(1) Matthew 10:28: "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy (apollumi) both soul and body in hell."
--Argument: God has the power to utterly destroy the entire person (soul and body), implying total extinction rather than endless torture.
(2) John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish (apollumi) but have eternal life."
--Argument: The contrast is between eternal life (existence) and perishing (loss of existence/destruction), rather than two different types of eternal existence.
(3) Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
--Argument: "Death" is interpreted literally as the cessation of life and being, contrasted directly with eternal life.
(4) 2 Thessalonians 1:9: "They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might."
--Argument: The result of the destruction is eternal (permanent), rather than the process of destroying being an ongoing, endless event.
(5) Malachi 4:1 (and Old Testament fire/stubble imagery): "For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch."
--Argument: Fire in Scripture typically consumes and destroys its fuel until nothing is left (such as chaff burned up or Sodom and Gomorrah turned to ash in 2 Peter 2:6).
(6) Revelation 21:8: "As for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death."
--Argument: The final outcome is labeled a "second death," meaning the permanent termination of life.
