Everlasting Punishment

It’s an anomaly of history that a monstrous machine was named for a merciful man. Joe was indeed a merciful man. In fact, his softhearted impulse was the very reason the infamous apparatus took his moniker.  

He didn’t invent it as some suppose. He actually opposed the death penalty for which it was used. But he absolutely loathed execution by hanging, burning, drowning, sword, ax, or the bone-breaking wicked wheel, all of which caused intense suffering when not immediately successful.  

So Joe compassionately proposed that criminals be painlessly decapitated in hopes that such a benevolent step would eventually lead to the abolition of capital punishment altogether.  

Joe had no idea his recommended contraption would in his lifetime become an implement of butchery, symbol of tyranny, and icon of horror. 

“Heads will roll!” Though heartless Hitler didn’t coin the phrase, his public use of it ensured its common circulation. And he didn’t mean it figuratively. The fascist fuhrer deployed Joe's head-removing invention as a state instrument of execution, ordering twenty of the devices be set up in cities across Germany. Some 16,500 heads rolled over a span of a dozen years, but that was even less than were chopped off during one grisly year of the French Revolution known as “The Reign of Terror.” That bloodbath was the culmination of the use of the pain-free mechanism recommended by humble humanitarian Dr. Joseph "Joe" Guillotin. 

Beheading by guillotine, as quick and painless as possible, was a notorious means of a most dreadful and dreaded punishment. And it most certainly was a punishment, though Dr. Guillotin assured, "Now, with my machine, I cut off your head in the twinkling of an eye, and you never feel it!" 

The weighted razor sharp blade briskly separated the skull from the torso and severed the brain from the spinal cord, a clean cut that immediately silenced pain receptors. 

Though instant without a split second of sensation, it was the ultimate punishment because it meant the loss of life. It was capital punishment, the penalty of death.

Despite the absorbed assumptions of proponents of perpetual torture, "punishment" does not equal pain or torment; in fact, it doesn’t even necessarily include pain or torment. Synonyms of "punishment" are sentence, penalty, consequence, and retribution. The duration of capital punishment by hanging, electric chair, gas chamber, firing squad, lethal injection, and especially the lightning swift blade of the guillotine is extremely brief, and with a minimum of pain if any at all. Yet it is verily a punishment, and a capital one at that! 

The process of capital punishment is fast and temporary; the result, final and permanent. Capital punishment is everlasting.

Jesus was clear and emphatic when He said, “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal” Matthew 25:46. The final punishment is everlasting. I agree with traditionalists who insist that the punishment lasts as long as the life. 

I do not hold with those who would make a case based on the Greek aionion as “eons” and not “everlasting.” This same word is employed for both the length of life for the righteous and punishment of the wicked- both are everlasting.

You will wonder how I can believe the punishment is everlasting yet maintain that endless torment is a myth. The punishment is everlasting; the Bible says so. But the question is, what is the punishment? 

The traditional view only asks and answers one question here: “How long is the punishment?” We must also inquire “What is it?” 

Fill in the blank: everlasting ____________? 

You say, “Punishment.” 

But, again, what is the punishment? You say, “Torment.” And that is how many fill in the blank. They assume punish-ment is punish-ing, which in their mind includes torment and pain. 

But punishment is a noun, not a verb. And punishment may or may not include pain. So what is it?   

Let’s allow Scripture to fill in the blank. The Bible persistently says the punishment is destruction. 

“who shall be punished with everlasting destruction” (2 Thessalonians 1:9). 

“whose end is destruction” (Philippians 3:19). 

“do ye not know… the wicked is reserved to the day of destruction?” (Job 21:29, 30).

“And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed” (Isaiah 1:28).

“broad is the way that leadeth to destruction” (Matthew 7:13). 

 “vessels of wrath fitted to destruction” (Romans 9:22). 

“And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet (Christ) shall be destroyed” (Acts 3:23). 

“fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).

“But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition (a synonym of destruction) of ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:7).

Scripture consistently fills in the blank with destruction, not torment. Everlasting punishment is true; endless torment is not. Destruction is the punishment - “who shall be punished with everlasting destruction” (2 Thessalonians 1:9).  

It is punishment, not punishing. It is a noun, not a verb. It is the result, not the process. The result is destruction and that result is everlasting; the process of being destroyed is not.  

It is an everlasting punishment. How long does the destruction last? It is ever-lasting. In a nutshell - the punishment is destruction, the destruction is everlasting - it is truly an everlasting punishment. I encourage you to reread this paragraph, slowly, carefully.

The book of Hebrews gives three other instances where aionion refers to the result and not the process, the end and not the means:  

“And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all that obey him” (5:9) 

“Of the doctrine… of resurrection from the dead, and of eternal judgment” (6:2).

“he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (9:12) 

It is eternal salvation, not eternal saving; eternal judgment, not eternal judging; eternal redemption, not eternal redeeming. And it is everlasting punishment, not everlasting punishing; everlasting destruction, not everlasting destroying. 

Each of these has a limited duration as to process (how long it takes), but an unlimited extent as to the end result (how long it lasts). 

The process of redemption was in what Christ once obtained, but the result of redemption is eternal, therefore it is truly eternal redemption. Here scripture gives us such a clear example of a finished process with an everlasting result: "Once...obtained"- past tense, completed, done- but an eternal result. It didn't take long but it lasts forever. 

Similarly the process of the judgment (the judging) is not everlasting, but the result is (the judgment). The destruction is everlasting, not the process of destroying.

Again, Scripture fills in the blank by telling us that the punishment is destruction. It also tells us by its use of the word punishment in other passages that the word is not necessarily equated with pain:   

Of being “a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth”, Cain cried,“My punishment is greater than I can bear” (Genesis 4:12, 13).  

“I will destroy him from the midst of my people” was the “punishment of the prophet” (Ezekiel 14:9,10). 

“the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her” (Lamentations 4:6).

“The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity” (Lamentations 4:22). 

“He that despised Moses' law died without mercy” as compared to a “sorer punishment” (Hebrews 10:28, 29).

Banishment, captivity, overthrow, destruction, and death are all called "punishment" in the Bible. None of these included physical torture or ongoing pain. 

In fact, Jeremiah makes clear the opposite: Sodom’s punishment was “as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.” 

Jude tells us this punishment was accomplished by “eternal fire” (Jude 1:7), which Christ says, “destroyed them all” (Luke 17:29). Peter adds “turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes” (2 Peter 2:6). 

Ashes, not embers. 

Though the process of punishment happened as in a moment, the result of the punishment, Zephaniah tells us, was “a perpetual desolation” (Zephaniah 2:9).  

How long did it take to accomplish the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah? Not long at all- as in a moment. How long will the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah last? Without end - everlasting - a perpetual desolation. Just like the guillotine, it was an everlasting capital punishment because it meant the loss of life. 

And this notorious destruction is “set forth for an example” (Jude 1:7), “an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly” (2 Peter 2:6), and “even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Luke 17:29).  

So the “everlasting” in “everlasting punishment” tells us how long the punishment lasts, not how long it takes. Everlasting destruction is to perish for ever: “his latter end shall be that he perish for ever” (Numbers 24:20; Cf. 24:24; Job 4:20; 20:7). Everlasting destruction is consistent with “to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever” (2 Peter 2:17), and “to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever” (Jude 1:13). Everlasting destruction is to “be taken and destroyed… and utterly perish in their own corruption” (2 Peter 2:12), to “be consumed out of the earth… and be no more” (Psalm 104:35). 

These words - perish for ever, darkness for ever, destroyed, utterly perish, corruption, consumed, be no more- all describe an everlasting punishment, not an endless punishing.

Perhaps the most pertinent point to consider concerning this text is the obvious contrast of everlasting punishment to life eternal. "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire" (Matthew 25:41). "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal" (25:46). The cursed - everlasting fire and everlasting punishment; the righteous - life eternal. 

This is consistent with the everlasting punishment of Sodom where eternal fire produced an everlasting destruction- ashes. And the parallel witness of Matthew 10:28 and Luke 12:5 equate the "power to cast into hell" with "able to destroy both soul and body in hell." It is a contrast of everlasting life and everlasting destruction, of life and death 

J. H. Pettingell agrees, “It will be seen that the contrast here is not between the everlasting happiness of the one class, and the everlasting misery of the other – as traditionalists would have it, but between the Everlasting Life of the one class, and the everlasting – punishment of the other – which, that the antithesis or contrast may be carried out, must be the punishment of Death, from which there is no resurrection – that is the Second Death.”  

This understanding is in happy harmony with the many times the Bible makes a clear contrast to eternal life. Again and again it is life that is endless, or life that ends. In distinction to the righteous receiving life eternal, the wicked will be eternally dead - destroyed with an everlasting destruction in which they perish, die the second death, are consumed in the lake of fire, burned up like chaff, and are no more - truly an everlasting punishment. 

Psalm 49:9, 10

live for ever - - 

corruption, die, perish

Daniel 12:2

everlasting life - - 

everlasting contempt

Matthew 7:13, 14

life - - 

destruction

Matthew 25:46

life eternal - - 

everlasting punishment

John 3:15 

eternal life - - 

perish

John 3:16

everlasting life - - 

perish

John 3:36

everlasting life - - 

shall not see life

John 5:24

everlasting life - - 

condemnation

John 6:27

everlasting life - - 

perisheth

John 6:53, 54

eternal life - - 

no life

John 10:28

eternal life - - 

perish

John 12:25

life eternal - - 

lose it (life)

Romans 2:7-12

eternal life - - 

indignation, wrath, tribulation, anguish, perish

Romans 5:21

eternal life - - 

death

Romans 6:21, 22

everlasting life - - 

death

Romans 6:23

eternal life - - 

death

1 Corinthians 1:18

Saved - - 

perish

2 Corinthians 2:15, 16

saved; life - - 

perish; death

Galatians 6:8

life everlasting - - 

corruption

1 John 5:11, 12

eternal life; hath life - - 

hath not life

Revelation 20:14, 15; 21:8

book of life - - 

lake of fire… the second death

This list detailing the positive truth of life (eternal, everlasting life) in Christ versus the opposite without Him should be overwhelmingly convincing. If deliberations in a court of law were over the perspicuity (clear meaning) of the divine jurisprudence (legal system), this Exhibit A would win the day. Understanding “everlasting punishment” as the second death of everlasting destruction (in clear contrast to “life eternal”) is in incontestable agreement with this tower of towering evidence. No “objection” could be made. This should be a light-bulb moment for many a reader.

To summarize: 

Synonyms of punishment are sentence, penalty, consequence, and retribution, not torment or pain.  

“Everlasting destruction” is the “everlasting punishment.” 

The Bible consistently describes the final punishment as “destruction.”  

Punishment is a noun, not a verb.  

Everlasting punishment is speaking of the result (how long it lasts), not the process (how long it takes). 

Eternal salvation, eternal redemption, and eternal judgment similarly describe a limited process with an everlasting result. 

The Bible uses the word punishment to describe consequences that do not include physical torture or ongoing pain.  

Scriptural references to “perpetual desolation”, “perish for ever”, “darkness for ever”, “utterly perish” and “be no more” are consistent with everlasting destruction.  

Everlasting punishment is in contrast to life eternal, just as so many texts consistently contrast everlasting life and eternal life to perish, destruction, and death. 

“Off with their heads” as a figure of speech harks back at least to Shakespeare and the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland. “Off with their heads” as a literal practice reached its gory zenith in the bloodbath of the Reign of Terror and only officially ended with the last to be guillotined in 1977. 

But don't forget that this gruesome tool of execution was the idealistic idea of a merciful man. Do we suppose our merciful Father capable of designing a device of no mercy and unending agony? 

Until his dying day (of natural causes) Dr. Joseph "Joe" Guillotin would deeply regret being the namesake of the ghastly gadget. When his embarrassed family couldn’t get the French government to change its name, they changed theirs. 

Like the grim bloodstains on the guillotine's unsparing blade, the fiendish myth of endless torment impugns the name of our good God.