Faith First Media

What is Eternal Punishment?

by Matthew Elton

copyright 2009 Matthew Elton

"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

--Matthew 25:46

Matthew 25:46 speaks of “eternal punishment” for the unrighteous. But what exactly is that punishment? Eternal torture? Eternal separation from God? Eternal death (the "wages of sin")? I have heard all three of these ideas argued by various Christian teachers.

I believe that the unrighteous will receive eternal death - not eternal life in hell or eternal life in separation from God, but eternal death. The punishment will be everlasting - they will never, ever be raised again. I believe this for three reasons:

1) The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. That seems pretty clear to me.

2) The Bible says that the unrighteous will be destroyed. It specifically states that both their bodies and their souls will be destroyed. You can't experience eternal torture if both your body and your soul is destroyed. You need to be alive and sentient in order to experience torture, but if both your body and your soul is destroyed, you won't be alive or sentient. Thus, you could not be tortured for eternity if both your body and your soul were destroyed.

3) There is no such thing as a place of eternal separation from God, since Psalm 139:8 says that God is everywhere - even in hell! Note that the Hebrew word used - sheol - is usually translated "hell," and although it really refers to the grave, or the state of being dead, most Chrstians misunderstand it to mean hell in the Greco-Roman mythological sense of the word - a realm of fire where the devil lives. There is no biblical evidence in support of the existence of this realm.

The Bible says that the unrighteous will perish in the lake of fire, and be destroyed forever. The Bible says that their bodies and their souls will all be "destroyed" in gehenna - the valley of Hinnom south of Jerusalem where the lake of fire will be (Matthew 10:28). The Bible also says that the unrighteous will experience a "burning up" (Malachi 4:1) and receieve "destruction" (2 Peter 3:7), not eternal life in hell. They will receive the wages of their sins, which is "death" (Romans 6:23), not eternal life in hell, but death. The time when the unrighteous will be thrown into the lake of fire is called the "Second Death" (Revelation 21:8) because they will literally die a second time. After dying, being resurrected from the dead at Christ's return, and being judged by Christ, they will then be thrown into the lake of fire where they will die a second time and remain dead forever.