In his booklet for children entitled, The Sight of Hell (Dublin: James Duffy, [1874], p. 24), English Roman Catholic priest John Furniss (1809-1865) illustrates the eternal torment by means of a great solid-iron ball, larger than the heavens and the earth. “A bird comes once in a hundred millions [sic] of years and just touches the great iron ball with a feather of its wing.” The author argues that the burning of sinners in hell continues even after that iron ball is worn away by such occasional feather touches!

 The sad thing is, many Protestants even today believe in something similar for the lost.

 Read Malachi 4:1 and Jude 7. How can these passages help us better understand the notion of “eternal fire” or the idea, as Jesus had expressed it, that the lost will be in “everlasting fire” (Matt. 18:8) or in a “fire that shall never be quenched”? (Mark 9:43, NKJV).

 The word “eternal” (Heb. ’olam; Greek aion, aionios) carries different meanings, depending on the immediate context. For example, when associated with God (Deut. 33:27, “everlasting”), the word expresses His eternity. When related to human beings (Exod. 21:6, “forever”), the word is limited by their life span. When qualifying fire (Matt. 18:8, Matt. 25:41, “everlasting”), it implies that the fire will not go out until it fully consumes what is being burned. This means that the “eternal fire” will be eternal in the sense that it will consume the wicked completely and irreversibly, leaving them “neither root nor branch” (Mal. 4:1, NKJV).

 The theory of an everlasting punishment of the wicked has serious implications. If the wicked are punished forever, then evil will never be eradicated. Also, all human life derives from God (Deut. 32:39, Ps. 36:9), who has “no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezek. 33:11, NKJV). Why then would He continue to grant life to the wicked to suffer in endless torment? Would it not be much more reasonable for Him just to end their existence? If the wicked will be punished “according to their works” (Rev. 20:12, NKJV), why then should a short human life be punished endlessly?

 All Bible references to the “eternal fire” should be seen as allusions to the post-millennium “lake of fire” of Revelation 20 (see lesson 13). Thus, it is unbiblical to speak of an already-present, ever-burning hell.