Heiser Defended Annihilationism Before It Was Cool

(Thinking about the Kirk Cameron Debacle)

Annihilationism, or conditional immortality, is presented as a position that has often been labeled heresy despite lacking a settled consensus in historical theology and despite being defended by some conservative scholars as biblically and historically plausible within evangelical orthodoxy. The argument centers on the biblical relationship between life, death, and immortality, proposing that death represents the loss or absence of life sustained by God and raising questions about how the destruction of death in the final state should be understood if conscious punishment continues forever. Prophetic and apocalyptic language describing judgment as “eternal” or “forever” is interpreted as emphasizing finality and irreversibility rather than endless ongoing experience, drawing on Old and New Testament imagery of judgment, extinction, and the ultimate defeat of death. The central issue is whether Scripture requires eternal conscious torment or whether permanent destruction better coheres with the themes of judgment, the end of death, and the restoration of creation while remaining within the bounds of Christian orthodoxy.

Anthony Delgado: For many years, annihilationism—also called conditional immortality—has been labeled heresy in many conservative evangelical circles, even though the issue has never really been settled in historical theology. That would be fine, except that many of today’s most careful conservative scholars do not treat it that way.

The late Dr. Michael Heiser, for example, argued publicly that annihilationism is biblically rational, historically grounded, and well within the bounds of orthodoxy, while also expressing suspicion about its primary rival doctrine, ECT, or eternal conscious torment. He made these arguments for over a decade.

So today I want to look at some of his work—specifically, some of the most definitive statements I think Heiser made about annihilationism and what he really thought about death. If you knew him, he probably would not have wanted to say definitively, “I have adopted this doctrine” or “I have rejected it.” But he did say some pretty definitive things. Stick around for the conclusion at the end, where I think I’m going to show what is probably the most definitive statement he makes.

If you’ve been following the conversation recently, you’ll also recognize that voices like Gavin Ortlund and Wes Huff have published similar conclusions, noting historical precedent for the doctrine—especially following the debacle involving Kirk Cameron. Gavin released a video on the topic many months before that moment, and I do not mean to suggest that either Gavin or Wes has adopted the position. What they have done is defend its orthodoxy.

I bring up Kirk Cameron because everyone seemed to lose their minds over his video, where he essentially came out as an annihilationist. Yet others have affirmed the validity of the doctrine without much criticism, and I think that contrast is interesting.

This raises a question that is very uncomfortable for many people in evangelical circles: if annihilationism can be argued well from Scripture, defended historically, and held by conservative evangelicals without abandoning evangelical orthodoxy, then the real issue is not whether it is heresy, but whether Scripture actually requires eternal conscious torment at all.

Real quick—if you like watching videos like this one, we’re going to jump to Heiser in just a second, but please make sure you head over to anthonydelgado.net. That’s my website. Right at the top, you can get on my mailing list so you don’t miss any of my videos or articles. I post biblical theology content there, I have books, and you’ll be able to stay up to date on everything I’m putting out. It’s not an obnoxious mailing list—you’ll get one email every couple of weeks, mostly a digest, unless something really important is going on.

Alright. What we’re going to do today is go to some of Heiser’s material on hell and eternality. These will not primarily be my own thoughts, which is different from most of my other videos, because I very much appreciate Heiser’s work on this subject. So, without any further introduction, let’s go to the first clip.

This audio is from what I think may originally have been a video. I found it on a YouTube channel called John 14:6.

Conditional Immortality, Death, and the Destruction of Death

Michael Heiser: At the end, you have this line in the book of Revelation about the lake of fire being for the devil and his angels. I think what Psalm 82 is talking about is God basically saying, “For your crimes, there is going to come a point when you are going to be stripped of your immortality. You will die. You will cease to exist.”

The reason I put it that way is the language there in Hebrew—the way it is worded—is the same way it is worded in Genesis 3. And we know that Adam and Eve did not just drop over dead, but they lost their immortality. I believe that Adam and Eve had contingent immortality while they were in Eden. I think they could have died, but they were providentially kept from that.

In other words, Adam could have gotten up one day and done something stupid—an elephant steps on him or something like that—and you are going to die. You do not fall down, hit your head on a rock, roll into a stream, and two hours later wake up and spit out the water and say, “Boy, I’m glad that’s over.” No, you are going to die because you are human. But again, you are providentially protected from that. You eat from the tree of life. It is a sign that as long as you are in the divine presence, you are going to live, because that is the source of life.

Death is losing that. You are stripped of your immortality. And then in the eschaton, God destroys everything, including death itself. I am open to—you know, theologically, I do not have problems with the traditional view of hell. But I think we need to consider annihilation because of the line that death itself is destroyed. If you take that at face value, if death is destroyed, it cannot be around anymore.

So I think there is something worth considering there. But the current propensity to try to rule divine punishment or eternal punishment out of our theology, I think, is really wrongheaded and lacks exegetical support. I know how people get there logically, but you have to make some passages stand on their head to get there, and I am not going to do that.

Interpreting Heiser on Annihilation and Hell

Anthony Delgado: This came out of an interview, and I do not know when the interview was recorded or who it was with. I had a hard time figuring that out. But it is pretty definitive what he thought about the death of the non-elect—those who are not saints of God.

I really like the illustration he uses with Adam and Eve and his discussion of conditional immortality. He points to signs in Genesis 1 through 3 that explain why they would not have died, even though he says they could have died. I really appreciate his focus on God’s providential care for them. That is a really helpful way to think about why they did not die, even though they theoretically could have. They could have stumbled on a rock or rolled down a hill and been injured, but they did not, because God was caring for them. And the tree of life functions as a symbol there.

He also emphasizes the destruction of death. He is saying that death was theoretically possible even from the very beginning, but as the Lord of life brings life throughout not just the earth, but the entire cosmos, death itself must be destroyed. There is a point of clarification here in case you missed it. I noticed this when looking at the transcript, because there was some ambiguity.

He does not say that he is open to conditionalism or open to annihilationism. He actually says that he is open to eternal conscious torment. Listen to the quote: “Now I’m open to it theologically. I don’t have problems with the traditional view of hell.” That is what he says he is open to—the traditional view of hell. His argument, however, is for conditionalism. In this clip, he says, “I think that we need to consider annihilation, though.”

The point of this video is simply to say: look at some of the things that Michael Heiser actually said. If you are a Heiser fan like I am, you can go back through his material and see how these ideas formed his theology of hell, and how that theology remains consistent with historical biblical orthodoxy. He emphasizes the destruction of death in order to elevate Christ as the Lord of life, and I do not see how that is not at the heart of what our faith is ultimately about.

Alright, let’s go to another clip.

This next clip comes from episode 393 of The Naked Bible Podcast. The episode title is Revelation 20, and it was released on September 25, 2021. I have put links to everything I am using in this video in the description. You can find this episode very easily, since it is still published on the website, and you can also find it in podcast apps.

So let’s go ahead and take a look at this clip.

The Death of Death and the Scope of Revelation 21

Michael Heiser: This question has come up a lot in Q&A about my view of hell. I’ve said before that I think both views—the traditional view with eternal punishment and annihilation—are both valid and both on the table. The key issue, again, is the literalness of the language we have. Does the “death of death” mean anything? If death is really done away with—if there is no more death—what does that actually mean?

Let me read Revelation 21:4. John says, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.” Now, is that reference in Revelation 21 only with respect to glorified believers in a new global Eden? Or does it mean broadly, comprehensively, that death no longer exists anywhere? Because if it means that, then annihilation is the view that makes the most sense.

You cannot have people still dying forever somewhere—in an underworld that does not exist because it is not needed—and experiencing death when death is no more. So if we are supposed to read that broadly, then we have annihilation.

Life, Death, and the Logic of Revelation 21

Anthony Delgado: His ideas here are focused on Revelation 21:4: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.” What Heiser is really trying to deal with is this question: does that verse mean death shall be no more for the elect—the saints in heaven—or does it mean death shall be no more, ever, anywhere, in any way?

If death truly no longer exists, then what does it mean for those who have life in the eternal kingdom of God to have life, while those who do not belong to that kingdom do not have life? What does it mean to be outside of life if death itself is gone?

I’ve often spoken about life and death in these terms. There’s an article on my website responding to some thoughts from Gavin Ortlund where I use the analogy of a flashlight. You can’t have a dark light. That’s not how light and dark work. Darkness is the absence of light. You can shine light into darkness, but you can’t shine darkness into light. That’s not how physics works.

Life and death work the same way. Death is not something on the other end of a spectrum that can overtake life. Death is the absence of life. So if eternal life belongs to the elect in the kingdom of God, then what does it mean to have the dead outside of that life? This is one of the major struggles annihilationists have, and why they struggle to understand how eternal conscious existence for the condemned makes sense.

I also have a bit of a problem with the word torment. Even though I agree with Heiser that eternal conscious torment is a valid category, I would much rather the ECT crowd say eternal conscious punishment, because that at least makes more sense conceptually.

Cosmology, Temple Imagery, and God’s Presence

Anthony Delgado: This leads into cosmology—heaven, earth, and under the earth—and the three-tiered worldview we see in Scripture. I talk about this a lot on my channel because I think it frames how we think about God’s universal sovereignty and how we understand temple imagery in Scripture.

In The Gospel Is Bigger Than You Think, I talk about heaven as the abode of God in the intermediary state before the consummation of the eternal kingdom. Heaven is where the saints go temporarily if they die before Jesus returns. It is not the eternal state. The eternal state is the new heaven and new earth—the eternal city of God—where the glorified people of God dwell forever.

That is the real life. This present life is temporary. What we are looking forward to is a renewed Eden, a heaven-on-earth reality where heaven and earth come together and become the permanent dwelling place of God and humanity.

Artists have tried to capture this vision for centuries. If you search for depictions of the new heaven and new earth, you’ll see attempts to imagine what this restored cosmos looks like. But something fundamental changes in the cosmology.

If Christ is on the throne in the new earth, does it make sense that there is also some separate place outside the cosmos where Christ reigns over eternal punishment? Revelation 14 uses the language of eternality, yes, but it is prophetic language, and we need to think carefully about how that imagery functions.

If all things—heaven, earth, and under the earth—exist within the sphere of God’s presence, then how do we understand God’s life-giving presence? In Eden, God’s presence gives life. How, then, do we understand God’s presence in a place of eternal punishment?

That is where I struggle with the doctrine of eternal conscious torment. An eternal place where God resides should be a place of restored Eden, a place where God’s presence brings life. Just as Heiser noted in the earlier clip, God’s life-giving presence protected Adam and Eve. In the same way, it is the life-giving presence of Christ that sustains the redeemed for all eternity.

Reading Heiser on Eternal Punishment (Circa 2015?)

Anthony Delgado: That’s one of my thoughts on that one. Let’s go to the next section. This next one is a little different, because I’m going to read it to you. It’s actually an entire chapter, but if you know Michael Heiser, he tends to keep his chapters short.

This comes from Brief Insights on Mastering Bible Doctrine. I want to note something important here. The last clip we listened to came from 2021. What I’m about to read now is much earlier material. This is not Heiser jumping on some kind of late bandwagon.

The Scholar Series volume originally came out in 2015. The version you can buy now on Amazon came out in 2018. Originally, the book was titled 100 Expert Insights on the Bible. The later edition is 80 Expert Insights on the Bible. Both versions contain this chapter. What I’m about to read is from pages 194–195 of 80 Expert Insights on the Bible, chapter 79.

Heiser writes:

“There’s more than one way to understand eternal punishment. Many Christians presume that the doctrine of hell, though horrific, has been uncontroversial in the history of Christianity. They assume that believers, since the time of the apostles, have all basically held the same view. That isn’t the case. The dominant view of hell for two millennia of Christian history is that eternal punishment means unending conscious torment for the unbeliever. The Old Testament contains no evidence for this idea. Instead, death remains permanent. The real issue…”

Real quick—that last line needs a word of explanation, and this is me interjecting. Heiser is an Old Testament scholar, functionally speaking. So what he’s saying is that we do not see eternal conscious torment in the Old Testament.

I would want to caveat that a little, just to be fair to defenders of eternal conscious torment. The Old Testament does not present a very clear picture of the afterlife, either for the saints or for the reprobate. It is clear that the righteous did not think they were staying in the grave forever, but it is not especially clear what they thought beyond that, or how much they thought about it at all.

Alright, back to Heiser:

“The Old Testament contains no evidence for this idea. Instead, death remains permanent. The real issue, though, is what the New Testament says on the matter. It may surprise you, but there’s more than one way to understand its language about hell. Conscious torment may be more familiar, but the everlasting judgment of hell may refer to the permanent, everlasting extinction of unbelievers.”

So what does he mean by that? He continues:

“For example, the description of unquenchable fire where the worm does not die (Mark 9:43, 48) is a quotation of Isaiah 66:24, which describes a flame that consumes dead corpses of those judged at the day of the Lord. The context of the entire chapter is the eschatological judgment of the wicked, who are slain by God with fire and sword (Isaiah 66:16) and meet their end (Isaiah 66:17). In contrast, the righteous will endure. The idea of unquenchable fire, then, may refer to the fact that God’s judgment cannot be stopped and is inescapable. The imagery of maggots or worms speaks to the unstoppable consumption of the corpse as well.”

Then he goes on—and this is really important:

“Revelation 14:11 refers to the final divine judgment and says the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. It’s easy to see how this verse can support conscious torment, but the same phrasing in the Old Testament clearly speaks of finality of life extinction. In Isaiah 34:9–10, we read about God’s judgment of Edom: ‘Her land shall become burning pitch. Night and day it shall not be quenched. Its smoke shall go up forever.’ Obviously, Edom isn’t still burning.”

He continues:

“Another important verse is Revelation 20:14, perhaps the most difficult verse for those who want to hold the traditional view of eternal conscious torment: ‘Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.’ This echoes Paul’s statement that the last enemy to be destroyed is death (1 Corinthians 15:26). How can hell be eternal when death is done away with? Perhaps the point is the finality of death for all unbelievers in contrast to life eternal for those who believe.”

Prophetic Language, Eternity, and Finality

Anthony Delgado: So this is Heiser in 2015, republished in 2018. At the very least, by that point, he is making a strong argument for the annihilation of the wicked.

The point he’s driving at is that eternal and forever language, frequently—if not always—within the prophets, does not actually function the way we tend to assume it does today. This assumption often comes from a modern grammatical-historical method, especially when that method is paired with a very strict form of dispensational literalism.

The move becomes: “Eternal has to mean endless duration, forever and ever, without exception.” But that move pulls us out of the mindset of the ancient writer and the ancient reader of Scripture.

We see throughout the Old Testament that prophetic language anticipating final judgment often uses “forever” language to communicate finality, not ongoing process. In that sense, destruction can be eternal in that it is irreversible—an eternity of non-existence.

Edom, for example, is never going to rise again as a nation. That is what it means, within the prophetic imagination, for its fire to burn forever. The days in which Edom could exist again as a world power will never return.

That, to me, is not only an acceptable way to understand eternal condemnation—it is probably the more natural way to read prophetic language. The idea that “eternal” necessarily means conscious torment, day after day, forever, is simply not how these words are consistently used in Scripture.

Alright, that’s the third one. Now the last clip is short, and it’s the oldest one I could clearly date. This comes from 2015, from The Naked Bible Podcast, episode 59. This was a Q&A episode—number four, way back in the day. I remember listening to Heiser around that time.

Let’s take a look at this final clip.

Question on Eternal Punishment or Eternal Destruction

Trey Stricklin: Our next question is from Craig. I thought Mike might swerve into the issue of the unbelieving dead in the last Q&A—eternal punishment or eternal destruction. Thinking about Jude 7, Sodom and Gomorrah are not still burning today. The punishment of eternal fire did its work, and they were destroyed. Also, the death of death in Revelation.

Craig wants to know—he’s curious about your expanded thoughts on this issue.

Heiser on Annihilation and Eternal Punishment

Michael Heiser: Well, I’m not going to offer too much by way of expansion, because I think he hits two important ideas here. I think annihilation and the eternal punishment idea are both viable views. And of course, in the way he asked the question, you can see that they overlap as well.

Is hell eternal, everlasting punishment, or does hell speak of annihilation? And of course, if you’re annihilated, you’re always gone. You’re always dead. That’s eternal too. I’ve realized Christians talk about these things differently.

I think both ways of talking about these things have some scriptural support. For me, I think annihilation actually makes more sense because of the verse he brought up—the death of death. If death is destroyed, I don’t know how it’s still everlasting. But again, that doesn’t mean it’s the only possible way to take that statement.

There are others who would take that statement and affirm something that is still destroyed but alive, or destroyed but here and everlasting. All I’m saying is, because of that line—the death of death—I think annihilation does make more sense. But I’m not going to say it’s the only way the issue could be understood.

Closing Reflections

Anthony Delgado: Alright, here are my thoughts on this. To me, there’s one sentence in here that really is the nail in the coffin when it comes to whether or not Heiser was an annihilationist. He says, “I think annihilation actually makes more sense because of the verse—the death of death—if death is destroyed.” That seems pretty straightforward to me.

He is clearly saying, “Look, I don’t mind if people believe in eternal conscious torment. That’s biblically defensible.” But he also says, pretty definitively, that annihilation makes more sense. I think that’s really interesting, especially to see him say that so early.

I know he doesn’t want to create dividing lines among orthodox believers, and that’s why he validates other views, including eternal conscious torment. So don’t take this video as a rejection of people who hold that view. I certainly don’t.

But we’ve already talked about the nature of death and Heiser’s view on that, and I wanted everyone to see just how definitive he is in this clip. He’s really not considering eternal conscious torment as the best option, even if he thinks it’s exegetically defensible.

I hope you were blessed by Heiser’s thoughts on hell today—and by some of my own thoughts that I’ve interjected along the way. This isn’t about creating division. It’s about defending faithful brothers and sisters who find this view the most defensible.

So to all the annihilationists out there, I think you have another scholar on your side who is saying many of the same things you’ve been saying. I hope you learned something from this.

Again, check out my website, anthonydelgado.net. You can also find me on Facebook—follow me there. You can find my email as well if you want to send me ideas. Like this video, please subscribe, and share it with some friends. I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments so we can interact there.

God bless you this day.

Christ is king, and that changes everything.