Old Testament

Genesis 2:17

"but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die."

God warned Adam that he would surely die if he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Natural, literal death is clearly intended here. Hence, in Genesis 3:19, God says, "you are dust, and you shall return to dust." The curses causing difficulty in working the land and in childbirth also indicate that death is intended. Therefore, God kicked Adam out of the garden when he sinned, "lest he reach out his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever" (Gen 3:22). Paul explains that "as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death passed to all men because all sinned." (Rom 5:12). Everyone in Adam is destined to perish and die.

In Revelation, it is revealed that believers will get to partake of the tree of life and live forevermore: "On this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." (Rev 22:2). Paul explains that believers will be made unable to die: "The first man is of the earth, made of dust. The second man is the Lord from heaven... Now I say this, brothers, that flesh and blood can’t inherit God’s Kingdom; neither does the perishable inherit imperishable... For this perishable body must become imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality." (1 Cor 15:47, 50, 53).

It follows that some will not inherit the imperishable nor receive immortality. They will be subject to everlasting death and won't obtain to the final age: "But those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. For they can’t die any more, for they are like the angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection" (Lk 20:35-36).

If you struggle to see how this verse is indicating the certainty of death rather than its chronology, consider the verse with the addition of the phrase "it is true": "for in the day that you eat of it, it is true that you will surely die." The fundamental meaning of the text is exactly the same, but this is an easy way of understanding in English that this verse is conveying the certainty of death. In Hebrew, this is called an infinitive absolute.

Rethinking Hell, Rethinking Hell Live 040: What the Bible Really Says About What "Death" Means, YouTube.

Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1–17, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), pg. 172: "Here in 2:17 we have translated it as as surely as on the basis of its occasional use as an idiom meaning 'for certain,' as in 1 K. 2:37, 42, where Shimei is threatened with death 'on the day you go forth and cross the brook Kidron.' As the next few verses indicate, Shimei could not possibly have been executed 'on the day' he exited his house. The verse is underscoring the certainty of death, not its chronology."

Peter Grice, Warned of Sin's Wages: A Concise Explanation of Death in Genesis 2:17 and Romans 6:23, 2017: "In other words, 'you will certainly die' became true instantly, as a kind of death sentence or curse. In the Hebrew, this phrase is a language construct known as an infinitive absolute. It has no exact equivalent in English, and should be read not as a statement about when death will occur, but rather to emphasize the certainty of death being incurred."

Deuteronomy 29:20

"Yahweh will not pardon him, but then Yahweh’s anger and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book will fall on him, and Yahweh will blot out his name from under the sky."

"For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish" (Ps 1:6).

"I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and they opened books. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works. The sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. They were judged, each one according to his works. Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. If anyone was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire" (Rev 20:12-15).

Wisdom

Psalm 9:5-6

"You have rebuked the nations. You have destroyed the wicked. You have blotted out their name forever and ever. The enemy is overtaken by endless ruin. The very memory of the cities which you have overthrown has perished."

Psalm 11:6

"On the wicked he will rain blazing coals; fire, sulfur, and scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup."

"The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Yahweh out of the sky. He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt." (Gen 19:23-26).

"and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, having made them an example to those who would live in an ungodly way" (2 Pet 2:6).

Sodom and Gomorrah is a cited many times in the Old and New Testaments as representative of what God's judgment is like.

Psalm 37:20 // 1:6

"But the wicked shall perish. The enemies of Yahweh shall be like the beauty of the fields. They will vanish— vanish like smoke."

Psalm 37:38 // 37:10 // 37:28-29 // 37:34

"As for transgressors, they shall be destroyed together. The future of the wicked shall be cut off."

Psalm 73:17-20 ESV

"then I discerned their end. Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors! Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms."

Psalm 92:7 // 58:8 // 145:20

"though the wicked spring up as the grass, and all the evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever."

"who will pay the penalty: eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes in that day to be glorified in his saints and to be admired among all those who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed" (2 Thess 1:9-10).

Psalm 112:10

"The wicked will see it, and be grieved. He shall gnash with his teeth, and melt away. The desire of the wicked will perish."

"The wicked plots against the just, and gnashes at him with his teeth. The Lord will laugh at him, for he sees that his day is coming." (Ps 37:12-13).

The phrase gnashing of teeth indicates anger, annoyance, and being upset at the inability to stop something. Here it is used in conjunction with the wicked melting away and perishing. It does not suggest a perpetual process of suffering. Neither is gnashing of teeth ever said to last forever in the New Testament.

Proverbs 10:25, 27, 29-31

"When the whirlwind passes, the wicked is no more; but the righteous stand firm forever... The fear of Yahweh prolongs days, but the years of the wicked shall be shortened... The way of Yahweh is a stronghold to the upright, but it is a destruction to the workers of iniquity. The righteous will never be removed, but the wicked will not dwell in the land. The mouth of the righteous produces wisdom, but the perverse tongue will be cut off."

"The nations were angry, and your wrath came, as did the time for the dead to be judged, and to give your bondservants the prophets, their reward, as well as to the saints and those who fear your name, to the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth" (Rev 11:18).

Proverbs 24:19-20

"Don’t fret yourself because of evildoers, neither be envious of the wicked; for there will be no reward to the evil man. The lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out."

Ecclesiastes 3:11

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts, yet so that man can’t find out the work that God has done from the beginning even to the end."

This verse does not teach the immortality of the soul. The Hebrew word "olam" is commonly translated as "darkness," "eternity," or "the future." This verse is about the insatiable longing for and awareness of something beyond this world that God has instilled in human hearts. Humans possess an inherent sense of something beyond the temporal world. Yet we are unable to fully understand God's workings or be ultimately satisfied in this world. This verse describes that existential reality.

The Prophets

Isaiah 26:14, 19 (ESV)

"They are dead, they will not live; they are shades, they will not arise; to that end you have visited them with destruction and wiped out all remembrance of them... Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead."

Isaiah isn't denying a general future resurrection of all. He's denying that the wicked will get to participate in the resurrection life to come. They will come out "to the resurrection of judgment" while those saved by Jesus will come out "to the resurrection of life" (Jn 5:29). The wicked will face eternal destruction from the fires of Gehenna.

Isaiah 33:11-12, 14

"You will conceive chaff. You will give birth to stubble. Your breath is a fire that will devour you. The peoples will be like the burning of lime, like thorns that are cut down and burned in the fire... The sinners in Zion are afraid. Trembling has seized the godless ones. Who among us can live with the devouring fire? Who among us can live with everlasting burning?"

Isaiah provides the background for many of the New Testament’s teachings about hell. Chaff being burned represents complete devouring and destruction (Mat 3:12). Trees (Mat 7:19), weeds (Mat 13:40), and thorns and thistles (Heb 6:8) likewise are cut down and burned up. The obvious answer to Isaiah's rhetorical question, who among us can live, is that they will not be able to continue living in the midst of everlasting, devouring fire (Mat 18:8). The fire does not turn them into a juggernaut that can take on endless fire. While it may be possible to withstand fire for 5 or 10 minutes, this imagery conveys an utterly destructive power that will obliterate the wicked.

Isaiah 34:2-5, 8-10

"For Yahweh is enraged against all the nations, and angry with all their armies. He has utterly destroyed them. He has given them over for slaughter. Their slain will also be cast out, and the stench of their dead bodies will come up. The mountains will melt in their blood. All of the army of the sky will be dissolved. The sky will be rolled up like a scroll, and all its armies will fade away, as a leaf fades from off a vine or a fig tree. For my sword has drunk its fill in the sky. Behold, it will come down on Edom, and on the people of my curse, for judgment... For Yahweh has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion. Its streams will be turned into pitch, its dust into sulfur, and its land will become burning pitch. It won’t be quenched night or day. Its smoke will go up forever. From generation to generation, it will lie waste. No one will pass through it forever and ever."

Isaiah 66:15-16

"For, behold, Yahweh will come with fire, and his chariots will be like the whirlwind; to render his anger with fierceness, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For Yahweh will execute judgment by fire and by his sword on all flesh; and those slain by Yahweh will be many."

Jesus is the one who will execute judgment by a "flaming fire" (2 Thes 1:7). The sword of judgment will fall on the on the lawless one, "whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the manifestation of his coming" (2 Thes 2:8). Thus, many will be slain and face the penalty of "eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might" (2 Thes 1:8).

Isaiah 66:22-24

"'For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me,' says Yahweh, 'so your offspring and your name shall remain. It shall happen that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh will come to worship before me,' says Yahweh. 'They will go out, and look at the dead bodies of the men who have transgressed against me; for their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.'"

Jesus uses this imagery of the worm not dying and the fire not being quenched in conjunction with Gehenna, a valley of dead bodies that serves as a picture of the final end for unbelievers. Notice that the context in both is about dead bodies in the new heavens and new earth. The worms will devour. The fire will completely consume. The unrighteous will forever be remembered with contempt. Though "unquenchable fire" strikes modern as eternal torment, the Old Testament background demonstrates that it refers to a consuming fire that cannot be extinguished.

Jeremiah 7:32-33 // 19:6-13

"'Therefore behold, the days come', says Yahweh, 'that it will no more be called ‘Topheth’ or ‘The valley of the son of Hinnom’, but ‘The valley of Slaughter’; for they will bury in Topheth until there is no place to bury. The dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth. No one will frighten them away.'"

This is the background for Jesus' teaching about Gehenna (what is commonly translated hell, the final end for the unsaved). Gehenna will be called "The Valley of Slaughter." God will slay His enemies there. The worms, birds, and other scavengers will devour the dead bodies while fire burns up and consumes them. This picture intensely portrays death, destruction, and annihilation, not eternal torment.

Jeremiah 31:38-40

"'Behold, the days come,' says Yahweh, 'that the city will be built to Yahweh from the tower of Hananel to the gate of the corner. The measuring line will go out further straight onward to the hill Gareb, and will turn toward Goah. The whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields to the brook Kidron, to the corner of the horse gate toward the east, will be holy to Yahweh. It will not be plucked up or thrown down any more forever.'"

Daniel 12:2

"Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."

"Many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to eternal life, and some to disgrace and eternal contempt." [CSB]

"And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to reproach and everlasting contempt." [LSB]

"And the multitude of those sleeping in the dust of the ground do awake, some to life age-during, and some to reproaches -- to abhorrence age-during." [YTL]

Contempt is the same word as loathsome in Isaiah 66:24, the only other occurance of that word in the Old Testament. Both verses speak of the comtempt of believers for the wicked.

D. Barry, Conditional Immortality: Daniel 12:2: "It is obvious that the unsaved have the shame emotion. And it is the righteous that have the contempt emotion towards the wicked. Notice that only one of those emotions lasts forever."

Joseph Dear, Daniel 12:2 Does Not Teach Eternal Torment, 2017: "Even an atheist who does not believe that Hitler exists in any form would still say that he is looked upon with contempt... Although it is true that the unsaved who awake to disgrace and everlasting contempt will not always be awake, the disgrace and contempt outlives them."

Nahum 1:8-10

"But with an overflowing flood, he will make a full end of her place, and will pursue his enemies into darkness. What do you plot against Yahweh? He will make a full end. Affliction won’t rise up the second time. For entangled like thorns, and drunken as with their drink, they are consumed utterly like dry stubble."

Contrary to the traditional belief that God will keep His enemies alive forever to keep sinning, God will instead make a full end to evil. He will pursue His enemies into the depths of Sheol. They will all be completely consumed like straw. God will have complete victory over sin and death and evil.

Malachi 4:1-3

"'For behold, the day comes, burning like a furnace, when all the proud and all who work wickedness will be stubble. The day that comes will burn them up,' says Yahweh of Armies, 'so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But to you who fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings. You will go out and leap like calves of the stall. You shall tread down the wicked; for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I make,' says Yahweh of Armies."

"For it is a righteous thing with God to repay affliction to those who afflict you, and to give relief to you who are afflicted with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, punishing those who don’t know God, and to those who don’t obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus, who will pay the penalty: eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes in that day to be glorified in his saints and to be admired among all those who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed." (2 Thes 1:6-10).

God's destruction of the wicked will be complete. There will be no part left untouched by the burning furnace and no part left unconsumed. They will be like "natural animals to be taken and destroyed" and "will in their destroying surely be destroyed" (2 Pet 2:12). Only the righteous will arise to healing and life. All those who work wickedness will rise to judgment and be burned up with unquenchable fire so that only ashes remain.

Mark Corbett, Malachi Supports Annihilationism and Refutes both Eternal Conscious Torment and Universalism.