The three met for the last time during the following week.

The First Elder said, “John, you are an annihilationist.”

John replied, “No, my friend, I am not. Just as the scripture never uses the words ‘eternal torment’ with respect to the unredeemed, it likewise never uses the word ‘annihilation’ to describe what happens to them.”

“What are you then?”

“I really don’t know. But if I am anything, I must be a ‘Thanatist’ because ‘thanatos’ is the Greek the word that the scripture uses to describe what happens to the unredeemed in the lake of fire. Thanatos is the Greek word for simple death. Scripture says that they die. That is all I know. I believe scripture. Therefore I believe that they die.

“It is not surprising, you know," John added, "that scripture would call the final end of the unredeemed ‘death.’”

“How so?” Asked the First Elder.

“Because the most reiterated doctrine in all of scripture is that the soul that sins shall die. It is, perhaps, the only doctrine in scripture that is repeated over and over from Genesis to Revelation.”

“But its not just doctrine,” said the Second Elder.

“Sure there are other things in scripture besides doctrine,” said John “There is history, there is poetry, love, hope, but doctrine is the core. But the doctrine must come from the scripture…”

“That’s not what I mean,” said the Second Elder. “You’re missing it. You’re not seeing the forest for the trees. I never saw it either, but I see it now. You have back up and look at the whole picture. We've missed it. All of us. The doctrine has obscured it for all of us."

“What do you mean?” Asked John. "Doctrine comes from the meaning of the words…"

“Sure it’s doctrine,” said the Second Elder replied. “But that’s not the message. The real message is not doctrine…”

“No,” said the Second Elder. “It's much bigger. You’re missing it!”

“Missing it?" Asked John. "What do you mean? Let's look at Revelation …”

“No,” said the Second Elder again. Passion was written in his face. “We've missed it!”

“Missed what?” Asked John.

“We all just read it and put it into a doctrine and go on," he said, "we put it in boxes and arrange them just so but that’s not what He meant it to be at all.”

“How so?” Asked John

“Don't you see!" Said the Second Elder, "He never meant it to be a doctrine.”

“If it not a doctrine, what is it?” Asked John.”

“It’s not a doctrine,” said the Second Elder, “It’s a warning! The whole thing. The whole thing is a warning. All those scriptures about death that go from Genesis and through Revelation. You said it yourself. From Genesis to Revelation they all tell us the same thing. Sin causes death. It says over and over and over again. The soul that sins shall die…we die when we sin and in the end we die forever.”

The Second Elder stopped speaking.

“You're right,” said John looking at him.

They looked at each other.

“And we all sin…”

“So we …”

“Die.”

“Except for …”

“Christ.”

The words and the meanings of the words and the doctrines and the theologies and the rightness and the wrongness of it all pale beside the overwhelming truth that the Bible is above all things a warning that sin causes death. Sin causes death in a moral universe as inevitably as glass will break in a physical world. And it is equally irretrievable once the final blow has been struck.

In the end it comes down to the warning, the warning and the Savior. Some will choose to hear and they will live. Others will choose not to hear and they will die.

Eternal condemnation is not based upon a mistaken theology. It is based upon a rejection of Jesus Christ and the rejection of Jesus Christ is based upon what you love. And what you love is determined by what you choose. Hell is a choice."

And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light…But he that doeth truth cometh to the light…1

Everyone who has listened to and learned from the Father comes to Me.2

Verily, verily I say unto you, if a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.3