The Parable Of The Weeds

Nestled between other parables in Matthew 13, the parable of the weeds is one of the most straightforward allegorical descriptions of the separate eschatological destinies of the saved and unsaved.  It tells of good seeds and weeds that sit in the same field, the weeds unable to be removed before the harvest without also uprooting the wheat that sprouts.  The owner of the field decides to let them both coexist until the harvest in light of this.  However, the owner instructs his servants to collect the weeds at that time, tie them in bundles, and burn them.

Unlike the surrounding parables, the parable of the weeds is specifically explained by Jesus later in Matthew 13.  The weeds are said to represent the wicked (13:38), while the wheat is said to represent those who are saved (again, see 13:38).  The fire in the parable corresponds to the "blazing furnace" that the wicked will be cast into (13:40-42).  In this parable, Jesus uses the clear analogy of burning weeds to describe what happens to the unsaved: weeds are burnt up, not burned without end.

No one needs to read the parables of Jesus to see that the Bible teaches annihilationism and conditional immortality.  The New Testament in particular is explicitly clear when it states that eternal life is not the default state of unsaved humans (1 Timothy 6:16).  Nevertheless, the parables in the gospels plainly point to annihilationism, as the language of destruction, death, and loss of life are used to convey what will happen to the unsaved--the same language used outside of the parables to more directly describe the punishment of hell.

Many analogies tend to break down at some point, but the imagery of weeds burning up does not even hint at eternal conscious torment.  Nothing in other parables even slightly challenges annihilationism, moreover.  A slave receiving a finite number of lashes (Luke 12:47-48) and a king killing his enemies (Luke 19:27) can hardly be said to support eternal conscious torment.  Rather, these stories emphasize the limited nature of the punishments therein.  They do not imply or state that the wicked deserve to be tormented without end.

There is no place traditionalists can retreat to from which they can defend the conservative theology of hell; at most, they can acknowledge that a literal reading of some verses in Revelation (such as 20:10) would hold that very specific beings will experience eternal conscious torment.  No matter how obscure or renowned the verses they appeal to are, there is never any indication that the wicked are en masse destined for anything other than what happens to the weeds in the parable named after them: fiery destruction.