“Many Christians seem to think that hell is where an unsaved person goes immediately after dying, but it’s not. The church has always affirmed that one day all the dead will be resurrected. Only then will the lost be sentenced to hell as final punishment.5 So, hell is where the unsaved are sent after being raised back to life from the dead.” - Word by Word
“Yes, Scripture speaks of death, destruction, and perishing in relation to judgment. But in no way does the external philosophy of conditional immortality and annihilationism follow from that.” - Christ Over All
Reprinted with permission from Voice, Sept./Oct, 2001. By Dr. James R. Mook.
Will the destiny of the unsaved be eternal conscious torment or annihilation (total cessation of existence)? The eternal conscious punishment of the lost has always been a fundamental doctrine of Christian orthodoxy. Tertullian, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Edwards, Pieper, Berkhof, Shedd, Chafer, Erickson, and other theologians affirmed the doctrine of eternal conscious punishment as a biblical essential-explicitly defining divine eternal “punishment” against “annihilation.” (Robert A. Peterson, Hell on Trial: The Case for Eternal Punishment, Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Co., 1995, pp. 97-137.)
But in recent years some prominent professing evangelicals have advocated conditional annihilationism (which includes the concept of postmortem evangelizing of those who die without having heard the gospel).
Examples: Philip E. Hughes, Clark H. Pinnock, John R. W. Stott, and John W. Wenham.
