Category: RH Cheat Sheets

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1. Tormented with fire and sulfur… in the presence of the Lamb – (a) The mention of fire and sulfur is a direct allusion to the “sulfur and fire” that “the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah… from the LORD out of heaven” (Gen 19:24), such that the inhabitants were “turned to ashes” and “condemned to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly” (2 Pet 2:6).
  (b) The Greek verb translated “tormented,” basanizō, is not antithetical to death and destruction. In 4 Maccabees 13:27 for example, we read about faithful Jews who, refusing to renounce their way of life, were “tortured (basanizō) to death.”

2. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever – (a) In Rev 19:3, smoke is also said to rise from Babylon forever and ever. However, smoke rising from her forever and ever is the outcome of what is said to have happened to her in the previous chapter. In Rev 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). So, far from being support for the traditional view, the language of rising smoke actually communicates complete destruction.
  (b) Indeed, the language of rising smoke, like that of fire and sulfur, is also meant to call one’s mind back to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. In the aftermath, Genesis 19:28 notes that “the smoke of the land went up like smoke of a furnace,” and Wisdom of Solomon 10:7 relays many centuries later that “evidence of their wickedness still remains: a continually smoking wasteland… and a pillar of salt.”
  (c) Lastly, 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.” Of course, Edom is not still burning. Smoke rising forever is not evidence of fire burning something forever; rather, it speaks to the destruction’s permanence.

3. … and they have no rest, day or night – (a) One way of interpreting this language is to take it as imagery describing eternal torment but which symbolizes destruction. According to Rev 20:10, the beast who was thrown into the lake of fire in Rev 19:20 will be tormented forever and ever. In Rev 17:8, however, an angel interprets John’s vision and says that “the beast that you saw… is about to… go to destruction.” Thus, there is precedent for taking eternal torment imagery to symbolize destruction.
(b) Another way of interpreting this language is to deny that the imagery even describes eternal torment at all. The non-canonical book of 1 Enoch is helpful here. Ephraim Isaac says that “there is no doubt that the New Testament world was influenced by its language and thought,” and that Revelation was “influenced… with numerous points of contact.” That said, in 1 Enoch 99:14, we read: “Woe to them who… follow after idols, for they shall have no rest.” The other woes in 99:11, 13 (cf. 98:16) & 16 make it clear that “they shall have no rest” doesn’t mean something like, “they shall live forever in a restless state,” since they promise slaughter, death, and destruction by sword. Indeed, in 66:1, we read about “angels of punishment” who bring “judgment and destruction”; in 63:1, kings “implore [God] to grant them a little respite from His angels of punishment”; and then, in 63:6, 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.” In 46:6, 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 fate of those who find no rest is death and decay. Thus, there is precedent for taking this language as entirely consonant with destruction.

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Mateo 25:46: “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

1. Eternal punishment and eternal life (i.e. living forever – cf. John 6:54 & 6:58) are contrasted, indicating that the two fates are mutually exclusive; nobody receives both. That being the case, what must the word “punishment” here refer to or bring about? Death, the only fate that doesn’t involve living forever. Indeed, in Romanos 6:23, Paul explicitly contrasts eternal life with death. Likewise, in Juan 3:16, the Evangelist contrasts eternal life with perishing.
2. Even Augustine, writing in the fourth century, being no friend of conditional immortality, recognizes that “laws reckon the punishment [of death] to consist [not] in the brief moment in which death is inflicted [but in] that the offender is eternally banished from the society of the living” (City of God 21.11.1). Death from which there is no return is, properly speaking, an eternal punishment.
3. Some think that eternal punishment refers to, or implies, eternal punishing, meaning that they understand the punishing process to be eternal, which is incompatible with the death penalty since its punishing process is finite. While “eternal punishment” could—in a vacuum or in a different context—refer to, or imply, an eternal punishing process, this interpretation fails to hold up (1) because of the contrast with eternal life, and (2) because eternal fire kills those subjected to it (see cheat sheet on Matthew 25:41). Life or death is a true dichotomy, and it precludes this eternal punishing interpretation.
4. More to the previous point, the word “punishment,” kolasis in Greek, is what linguists call a deverbal noun. Many deverbal nouns can refer either to the process or the result of their respective related verbs. For example, the deverbal noun “translation” can refer either to the process of translating (e.g. “Translation is tedious work”) or to the result of translating (e.g. “This translation is remarkably precise”). In the case of kolasis here, for the reasons listed in Point 3, the result reading must be correct (i.e. “punishment” refers to the result of punishing).
    
   • This kind of relationship between a deverbal noun and the adjective aiōnios (eternal, everlasting) is something we can see, for example, in 2 Maccabees 7:9, where a Jewish martyr looks forward to an aiōnios anabiōsis, that is, an eternal revivification. Obviously, the process of reviving is finite, or else, by definition, the one being revived would never actually come back to life (once one is alive, the process of reviving is over). So, the only sense in which “revivification” here can be called “eternal” is if revivification refers to the result of reviving. Thus, there is strong linguistic precedent for taking a noun like “punishment” to refer to the result of punishing. See Hebrews 5:9, 6:2, and 9:12 for additional examples.

In short, Matthew 25:46 teaches, by virtue of contrasting eternal punishment with eternal life, that the unrighteous will not live forever but face a permanent death.

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Mateo 25:41: “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

1. The term “eternal fire” is used only two other times in Scripture (Matthew 18:8-9; Jude 7).

1. In Matt. 18:8-9, it is used in parallel with “gehenna of fire,” meaning that “eternal fire” and “gehenna of fire” refer to one and the same fate. Gehenna is a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew term “gehinnom”—that is, the Valley of the Son of Hinnom. In Jeremiah 7:31-33, we read that this valley was to be renamed the “Valley of Slaughter” because it would be full of dead bodies. By the term “gehenna of fire,” then, Jesus was evoking in the minds of his Jewish listeners a gruesome image of death, not of eternal torment. It follows that the same is true of the term “eternal fire.” 
2. In Jude 7, the term refers to the fire that rained from the Lord and reduced Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes (See 2 Pedro 2:6, a more explicit parallel passage). Evidently, to speak of Sodom and Gomorrah undergoing eternal fire isn’t to speak of them burning for eternity, but to speak of them being eradicated. Eternal fire is eternal in that its effect (or consequence) is eternal; unlike the righteous who die at the hands of the wicked, the slain inhabitants of these cities are never to expect a reversal of fortune.

2. In Matthew 25:46, just five verses after 25:41, the final fates of the unrighteous and the righteous are contrasted, and it is only the righteous who will enter eternal life. If the eternal punishment does not include eternal life, what must the final fate of the unrighteous be? Death (cf. Rom. 6:23). So, what does eternal fire do? It kills those who are thrown into it.

3. In Isaiah 33:14, a question is placed in the mouths of sinners for rhetorical effect: “Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?” The implied answer is “None of us”; they expect to be “burned to lime” (Isaiah 33:12). To threaten sinners with eternal fire, then, is to threaten them with inevitable death, not eternal torment—and that would still follow even if eternal fire referred to fire that burns forever rather than to fire that is eternal in consequence.

In short, since no one can dwell with everlasting burnings, the threat of eternal fire in Matthew 25:41 points to inevitable death, not everlasting pain, in harmony with Matthew 18:8-9 and Jude 7.

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Mark 9:47-48: And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell (gehenna), [48] ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’

1. The word translated “hell” is gehenna, a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew term “gehinnom”—that is, the Valley of the Son of Hinnom. In Jeremiah 7:31-33, we read that this valley was to be renamed the “Valley of Slaughter, for they will bury [in it], because there is no room elsewhere. 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.” By the term “gehenna,” then, Jesus was evoking in the minds of his Jewish listeners a gruesome image of death, not of eternal torment.
   
2. The phrase, “where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” is a quote from Isaiah 66:24, according to which it is, again, dead bodies that will be subject to these things after the wicked have been slain (cf. Isa. 66:15-16), not immortal people. Similar again to the Jeremiah passage, the worm (or maggot) that “does not die” and the fire that “is not quenched” are consuming agents (cf. Job 24:20; Isaiah 30:33), as are the birds of the air and beasts of the earth whom “none will frighten away” from feasting on the dead bodies. In 2 Samuel 21:10, Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, after her two sons were hanged, “did not allow the birds of the air to come upon them by day, or the beasts of the field by night” because it was dishonoring for a dead body to not be given a proper burial but instead be consumed in the open for anyone to see. All it means for the worm to not die and the fire to not be quenched is that neither of them will be prevented by those things from consuming the corpses; it doesn’t mean the worm will never die, or that the fire will never go out. In Proverbs 23:13-14, the same Hebrew phrase (לֹא מוּת) translated “does not die” in Isaiah 66:24 is used this way: “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die (לֹא מוּת). If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.” Obviously, this does not mean that the child will never die, but simply that he will not do so prematurely. As for fire that is not quenched, it refers to fire that is not prevented from consuming that which it burns (cf. Jer. 17:27; Ezek. 20:47), not fire in which the unrighteous will burn forever.

In short, Mark 9:47-48 teaches that the impenitent will be slain and shamefully devoured by maggots and fire which, respectively, will neither die nor go out before the corpses are consumed as planned.

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1. The words “they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” describe what John saw in his vision—it is not straightforward, didactic teaching. Notice that the lake of fire in which the devil is to be tormented forever and ever is something the devil “was thrown into,” not “will be thrown into.” This is a sure indicator that he is describing what he saw in his vision, since the event he describes has not yet happened. The reason he says they will be tormented forever and ever is because he could not speak of something never-ending as having been completed, so don’t let that make you doubt whether it is still part of the vision.

2. All throughout Scripture—from Genesis to Revelation—dreams and visions depict realities by means of symbolic imagery; they are not literal illustrations of said realities. 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. 

3. In verse 14, 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 do not describe what the seven churches are, eternal torment in the lake of fire does not describe what the second death is. The unrighteous will literally die a second time, which fits well with their names not being written in the book of life.

4. Verse 14 also says that Death, a horseman symbolizing death in the vision (Rev. 6:8), will be thrown into the lake of fire. According to Revelation 21:4 just a few verses later, “death will be no more.” So, despite what the vision describes as happening in the lake of fire (eternal torment for the horseman), the reality is that death will be destroyed (cf. 1 Cor. 15:26, 54).

5. According to Revelation 20:10, the beast who was thrown into the lake of fire in Revelation 19:20 will be tormented forever and ever. In Revelation 17:8, however, an angel interprets John’s vision and says that “the beast that you saw… is about to… go to destruction.” In the vision of Daniel 7, which foretells the same events as in 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, contradictory symbols are only problematic if their respective interpretations propose contradictory accounts of reality, 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.”

In short, although the apocalyptic imagery of Revelation 20:10-15 depicts the lake of fire as a place of eternal torment for what is thrown into it, it actually symbolizes the end of those things in reality. Death was thrown into the lake of fire and will be no more, the unrighteous were thrown into it and will die a second time, and the beast who was thrown into it will go to destruction.

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Daniel 12:2: “And the multitude of those sleeping in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”

1. Only “some” will awake to everlasting life, meaning that the others—namely, those who will “awake… to shame and everlasting contempt”—will not live forever. (Everlasting life is just what it sounds like: living forever. “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life… Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” – John 6:54, 58).
2. Only contempt is said to be everlasting, not shame. To properly shame the wicked, their evil deeds and thoughts must be exposed in such a way that they are aware of it, hence the need for them to awake. Once faced with their condemnation, having been shown that they did not escape what they deserved (cf. Job 21:19-20), their shaming is final (Psalm 73:19-20).
3. The word translated “contempt” (deraon) is only used one other time in all of Scripture, namely in Isaiah 66:24. It reads, “And [those who worship me] shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence (deraon) to all flesh.” In harmony with Isaiah saying that the wicked will be an abhorrence to the righteous, the contempt of which Daniel speaks does not refer to a feeling that the wicked will experience, but to a feeling that the righteous will experience in remembering the evil that the wicked perpetuated—the righteous will forever remember their sins with contempt. This sort of picture is not only found in Scripture, but in other Jewish literature written prior to the birth of Christ. 1 Enoch 99:16, for example, reads: “[The Most High] shall… destroy you all with the sword, and all the holy and righteous shall remember your sins.”

In short, Daniel 12:2 teaches that the righteous will rise to everlasting life, while the wicked will rise to a shame-provoking trial exposing their evil deeds and thoughts, for which they will die a second time and forever be remembered with contempt.