VI: The Prophets' Visions

Lake of Fire and the Second Death

final sentencing and permanent removal

Root
Dan 7:10-11
Old Testament chain
  1. Gen 19:24-25
  2. Num 16:30-33
  3. Ps 37:20
  4. Isa 30:33
  5. Isa 34:9-10
  6. Isa 66:24
  7. Ezek 28:18-19
  8. Dan 7:10-11
  9. Mal 4:1-3
  10. Rev 20:14
New Testament
Rev 2:11; Rev 14:11; Rev 19:20; Rev 20:6, 14; Rev 20:10, 14-15; Rev 21:8; Matt 25:41; Rom 6:23; 1 Cor 15:53-54; Jude 7

"The wicked shall perish... into smoke shall they consume away" (Ps 37:20); Malachi says they "shall be ashes under the soles of your feet" (Mal 4:3), and Daniel's beast is "slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame" (Dan 7:11). The lake of fire is a sentencing, permanent removal rather than evil preserved forever: "the wages of sin is death" (Rom 6:23). The "for ever and ever" of Rev 14:11 and 20:10 speaks as Isaiah does of Edom, whose smoke "shall go up for ever" (Isa 34:10), and as Jude of Sodom, "suffering the vengeance of eternal fire" (Jude 7): a sentence final and never reversed, though the fire no longer burns.

From The Courtroom of Heaven, pp. 33–34, 250, 271, 319, 329, 333, 339, 345–346, 355