Several passages in Revelation are especially pertinent to the debate between annihilation and unending punishment. The arguments of the annihilationists are given in italics for clarity sake. Ralph Bowles' comments are abstracted from his article “Does Revelation 14:11 Teach Eternal Torment?”, available on-line.
Revelation 14:9-11
Ford: “There is a clear parallel to the living creatures in Rev. 9:8 who have no rest from their worship...The torment is shown to be continuous.” There is a parallel in 1 Enoch 63:2,6 where those punished “will pray for some rest from their eternal torment so they may confess their sins, but rest is not granted them.”
Mounce: “They are to drink the wrath of God and endure eternal torment...The punishment of the damned is not a temporary measure.”
Morris: “The torment mentioned in verse 10 is eternal (see Rev. 9:8 parallel).”
Phillips: “Those who worship the beast can expect undying torment...an awful eternity of woe.”
DNNT “rest”: “Those who worship the beast have no rest from torment.”
Bruce, Hebrews: Heb. 4:9-10 is parallel to Rev. 14:13 where the dead who die in the Lord 'may rest' (anapauomai—have relief) from their labors.
Hoekema: “Though we must not think of literal smoke here, the expression is meaningless if it is not intended to picture a punishment which will never end.” See Rev. 4:9 for “for ever and ever” “By comparing these two passages, therefore, we learn that the torment of the lost is as endless as God himself!”
Beale (Revelation) contains an eight-page discussion on this passage. “[It is] possible this is a judgment for a future generation living at the end of history, but our analysis in ch. 13 has contended that worship of the beast occurs throughout history...At the last day sinners will be tormented by fire and brimstone. As throughout the Apocalypse, fire is figurative for judgment. Uppermost in thought is the suffering that results from judgment. The torment is primarily spiritual and psychological sufferings, as elsewhere in the Apocalypse with references to trials that either precede the final judgment or are part of it...For fire as the last judgment which endures forever, see I Enoch 91:9 and the Dead Sea scrolls.”
Mine – Structure (chiasm) of verses 9-11 can be paraphrased “If they worship the beast and if they receive the mark, they will suffer torment and will have no rest.”
Fudge's argument based on Isaiah 34 is that “night and day” may indicate not duration of time but a kind of time, that is, time of ceaseless activity. The lack of rest will continue uninterrupted as long as the period of suffering lasts, though there will be an end to the period. Therefore, the imagery of Rev. 14:10-11 could indicate great judgment that will be remembered forever, not one that leads to eternal suffering.
Beale's: The parallel in Rev. 20:10 shows the same eternal fate of unbelievers and Satan. “Rev. 22:14-15 implies that the existence of the wicked is coterminous with the eternal blessedness of the righteous...Torment is used nowhere in Revelation or biblical literature in the sense of annihilation of personal existence.” All but possibly one of 100 uses in the Septuagint refer to conscious suffering.. “Therefore the smoke of torment is a mixed metaphor, with smoke figurative of an enduring memorial of God's punishment involving a real, ongoing, eternal conscious torment....” He also discusses the phrase “day and night” and concludes that a number of biblical references show that, “at the least, it means a long period of time. The identical phrase in Rev. 22:5 describes the eternal saints' reign.”
Bowles: There are three elements here. “Tormented with fire and sulfur” may refer to everlasting torment or torment at the moment of destruction. “Smoke of torment that goes up forever” may refer to everlasting torment or as an everlasting memorial to their destruction. So everything hinges on the third element: “no rest day or night.” The problem is that it seems to occur after the other two elements in time.
In response I would say that when three phrases are heaped on top of one another, all on the surface saying the same thing, it is perverse to try explain away all three in different directions.
Comments from Bowles:
(A) Isaiah 34:8-17 on the destruction of Edom is the main background for imagery in the Revelation passage. There is a different order to the three elements there, with rising smoke at the end, indicating that the destruction is complete.
In the first place, the order of the second and third elements in Isaiah 34:10 does not indicate any sort of chronological order. It is simply a quite common poetic example of identical parallelism. Bowles' commentt also doesn't address the fact that “day and night” is now applied to the suffering of the people rather than the fire of destruction. In addition, the nature of the destruction is described in the subsequent verses as “devastation,” not annihilation since verses 11-17 show that Edom will be populated by wild animals and spirits forever. The same picture of Babylon is given in Revelation where the city is now only suited for wild beasts to inhabit, and also the case of Sodom and Gomorrah where the people of the city continue to exist (Jude 6-7).
(B) The traditional view might say that John purposely changed the order to emphasize eternal aspects of Last Judgment. Bowles explains that it is a chiasm:
A. If any one worships
B. he shall drink the cup of wrath
C. tormented with fire and sulfur
C'. smoke of torment goes up forever
B'. they have no rest day or night
A'. those worshippers
He makes three statements regarding this chiasm: (1) the particularly strong similarities of the first and last units (an inclusio) are diagnostic of a chiasm, (2) the climactic element is the center and (3 the final element of that center (chronologically) is the smoke rising after the destruction is complete. In fact, he is incorrect on all three accounts.
Bowles starts out with a straw man that I have never seen proposed. Then, and more importantly, he parses this passage as a chiasm. In fact, this may not be a chiasm at all since (a) inclusions appear all the time in scripture without any accompanying chiasms, (b) he is wrong about 1st and last units usually having the strongest verbal parallels, and (c) there is a very weak parallel between B and B'.
But even if it is a chiasm as he pictures, the parallelism between C and C' actually points to the fact that the same event is being described in both units. Similarly, the parallelism between B and B', if it exists, merely strengthens the argument that the cup of wrath is experienced without relief forever. He is also incorrect in stating that it is the final destruction that is emphasized in this chiasm rather than the other elements The reason is that in an even-numbered chiasm such as this one, the emphasis is almost always on the first and last elements, not the center pair. In addition, it is not necessary to read any of the related statements in these verses as describing some sort of chronological order since that is almost never the way chiasms in the Bible are read .
Bowles next states that Isaiah 34 can also be treated as chiasm. Otherwise there would be two judgments on Edom.
Exhortations to hear and note (1)
Utter destruction of God's enemies (2-3)
Supernatural judgment on Edom (4-7)
Center (8)
Supernatural judgment on Edom (11-15) (sic)
Utter destruction of God's enemies (11-15) (sic)
Exhortations to hear and note (6 -17) (sic)
I am not at all sure what he is trying to prove here other than to somehow use it to say that Isaiah 34:10 must also be a chiasm, but his argument is utter nonsense. Read his discussion if you can wade through his “typos.”
New Bible Commentary, “Isaiah: “It is worth noting that judgment is pictured, here and elsewhere, as something worse than extinction.”
Oswalt, Isaiah 1-39: “In verse 10, the primary emphasis is upon the perpetuity of the destruction. Each line begins with a stronger phrase denoting endlessness.”
C. Bowles: There are a number of parallel descriptions of the Judgment in Revelation and all of them are in terms of complete destruction. You need to look at the following passage in Revelation which also pictures the final judgment, but this time in terms of swift and utter destruction (winepress). The conditionalist understanding removes the tension between this picture and that in verses 9-11.
However, there is still tension in that view since it completely eliminates the element of ceaseless torment and a period of no rest, except for perhaps a second or two. Also, the symbols of harvest and winepress can stand for separation of the saved and unsaved as much as destruction of the latter.
Beale, on Revelation 14:14-20: “As in the OT, so in Revelation 14 the two metaphors of harvest and vintage connote the thoroughgoing and definitive judgment of sinners by God. Blood...is figurative battle language and functions hyperbolically to emphasize the severe and unqualified nature of the judgment.” He quotes several other commentators who feel that these verses refer to saints being martyred or the sufferings of Christ. He notes, “Rev. 19:11-21 is a parallel account—a picture of the war of Christ with the beast”. Note the different images for judgment—ruling with a rod of iron, striking them down with the sword, and treading the winepress. NRSV notes that “'Sword that came from his mouth' suggests that the victory is won not by violence but by the Word of God.”
(C) Bowles: “Even the phrase regarding the “smoke rising forever” appears in Rev. 18:18 and 19:3 where Babylon is destroyed. In those cases it specifically refers to a time when Babylon is no more.”
But 18:18 does not say “for ever” and occurs as it is burning. Also, verse 18b says, literally, “Who is like the great city.” As for 19:3, NRSV Study Bible says that it means it will never be rebuilt. In other passages in Revelation “for ever and ever” clearly stands for eternity (4:9, 5:13, 11:15, 22:5). Presumably, it also has this meaning in 14:11.
J.I.Packer, Reformation and Revival Journal: He refutes Stott's argument that fuel is consumed but not the smoke. Obviously smoke dies out when fire has finished its work.
(D) Bowles: “no rest day or night” is equivalent to the period in Rev. 6:16-17 when the wicked are fleeing from the wrath of God and refers to “the moment or process of judgment.” But see Beale's following comments on Revelation 19:3.
Revelation 19:3
Beale: “The wording comes from Is. 34:9-10 where the portrayal of smoke continually ascending serves as a permanent memorial to God's punishment of Edom. In Rev. 14:11 there is the same allusion but this time to the eternal punishment of individual unbelievers. The phrase 'for ever and ever' refers to an unending period, as throughout the book (13x). For the metaphorical sense of ascending smoke as a continual memorial see 8:4, where the smoke is a picture of the saints' prayers and the continual ascent of the smoke is a figure for the continual reminder to God in those prayers.” Thus, the “memorial” is coterminous with the event.
Mounce: There are references here to Is. 34:9-10 “in which the enemy's land is to burn night and day and its smoke shall go up for ever.”
Ford: “Her smoke goes up forever and ever” may represent the same idea as the unquenchable fire (in the gospels). Ford also sees Is. 34:9-10 as the possible source for the image.
Revelation 20:10-15
Bowles: It is the only other text in Revelation teaching conscious suffering of the wicked and it refers only to spiritual enemies of God, not mankind, unless one takes the passage literally even though it is loaded with symbolism. Also, John does not reveal the nature of the suffering. Use of hyperbole. Background is Daniel 7:11-12 concerning the anti-God beast being destroyed.
Beale and Carson give many OT parallels for this passage, but not Dan. 7:11-12 and none referring to spiritual forces. Even the Daniel reference is to a foreign power, not a supernatural one. Also, even if this was the background, it only is applicable to the first part of the Revelation passage, not the end.
International Bible Commentary: “the judgment of all the dead is in mind here.
Beale on verse 10-- “This wording is best taken to mean that they will not be annihilated but will suffer torment that will endure endlessly for eternity...Rev. 14:10-11 and 20:15 demonstrate that unbelieving individuals also suffer the eternal torment of fire...In fact 20:15 and 21:8 affirm implicitly that all unbelieving people will suffer this punishment of the same lake of fire into which the devil, the false prophet and the beast will be thrown.” Also corroborated by 14:11 description of eternal suffering of personal beings and by Jesus' words in Matt. 25:41. “Even Fudge acknowledges the difficulty of understanding 20:10 as referring to annihilation rather than the eternal torment of Satan...Even 'day and night' is not literal but figurative for the idea of the unceasing nature of the torment.” Beale discusses this issue further in his Revelation commentary.
Ford: “this section appears to depict the universal judgment of the dead...It is unclear why Death should give up the dead, but the reference to Hades is more explicable. It suggests there will be a resurrection of the wicked.”
Mounce: “Reference to the book of life as part of the final testimony suggests a general judgment of all mankind.” (See Matt. 25:41) “Beasley-Murray says that the lake of fire does not signify annihilation, but torturous existence in the society of evil in opposition to life in the society of God.”
Morris on verse 10: “There
is no intermission and no end.” On v. 15: “In the end men will
either share in the bliss of heaven or find their place in the lake
of fire.”
Phillips cross-references Matt. 25:41.
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