December 7, 2025 • 25 mins
Kirk Cameron has changed his views about hell. In this episode, we compare his view of hell with what the Bible actually says about hell.
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Speaker 1 (00:19):
Hello, everyone, Welcome along for truth. My name is Daniel Long.
There is a video that is floating around the internet,
actually came out yesterday, and that is a video of
Kirk Cameron. Kirk Cameron evidently has changed his position on
the doctrine of hell. He no longer believes in the
conscious eternal torment of the wicked. He holds to a
(00:43):
position called annihilationism. Protestia put it up on their Facebook
page yesterday. They took a clip from a podcast that
Kirk Cameron was on recently. This clip is about a minute,
maybe twenty thirty seconds long, probably not even that long,
but he does explain his position in this clip. So
(01:04):
this is what we're going to do. We're going to
watch the clip in its entirety, and then we're going
to talk about annihilationism. We're going to break down what
Kirk Cameron says in this clip, point by point. Let's
start with watching the entire clip. Yeah, what's your opinion
on this?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
So my position as it stands today, and again, the
beauty of this is that we're always learning and growing, right,
So I'm open to new light. If you guys have
a position that you can share with me, I will
gladly change my mind. I used to hold the position
of conscious eternal torment because that's just what I was
taught by people that I love and trust. I've learned
(01:43):
that there are other positions, and a very robust argument
can be made for conditionalism or annihilationism, as Edward Fudge
posits here, and it fits the character of God in
my understanding more than the conscious eternal torment position, because
(02:03):
it brings in the mercy of God together with the
justice of God. It doesn't leave judgment out. It is just.
But it also fits with the Old Testament picture of
the fate of the wicked, which is to be destroyed.
It is to die, and it is to perish, not
live forever in an eternal barbecue. And the classic verses
(02:25):
that used to get me into eternal torment, you know,
the punishment, everlasting punishment, everlasting destruction fits beautifully with a destruction,
punishment judgment that is irreversible and lasts forever. That is
the eternalness of that punishment and that destruction. So that's
where I am today.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Okay, So from that clip you can see Kirk Cameron
no longer embraces the position that the wicked will be
suffering conscious eternal torment in the Lake of fire. And
you know there's a difference by the way, between Hell
and the Lake of fire. The Lake of Fire is
going to be taking place at the Great White Throne,
(03:07):
when all of the wicked will be cast into the
Lake of fire. And Hell is a place right now
really of waiting, a place of waiting until the judgment.
So a person who dies in their sin apart from Christ,
goes to Hell, and there he or she is awaiting
(03:28):
the Great White Throne judgment, where the books will be
opened and they will be judged for what they have
done in this body, and then they will be cast
into the Lake of Fire, where they will spend eternity
in conscious torment. That is no longer Kirk Cameron's position.
(03:49):
He embraces annihilationism. Annihilationism holds that those who go to
Hell will suffer final destruction rather than eternal conscious punishment.
As such, it diverges from the traditional teaching of the
Church that Hell entails endless torment for the unsaved. Until
quite recently, the greatest challenge to this traditional view came
(04:11):
from universalism. However, since the nineteen eighty support has grown
for annihilationism, particularly among evangelical Christians who reject universalism but
who question the traditional view on exegetical, moral and pastoral grounds.
All right, we're going to go back to the video now,
(04:33):
and we're gonna listen to it, and we're gonna kind
of take it apart a little bit, and let's just
let's just talk about this. Does the Bible teach annihilationism? Yeah?
What's your opinion on this?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
So my position as it stands today, and again, the
beauty of this is that we're always learning and growing, right,
So I'm open to new light. If you guys have
a position that you can share with me, I will
gladly change my mind. I used to hold the possosition
of conscious internal torment because that's just what I was
taught by people that I love and trust. I've learned
(05:07):
that there are other positions, and a very robust argument
can be made for conditionalism or annihilationism, as Edward Fudge
posits here, and he.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Says that a very robust argument can be made for
conditionalism or annihilationism. Now, I'll talk about conditionalism in a moment,
but I want to address this idea that this position
has a very robust argument or that you can make
a very robust argument for it, because I don't believe
you can. The Bible is very very clear about the
(05:38):
doctrine of Hell. Jesus talked more about Hell than any
other person in scripture. Hell is a very real place.
It is an awful place, and it should really push
us to go out and evangelize when we realize that
the people we know and love that aren't saved, if
they die apart from Christ, they're going to be spending
(06:00):
eternity in in Hell, in the lake of fire. And
I'm gonna use Hell in the lake of fire interchangeably
here for the next uh, for the for the rest
of this discussion. But they're gonna spend eternity in Hell,
apart from Christ, apart from in outer darkness forever and
ever eternal conscious torment. That should cause us to really
(06:23):
want to get out, go out and tell others about Christ.
But when you if all there is is annihilation, doesn't
that take the bite, the sting out of death. If
I'm just gonna be annihilated for my wicked deeds, well
(06:45):
why not just live anyway? Any jolly any any way,
jolly well, please just do whatever I want to do,
because I'm not gonna spend eternity in hell. I'm gonna
spend maybe maybe a little while in hell, But then
when I stand before the judgment, I'm going to just
be wiped out, just be annihilated. If that's all there
(07:07):
is to me. That takes the bite out of the
sting of death. Now, Also, if it were a very
robust argument, why don't other major scholars agree with this?
Why don't more scholars agree with this position? I can
(07:28):
totally get I get the attraction to it. I mean, sure,
it's an attractive position, right. Who wants to think of
their loved ones spending eternity in hell and conscious eternal torment.
No one wants to think that. No one wants to
think about that. That's scary. But if it's only if
(07:50):
they're only going to be annihilated on that final day,
then you know, maybe it's not so bad. I the
Bible is very very clear I think on this position,
and I think, you know, I'm not sure why Kirk camera.
I can't judge. I haven't listened to the entire podcast,
(08:10):
so I don't know if he explains why he changes
his position if there's if there's a reason why, I
don't know why he did, you know, but I can
totally understand the attraction to it. But it's just not biblical.
The second thing is this thing he mentioned called conditionalism.
(08:32):
So what exactly is conditionalism. Let's take a look at that.
Although annihilationists technically, Although annihilationism technically technically concerns the nature
of hell as such, hey let me move myself over
here a little bit. That bothers me, Sorry about that.
(08:55):
Although annihilationism technically concerns the nature of Hell as such,
in practice it is closely linked to the doctrine of
conditional immortality. This posits that the concept of the immortality
of the soul, which typically underpins the traditional view of hell,
owes more to Platonist's thought than to Biblical teaching. Indeed,
(09:17):
rather than viewing the human soul as inn errently immortal,
conditionalists argue that it acquires immortality as a condition of
justification by grace through faith. Those not justified will thereby
cease to exist, so manifesting their mortality apart from Christ.
So basically, the soul isn't really immortal right until this
(09:43):
is conditional conditionalism. The soul isn't immortal until it is justified.
Until a person places their faith in Christ. Jesus says,
I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never
perish until Jesus gives you eternal life. You are not immortal.
Your soul is not immortal. You do not have immortality.
(10:07):
Once you believe the Gospel and you embrace Christ, now
you have immortality. So the soul that has not embraced Christ,
therefore is then annihilated. That is Kirk Cameron's idea of
conditional conditionalism.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
It fits the character of God, in my understanding, more
than the conscious eternal torment position.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
All right, So Cameron says, annihilationism fits God's character more
than the doctrine of conscious of the conscious eternal torment
of the wicked. And here's why folks like him say that.
It's because they would say that it doesn't. It's inconsistent
with God's character to send someone, as Cameron said, to
(10:56):
an eternal barbecue. They would say that words like destruction
in scripture and perish in scripture, and eternal destruction would
mean annihilation because they are eternally destroyed. They are destroyed eternally,
they forever and ever they are gone, they no longer exist.
(11:18):
Where as those who have received Christ, we receive immortality,
and we receive eternal life, and we are with him forever.
And so he says it fits the character of God.
I don't believe that is true. Because of God's character. Right,
our God is infinitely holy, infinitely pure, infinitely good, and
(11:44):
he cannot, in any way, shape or form, tolerate sin.
But he has made a remedy for that, because he
said his own son, Who do that, give their own son?
Not for his friends because we didn't love him. But
(12:06):
he sent his own son for his enemies, those who
hate him. And his son went and lived a perfect
life in their place, and then willingly went to the
cross and took upon himself the sins of the whole world,
meaning that while Christ was on that cross, he was
absorbing all of the wrath for every single human being.
(12:28):
Now that is difficult to grasp, it's hard to understand,
but that is what the Bible teaches. And all of
that wrath that Christ absorbed for you and I, that
was all of the wrath that we would over receive
for eternity in hell. Now, Christ didn't go to hell
(12:48):
and pay for our sins, like some of the Word
of Faith teachers claim that he did. But he did
absorb all of the punishment that we would have received
in hell, the all of the punishment, all of the
torture that we were to receive somehow some way. Because
Christ was God and man at the same time, because
(13:11):
he was divine, he was able to experience what all
of us would have experienced in hell. Now, again, not
something that we can grasp, not something that we can understand,
but it is what the Bible says, and that friends,
is love, and that is the remedy for sin. And
(13:33):
those who would repent of their sins and place faith
in Christ, they receive eternal life. If they don't, the
other side of that is they receive eternal death. And
eternal death is not annihilation. Again, annihilation weakens sin. It
makes sin less serious because to sin against an infinitely holy,
(13:57):
righteous sure God is the audacity of that. We are
our finite minds cannot understand that, but it it will
be revealed. The Bible says, it is appointed for a
man to die once and after that comes judgment. Right,
(14:19):
so it's going to be we're the eyes of the
wicked are going to be opened to see how just
audacious it was for them to sin against this awesome holy.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
God because it brings in the mercy of God together
with the justice of God. It doesn't leave judgment out.
It is just. But it also fits with the Old
Testament picture of the fate of the wicked, which is
to be destroyed. It is to die, and it is
to perish, not live forever in an eternal barbecue.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Okay, so let's take a look at now, this is
a good place to go for this slide here. To
support this view, I was gonna say, traditionalists to support
this view annihilationists. They argue that for God to allow
eternal torment is inconsistent with his love. That the cessation
(15:15):
of existence is implied in certain terms applied to the
destiny of the wicked, such as words such as the
words destruction in Matthew seven thirteen, Thessalonians one nine and
perishing in John three sixteen. They also teach that God
that since God alone has immortality, and this goes back
(15:35):
to conditionalism again, since God alone has immortality, any other
immortality attached to humanity is a special gift connected to
or connected with the redemption of Christ. And so is
the Bible clear about conscious eternal torment about a person
(15:55):
who dies without Christ spending eternity and conscious eternal torment
in the lake of fire? Is the Bible clear about that?
I think you have to do exegetical gymnastics to go
around this. You really have to. You have to twist
the scriptures to come up with annihilationism. I just don't
(16:21):
see how you can look at the clear teachings of
the texts, the clear teachings of scripture, and come up
with the idea that God is just going to call
someone to go out of existence, You're just going to
annihilate them. That is a Jehovah's witness doctrine, by the way,
and I believe the Seventh day Adventists believe the same thing. Yeah,
(16:43):
this so, and I understand that there are evangelical Christians.
And I'm not saying that Kirk Cameron is not a believer.
I believe he is a brother in Christ. I just
don't believe that he is correct on this position. So
let's take a look at what the Bible says here.
What does the Bible say? Is it clear because they
(17:04):
would say, they're not really clear passages in scripture. You
can make a case for annihilationism through these passages. So
they're saying basically that there's no clear passage in scripture
that whole that would promote the doctrine of conscious eternal
torment in the lake of fire or in hell. So
(17:26):
let let's let's take a look at that. This is
Revelation twenty ten through fifteen. This is going to be
the great White Throne judgment passage. And the devil who
had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire
and sulfur where the beast. And look at this where
the beast and the false prophet were, And look at
what it says. And they, the beast and the false
(17:49):
prophet and the devil, they will be tormented day and night,
forever and ever. Now it's my understanding that those who
would hold to a position of annihilationism also believe that
God is going to annihilate the devil in his angels.
But that is not what is taking place in this
(18:12):
passage at all. Then I saw a great white throne
in him who was seated on it. From his presence,
Earth and skies fled away, and no place was found
for them. And I saw the dead, great and small,
standing before the throne, and the books were open. Then
another book was open, which is the Book of Life.
And the dead were judged by what was written in
the books, according to what they had done. And the
(18:32):
sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death
and Hades gave up the dead who were in them.
And they were judged, each one of them according to
what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown
into the Lake of fire. This is the second death,
the lake of fire. If anyone's name was not found
written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into
(18:54):
the Lake of fire, where the beast, the false prophet,
and the devil are, and where it says here as
I will remind you that they were tormented day and
night forever and ever. Folks, if annihilation was biblical, why
are they torment? How are they tormented? I should say,
(19:17):
day and night, forever and ever. That's what the passage says.
You do have to do exegetical gymnastics to go around that. Okay,
I just don't see how you can make a case
for that. Let's move on to the next passage. The
Son of Man Matthew thirteen forty one to forty two.
The Son of Man will send his angels, and they
(19:37):
will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin
and all law breakers, and will throw them into the
fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth. So in the lake of fire in Hell,
there's going to be weeping and gnashing of teeth. You
think about the rich Man of Lazarus. I've got that
(19:59):
pass but it's it's a really long passage. I may
not read it, but you know the story. The rich
Man was in Hell, and he was in agony, and
I mean this, in this place there will be weeping
and gnashing of teeth. So I don't see how you
(20:19):
can get around that. That he's going to throw them
into the fiery furnace. You see that, the fiery furnace.
So we're not we're not talking here. We're talking here
about the judgment, the Great White Throne judgment, the lake
of fire. Again, Hell is a place of waiting until
the Great White Judgment. And yes, I believe there are
flames in Hell right now. Yes I believe that. But
(20:41):
I also believe the Bible says in Jude and in
two Peter, that there are angels that God has put
into gloomy dungeons in chains a waiting for the judgment.
So hell is a place of waiting, and Jesus is
speaking of there when he talks about the fiery he's
talking about the great White Throne judgment there Revelation fourteen
(21:06):
nine through eleven, and another angel, a third angel followed them,
saying with a loud voice, if anyone worships the Beast
and its image and receives a mark on his forehead
or on his hand, he will he also will drink
the wine of God's wrath poured full strength into the
cup of his anger, and he will be tormented. Listen
to this. He will be tormented with fire and sulfur
(21:29):
in the presence of the Holy Angels and in the
presence of the land. And the smoke of their torment
goes up how long, forever and ever, And they have
no rest day or night, these worshipers of the Beast
and its image, and who received the mark of his name.
So what do we see here? First of all, we
see that the smoke of their torment goes up forever
(21:51):
and ever we see that they have no rest day
or night. These are people who have followed the beast
and received the mark of the beast. So these are
people who are going to be in hell, experiencing conscious
torment forever and ever. How can you get around a
passage like that. I just don't see how it can
(22:11):
be done, Daniel twelve two. And many of those who
sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake the
speaking again of the Great White Throne judgment, some to
everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And
by the way, again this is connected to the Great
White Throne judgment. We've already seen what that entails. The beast,
(22:35):
the false prophet Satan, and those who follow the beast
will be thrown into the lake of fire, and they
will suffer torment forever and ever, and they will be
weeping and gnashing of teeth. So we know that that
is what that is speaking of. This is the story
of the rich Man in Lazarus. The texta is way
too small, but you know the story. Here. The rich
(22:58):
man died and was buried, and in Haiti, being in torment,
he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off,
so he was in torment Matthew twenty two thirteen. Then
the king said to his attendants, bind him hand and foot,
and cast him into the alter darkness. In that place
there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And so
(23:21):
we can see from these passages of scripture, and there
are more like them, that hell is a place of
conscious eternal torment, and it's a horrible place, and it
should cause us. It should cause us to go out
and evangelize, to tell our lost, say, our lost friends
(23:45):
and loved ones, that Christ came to save them, that
they don't have to go to this awful place. So, folks,
I hope this video was helpful. The Bible makes it
very clear that there is a place called hell, that
those who are there will one day be pulled out
and they will be judged. The books will be open,
(24:07):
they will be judged and then cast into the lake
of fire, where they will suffer torment forever and ever.
This should cause us to pray for our lost loved ones,
to beg God for their salvation, and to cause us
to go out and evangelize, to tell those who we
(24:29):
know are not saved that Christ has bled and died
for them and they do not have to face this horrible,
horrible place. Folks, if this video has been helpful, I'd
ask that you pass it along. God will, and I'll
see you next week.
Hello, everyone, Welcome along for truth. My name is Daniel Long.
There is a video that is floating around the internet,
actually came out yesterday, and that is a video of
Kirk Cameron. Kirk Cameron evidently has changed his position on
the doctrine of hell. He no longer believes in the
conscious eternal torment of the wicked. He holds to a
(00:43):
position called annihilationism. Protestia put it up on their Facebook
page yesterday. They took a clip from a podcast that
Kirk Cameron was on recently. This clip is about a minute,
maybe twenty thirty seconds long, probably not even that long,
but he does explain his position in this clip. So
(01:04):
this is what we're going to do. We're going to
watch the clip in its entirety, and then we're going
to talk about annihilationism. We're going to break down what
Kirk Cameron says in this clip, point by point. Let's
start with watching the entire clip. Yeah, what's your opinion
on this?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
So my position as it stands today, and again, the
beauty of this is that we're always learning and growing, right,
So I'm open to new light. If you guys have
a position that you can share with me, I will
gladly change my mind. I used to hold the position
of conscious eternal torment because that's just what I was
taught by people that I love and trust. I've learned
(01:43):
that there are other positions, and a very robust argument
can be made for conditionalism or annihilationism, as Edward Fudge
posits here, and it fits the character of God in
my understanding more than the conscious eternal torment position, because
(02:03):
it brings in the mercy of God together with the
justice of God. It doesn't leave judgment out. It is just.
But it also fits with the Old Testament picture of
the fate of the wicked, which is to be destroyed.
It is to die, and it is to perish, not
live forever in an eternal barbecue. And the classic verses
(02:25):
that used to get me into eternal torment, you know,
the punishment, everlasting punishment, everlasting destruction fits beautifully with a destruction,
punishment judgment that is irreversible and lasts forever. That is
the eternalness of that punishment and that destruction. So that's
where I am today.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Okay, So from that clip you can see Kirk Cameron
no longer embraces the position that the wicked will be
suffering conscious eternal torment in the Lake of fire. And
you know there's a difference by the way, between Hell
and the Lake of fire. The Lake of Fire is
going to be taking place at the Great White Throne,
(03:07):
when all of the wicked will be cast into the
Lake of fire. And Hell is a place right now
really of waiting, a place of waiting until the judgment.
So a person who dies in their sin apart from Christ,
goes to Hell, and there he or she is awaiting
(03:28):
the Great White Throne judgment, where the books will be
opened and they will be judged for what they have
done in this body, and then they will be cast
into the Lake of Fire, where they will spend eternity
in conscious torment. That is no longer Kirk Cameron's position.
(03:49):
He embraces annihilationism. Annihilationism holds that those who go to
Hell will suffer final destruction rather than eternal conscious punishment.
As such, it diverges from the traditional teaching of the
Church that Hell entails endless torment for the unsaved. Until
quite recently, the greatest challenge to this traditional view came
(04:11):
from universalism. However, since the nineteen eighty support has grown
for annihilationism, particularly among evangelical Christians who reject universalism but
who question the traditional view on exegetical, moral and pastoral grounds.
All right, we're going to go back to the video now,
(04:33):
and we're gonna listen to it, and we're gonna kind
of take it apart a little bit, and let's just
let's just talk about this. Does the Bible teach annihilationism? Yeah?
What's your opinion on this?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
So my position as it stands today, and again, the
beauty of this is that we're always learning and growing, right,
So I'm open to new light. If you guys have
a position that you can share with me, I will
gladly change my mind. I used to hold the possosition
of conscious internal torment because that's just what I was
taught by people that I love and trust. I've learned
(05:07):
that there are other positions, and a very robust argument
can be made for conditionalism or annihilationism, as Edward Fudge
posits here, and he.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Says that a very robust argument can be made for
conditionalism or annihilationism. Now, I'll talk about conditionalism in a moment,
but I want to address this idea that this position
has a very robust argument or that you can make
a very robust argument for it, because I don't believe
you can. The Bible is very very clear about the
(05:38):
doctrine of Hell. Jesus talked more about Hell than any
other person in scripture. Hell is a very real place.
It is an awful place, and it should really push
us to go out and evangelize when we realize that
the people we know and love that aren't saved, if
they die apart from Christ, they're going to be spending
(06:00):
eternity in in Hell, in the lake of fire. And
I'm gonna use Hell in the lake of fire interchangeably
here for the next uh, for the for the rest
of this discussion. But they're gonna spend eternity in Hell,
apart from Christ, apart from in outer darkness forever and
ever eternal conscious torment. That should cause us to really
(06:23):
want to get out, go out and tell others about Christ.
But when you if all there is is annihilation, doesn't
that take the bite, the sting out of death. If
I'm just gonna be annihilated for my wicked deeds, well
(06:45):
why not just live anyway? Any jolly any any way,
jolly well, please just do whatever I want to do,
because I'm not gonna spend eternity in hell. I'm gonna
spend maybe maybe a little while in hell, But then
when I stand before the judgment, I'm going to just
be wiped out, just be annihilated. If that's all there
(07:07):
is to me. That takes the bite out of the
sting of death. Now, Also, if it were a very
robust argument, why don't other major scholars agree with this?
Why don't more scholars agree with this position? I can
(07:28):
totally get I get the attraction to it. I mean, sure,
it's an attractive position, right. Who wants to think of
their loved ones spending eternity in hell and conscious eternal torment.
No one wants to think that. No one wants to
think about that. That's scary. But if it's only if
(07:50):
they're only going to be annihilated on that final day,
then you know, maybe it's not so bad. I the
Bible is very very clear I think on this position,
and I think, you know, I'm not sure why Kirk camera.
I can't judge. I haven't listened to the entire podcast,
(08:10):
so I don't know if he explains why he changes
his position if there's if there's a reason why, I
don't know why he did, you know, but I can
totally understand the attraction to it. But it's just not biblical.
The second thing is this thing he mentioned called conditionalism.
(08:32):
So what exactly is conditionalism. Let's take a look at that.
Although annihilationists technically, Although annihilationism technically technically concerns the nature
of hell as such, hey let me move myself over
here a little bit. That bothers me, Sorry about that.
(08:55):
Although annihilationism technically concerns the nature of Hell as such,
in practice it is closely linked to the doctrine of
conditional immortality. This posits that the concept of the immortality
of the soul, which typically underpins the traditional view of hell,
owes more to Platonist's thought than to Biblical teaching. Indeed,
(09:17):
rather than viewing the human soul as inn errently immortal,
conditionalists argue that it acquires immortality as a condition of
justification by grace through faith. Those not justified will thereby
cease to exist, so manifesting their mortality apart from Christ.
So basically, the soul isn't really immortal right until this
(09:43):
is conditional conditionalism. The soul isn't immortal until it is justified.
Until a person places their faith in Christ. Jesus says,
I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never
perish until Jesus gives you eternal life. You are not immortal.
Your soul is not immortal. You do not have immortality.
(10:07):
Once you believe the Gospel and you embrace Christ, now
you have immortality. So the soul that has not embraced Christ,
therefore is then annihilated. That is Kirk Cameron's idea of
conditional conditionalism.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
It fits the character of God, in my understanding, more
than the conscious eternal torment position.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
All right, So Cameron says, annihilationism fits God's character more
than the doctrine of conscious of the conscious eternal torment
of the wicked. And here's why folks like him say that.
It's because they would say that it doesn't. It's inconsistent
with God's character to send someone, as Cameron said, to
(10:56):
an eternal barbecue. They would say that words like destruction
in scripture and perish in scripture, and eternal destruction would
mean annihilation because they are eternally destroyed. They are destroyed eternally,
they forever and ever they are gone, they no longer exist.
(11:18):
Where as those who have received Christ, we receive immortality,
and we receive eternal life, and we are with him forever.
And so he says it fits the character of God.
I don't believe that is true. Because of God's character. Right,
our God is infinitely holy, infinitely pure, infinitely good, and
(11:44):
he cannot, in any way, shape or form, tolerate sin.
But he has made a remedy for that, because he
said his own son, Who do that, give their own son?
Not for his friends because we didn't love him. But
(12:06):
he sent his own son for his enemies, those who
hate him. And his son went and lived a perfect
life in their place, and then willingly went to the
cross and took upon himself the sins of the whole world,
meaning that while Christ was on that cross, he was
absorbing all of the wrath for every single human being.
(12:28):
Now that is difficult to grasp, it's hard to understand,
but that is what the Bible teaches. And all of
that wrath that Christ absorbed for you and I, that
was all of the wrath that we would over receive
for eternity in hell. Now, Christ didn't go to hell
(12:48):
and pay for our sins, like some of the Word
of Faith teachers claim that he did. But he did
absorb all of the punishment that we would have received
in hell, the all of the punishment, all of the
torture that we were to receive somehow some way. Because
Christ was God and man at the same time, because
(13:11):
he was divine, he was able to experience what all
of us would have experienced in hell. Now, again, not
something that we can grasp, not something that we can understand,
but it is what the Bible says, and that friends,
is love, and that is the remedy for sin. And
(13:33):
those who would repent of their sins and place faith
in Christ, they receive eternal life. If they don't, the
other side of that is they receive eternal death. And
eternal death is not annihilation. Again, annihilation weakens sin. It
makes sin less serious because to sin against an infinitely holy,
(13:57):
righteous sure God is the audacity of that. We are
our finite minds cannot understand that, but it it will
be revealed. The Bible says, it is appointed for a
man to die once and after that comes judgment. Right,
(14:19):
so it's going to be we're the eyes of the
wicked are going to be opened to see how just
audacious it was for them to sin against this awesome holy.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
God because it brings in the mercy of God together
with the justice of God. It doesn't leave judgment out.
It is just. But it also fits with the Old
Testament picture of the fate of the wicked, which is
to be destroyed. It is to die, and it is
to perish, not live forever in an eternal barbecue.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Okay, so let's take a look at now, this is
a good place to go for this slide here. To
support this view, I was gonna say, traditionalists to support
this view annihilationists. They argue that for God to allow
eternal torment is inconsistent with his love. That the cessation
(15:15):
of existence is implied in certain terms applied to the
destiny of the wicked, such as words such as the
words destruction in Matthew seven thirteen, Thessalonians one nine and
perishing in John three sixteen. They also teach that God
that since God alone has immortality, and this goes back
(15:35):
to conditionalism again, since God alone has immortality, any other
immortality attached to humanity is a special gift connected to
or connected with the redemption of Christ. And so is
the Bible clear about conscious eternal torment about a person
(15:55):
who dies without Christ spending eternity and conscious eternal torment
in the lake of fire? Is the Bible clear about that?
I think you have to do exegetical gymnastics to go
around this. You really have to. You have to twist
the scriptures to come up with annihilationism. I just don't
(16:21):
see how you can look at the clear teachings of
the texts, the clear teachings of scripture, and come up
with the idea that God is just going to call
someone to go out of existence, You're just going to
annihilate them. That is a Jehovah's witness doctrine, by the way,
and I believe the Seventh day Adventists believe the same thing. Yeah,
(16:43):
this so, and I understand that there are evangelical Christians.
And I'm not saying that Kirk Cameron is not a believer.
I believe he is a brother in Christ. I just
don't believe that he is correct on this position. So
let's take a look at what the Bible says here.
What does the Bible say? Is it clear because they
(17:04):
would say, they're not really clear passages in scripture. You
can make a case for annihilationism through these passages. So
they're saying basically that there's no clear passage in scripture
that whole that would promote the doctrine of conscious eternal
torment in the lake of fire or in hell. So
(17:26):
let let's let's take a look at that. This is
Revelation twenty ten through fifteen. This is going to be
the great White Throne judgment passage. And the devil who
had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire
and sulfur where the beast. And look at this where
the beast and the false prophet were, And look at
what it says. And they, the beast and the false
(17:49):
prophet and the devil, they will be tormented day and night,
forever and ever. Now it's my understanding that those who
would hold to a position of annihilationism also believe that
God is going to annihilate the devil in his angels.
But that is not what is taking place in this
(18:12):
passage at all. Then I saw a great white throne
in him who was seated on it. From his presence,
Earth and skies fled away, and no place was found
for them. And I saw the dead, great and small,
standing before the throne, and the books were open. Then
another book was open, which is the Book of Life.
And the dead were judged by what was written in
the books, according to what they had done. And the
(18:32):
sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death
and Hades gave up the dead who were in them.
And they were judged, each one of them according to
what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown
into the Lake of fire. This is the second death,
the lake of fire. If anyone's name was not found
written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into
(18:54):
the Lake of fire, where the beast, the false prophet,
and the devil are, and where it says here as
I will remind you that they were tormented day and
night forever and ever. Folks, if annihilation was biblical, why
are they torment? How are they tormented? I should say,
(19:17):
day and night, forever and ever. That's what the passage says.
You do have to do exegetical gymnastics to go around that. Okay,
I just don't see how you can make a case
for that. Let's move on to the next passage. The
Son of Man Matthew thirteen forty one to forty two.
The Son of Man will send his angels, and they
(19:37):
will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin
and all law breakers, and will throw them into the
fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth. So in the lake of fire in Hell,
there's going to be weeping and gnashing of teeth. You
think about the rich Man of Lazarus. I've got that
(19:59):
pass but it's it's a really long passage. I may
not read it, but you know the story. The rich
Man was in Hell, and he was in agony, and
I mean this, in this place there will be weeping
and gnashing of teeth. So I don't see how you
(20:19):
can get around that. That he's going to throw them
into the fiery furnace. You see that, the fiery furnace.
So we're not we're not talking here. We're talking here
about the judgment, the Great White Throne judgment, the lake
of fire. Again, Hell is a place of waiting until
the Great White Judgment. And yes, I believe there are
flames in Hell right now. Yes I believe that. But
(20:41):
I also believe the Bible says in Jude and in
two Peter, that there are angels that God has put
into gloomy dungeons in chains a waiting for the judgment.
So hell is a place of waiting, and Jesus is
speaking of there when he talks about the fiery he's
talking about the great White Throne judgment there Revelation fourteen
(21:06):
nine through eleven, and another angel, a third angel followed them,
saying with a loud voice, if anyone worships the Beast
and its image and receives a mark on his forehead
or on his hand, he will he also will drink
the wine of God's wrath poured full strength into the
cup of his anger, and he will be tormented. Listen
to this. He will be tormented with fire and sulfur
(21:29):
in the presence of the Holy Angels and in the
presence of the land. And the smoke of their torment
goes up how long, forever and ever, And they have
no rest day or night, these worshipers of the Beast
and its image, and who received the mark of his name.
So what do we see here? First of all, we
see that the smoke of their torment goes up forever
(21:51):
and ever we see that they have no rest day
or night. These are people who have followed the beast
and received the mark of the beast. So these are
people who are going to be in hell, experiencing conscious
torment forever and ever. How can you get around a
passage like that. I just don't see how it can
(22:11):
be done, Daniel twelve two. And many of those who
sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake the
speaking again of the Great White Throne judgment, some to
everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And
by the way, again this is connected to the Great
White Throne judgment. We've already seen what that entails. The beast,
(22:35):
the false prophet Satan, and those who follow the beast
will be thrown into the lake of fire, and they
will suffer torment forever and ever, and they will be
weeping and gnashing of teeth. So we know that that
is what that is speaking of. This is the story
of the rich Man in Lazarus. The texta is way
too small, but you know the story. Here. The rich
(22:58):
man died and was buried, and in Haiti, being in torment,
he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off,
so he was in torment Matthew twenty two thirteen. Then
the king said to his attendants, bind him hand and foot,
and cast him into the alter darkness. In that place
there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And so
(23:21):
we can see from these passages of scripture, and there
are more like them, that hell is a place of
conscious eternal torment, and it's a horrible place, and it
should cause us. It should cause us to go out
and evangelize, to tell our lost, say, our lost friends
(23:45):
and loved ones, that Christ came to save them, that
they don't have to go to this awful place. So, folks,
I hope this video was helpful. The Bible makes it
very clear that there is a place called hell, that
those who are there will one day be pulled out
and they will be judged. The books will be open,
(24:07):
they will be judged and then cast into the lake
of fire, where they will suffer torment forever and ever.
This should cause us to pray for our lost loved ones,
to beg God for their salvation, and to cause us
to go out and evangelize, to tell those who we
(24:29):
know are not saved that Christ has bled and died
for them and they do not have to face this horrible,
horrible place. Folks, if this video has been helpful, I'd
ask that you pass it along. God will, and I'll
see you next week.
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