Is Hell a place where demons stick pitchforks into writhing bodies? Is it a place where the unsaved suffer eternally, while the saved look on and enjoy watching their pain? Both of these have been popular images of Hell. What do people believe today about the fate of the wicked? What should we believe?
This question matters, because it raises two important issues.
So I am am aiming to present an understanding of Hell that is faithful to the Bible, that upholds God's goodness in ways people can understand, and that people today can seriously believe and respond to. This article does not look at the questions of who will go to Hell and why - I have covered these areas in reasonable detail elsewhere.
I have held back from dealing with this subject for a long time. There are various questions concerning what happens after death and when. The Bible does not seem too clear about some of these questions - especially about the timing of various things. I do not wish to be dogmatic about these areas. However, we are told a great deal about other aspects, and in particular we are told about the fate of the wicked, so let us concentrate on what we have been told.
Before we jump into the details and start to chop up individual texts, I would like to establish a few basic points that do not depend on individual texts. Any discussion of this area will be confused or mistaken unless we get the context right - unless our 'big picture' is a Biblical one.
In mainstream evangelical thought, the dominant teaching about Hell (when we are taught anything at all!) is that it is a place where the unsaved suffer eternal, deliberate and conscious torment.
We should note that there has always been a strong opposition to this position, and many respected (I have heard them described as 'otherwise sound'!) church leaders have not held this position. For centuries, teaching about this area was controlled very carefully because of the social implications - but that is not what this article is about.
To make my position clear from the outset, I consider the traditional position to be possible but not probable. In other words, you can support this position from the Bible, but it is not the most obvious conclusion to reach once you have considered all the Bible's teaching on the subject.
I do not want to be dogmatic on this point, but it seems to me the weight of evidence in the Bible suggests that people who do not go to Heaven will cease to exist. The usual theological term for this idea is 'conditional immortality'.
We live in a world which is dominated by Greek thought, and we do not always appreciate the extent to which some of our basic assumptions contradict the Hebrew world view.
After all, Christianity (if it is true!) is the fulfilment of Jewish belief - we believe that God has revealed more than He revealed in the Old Testament, but it is the same God and the same truth. Nothing in the New Testament suggests that the Jews were wrong and the Greeks had been getting it right after all.
One of the key differences between Greek and Hebrew thought lies in their understanding of the soul. The Greeks believed in the immortality of the soul - when the body dies, the soul is freed from its earthly prison. In Hebrew thought, the soul is the life of the living body - without the physical body, it cannot exist.
The doctrine that souls could be tormented for all eternity - or even for a shorter time - just does not exist in Jewish thought. You can't torment disembodied souls - you can't do anything to them!
The 'traditional' evangelical position only makes sense if you adopt the Greek view that each person's soul will continue to exist for all eternity - that souls are, by nature, indestructible - and therefore the souls of the damned must be somewhere and experiencing something.
The Hebrew view - shared by the writers of the New Testament, of course - is that Human souls are not, by nature, immortal. Immortality is an attribute of God, not of man. God, and God alone, is immortal (1 Timothy 6:16). This clearly does not mean that we cannot inherit immortality, but it would make very little sense if all human beings are and always have been immortal.
If there is any doubt about this, the story of the fall makes clear the distinction between the Biblical (Hebrew) view of the soul and the Greek one. Mankind is mortal - he will not live for ever - and to ensure that this remains the situation, mankind is banished from the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:22-24).
Much of our understanding is clouded because, when we read our Bibles, we have in our minds Greek concepts and expectations, not Hebrew ones. Jesus and the early Christians were all firmly rooted in Hebrew thought. While some of the New Testament writers - Paul is a good example - could use Greek ideas when they were helpful, they were always working from a Hebrew background and mindset.
I should point out that while there is a reasonable amount of controversial material in this article, the point I am making about the difference between the Greek and Hebrew views of human life is, as far as I know, fully accepted by all reputable scholars - even if the implications are not widely understood. One nice summary puts it this way: "Christianity takes from Judaism the realistic recognition that man is an animated body and not an incarnated soul" (John Polkinghorne, The way the World Is, page 92).
When we switch from a Greek to a Hebrew understanding of the soul, many of the Biblical passages about the afterlife suddenly take on a very different meaning.
We should note at the outset that the hope we are offered in the New Testament is repeatedly described as 'life ' or 'eternal life'. You don't need me to quote chapter and verse for all the references here!
But if God is offering us the hope of eternal life, this only makes sense if we do not already have it! People who believe in eternal torment seem to be saying to the unsaved that they already have eternal life - the problem is that they will spend it in the wrong place.
At this point, the response is generally that I do not understand what is meant by 'life' in the New Testament - it is much more than simply living, and refers to a tremendous quality of life. I am sure I do not understand all that is meant by the word 'life' in the New Testament. It certainly does include the idea of quality as well as quantity of life. But this objection completely misses the point.
'Life' may (in many passages) mean much more than just existing, but 'death' must surely mean no more suffering. You may well suffer as you die, but once you are dead, you feel neither pleasure nor pain. The response comes back to me from the believers in a traditional Hell: they claim that I am using 'human reasoning' at this point - it makes sense, but it is not what the Bible teaches. Sadly, they fail to go on and show me where the Bible teaches that ordinary human beings can be dead and feel either pleasure or pain.
More importantly, I find it hard to believe that Jesus did such a poor job of choosing His words and explaining what they meant. If He wanted to teach the difference between eternal bliss and eternal torment, he should really have offered us 'pleasure' rather than 'life'.
There are many passages in the New Testament that tell us about 'life' and 'eternal life'. Is there a single passage that qualifies the meaning of 'life', to turn it into something that will fit the doctrine of eternal torment? A single passage which explains we are not supposed to understand 'life' to mean what it ordinarily, obviously means, and explains that it really means something radically different when the New Testament writers use the term? Not one.
Take the best known verse in the Bible, for example.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)
This seems to be pretty clear. If you believe in Jesus, you will gain something you did not have before - you will gain eternal life. The alternative, if you do not believe in Jesus, is that you will perish - die, be destroyed.
What Jesus should have said, if eternal torment were true, should have been "... whoever believes in him shall not have eternal life in torment, but have eternal pleasure in paradise instead." Or am I missing something?
Of course, there is a well-known passage that explains exactly what Jesus means when He talks about eternal life. When Jesus is praying in John 17, He says: "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent" (John 17:3). What is eternal life, according to Jesus? It is to know God. It is not to be rescued from the flames, it is not to avoid eternal torment. It is to know God, to know Him personally, to be in a relationship with Him. It sounds good to me.
Was Jesus really that bad a communicator? The doctrine of eternal torment turns John 3:16 completely on its head. In this verse, Jesus says He offers us eternal life as an alternative to perishing; but (if this doctrine is true!) what he really intended to say is that we don't need to be given eternal life because we already have it, and we don't need to worry about perishing because we can't.
I refuse to distort Jesus' clear teaching in this way - especially not if I can understand His words in their natural, obvious sense and remain faithful to the rest of the Bible's teaching at the same time.
The New Testament is pretty clear on this subject - eternal life is something we do not naturally and automatically have as human beings: it is something given to us by God when we believe in Jesus Christ. We do not have an immortal soul when we are born, but we can be given one.
(We can now come back to the theology for one moment: the difference between 'conditional immortality' and 'annihilationism' is that the former assumes the Hebrew understanding that the human soul can become immortal, while the latter assumes the Greek understanding that the human soul is in essence immortal, and it takes a deliberate act of God to take this immortality away.)
(Another side track... I think we have to be very careful in talking about the state of Adam and Eve before the fall. In a sense, they were immortal, in that they were neither dying nor destined to die. But they were not immortal either in the way that God is by nature or in the way that we inherit. Unfortunately, the best description I can think of to describe their state is 'conditional immortality' - but it is almost the opposite of the conditional immortality we have been talking about. For us, we can gain immortality if we believe in Jesus; for them they could lose immortality if they chose to disobey God.)
Finally - the final point in the introduction, that is! - I want to clear up one misunderstanding that sometimes gets in the way. Some people object to this teaching about destruction on the grounds that 'it is only what most non-Christians believe anyway.' I don't see why this should be such a problem. After all, most non-Christians believe that water is wet and fire burns. But in any case, in this instance at least, what they believe is quite different.
We have here a confusion between the end point and the road you take to get there. In one way they are similar, but only in this sense: imagine you are in court. You have committed some dreadful crime, and have been found guilty. You are sentenced to death. Imagine facing the gallows, or the firing squad. Now, compare that prospect with the option of dying peacefully in your sleep one night. I know which most people would choose. On one level, both options are the same - in both cases, you end up dead. But most people are interested not only in the end point - death - but also in the route you take to get there.
Most non-Christian seem to believe that death is the end: you live, you die, and that is all there is. Christians, on the other hand, believe that death - physical death - is not the end. One day, we will all stand before the throne of God, and be judged. People who have rejected God in this life, will be rejected by Him in the next.
I sometimes tell people who believe that death is the end: if you are right and I am wrong, I will never know. My error will make not the slightest difference to me. But if I am right and you are wrong, we will both stand before God one day. And, when that happens, the question of your relationship with God will matter more to you than anything else in the world.
People can imagine, perhaps, what it must be like to be on trial for your life. But a human court can only take away - at worst - your life. They can only take away from you what you will have to give up in a few years anyway. When you stand before God, you will face losing, not a few years of life, but an eternity.
From a human court, you may go to the gallows convinced that the jury was mistaken, or perhaps you might attempt a degree of revenge by maintaining your innocence to the end. But when God pronounces judgement, you (and all creation with you) will know that what He says is right.
Whatever we believe about the nature of the punishment the wicked will suffer, we must not ignore the Bible's clear teaching that the punishment will only be inflicted after we stand before the Judge of all the Earth and hear his verdict. It is what the Bible teaches us to expect, and in my experience, the Judgement Seat is a far more believable prospect for most people than the traditional pantomime 'demons-with-pitchforks' they usually hear - or imagine they hear - us talking about.
I am sometimes asked if there is any Biblical evidence to support the idea that the unsaved will cease to exist. The questioner often seems to assume that people believe in destruction of the wicked on the basis of wishful thinking and despite all the Biblical evidence to the contrary.
The Biblical evidence points to precisely the opposite conclusion: it is eternal torment that relies on wishful thinking - or, at least, something other than the clear teaching of Scripture. In these next two sections, we will look at the teaching of the Bible on the fate of the wicked, and see what it actually says.
We have already seen that Jesus teaches that the unsaved will 'perish'. In this, He is simply repeating the clear teaching of the Old Testament. The destruction of the ungodly is consistently taught in the Old Testament, and is the dominant teaching of the New Testament. Let us look at a few examples.
Right at the beginning, when God spoke to Adam in the Garden of Eden, the consequence of sin was made clear.
"... but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." (Genesis 2:17)
If the consequence of sin is destruction, God's promise makes perfect sense. When you die, you cease to exist. On the other hand, if the consequence of sin is eternal torment, God was really being quite economical with the truth - not entirely straight with poor old Adam. If eternal torment is so much worse a fate than eternal destruction, surely God should have let Adam know the full consequences of disobedience?
At this pivotal point in history, Adam is told he has two options. He can choose life, or he can choose death. It's amazingly close to John 3:16 - you can choose life or you can perish. Of course, you can believe that what this really means is that you can choose between an eternity of pleasure or an eternity of pain - but that is not what the Bible says.
I have to admit that this next bit depends on your reading of the passage, but I think it's important...
After the fall, God says of Adam (Genesis 3:22b-23) '"...He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden, to work the ground from which he had been taken.'
The obvious question is: why?
If you believe that God is being wrathful and vengeful here, wanting Adam to suffer as much as possible as a consequence of his sin, then you can read this to say that God here is making sure that Adam will die so that he will go to Hell and suffer for all eternity. But the passage does not say this, and it is not consistent with the picture of God we see in this passage.
On the other hand, if you believe that God still loves Adam and wants the best for him despite his sin, then this passage takes on a completely different meaning. Adam is now alienated from God, knowing what he has lost. Allowing Adam to live forever in this condition would be unnecessarily cruel, so God ensures that Adam will, one day, die, and be released from his guilt and regrets.
Of course, this picture only makes sense if death is the end of the story. To 'release' Adam from a life of regret to an eternity of unspeakable torment would not be a demonstration of love.
The basic question is: does God still love Adam, or is He wanting to get revenge on Adam and punish him as much as possible? And I am not asking about which option you or I would prefer, or which option fits our theology most neatly, but which option best fits the text. Everything in the text, including God's provision of clothing to protect Adam and Eve in the harsher climate they will now face, suggests that God still loves Adam. Nothing I can find suggests the contrary. So it seems clear from the text that God still loves Adam. Death, in this context, is a blessing and a release.
Let us take another well-known text. The book of Psalms begins with the familiar "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked... He is like a tree planted by streams of water." In other words, the godly man will endure - will last, will live. What is the fate of the ungodly?
"Not so the wicked!
They are like the chaff
that the wind blows away." (Psalm 1:4)
The wicked will disappear. Of course, if you want to be pedantic, the chaff does not cease to exist when it is blown away - it is merely moved and spread across the countryside. But this is not a scientific paper on the conservation of mass - it is poetry. You hold chaff in your hands, and it is there; the wind blows, and it is gone.
The contrast is with the godly. The godly man will endure, will last. The wicked man will disappear - the wind will blow, and the wicked will be no more. They do not have permanence.
This sounds remarkably like the destruction of the wicked to me. The same image is used elsewhere in the Old Testament - take Isaiah 29:5, for example. The many enemies of Jerusalem "will become like fine dust, the ruthless hordes like blown chaff."
Similar to the picture of chaff is the image of stubble being burnt away. In the Song of Moses, we hear about the Egyptian army:
"You unleashed your burning anger;
it consumed them like stubble." (Exodus 15:7)
This picture is not just used of punishment which has already been delivered. In a picture of the final judgement, we read:
"Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire." (Malachi 4:1)
In Psalm 73, the Psalmist is wrestling with the problem of evil. Sin is not punished, the evil prosper - "always carefree, they increase in wealth." It is not right, the Psalmist says: things should not be this way. The confusion remained until he received Divine revelation. According to the Psalmist, I did not understand "till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny."
So the problem of the wicked prospering will not be solved in the here-and-now. The problem is only solved when you take into account their final destiny.
"How suddenly they are destroyed,
completely swept away by terrors!
As a dream when one awakes,
so when you arise O Lord,
you will despise them as fantasies." (Psalm 73:19-20)
This is presented to us as a description of what happens after death. You can read it purely as a statement of what happens in this life, but reading the passage this way does not make a great deal of sense.
Firstly, as an answer to the problem of wicked people prospering, it just does not work. You can see for yourself that many wicked people die rich and comfortable. That is why the Psalmist is unhappy in the first place! To claim that they all get destroyed in this life flies in the face of the evidence, and cuts against the meaning of this passage. If you could see them being destroyed, you would not need to ponder the problem of their success until you went into the sanctuary and had the answer revealed to you.
And, secondly, the wicked are once again paralled with the godly. Verse 24 clearly looks at what happens to the godly person after death - "You guide me with your counsel, and afterwards you will take me into glory" - so the parallel must be with the final destiny of the wicked after death.
There are several passages in the Old Testament which describe the idols that men make. One of these passages is found in Psalm 115:
"They have mouths but cannot speak,
eyes, but they cannot see;
they have ears, but cannot hear,
noses, but they cannot smell;
they have hands, but cannot feel,
feet, but they cannot walk;
nor can they utter a sound with their throats.
Those who make them will be like them,
and so will all who trust in them." (Psalm 115:5-8)
You can take this to mean that those who make and trust idols will have hands but be unable to feel. So you could use this to argue for the continued existence of the ungodly - but if they can feel nothing, there is not a lot of point in tormenting them!
These passages are really saying that idols are nothing. They may look like something to the eye, they may appear to be something, but in reality they feel nothing, they do nothing, they are nothing.
Everyone seems to agree that the idols will not be writhing in torment for all eternity. And we are told that those who trust them will be like them. The consclusion seems inescapable. This passage may not explicitly teach about destruction, but it is hard to see what other fate for the wicked would be consistent with the teaching here.
In the Old Testament, the grave ('sheol') is the place of the dead. It is sometimes translated as 'Hell' or 'death'. It is a shadowy place, where nothing much happens or can happen - certainly not torment.
So it is interesting to see numerous passsages where sheol is paired up with 'destruction' - either as an equivalent term, or to provide a comprehensive set of options. For example:
"Death is naked before God;
Destruction lies uncovered." (Job 26:6)
"Death and Destruction lie open before the Lord" (Proverbs 15:11)
"Death and Destruction are never satisfied" (Proverbs 27:20)
You can summarise the expectation of the Old Testament in these terms: the godly will reside in sheol, possibly awaiting a resurrection, while the ungodly are destroyed and have no hope at all of resurrection.
There are many other passages in the Old Testament which give exactly the same message.
"You destroy those who tell lies" (Psalm 5:6)
"Kiss the son, lest he be angry
and you be destroyed in your way" (Psalm 2:12)
(Remember that Psalm 2 is quoted in the New Testament as referring to Jesus)
"Those who are far from you will perish;
You destroy all who are unfaithful to you." (Psalm 73:27)
"For the living know that they will die,
but the dead know nothing;
they have no further reward,
and even the memory of them is forgotten.
Their love, their hate
and their jealousy have long since vanished;
never again will they have a part
in anything that lies under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 9:5-6)
Finally, there is the famous passage in Isaiah 9, which we read every Christmas:
"Every warrior's boot used in battle
and every garment rolled in blood
will be destined for burning,
will be fuel for the fire." (Isaiah 9:5)
A few verses later, Isaiah returns to the theme of burning:
"By the wrath of the Lord Almighty
the land will be scorched
and the people will be fuel for the fire;
no-one will spare his brother." (Isaiah 9:19)
The boots, the garments and the people will all be fuel for the fire. Fuel is burned up: it is destroyed in the process. So what of the people? In the total absence of any suggestion to the contrary, we have to understand that they, too, will be burned up. Being burned may hurt terribly while the victim is alive, but soon they die, soon they are consumed, and all suffering ceases.
We have already looked briefly at John 3:16. What about the second most famous verse in evangelical circles?
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
Things could not be much more straightforward, could they? The wages of sin is death, not eternal survival in torment. The gift of God is eternal life, something you don't already have. There is a simple choice: you can either live, or perish. If eternal torment is so important, how come it never gets mentioned?
What the people who believe in eternal torment would like is a passage in the Bible that describes such a fate. Of course, there isn't one, but what they would like to find is a passage that reads something like this: "anyone who has died is suffering unspeakable torment unless they believed in Jesus."
In fact, just a few verses earlier in Romans, Paul addresses precisely this topic. Unfortunately for those who cling to eternal torment, what he actually said was:
"anyone who has died has been freed from sin." (Romans 6:7)
Not quite the same, is it?
If we turn to the Sermon on the Mount, we find the same message from the mouth of Jesus. In another well-know passage, we read:
"Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it." (Matthew 7:13-14)
The choice is very simple, and very clear: there are two ways. One leads to life, and the other leads to destruction. Not misery, not pain, not torment: destruction.
The theme is picked up a few verses later, in Matthew 7:24-27. The wise man built his house upon the rock... If you hear and obey the words of Jesus, what you build will remain; if you do not obey Jesus' words, what you build will be destroyed. It's a parable, but the message is exactly the same: the penalty for ignoring Jesus is not suffering, but destruction.
Jesus does not only talk about eternal life. He also talks about Hell. He seems to be quite clear about what happens in Hell...
"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matthew 10:28)
Of course, the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell is God. People who are familiar with images of Satan ruling a fiery kingdom need to understand this very clearly: Hell is not the kingdom where Satan reigns. Satan does not torment anyone in Hell, and he does not have the power to destroy your soul. The One with the power of destruction is God. And what does He do in Hell? What happens there? Jesus is quite clear: what happens in Hell is destruction, not endless torment.
So, if you refuse to follow Jesus, you face destruction. This simple message is consistently taught throughout the New Testament.
"We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved." (Hebrews 10:39)
The parallel is simple and unavoidable. There are only two options presented to us: we can shrink back, or believe. If we believe, we shall be saved; if we shrink back, we shall be destroyed. The choice is salvation or destruction. You can either live, or perish.
Destruction is not just a vague, polite reference to a fate which everybody knew to be quite different. That sort of thing does happen in the Bible - for example, several references to 'feet' in the Old Testament are polite ways of talking about sexual organs. But there is not a shred of evidence that the word 'destruction' is used in this way. When Jesus says that Judas was "doomed to destruction" (John 17:12), that is exactly what He meant.
Ah! I can hear someone saying - what about all those passages in the New Testament which talk about Hell fire? Okay - let us look at that next.
In the Old Testament, the fate of the wicked is usually described as 'destruction'. In the New Testament, the picture is unchanged, but the language - the image used - is slightly different. When talking about the fate of the wicked, the central image in the New Testament is that of fire. As we have already seen (Exodus 15:7; Malachi 4:1), this image is also used in the Old Testament.
We have to be very careful here. People are so used to the idea of 'hellfire' that it becomes very difficult to read these passages for what they say. Please excuse me if I labour this point, but it really is essential, and experience suggests that it is usually required.
Imagine you have a letter or photograph you want to get rid of - perhaps a lover who cheated and left you. You could just throw it in the bin, but you would know it was still somewhere. No, the most satisfying option is to burn it. That way, you destroy the letter or photograph, it cannot come back and haunt you - and hopefully, neither will the person concerned.
You burn the photograph to get rid of it - to be free, not to inflict pain on the other person. Fire, in the Bible, has various functions: it cleanses, purifies, destroys. Of course, fire can hurt - but that is not its main function.
Go back to the quote from Malachi. The evildoers will be like stubble, and the day of the Lord will set the stubble on fire. You do not burn stubble in order to inflict pain on it, you don't burn it as a punishment - you burn it to get rid of it.
Fire destroys. In the absence of any other context (the "refiner's fire", for example), that is the basic meaning of all references to fire and burning. What do you burn? You burn rubbish - to get rid of it. Take, for example, the quote from John the Baptist:
"The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." (Luke 3:9)
The fire is not a punishment, it does not teach the tree a lesson, it does not serve as a warning to the other trees. A tree that does not bear good fruit is rubbish - it has failed to fulfil its purpose - and so it is disposed of. The dreadful news is that the same fate awaits the ungodly.
The day of the Lord will come with fire - Malachi 4:1; 1 Corinthians 3:13; 2 Thessalonians 1:7 - to give but three examples. And on that day:
"He will punish those who do not know God and will not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power." (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9)
So, for these people, their punishment is destruction. That seems pretty clear. And, just to make it even clearer, the destruction is described as 'everlasting' - there is no hope of re-creation, no resurrection possible. Once destroyed, forever destroyed. The message is repeated later in the book (2 Thessalonians 2:8) just in case anyone failed to get the point first time round.
With the exception of two passages in Revelation (which we shall shortly be looking at), references in the New Testament to Hell fire are references to destruction, not to torment. So, in the New Testament, the vast majority of the passages that touch on this subject point to destruction rather than torment being the fate of the wicked.
The passsage in 1 Corinthians 3, mentioned above in passing, deserves to be looked at again.
The day of the Lord will come 'like fire' - but this fire will not judge us: it will test the quality of each man's (in context, each Christian's) work. If, in our lives, we have built nothing of any value, our work will be burned up. Whatever remains after the fire - whatever survives into eternity - will be our reward.
This passage clearly teaches that a Christian who does not live right will be saved, but will 'suffer loss' (1 Corinthians 3:15). In contrast, the local congregation (the plural 'you' of verse 16) is sacred: you are God's temple. And, we are told, "if anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him" (1 Corinthians 3:17).
In this passage, the fire is something the Christian passes through, not the non-Christian. But the Christian's future is totally secure - he will be saved, no matter what. The Christian's reward will depend how how he or she lived - it will be what remains, whatever has been built of gold, silver and precious stones in his life. But the explicit fate of (at least one group of) the unsaved is that they will be destroyed.
Whatever the image or symbolism being used in any given passage, the teaching of the New Testament is simple and clear: the ungodly will perish.
The final substantial argument that the ungodly will perish also serves a secondary purpose: it solves a problem that many evangelicals struggle with - the apparent universalism of various passages. Take this well known passage for example.
"And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment - to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ." (Ephesians 1:9-10)
If 'all things in heaven and on earth' will be brought together under Christ, does this not mean that everyone will eventually be saved? It violates the sense of the passage to argue that the ungodly are included here, but if that interpretation is not possible, what can the 'all things' possibly mean?
I'm sure you are ahead of me. If the ungodly will one day perish, then all those who remain can be brought together under the headship of Christ.
This interpretation is simple, straightforward and (dare I say it?) obvious. It preserves the obvious meaning of the passage, and avoids the danger of universalism. The same interpretation solves the same problem with 'all things' in Colossians:
"For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross." (Colossians 1:19-20)
This also solves the problem in Revelation that so many who believe in eternal torment fail to address:
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. (Revelation 21:4)
John here describes a new creation - 'a new heaven and a new earth' (Revelation 21:1) means that everything is new. How can it be that there is no more crying or pain? Because the ungoldly are not writhing in torment: they are, quite simply, no more. They didn't make it into the new creation. They perished with the old.
There is one further line of thought pointing us in the direction of destruction as the fate of the wicked. I can't claim it is it as a major theme, but there are various passages that suggest another way of reaching the same conclusion as the ones we have looked at so far.
God is consistently revealed to us as the Creator, the source of everything. Satan can twist and pervert, but he can't create. All he can do is to damage what has been created.
God is more than just a Creator who fashions a clockwork universe and sets it going: He not only created in the past, He continues to sustain His creation.
Any experience of creation is, in some sense, an experience of God. God is revealed in creation - He communicates Himself through what He has made. The air you breathe is a blessing from God, the food you eat is an expression of His grace. Your own body continues to exist because He loves you.
However, you cannot presume on God's grace. The blessings He continues to pour out on you will one day come to an end if you do not choose to return His love. He requires a response from us.
And what of those who choose not to respond to His love? If, in the end, you reject God, then surely you reject His blessings. Almost every passage of the Bible teaches this, one way or another. If you receive God, you receive His blessings; if you reject Him, you reject His blessings. The good God and the good things from God, in the end, go together.
But if those who reject God - whether they realise it or not! - also reject His blessings, in the end, what will they have left? Since all things come from Him, those who reject God, reject everything. Our continued existence is an act of God's love and grace. Those who reject Him are rejecting, in the end, their very selves. You cannot exist without enjoying God's blessing, so if you reject God and all His blessings, what can possibly be left? Only the prospect of eternal destruction.
We have seen so far that the vast majority of the Biblical text supports the idea that the unrighteous will perish. What about the texts which are used to suppport the idea that they will not be destroyed, but instead will suffer eternal torments?
Let us take a work of systematic theology that argues for the eternal torment of the lost, and examine every one of the texts presented to support this view. If anyone wishes to supply any other passages, I will be glad to add them to this list! We have:
Matthew 25:41, 46; 18:9; Mark 9:44 quoting Isaiah 66:24; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9; Jude 7, 13; Revelation 14:9-11; 20:10.
This list comes from Know the Truth by Bruce Milne (IVP 1982, revised 1998). To be fair, Mr Milne does allow that the terms commonly used in the Bible, "such as 'destruction', 'ruin' and 'perishing' can imply some eventual termination of life" (as if you can perish or be destroyed without having your life terminated!) - but he clearly prefers the traditional position, even if it is uncomfortable.
We have already looked at the 2 Thessalonians passage in section 3d. Here are the others. And, remember, this is the best evidence in the Bible that the wicked will suffer eternal conscious torment.
"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.'" (Matthew 25:41)
"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." (Matthew 25:46)
The first thing to note is that this is a parable - the parable of the sheep and the goats. A parable is a story with a message. It is not an allegory: you cannot take every detail in the story as significant.
The point of the story is that one group of people enjoy a good destiny based on the way they lived, the other group a bad destiny based on how they lived. However, if the details of the destiny are significant, what are we told?
The goats are to depart into eternal fire, which is eternal punishment. Remember - fire means destruction, not pain. Punishment can involve pain, but there are many forms of punishment which do not.
So there is nothing in this parable to suggest that the wicked suffer eternal conscious torment. Instead, it fits very well with the 2 Thessalonians passage we looked at - being consigned to the fire as an eternal punishment corresponds perfectly to the doctrine of everlasting destruction: destruction which can never be reversed, a final punishment which can never be changed.
If the punishment is destruction, why is the fire described as being 'eternal'? The answer is given in the passage. The fire is eternal because it is not designed for people. The fire was prepared for the devil and his angels.
There is a serious case which can be made for the Bible teaching eternal conscious torment. But it is not the eternal conscious torment of human beings: it is the eternal conscious torment of the devil and his angels. We will come back to this when we look at Revelation.
"And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell." (Matthew 18:9)
Not a lot here about eternal conscious torment. Unless you have already decided, against all the evidence, that 'the fire of Hell' must mean eternal conscious torment, you would naturally read this as describing two possible fates: you can either enter life (and thus, presumably, live), or you can be thrown into the fire of Hell (and thus, presumably, die).
If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. (Mark 9:43-44)
The fire never goes out - this could be a reference to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, but in the present context it probably just means you should not hope to get lucky - don't gamble on the possibility that someone will have let the fire go out on the day you arrive down there.
(We will look in more detail at the Biblical meaning of 'eternal' very soon.)
The word for 'Hell' is 'Gehenna', which comes from the Valley of Hinnom to the South-West of Jerusalem (ge'hinnom in Hebrew) where the rubbish was dumped and burned. The fire never went out because there was always rubbish being burned.
Mark goes on to quote from Isaiah 66. The passage is not entirely clear. It seems to be describing a massive procession in which all (redeemed) mankind go and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against the Lord. Talking about these dead bodies, Isaiah ends with the following description (partly quoted by Mark).
"And they will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; their worm will not die, not will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind." (Isaiah 66:24)
The description is of dead bodies rotting and burning, not live souls writhing in agony. The worms and the fire serve to emphasise the horror of their fate, the deadness of these dead bodies, as opposed to the vitality of the survivors. It emphasises that these people are well and truly dead, and nothing is going to change that. There is not a single hint of the dead people suffering in any way.
"And the angels that did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling have been kept by him in eternal chains in the nether gloom until the judgement of the great day; just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire." (Jude 6-7)
These are... "wild waves upon the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars for whom the nether gloom of darkness has been reserved for ever." (James 13)
The punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah is eternal, in the sense that it will never be changed or undone, but not eternal in the sense that the occupants are not still there being punished. Being killed by fire probably hurt - I am not trying to suggest that God's punishment does not involve any pain - but it does not hurt for all eternity.
I am not entirely sure what the 'nether gloom of darkness' means exactly - but it is not exactly convincing proof of the reality of eternal torment. And, for those who think that these things are all intended to be taken literally - how do you combine eternal fire with eternal darkness? A special kind of dark fire, perhaps? Maybe a special sort of dark fire that does not hurt as it burns? Sorry - I am just making the point again that the New Testament writers never intended us to take 'fire' literally. It is symbolic, and means 'destruction', not 'torment'.
A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: "If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name." (Revelation 14:9- 11)
I should say at the outset that this is the ONLY passage in the Bible that seems to teach us about humans suffering eternal torment. If you want to believe in it, and you want a Biblical foundation for that belief, this passage is all you have.
It does clearly talk about torment. "He will be tormented with burning sulphur" seems clear enough. The eternal fate of the wicked may be destruction, but this does not mean that no suffering is involved - only that the suffering will not be eternal.
But even this passage does not explicitly talk about eternal torment. It talks about: (a) drinking the wine of God's fury; (b) being tormented with burning sulphur; (c) the smoke of the torment rising for ever; and (d) lack of rest day or night.
The language here is quite fascinating. It would have been very easy to say "He will be tormented for ever with burning sulphur," but even here the idea of eternal torment is avoided. The only 'for ever' is the smoke going up - the consequence of the torment can be seen for ever.
The natural way of reading this passage is that these people will be tormented. The torment will produce smoke. The torment will cease, but the smoke produced will continue to rise for ever.
And this only leaves the final phrase on which to build a doctrine of eternal torment. "There is no rest day or night" for these people. Now, God is quite capable of being clear when there is something He wants us to know, understand and believe, and whatever this means, it it clearly not a clear statement of the doctrine of eternal torment.
Some people understand this passage to say that the torment continues day and night, which is why there is no rest. But 'day and night' is not forever. Even if this is the right interpretation, it does not establish the doctrine of eternal torment: it only says that the torment, while it is taking place, continues without breaks.
If a person is tormented day and night, we would normally expect this to go on for days or weeks. There is no reason to suppose that 'day and night' is actually intended to convey the idea of eternity.
Moreover, in the context of the book of Revelation, the phrase 'day and night' is almost proof that the lack of rest is not eternal: by the time we reach Revelation 21:25, there is no more night.
But even if we put all these considerations to one side, it is still a very odd choice of words. If you want to convey the idea of continual torment, it is very easy to say: "He will be tormented day and night with burning sulphur" - but the passage does not say that. Can you imagine describing someone being tortured? Could you possible use the phrase 'he had no rest day or night' to indicate that the torture continued without any break? It simply does not fit.
'No rest' suggests mental discomfort rather than physical. I could keep you awake for a long time by continually inflicting pain, but would you describe this process as being given 'no rest'? I think not.
On the other hand, if you have done something dreadful, if you have let down and hurt someone you loved or someone who deserved a much better response from you, then remorse, guilt and regret may give you no rest. And this makes perfect sense in the context of the passage: these people have chosen to worship the beast, and now they know the full extent of their folly.
If it is the regret which produces no rest day or night, then the most natural way to read the "tormented with burning sulphur" bit is as a symbolic representation of the internal torment these people inflict on themselves.
So the reading of this pasage which makes the most sense in context is that these people are tormented - they torment themselves for their own folly.
In any case, the passage does not say that they will be eternally drinking the wine of God's fury, eternally tormented, or that they will have no rest for ever.
So the only passage in the entire Bible dealing with the subject of eternal torment of unbelieving people still does not teach, or even mention, eternal torment.
We have already noted that terms like 'eternal' and 'everlasting' are generally used to refer to purpose, not duration. In this context, we should note that a few chapters later, the smoke from Babylon ('the great prostitute') is described as going up 'for ever and ever' (Revelation 19:3) without any hint of eternal torment. And, shortly afterwards, we see 'a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away' (Revelation 21:1). Are we expected to imagine the smoke from Babylon drifting up somewhere in the new heaven? I honestly can't imagine that this is John's intention.
All of which is to say, that in the context of this part of Revelation, I would not rely too much on the words 'for ever' meaning 'time without end'. As in other passages, the obvious, simple and consistent understanding is that it refers to purpose, not duration.
Perhaps I don't need to say this, but just in case... It is a well-established principle that you do not attempt to establish doctrine on the basis of a single text. Another well-established principle says that you do not use obscure passages to establish doctrine which contradicts other clearer passages.
Both these principles caution us against using the only passage in the Bible which suggests there may be eternal torment as a simple 'proof text' for the doctrine.
It is, moreover, my personal opinion that anyone who establishes doctrine on the sole basis of finding it in a single passage in the book of Revelation needs their heads examined. If you are the one person in the world who can accurately distinguish between the literal and the symbolic parts of the Revelation... please do not get in touch with me. I have talked with enough such people to last me a lifetime.
One final point to close off this section: even if we are supposed to interpret this passage literally, even if it does talk about eternal conscious torment, it is still (as yet) an academic issue. Nobody who has yet died has suffered this fate - not according to the passage being quoted.
This passage does not currently allow you to say anything to anyone about the possibility of them suffering eternal torment. Remember: if you do decide, against all sound theological advice, to base your belief in this one passage, you cannot apply it to anyone until after the angel flying in mid air has proclaimed the gospel to everyone living on the earth, and after Bablyon the Great has fallen (Revelation 14:6-9), and then you can only promise this dreadful fate to people with the mark of the beast on their foreheads or their hands.
"And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulphur, where the beast and the false prophet has been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever." (Revelation 20:10)
This passage talks about eternal torment. It is the only passage in the entire Bible which talks about eternal torment. But notice who is being tormented: it is the devil, the beast and the false prophet. Jesus may have told us that the fire was prepared for the devil and his angels, but this passage suggests that most of the angels will escape this fate - if you interpret it literally, that is.
And yet again, there is no suggestion here that wicked people - wicked human people - will be tormented for ever.
We should also remember that Isaiah 47:14 and Ezekiel 28:18-19 suggest that the devil's suffering will also come to an end, so maybe even for him, 'for ever' means 'until it is finished'.
The one 'obvious' passage which is not referenced by Bruce Milne is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus - Luke 16:19-31. The reason, of course, is that you cannot derive doctrine from the incidental details in a parable.
If you want to take this one parable as an accurate piece of on-the-spot reporting, you must also conclude that Paradise and Hell are close enough to hold a conversation across the gap, and there will be no judgement at the throne of God.
But even if this were to be taken as an accurate description, it is clearly a description of a single incident in the after-life. It does not say, or suggest that the torment is eternal. In fact, since the stated basis of the torment is the unfairness of their earthly experience (certainly not an eternal state!), the most obvious implication is that the different treatment after life will also be limited in time.
The message of the parable is found in the final verse. Everything else is building up to and supporting that one simple message. Basing any doctrine on the supporting details of a parable can lead you to all kinds of interesting conclusions - but you won't discover sound theology that way.
This is probably as good a place as any to point out that there are various places in the Bible where 'for ever', 'eternal' or 'everlasting' do not mean what we think they mean. We think they refer to duration - to time that will never end - but very often they actually refer to purpose. 'Never fail' would often be a more accurate translation than 'never end'.
Let us look at a few examples. A good place to start is Jonah 2:6, where 'for ever' lasted just three days and three nights! The promise to keep a descendant of David on the throne of Israel 'for ever' (2 Samuel 7:13) lasted more like 400 years. The threat to Eli that God will 'judge his family for ever' (1 Samuel 3:13) does not refer to a Heavenly court case that goes on interminably, but to a punishment for their sins that is finite, but the consequences of which will last for ever.
We are told in Jude 7 that Sodom and Gomorrah serve as an example to us "by undergoing a punishment (literally, 'vengeance') of eternal fire." For anyone who has not yet woken up: Sodom and Gomorrah are not still burning! The fire lasted for as long as it took to complete the job. That's as long as any fire needs to burn for.
In Psalm 148 we read, referring back to the sun, moon and stars of verse 3,
"He set them in place for ever and ever;
he gave a decree that will never pass away." (Psalm 148:6)
Despite this assurance, the scientists tell us that the sun and stars will not always remain - in a few billion years, they will have burned out and disappeared. The Bible agrees that they will pass away. Revelation tells us that there will be no more sun (Rev 22:5), and that the first heaven and the first earth will pass away (Rev 21:1).
In 2 Kings 5:27, we hear that Naaman's leprosy will cling to Gehazi and his descendants "for ever". We don't know how long this punishment is to last for, but it is hard to imagine his leprous descendants inhabiting the New Jerusalem for all time.
Finally, in 1 Samuel 1:22, 'always' means 'for his whole life'. You have to interpret these terms in their context.
This is a really important point. We can rely on the Bible as God's revelation to us. But we have been given the Bible, not a collection of individual texts which can be taken to stand alone out of context.
Some Christians say things like: "The Bible says it, so I believe it." But we must interpret what the Bible says in the light of the rest of what the Bible says.
One simple and obvious example of this can be seen in Acts 23: 12-13. In verse 12, we read that 'the Jews' formed a plot to kill Paul. Out of context, this has a clear meaning: the entire Jewish nation joined in a plot to kill Paul. But verse 13 says that there were 'more than forty' people in the plot. So it was not the whole Jewish nation, only forty individuals. In context, the meaning is clear. But if you take the text out of context, you cannot understand it correctly.
The aim of this article is to look at what the Bible teaches on the subject of the fate of the wicked - both at the key passages which contain relevant material, and also on the context of those passages as this shapes their meaning. If you think I have not paid sufficient attention to either the content of the passages being considered, or to their context, please me me know.
There are many passages in the Bible, both Old and New Testament, that clearly teach the wicked will perish, die, or be destroyed. There is not a single passage that teaches the wicked will suffer eternal torment, and only one passage (Revelation 14) which might possibly teach that a few specific wicked people will be tormented for ever - but even that passage is more likely to be talking about a limited period of intense regret for personal sin.
The only clear reference to eternal torment (Revelation 20) is not about people, but about the devil, and this one passage needs to be balanced against two passages which suggest the torment will not be for ever, and even Satan will one day be turned to ashes and the fire be allowed to go out.
As I said at the outset, it is possible to hold to a belief in eternal torment for the wicked. But in the light of all the Biblical evidence on this subject, is it not much more likely that the wicked will simply die?
People often object to the idea that the unrighteous will perish because they think this teaching will have all kinds of bad consequences. The more common of these fears are:
We will look briefly at each of these fears in a moment.
But first, we need to get these responses into perspective. Even if the fears are well founded, we still have a responsibility to examine whether it is true. We could point to other doctrines which reduce the probability of people being saved because they simply do not like the message - salvation by grace alone is a prime example! We preach God's truth because we believe it to be true, not because we have discovered a set of ideas that people are likely to respond to!
The basic issues here are truth and integrity. Will we allow our doctrine to be determined by popularity - whether people like it? Will we allow our doctrine to be determined by how much we like the anticipated consequences? Or will we allow our doctrine to be determined by God, through His revealed Word in the Bible?
Will our evangelistic message be blunted if we canot warn sinners that they will be eternally tormented if they do not repent?
I do not believe so.
I am not aftaid of blunting our evangelistic message. However, it is true that some Christians are motivated to do evangelism by the desire to rescue people from eternal torment. What of them?
Firstly, we have to say that being effective does not make it right. I may be able to motivate you to have a quiet time each day by promising that you will suffer in purgatory for each day you miss your quiet time. Being effective does not make it right.
More importantly, it is possible for any Christian to discover how the wonder of God's love can motivate us in all our worship and our work for Him.
Jesus offers life to dying people. Is that not a tremendous gift, and one to get excited about? As we meditate on what the Bible teaches us, and as we grow in grace and Christian maturity, so we will discover ourselves being motivated by the things God intended. The result will be greater enthusiasm and energy for God's work, not less.
I think we have established that God is not a monster. He is not a sadist who deliberately chooses to inflict more pain and suffering on people than any tyrant in history. We have established this through a careful examination of what the Bible teaches.
I would like to make, in conclusion, three brief points.
I have heard people who refer to belief that the wicked will be destroyed as a denial or rejection of Hell. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is not a denial of Hell, but an honest recognition of the reality of Hell.
It is a dreadful thing for a person to be consigned to Hell - to be branded a failure, to be worth nothing, to be rubbish, fit only to be burned up. Can we begin to appreciate the horror of such a judgement? And can we begin to understand the pain that making such a judgement gives to our loving Heavenly Father?
Our God is the creator and sustainer of the universe. He delights in His creation. Imagine His sorrow when a part of His creation fails so completely that it has to be destroyed.
In suggesting that the ultimate punishment is death, not torment, we have to remember the Bible's clear teaching about judgement. We will all one day come before the Judgement Seat. It is clear from many passages that the Judgement is not not the same as simple cessation of existence at the point of bodily death - Hebrews 9:27 says it as clearly as any: "man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgement". The question we have been addressing here is the fate of the wicked after they have been judged and found guilty.
Whatever the punishment turns out to be, we believe that the ungodly will go to that punishment knowing that their punishment is just, and having no complaint concerning their fate, no matter what their regrets may be.
The teaching of eternal torment in Hell distorts the gospel message. We are not offering life, as opposed to death. Instead, we are offering pleasure, instead of pain. This pleasure must be pretty good if we will be living in a good universe which is shared by all those millions of souls suffering unbearable eternal torment. The pleasure must be pretty intense to make us forget about (or just not care about?) the lost writhing in Hell.
This doctrine of eternal torment makes the gospel message hedonistic (I am seeking pleasure instead of pain) and self-centred (I will enjoy Heaven, no matter what anyone is suffering in Hell).
The Bible teaches us the Sovereign Lord takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23). It does not tell us how He feels about the prospect of them suffering eternal torment, but I think we can guess.
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