Answers to Twenty-Five Advanced Salvation Questions

Here is the third answer to an advanced salvation question

What is a biblical refutation of annihilationism?

Grudem writes “the idea that there will be eternal conscious punishment of unbelievers has been denied recently even by some evangelical theologians.” He then lists some of these evangelicals in a footnote: “See Philip E. Hughes, The True Image: The Origin and Destiny of Man in Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), pp. 405-407; David L. Edwards and John R. W. Stott, Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1988, pp. 275-76; Clark Pinnock, “The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent,” CthRev 4 (Spring 1990), pp. 243-59).[1]

In addition to the arguments refuting universalism, Jesus’ statement in Matthew 25:46 disproves annihilationism: “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” The same Greek word aionios for eternal is used to describe both eternal punishment and eternal life. The annihilationists cannot have an eternal heaven without an eternal lake of fire.


            [1] Wayne Grudem. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994) 1148.