I’ve been exploring the debate between annihilationism and eternal conscious torment (ECT) in a series of blog posts.
One of the disagreements between the two views is over the meaning of death.
Many proponents of annihilationism understand death to mean the cessation of existence, especially conscious existence. They say that when someone dies, the whole person dies. They stop existing. Hence, they say that eternal conscious torment is impossible, because after death, there is nothing left to torment. That person has ceased to exist. When the Bible speaks about death and the second death, death should be understood as ceasing to exist.
By contrast, ECT holds that death is the separation of the soul from the body (or soul & spirit). After death, your body decomposes, but you continue to exist as a spirit in either heaven or hell.
Which definition of death is supported by the Biblical evidence?
First, consider the book of Ecclesiastes:
Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it (Eccl 12:7).
Your body turns to dust, but your spirit returns to God. The assumption here is that death occurs when the two are separated.
Second, this is confirmed by James, in an off-hand comment:
For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead (James 2:26).
What is the definition of death, according to James? It is when a body lacks a spirit. Without it, the body has no life and is dead.
Third, we see that process of separation of the soul from the body in the death of Rachel. Here is how the author of Genesis describes her death:
When she was in severe labor the midwife said to her, “Do not fear, for now you have another son.” It came about as her soul was departing (for she died), that she named him Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin. So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem) (Gen 35:17-19).
How does the author describe the process of Rachel’s death? As her soul departing from her body.
Fourth, consider the Lord’s death. When, exactly, did Jesus die? Here are His final words:
And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit My spirit.” Having said this, He breathed His last (Luke 23:46).
When did Jesus die? After He committed His spirit to the Father. At that moment, His spirit left His body and the Lord died.
It seems clear to me that Biblical death is the separation of the soul from the body. But let’s look at the evidence from the other side.
Fifth, consider the time when Jesus resurrected a religious leader’s daughter. Here is how the Biblical author describes her coming back to life:
And her spirit returned, and she got up immediately; and He gave orders for something to be given her to eat (Luke 8:55).
When did the girl come back to life? When her spirit returned to her body. The implication is that she died when the two were separated.
I believe this evidence supports ECT over annihilationism.
The dead are dead, not because they have ceased to exist, but because their souls were separated from their bodies.
But where did their souls go? And are they still conscious?
Follow this blog for answers to those questions.
Ken Tamashiro
I personally like clear-cut information,… I understand that many loved ones will get into Heaven and there are those who do not. I could understand that many will plead with God to have Mercy on those who have departed and are possibly in Hell right now.
Hopefully, maybe we were mistaken and they made it into Heaven anyway because of their Faith in Christ way back when, even if it was for a moment in time.
On the other hand, there are those who love Evil and despise God, now they clearly understand the choices they have made. Here is an example of that: in Revelation 14:9 Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10 he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.”
Bruce Prince
The understanding you hold is typical of many because of man’s deep desire for immortality, and in the end, is incorrect, according to what we are told in God’s Word.
When God first created man, he breathed into him the breath of life, and the man, at that point became a living being.
Your understanding of the spirit of man living on stems mostly from how Eccl 12.7 is interpreted. If you examine the word “spirit” more closely, you will find it is exactly the same word as was used in Gen 2.7, and is simply referring to the breath of life that God gave to the man he had created. When a person dies, they stop breathing; in other words, the breath that God used to make the man become a living being, no longer exists, and we say that it has returned to the One who gave it.
It is a sad doctrine that people have created from this incorrect understanding of Eccl 12.7 because people are led to believe that dear Auntie Flo is looking down on them from heaven. How Auntie Flo must grieve when she sees her beloved nephew going through upheaval and turmoil, and she is helpless to do anything about it. Eccl 9.5 states that although the living know they will die, the dead know nothing; zilch. David, when writing Ps 146, states in verse 4 that when a person dies because there breath has gone, their very thoughts also perish.
People find it hard to accept the fact that when Paul states very clearly that God alone is immortal (1 Tim 6.16), they look for another hook on which they can hang this innate desire to keep living on and on. Be careful when you come across words in your Bible such as “soul” in Gen 35.18; try to delve into their true meaning, and not the connotations that man and tradition have placed upon them.
Pam
You quoted King David. He also said at the end of Psalm 23 that he would dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
It sounds to me that you are calling Jesus a liar. Jesus promises eternal life to all who believe unto Him for it. If eternal life ends the moment one’s breath ceases, that’s not very eternal, is it?
In addition, if one ceases to exist upon physical death, then what was the point of Jesus’ dying on the cross?
Brandon R. Burdette
I believe this is very significant work. You’ve got a great point, and it’s backed up by intriguing, uncommon Scriptures. This is excellent, investigative work. Thank you for it! –Brandon
Al Acevedo
Some annihilationists (myself included) believe that “death” takes place when the non-believers are thrown into the Lake of Fire (Rev 20:14-15). BTW, I like your book: Election to Service.
Shawn Lazar
Hi Al. I haven’t addressed what kind of “death” takes place in the Lake of Fire, but when I compare Rev 19:20 and Rev 20:10, I can’t help but conclude the Lake of Fire does not annihilate. The beast and false prophet are still in it after a thousand years. And I can’t get around the “forever and ever” language. It sure doesn’t sound like they cease to exist.
Brady Mayo
It’s important to keep in mind that Revelation is a highly symbolic book. Its apocalyptic images shouldn’t be interpreted literally. This is particularly true of the phrase “forever and ever” since similar phrases are used elsewhere in Scripture in contexts where they clearly cannot literally mean “unending” (e.g. Gen 49:26; Ex 40:15; Nu 25:13; Ps 24:7). The Lake of Fire is clearly a place of annihilation if seen in the light of the Old Testament passages like Isaiah 34.” (Boyd)
Brady Mayo
Plato taught the Greeks that death was a friend which separated the immortal soul from the imprisoning body. But “no Hebrew ever spoke in such terms, nor does any word of Scripture. Death is God’s punishment for sin, and in Romans 6:23 it stands in sharp contrast to eternal life. ” Assuming that the bible teaches that souls are immortal (which I do not think it does), “the greatest orthodox theologians of the past two thousand years have insisted, when the chips were down, that the words of the Son of God himself, who warned that we should fear God, “who is able to destroy both the body and soul in hell. So, even if the wicked should be assumed immortal, God is able to destroy them. Also, there is no good reason, not to take Paul’s primary words in the most ordinary sense in which the wicked will “perish”, die, be “corrupted” or be “destroyed”.” Those words have very definite meanings to the most simple person. Plus, in every case in the Bible there is a specific contrast between something that perishes or “decays” and something that endures. “Paul contrast “mortal” creatures and the immoral God (Romans 1:23), the crown that “will not last” and the one that last forever (1 Cor. 9:25). He contrast our present body, which is perishable, with the glorified resurrection body, which will not be (1 Cor. 15:53, 54). Peter contrast perishable silver and gold with the eternal redemptive blood of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:18), or “perishable” seed with the imperishable word of God (1 Peter 1:23). What comfort is there in the thought of an imperishable God, crown or resurrection body if the perishable thing really last forever all the same? The most natural opposite of life is death or non-life. It is not life in misery. Whether one translates it “corruption”, “decay”, “perishable” or “destroy”, the word-family talks about loss, ruin, deterioration and dissolution. 1 Corinthians 3:17 says “if anyone destroys God’s temple, Paul warns, “God will destroy him.” Orthodox theologians such as John Stott also believed that this, and many more arguments like this one, speaks of annihilation and not ECT. There is definitely a good case for final “destruction” of the soul and why anyone would demand that ECT was in view here (especially because it goes against the character of God) is a mystery to me.
Joseph Dear
Death (i.e. the first death) is not the separation of body and soul. It is what happens to the body as a result of that separation. This may sound like a distinction without a difference, but it is actually quite substantial.
If death is the result of separation, and not the separation itself, then we would want to look at what the “dead” entity is like to know what death is. And a dead body is a corpse. A dead body goes from being conscious and able to experience joy and pain to being inert material that cannot be tormented or experience anything. If death turns a dead body into a corpse, then that is evidence that death does mean something along the lines of what annihilationists say. After all, if at the end of the world God’s enemies are just an unconscious pile of matter, then no one can be tormented in hell.
Even assuming dualism and that a person’s soul goes to a conscious intermediate state after the death of the body, this doesn’t tell us what death is like or whether death can include consciousness. This is because, in this scenario, the soul is not dead. Only the body is dead.
Matthew 10:28 tells us the following: “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 hell” (NASB). Men who murder other men kill the body only. They don’t kill the soul. Assuming that physical death by means of disease doesn’t somehow kill the soul while death by murder does not, then according to the Bible, at the first death, the “soul” is not dead.
So what use is the state of the soul in telling us what death is like since the soul is not dead in the first place?
We see something similar in the James 2:26 passage. The BODY without the spirit is what is dead. Both the spirit and body are equal separated, but it never says the spirit is dead. In theory it could be, but in light of Matthew 10:28’s declaration that the soul is still alive, that seems rather unlikely. So to be dead does not mean to be separated (since the spirit is not dead). To be dead means to be like a dead body. And what is a dead body like?
With this in mind, regarding Ecclesiastes 12:7, even if the “spirit” returning to God is the immaterial, conscious human spirit, that spirit isn’t dead. What the Bible says is dead is the body, which this verse reminds us turns to dust.
Note that nothing I have said here challenges the traditional understanding that the “soul” and “spirit” are basically a living person in immaterial form that lives in the body but can consciously exist (i.e. live) outside of it as well. There are other interpretations of what the Bible actually teaches about those entities, what it means for a “soul” and a “spirit” to leave/return, etc. But you don’t have to adopt those alternative meanings to accept the annihilationist view of what death is.