Do the Unrighteous go to Hell?

Conscious Torment versus Annihilation

This is Article 4 of a Six-Part series on Christian Eschatology: The Immortal Soul, Dualism, Post-Death State, and Eternal Consequences

Article 1: The Immortal Soul

Article 2: Dualism

Article 3: Sleep, not Death

Article 4: The Fate of the Unrighteous

Article 5: The Fate of the Righteous 

Article 6: The Culminated Hope

Is this the Fate of the Unrighteous?

We understand that humans do not possess an immortal soul. We also understand that both this and dualism—Soul Theory—stem from Greek metaphysics and not the Word of God or the ministry of Christ and His Apostles. We also recognize that, upon death, we sleep: there are no intermediate locations or immediate ascension to Heaven nor descent into Hell. All will sleep, awaiting the return of Christ when all will be raised and then judged. Jesus described this future repeatedly as a separation of the righteous from the unrighteous, as a shepherd separates sheep from goats (Matthew 25:32), wheat from tares (Matthew 13:24–30; 36–43), good fish from bad fish (Matthew 13:47–50), wise and foolish virgins (Matthew 25:1–13), the righteous from unrighteous (Matthew 24:37–41; Luke 17:26–37). This is the eschatological end viewed through Christianity, not Plato.

But when we remove these errors, a tremendous emptiness remains where false doctrines were once firmly rooted. What happens after the final judgment? What fate awaits the righteous and unrighteous in the New Creation? We are not left in ignorance, wandering blindly and stumbling in the dark to try and invent our fates from some recesses of our own imagination. Scripture, too, tells us.

Unfortunately, one of the central areas of focus for earnest seekers and Christians alike is the immediate consequence of death. Most often this is characterized rather simply: the righteous immediately ascend to Heaven, and unrighteous to Hell. Owing to additional confusion by the Roman Church—that is, the Limbos as well as Purgatory—the basic calculus remains: death equals some immediate consequence.

However, since we know these to be false, let us view first the fate of the unrighteous as Christ and Scripture reveals to us.

In virtually every Christian sect, the unrighteous are assumed to experience eternal conscious torment, sometimes abbreviated as ETC. This is not a belief unique to Christianity, but one that developed atop the false premise of Platonic metaphysics. The process is linear: unrighteous die, descend immediately to Hell, and are then tormented for all eternity.

However, contrary to fear-based ministries, the unrighteous do not suffer eternal conscious torment in Hell. This error depends entirely on Greek immortality-of-the-soul assumptions. With these assumptions a necessary prerequisite, it is no surprise that the concept of eternal, conscious torment is likewise a product of paganism (Article coming soon!), not Christianity. We have already disproven these, properly stating the biblical truth that human beings are holistic creations of God with self and body as one. It aligns with Christian doctrine, then, that the wicked do not suffer forever; instead, they die, sleep, and are ultimately destroyed, both body and soul, in the final judgment.

The Meaning of “Eternal Destruction” (ὄλεθρος αἰώνιος) 

Jesus explicitly teaches destruction—not eternal or even temporal torment. When referring to the fate of the wicked—that is, those that are not redeemed through Christ—He uses Greek language aligned with annihilation, not ongoing torment. These include:

·         ἀπόλλυμι (apollymi) — to destroy, perish, be lost (Matt 10:28; John 3:16)

·         ὄλεθρος (olethros) — destruction, ruin (2 Thess 1:9)

·         σβέννυμι (sbennymi) — extinguish (Mark 9:48, in its Old Testament context)

A natural place to begin is with Jesus’ own contrast between human and divine judgment. See his programmatic statement in Matthew 10:28, perhaps the key verse pertaining to judgment:

English	Greek (NA28)
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”	μὴ φοβεῖσθε ἀπὸ τῶν ἀποκτεινόντων τὸ σῶμα, τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν μὴ δυναμένων ἀποκτεῖναι· φοβεῖσθε δὲ μᾶλλον τὸν δυνάμενον καὶ ψυχὴν καὶ σῶμα ἀπολέσαι ἐν γεέννῃ.

We are taught that humans can kill the body (ἀποκτείνω, apokteinō). We are already familiar with the Greek word ψυχή (psychē), often translated “soul,” is used frequently in Scripture to denote the whole living self, “life,” or “person,” not an inherently immortal, separable substance (as we have learned already here and here). In this context, we are told that God is able to destroy (ἀπόλλυμι, apollymi) both psychē and sōma in Gehenna.

If the “soul” is by nature immortal and indestructible, Jesus’ warning makes little sense. The force of the statement is precisely that God can do what man cannot do: not merely kill the body, but bring the whole person—life, identity, existence—to destruction. The Greek verb ἀπολέσαι (aorist infinitive of ἀπόλλυμι) is the same root used elsewhere for perishing rather than being preserved in torment.

Jesus does not say, “Fear Him who can torment both soul and body forever.” He says, “Fear Him who can destroy them.” That is annihilationist language.

From where did Hell and ETC come from, if not from Scripture?

The language used throughout the New Testament to describe the end of the unrighteous is consistently the language of destruction and death. We frequently see ἀπόλλυμι (apollymi), meaning to perish or be destroyed, used to describe the consequence of those who have faith and those who do not. In perhaps the most well-known verse in the Bible, we read, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish (ἀπόληται, apollymi) but have eternal life.

This verse is not merely descriptive; it contrasts the fate of the righteous against that of the unrighteous. Eternal life awaits the faithful, while perishing awaits those who have not been redeemed in Christ. The contrast is not between “eternal life in heaven” versus “eternal life in hell.” The verb ἀπόλλυμι in its middle/passive form (ἀπόληται) here stands over against ζωὴ αἰώνιος (eternal life). If “perish” meant “live forever in torment,” the contrast collapses. Yet in ordinary Greek, ἀπόλλυμι refers to ruin, destruction, or loss—even to the destruction of physical objects or lives that cease to be. It is, in a word, annihilation.

This pattern is carried into the apostolic ministry of those chosen by Christ to be His Apostles. In Philippians 3:19, Paul describes those “whose end is destruction (ἀπώλεια)” and the Apostle Peter specifically describes “the day of judgment and destruction (ἀπώλειαν) of the ungodly” (2 Peter 3:7). The noun ἀπώλεια is the cognate of ἀπόλλυμι. The telos (“end”) of the wicked is not ongoing life, but destruction. The Apostle James incorporates the same language when describing the power of God: “There is one Lawgiver and Judge, He who is able to save and to destroy (ἀπολέσαι)” (James 4:12). Again, the binary is save versus destroy, not “save versus torture indefinitely.”

We have a similar pattern with ὄλεθρος (olethros), a Greek word meaning simply, “destruction, ruin.” 2 Thessalonians 1:9 is often quoted in support of eternal conscious torment, but the word choice actually supports annihilationism: “They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction (ὄλεθρον αἰώνιον) from the presence of the Lord…” The core noun is ὄλεθρος, “destruction, ruin, death,” not “torment.” When attached to αἰώνιος (“eternal” or “of the age”), the phrase points to a destruction whose effects are final and irreversible, not to a process of endless conscious misery. To say “eternal destruction” is to say that what is destroyed stays destroyed, not that something is destroyed repeatedly for eternity.

Paul uses another Greek word, θάνατος (thanatos), meaning death, when he describes the consequence of sin: “For the wages of sin is death (θάνατος), but the free gift of God is eternal life…” (Romans 6:23). Again, the antithesis is death versus eternal life. If “death” here really means “everlasting conscious suffering,” then the parallel is broken. The plain sense is that sin pays out with death—the cessation of existence—while God grants immortality as a gift in Christ.

Revelation 20:14–15 calls the lake of fire “the second death.” If the “second death” is actually “second life in torment,” the word “death” has been emptied of all meaning. The consistent pattern—from Romans through Revelation—is that life with God is eternal; separation from God ends in death, meaning the complete annihilation in the form of non-existence.

The New Testament’s language of destruction is not a novelty; it rests firmly on the Hebrew Scriptures, continuing the annihilationist language and eschatology that Christianity follows. Several key Hebrew verbs cluster around the fate of the wicked:

• · כָּרַת (karat) – “to cut off.”

• · אָבַד (’avad) – “to perish, be destroyed.”"

  · שָׁמַד (shamad) – “to destroy, annihilate.”

• · כָּלָה (kalah) – “to be finished, completed, consumed.”

           Imagery of fire that leaves ashes, and of the wicked being “no more.”

(apologies for the difficulty in formatting Hebrew on Wix)

Psalm 37 repeatedly contrasts the righteous and the wicked: “For the evildoers shall be cut off (יִכָּרֵתוּ)… In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. But the meek shall inherit the land…” (Psalm 37:9–11). The wicked are “cut off” and “no more.” Their place is empty. Meanwhile, the meek inherit the earth—language Jesus explicitly cites in the Beatitudes. Psalm 37 does not envision two eternal communities, one enjoying God and the other consciously suffering. It envisions the wicked gone and the righteous dwelling securely in the perfect completion of God’s design.

Malachi 4:1–3 is even more graphic:

“For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch… And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act…”

Here the wicked are compared to stubble in an oven. The fire does not preserve them; it consumes them. The phrase “neither root nor branch” communicates total eradication—nothing left above ground, nothing left beneath. The final remnant of the wicked is “ashes under the soles of your feet.” This is annihilationist imagery long before the New Testament.

Obadiah 16 conveys the same idea: “They shall be as though they had never been.” Not “they shall be forever in torment,” but “as though they had never existed.”

Unquenchable Fire and Undying Worm Explained

Traditional readings of “unquenchable fire” and “their worm does not die” treat these phrases as if they proved ceaseless conscious existence. But in their original context, they describe a complete destruction, not endless life. See Isaiah 66:24, the source for Jesus’ language in Mark 9: “And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies (פִּגְרֵי הָאֲנָשִׁים, pigrei ha’anashim) of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.” The crucial detail: these are dead bodies, corpses. The Hebrew term פֶּגֶר (peger) is not a living soul but a lifeless carcass. The “worm” and the “fire” are agents of decay and destruction, not instruments of perpetual torture. The worm “not dying” simply means the process of decay is not interrupted before its work is complete, just as the fire “not quenched” (לֹא תִכְבֶּה, lo tikhbeh) means no one puts it out; it burns until it has consumed what it is meant to consume. In both instances, we see the uninterrupted progress of total annihilation.

The same logic applies to “unquenchable fire” in other passages. A fire that is “unquenchable” in Scripture is not a fire that burns forever without finishing its work, but a fire that cannot be extinguished until its task of consuming judgment is complete. It is irresistible, not endlessly frustrated. When Jesus in Mark 9 cites this imagery—“where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched”—He is not introducing a new doctrine of immortal souls being eternally roasted. Instead, He is invoking Isaiah’s picture of rejected rebels whose corpses become a perpetual sign of God’s justice, having been consumed by a fire that no one can stop.

Annihalation is a work complete: you cease to be, or to have ever been

Eternal Punishment vs Eternal Life (Matthew 25:46)

One of the main prooftexts for eternal conscious torment is Matthew 25:46: “And these will go away into eternal punishment (κόλασιν αἰώνιον), but the righteous into eternal life (ζωὴν αἰώνιον).” The adjective αἰώνιος is doing the same work in both halves of the verse: the life is eternal, and the punishment is eternal. The key question is: eternal what?

The noun for punishment is κόλασις, which can refer to corrective or retributive punishment, but does not itself specify whether the punishment is ongoing or its effects are permanent. Annihilationists understand “eternal punishment” as being eternal in consequence, not necessarily endless in conscious experience. The punishment imposed is death, the second death, and the result of that judgment is everlasting: the wicked never rise again. This is the exact inversion of the everlasting life given to those made righteous in Christ.

This reading is supported by other passages that link “eternal fire” with completed destruction. Jude 7 speaks of Sodom and Gomorrah: “which serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire (πύρος αἰωνίου).” The cities are not still burning. The fire is “eternal” because it is the fire of God’s judgment—its source and its effect belong to the age to come—and because the destruction it wrought is irreversible. The same pattern reasonably applies to “eternal punishment”: a punishment whose outcome (destruction, death) is everlasting.

In this understanding, eternal life is an unending mode of existence granted to the righteous. Eternal punishment is just that; the effect of the punishment is eternal, in this case, the “final death” where both body and soul is destroyed completely. The contrast is not “two eternal lives of different quality,” but life vs. death, both with everlasting finality.

Revelation, which we can always depend upon to complicate the Scriptural message, gathers these threads under the phrase “the second death.” See Revelation 20:14: “Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.” If “death” consistently means the cessation of life—the end of conscious existence—then the “second death” is the final, irreversible extinction of all who are not written in the book of life. If we reinterpret “death” here as “eternal conscious existence in pain,” we are not reading the text; we are overriding it, grafting what we want it to say (for whatever reason).

The imagery of the lake of fire swallowing “Death and Hades” themselves reinforces the idea that death itself is being abolished, not reconfigured into a permanent alternative mode of living. The wicked are not preserved as eternal trophies of wrath; they are swept away along with death, so that in the renewed creation, “there shall be no more death” (Revelation 21:4). The text literally calls it the “second death” not “eternal conscious life with pain.”

And so we have rediscovered the fate of the unrighteous when Jesus Christ returns. The Final Judgment is a cleansing, a great purification of Creation so that no wickedness or sin is left remaining. For those whose sins are not redeemed through Christ, their fate is a simple one: to live, die, and then live again to face the Final Judgment. There is only one end for those who are not redeemed: to not exist at all, in any form, thereafter. The way of the unrighteous is the true way of death, not once, but also for that dreaded “second death” where our entire essence is eliminated.

This is the fate of the unrighteous, the fruits of choosing not to enter covenantal union with God. They do not burn forever, as if God is some kind of sadist who delights in the suffering of His children. Recall that the unrighteous were also created in His image, they are not some stained sub-species on an imagined spiritual scale. Their end is one of cessation, not torture. They simply do not exist, and in the New Creation. It will be as if they never had.

But what of the righteous, those of us called Christians who are exempt of this judgment because of the sacrifice and love of our Lord, Jesus Christ?

That is the subject for our next article.

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