Hence, people who blindly continue to follow false religious teaching today cannot hope to escape God’s adverse judgment.

While making us think seriously about our own position, this can also be a comforting assurance to us. How so? In that we can be sure that Jehovah God will not leave serious wrongdoing unpunished. If people do not want to conform to his righteous laws and deliberately persist in a course of wickedness, he will not allow them much longer to continue to disrupt the peace of righteous people.

Chapter 14

What ‘Torment in the Lake of Fire’ Means

HOW would you react if, now that you know what the Bible says about the unconscious condition of the dead, you were to find a Bible text mentioning a place of torment? Would you reason that this justifies ignoring all the other scriptures and holding onto the idea that there may still be a possibility of conscious existence continuing after death? Or, would you undertake a careful examination of the context to determine just what the text might really mean and how it harmonizes with the rest of the Bible?

The reason for considering this is that the Bible book of Revelation does speak of “torment” in a “lake of fire.” Revelation 20:10 states: “The Devil who was misleading them was hurled into the lake of fire and sulphur, where both the wild beast and the false prophet already were; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”​—See also Revelation 19:20.

How are those cast into the “lake of fire” tormented? That we should not be hasty in taking this expression as literal is evident from the nature of the book of Revelation. The opening words of the book read: “A revelation by Jesus Christ, which God gave him, to show his slaves the things that must shortly take place. And he sent forth his angel and presented it in signs through him to his slave John.”​—Revelation 1:1.

As there stated, this revelation was presented “in signs.” What, then, of the “lake of fire” and the “torment” there? Are they literal or are they also “signs” or symbols?

Additional information as to what is cast into the lake of fire, besides the Devil, the “wild beast” and the “false prophet,” sheds light on the matter. Note the words of Revelation 20:14, 15: “Death and Hades were hurled into the lake of fire. This means the second death, the lake of fire. Furthermore, whoever was not found written in the book of life was hurled into the lake of fire.”

Now, is it possible for death and Hades to be hurled into a literal lake of fire? Obviously not, for they are not objects, animals or persons. Death is a state or condition. How could it be tossed into a literal lake of fire? As for Hades, it is the common grave of mankind. What kind of a lake could hold it?

Then, too, Revelation 20:14, 15 does not say that the lake is literal. Rather, we read that the “lake of fire” is itself a sign or symbol of “second death.” The same point is made at Revelation 21:8: “As for the cowards and those without faith and those who are disgusting in their filth and murderers and fornicators and those practicing spiritism and idolaters and all the liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur. This means the second death.”

Since the lake of fire is a symbol of second death, the casting of death and Hades into it is simply a symbolic way of saying that these will be forever destroyed. This agrees with the Bible’s statement that ‘the last enemy, death, is to be brought to nothing.’ (1 Corinthians 15:26) And, since Hades, the common grave of mankind in general, is emptied and “death will be no more,” that means that Hades ceases to function, passes out of existence.​—Revelation 20:13; 21:4.

FIGURATIVE TORMENT

What, then, is the “torment” experienced by wicked humans and others that are thrown into the “lake of fire”? Without conscious existence, they could not experience literal torment, could they? And there is nothing in the Holy Scriptures to show that they will have any conscious existence. So why does the Bible speak of eternal torment in the “lake of fire”?

Since the “lake of fire” is symbolic, the torment associated with it must also be symbolic or figurative. This can be better appreciated in the light of what the Bible says about the things that are pitched into the “lake of fire.” What we should observe is that the “second death” is what is symbolized by the “lake of fire.” The Adamic death, that is, the death that all born humankind inherited from Adam and Eve after