Objection 88: The Bible speaks of "everlasting Punishment" (Matt. 25:46) for the wicked, and of "everlasting fire" (verse 41) in which they will burn, and of their being "tormented day and night for ever and ever" (Rev. 20:10). This proves the immortality of the soul.
The underlying Greek and Hebrew words translated "everlasting" and "forever" do not necessarily mean literally unending. But before we delve into the Scriptural usage of these words to prove that, let’s take a minute to ponder the implications of a literal interpretation of these passages.
What would you think of a God who tortures the unsaved with burning literally for all eternity? Let’s say there was a particularly bad person who is cast into Hell. Should he burn for a day to punish him for his sins? A year? Let’s say he is really evil; would he deserve to be tortured in hell for a century? We are already verging into territory difficult to imagine or comprehend, but of course we would barely be getting started. If these verses are to be taken to mean literal forever or everlasting, a person could burn for 80 million years for the sins of a life that lasted only 80 years; a million years of punishment, of burning, for each year of earthly existence.
When you pause to think about it, does the concept of everlasting punishment, eternal burning, unending torture, make any sense at all? What picture of God does this paint? Would the God of love described in the Bible (1 John 4:7-12) burn someone in hell throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity for the sins of a brief earthly life?
There is a branch of apologetics called theodicy, which takes upon itself the task of vindicating God’s justice, of vindicating God’s character as a God of both justice and mercy. If we really believe that God would punish someone in Hell literally forever, for eternity, for the sins of a brief earthly existence, we are creating horrendous problems of theodicy, problems that would convince many reasonable people that this “God” we believe in is really the Devil.
Let’s contrast that with what Seventh-day Adventists believe: the saved and the lost do not go to Heaven or Hell when they die; rather, they lie in the grave in complete unconsciousness. (Eccl. 9:5) They have no sensation of the passing of time; as they experience it, the moment after they die they are resurrected (see Objection 83).
The redeemed are resurrected at the Second Coming of Christ (1 Cor. 15:51-54; Rev. 20:6) and, together with those redeemed who are still living, they are given glorified bodies and taken to be with the Lord (Mat. 24:30-31; 1 Thess. 4:16-18). The unsaved are not resurrected at the Second Coming, and the lost who are alive will be killed by the brightness of Christ’s coming (2 Thess. 2:7). Satan will be bound to the earth during the millennium (Rev. 20:1-3) but will have no one to tempt, because the redeemed have been taken to heaven and the lost are all dead.
The redeemed spend a thousand years in heaven, called the millennium, during which time they will have ample opportunity to “examine the books of heaven,” that is, to examine the case of each person of interest to them who was not saved and resurrected at the Second Coming. (1 Cor. 6:2-3; Rev. 20:4-6)
At the end of the millennium, the New Jerusalem descends to the earth, the saved with it. (Rev. 21:1-4) The unsaved are then resurrected and eventually judgment is executed upon them; they are thrown into the Lake of Fire, to be burned up (“fire came down from heaven and devoured them” Rev. 20:9) (Rev. 20:7-9).
Keep in mind that the friends and loved ones of each person who is lost have had an opportunity to satisfy themselves of God’s justice in each case before judgment is executed.
Each lost person is consumed in the Lake of Fire. Some take longer than others to be burned up, depending upon their just punishment, but all are consumed, in a matter of minutes, hours, or days. No one burns longer than that. Satan, who has caused all the sin and sufferings, continues to burn long after everyone else is consumed, but even he eventually is turned to ashes.
Scripture is very clear that the lost do not burn forever, but rather are burned up, consumed and annihilated. (Psalm 37:10 “in just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.” 20 “But the wicked will perish; the enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures; they vanish—like smoke they vanish away.”; 104:35 “Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more!”; Mal. 4:1-3“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. . . . And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet.”; Mat. 13:40-42 “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.”; John 15:6 “If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”; 2 Pet. 3:10 “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”
Jude 1:7 tells us that, “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.” So Sodom and Gomorrah serve as an example of the “punishment of eternal fire,” but they are not still burning today! God burned them up; the result was eternal, but the process was not.
Revelation tells us clearly that the Lake of Fire is the second death, the implication being that those who are thrown into it die rather than living on forever:
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades [the grave] gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. Rev. 20:11-15).
From the standpoint of theodicy and apologetics, we should want the Seventh-day Adventist view of final events to be true.
With this Scriptural background in mind, let us return to the meaning and usage of the underlying Greek and Hebrew terms. The term translated as “everlasting” comes from the Greek noun aion, or from the adjective aionios derived from it. When we examine various uses of aion, we discover at once how impossible it would be to attempt to make this Greek root always mean literally endless or eternal.
We read in Matthew 13:39 and elsewhere of "the end of the world [aion]." How could the world come to an end if it is literally endless? We read of Christ that He has been exalted above “every name that is named, not only in this world [aion], but also in that which is to come.” Eph. 1:21. How do we get to the world to come if this one never ends? Obviously it does, the use of the term aion notwithstanding.
We read of "this present world [aion]." 2 Tim. 4:10. Again we see that an aion can have an end, because this present aion is to be followed by another and different one. Of Christ we read also, "Thou art a priest forever [aion] after the order of Melchizadek." Heb. 5:6. Here "forever," or aion, clearly means this present age; Christ's work as a priest comes to an end when sin has been blotted out. A priest is essentially a mediator between sinful humanity and a holy God, so when sin and sinners are no more, Christ’s mediatorial ministry is at an end.
We read of "Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them ... suffering the vengeance of eternal [aionios] fire." Jude 7. Are those cities, set ablaze long ago as a divine judgment, still burning? No, their ruins are quite submerged by the Dead Sea. The Bible itself specifically states that God turned “the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes.” 2 Peter 2:6. If the “aionios fire” of Sodom’s long ago judgment turned its inhabitants into ashes, then itself died, we may properly conclude that the “aionios fire” of the last day will do likewise.
When we turn to the Old Testament we discover that “everlasting” and “forever” sometimes signify a very limited time. We shall quote texts in which these two terms are translated from the Hebrew word olam, because olam is the equivalent of the Greek aion.
The Passover was to be kept "forever [olam]." Ex. 12:14. But it ended with the cross. (See Heb. 9:24-26) Aaron and his sons were to offer incense “forever [olam]” (1 Chron. 23:13), and to have an “everlasting [olam] priesthood.” Ex. 40:15. But this priesthood, with its offerings of incense, ended at the cross. (See Heb. 7:11-14)
A servant who desired to stay with his master, was to serve him "forever [olam]." (See Ex. 21:1-6) Obviously, forever does not mean literally forever, it means until death, for there will not be masters and servants in the world to come. Jonah, describing his watery experience, said, "The earth with her bars was about me for ever [olam]." Jonah 2:6. Yet this "for ever" was only "three days and three nights" long. Jonah 1:17. Rather a short forever.
Because Gehazi practiced deceit, Elisha declared, "The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee [Gehazi], and unto thy seed forever [olam]." 2 Kings 5:27. Should we conclude, therefore, that Gehazi's family would never end, and that thus leprosy would be perpetuated for all time to come?
Thus, by the acid test of actual usage, we discover that in a number of cases aion, aionios, and olam have a very limited time value.
What Bible usage thus reveals, Greek scholars confirm. For example, Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon, a standard work, gives the following as the principal meanings of aion:
"A space or period of time, especially a lifetime, life.... Also one’s time of life, age: the age of man. ... 2. A long space of time, eternity. ... 3. Later, a space of time clearly defined and marked out, an era, age, ... this present life, this world."
Alexander Cruden, in his concordance, which for many years was the best concordance in the English language, remarks under the word "eternal": "The words eternal, everlasting, forever, are sometimes taken for a long time, and are not always to be understood strictly."
The learned Archbishop Trench, in his authoritative work, Synonyms of the New Testament, remarks concerning the primary sense of aion:
"In its primary, it signifies time, short or long, in its unbroken duration; oftentimes in classical Greek the duration of human life." - pp. 208-9.
Now, having proved from the Bible and from Greek scholars that aion and olam are elastic terms, and oftentimes mean only a limited period, we have removed the basis for the objection. But our case is even stronger when we note the rule that commentators give for measuring the time involved in aion or olam in any text.
Adam Clarke, in commenting on Gehazi's leprosy (2 Kings 5:27), remarks:
"The forever implies as long as any of his [Gehazi's] posterity should remain. This is the import of the word le-olam. It takes in the whole extent or duration of the thing to which it is applied. The forever of Gehazi was until his posterity became extinct."
This agrees with the statement found in the quotation given earlier from Moule on Philemon 1:15: “The adjective [aionios] tends to mark duration as long as the nature of the subject allows.” Therefore, we should first decide whether a "subject" is so constituted that he can live endlessly before we decide that hellfire will continue endlessly.
Note the statement made in the well-known commentary by J. P. Lange:
"The bodies and souls of the wicked will suffer as long as they are capable of suffering, which, since they are immortal, will ... be forever." - Comment on Jude 7.
But if they are not immortal, then obviously they will not suffer literally forever, and the claim that the soul is immortal is the very point to be proved. The Bible nowhere declares that the soul is immortal. We have seen several passage stating that God alone is immortal. (See answer to objection 80.)
In the case of the wicked the "nature of the subject" demands the conclusion that complete and speedy annihilation will take place. The wicked are described as "chaff. .... stubble. .... wax," "fat," etc. (See Mat. 3:12; Ps. 68:2; 37:20.) We are told explicitly that the fire "shall burn them up" and "shall leave them neither root nor branch," so that "they shall be ashes under the soles" of the feet of the righteous. Mal. 4:1-3.
Now, while we can thus correctly conclude that the "everlasting torment of the wicked is but a limited period, we can at the same time logically conclude that the "everlasting" reward of the righteous is an unending one, for we are explicitly told that the righteous "put on immortality" at the Advent of Christ. (See 1 Cor. 15:51-55) Thus the "nature of the subject" being immortal, the "everlasting" is correctly understood as meaning endless.