Annihilationism or Eternal Torment

Edward Fudge wrote an interesting book on this subject called, The Fire that Consumes. He makes a good case for annihilation.

 

God gave us a better book that refutes annihilation.

 

[post by non-Baptist removed; this part of the BB is for discussion by Baptists only]

 

This is a very clear example of why your human-centered Arminianism doesn't really work. We do not suffer hell because of our rejection of His appeal to reconciliation. We suffer hell because we are born dead in our sin. God seeks to save "whosoever will" come to Him -- they being the ones that can! Who would intentionally reject God for hell if it was only some form of agreement that changed the entire picture? Yet, some do, no matter how clearly the truth is presented.

 

That is not what the bible clearly teaches:

Jesus said, "I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness. "As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day." (Jn 12)

What condemn's mankind on the last day? Is it the imputed sin of Adam? NOPE! What does He say? The "very word which I spoke will condemn him." What is that "word?" The gospel truth!

"For I did not come to judge the world" based upon the "righteousness that comes through the law"....or Adam's imputed sin. But instead there is a "new righteousness being revealed" (Rm 3) which is not from LAW but through faith...this is what Christ has revealed as the "WORD." It is by that "NEW RIGHTEOUSNESS" that "WORD OF CHRIST" by which we are judged. If someone is condemned, he is condemned for his UNBELIEF (Rm 11:23; Heb 3 etc)

19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief!

To these passages I would also add:

John 3:18 says "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Romans 5:18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

1 Cor. 5:11 Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. 12 We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. 13 If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. 16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Thess 2:10 and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

And

Rom 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen

So, God is not condemning them because of the imputed sin of Adam, but because they traded the clearly revealed truth for a lie and followed their own lusts. God THEN gave them over to those lusts. Their hearts BECOME defiled. They are "without excuse" because they "clearly saw" and "understood" God's revelation of Himself.

Calvinism removes that clarity and understanding with their doctrine of "Total Depravity" and gives men back a perfect excuse. "I could not understand because I wasn't regenerated." "I could not clearly see because the gospel must be 'spiritually discerned' and I'm just a 'natural man.'"

 

Arminians also believe in total depravity.

 

Some might, but not the original ones. The 5 points of TULIP were created by the first Arminians as a list of areas in which they disagreed.

Plus, I think if most non-Calvinists really understood the full claim of Calvinism's view of TD, they would reject it. We affirm the doctrine of Original Sin, which some mistakenly equate to Total Depravity. I address this point more fully HERE>

 

Why, yes they do... :laugh:

And, they believe that only by God's grace can someone actually come to Christ.

But we're talking about annihilationism here. Arminian thought won't help or hinder that discussion. Here, one is either liberal or true to the Scriptures.

 

Some extremely conservative five-point Calvinists hold to conditionalism (annihilationism).

Earle Ellis was certainly not a "liberal" (whatever that means to you) and he specifically held an annihilationist theology.

While I have a number of disagreements with Earle's theology (and freely and cheerfully discussed it with him a number of times at church and in more private settings - he was a good friend of my in-laws and an occasional guest in their home), he was no liberal in regarding to the reliability and clarity of the scripture.

The issue of annihilationism is a matter of interpretation, not necessarily whether or not someone holds the scripture to be infallible.

 

Seems unbelievable God would burn people alive for all eternity... think about it... all eternity. This idea goes agianst the concept of a loving, merciful God.

I believe it to be symbolic, eternal destruction, no hope of a resurrection for those in the second death.

No where in God's Word have sinners been tortured by God, killed yes, consumed by fire, yes, never tortured.

Why the symbolism of fire? Fire completely destroys.
Why eternal? No hope of resurrection.

Acts 2:25-27 / Rev 20:13, 14

 

Except that mercy was offered to everyone prior to hell and men chose to reject that mercy anyway. So it is completely in line with a merciful and loving God. Eternal torment is literal and any other teaching contrary to that is very grievous and shameful. For it distorts the wrath and justice of God, overlooks the weight of man's sin, and is in competition with the clear teaching of scripture.

*Note- I do not care of the reformed position on election.

 

Nowhere in the Bible does it say the wicked suffer an eternal conscience torment. You have to read that into the text. Paul says that we put off mortality and put on immortality. He does not say this for the wicked. Death means death. Eternal destruction is also not eternal conscience torment. Once again that is adding to the text. There are many evangelicals who hold to conditional immortality. Wehnam, John Stackhouse, Stott, n. T. Wright.

 

Annihilation would be a mercy.

 

Al mohlar versus Chris date. DATE IS REFORMED but molars best argument is that ECT is the traditional view.

Unbelievable? Should Christians rethink Hell? Dr Al Mohler & Chris Date debate the traditional & conditionalist view: Saturday 03 January 2015 2:30... - Premier Christian Radio

 

There is a third view in which Christ's actual deaths, yes His dearhs on the cross shows eternal torment to be the end result for the lost.

There are two Biblical truths which reveal this.
Christ's soul died on the cross.
Isaiah 53:10, ". . . shalt make his soul an offering for sin, . . ."
Isaiah 53:12, ". . . he hath poured out his soul unto death: . . ."
And this was completed on the cross.
John 19:28, ". . . Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, . . ."
The atonement was completed while Jesus was conscious when His soul was dead on the cross,
A dead soul is conscious.

 

Then another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name” [Revelation 14:9-11].

 

Yes, that's a strange position for a Baptist to take, since the "traditional view" of baptism was infant baptism at the start of the Baptist movement during the Radical Reformation. Baptists assert that clear scriptural instruction trumps tradition every time.

 

Yes, that's the prophetic language of eternal destruction derived from the Isaiah 34 reference of the destruction of Edom:

Isaiah 34
1 Come near, you nations, to hear!
Listen, you peoples.
Let the earth and all it contains hear,
the world, and everything that comes from it.
2 For Yahweh is enraged against all the nations,
and angry with all their armies.
He has utterly destroyed them.
He has given them over for slaughter.
3 Their slain will also be cast out,
and the stench of their dead bodies will come up.
The mountains will melt in their blood.
4 All of the army of the sky will be dissolved.
The sky will be rolled up like a scroll,
and all its armies will fade away,
as a leaf fades from off a vine or a fig tree.
5 For my sword has drunk its fill in the sky.
Behold, it will come down on Edom,
and on the people of my curse, for judgment.
6 Yahweh’s sword is filled with blood.
It is covered with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats,
with the fat of the kidneys of rams;
for Yahweh has a sacrifice in Bozrah,
And a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7 The wild oxen will come down with them,
and the young bulls with the mighty bulls;
and their land will be drunken with blood,
and their dust made greasy with fat.
8 For Yahweh has a day of vengeance,
a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
9 Its streams will be turned into pitch,
its dust into sulfur,
And its land will become burning pitch.
10 It won’t be quenched night or day.
Its smoke will go up forever.
From generation to generation, it will lie waste.
No one will pass through it forever and ever.

When I was a teenager in Sunday School, we were studying this passage and I asked where Edom had been located. I expected to find an active volcano there, since there would be smoke going up forever and it would be a wasteland where no one could pass through.

What we discovered is that Edom was located in what is now southern Jordan, with the carved rock city of Petra as one of the most well-known sites in the country. While there are ancient volcano flows and fields in the region, there is no "smoke" going up forever. Moreover, there are people who live in southern Jordan, and many tourists visit ancient sites.

Therefore, we have to understand that Isaiah is not being literal, but speaking in a prophetic vernacular, that God's judgment was coming upon Edom and it would be devastating.

Going back to the allusion to Isaiah 34 in Revelation 14, John is using the prophetic vernacular to say that the destruction of these persons who knowingly betray God by siding with the beast will be destroyed.