--- title: "HELL FOREVER! or Billions Annihilated?" description: "Hellfire is truly eternal So that is a basic doctrine in evangelical Christianity. Revelation 14:10-11 \"The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of..." image: "https://het.realbiblebelievers.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/missing.jpg" url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/hell-forever-or-billions-annihilated" --- • Doctrines• Hell # HELL FOREVER! or Billions Annihilated? 9 min. read ![](https://het.realbiblebelievers.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/missing.jpg) ## Hellfire is truly eternal So that is a basic doctrine in evangelical Christianity. > ***[Revelation 14:10-11](/kjv/revelation/14/10-11)**“The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the **smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever:** and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.”* It is not something that is temporary. Now there’s a doctrine called annihilation. So they believe that once you’re cast into this lake of fire, you will be annihilated. We deny this doctrine. Notice the verses right here: smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever. The three groups of people that are difficult to talk to concerning the Bible are Jehovah’s Witness, Seventh-day Adventist, and then Calvinist. What Jehovah’s witnesses are going to say is that, what it means is that a person is annihilated forever. Annihilated means you’re gone. You don’t have to put forever after that unless there’s some meaning behind it where a person is perpetually still there, not non-existent. In verse 11, these souls have **no rest** day nor night. They still got to be “alive” and tormented. If they were annihilated, they would be free from torment. ## Revelation 20:10 – Devil and unsaved souls tormented day and night forever and ever in the lake of fire > ***[Revelation 20:10](/kjv/revelation/20/10)**: “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be **tormented day and night for ever and ever.”*** The lake of fire is not a place of annihilation, it’s a place where you burn forever. They might argue, well that’s only for Satan. Look who’s joining them in the lake of fire. > ***[Revelation 21:8](/kjv/revelation/21/8)** “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the**lake which burneth with fire and brimstone**: which is the second death.”* Sinners go to the lake of fire which is eternal. So the lake of fire is not a place of annihilation; it is a place of eternal torment. Seventh-day Adventists have a weird doctrine called the Scapegoat doctrine, where they would argue that all the people’s sins, when they go up before God at the throne—this includes the unbeliever’s sin—all of them will be cast upon Satan. So Satan will be the one who will be considered the scapegoat who will take all your sins upon himself, and he’s the one who burns in hell for you, for all eternity, not you. A lot of them don’t publicly talk about it now because it is controversial and heretical. The one who took our sins is Jesus Christ, not the devil. Seventh-day Adventism is a religion of heresy; it is a cult. ## Matthew 25:41 – everlasting fire The Word of God shows that the place of hell is eternal punishment. > ***[Matthew 25:41](/kjv/matthew/25/41)**:  “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into **everlasting fire,** prepared for the devil and his angels:”* > ***[Matthew 25:46](/kjv/matthew/25/46)** “And these shall go away into **everlasting punishment:** but the righteous into life eternal.”* So notice right here that the fire and punishment are everlasting, they’re not temporary. Now, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and probably some Seventh-day Adventists as well, will argue that the punishment of fire will be everlasting, but not the person burning in it, because the person will be annihilated in the fire. Let’s use some common sense: why would the fire continue if there’s no one in there? In verse 41, the fire was prepared for who? The devil and his angels. What did it say in [Revelation 20:10](/kjv/revelation/20/10)? The lake of fire where Satan is, where he is tormented forever and ever. Here’s another argument: At verse 46, “these shall go away into everlasting punishment”—so the fire is only eternal, not the person in it—”but the righteous into life eternal”—so I guess heaven is permanent, but not the person in it? They’re not agree with this interpretation. So the thing is this: they would sooner believe that you would live in eternity in heaven, but they wouldn’t do that for hell. That’s biased interpretation. That’s how you can argue more successfully with Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Show them that they have biased interepretation. ## Mark 9 – Worm dieth not By the way, all the verses so far are found in the Jehovah’s Witness Bible too. The JW Bible words this differently. > ***[Mark 9:43-45](/kjv/mark/9/43-45):** “And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:”* So notice right here that hellfire is eternal, that it cannot go away, it’s not annihilation. Now, there are several arguments against this. One of the arguments is that [King James Bible](/king-james-bible-issue) says hell, but the Jehovah’s Witness Bible will call it Gehenna. If you look up Gehenna, it’s some kind of trash heap on the outskirts of Israel. So then they’re gonna claim that what this fire is, is where you throw the trash, the garbage outside on the outskirts of Israel, and then it’s burning up. In verse 43, doesn’t it sound silly that Jesus says if your hand offends you, cut it off, it is better for you to enter into life without two hands than having two hands to go into the trash heap on the outskirts of Israel where the trash is burning? That doesn’t make sense, unless this is talking about hell, a truly eternal place of torment, and it’s better that you cut off your hands than have your whole body being cast into hellfire. ## Matthew 23:33 – Gehenna doesn’t work as trash heap on the outskirts of Israel Jehovah’s Witnesses hate the word hell, so they would translate it to Gehenna. But this becomes a double-edged sword to them. Gehenna is a Greek word, or from Hebrew to Greek, whatever, but the point is that it was originally written in Greek. And then in Greek, the KJV translators translated that into English, which is hell. In the Jehovah’s Witness Bible, they replaced hell with Gehenna here. > ***[Matthew 23:33](/kjv/matthew/23/33)** “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of **trash heap on the outskirts of Israel?”*** That does not work. This Gehenna must be hellfire then; it’s not referring to some trash heap on the outskirts of Israel. Another counter-argument that they will do is they will say that it’s figurative. Basically, that sin is like an unquenchable fire that will burn much guilt into the conscience. Now, the problem with that is, one, they don’t have a single verse to prove that interpretation. You can interpret anything out of that: you can say sin is like an unquenchable fire that burned much guilt into the conscience, or you can say that some burning bosom that the Mormons talk about that we feel in the sensation of our body is unquenchable. You have to have Scripture clearly showing that interpretation. That’s how you prove the interpretation: Scripture with Scripture. Two, what about the context of verse 47? If we’re going to argue 43 is figurative, are we going to make verse 47 figurative? > *“And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire:”* So look right here in the middle of verse 47: Jehovah’s Witnesses, they do believe in a literal physical kingdom of God, but then they’re going to switch it to figurative when it comes to hellfire in the same verse, verse 47. There’s again biased interpretation. Jehovah’s Witnesses, they all talk about the kingdom of God: “We’re all going to live in the kingdom of God on earth, you know, the paradise on earth.” Here’s a third argument. The third argument for this is that it says the worm in verse 44: “where their worm will not die.” It’s not humans, it’s worms, so thus it proves this must be some garbage disposal on the outskirts of Israel where the worms are all crawling; it’s not people burning, it’s worms. However, verse 44 says, “where their worm dieth not.” > ***[Job 25:6](/kjv/job/25/6)**: “How much less man, that is a **worm**? and the son of man, which is a worm?”* You look at Scripture with Scripture: worms are referring to humans in depraved conditions, that’s what worm is referring to. > ***[Psalm 22:6](/kjv/psalms/22/6)**: “But I am a **worm**, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.”* Humans in depraved condition, we see that every single time. > ***[Isaiah 41:14](/kjv/isaiah/41/14)** “Fear not, thou **worm Jacob**, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the LORD, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.”* That’s referring to a group of people as well that is called a worm. ## Revelation 20:14 – Hell is the lake of fire Now what Jehovah’s Witnesses argue is that hell is a grave; hell has no fire whatsoever. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe in a lake of fire, but they believe the lake of fire is a separate place from hell. So the lake of fire is the only place that has fire, and if a soul goes in there, they’re annihilated, but hell has no fire whatsoever, it’s simply the grave. > ***[Revelation 20](/kjv/revelation/20): 14:** “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.”* Jehovah’s Witnesses always go for Greek words because they don’t like this English word, because they know what this English word means. So the Greek word at [Revelation 20:14](/kjv/revelation/20/14) is Hades. And then you say, “It says right here: and death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. Hades has fire either way.” So then what they would like to argue is that, “Well, you can’t say that it’s literal right here because death and hell were cast into the lake of fire; it doesn’t make sense that death is literally cast into the lake of fire, so that doesn’t mean hell is literally cast into the lake of fire.” No, we argue it’s literal because verse 14 says this is the second death. So death is literally cast into there, hell is literally cast into there, and through that transformation, it becomes the second death. 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