Is soul annihilation a Bible based teaching or heresy? Jehovahs Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists teach it?
There cannot be a date put on the beginning of ‘soul annihilation’ ideas because it arose with the first atheists who simply believed physical life was all there was, that there was no invisible soul or spirit that lived on after death. All people who believe the living creature IS the soul (in its entireity), and that there is no life after death, effectively teach soul annihilation. The Greek words used in Mat. 25:41 – “they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” The Greek words for annihilation, ‘Ekmendenisis’ and ‘Ekmendenizw’, are not used here. It is the Greek word ‘aionios’, which means eternal, endless, that is translated here as ‘eternal’. Infinity might be a way of putting it in modern parlance. Eternal punishment lasts as long as eternal life – it never ends. 2 Thess. 1:9 – tells us that God ‘will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from
