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Man Will Be Destroyed
As a result of sin, man will be destroyed.
The Bible teaches that man will eventually be devoured by fire:
“Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies: thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee. Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger: the Lord shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them.” (Psalm 21:8-9)
We read that man will be melted:
“As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it; so will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and I will leave you there, and melt you. Yea, I will gather you, and blow upon you in the fire of my wrath, and ye shall be melted in the midst thereof. As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall know that I the Lord have poured out my fury upon you.” (Ezekiel 22:20-22)
Man will be burned to ashes:
“For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.” (Malachi 4:1)
Man will not survive the fire any more than thorns can survive a fire:
“And the people shall be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire.” (Isaiah 33:12)
This destruction of man is permanent and once again we find that the focus of the punishment is on our loss of eternal life with God:
“Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power”
(2 Thessalonians 1:9)
The Bible indicates that both the body and soul will be destroyed by fire:
“Therefore shall the Lord, the Lord of hosts, send among his fat ones leanness; and under his glory he shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire. And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day; And shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body: and they shall be as when a standard-bearer fainteth.” (Isaiah 10:16-18)
We find reiterated that the soul will be destroyed along with the body:
“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.” (Matthew 10:28)
The Greek word for “destroy” in this verse is the same that is translated as “perish” in Luke 13:3:
“I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”
If we don’t become saved, then we are completely destroyed, both body and soul. We now know that the unsaved will not spend an eternity being tormented in a place called hell (see Study on Hell).
This notion that man simply ceases to exist after physical death is hard for us to accept. This is because God has written eternity on our hearts:
“He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
The Hebrew word for “world” here is olam which means “infinite time” and is translated elsewhere in the Bible as “everlasting,” “evermore,” “eternal,” “for ever,” and “perpetual.”
Mankind senses that somehow he continues to exist beyond this life. What that means can vary greatly from one religion or culture to another, but mankind as a whole believes he will continue on somehow after this life. This is because we were created in the image of God and designed to live forever with Him. When mankind sinned it brought spiritual death, but eternity is still written on our hearts as a result of how we were created.
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