Introduction

At Harvard College in the eighteenth century, hell was the first doctrine discarded. It was an offense to rationalism that a loving God sends people to hell. They didn’t pretend the Bible denied hell. Instead, in a brazen prioritization of rationalism over revelation, they denied the truth of those portions of the Bible that taught hell. 

G.K. Chesterton once said that the doctrine of hell is about the fact that souls are really in peril, not that peril is unreal.¹ Mark Jones explains, “If we really believe that Jesus had to die on the cross for our sins, we must also believe that unrepentant sinners will spend eternity in outer darkness in agony. If hell does not exist, we must ask: What was the point of the Son becoming flesh in order to fall under God’s curse upon the cross? We devalue the cross—that is, we rob God of his glory—when we deny the reality of eternal punishment.”²

Hell and Divine Judgment in the Bible

The author of Hebrews catalogs six basic articles of Christian faith, what he calls “the elementary doctrine of Christ.” “Eternal judgment” is the last of the six doctrines (Heb. 6:1-2). Since “eternal judgment” is an “elementary doctrine of Christ,” it’s unsurprising to find references to it throughout the Old and New Testaments.

The Old Testament regularly refers to God as the God of judgment who will do right and judge all the earth (Gen. 18:25; Job 34:17-19; Ps. 11:5-7; 67:4; 96:10; 98:9). “He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness” (Ps. 96:13). “God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Eccl. 12:14). God’s judgment will make an eternal distinction between men, “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2).

In the New Testament, God the Father gives the job of eternal judgment to God the Son (Jn. 5:22-27). The Apostle Paul explains, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Cor. 5:10). Jesus tells thirty-six parables. In twelve of them, he speaks of people being judged for their sins. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus teaches that judgment includes suffering and torment (Lk. 16:19-31).³ 

Eternal punishment, therefore, is a thing to be feared (Lk. 12:5). Hell is a place where debts are paid (Lk. 12:59). In Matthew 23:33 Jesus sentences the Pharisees to hell—Gehenna, a Hellenized transliteration of the Hebrew, “Hinnom Valley.” This was a place of trash fires and perpetually burning rubbish located southwest of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Jesus uses this word as the figurative extension of a place of eternal punishment (Mt. 5:22; 29; 10:28; 23:15; Mk. 9:43; Lk. 12:5; James 3:6).⁴

The Bible describes hell as a place of eternal punishment for those who reject Jesus Christ (Rev. 14:6-13), marked by weeping, gnashing of teeth (Mt. 25:30), and unquenchable fire (Mt. 25:41; Mk. 9:43; Rev. 20:10). This place, shared with the devil and his angels (Mt. 8:29), is one of anguish and torment (Lk. 16:22-24). Jesus states in Matthew 25:46 that the wicked will face “eternal punishment” just as the righteous receive “eternal life.” The term “eternal” indicates that both the reward and punishment are of the same infinite duration.

Three main Greek words describe this penalty:

1. Kolasis (punishment) - severe suffering (Mt. 25:46).

2. Olethros (destruction) - utter ruin, used in the context of church discipline (1 Thess. 5:3; 2 Thess. 1:9; 1 Cor. 5:5). It signifies physical and spiritual ruin.

3. Apōleia (destruction) - to ruin or waste, indicating complete spiritual ruin (Phil. 3:19; 2 Pt. 3:7).

The combined meaning of these words shows that unbelievers face severe suffering and total ruin. Mark 9:43, 48 emphasizes that hell’s fire is unquenchable, implying eternal punishment, not just the annihilation of the wicked.⁵ The eternal fire serves a purpose (Rev. 20:11-15): the ongoing execution of punishment, as reflected in the fact that the worm does not die in the undying fire (Is. 66:24).

For God to establish his kingdom is for him to wipe away all that is contrary to the King. Part of salvation is that pain and sorrow are terminated. And pain and sorrow are only terminated when Satanic power is destroyed. That’s why God’s grace isn’t without judgment. The Kingdom of God means the enemies of God are scattered and thrown into disarray. For example, in the Gospels, the note of judgment falls upon the cities (Lk. 21:20-24; 23:27-31) that reject Messiah. But for his people, Christ receives the judgment that was owed to them. God the Father put forth Christ Jesus, “as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Christ” (Rom. 3:24-26). 

Hell and Divine Judgment in Church History

The Second Council of Constantinople, in A.D. 553, primarily focused on Christological issues and the condemnation of certain heresies, particularly Origenism. It rejected certain aspects of Origen's teachings, which included topics related to the nature of the afterlife, the pre-existence of souls, and universal salvation. One of the anathemas states: “If anyone says or thinks that the punishment of demons and the wicked will not be eternal, that it will have an end, and that there will be a restoration (apokatastasis) of demons and the wicked, let him be anathema.”⁶

The Fourth Lateran Council, in 1215 said, “Those who have done good will go into eternal life, and those who have done evil into eternal fire.”⁷

The Second Council of Lyons in 1274 said, “The souls of those who die in mortal sin or with original sin only... immediately descend into hell, but to be punished with different punishments.”⁸

In the seventeenth century, the Augsburg Confession rejected the universalism of the Anabaptists, “who think that there will be an end to the punishments of condemned men and devils.”⁹ 

Question 52 of the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) says, “What comfort is it to you that Christ shall come again to judge the living and the dead?” The answer, “That in all my sorrows and persecutions, with uplifted head, I look for the very same Person who before offered Himself for my sake to the tribunal of God, and has removed all curse from me, to come as Judge from heaven: who shall cast all His and my enemies into everlasting condemnation, but shall take me with all His chosen ones to Himself into heavenly joy and glory.”¹⁰ 

Chapter 33, Section 2 of the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) says, “The end of God’s appointing this day is for the manifestation of the glory of His mercy, in the eternal salvation of the elect; and of His justice, in the damnation of the reprobate, who are wicked and disobedient. For then shall the righteous go into everlasting life, and receive that fulness of joy and refreshing, which shall come from the presence of the Lord: but the wicked, who know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power.”¹¹

Hell and Divine Judgment in Apologetics

Today, the doctrine of divine judgment is more of an apologetics issue than it is an exegetical one. Just like in the day of the prophet Micah, people today resist the idea of divine judgment. The people of Judah rejected Micah’s prophetic judgments saying Yahweh is too patient, loving, and long-suffering to judge the people (Micah 2:6-7). 

David Bentley Hart’s book, That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation is a recent example of denying the doctrine of hell. Hart calls those who believe in the traditional doctrine of hell, “infernalists.” He accuses Dante of a “vindictive kind of proportional logic” (23). He says it's an “exquisitely malicious… form of torture… to have made it eternal” (11). He repeatedly labels people who believe in hell as “absurd,” and “ridiculous,” and says it is “degrading nonsense—an absolute midden of misconceptions, fragments of scriptural language wrenched out of context, errors of translation, logical contradictions, and (I suspect) one or two emotional pathologies.”¹²

Hart, like the false prophets of Micah’s day, has misconstrued the character of God. It’s a half-theology. Hell-deniers like Hart understand, as Exodus 34:6 says, that God is loving, patient, and merciful. But they misunderstand that while God is all of those things, it’s not the whole truth. The whole truth is that God keeps his covenant promises to Israel, which requires blessing the faithful and cursing the faithless. 

How can a loving God send people to hell? How can a God of judgment be a God of love? Consider a few thoughts on the matter.¹³

First, all loving people are sometimes filled with wrath

A person’s love, sometimes, is the cause of righteous wrath. If Smith is ruining a person you love, you will be filled with wrath toward Smith. You will be angry with Smith. Your anger is because of your love. So it is very much within the realm of possibility that a loving God could also have wrath. Psalm 145:17 says, “The Lord is righteous in all his ways.” Then a few verses later it says, “All the wicked he will destroy.” Then it says, “My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord,” which leads to the next point. 

Second, God is worthy of worship because he judges wickedness

Psalm 145:17-21 says that God is praised when he destroys the wicked. Miroslav Volf argues that it is the lack of belief in a God of judgment that secretly nourishes violence.¹⁴ Why might that be? When you have suffered violence at the hands of a wicked person, you are tempted toward vengeance. Faith in a God who will carry out full judgment gives you the sort of assurance that helps you refrain from personal vengeance (Rom. 12:17-19). Indeed, belief in the God of judgment is the rock upon which you can be satisfied with the approximate justice of a courtroom. 

Third, hell is giving people what they want

The essence of hell is alienation from God. If someone rejects the Lord, that means they want to be separated from him. Their greatest desire is to be away from God. They don’t like God, God’s Word, or God’s world. Their relationship with God is on bad terms. God never separates himself from people against their will (Jn. 6:37). God is ready to be sought by those who don’t ask for him. He makes himself available to those who haven’t bothered to seek. God is ready to be found. God is saying, “Here I am” to rebels who would rather do things their way (Is. 65:1-2). When God judges someone by giving them hell, he is giving them exactly what they delight in, a world without God (Is. 65:12). No one receives eternal judgment against their will. Romans 1:24 says that God “gave them up to …. their desires.”

Fourth, the idea that ‘God is love’ comes from the Bible

If people’s default assumption about God is that he is love, that didn’t come from Darwin, Islam, or Buddhism. That comes from the Bible. If you think that God is love, that is completely dependent upon the Bible’s message. And the Bible says that God is a God of love and also a God of justice. If you believe the Bible on one point—God is love—why not go all the way and believe the Bible on all points, including that God is just?

Conclusion

Delight is the opposite of torment in the same way that New Jerusalem is the opposite of hell. The final judgment starts with Satan (Rev. 20:7-10). Then the dead are judged according to their works (Rev. 20:11-15). Then the new heaven and earth appear “as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2). The King sits on his throne wiping away tears and giving living water to the thirsty (Rev. 21:5-8). The new society is consummated with pleasure forevermore. “But 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” (Rev. 21:8). 

Revelation 14:9-11 says, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10 he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.”

Those tormented with fire are in the presence of the Lamb, which means, those who receive the mark of the beast are simultaneously away from God and with him. Is this too paradoxical to be true? How do we explain this? Imagine a loving father and his estranged son, Amon. They haven’t seen each other in years and Amon likes it that way. A family funeral puts them in each other’s presence. Imagine the tension. The rebellious son is in proximity to the father. The father loves Amon unconditionally, but Amon rejects him. He went to the courthouse and changed his name. He went to the surgeon and changed his appearance. He went to the internet and changed his faction.

Too stern to love; too proud to run. So Amon stands in the corner; posture rigid; eyes fixed with an icy glare. A storm brews behind his eyes. His mind races with ineffable emotions. He finds instinctive refuge in anger, hate, and sorrow. His hands clench the chair. Bitterness rises like bile. Pride, self-regard, and self-righteousness are like opposing magnetic poles to the cheerful conversation, laughing, and eating among those in the father’s group. Amon nurses his choice to sever bonds and harbor deep-seated resentment. Each minute is like a thousand hours and each hour is like an eternity. They share the same space, yet a wall of alienation looms between them, rendering them feet apart physically and miles apart spiritually. Amon’s dormant need for love is eclipsed by pride that keeps him locked into a cycle of resentment and self-assertion. The presence of the father’s self-sacrificing love and mercy is the reminder of Amon’s slatternly sense of satisfaction. He lives by the recalcitrant ethos of self-determination. 

This is damnation, to exist in the presence of the God of all pleasure, only to be alienated from him. And all for what? For the assertion of vain ego and contemptible hubris. In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis says, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’”¹⁵ 

Postscript

Go and learn what these words mean.

Isaiah 57:15

“For thus says the One who is high and lifted up,
    who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
“I dwell in the high and holy place,
    and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly,
    and to revive the heart of the contrite.”

Isaiah 66:2-4

“All these things my hand has made,
    and so all these things came to be,
declares the Lord.
But this is the one to whom I will look:
    he who is humble and contrite in spirit
    and trembles at my word.

3 “He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man;
    he who sacrifices a lamb, like one who breaks a dog's neck;
he who presents a grain offering, like one who offers pig's blood;
    he who makes a memorial offering of frankincense, like one who blesses an idol.
These have chosen their own ways,
    and their soul delights in their abominations;
4 I also will choose harsh treatment for them
    and bring their fears upon them,
because when I called, no one answered,
    when I spoke, they did not listen;
but they did what was evil in my eyes
    and chose that in which I did not delight.”

1 Peter 5:5-6

“Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.”

Other Articles

https://trinityreformedkirk.com/2022/07/18/this-world-and-the-next/

https://trinityreformedkirk.com/2024/06/10/christian-foundations-the-divinity-of-christ/

https://trinityreformedkirk.com/2024/06/17/christian-foundations-the-fall-and-original-sin/

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¹ G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (GLH Publishing, 2016, orig. 1909), 145.

² Mark Jones, Knowing Christ (Banner of Truth, 2015), 196.

³ Fred Carl Kuehner, “Heaven or Hell?” in Fundamentals of the Faith, ed. Carl F. H. Henry (Zondervan, 1969), 234.

⁴ Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Greek (New Testament) (electronic ed.). Logos Research Systems, Inc.

⁵ J.I. Packer,  “Evangelical Annihilation in Review” in Reformation and Revival (1997). http://www.the-highway.com/annihilationism_Packer.html 

⁶ https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3812.htm 

⁷ https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09018a.htm 

⁸ https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09476c.htm 

⁹ https://thebookofconcord.org/augsburg-confession/article-xvii/ 

¹⁰ https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/confessions/heidelberg-catechism 

¹¹ https://www.westminsterconfession.org/ 

¹² David Bentley Hart. That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation (Yale University Press, 2021) 11, 23, 25.

¹³ Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (Dutton, 2008), 68-83.

¹⁴ Volf says, “My thesis that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many Christians, especially theologians in the West. To the person who is inclined to dismiss it, I suggest imagining that you are delivering a lecture in a war zone (which is where a paper that underlies this chapter was originally delivered). Among your listeners are people whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit … the topic of the lecture: A Christian attitude toward violence. The thesis: We should not retaliate since God is perfect noncoercive love. Soon you would discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God’s refusal to judge. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die.” Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace (Abingdon, 1996), 304.

¹⁵ C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (HarperOne, 2001), 75.