Does ‘fire’ in Revelation 20:9–10, 14–15 suggest annihilation?
This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1998.
You ask about Revelation 20 and annihilation. I cannot think offhand of a Greek word that, by its very construction, means to reduce to nothing. The word 'annihilation' comes from the Latin, and means to reduce to nothing. But certainly if John did wish to say that the lake of fire reduces to nothing those that are cast in it, so that not one atom of them survives, he could have said so; but, of course, he does not say so.
One should observe that, in Revelation 20:13, death and hades are said to give up the dead which were in them. Death and hades are the two sides of the one experience. Physical death is the doorway through which a person enters the unseen world. That shows at once that, in Christian theology, physical death does not mean the extinction of the person. Physical death is simply the doorway through which a person enters the unseen world, minus his or her body. At the final judgment, hades gives up the dead that were in it—that is, the souls of the departed; but death itself gives up the dead which were in it—that is, both souls and bodies are resurrected.
In Revelation 20:9, the word 'devoured' literally means 'ate up'. In its literal sense it would be used of, say, a lion who ate up another animal. In Greek, as in many other languages, it is used metaphorically of the action of fire. Fire has no mouth, but metaphorically it is said to eat up. It means the same in Revelation 20:9 as it does in 2 Kings 1:10, when Elijah called down fire upon the captain and his fifty men. This latter passage is certainly not describing annihilation in the lake of fire. It is talking of physical destruction.
Yours sincerely in Christ,
