Annihilationism
towards8There are three different versions of what will happen to people who disobey God. The first is that they will be literally tormented forever. This is the most popular idea. The second is that they will all be saved anyway. This is called universalism. The third is that they will be destroyed forever along with the devil and the demons, so that they no longer exist. This is called annihilationism. Of these three, annihilationism is the correct biblical version.
That annihilationism is what the Bible teaches, we see right at the beginning in the book of Genesis. When God told Adam the consequences of disobedience, he didn't say that Adam would literally be tormented forever, but that he would die. Death is the final punishment. Death is non-existence, because death is nothing but the absence of life, just as darkness is nothing but the absence of light. When you are dead—that is, when you are brain-dead—you no longer exist. The brain is the seat of the mind. If your brain is dead, you no longer have a mind and therefore no consciousness.
When God created Adam, he first made his body, and then God breathed oxygen into Adam's nostrils. The oxygen passed from his lungs into his blood and from his blood to his brain. The oxygen activated his brain, and he became a "living soul." If your brain no longer functions, you are no longer a living soul.
Ezekiel 18:4 states that the soul that sins shall die, and Romans 6:23 states that the wages of sin is death, but the reward in Jesus is eternal life. However, if we now assume that those who are disobedient are literally tormented forever, then we contradict the Bible, because to feel pain, you must have consciousness, meaning you must still be alive. If that is the case, then ultimately everyone has eternal life, even the disobedient, but Jesus said that the disobedient will die (John 8:24).
Revelation 21:8 states that the wicked will be thrown into the lake of fire, which is the second death. It is called the second death because it is the final death, where one will not be resurrected, as in the first death. Those thrown into it will be banished into eternal non-existence. It is like throwing a piece of paper into the fire. The paper is consumed by the fire and is no longer there. The wicked are destroyed forever (Psalm 92:7).
However, I must admit that there are passages in the New Testament that speak of eternal torment, but they are very few. This is undeniable. But these passages must be understood metaphorically and not literally. Since the Bible mostly speaks of annihilationism, it makes no sense to focus on a few verses and ignore the rest. One passage in particular from Revelation is used for this purpose, a book that is undoubtedly full of metaphors.