Thus we have seen, so far, that Jesus Christ, Peter, and the book of Revelation teach the same thing. Real fire is coming at the end of this world. It will not only become the place where the lost are punished, but will serve a dual function of purifying our polluted sky and ground from every vestige of impurity.
This is something you're reading into the passage entirely. No where does Scripture even hint that the Lake of Fire has any role to play in the fiery consumption of the present heavens and Earth. This is a connection formed only in your imagination.
In
Matthew 25:41, Jesus Christ warned that unsaved sinners will enter “the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Have you asked yourself
why the fire is
everlasting?
Now think about it. Are Sodom and Gomorrah still destroyed? Yes. But are they burning now? Obviously not. Then what does “eternal fire” mean? By comparing Scripture with Scripture, it means that the fire came from God and that the punishment lasts forever, not the flames.
Hold your horses! Here's the passage from Jude on which you're erecting your theory:
Jude 1:7-8
7 as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
8 Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries.
I included verse 8 because it has an important clarifying effect on how we understand verse 7. When verse 7 refers to "cities" is it speaking primarily or solely of the physical building and boundaries of these cities? No. In fact, it is referring very specifically to the
people of these places. How do we know this? Because cities of brick and mortar, wood and earth, do not suffer and are utterly immune to vengeance. Obviously, then, it is the
people of these cities that are in view in
Jude 7, not the physical structures of the places called Sodom and Gomorrah. And their comparison to the
people Jude describes in verse 8 confirms this reading.
In light of this fact, your annihilationist theory ceases to gain impetus from
Jude 7. The physical buildings of these wicked cities are burned to ash (though, not
truly annihilated) but the residents of these cities, Jude tells us, continue to suffer the vengeance of eternal fire.
“Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (
Matthew 25:41, italics added). Is this fire the same type of fire mentioned in Jude 7, one which destroys completely? We know it is because five verses later our Lord clarified, “And these [the lost] shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal” (
Matthew 25:46). Thus the lost experience “everlasting punishment,” not punishing, just like the Sodomites.
You have either not recognized or are ignoring the parallelism in
Matthew 25:46. The parallelism is between the everlasting punishment of the unrepentant wicked and the eternal life of the righteous. The punishment of the wicked (which necessarily requires the consciousness of the wicked) is just as eternal, just as everlasting, as the reward of life of the righteous. If we limit the everlasting punishment of the wicked (which
must be
experienced eternally, if it is to be truly everlasting
punishment), we do violence to the parallel and render it and the verse meaningless. So, on two counts your thinking above fails. First,
Jude 7 does not, as I explained, teach the annihilation of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and therefore, second, it cannot be made to support your erroneous idea that Jesus meant annihilation when speaking of the punishment of the wicked in
Matthew 25:46.
Paul also wrote about “everlasting” consequences overwhelming unsaved sinners. Paul warned that when Jesus Christ returns He will come “in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power…” (
2 Thessalonians 1:8, 9, italics added). Here “everlasting” is combined with “destruction,” which means the lost are destroyed forever, just like the Gomorrahites.
But, again, this is what you're reading
into the passage rather than drawing out of it. If one is annihilated, all possible punishment ceases at that time. One cannot be punished when one no longer exists. However enduring the duration of the effect of the punishment might be, the punishment itself is over for the wicked when their annihilation occurs. It makes no sense, then, for Paul to write of the wicked being punished by "
everlasting destruction" when their punishment only lasts as long as it takes to be annihilated.
In addition to Jesus Christ, Jude, and Paul, John the Baptist also warned about “unquenchable fire” engulfing the unredeemed. On the surface, one might assume John was referring to ceaselessly burning flames. But he wasn’t. Calling the saved “wheat” and the lost “chaff,” the wilderness prophet announced that God’s Messiah would “thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will
burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (
Matthew 3:12, italics added). Thus “unquenchable fire” isn’t fire that burns forever, but fire that can’t be snuffed out by man. It burns up the chaff until there is nothing left.
What you've written here blatantly ignores the plain meaning of "unquenchable." It is
not assumption to think that "unquenchable fire" was intended by the apostle John to be understood to mean "ceaselesly burning" or "a fire that cannot be snuffed out." These are the
normal, straightforward meanings of the phrase! What
is an assumption is your unfounded idea that he meant "fire that can't be snuffed out
by man." Your "by man" addition is totally unwarranted. The unquenchable fire John writes of he describes in greater detail in his Revelation:
Revelation 14:11
11 And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name."
Clearly, the "unquenchable fire" does not consume utterly as you are eager to contend.
Opposite of life is death---life is consciousness, awareness, existence. Death is lack of consciousness, lack of awareness, lack of existence. Eternal life is eternal consciousness, eternal existence, eternal awareness. Eternal death is eternal unconsciousness, eternal nonexistence.
I absolutely disagree - and so does the Bible - with this definition of death that you offer here. The dead are clearly depicted as conscious in the hereafter throughout the Bible.
Here's one example:
Matthew 17:1-3
1 Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves;
2 and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.
3 And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him.
If death is, as you say, the end of consciousness, how on earth are Moses and Elijah chatting with Jesus on the mountain? They are both long dead! Yet, here they are appearing before Peter, James and John.
And what about this passage?:
Revelation 6:9-11
9 When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.
10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?"
11 Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed.
How can these martyred saints be in heaven pleading with God for justice if they have ceased to be conscious of anything? How is that they can speak? How is it that they can wear white robes? It seems your ideas about the afterlife need some adjustment.
Selah.
