Topic

The Day of the Lord

The prophetic and apostolic language for the day when God acts decisively in judgment and salvation. The New Testament ties the last judgment and the destruction of the ungodly to that day.

Also called: day of the Lord, day of wrath, day of judgment, that day

The prophets describe the day of the Lord as a day of wrath, distress, darkness and a full and sudden end. Peter writes that the present heavens and earth are kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly, which sets the verdict and the outcome on one occasion.

Jesus can say that the day of judgment will be more bearable for Sodom than for a town that rejected his messengers. That comparison treats the day itself as the thing whose severity varies, which reads awkwardly if the day is only the entrance to a sentence still being served.

The word day does not by itself fix a duration. Scripture uses it flexibly, and this site makes no claim about how long the day lasts.

What this is not

Terms in this dispute are routinely collapsed into one another. These distinctions are what keep the argument honest.

The day of the Lord and the final judgment overlap in the New Testament, but the phrase is broader in the prophets.
Naming a day does not settle how long that day is.
Prophetic days of the Lord within history are patterns for the last one, not the same event.

Principal passages

Zephaniah 1:15-18Listed in the Scripture index
2 Peter 3:7-13
Romans 2:5Listed in the Scripture index
Matthew 10:15Listed in the Scripture index
1 Thessalonians 5:2-3Listed in the Scripture index

Where this is argued in the case

S23 The Day of JudgmentThe language of a day, and what it means for when full justice is administered.
S09 Why Final Judgment Is DelayedWhy continued existence before judgment is evidence of God sustaining, not of inherent immortality.
S15 Patterns of Judgment in the Old TestamentThe recurring shape of divine judgment in the Old Testament, and what the Valley of Hinnom contributes to the word Gehenna.
S08 The Wicked Will Be DestroyedThe weight of the destruction vocabulary taken together, and why redefining it requires the traditional view to be established first from elsewhere.

S30 Is Annihilation Really Punishment?Two answers: finite experiences genuinely matter, and exclusion from eternal life is itself the ultimate loss.

Sources for this topic

Joseph Dear. The Bible Teaches Annihilationism. 1st edition, PDF version. 2016. approximately 590 pages View original of The Bible Teaches Annihilationism (opens in a new tab) Details

Found an error or have a counterargument?

This project aims to present the strongest biblical case it can, not to avoid criticism. Factual corrections, better sources, serious counterarguments and accessibility reports are all welcome.

Submit a correction or counterargument