1. Man is not immortal YET, but will be made that way! But mortality corresponds to the body. It is the body that will be made immortal, not the soul!
2. "The real issue between Dualists and Annihilationists is nothing other than this: Does Scripture teach that the wicked will be made immortal for the purpose of suffering endless pain; or does it teach that the wicked following whatever degree and duration of pain God may justly inflict, will finally and truly die, perish and become extinct forever and ever?" (The Fire That Consumes, Edward W. Fudge, Annihilationist, p. 425)

Now this is a powerful argument against annihilation. If ALL MEN both good and WICKED put on immortality at the resurrection, then how do they then cease to exist? What kind of immortality is that? Hence eternal torment! Never to die again! Man's body is not immortal now, but will be made so. All men, whether good or wicked! Man survives death consciously, then at resurrection is made immortal!

1. Simple, mortal refers to the body part not the soul. when man dies he survives death consciously. After resurrection, his immortal spiritual body is given to him and he will never again be apart from his body. IMMORTAL. But the second death is not the separation of the body and soul, but the separation of man from God for eternity in hell!
2. Remember, the saying, "Death is swallowed up in victory" will come about at the final resurrection. If the wicked die PHYSICALLY again, then God was wrong when he said: "when this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "Death is swallowed up in victory."" Obviously this was not true, for the wicked are swallowed up in physical death and death keeps its victory forever!

1. denies that the wicked are even raised from the dead as Christadelphians do thus contradicting "there shall certainly be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked." Acts 24:15
2. affirms that none of 1 Cor 15 has anything to say about the resurrection of the wicked, the central resurrection chapter of the Bible. Yet v22 proves this applies to ALL MEN! "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive."

1. "Morally, the doctrine of eternal conscious torment is incompatible with the Biblical revelation of divine love and justice. The moral intuition God has implanted within our consciences cannot justify the insatiable cruelty of a God who subjects sinners to unending torments. Such a God is like a bloodthirsty monster and not like the loving Father revealed to us by Jesus Christ." (a SDA leader)
2. "The doctrine of eternal torment is a wicked defamation of Jehovah. It is a foul stain upon his lovable name." (a Jw leader)
3. And now, who is responsible for this God-dishonoring doctrine? And what is his purpose? The promulgator of it is Satan himself; and his purpose in introducing it has been to frighten the people away from studying the Bible and to make them hate God. (Jw's: J. F. Rutherford, Watchtower Society's Second President)
4. 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. (Clark Pinnock, Professor, McMaster University)

In case you had not noticed Arians, who take an entirely physical outlook of man have a real problem regardless of whether they take the fire of hell literal or symbolic.

1. Location of Hell ... this earth is reserved for that fire which will bring judgment and perdition to the wicked. Their punishment will be in this earth. ... The prophet portrays the entire planet enveloped in the destroying fire. Even the streams and dust are transformed into an exploding combustion of pitch and brimstone." ... This brings us to the third great fact about the subject of hell. Hell as a place of punishment will be this earth turned into a lake of fire at the Day of Judgment." (Seventh-day Adventist, Joe Crews, Amazing Facts, Hell-Fire)

1. "the surrounding language of the book of revelation make evident the symbolic quality of the lake of fire" (Jehovah's Witness, Aid to Bible understanding, Lake of fire)
2. "so also the revelation of Jesus Christ with his powerful angels in a flaming fire will result in permanent destruction only for the wicked 2 Pe 3:5-7" (Jehovah's Witness, Aid to Bible understanding, Fire)
3. "Symbolic of compete destruction . Jesus used Gehenna as a representative of utter destruction. ... the symbolic picture here" (Jehovah's Witness, Aid to Bible understanding, Gehenna)

1. "Even so it will be with the FINAL gehenna fire. It will be unquenched--but it will finally burn itself out!"(WCG, What is hell? Ambassador BCC, Lesson 6, 1977)
2. Many people believe in an ... ever-burning hellfire ... But the Bible's simple teaching conveys nothing of the kind. Our God is a loving, merciful Father who does not want to consign anyone to that fate. (What Happens After Death?, United Church of God, an International Association)
3. This is why Jesus calls it aionios or age-lasting fire! The translation "everlasting" is misleading, since the fire itself will not burn forever. Obviously not, since God's Word clearly shows that when the present earth is purged and purified, it will be refashioned into a resplendent NEW EARTH! ... Jude 7 calls this ancient punishment "eternal fire" -- yet, the fire which devoured these cities in ancient times is not still burning in Palestine today! It burned itself out, long, long ago! ... "Unquenchable Fire" Mark 9:43 ... Does this mean the fire burns forever? Not at all. Take a match, light it and set a piece of paper on fire. Let it burn. Don't put it out, or snuff it out. Just let the paper burn, until it burns up. Soon it will burn itself out. Now, what do you have? A burned-up piece of paper. But did you put it out? Did you "quench" it? No. You left it unquenched. It was not quenched. Not at all! Even so, the final Gehenna fire will not be "quenched," or "put out." Nevertheless, in time, it will burn itself out when the wicked and all their wicked works are burned up! Any fire will go out when it runs out of fuel. That's the way the final Gehenna fire will be. In time, it will naturally burn itself out!(Heaven, Hell And The Hereafter, Triumph Prophetic Ministries (Church of God) W. F. Dankenbring)

1. the New Testament references to "eternal punishment" (Matt 25:46), "eternal destruction" (2 Thess 1:9), "eternal fire" (Matt 25:41; Jude 7), and "eternal judgment" (Heb 6:2), do not necessarily mean a process that goes on forever. ... The actual duration of aionos is determined by the context. For example, the fire by which the wicked are punished is said to be "eternal" (Matt 18:8; 25:41) or "unquenchable" (Matt 3:12). This can hardly mean that the wicked will be agonizing forever in the midst of unextinguishable fire. The latter is clear from Jude 7, which says that Sodom and Gomorrah suffered "a punishment of eternal fire." Here "eternal-aionou" obviously means not never-ending but complete and permanent. (SDA, Samuele Bacchiocchi, Advent Hope For Human Hopelessness)
2. the fire is "eternal-aionios," not because of its endless duration, but because of its complete consumption and annihilation of the wicked. (SDA, Samuele Bacchiocchi, ch 6, Hell: Eternal Torment Or Annihilation)
3. "the length of punishment. HOW long will the wicked continue to live and suffer in that fire? ... one thing we can say with certainty--the wicked won't live in that fire throughout eternity." (Seventh-day Adventist, Joe Crews, Amazing Facts, Hell-Fire)

1. "Some commentators have pointed to the Biblical instances of the word torment to support the teaching of eternal suffering in fire. However, ... Rev 20:10 does not have that sense." (Jehovah's Witness, Aid to Bible understanding, Torment)

1. "those cast into the lake of fire, [devil is cast there] go into second death from which there is no resurrection" (Jehovah's Witness, Aid to Bible understanding, Lake of fire)
2. "Some commentators have pointed to the Biblical instances of the word torment to support the teaching of eternal suffering in fire. However, ... Rev 20:10 does not have that sense." (Jehovah's Witness, Aid to Bible understanding, Torment)

1. "sinners, Satan, and the devils ultimately are consumed in the lake of fire and experience the extinction of the second death" (SDA, Samuele Bacchiocchi, ch 6, Hell: Eternal Torment Or Annihilation)
2. Malachi 4:1 "the day is coming, burning like a furnace ... so that it will leave them neither root nor branch" No words of any language could make it more forceful or clear. This eternal fire burns up eternally. Even Satan, the root, is finally consumed. (Seventh-day Adventist, Joe Crews, Amazing Facts, Hell-Fire)

1. The verse ... Rev 20:10 ... indicates that the devil is to be cast into the lake of fire that had already consumed and destroyed the beast and false prophet. Satan, being spirit, is the one who will be tormented forever. The evil angels-the demons-will be included with Satan in his torment (Matthew 25:41). (What Happens After Death?, United Church of God, an International Association)
2. "Satan will be cast into the same conflagration that will destroy all incorrigible mortals. Rev. 20:10 But since he is a spirit being, he will not be destroyed by the flames (see Luke 20:36) Revelation 20:10 shows Satan himself is to be TORMENTED unto the ages of the ages--"FOREVER AND EVER"! His torment will last forever. But not this fire. It will last only as long as combustible material remains to be consumed. Satan's torment, however, will continue forever as a mental anguish resulting from seeing all that he has striven toward, worked for, plotted for, burned up as the earth is purified by fire!"(WCG, What is hell? Ambassador BCC, Lesson 6, 1977)

One Neo-Sadducee refutes another: We are taking the unusual approach to let the Seventh-day Adventist church refute Armstrong. We agree with their comment.

1. "it is impossible to visualize how the devil and his angels, who are spirits could "be tormented [with fire] day and night for ever and ever" (Rev 20:10). After all, fire belongs to the material, physical world, but the devil and his angels are not physical beings. Eldon Ladd rightly points out: "How a lake of literal fire can bring everlasting torture to non-physical beings is impossible to imagine. It is obvious that this is picturesque language describing a real fact in the spiritual world: the final and everlasting destruction of the forces of evil which have plagued men since the garden of Eden." (SDA, Samuele Bacchiocchi, ch 6, Hell: Eternal Torment Or Annihilation)
2. Armstrong openly admitted that the devil being a spirit being, is different from men and must be tormented forever, "being as angels unable to die" they argue.

It is falsely argued by annihilationists, that in Mt 10:28 the word "apollumi" (Strongs #622) means to annihilate into non-existence because every other place this word is used in the TVM of #5658 (Tense - Aorist; Voice - Active; Mood - Infinitive) it means this. The truth is that we find most forms of the word used interchangeably. But remember they power of Mt 10:28 is that Jesus used two different words: Kill the body is all man can do, but destroy or "make lost" is what God does in Hell. Had Jesus used the same word in both instances, then annihilationists would have an argument because for them man can cause another man to cease to exist with a gun in the same way God can cause someone to cease to exist in Hell. But since two different words are used, our argument is powerful. Of course the most powerful argument we have is that only God can destroy the soul and man can only kill the body. The way annihilationists define man as a "mono-unit" of flesh alone, instead of a dichotomous combination of flesh and spirit like God, annihilationists simply cannot explain how man cannot kill the soul.

1. All Arians view that heaven is a physical restored paradise upon the earth. They have no concept of man's spiritual existence apart from the Gen 1:1 creation. Yet the Bible clearly teaches that the physical creation that occurred some 10,000 years ago in Gen 1:1, will be "uncreated" Just as the 103 (?) elements of the periodic table came into existence at creation, they will go into extinction at the second coming: 2 Pe 3:10. Our eternal reward is a spiritual existence in the spiritual presence of God in the realm He has always existed in before Gen 1:1.

1. This text provides a powerful argument for those who view the annihilation of men and the eternal continuity of the physical creation.
2. Notice that 2 Pe 3 describes BOTH the "perishing (apollumi) of men" and "destruction (LOU) of creation".
3. Two different words are used. Notice that "apollumi" is used to destruction of men and that LOU is used to describe the annihilation of the earth!
4. But even better notice that the flood perished "apollumi" the earth in the time of Noah and a different Greek word is used for the annihilation "LOU" of the earth by fire!
5. The conclusion is that "apollumi" describes not the annihilation, but "making lost" both men in hell and the earth at the Noaic flood and "LOU" describes the annihilation of the earth at the second coming!

1. Heaven is "not of this creation": Hebrews 9:11,24
2. God's future kingdom is "not of this world or realm": John 18:36
3. Physical universe will be destroyed: 2 Peter 3:10; Revelation 20:11
4. "Things seen are temporary, but things not seen are eternal": 2 Cor 4:18
5. "The first things have passed away": Revelation 21:4
6. Created things will be removed: Hebrews 12:25-27
7. No longer any sea, night, sun or moon: Revelation 21:1,23; 22:5
8. Heaven is in the very presence of the Father: John 13:36-14:6
9. We hope to "enter within the veil" where God dwells: Heb 6:19-20;10:19-20
10. We are earthbound guests with a heavenly destination: 1 Pe 1:17; Heb 13:14

1. "Destroy": For example, in the Old Testament, the word ahvad is the word which is usually translated as "destroy." In Num. 21:29, the people of Chemosh were "undone" ("destroyed" in NIV). In the context, the meaning of ahvad is that the people were conquered and sold into slavery. They were not annihilated but enslaved. In 1 Sa. 9:3, 20, Saul's asses were ahvad, i.e., lost. These asses were not annihilated, but lost. In Psalms 31:12, an ahvad vessel is merely broken, not annihilated. In Hab. 1:15, the word Gah rar means to catch something in a net, not to annihilate it. Dah chah in Isa. 53:10 is translated, " It pleased the Lord to bruise him.". Here it refers to Christ's sufferings, not to nonexistence. In Hosea 4:6, God's people are "destroyed" for lack of knowledge. In the context, this cannot mean that they were nonexistent. The same can be pointed out in the case of hoom (Ps. 55:2) and ghah ram (Josh. 6:8; Mic. 4:13). In the Greek, apollumi is used to describe ruined wineskins, lost sheep, and spoiled food (Matt. 9:17; 15:24; John 6:27). Apolia in Mark 14:4 refers to wasted perfume. Diapthero refers to moth-eaten cloth in Luke 12:33 katheiresis to the pulling down of a fortress (2 Cor. 10:4) kataluo refers to lodging for the night (Luke 9:12) kataryco to a fig tree which "encumbered the ground" (Luke 13:7); luo refers to putting off one's shoes (Acts 7:33); portheo refers to persecuting the church in Gal. 1:13; phthiro refers to defiling the temple of God in 1 Cor. 3:17. The assumption that the words "destroy" and "destruction" automatically mean annihilation is not good English, much less good Hebrew or Greek. We can think of someone being "destroyed" or "wiped out" in an emotional sense without implying that the person has ceased to exist. ("Death and The Afterlife" by Robert Morey, p. 108-111)

2. "Perish" or "perished." In various forms the word "perish" appears 152 times in the KJV. In the Old Testament, there are 11 Hebrew words which are translated as "perish." The main word ahvad is the same word which is frequently translated as "destroy." We have already seen that it is erroneous to assume that ahvad means annihilation. Sha mad is found in Jer. 48:42 where Moab is said to be destroyed in the sense of the people being enslaved, not annihilated. Shah rhath is used of ruined girdles and vessels in Jer. 13:7; 18:4; kah rath is used of cutting a covenant or cutting timber to build the temple in Gen. 15:18; 1 Kings 5:6; eah vag. nah phal, and gah var are used to describe a miserable emotional state (Ps. 42:7; 55:4, 88:15,16). In the New Testament, there are ten different Greek words which are translated "perish." Some of these words such as apollumi were also translated as destroy and do not mean annihilation. Apothneesko is used in John 12:24 to describe the grain of wheat which when planted "dies" and then sprouts. Obviously, it cannot mean annihilation. Aphanrzo refers to things which moths and rust can "corrupt" (Matt. 6:19,20). Kataphthiro is used to describe "corrupt" minds in 2 Tim. 3:8 (KJV). Even in English we speak of fruit as "perishable" in the sense that it can spoil. Burned out light bulbs have "perished." In neither case is annihilation intended. ("Death and The Afterlife" by Robert Morey, p. 108-111)

3. "Consume" or "consumed.": Forms of these words appear in the KJV 162 times. In the Old Testament, 20 different Hebrew words are translated as "consume." The usual word, ah chal is also used in Ps. 78:45 where the psalmist says that the flies "devoured" or consumed the Egyptians. The psalmist surely means that the flies tormented them, not annihilated them. Jeremiah used another word, bah lah, in Lam. 3:4, saying that his flesh and skin were "made old," or consumed, i.e., he was consumed with grief, not annihilated. Kah lah is used in Ezek. 13:13 where hailstones "consumed" a wall, i.e., knocked it down, not annihilated it. Dah gach is the normal word for putting out a fire. When we "put out a candle," we do not annihilate the candle. Even in English we speak of people being consumed with "grief, greed or lust," yet we do not mean that the person has ceased to exist. We have demonstrated that the annihilationists are in error when they arbitrarily assume and then assert that such words as "perish" necessarily mean annihilation. Once this point is granted, one is no longer impressed by such works as Froom where hundreds of quotes from biblical and extra-biblical literature are given to prove conditionalism simply upon the erroneous assumption that the mere presence of such words in the text means that the authors believed in annihilationism. ("Death and The Afterlife" by Robert Morey, p. 108-111)

1. To think that Christ was ignorant of what Gehenna meant to the common people of His day or to assume that He was mistaken in using the rabbinic descriptions of Gehenna is to do great injustice to Him who was the greatest teacher who ever lived. Indeed, the mere fact that Christ utilized the rabbinic language connected with Gehenna, such as "unquenchable fire" and "never- dying worms," demonstrates beyond all doubt to any reasonable person that he deliberately used the word Gehenna to impress upon his hearers that eternal punishment awaits the wicked after the resurrection. No other conclusion is possible.
2. The greatest problem that Annihilationists face when examining the intertestamental (between the Old & New Testaments) literature, is that the doctrines of the existence of the soul after death and eternal punishing are often manifest, with no "introduction" as would be required by a "new teaching." The Annihilationist view is that between the Old and New Testaments, Platonic philosophy infiltrated true Bible doctrine and entirely new concepts were introduced to replace the old beliefs about the soul and punishment. Yet, strangely lacking are any evidences of controversy in this area of belief. The Annihilationist answer to that would be that there was evidence of a difference of belief in the intertestamental writings. But since they can produce no actual apologetic or actual conflict from the historical records, they must argue from the silence of some intertestamental writers, who may discuss the future of the righteous without mentioning the wicked. Sometimes, as in the case of Fudge's and the Adventist Froom's quoting from Tobit, where it says that the unrighteous shall cease from all the earth, they claim that that proves the writer did not believe in eternal punishing. That is indeed a poor argument.

1. First, Gehenna is the place of judgement (Matt. 23:33). He even used the rabbinic expression, "the judgement of Gehenna" (Bab. Tal. ER126).
2. Second, Gehenna is always placed at the end of the world after the resurrection (Matt. 5:22; 23:33). This was expounded by John in Rev. 20:1-15. This was also the rabbinic position (Mid. Gen. 159).
3. Third, Gehenna is the place where the body as well as the soul is punished (Matt. 5:22; 10:28; Mark 9:43-48). The rabbis saw that the resurrection of the wicked was necessary in order for them to receive their full punishment in the body (Mid. Gen. 159; 211n4).
4. Fourth, Gehenna was the place of conscious torment. When Christ used the phrases "unquenchable fire" and "never-dying worms" (Mark 9:47,48, author's paraphrase), He was utilizing biblical (Isa 66:24), apocryphal (Judith XVI:17), and talmudic (Mid. Gen. 214) images which all meant conscious suffering. The annihilationists have a counter argument at this point. They point out that, literally speaking, while the worms and the fire in a city dump may destroy a dead carcass, it cannot be said that the dead carcass feels any torment. Therefore, they conclude that Christ's language must be interpreted to mean that the wicked will be annihilated, not tormented. The problem with this interpretation is that it fails to take into account that when Christ spoke of Gehenna in such terms as "worms and fire," He was clearly using rabbinic phraseology. Thus, it is more crucial to discover how these words were understood in rabbinic literature than by pointing to modern city dumps. The intertestamental literature is clear that the Jews believed that the departed could feel what was happening to their dead body. Indeed, when the worms start gnawing on the body, "the worms are as painful to the dead as a needle in the flesh of the living" (Bab. Tal. Shah. 777,778). Since the "gnawing worms" clearly meant conscious torment in rabbinic thought, the annihilationist's argument is invalid due to their ignorance of the meaning of such rabbinic terminology. That Judith XVI:17 also teaches conscious torment is clear.
5. Fifth, the wicked are cast into Gehenna and will remain there for all eternity (Matt. 5:29,30). In Gehenna, the wicked are "destroyed" (Matt. 10:28). That the word "destroyed" (apollumi) does not mean "to annihilate" or "to pass into nonexistence" is clear from the rabbinic meaning of the word, the lexicographical significance of the word, and the way the word is used in the New Testament. Thaver's Greek-English Lexicon defines apollumi as "to be delivered up to eternal misery" (p.36). Since Thayer himself was a Unitarian who did not believe in eternal punishment, his definition could only be the result of his knowledge of the meaning of his Greek word. There is no lexicographical evidence for the annihilationist's position that apollumi means "to annihilate" or "to pass into nonexistence." (Death and The Afterlife, Robert Morey, Dualist, p. 89, 90)

1. Between the Testaments a tendency arose in Jewish literature to relate visions of last things to names and persons from the Old Testament. Armageddon, Jerusalem and the Garden of Eden all became stylized descriptions of things to come. So did the Valley of Hinnom-gehenna. The thought of Gehenna as a place of eschatological punishment appears in intertestamental literature shortly before 100 B.C., though the actual place is unnamed. It becomes "this accursed valley" (l En. 27:2, 3), the "station of vengeance" and "future torment" (2 Bar. 59:10, ll), the "pit of destruction" (Pirke Aboth 5:19), the "furnace of Gehenna" and "pit of torment" (4 Esd. 7:36). (The Fire That Consumes, Edward W. Fudge, Annihilationist, p. 161)
2. The Babylonian Talmud had the worst Jewish sinners sentenced to Gehenna for 12 months. Then "their bodies are destroyed, their souls are burned, and the wind strews the ashes under the feet of the pious." All who enter Gehenna come out, with three exceptions: those who committed adultery or shamed their neighbors or vilified them. In the end, God would take the sun from its case, and it would heal the pious and punish the sinners. There would be no Gehenna in the future world. ["Ge-hinnom," The Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 5, cols. 581-583] Some rabbis were sympathetic; others were harsh. One can find quotes of torment by snow, smoke, thirst and rebellious animals. Others speak of the righteous observing the torments of the damned, "tossing in their pain like the pieces of boiling meat in a cauldron." Still others, more benevolent, said light flooded even Gehenna each Sabbath, and the wicked, too, had a day of rest. On the duration of the punishment, the rabbis contradicted each other. Some believed that the pain would continue forever with or without Gehenna, while others ended punishment with the last judgement. Whether this last view allowed a future life for the wicked or looked for their total annihilation cannot be determined conclusively. (The Fire That Consumes, Edward W. Fudge, Annihilationist, p. 163)

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