Yes, Trent Horn, Hell Is Real, and it Is Eternal – Part 3/3

~ Read Part 1 or Part 2 ~

The Smoke of Their Torment Rises Forever and Ever
Turning our attention now to Revelation 14:11, Trent says that Revelation’s account speaks of “those condemned to hell, in which ‘the smoke of their torment goes up for ever and ever; and they have no rest, day or night.’” To demonstrate how this verse better supports annihilationism, let’s set our crosshairs on finding out what it means that the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. Jumping ahead to Revelation 19:3, smoke is also said to rise from Babylon forever and ever, but that is not all that is said about Babylon. Smoke rising from her forever and ever is the outcome of what is said to have happened to her in the last chapter. In Revelation 18, we read that she will be burned down (18:8), that in a single hour she has been laid waste (18:19), and that, interpreting the scene for John, “a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, ‘So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more” (18:21). Far from being support for the traditional view, smoke rising is actually an idiom referring to complete destruction. Indeed, Genesis 19:28 notes that “the smoke of the land went up like smoke of a furnace” after the Lord utterly wiped out Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and sulfur (19:24-25)—the same two elements mentioned in Revelation 14:10. Now, one may try to say, “Yeah, both passages speak of smoke rising and of being afflicted with fire and sulfur, but in Revelation, unlike in Genesis, the smoke rises forever and ever, and it’s specifically the smoke of their torment, not of their destruction.” To be blunt, this argument has no teeth. Torment and destruction are not mutually exclusive. The process of being destroyed by fire is undoubtedly to experience a great deal of torment. In Revelation 18:7-9, speaking of Babylon, we read: “As much as she glorified herself and lived in luxury, give her a measure of torment and mourning… and she will be burned down with fire… the kings of the earth… will weep… when they see the smoke of her burning.” You see, Revelation’s account itself makes it clear that torment and destruction go hand in hand, speaking of smoke as the result of fiery, destructive torment. Now, concerning the “forever and ever” part, it is simply meant to intensify the idiom; it symbolizes destruction from which that which was destroyed will never return. To be sure, consider Isaiah 34:9-10, a text that refers to the destruction of Edom: “And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur; her land shall become burning pitch. Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever.” Need I point out the obvious? Edom is not still burning, nor is there literally smoke still rising from it. So, again, to be clear, smoke rising forever is not evidence of fire burning something forever; it is an idiom communicating complete destruction.

They Have No Rest Day or Night
Still in Revelation 14:11, another statement is worthy of attention, namely that beast worshippers “have no rest day or night.” According to Trent, it is “the common sense interpretation that the damned endure unending suffering.” But is that really the case? I don’t think so; common sense would not have us read this statement in a way that contradicts the fact that smoke rising communicates complete destruction. What is the correct interpretation, then? To answer that, let me suggest that the non-canonical book of Enoch might be of service. According to Robert Henry Charles, “1 Enoch has had more influence on the New Testament than has any other apocryphal or pseudepigraphic work.”¹Robert Henry Charles, ed., Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), 178. In harmony with Charles, Ephraim Isaac says that “there is no doubt that the New Testament world was influenced by its language and thought.”²E. Isaac, “A New Translation and Introduction,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1 (New York;  London: Yale University Press, 1983), 10. Especially germane to the present case, in the next sentence, Isaac notes that 1 Enoch “influenced… Revelation (with numerous points of contact).” To begin, let’s compare Revelation 14:18-20 with 1 Enoch 100:3-4:

And another angel came out from the altar, the angel who has authority over the fire, and he called with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, “Put in your sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe.” So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for 1,600 stadia. (Rev. 14:18-20)

The horse shall walk through the blood of sinners up to his chest; and the chariot shall sink down up to its top. In those days, the angels shall descend into the secret places. They shall gather together into one place all those who gave aid to sin. And the Most High will arise on that day of judgment in order to execute a great judgment upon all the sinners. (1 Enoch 100:3-4)

Considering that both texts speak of angels gathering sinners for a punishment that leads to an accumulation of blood as high as a horse’s chest, it seems undeniable that the language of 1 Enoch 100:3-4 influenced that of Revelation 14:18-20.³It is worth noting that Rev. 14:18-20 is the enactment of the judgment foretold in Revelation 14:9-11, and the punishment portrayed by the large pool of blood is clearly death. Now, why point out this instance of Enochic influence? Because if Revelation 14 is known to have borrowed language from 1 Enoch, then it is probably not a bad idea to consider how 1 Enoch uses language similar to what we find elsewhere in Revelation 14. Having said that, it turns out that in 1 Enoch 99:14, only 5 verses prior to 1 Enoch 100:3, we read this:

Woe to them who reject the measure and eternal heritage of their fathers
And whose souls follow after idols;
For they shall have no rest.

Coincidence? I think not. In fact, even the woe to those who “reject the measure and eternal heritage of their fathers” fits quite well with the beginning of Revelation 14, which points out that only 144,000 Israelites (12,000 per tribe) “follow the Lamb wherever he goes” (v. 4), meaning that the rest of Israel rejected the measure and eternal heritage of their fathers, which found their final and greatest expressions in Christ. That is why Jesus speaks of those who deny Him as “those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan” (Rev. 2:9). Not only so, but are worshipers of the beast not examples of people who follow after idols? It is these who will have no rest. Here, we are faced with the question whose answer might be of service: Is the notion that they shall have no rest incompatible with death being their final fate? No, not at all. 1 Enoch 99:14 is part of a short series of woes, and in 99:11, the first woe is the following:

Woe to you who spread evil to your neighbours;
For you shall be slain in Sheol.

The fate of the wicked, according to the fifth and final section of 1 Enoch (91-107), is a violent death. The last woe is no less clear, saying that the Most High shall “destroy you all with the sword” (99:16). In the previous chapter, we read: “And now, know ye that ye are prepared for the day of destruction: wherefore do not hope to live, ye sinners, but ye shall depart and die; for ye know no ransom… Woe to you who set at nought the words of the righteous; for ye shall have no hope of life.” (98:10, 14). Further, we read that “the spirits of those who died in righteousness shall live and rejoice; their spirits shall not perish” (103:4), whereas “the names of (the sinners) shall be blotted out from the Book of Life and the books of the Holy One; their seeds shall be destroyed forever and their spirits shall be slain” (108:3). Also, similar to “they shall have no rest” in 99:14, the previous woe in 99:13 says that the wicked “shall have no peace.” Whatever “you shall have no peace” means, it is not that the wicked are expected to forever experience distress, since the previous chapter says: “Therefore they shall have no peace but die a sudden death” (98:16). Instead, it is meant to be a point of contrast with the notion that “there shall be peace to the righteous in the name of the Eternal Lord” (58:4), a peace grounded in the fact that “the days of their life shall be unending, and the days of the holy without number” (58:3). As we read elsewhere, “there shall be length of days with that Son of Man, and the righteous shall have peace and an upright way in the name of the Lord of Spirits for ever and ever” (71:17). 

Likewise, there is no reason to think that “they shall have no rest” is inconsistent with death being the punishment of the wicked. In fact, we have every reason to think otherwise. Aside from the immediate context strongly supporting that it is, we can find further evidence of this when we look at the way this kind of language is used in an earlier section of 1 Enoch. In 38:2, a rhetorical question is asked: “Where [will be] the resting place of those who have denied the Lord of Spirits?” The implied answer is, “Nowhere; they will not have a resting place.” Just a few verses later in 38:5-6, the author goes on to say that “kings and rulers shall perish” and that “no one shall be able to induce the Lord of the Spirits to show them mercy, for their life is annihilated” (Charlesworth translation – emphasis mine). Clearly, their not having a resting place does not mean they will live forever in a restless state. Indeed, in a show of sarcasm, the same author later answers his own rhetorical question, saying that “worms shall be their bed” (46:6), essentially to say, “Well, I’m not being entirely accurate in implying that they won’t have a resting place; they’ll rest in a bed of worms feasting on their corpses.” In the very next line, he adds that “they shall have no hope of rising from their beds, because they do not extol the name of the Lord of Spirits.” (Does that sound like an early Christian tradition we saw earlier?) 

It seems to me that “they shall have no rest” likely means one of two things. The first thing it could mean is that unlike the righteous who “shall eat and rest and rise with that Son of Man forever and ever” (62:14, Charlesworth translation – emphasis mine), the wicked will never get to enjoy resting with the Son of Man in the world to come.

The second thing it could mean is that they will have no rest during the outpouring of wrath leading to their destruction. In 63:1, we read that “kings who possess the earth implore (Him) to grant them a little respite from His angels of punishment to whom they were delivered,” and in 66:1 that “the angels of punishment… bring judgment and destruction on all who dwell on the earth.” In 63:6, still flowing from 63:1, we read that the kings will say: “We long for a little rest but find it not… And darkness is our dwelling-place for ever and ever.” To know what it means that darkness will be their dwelling place, we need only look back to 46:6 where the clause “darkness shall be their dwelling” runs directly parallel to the clause “worms shall be their bed,” meaning that they communicate the same fate. So, in 63:6, we see that the kings’ lack of rest ends in their annihilation.⁴“Darkness” is also used to refer to non-existence in the Old Testament. Job, for example, says: “Let the day perish on which I was born… Let that day be darkness… That night—let thick darkness seize it! Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months” (Job 3:3-4, 6). Either way, both possibilities are perfectly consistent with our view.

Either of these possibilities also seem like they apply well to Revelation 14:11. We can understand them having no rest as a direct point of contrast with Revelation 14:13, which says: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on… that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!” “For all good things,” says 1 Enoch 103:3, “and joy and honor are prepared for and written down for the souls of those who died in righteousness. Many good things shall be given to you—the offshoot of your labors.” Unlike the righteous who will enjoy rest with Jesus Christ in the new creation, the unrighteous will never get to enjoy such rest but will instead be deprived of continuance and length of days forever and ever. We can also understand “no rest” to refer to the time during which the angels of punishment mentioned in the passage—like in 1 Enoch 63 and 66—will be pouring out the wrath of God, ending in destruction. Again, either way, this text does nothing to tip the scales in favor of the eternal torment view. The fact that smoke rising forever can easily be demonstrated to refer to complete destruction, paired with 1 Enoch’s use of the phrase “they shall have no rest,” provides ample reason to view this text as better support for our view.

Objection!
Some may attempt to undercut my Enochic lens of interpretation by suggesting that 1 Enoch teaches eternal torment, not annihilation. Since this article is not meant to be a comprehensive treatment of 1 Enoch, I will try to brief. Recall what I said earlier: “The fate of the wicked, according to the fifth and final section of 1 Enoch (91-107), is a violent death.” 

According to Ephraim Isaac, “1 Enoch is clearly composite, representing numerous periods and writers.”⁵E. Isaac, “A New Translation and Introduction,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1 (New York;  London: Yale University Press, 1983), 6. “Milik,” Isaac writes, “has argued for the categorization of the Ethiopic version into five primary books with the last chapter being taken as a much later addition,”⁶Ibid., 7. namely chapter 108. These five books are The Book of the Watchers (1-36), The Book of the Similitudes (37-71), The Book of the Astronomical Writings (72-82), The Book of Dream Visions (83-90), and the Book of the Epistle of Enoch (91-107). Robert Henry Charles concurs, saying: “The Book of Enoch was intended by its final editor to consist of five Sections, like the Pentateuch, the Psalms, Proverbs, Sirach, and many other Jewish works.” 

Importantly, he immediately follows this up by saying (emphasis mine): “Behind this apparently artificial division lies a real difference as to authorship, system of thought, and date.”⁷Robert Henry Charles, ed., Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), 168. Indeed, of particular relevance to this article, Charles notes (again, emphasis mine): “Conflicting views are advanced on the Messiah, the Messianic kingdom, the origin of sin, Sheol, the final judgement, the resurrection, and the nature of the future life.”⁸Ibid., 164. So, even if it were the case that some passages outside of chapters 91-107 taught eternal torment, that would not damage my case. Whether any of the first four sections actually teach eternal torment is a debate for another time. For the purpose of this article, I want to focus only on the Book of the Epistle of Enoch. 

In his commentary on 1 Enoch, specifically under a section called “The Great Judgment According to the Epistle,” George W. E. Nickelsburg states: “As elsewhere in 1 Enoch, the judgment, when fully consummated, will be final. Judgment on the sinners is ‘destruction’ (98:3, 9, 10, 16; 99:1, 9, 16)—whether this means extinction or eternal punishment in the fires of Sheol (103:8).”⁹George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, ed. Klaus Baltzer, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2001), 425. It is interesting that, after pointing his readers to multiple verses that say the wicked will perish or be destroyed, he leaves open what “destruction” might refer to, considering that just one page earlier, he wrote that the author of the Epistle uses “the verb ‘to be destroyed’ or ‘to perish’ (ἀπόλλυμι, translating אבד) to designate the annihilation of the sinners who now unjustly prosper…”¹⁰Ibid., 424. (emphasis mine). The only verse that seems to make him not definitively land on the “extinction” meaning is 1 Enoch 103:7-8, to which I want to turn our attention.

But know that your souls will be brought down to Sheol, and there they will experience distress and tribulation in darkness, in nets, and in flames of fire. And your spirits will enter into a great judgment, and the great judgment shall be of all generations of the world. Woe to you, for you shall have no peace.

When we examine these verses in light of what we read shortly prior to it in the Epistle, it becomes obvious that they predict extinction as the wicked’s final lot, in line with the rest of the Epistle. Verse 7 begins by saying their “souls will be brought down to Sheol,” and we have already seen that they “shall be slain in Sheol” according to 99:11. Next, verse 8 says that their “spirits will enter into a great judgment.” Backing up just a few verses to 103:4, it is said of the righteous that their “spirits… shall live… their spirits shall not perish.” In concert with what this statement heavily implies about the result of the tribulation of the great judgment, consider 98:9-10: “Woe to you, ye fools, for through your folly shall ye perish: and ye transgress against the wise, and so good hap shall not be your portion. And now, know ye that ye are prepared for the day of destruction: wherefore do not hope to live, ye sinners, but ye shall depart and die; for ye know no ransom; for ye are prepared for the day of the great judgement, for the day of tribulation and great shame for your spirits.” Lastly, verse 8 says that the unrighteous “shall have no peace,” and as already unambiguously stated, 98:16 says that “they shall have no peace but die a sudden death.” 

Again, when we look at the language of 103:7-8 and consider how that same language is used elsewhere in the Epistle, it becomes unreasonable to conclude anything other than that the verses contain no shred of support for the eternal torment view. Therefore, the Enochic lens through which I support my reading of Revelation 14:11 stands on solid ground.

A Bit of Groundwork for Understanding Revelation 20:10
Revelation is a book in which John records an apocalyptic vision that he was given while in exile on the island of Patmos. To properly interpret certain passages therein, it is imperative for one to understand the relationship between vision (or dream) and interpretation. All throughout Scripture—from Genesis to Revelation—dreams and visions depict entities and events by means of symbolic imagery; they are not literal, straightforward descriptions of said entities and events. For example, in Revelation 1:12-16, John sees seven golden lampstands and seven stars in his vision. In Revelation 1:20, Christ interprets the vision for him, saying that “the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.” When visions and dreams are interpreted, the interpretation is the thing in reality. As a formula, it looks like: [Symbol] is [thing in reality]. Critically, symbols do not describe reality (e.g., the seven lampstands do not describe what the seven churches are) but merely symbolically represent it.

They will be tormented day and night forever and ever
Of course, Trent’s article would not have been complete if he had not raised Revelation 20:10 as support for his view. After all, it explicitly says that “they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” But who, exactly, is the “they” who will experience eternal torment according to verse 10? Explicitly, the answer is the devil, the beast, and the false prophet. On this point, Trent quotes Stackhouse who says that, granting that these three are actual persons, “Revelation teaches only that they do, and we are focusing in these essays on the destiny of human beings.” To counter Stackhouse, Trent unwittingly lays a trap for himself, saying:

But this neglects what Jesus said to the wicked human beings, whom he judges on the last day: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41, emphasis mine).

If the devil will be cast into a condition where he experiences eternal torment, and Jesus says damned human beings will be cast into that same condition, then we can reasonably conclude that human beings who reject God’s offer of salvation will experience that same eternal torment.

The Fate of Death
Think with me now. In Revelation 6:8, death is symbolized as a horseman named Death, and in Revelation 20:14, Death is thrown into the lake of fire. Granting Trent’s logic, if, in the vision, the devil is cast into the lake of fire and experiences eternal torment, and Death, in the vision, will also be cast into that same lake of fire, then we can reasonably conclude that Death, in the vision, experiences that same eternal torment. Fine, that may be what the symbolic vision depicts, but the question is, “What does that symbolic vision mean in reality?” In reality, according to Revelation 21:4, “death shall be no more” (cf. 1 Cor. 15:26). By applying Trent’s reasoning, we can say that if Death experiencing eternal torment in the vision symbolizes death being no more in reality, and the symbolic vision depicts unbelievers as experiencing eternal torment, then we can reasonably conclude that unbelievers experiencing eternal torment in the vision likewise symbolizes unbelievers being no more in reality.

If Trent decides to back away from his reasoning, then Revelation 20:10 becomes entirely irrelevant in the debate over the fate of unbelievers. If he stands by his reasoning, then he merely lays a foundation that annihilationists can build upon to prove our view.

The Fate of the Beast
More to the point, despite what the fate of the beast is explicitly said to be in the symbolic vision, the beast’s fate in reality aligns with that of Death. In Revelation 17:7-8, an angel interprets part of John’s vision and says, “Why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery… of the beast… The beast that you saw… is about to… go to destruction.” The Greek word translated “destruction” here is apoleia, which BDAG defines as “the destruction that one experiences, annihilation both complete and in process,”¹¹William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 127. listing 17:8 as an instance where the definition applies. Moreover, in the vision of Daniel 7, which foretells the same events as Revelation, the ten-horned beast (Dan. 7:24; Rev. 17:12) that rises out of the sea (Dan. 7:3; Rev. 13:1) and speaks great words against the Most High (Dan. 7:25; Rev. 13:5) is “killed, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire” (Dan. 7:11). So, in the vision given to Daniel, the beast is killed, whereas in the vision given to John, the beast is kept alive in torment forever and ever. Of course, a contradiction in symbolism is only problematic if there is also a contradiction in interpretation, which is not the case. In line with the angel’s interpretation in Revelation 17:8, the beast’s death in Daniel 7:11 is interpreted thus in 7:26: “[the beast’s] dominion shall be taken away, to be consumed and destroyed to the end.”

The Fate of Unbelievers
So far, we have seen that both Death and the beast being thrown into the lake of fire in the vision to be tormented forever symbolizes that death and the beast will be no more. While we could safely stick by Trent’s reasoning and conclude the same will be true of unbelievers, we can do as we have just done in the case of the beast and peer deeper into the text for confirmation. Remember the formula I established using the example of Revelation 1:12-16, 20: [Symbol] is [thing in reality]. In Revelation 20:14 and 21:8, we are told that the lake of fire is the second death. Following the formula, the second death is the thing in reality, and the lake of fire merely symbolizes it. Just as the seven lampstands in 1:20 do not describe what the seven churches are, eternal torment in the lake of fire does not describe what the second death is; lampstands and the lake of fire merely symbolize churches and the second death. The unrighteous will literally die a second time, which fits well with their names not being written in the book of life. “How does a place of eternal torment symbolize dying a second time?”, one may ask. I don’t know; perhaps because the former, like the latter, ensures that one will never again experience the joys of life. How does a lampstand symbolize a church? I don’t know; perhaps because both are meant to be lights to the world. We can come up with plausible answers to these questions, but whether we are incredulous to them is inconsequential; the precise way that a certain thing symbolizes another is not always crystal clear.

The Second Death in Jewish Literature
Having earlier examined the writings of three important, early church fathers, I hope Trent will now appreciate the Jewish background of the term “second death.” In a work entitled The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature, Martin McNamara writes the following concerning the second death: “An expression used four times [in Revelation] must have been current coinage when the Apocalypse was composed.” Notably, McNamara goes on to say that the term “is found nowhere in Jewish literature outside the Targums” (emphasis mine). The Targums are, in essence, an Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures. Since John almost certainly borrowed the term from the Targums, it would only make sense for us to consider how the term is employed in them. 

In Targum Jonathan on Jeremiah 51:39, 57, we read: “…they shall be like drunken men, so that they shall not be strong; and they shall die the second death, and shall not live for the world to come… And I will make her princes and her wise men drunk, her governors and her tyrants and her mighty men; and they shall die the second death and not live for the world to come…” Explicitly, according to this Targum, dying the second death results in ceasing to live. Living forever in torment, then, is not the fate communicated by the term “second death” in this Targum—annihilation is. In Hebrew, the verses say that “they will sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake,” which could be taken as denying the resurrection of the unjust, in which the Pharisees believed. To explain how the tension is only apparent, the author of the Targum clarifies that the perpetual death from which the unjust will not rise is the second death, which they will be made to face by rising from the first one. To perpetually sleep and not wake sounds nothing like living forever in torment. 

In Targum Onkelos on Deuteronomy 33:6, the author, understanding the blessing spoken in favor of Reuben to refer to the world to come, renders the verse this way: “May Reuben live an everlasting life and not die the second death…” Here, everlasting life and the second death are explicitly contrasted, meaning that the two are mutually exclusive. To further spell out the obvious, this is contrary to the traditional view, which posits that those for whom the second death is reserved will live forever. A similar rendition is offered in Targum Jonathan, which reads: “Let Reuben live in this world and not die the second death which the wicked die in the world to come…”

 In Targum Jonathan on Isaiah 65:15, we read: “You shall leave your name to my chosen for an oath, and the LORD God will slay you with the second death; but his servants, the righteous, he will call by a different name.” The second death, according to this Targum, refers to God slaying the wicked, as opposed to God rendering them immortal to suffer for eternity in the flames of Gehenna.

More could be cited to the same effect, but what is provided here should suffice. The second death, according to the Targums, is the result of God slaying the unrighteous in the world to come, such that they will not live forever in it, but sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake. If we had Jewish literature in which the term clearly bore a meaning congruent with the traditional view, then pointing to the Targums would merely balance the scales. But, seeing that “second death” is a uniquely Targumic term in the realm of Jewish literature, and it clearly refers to annihilation, the weight of the evidence here falls entirely on the side of conditional immortality.

The Eternal Fire Prepared for the Devil and his Angels
Lastly, what are we to think will result from the wicked being cast into eternal fire? We have already seen that Irenaeus thinks it will result in everlasting death. Is he correct? Most definitely. The phrase “eternal fire” is only used three times in Scripture, counting the verse Trent quoted, namely Matthew 25:41. 

In Matthew 25:41, no one would dispute that eternal fire is what inflicts “eternal punishment,” a phrase we find five verses later. We have already concluded that it makes most sense to understand eternal punishment as a reference to everlasting death, seeing that it is contrasted with eternal life, a “reward for the sheep,” in Trent’s words. The goats, then, to whom the reward will not be given, will be destroyed—cut off from life—in the eternal fire.

Earlier in Matthew 18:8-9, the same conclusion makes most sense. In verse 8, the phrase “eternal fire” is used, and in verse 9, the phrase “Gehenna of fire” is used as a synonymous parallel, meaning that eternal fire and Gehenna of fire refer to one and the same fate. This is key since the meaning of Gehenna of fire can be reasonably inferred by looking to the Old Testament. Gehenna is a Greek transliteration of a Hebrew abbreviation of “Valley of the Son of Hinnom,” namely Gehinnom. Concerning this valley, we read the following in Jeremiah 7:31-33:

And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. [32] Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth, because there is no room elsewhere. [33] And the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the beasts of the earth, and none will frighten them away.

The image that Jesus was evoking in the minds of his listeners in Matt. 18:8-9 was one of people being violently killed, not of eternal torment. This also makes more sense of Jesus saying “It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire.” He is saying that it is better to cripple yourself and remain alive than it is to keep all your members and be slain; or that it is better to lose only part of yourself than to lose all of yourself. To quote again the words of Irenaeus: “And just as then, those who led vicious lives, and put other people astray, were condemned and cast out, so also even now the offending eye is plucked out, and the foot and the hand, lest the rest of the body perish in like manner” (4.27.4).

Last but certainly not least, Jude 7 says that “Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities… serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.” By the phrase “eternal fire,” Jude is referring to the fire by which Sodom and Gomorrah were reduced to ashes in Genesis 19. Indeed, Peter, in a parallel passage (2 Pet. 2:6), says that “by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly.” Not only so, but everywhere these two infamous cities are cited as examples of what awaits the ungodly, both in Scripture and intertestamental literature, it is never in reference to any sort of ongoing experience in the afterlife, but always to what happened to them as described in the Genesis account (cf. Isaiah 13:19; Jeremiah 50:40; Luke 17:29; 3 Maccabees 2:5; Wisdom 10:6; Sirach 16:8-9; Jubilees 20:5). Traditionalists sometimes try to suggest that unlike its parallel in 2 Peter, and unlike all these other passages that refer to a past, completed event, Jude is referring to present-day suffering in the afterlife. To support this, they make much of the fact that Jude says that the cities serve as an example “by undergoing” rather than “by having undergone” a punishment of eternal fire. But of course, even to this day, when we refer to the destruction of the two cities, it is entirely correct to say that these cities serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire in the past, or in the pages of Genesis. After citing instances where God destroyed people for being disobedient, Paul writes this in 1 Corinthians 10:11:

These things happened to them as examples and were written for our instruction, on whom the ends of the ages have come.

If I said to you, “Christ serves as an example of love by suffering death on behalf of others,” you would immediately know that either a phrase like “in the past” is implied in my statement, or that I am referring to Christ suffering in the gospel accounts, wherein His selfless act is carried along through time; a single historical moment forever occurring in the pages of Scripture. Either of these options are inarguably preferable to the traditionalist proposition, considering that it makes Jude 7 disanalogous to its New Testament parallel, and makes it into an exception among every other mention of the infamous cities undergoing punishment. 

Again, there is no reason for taking Matthew 25:41 as support for the view that unbelievers, and even the devil, will be tormented forever and ever. Indeed, this text only bolsters our view, and suggests that the devil, like the beast and Death for whom eternal torment symbolizes being no more, will also be no more, despite what the vision symbolically depicts his fate to be. In this way, destroying all evil, the Lord will accomplish his “plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:10).

The reason fire which only burns its subjects for a brief time before reducing them to ashes is called “eternal fire” is because it proceeds from God, the eternal “consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29) whose breath is “like a stream of sulfur” (Isa. 30:33), from whom fire and sulfur rained on Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:24).

My Final Appeal to Trent Horn
Trent, if you truly took the time to read and digest everything written in this long-winded response, thank you. I hope you found it persuasive; if not persuasive enough to adopt our view, then at least persuasive enough for you to seriously begin considering it. As you’ve seen, our view rests not only on solid biblical grounds, but also on important early figures like Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch and Irenaeus of Lyons, and even finds support from Jewish sources like 1 Enoch and the Targums. As much as this article covers, it is still nowhere near everything Scripture, the early church, and Jewish literature have to offer. Please, if you have any questions or comments, or if you would like to talk about this on a private call, feel free to reach out. God bless you and your family.

~ Read Part 1 or Part 2 ~

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