hell – Believers Armed and Dangerous

Hell

2 Thess. 1:9 (ESV) They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,

Hell has been a controversial doctrine of the Christian Church, and of Judaism for that matter, since Moses. I’d like to look at the doctrine of Hell with an apologetic approach. I would like to examine the doctrine of hell, by looking at the five most common voiced objections to the belief.

Let me give a brief definition of hell first: “[The] place of God’s final retributive punishment. Scripture progressively develops this destiny of the wicked: the Old Testament outlines the framework, while the New Testament elaborates on it. Jesus, however, is most responsible for defining hell” (The Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology). Now the questions:

How can a loving God send people to hell? This is by far the most common objection. People struggle to reconcile God’s love with eternal punishment and often assume that a truly loving God would never punish anyone.

John 3:17-18 (ESV)For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Mankind is fully condemned due to their non-belief in Jesus, the only Son of God. Since God is holy and cannot stand in the presence of unholiness, and our sin makes us unholy, we are condemned already. What God has done is set up a system, a program, by which our belief in the name of Jesus as our Savior saves us. The answer to the question is then: God does not send people to hell. We deserve it. But we can “get out of it” by asking Jesus to save us.

Is hell eternal, or does the punishment eventually end (annihilation or a finite term of suffering)? Matt. 25:41-46 (ESV) ⁴¹ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴² For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ ⁴⁴ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ ⁴⁵ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ ⁴⁶ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Both life and the punishment mentioned in vs 46 are eternal. Annihilationists (those who believe God ends our existence soon after we stand before Him) say the punishment is eternal, but the life of the punished is finite, that the wicked are destroyed for eternity rather than punished eternally. They say this to try and get out of the fact the Greek word for eternal is exactly the same. If we will live forever, the wicked will be punished forever. (See also Mark 9:43–48; cf. Isaiah 66:24; Revelation 14:11; 20:10; Luke 16:19-31)

What about those who have never heard the gospel? Rom 1:19-20 (ESV) ¹⁹ For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

We all have a chance. God has revealed Himself through the Bible (Special Revelation), certainly, but He has also made Himself known through His creation. Those who seek the Creator who is revealed in such a beautiful and well-engineered and complex universe will find Him.

4. Is the fire of hell literal, or is it metaphorical?

The Bible uses multiple images—fire, darkness, outer darkness, undying worm, weeping and gnashing of teeth, lake of fire, second death—to describe the same reality (Matthew 8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 25:30; Mark 9:48; Revelation 20:14–15; 21:8). These are not contradictory; they are complementary ways of conveying extreme, conscious, irreversible suffering and separation from God.

Whether the fire is physical flame or the most vivid possible language for spiritual agony under God’s wrath, the effect is the same: real, conscious torment. Jesus treats the danger as literal enough to warn people to take radical action to avoid it (Matthew 5:29–30; 18:8–9).

5. Is eternal hell a fair or just punishment for sins committed in a finite lifetime?

PS. 51:4 (ESV) Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

Yes, it’s fair because the seriousness of sin is measured by the infinite worth of the One sinned against, not merely by the duration of the act. Every sin is ultimately against an infinitely holy God (Psalm 51:4). Finite creatures who reject their Creator incur a debt of infinite magnitude.

There are four original language words in the Bible translated as the English term hell: Tartaroo (2 Peter 2:4), Sheol (Ps. 16:10), Hades (Matt. 11:23), and Gehenna – (Matt. 5:22)

Tartaroo is the Greek word which appears only in 2 Peter 2:4 in Scripture, however it does appear in Greek mythology as the subterranean abyss where demigods were punished. So, it speaks of punishment and imprisonment.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;

This passage directly relates to the “everlasting” punishment given the fallen angels of Jude 6 (ESV) And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day;

So, the punishment/imprisonment is everlasting.

Sheol appears 65 times in the Old Testament, often as grave. An example of this appears in Genesis, when Jacob speaks of going down to Joseph’s grave;

Genesis 42:38 (ESV) But he said, “My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he is the only one left. If harm should happen to him on the journey that you are to make, you would bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.”

However, in Deuteronomy 32:22, the meaning is a little different. In this passage, it wouldn’t make much sense to translate “sheol” as grave, so the translators use the word “hell:”

For a fire is kindled in My anger, and shall burn to the lowest hell; it shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.

Now we see hell is a particular place of everlasting punishment/imprisonment.

Because the word sheol can mean more than one thing and the context is often unclear, the translators of the ESV all but once transliterate it as simply Sheol and let the reader decide on the meaning.

Hades corresponds to sheol in the Old Testament. It appears ten times in the New Testament text, and the ESV, again, transliterates it as hades nine of those times. In the tenth, Matthew 16:18, grave hardly seems to fit:

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Gehenna is the Greek word referring to the Valley of Hinnom or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom in the Old testament (2 kings 21:13-14) where Children were “passed through the fire” as a sacrifice to the gods Molech (2 Kings 23:10 ), and Baal (Jeremiah 32:35) and others. It was used by King Josiah as a place where bodies were burned. This points to a link with fire and the death of the wicked.

This would seem to add fire to this everlasting punishment/imprisonment of hell.

Why is this important?

Some might still think the evidence is slim. Maybe a little better picture of what the future of the wicked looks like could come from two other passages which don’t mention hell directly but speaks of punishment for the lost after death. The first is a statement by Jesus in Luke 16:19-31 where the rich man and Lazarus, a poor beggar in life, have died and are in a place I’ll call paradise although it isn’t what I would usually think of as paradise. Jesus described it as such to the thief on the cross (Luke 23:43).

From what Jesus tells us, they have both died and we see Lazarus at Abraham’s side and the rich man in fiery torment. The rich man asks if Lazarus couldn’t dip his finger in water to cool the rich man’s tongue.

To escape the implications, many will discount this as a parable and not a true story, but I disagree for a few reasons. Firstly, Jesus never used proper names in parables while He did here. Secondly, Jesus usually identified parables as such; He didn’t here. Thirdly, even if it were a parable, Jesus never used unrealistic situations or fantasies in His parables. They were always common life experiences.

Another passage which supports eternal punishment for the lost is Jesus’ words recorded in Matt. 25:44-46 (ESV) Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ ⁴⁵Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ ⁴⁶And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

The Greek word for punishment here is kolasis and isn’t the go-stand-in-the-corner kind of punishment but torment.

So, no matter how we look at it, hell is not a pleasant place to be. Those who go there will be there forever, forever in torment and punishment. As Christians, we alone understand what hell looks like as we’ve been saved from it. We need to grasp this fully as an incentive to share Christ with the lost and save them from this terrible eternal agony.

Jude 22-23 (NKJV) And on some have compassion, making a distinction; ²³but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.