I'm not SDA but I do believe in annihilationism.
Rev 21:4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
A lot of negative things will not exist in the future.
Wiping tears away means no more tears. Tears will not exist.
There shall be no more death. Death will not exist.
There shall be no more sorrow. Sorrow will not exist.
There shall be no more crying. Crying will not exist.
There shall be no more pain. Pain will not exist.
"for the former things are passed away." That means they are gone, gone everywhere, gone forever. If those things existed anywhere then the scripture would be lying.
Tears, death, sorrow, crying and pain will be Annihilated and shall never again exist. Is it such a stretch that the unsaved wicked people will also be Annihilated? Scripture over and over promises that they shall be Annihilated. Believe what scripture says and reject false doctrines that teach otherwise.
John_3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life ; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
"shall not see life" means will not be alive.
Mat_10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell .
Being destroyed means they are Annihilated.
Psalms 37:20 But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the LORD shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away.
Perishing and being burned and being consumed into smoke means they are Annihilated.
This is just a small offering of what the bible actually teaches on this subject.
You can not cherry pick verses and simply pretend that those you don’t like aren’t there.
Revelations 21:4 “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away”. This verse refers to the righteous who, we can agree, will dwell forever with God. Then, there will be no pain or suffering or anything negative. For the righteous.
Now these 2 verses:
Matthew 25:41 “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:”, and
Matthew 25:46 “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal”
how can you ignore these verses? There is absolutely no way to interpret these verses other than in their literal meaning. Everlasting punishment is pretty self explanatory, I think.
you also quoted John 3:36 “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”
Now, it has not been given to me of God to interpret this verse but I believe souls will not “live” in hell. But they will exist. And suffer and be tormented.
Here’s a quote from your reply “Scripture over and over promises that they shall be Annihilated. Believe what scripture says and reject false doctrines that teach otherwise.”
But I do believe what the scripture says. I don’t understand how you can believe that hell is not real and at the same time accept that Mathew 25:41-46 (and that’s not the only passage) is part of scripture.
Matthew 10:28: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell”.
“destroy” is a pretty broad term. I don’t know exactly what it means here but it must go along with the rest of the bible. The scriptures do not contradict themselves, I don’t care what anyone tells me. Maybe in this context “destroyed” means that there won’t be any hope for them, they will be morally, mentally but not existentially destroyed. I don’t know. It is possible to partially destroy something but again, I repeat, the scriptures do not contradict themselves.
To conclude my response, one of the reasons why “hell doesn’t exist” is a dangerous teaching is because it lessens the consequences of a sinful life. It takes away an incentive to want to be saved. People can think to themselves “I will live a full and extravagant life here on earth and that’s all I want. There isn’t a consequence for my careless and sinful life and if heaven exists then so be it, I may not have gotten there anyway even if I had tried to live a righteous life and then I would have missed out on enjoying life here on earth.”
