But 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.” All persons who choose such a way of life and spurn God’s provision of Christ’s atonement sacrifice for recovering from such a degraded condition will thus be obliterated forever from existence.

There is not a spark of life in the “second death,” which is the everlasting punishment for those who willfully disobey God. There was not a bit of life in the first kind of death, that which came to Adam’s offspring by his first sin. That first kind of death would have been permanent had it not been for the love and undeserved kindness of Jehovah God in providing Christ’s sacrifice. The “second death” is permanent, for there is no atonement sacrifice for those going into it.

ITS PURPOSE

The “lake of fire,” which means, or symbolizes, the “second death,” also ‘burns with sulphur.’ (Rev. 21:8) Sulphur ignites at a low temperature and burns quickly, thus tending to consume things that would not otherwise burn so readily. Sulphur was anciently used in fumigation. Thus the “lake that burns with fire and sulphur” would well represent a complete, everlasting destruction universally of everything and everyone that has “contaminated” it, carrying on filthy practices, challenging God’s sovereignty and bringing reproach upon his name. The “lake of fire” or “second death,” though always possible for God to use on the willfully disobedient, will not hold any threat to those who have been proved everlastingly loyal through the test of Satan’s loosing after the end of the thousand years of Christ’s reign.