God is Good and Hell is Just

On the most basic level, all of our squawking and screeching about hell reveals a deep distrust of God. Lack of faith, unbelief, and doubt regarding His character. The Bible teaches us emphatically that God will give each and every lost person his or her justly deserved punishment. Nothing more, nothing less. Mercy was available and offered, but roundly rejected. What is the result? What is the just response to defiance, hatred and rebellious distrust of a sovereign, benevolent and all-loving Creator?

Here are some sobering passages that teach eternal torment:

Revelation 14:9-11

And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, 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. 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.”

Revelation 20:7-15

And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

II Thessalonians 1:7-10
For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed—for our testimony to you was believed.

It's hard to imagine how these and other Biblical descriptions of eternal judgment can be reinterpreted to accommodate universalism, post-mortem offers of salvation, or even annihilationism. Nevertheless books have been written. Exegetical word games have been played along the lines of a professional sport. Far fetched and fanciful interpretations have been proposed. Absurdities have been presented with a straight face, as if they were viable alternatives to orthodox Christian beliefs. The Word of God is treated like a ventriloquist's dummy; with enough creative manipulation, one can create the illusion that it says there is no eternal punishment for the unbelieving. 


A concordance study on the Biblical usage of the Greek terms for destruction (apollumi, apoleia, and olethros) shuts down the ventilator that artificially keeps these heterodox theories of the afterlife alive. Surveying the Biblical passages on God's wrath and judgment puts the coffin in the ground and throws dirt on it. Still, the doubters dig around in the graveyard of an untenable hermeneutic, and with the rusty old shovels of humanistic optimism they attempt to resurrect long dead speculations. And all they get from these exhumations of error is a stack of lifeless bones. But religious Americans seem to like bones as much as they dislike hell, and they are happy to buy them, so the doubters keep on digging - and writing, and publishing, and selling. The theological graveyard is full of profits.

Meanwhile, God warns us of an unquenchable and eternal fire that is going to ravage all who reject Him. It has already begun to destroy faithless humanity, rendering all condemned (John 3:18) and naming us children of wrath (Ephesians 2:1-3). We are warned that the unbelieving will be destroyed eternally. The very phrase, "eternal destruction" may sound like a paradox, but it is nonetheless a clear and certain reality and it must be taken whole. Following the historical trend repeated in many other doctrinal disturbances, the propagators of afterlife errors refuse to accept the Word as it is written and in its entirety. They want to "dig deeper" and find something less offensive than the Truth. The trouble is, what they claim to "find" in the text was imported eisegetically from their own minds. While annihilationists deny the eternal duration of the destruction, universalists deny that anything resembling destruction even occurs. The phrase "eternal destruction" precludes both of these errors. It reveals endless destruction - destruction that doesn't end. Not a temporal destruction that has a fixed point of conclusion, but eternal destruction that goes on forever.

Trying to soften this is useless. Rather than using idealistic and man-centered rationalizations to fight the fires of divine justice, Bible teachers ought to be focused on following the command of Jude:

And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.

(Jude 1:22-23)

Those who know the testimony of Scripture and still deny the reality of eternal torment are treating their fellow man in a most unmerciful, cruel and hateful way. They might not feel hatred for others, but they are plainly practicing it. Their efforts do not make true Christianity more palatable, but instead offer a sugar-coated poison to the deceived, crying "peace and safety" when the roof is about to fall in. God is more than able to soften the hearts of unbelievers as we preach His unadulterated message. It is not our job to soften the message so hearers will receive and honor us, but to proclaim the truth and watch Him accomplish the miracle of regeneration.


Questions for Those Who Question

Here are some questions for those writers, preachers and leaders who "question" the clear teaching of Scripture on this subject: are you fighting God's justice? Do you not believe that God can measure out a precisely just amount of suffering for each and every lost individual, stretched out across the span of eternity, taking all of the factors into consideration as He alone can do? Do you think you are a more competent judge of the punishment sin deserves?

If God is the most merciful and loving of all beings, and He is not as repelled by the idea of eternal suffering as you are, whose wisdom and mercy are you trusting in? Yours or His? If God in His loving wisdom consigns sinners to eternal torment, can you open your mind to the possibility that this is a good and righteous thing to do?

Does eternal suffering really appear unjust? Perhaps the doctrine of hell is not meant to answer your standard of justice, but to shape it. Maybe you should measure human sin and guilt by the intensity and the duration of the punishment it warrants. If you truly know the infinite depths of your own sinfulness, you will have no problem at all with the concept of eternal suffering. You will be shocked and amazed that you are not already there! You will repent and lay hold of the freely extended mercy of God, who bears patiently with sinners, who suffers His own wrath in the place of sinners, and who saves sinners from going to destruction. Stop trying to put out the fires of hell with humanistic theories, and simply believe and proclaim the Gospel.

You may think the Biblical picture of hell is unjust, but you will have all eternity to be convinced otherwise. The question is: where?

If there really is such a place as the lake of fire, and if it really is just for sinners to suffer there forever, don't you think it merciful of God to tell us the facts so we can flee to Him and find grace? If you deny or twist His words of warning, what can you expect to receive from Him?

Revelation 22:18-19

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

_________________________________________________________
Notes:
Matthew 10:28 is commonly used to defend the theory of annihilationism. ""Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." The Greek term apollumi is used in various senses throughout the New Testament, including killing or death (to which it is parallel in Mt. 10:28; cf. Mt. 27:20), loss (cf. Mt. 15:24, Mk. 9:41; Lk. 15:4, 6, 8-9), ruin or spoil (cf. Lk. 5:37; Jn. 6:27); perishing spiritually (i.e. becoming lost or dead eternally, not having eternal life and salvation, cf. Jn. 3:16; the present state of the unbelieving, cf. I Cor. 1:18). It is difficult to find an instance of apollumi in which the word implies complete annihilation. Perhaps a case could be made for this meaning in Hebrews 1:11, but even that is a stretch and it is an isolated case. Since physical death is the separation of a person's material and immaterial substance, there is no reason to believe that the second death, or the ultimate spiritual death, is anything like annihilation. Rather, consistency with the idea of "death" and the normal usage of apollumi would lead us to say that the second death (or destruction of the soul) is a further and final separation from God, perhaps even the division of the soul and spirit, or the greater "ruin" of the personality. Since the wicked will be resurrected prior to judgment, it is conceivable that there is a kind of continuous physical dying as well. Similarly, the idea of "lostness" fits perfectly with the idea that a portion of humanity has irrevocably turned away from God and perished. And one might ask: if annihilation is intended in Mt. 10:28, what is there to fear? One could be more afraid of temporal suffering than of merely ceasing to exist.
2 Th. 1:9 is also used to support annihilationism. "These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power." Here the Greek word olethros is used. It means "ruin, destruction, death." It is characterized in the verse as being away from God's presence, glory and power. The term is also used in I Th. 5:3, where it is the ironic opposite of the peace and safety that were expected. Contrary to this, the unrepentant sinner who is abiding under God's righteous wrath may well find the possibility of annihilation to be the safest and most peaceful refuge imaginable. But this refuge does not exist, for the New Testament use of olethros carries no implication of ceasing to exist.