What is eternal death?

Death and hades are said to be cast into the Lake of Fire, indicating that there will be no more separating of the soul and spirit from the body. The second resurrection has ended these conditions. Yet consignment to the Lake of Fire is called “the second death.” It is not a physical separation of the spirit from the body, but a most solemn separation of the entire person from God, and as verse 10 has shown, it means “torment day and night forever and ever.”

The word death is used in three ways. It expresses: First, Separation morally from God through sin. Second, Separation of the body from the soul and spirit. Third, Eternal separation from God. In no case does it mean annihilation.

As to the first, we read of those “dead in trespasses and sins” when body and soul were both alive together on this earth. Death in the sense of the second needs no comment, save to say it does not mean ceasing to exist, as we have abundantly proved. The third way in which the term is used is plain, “And death and hell [hades] were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death” (Rev. 20:4). The second death is an abiding eternal existence of misery. We speak of “a living death,” and the meaning is plain. Here the meaning is equally plain: “second death” means everlasting conscious existence under the wrath of God—eternal separation from God, which must mean misery and torment, for all true blessing and joy consist in our right relation to God.

The word ‘death’ is used in three ways. It expresses: First, separation morally from God through sin. Second, separation of the body from the soul and spirit. Third, eternal separation from God. In no case does it mean annihilation.

As to the first, we read of those “dead in trespasses and sins” when body and soul were both alive together on this earth. Death in the sense of the second needs no comment, save to say it does not mean ceasing to exist, as we have abundantly proved. The third way in which the term is used is plain. “And death and hell [hades] were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death” (Rev. 20:14). The second death is an abiding, eternal existence of misery. We speak of “a living death,” and the meaning is plain. Here the meaning is equally plain: “second death” means everlasting, conscious existence under the wrath of God—eternal separation from God, which must mean misery and torment, for all true blessing and joy consist in our right relation to God.

The terrible import of verse 8 is apparent. It stands in contrast to the victors in verse 7, and in both verses we are carried outside the bounds of time and into the endless expanse of eternity. There is that confined region, burning with the holy judgment of God, which will be the second death to those that are cast there. The first death is not annihilation. If it were, there could be no second. It is dissolution of soul and body. The second death will be the complete and absolute dissolution of every link that connects with God; complete severance from all that is summed up in the words, life and light and love. There will be existence but not life in the full and proper sense of the word.

The list of those on whom this doom falls is sadly instructive. It begins with the fearful and unbelieving. Being without faith, they feared man and did not confess Jesus as their Lord. Those who bore the character of the devil, who is a murderer, and were marked by lust and traffic with the powers of darkness, come next. The list finishes with "all liars," for lying is another characteristic of the devil, and deceit takes a variety of subtle forms. The overcomers of verse 7 are sons of God. The damned of verse 8 proclaim themselves as sons of the evil one. They share his doom.

The nature of this judicial doom is explained to be the second death. The first death pronounced, as the penalty on Adam's transgression, meant far more than the death of the body. The moral use of the word in the phrase "dead in sins" proves beyond a doubt that it signifies, in its essence, the separation of the soul from God, together with the state of the soul as being without a single movement of life towards God. This interpretation is confirmed by the statement in Romans, that "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin" for it is clearly the state of man which is thus indicated. (See also 2 Cor. 5:14.) This, rightly understood, throws great light upon the term here employed — "the second death." "Death," then, will keep its meaning — the absolute separation of the soul from God, its total exclusion from the source of all light and life, and its confinement for ever in the region of darkness; for as light and life, so darkness and death are in their very nature indissolubly connected. Then we have the additional element, "the lake of fire." "Fire" in Scripture is the symbol of the holiness of God as applied in judgment. This may be easily traced through the various books of the Bible, as, for example, in the fire that consumed the sacrifices, and, as again, in the statement that "our God is a consuming fire." (Heb. 12:29.) The second death therefore is the moral exclusion of the soul for ever from God, or rather, it should be said, the separation of the whole man (body, soul, and spirit) from God, under the infliction of His judicial wrath. This is the lake of fire, God's eternal judgment, according to the standard of His own immutable holiness, as visited upon those who refused His grace, rebelled against His authority, and chose death rather than life. It is into this "lake of fire" that every unconverted one, as this scripture plainly teaches, will be, if dying impenitent, finally cast; for it is there that all this multitude find their doom.

Nothing is said here as to the duration of the lake of fire; but, as has been seen in verse 10 of this chapter, and as many other scriptures indubitably teach, there is no ground whatever for supposing that it is less than eternal. Prophets prophesy smoother things, and dreamers dream according to the imagination of their own hearts; but the word of God abides, and it teaches that the punishment of the wicked, as the blessedness of the saved, is for ever and ever.

The dreadful contrast to all this is seen in verse 8. Who can estimate the awful horror of the end of those who choose to reject the faithful, gracious Lord of glory? Solemnly, “the cowardly” are mentioned first — those whose fear of human disapproval causes them to refuse the Son of God! “The unbelieving” are those who refuse God's testimony, the only means by which they could be preserved from the company of “the abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters and all liars.” Every unbeliever chooses such company, and he or she will have part with them in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. This is the second death, not annihilation, but separation (the basic meaning of death) — separation from God in eternal torment. If the symbol of fire is dreadful, what must the reality be?

Death is the place of the body in the grave and hades is the temporary abode of the departed souls and spirits. At the time of the great white throne judgment, the graves will give up the bodies and hades will give up the souls and spirits of those who had no part in the previous first resurrection, spoken of in Revelation 20:5-8. Then the complete person, body, soul and spirit, of all these resurrected dead will be cast into the lake of fire forever. This is the second death of eternal separation from God, the awful, everlasting portion of all who die outside of Christ the Saviour.

That God was to judge the world, every Jew acknowledged. This could give no peace to the guilty. There must be resurrection of the dead, both of just and unjust. After judgment the lake of fire awaited the lost. The second death is not ceasing to exist. Indeed death itself is but a severance of soul from body. For the believer it is "to depart and be with Christ." Even when a wicked man dies, he is in no way annihilated: his soul is severed from the body, and this is death. "All live to God," if not to men. But when the second death comes, the wicked exist for ever, not only in soul, but in body. Resurrection is not temporal being, like living in the world that now is; it ushers in what is final and unchanging.

"This death, the sentence of the law, extends to the whole man, both soul and body. To see its nature as respects the soul, we must reflect on its work with reference to the body. One is the invisible sign and sacrament of the other. The body is then parted from the soul, its life; and being thus parted, becomes the prey of inward corruption. So also death is the separation of the soul from God, the true source of life; and all the confusion, chaos, and moral corruption and dissolution which follows that awful separation. Without, there is banishment from the presence of God, and from all the light of His favor and blessing. Within, there will follow the unrestrained working of moral corruption, degrading, perverting, desecrating all the faculties and powers of the immortal spirit. Sin would thus become, under the name of death, a 'finished' evil, its own ever-growing torment, and the soul sink deeper and deeper in an abyss of hopeless misery."

The Lake of Fire is called the Second Death (Rev. 20:14; 21:8). The first death is separation of the body from the soul and spirit which never die (James 2:26). The second death is the eternal separation of the entire person from God (2 Thess. 1:8-10) in hell (Gk: Gehenna) (Matt. 5:21-30; Mark 9:43-49) where the fire of judgment is not quenched and the worm of conscience does not die. There are no friends there: each person is isolated as wandering stars (comets) in the blackness of darkness forever (Jude 13), under God's eternal wrath (John 3:36; Rev. 20:10). It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb. 10:31).