Below is my response to a comment made by a person supporting the annihilation lie.
COMMENT: He would not burn his creation forever. However, if we, as humans, decide that we don’t want to be with him, then he will not force us to be with him. He will allow unrepentant human beings to unplug from him and cease to exist.
Before I respond directly to this comment, I want to say this:
There is something fundamentally strange about the annihilation argument when you really think it through.
They didn’t choose to be created, and yet supposedly they possess the ultimate choice to remove themselves from God’s creation forever. The creature never chose to exist, but somehow the creature gets the final word over whether God’s act of creation will have an everlasting result. It is almost as though the clay can say to the Potter, “No. I reject what You are making. Stop creating me. I will not exist.”
Think about this example.
Suppose I told you, “I have ten children, and I am a great father. All of my children are successful, have good jobs, and have become respectful people.”
You look around and see only one child.
You ask, “Where are the other nine?”
I answer, “Oh, they weren’t successful, so I killed them. They’re gone forever.”
Then I proudly say, “See? Every one of my children who exists is successful!”
Would anyone consider that a great victory for the father?
Yet this is essentially what annihilation does with God’s final victory. It says that eventually everyone remaining in existence will belong to God—but only because everyone who would not belong to Him has been permanently eliminated.
That isn’t death being defeated. That is death permanently keeping its victims.
Paul says:
“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”
—1 Corinthians 15:22
And then:
“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”
—1 Corinthians 15:26
If billions of human beings remain dead forever—erased from existence with no resurrection to final life—then in what meaningful sense has death itself been destroyed?
Annihilation doesn’t solve the problem of death. It makes death permanent.
My argument is not that the wicked never perish. Scripture plainly says they do. The Old Testament repeatedly describes mankind returning to dust, going to the grave, perishing, and consuming away. That is precisely what humanity needs Christ to save it from.
The question isn’t whether people die.
The question is whether death gets the final word—or Christ does.
And Paul’s answer is extraordinary: all who die in Adam will ultimately be made alive in Christ; death itself will be abolished; all things will be subjected to Christ; and ultimately God will be “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:22–28).
The Potter does not lose His clay.
He finishes what He began.
MY DIRECT RESPONSE TO THE COMMENT SUPPORTING ANNIHILATION:
What a sick thought—that God would create human beings, know every detail of their lives, and then erase them from existence forever because they did not respond to Him as you believe they should.
You reject eternal torment because you recognize how monstrous it makes God appear, but then replace it with eternal annihilation and call that love. You have simply exchanged one eternal defeat for another.
The entire Old Testament repeatedly speaks of mankind perishing, consuming away, returning to dust, going to the grave, and dying. What is that describing? Annihilation. That is death.
“All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.” (Ecclesiastes 3:20)
“What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?” (Psalm 89:48)
And Job asks the question at the heart of the entire issue:
“If a man die, shall he live again?” (Job 14:14)
The Old Testament speaks repeatedly about this condition without yet revealing the fullness of what Christ would accomplish. The righteous and wicked alike die. They perish. They return to dust. Death is the annihilation from which humanity needs resurrection.
Then Christ changes everything.
He enters the very death that held humanity and comes out of it victorious. And through Paul we are given the fuller revelation of where Christ’s victory ultimately leads:
“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:22)
“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” (1 Corinthians 15:26)
That is the enormous contradiction in the annihilationist position. People recognize that eternal conscious torment makes God into a monster, so they reject hell and embrace annihilation—without realizing they have made permanent the very enemy Christ came to abolish.
If billions remain annihilated forever, death has not been abolished. Death has won permanently over billions of God’s creatures.
And saying God must allow this because He cannot violate man’s “free will” doesn’t solve anything. Was Saul seeking Christ on the Damascus road? No. He was persecuting Christ’s followers when Christ intervened and completely changed his course. Was that love, or was Christ violating Saul’s supposed autonomous free will?
Think about the deeper contradiction: the creature never chose to exist in the first place, yet supposedly possesses the ultimate power to defeat God’s purpose for creating him by choosing permanent nonexistence. I don’t believe Scripture gives the creature that kind of sovereignty.
Christ is called the “Savior of all mankind” (1 Timothy 4:10). God reconciles “all things” through Christ (Colossians 1:20). All who die in Adam are made alive in Christ, every enemy is abolished, including death, and finally God becomes “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:22–28).
Annihilation is not the abolition of death. It is death made permanent.
I believe Christ’s victory is infinitely greater than that. He doesn’t defeat death by allowing death to keep its victims forever. He defeats death by taking every victim out of it.
You believe God’s final answer for part of His creation is permanent death. I believe God’s final answer is resurrection, reconciliation, life—and ultimately God all in all.
Leave a comment