I believe misunderstanding how the Bible uses the words death and destroy, is the foundation of sand on which the doctrine of annihilationism (aka., conditional immortality) is built. So I just wanted to share some brief thoughts on how the Bible actually uses these terms. 

Death

Death in Scripture is not a simple synonym for nonexistence. It is a covenantal and creational category before it is a metaphysical one. The Bible uses death to describe ruin and the loss of life as God intended it; biblical ruin itself is separation, not non-existence. Death is described as the creature cut off from the life for which he was made, not the cancellation of awareness or being. 

It begins with judicial death; sin brings a sentence. “The wages of sin is death.” Man stands condemned, liable to judgment. That verdict then unfolds into spiritual death; a man can be alive in body and yet “dead in trespasses and sins,” alienated from the life of God, walking in darkness, cut off from fellowship. Death is already present, not as extinction, but as separation and ruin. Man was created for fellowship with Him, not alienation. This alienation is death, the ruin of human beings as they were created to be.

Physical death is the historical outworking of that judgment. Man’s spirit is separated from his body and his body returns to dust. His spirit is removed from this realm: separated from life on God’s green earth. Yet even here, death does not erase accountability, because “after this the judgment.” A person is separated from this life, but he does not cease to exist or become unaware. He is waiting for eternal judgment. 

And then Scripture speaks of the second death; death consummated. Final exclusion. Irreversible ruin. The full and final separation from the life and blessing of God in the age to come. This is when the resurrected human being, body and soul, will be damned to eternity in outer darkness: alienated from God forever. The progression is consistent: verdict of condemnation, alienation from God spiritually, the separation of the human soul from this world, and finally the ultimate judicial outcome: eternal separation from the goodness and purposes of God. Death builds in Scripture; it does not suddenly change meaning into nonexistence at the end of God’s Book. To claim that the second death means annihilation of the human soul is to misunderstand the meaning of death as recorded in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation.

At its core, then, death in Scripture is separation. It is the creature cut off from the life of God, ruined in the purpose for which he was made. Judicially, it is the sentence; spiritually, it is alienation; physically, it is exile from this world; in the second death, it is final exclusion from God’s blessing. Death is not the disappearance of being, but the loss of life as God defines life; fellowship with Him: “This is eternal life, to know the one true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent” (John 17:3).

Destroy

The second term that is misunderstood and misinterpreted by those in the annihilationist camp is the term destroy. Somehow, those in this camp have imagined that the term destroy means to bring something into non-existence. Even in daily life, we do not use the word this way. When we say, “I totaled my car,” no one imagines it vaporized into thin air. Everyone knows that I ruined it. I made it unusable for the purpose it was intended. I can’t drive it anymore. It won’t take me places. I destroyed it! It might sit many years yet in the junk yard to be exploited for spare parts, but it is no longer of any use to me.

But this is not only the everyday use of the word, it is the biblical use as well. To destroy something is to ruin it. Jesus noted that if you put new wine into old wineskin the old wineskins will be ruined, that is, destroyed. They won’t cease to exist; they will just cease to hold wine.

Those in the conditional immortality camp imagine that the word destroy means to remove something from existence. Often, those in this camp will use the collapse of biblical cities, Sodom for instance, as an illustration. They will say Sodom was destroyed, and it ceased to exist. True enough. But when a city is destroyed, that means it is ruined, not that it disappears. Its order collapses, its life is overthrown, its purpose as a city is ended. It may cease to exist, like Sodom when it was destroyed, or it may continue after its destruction like Babylon and Jerusalem. In the case of the Sodom, its post-destruction nonexistence was the result of its ruin, not the definition of the word itself. Babylon was “destroyed” but it did not cease to exist. Jerusalem was “destroyed” by Babylon, and yet the city remained. It was broken and nearly desolate, its life crushed, its purpose overturned, but nevertheless, it was still there. This is because the term destroy is not synonymous with “end the existence of.”

Let’s look at Scripture directly to establish this point beyond all doubt. Jeremiah declares, “Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed; wail for her!” (Jeremiah 51:8). Again, “Babylon… will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah” (Jeremiah 50:40). The city is judged. It is ruined. Its glory is brought down, destroyed just like Sodom. 

The Bible says that both cities were destroyed, but it does not say that both of them ceased to exist. Babylon still existed as a place. Later we read in the book of Ezra, “This Ezra came up from Babylon” (Ezra 7:6). Babylon had been destroyed, and yet Babylon still existed as Babylon. How could Babylon be destroyed and not cease to exist? Simply because the word destroy does not mean, biblically or otherwise, to cause the end of something’s existence, even something like a city. It means overthrow, devastation, ruin. Cessation of existence is an entirely different concept and category. We understand this instinctively even in ordinary speech. People say, “They are destroying the country.” They do not mean the land will vanish into nothingness. They mean it is being brought to collapse.

Not only is the term destroy wrongly defined by annihilationists, but they go on to commit a category error as well. They begin with the destruction of a city and conclude that because a city, when destroyed, may cease to exist as a city, the destruction of a human being must likewise mean ceasing to exist. But that is not only to misunderstand biblical language, but it is a logical misstep as well. A city is destroyed as a city. A person is destroyed as a person. The category is different, and the meaning cannot simply be transferred.

This means that even if destroying a city always resulted in its disappearance, which it does not, a human being is not a city. A person is in a different category. That means that the destruction of a person will look different than the ruin of a city. The destruction of a person in Scripture is judicial and covenantal ruin; the loss of fellowship with God, exclusion from blessing, the collapse of man’s intended end as God’s image-bearer. Scripture does not define that ruin as metaphysical erasure. To assume that the term destroy means annihilation is to import a meaning the Bible does not teach.

Humans are ruined under judgment, not by vanishing from existence. They are no longer what God created them to be. They are cut off from the life of God, under wrath, in hell. They were created to rule and reign with God in His eternal kingdom, but instead they are damned in outer darkness for all eternity, alienated from God and all His purposes for them. That is the apex of the destruction of human beings according to Scripture. Not nonbeing, but ruin. God destroys their soul and body in hell.

Personal Appeal

My friend, I know the biblical teaching of eternal hell is about the hardest Scriptural teaching there is. Not because it is hard to understand, but because it is hard to accept. It is heavy, eternally so. But we must not allow our discomfort with biblical truth to lead us to mess with biblical doctrines. Don’t let your feelings and humanistic sensibilities open you up to redefining biblical terms. We must not seek to conform Scripture to our humanism, but must submit our hearts, minds, and lives to its precepts. Eternal death does not mean nonexistence, but eternal punishment away from the presence of God; this is the eternal ruin and destruction of the human creature. The soul that refuses to repent will be eternally damned. If you love people, tell them the truth.