VI. Sin’s Punishment Does Not Continue Through All Eternity

The second death, as portrayed in Revelation 20 and 21, involves the termination of all sinful and estranged life. The punishment of the wicked ends in ultimate dissolution and obliteration, as “fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured [katesthio, “to eat down,” denoting utter excision] them” (Revelation 20:9). ^{88) “The use in the N.T. of such words as ‘death,’ ‘destruction,’ ‘fire’, ‘perish,’ to describe future retribution, point to the likelihood of fearful anguish, followed by extinction of being, as the doom that awaits those who by persistent rejection of the Savour prove themselves utterly, and therefore irremediably, bad.”—Weymouth, The New Testament in Modern Speech, Hebrews 10:27, n. 1 (ed.).} And when the “new heaven” and the “new earth” are established, the Divine Voice from the throne of Omnipotence declares:CFF1 301.3

“There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21:4).CFF1 302.1

This agrees with Paul’s declaration, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26). Therefore the furiously raging lake of fire will not burn on endlessly, with the wicked eternally alive in torment. Christ did not condone the contention of an eternal dualism. Death itself, along with hades (“gravedom”), is cast into the lake of fire, denoting the utter end. The death principle itself is abrogated, abolished, and rendered completely and permanently inoperative. It will wholly cease to be. Thus will God ring down the final curtain on sin and death forever. That is Christ’s inerrant testimony.CFF1 302.2