2 Thess 1:9 ‘They will undergo the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his strength,’

The apostle reassures his readers that God will reward afflicted believers with rest, and that he will punish the afflictors with eternal destruction on the day of judgement.

Two aspects of the present verse are relevant in debates about the duration and nature of eternal punishment.

1. Does ‘eternal destruction’ imply,

(a) everlasting torment, or

(b) annihilation after a period of suffering?

According to Beale (IVPNTC), the phrase ‘everlasting destruction’ (olethros aiōnios) occurs only one other time in biblically-related literature.  In 4 Macc 10:15 the context suggests that everlasting punishment, rather than annihilation, is meant.

Morris is confident that ‘destruction means not “annihilation” but complete ruin.’  He does not justify this conclusion, however.

More cautiously, Moo states that these words ‘need not mean “destruction” in the sense of “extinction”.  But, adds Moo:-

‘The key words for “destroy” and “destruction” can also refer to land that has lost its fruitfulness (oletbros in Ezek. 6:14; 14:16); to ointment that is poured out wastefully and to no apparent purpose (apōleia in Matt. 26:8; Mark 14:4); to wineskins that can no longer function because they have holes in them (apollymi in Matt. 9:17; Mark 2:22; Luke 5:37); to a coin that is useless because it is “lost” (apollymi in Luke 15:9); or to the entire world that “perishes,” as an inhabited world, in the Flood (2 Pet. 3:6). In none of these cases do the objects cease to exist; they cease to be useful or to exist in their original, intended state.’

(Morgan, Christopher W. Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment)

For Moo, the fact that the ‘destruction’ is ‘eternal’ is in favour it being regarded as ‘ruin’, rather than as ‘extinction’.  A punctiliar action, such as ‘annihilation’, cannot be described as ‘eternal’, says Moo.  Annihilationists would respond in either of two ways:

(a) ‘eternal’ means ‘pertaining to the age to come’, rather than ‘everlasting’; but, replies Moo, the age to come is an age that has no end, and, in any case, most scholars agree that the word has a mainly temporal significance.

(b) More promising for annihilationists, says Moo, is to regard the word translated ‘eternal’ as referring not to the action itself, but to the result of the action.  The life which is exterminated stays exterminated, everlastingly:-

‘There is some point to this claim: In other New Testament passages where “eternal” describes a noun of action, it is sometimes the results of the action that are indicated. The “eternal sin” of Mark 3:29, for instance, means “a sin whose consequences last forever” (see also Heb. 5:9; 6:2; 9:12; Jude 7). Nevertheless, even if this is the sense of the word here, one must still ask how a destruction whose consequences last forever can be squared with annihilationism. For eternal consequences appear to demand an eternal existence in some form.’  (Morgan, Christopher W. Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment (Kindle Locations 2491-2495). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.)

It is clear that Moo himself thinks that this argument on the part of annihilationists has some force; and I find his implied rebuttal (‘one must still ask how a destruction whose consequences last forever can be squared with annihilationism’) unconvincing.  After all, capital punishment has consequences that last for ever (to put it bluntly: once a man has been executed, he stays executed).

Green, similarly:

‘The apostle by no means implies that those who have rejected God will be annihilated eternally, a notion that appears to take the edge off the severity of divine judgment. Rather, the punishment will endure and will not end.’  Green does attempt, by means of an appeal to Marshall, to support his assertion: ‘In favour of everlasting punishment it can be argued: (1). Jesus believed in it, and Paul will have shared his outlook (Matt. 5:29–30; 12:32; 18:8–9; 25:41, 46; Lk. 16:23–25); (2). Jewish teaching of the time accepted the fact of eternal punishment (1QS 2:15; 5.13; Pss. Sol. 2:35; 15:11; 4 Macc. 10:15); (3). In the present context the reference to separation from the Lord is of little significance if those punished are not conscious of their separation.’

Philip Hughes writes:

‘Everlasting life is existence that continues without end, and everlasting death is destruction without end, that is destruction without recall, the destruction of obliteration. Both life and death hereafter will be everlasting in the sense that both will be irreversible.’

(Quoted in Morgan, Christopher W. Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment (Kindle Locations 4907-4909). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.)

Gupta (A New Covenant Commentary) expresses agnosticism on the matter:

‘I am persuaded by the direction that C. S. Lewis goes, where the language of eternality is less about duration than it is about finality—their verdict is complete, it cannot be undone or overturned. So, Lewis writes, “That the lost soul is eternally fixed in its diabolical attitude we cannot doubt: but whether this eternal fixity implies endless duration—or duration at all—we cannot say.” I believe Lewis’ eschatological agnosticism is wise. The little bits and pieces of references to hell do not build a complete picture: “We know much more about heaven than hell, for heaven is the home of humanity and therefore contains all that is implied in a glorified human life: but hell was not made for men. It is in no sense parallel to heaven: it is ‘the darkness outside,’ the outer rim where being fades away into nonentity.” Gordon Fee interprets Paul likewise: “Paul had little or no interest in ‘hell’ as such. For him eternal glory has to do with being in the presence of the Father and the risen Lord. The eternal judgment of the wicked is the absolute loss of such glory.”’

2. Does ‘destruction…away from the presence of the Lord’ mean,

(a) ‘destruction that comes from the Lord’, or,

(b) that the punishment consists in separation from God?

(a) Green argues for the first interpretation:

‘While the preposition that begins this clause in the Greek text (apo) is construed in the NIV as signaling that the judged will be excluded from the presence of the Lord, the thought is rather that the presence of the Lord is the source from which the judgment proceeds.’  Paul may well be thinking of Isa 2:10 here: ‘Go into the rocks, hide in the ground from the dread of the Lord and the splendour of his majesty!’

Paul Marston (Hellfire and Destruction: What Does the Bible Really Say about Hell?) draws attention to the one other NT passage where the exact phrase apo prosōpou tou kyriou occurs – Acts 3:20 –

“…so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and so that he may send the Messiah appointed for you—that is, Jesus.”

Marston concludes:

‘The clear implication is that the “presence of the Lord” will bring refreshing to the repentant in Acts but will bring destruction to those in Thessalonians who are persecuting the Christians.’

Clearly, these ‘times of refreshing’ do not involve separation from God.  They will, rather, come from him.

(b) But it is a biblical thought that those who are without God in the present life (Eph 2:12) will be without God in the life to come.

For some interpreters, this implies everlasting punishment, rather than annihilation.  Beale, for example, argues:

‘If Paul had intended to convey a notion of annihilation, he could have merely said, they will be punished with everlasting destruction, without mentioning that those judged would be excluded from God’s presence. Thus, the punishment “fits the crime,” in that those who refuse to know God (1:8) and want to be separate from him in this life will be punished by being separated from God in the next life.’

But others, such as Atkinson, agree with this interpretation but find within it support for a doctrine of anihilationism:

‘this destruction must be annihilation or personal extinction, since it is destruction from the presence of the Lord. All will agree that the presence of the Lord is everywhere. To be destroyed from the presence of the Lord can therefore only mean to be nowhere.’

(Christopher M. Date, Gregory G. Stump, Joshua W. Anderson. Rethinking Hell: Readings in Evangelical Conditionalism, p101)

This interpretation, regarded by Atkinson as probable (not certain), seems strained.

Hughes argues:

‘Everlasting life is existence that continues without end, and everlasting death is destruction without end, that is destruction without recall, the destruction of obliteration. Both life and death hereafter will be everlasting in the sense that both will be irreversible.’

(The True Image, p405)

Arguing that ‘annihilation’ of the wicked is not a ‘soft option’, Hughes writes:

‘The horror of everlasting destruction will be compounded…by the unbearable agony of exclusion. To be inexorably excluded from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his kingdom, to see but to be shut out from the transcendental joy and bliss of the saints as in light eternal they glorify their resplendent Redeemer, to whose likeness they are now fully and forever conformed, to be plunged into the abyss of irreversible destruction, will cause the unregenerate of mankind the bitterest anguish of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. In vain will they have pleaded, “Lord, Lord, open to us!” (Matt 25:11f.; cf. 7:21– 23). Too late will they then wish they had lived and believed differently. The destiny they have fashioned for themselves will cast them without hope into the abyss of obliteration. Their lot, whose names are not written in the Lamb’s book of life, is the destruction of the second death. Thus God’s creation will be purged of all falsity and defilement, and the ancient promise will be fulfilled that “the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind” as the multitude of the redeemed are glad and rejoice forever in the perfection of the new heaven and the new earth (Isa 65:17f.; Rev 21:1– 4).’

(In Christopher M. Date, Gregory G. Stump, Joshua W. Anderson. Rethinking Hell: Readings in Evangelical Conditionalism, p197)