In Defense of the Faith

What the Scriptures Teach

The Scriptural teaching concerning the punishment of the wicked is that they shall die. “The wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23. Now, death is not life, but is the opposite of life. To die is to cease to live. To die, therefore, does not mean an eternal conscious existence in hell, but eternal extinction. The wicked are to be “cut off,” “cut down,” consumed into smoke; pass away so that they cannot be found; burned up “root and branch,” reduced to “ashes,” burned up as “stubble fully dry,” and to be as though they had not been. (See Obadiah 15, 16; Psalm 37:9, 20, 22; Malachi 4:1-3.) How anyone could possibly read eternal torture into such expressions as these, we cannot tell. DOF 247.2

Nor can this everlasting-torment doctrine be harmonized with the statement that “God is love.” True, God will punish the wicked, and they will have to pay to the uttermost farthing for their rebellion and sins; but even the wrath of God against sin has a limit. Only a fiend would punish a human being in a caldron of fire and brimstone throughout the eternal ages, reckoning that his sins committed during a short lifetime merited such severity. Only a fiend could endure the horrible sight of the damned roasting and writhing in hell, and enjoy the foul miasma of such a plague spot, where the wicked were continually cursing and blaspheming God because of their agonies in hell. DOF 248.1

“What do you imagine against the Lord? He will make an utter end: affliction [or sin] shall not rise up the second time. For while they be held together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.” Nahum 1:9, 10. DOF 248.2

God has declared that sin shall be destroyed forever, that the earth shall be purified with fire, and that it shall come forth new and clean again from the hand of the Creator. It shall be clothed with the beauty of Eden once more. DOF 248.3

“The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them [the saved]; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God. Strengthen you the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.” Isaiah 35:1-3. DOF 248.4

God will have a clean universe again. He will not permit sin and sinners to mar it forever.’ He will not rope off a section somewhere in His kingdom to which He may turn at times for diversion, where the wicked are to be kept writhing in hell. God is not a fiend, that He should take pleasure in such things. “I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies, says the Lord God.” Ezekiel 18:32. It is God’s express purpose that the wicked shall be cut off, and that the meek shall inherit the earth. (See Psalm 37:2, ll.) DOF 249.1