5) Specific Scriptural Teaching on the Nature of Final Judgment for the Wicked
Having briefly considered the general pattern of scriptural teaching on life, death, human mortality, judgment upon the wicked, and the fate of evil itself, we turn now to a brief exposition of some of the specific scriptural teaching on the nature of final judgment for the wicked.
One complication arises in this study for those who, like myself, approach New Testament prophecy with a generally partial-preterist hermeneutic: some passages which many interpreters have historically taken as referring to final, eschatological judgment, may refer primarily or even solely (depending on the passage) to the imminent historical judgment on Jerusalem, and therefore cannot be used to confidently bolster a case for annihilationism (see, for example, the preaching of John the Baptist against the Pharisees and Sadducees in Matthew 3:7-12--a passage that would readily buttress the idea of the literal consumption of the wicked on the Last Day, if that were more certainly what the passage were about, but it is not about that, at least not directly).
Even some later texts from NT epistles that are more probably about final judgment could still be read legitimately as referring to 1st-century judgments in place of or in addition to final judgment. In biblical prophecy it must be acknowledged that there are often (not always) layers of fulfilment (see Isaiah 7:14), types and anti-types. While the detailed judgment prophecies of Revelation 4-19 cannot seriously be thought to be exactly fulfilled repeatedly throughout history, nevertheless, history itself has a kind of "rhyme" to it, and universal principles of divine providence including judgment are always at work. Therefore the cataclysmic judgments of 67-73 AD and the end of the 1st century Jewish nation in 125 do speak to the final end of all things in certain ways, all the much more so as Israel was always a kind of microcosm of the whole world (compare thematically to Rom. 3:19).
Nevertheless here we will still focus on texts that seem most likely to refer to final judgment or at least demonstrate a clear connection between the nature of past historical judgments and future climactic judgments.
1) Matthew 10:28 quotes Jesus as saying, "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in [Gehenna]."
There is a lot to say about this passage. First, we must clear the table of the misunderstanding that "soul" in the New Testament, even in contexts in which it contrasts with "body," necessarily refers to a substantial, immaterial aspect of our being. While a handful of texts may indicate that we indeed do have a distinct, immaterial aspect of our being as humans (Lk. 23:43; Phil. 1:21-26), in both Hebrew and Greek, biblical references to "soul" (Heb. "nephesh," Gk. "psyche") should usually (perhaps not always) be taken to refer to an individual life, holistically. Most orthodox articulations of the fate of the wicked in Gehenna, after all, are post-resurrection and post-final-judgment, as distinct from disembodied "souls" experiencing provisional judgment in Hades. On this reading, Matt. 10:28 is exhorting followers of Jesus not to fear earthly powers to can kill the body in this life only (but cannot destroy one's life eternally) but rather to fear him (namely, God) who is able to destroy soul and body (holistic, eternal destruction of life) in Gehenna.
Objections by traditionalists come from at least two angles commonly here. A) Perhaps "destroy" doesn't mean slay, kill, or annihilate but only to "ruin" something such that it cannot maintain its original form or purpose; and B) the passage doesn't say God will destroy soul and body in Gehenna, but only that he can or could and should therefore be feared. However, A) is easily answered by the observation that "destroy" is put in precise parallel with "kill" and should be understood synonymously. To destroy a person/to destroy their body and soul in this context is precisely to kill them forever. "Annihilationism," as we said before already, isn't focused on the cosmic fate of the dust particles of the wicked and whether that material goes out of existence completely, but on the fate of the wicked person as one of being eternally slain, killed, or rendered unalive forever. B) is a rather facile objection, given the fact that the "teeth" of the exhortation are completely removed if we understand it as an empty threat, and given the fact that "Gehenna" is explicitly named as a specific place God could and obviously will carry out this threat (an allusion to the "Valley of the Sons of Hinnom" which becomes associated with idolatrous worship, child sacrifice to Molech, and resultant divine judgment, as a common 2nd Temple period image for expected post-mortem divine judgment).
The language of Matt. 10:28 is very unexpected and more difficult to interpret in an unstrained way if eternal conscious torment is the true fate of the wicked.
2) Matthew 13:24-30 is the parable of the tares and the wheat. While it is possible to read this passage preteristically, the very next two parables are favorites among postmillennialists--many of whom today are preterists--in arguing for the gradual growth of the kingdom of God across the entire Church age up until the return of Christ. At the very least, it is a provisional or typological judgment pointing forward strongly to final judgment, but it may very well be a picture of final judgment itself, in which the "tares" (the wicked) are bundled up, thrown into a furnace of fire, and burned up ("katakaio", an intensive of "kaio," so meaning "to utterly burn up" v. 30). It won't do to point to the explanation of the parable in vv. 36-43 and highlight the fact that "in that place"--in the furnace of fire--there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, as if that is A) said to go on there forever (it is not anywhere here said to continue forever); or B) what constitutes the actual punishment, rather than being merely a description of an emotional reaction to the punishment, a reaction of grief and anger. Tares are weeds, and when you throw weeds into a furnace of fire, the fire burns them up.
3) Romans 1 ends with a list of vices over to which God gives the wicked as a provisional judgment itself, and then notes that even though men "...know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them" (Rom. 1:32, my emphasis). Romans 2 goes on immediately to describe the impartiality of God in judgment, lest anyone self-righteously and hypocritically condemn others while they themselves sin in like manner. Paul contrasts the fate of the righteous--those described as persevering in good, seeking glory, honor, and immortality(!)--with the fate of the wicked--those described as selfishly ambitious, disobedient to the truth, and "obedient" to unrighteousness. The righteous receive "glory, honor, and peace" (v. 10) as well as "eternal life"(!) (v. 7), while the wicked receive "condemnation" (v. 1), divine judgment (vv. 2-3), "wrath" (v. 5), "wrath and indignation" (v. 8), and "tribulation and distress" upon the soul (v. 9).
While the precise metaphysical nature of the judgment of the wicked here is not laid out explicitly, this passage is useful because of the strong parallel between the two groups. The righteous seek, among other things, immortality, and they in fact receive it (they receive "eternal life"). This presumes a) that they are not yet immortal (see the previous post on natural human mortality), and b) that not all will receive immortality. The prima facie implication for the wicked is that they do not "seek immortality," nor will they receive it. They will not receive eternal life. They will not "live forever" even if it is said to be "living" in a place of final, eternal judgment. They will suffer a fate opposite of eternal life: the eternal death that results from the wrath, indignation, tribulation, and distress that come upon them as a result of divine judgment (just as Romans 6:23 says, the wages of sin is "death" but "eternal life" is the gift of God in Christ). This is a perfect, solemn parallel from Genesis to Revelation.
4) The author of Hebrews warns his hearers/readers multiple times to heed the speech of God which has come through Christ and his New Covenant apostles and prophets, and not to cave to pressures to abandon Christ and return to obligatory observance of outdated Torah restrictions which have been rendered obsolete with Christ's coming. In Hebrews 10 he warns that, "...if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin, but a terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries" (vv. 26-27, my emphasis; probably alluding to Is. 26:11).
The judgment that results from rejecting Christ and deliberately continuing in a sinful lifestyle (whether in specifically shrinking from Judaizing persecution ongoingly, or otherwise) is certainly final judgment, and it is described here as a "consumption," just as Isaiah foretold. This same concept is repeated in Hebrews 12:25-29 in which God is to be worshiped with reverence and awe because he himself is a "consuming fire." Just like the tares of wheat in the parable of Matthew 13, God's enemies will be burnt up.
5) One of the most powerful passages demonstrating the specific nature of final judgment for the wicked is 2 Peter 2:6. Focusing on false prophets but referring to the ungodly in general, Peter says, "...[God] condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter" (my emphases). The import of this passage for our topic is straightforward: one of the classic divine judgments in the biblical narrative, the complete destruction of two entire cities by brimstone and fire out of heaven, is given as a direct example of the fate of the ungodly: they will be similarly burned up and destroyed by divine fire. Another reference to Sodom and Gomorrah in the book of Jude will be relevant a couple of posts later when we consider the central texts used by traditionalists to support the view of eternal conscious torment.
So far we see that key examples of specific New Testament teaching on the nature of final judgment for the wicked cohere perfectly with the general pattern of scriptural teaching on divine judgment and the fate of the wicked we investigated previously. There are other important New Testament texts about final judgment, especially in Matthew 25, 2nd Thessalonians 1, and Revelation 14 and 20, which need our attention later on. They are used to argue that the New Testament clarifies the eternal death and destruction of the wicked by defining it as an eternally ongoing conscious experience of torment. Before we get to that, we will take one post to discuss biblical atonement theology, especially the atonement of Christ, in connection with these different ideas about final judgment.
