreed; context matters.
Therefore, one such passage which strongly intimates in its context that the word eternal does mean everlasting and unending is Matthew 25:46: “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Here, the parallel between punishment and life leads the reader to see that if eternal life means everlasting and unending life, then eternal punishment means the same: unending and everlasting. The rejoinder is that the phrase “eternal punishment” simply refers to a destruction (i.e. an annihilation) that is irreversible and therefore unending. But this does not fit with the descriptions of eternal punishment in hell – punishment where “their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48). This is a description of ongoing activity – worms that continue to devour and fire that continues to consume. This is the language of perpetual, conscious torment rather than the cessation of any being or existence.[6]
Revelation 14:11 communicates the same idea. “And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.” G.K. Beale is very clear on what this text is saying: “the word ‘torment’ (basanismos) is used nowhere in Revelation or biblical literature in the sense of annihilation or one’s existence… Without exception, in Revelation it refers to conscious suffering on the part of people (9:5; 11:10; 12:2; 18:7, 10, 15; 20:10)… Therefore, the genitival phrase “the smoke of their torment” is a mixed metaphor, where smoke is figurative of an enduring memorial of God’s punishment involving a real, ongoing, eternal, conscious torment.”[7]
Ok. But what of the more theological/philosophical question of the immortality of the soul? Christopher Morgan writes that “the most popular version of annihilationism in evangelical thought today is conditionalism (often called ‘conditional immortality’). Conditionalism is the belief that God has created all human beings only potentially immortal. Upon being united to Christ, believers participate in the divine nature and receive immortality. Unbelievers never receive this capacity to live forever and ultimately cease to exist.”[8]
Annihilationists, like Edward Fudge, maintain that the doctrine of the soul’s immortality is only a sad holdover from Plato and not to be derived from Scripture.[9] After all, doesn’t Jesus himself maintain that we should fear God who can destroy both body and soul in hell(Matthew 10:28)?
Per the philosophical necessity of the soul’s immortality, I will only point the reader to Edward Fesser’s excellent treatment of this question in Immortal Souls: A Treatise on Human Nature. But what of the claim that God can destroy the soul so that it loses its very existence and being (Matt. 10:28)? In context, Jesus is encouraging his disciples to evangelize despite the threat of persecution. They ought not be afraid of dying at the hands of men, they should rather fear God who has jurisdiction even over their souls. This is more a commentary on not fearing bodily death than it is on existence after death. Moreover, the apoλeia word-group – from which the word “destroy” stems – can, depending on the context, have a wide array of meanings. In Luke 15 it refers to the “lost” coin. In Matthew 9:17 it describes the “ruined” wineskin. In neither case is cessation of existence in view. Thus, God’s ability to destroy the soul does not necessarily mean annihilation.[10]
Theologically, a stronger argument would maintain that the rational soul of man – simple in its nature – is itself a reflection of God (the soul as Imago Dei)and as such carries with it immortal qualities; qualities derived from God, yes, He is Creator and alone has absolute immortality in Himself (1 Timothy 6:16).[11] Still, even though the immortality of the human soul is a derivative immortality, it is a strong derivation since the soul is made in God’s image.[12] As the Lord breathed into man the breath of life, and man became a living being, the qualities of this life seem to include immortality, an immortality in the soul which mitigates against its own annihilation. “The dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7). God will no more annihilate that which intimately bears his rational image than he will his own being.[13] Thus, the souls of the righteous are “the spirits of just men made perfect” (Hebrews 12:23) while the souls of the wicked are now (and forever more) “spirits in prison” (1 Peter 3:19).[14] Does this mean that God is willing then to eternally punish those made in his image? Is that really the stronger argument? Here, we conclude, with the last area of argument surrounding Annihilationism.
At one level, we must agree that there is a harshness to the reality of everlasting Hell that makes the doctrine hard to hold on to. It’s not for nothing that John Stott confessed his uneasiness with the doctrine by stating “emotionally, I find the concept intolerable and do not understand how people can live with it without cauterizing their feelings or cracking under the strain.”[15] Yet, we must bear the weight of this heavy doctrine, not in our own strength but under the strength and support of God’s word. If God’s good word describes hell as unending conscious torment, then we cannot but follow.
One particular theological angle to this area of concern is the nature of infinite torment upon finite beings. How can unending punishment be just when the criminal himself is finite and his crimes committed within a limited span of “seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty” (Psalm 90:10).[16] The first answer is that the judgment fits the crime not because of the criminal but because of Him against who the crime was committed. But secondly, consider, if the sinner goes to Hell under conscious torment and exists there still in rebellion – that is, it is not possible to have true repentance and saving faith within Hell; the rebel only grows in his unbelieving rebellion and hatred of God – then the judgment of God continues to burn against continued rebellion. Indefinitely.
Here then Christians must reclaim with bold solemnity the serious of our task to preach Christ to ends of the earth. The judgment that awaits countless souls is more than terrifying. Oh that the church would send its best missionaries to preach the Good News, that Christ has taken our judgment in himself and that in him we can have forgiveness of sins and life everlasting!
[1] See chapter 1 to Samuel E. Waldron’s excellent new volume The Doctrine of Last Things: An Optimistic Amillennial View (Free Grace Press, 2025), p. 17-31
[2] Herman Witsius, The Apostles’ Creed, vol 2, pp. 267. Charles Hodge likewise strikes the same note: “The common doctrine is, that the conscious existence of the soul after the death of the body is unending; that there is no repentance or reformation in the future world; that those who depart this life unreconciled to God, remain forever in this state of alienation, and therefore are forever sinful and miserable. This is the doctrine of the whole Christian Church, of the Greeks, of the Latins, and of all the great historical Protestant bodies.” Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3, pp 369
[3] One particularly bad and outright blasphemous expression of this (I hesitate to even repeat it in print) comes from the pen of Clark Pinnock: “Let me say at the outset that I consider the concept of hell as endless torment in body and mind an outrageous doctrine, a theological and moral enormity, a bad doctrine of the tradition which needs to be changed. How can Christians possibly project a deity of such cruelty and vindictiveness whose ways include inflicting everlasting torture upon his creatures, however sinful they may have been? Surely a God who would do such a thing is more nearly like Satan than like God, at least by any ordinary moral standards, and by the gospel itself. Surely the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is no fiend, torturing people without end is not what our God does.” C.H. Pinnock, “The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent,” Criswell Theological Review 4/2 (1990) p. 246-247
[4] Girolamo Zanchi, Confession of the Christian Religion, trans. by Patrick J. O’Banion (Reformation Heritage Books, 2025), p. 260
[5] Edward William Fudge, The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment, Third Edition (Cascade Books, 2011) p. 35
[6] Likewise Matthew 25:30, “Cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’” It’s clear this last punch-line of the parable is a description of Hell. Notice that the outer darkness cannot be the “darkness” of nonexistence precisely because there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, i.e., there is conscious suffering.
[7] Greg K. Beale, “The Revelation on Hell”, Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment (Zondervan, 2004) p. 116-117
[8] Christopher W. Morgan, “Annihilationism: Will the Unsaved Be Punished Forever?”, Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment (Zondervan, 2004) p. 196
[9] Edward William Fudge, The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment, Third Edition (Cascade Books, 2011) p. 19-32
[10] D.A. Carson, The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), p. 522. Carson continues, “Stott’s conclusion (‘It would seem strange . . . if people who are said to suffer destruction are in fact not destroyed [i.e., annihilated]’) is memorable, but useless as an argument, because it is merely tautologous: of course those who suffer destruction are destroyed. But it does not follow that those who suffer destruction cease to exist. Stott has assumed his definition of ‘destruction’ in his epigraph.”
[11] Augustine links man’s rationality and the immortality of his soul to being made in God’s image in The Trinity (New York City Press, 2020), Book 24, chapters 2-6. “We talk about the soul’s immortality… it is called immortal because it never ceases to live with some sort of life even when it is at its unhappiest [read there, as being in hell]… And therefore if it is with reference to its capacity to use reason and understanding in order to understand and gaze upon God that it was made to the image of God, it follows that from the moment this great and wonderful nature begins to be, this image is always there, whether it is so worn away as to be almost nothing, or faint and distorted, or clear and beautiful. Divine scripture indeed bewails the distortion of its true worth by saying, ‘although man walks in the image, yet he is troubled in vain; he treasures up and does not know for whom he gathers them (Ps 39:6)’”, The Trinity, p. 374. See also his City of God 21.23.
[12] Acts 17:28 – speaking of all humanity: “for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’;as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’” Also, Hebrews 12:9, “Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?”
[13] I do not mean here that God cannot annihilate a human soul, he can – he can do whatever he wants (Jeremiah 32:17). Only that God will not annihilate the soul precisely because of what he has imbued within the soul of man. Petrus Van Mastricht, “The Reformed think that the rational soul is immortal, and that this is so not only through grace, but also through its own nature… from the Scriptures, as much the Old Testament as the New, the immortality of souls is plainly indubitable, because: (1) the covenant of grace, which was contracted between God and the patriarchs-Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-is eternal, and thus it is necessary that the contracting parties be eternal: of course not in the body, so accordingly, in the soul (Ex. 3:6 with Matt. 22:32-33). (2) Other things can be added to this, from the image of God in man (Gen. 1:26-27), from the reward of Abraham, which is the eternal God himself (Gen. 15:1), from the murder of Abel, demand- ing vengeance (Gen. 4:10), from the rapture of Enoch, translated to God (Gen. 5:24), from the faith and trust of Jacob as his soul was departing (Gen. 49:18), from the promise added to the second commandment (Ex. 20:5-6), from the prayer of Balaam (Num. 23:10), from the everlasting care of God, who protects his own as the apple of his eye (Deut. 32:10), from the life and death, the blessing and cursing, set forth to Israel (Deut. 30:15-20).” Theoretical-Practical Theology: The Works of God and the Fall of Man, vol. 3, trans. by Todd M. Rester (Reformation Heritage Books, 2021) p. 270
[14] See Joel R. Beeke, Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology: Man and Christ, vol. 2 (Crossway, 2020), p. 249-251
[15] David L. Edwards and John R.W. Stott, Evangelical Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue (InterVarsity Press, 1988), p. 314-315. Sinclair Ferguson is surely right when he says that “to speak of hell is to speak of things so overwhelming that it cannot be done with ease.” “Pastoral Theology: The Preacher and Hell”, Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment (Zondervan, 2004) p. 220
[16] The question of God’s eternal judgment moves Moses to ask, in the very next line of Psalm 90, “who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you? So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:11-12).