What Is the Punishment for Sin?
Revelation 20:10 speaks of the Devil’s being “hurled into the lake of fire and sulphur,” and they interpret it to support their views. Of course, this does not agree with Ecclesiastes 9:5, which says that the dead “are conscious of nothing at all”; nor does it agree with Romans 6:23, which states that “the wages sin pays is death,” not conscious torment. Still, some might wonder, does not Revelation 20:10 say that Satan (and, supposedly, persons misled by him) “will be tormented day and night forever and ever”?
In the first century, the Greek word for “torment”—here used by the Bible writer John—had a special connotation. Since prisoners were sometimes tortured (although this was contrary to God’s law), jailers became known as tormentors.
Another Bible writer refers to this when speaking about an unfaithful slave whose master “delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him.” (Matthew 18:34, King James Version) Commenting on this text, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia says: “Probably the imprisonment itself was regarded as ‘torment’ (as it doubtless was), and the ‘tormentors’ need mean nothing more than jailers.”
