An unquenchable fire that puts itself out
The paper teaches that the fire of the final judgment burns the wicked until everything is consumed and then goes out. But Jesus said that the fire is not quenched and the torment lasts forever.
Por Rodrigo Custódio ·
The moment
On Thursday, February 24, 1881 — the same issue as the article on the "old adventists" — the Signs of the Times carried on page 90 of vol. 7 no. 8 the article "The Nature of an Unquenchable Fire," signed "J. N. A." — Elder J. N. Andrews, one of the most respected names in Adventism. The topic was the final destiny of the wicked, and the thesis was pure annihilationism.
Andrews argued from the physics of fire: if the fire never stopped burning, it would require "an eternal creation" to feed it — for fire devours continually and, however great the pile of fuel, unless it is "absolutely unlimited and infinite," it will one day be exhausted. Therefore, he concluded, the fire of judgment would burn until it consumed everything and then would go out for lack of fuel — "it would cease to burn for lack of fuel."
The biblical "proof" was Jeremiah 17:27: God had threatened to kindle "a fire in the gates" of Jerusalem that "shall not be quenched" — and yet the city burned under Nebuchadnezzar and the fire ceased, as the last chapter of Jeremiah records. For Andrews, "unquenchable" would mean only "that no one can put it out before it finishes its work," not "that it never goes out" — the historical example would decide the meaning of the word.
And the final sentence: "Indeed, this is precisely the work of an unquenchable fire. It is to burn until it has totally consumed all the fuel." Hell, in the paper's theology, would be a bonfire that puts itself out — no eternal torment, no endless punishment.
A bonfire dying down at night on a plain, with a cart beside it — period photograph.
The absurdity
The paper taught that the fire of the final judgment burns the wicked until everything is consumed and then goes out for lack of fuel. "Unquenchable," in Andrews's redefinition, would mean only that no one puts it out before the time — not that it lasts forever. There would be no eternal torment. Read the exact words of the printed page:
"Indeed, this is precisely the work of an unquenchable fire. It is to burn until it has totally consumed all the fuel."
Source: Signs of the Times, vol. 7, no. 8, February 24, 1881 — p. 90.
Highlighted clipping of the printed page with the quoted passage, issue of February 24, 1881, p. 90.
Why this is serious
The first problem is that Jesus said exactly the opposite. Speaking of hell, He repeated three times, as a solemn refrain: "where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:43-48). "Is not quenched" does not mean "goes out after consuming the fuel" — it means that it never goes out. Andrews's redefinition makes Christ say the opposite of what He said, three times in the same sermon.
The second problem is the misapplied example of Jeremiah. The "unquenchable" fire of Jeremiah 17:27 was a temporal judgment upon an earthly city — Jerusalem burned, the judgment was fulfilled, history went on. The lake of fire in Revelation is the final and eternal judgment, where the condemned "will be tormented day and night forever and ever" (Rev 20:10). To use a temporal judgment to nullify the eternal judgment is to confuse the categories — like using a traffic fine to deny a life sentence.
The third problem is the "eternal creation" argument. Andrews said: if the fire never ceases, God would need to create fuel eternally — for "fire devours continually" and no pile of fuel, "however great," lasts forever. But Scripture does not present eternal torment as the burning of matter — it presents it as the state of conscious beings under the judgment of God. The rich man of Luke 16 was in torment without any "fuel" being mentioned. The article's physics is irrelevant to the metaphysics of judgment.
And there is the destroyed symmetry: "these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Matt 25:46). The same adjective, the same verse, the two destinies. If the "eternal" of punishment means only "until the fuel is consumed," the "eternal" of life means the same — and the eternal life of the saved becomes a bonfire that also goes out. Annihilationism, taken seriously, burns up the hope of the righteous along with the wicked.
Remains of an extinguished bonfire under a bluish night sky, with a cabin in the background — period photograph.
The verdict of the Scriptures
Mark 9:48 is direct and repeated three times so as to leave no doubt: "the fire is not quenched." There is no footnote about fuel, nor a clause of extinction for lack of matter. Christ's word is absolute — and it was spoken precisely to correct the idea that the judgment would have an end.
Revelation describes the final destiny with language that excludes annihilation: "the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night" (Rev 14:11). Smoke that rises continually, torment without rest — that is not the cold ash of a fire gone out; it is conscious and perpetual suffering. And "they will be tormented day and night forever and ever" (Rev 20:10) does not admit Andrews's reading.
As for Jeremiah 17:27, the context itself confirms the temporal judgment: it was a conditional threat against a city ("if you do not listen to me... I will kindle a fire"), fulfilled in history when Nebuchadnezzar burned Jerusalem. Nothing in the text speaks of the eternal destiny of souls. The article takes a historical judgment and turns it into a hermeneutical key to the final judgment — an extrapolation that the text does not authorize.
Finally, the logic of "fuel" betrays its origin: it is nineteenth-century natural philosophy dressed up as exegesis, reasoning about eternal judgment like someone calculating the firewood of a furnace. The Bible does not explain hell by the physics of combustion — it explains it by the holy judgment of God upon sin, "where the punishment is eternal because the God offended is eternal." When theology needs the fire to "put itself out" in order to fit the doctrine, it is the doctrine that is wrong — not the fire that Christ said is never quenched.