The Nature of Hell According to the Bible

The most important source, and sole authority, on hell is the Bible.  “For those who believe in the genuineness of the biblical revelation and accept the inerrancy of Scripture, the problem is one of understanding what Scripture teaches.”²⁹ Conversely, “those who deny scriptural inerrancy naturally have no problem in supporting the idea that eternal punishment does not exist.”³⁰  In order to understand the nature of hell, the inerrant biblical descriptions must be heavily relied upon.  In the endeavor to understand such a difficult and ultimately transcendent topic, our Lord often chose to use stories, parables and word pictures to help our minds reach beyond what literal language cannot possibly describe accurately.  Just as heaven is beyond our present earthly comprehension, so too, its eternal counterpart extends beyond our present imaginings.  In this section, we will examine passages individually in context, rather than topically, in order to more fully draw out the subtle and often metaphorical truths taught in each.

Isaiah 66:22-24 This graphic picture of the eternal state of the unbeliever teaches us several things about their destiny.  When Isaiah states “For their worm will not die and their fire will not be quenched; and they will be an abhorrence to all mankind” (v. 24), he is using imagery from a battlefield where dead bodies were left unburied to be consumed by worms (maggots) or were burned.³¹ To have one’s body be left unburied or burned was a great disgrace to any ancient culture, as it is to this day.  Verse 22 presents the idea of eternity, where the new heavens and new earth represent the abode of the righteous and God forever.  With eternity in view, that the worm will not die and the fire will not be quenched indicates the unrighteous will also exist in this state forever.  The unbeliever’s body will never be extinguished by decay or fire in this hell, and they will forever be disgraced and loathsome to righteous.

Daniel 12:2 Daniel gives us further evidence as to the duration of the state of the wicked.  Daniel uses the same Hebrew word (olam) to describe the future of both the righteous and the unrighteous.  “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting (olam) life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting (olam) contempt.”  While the word olam does not always have to mean eternal (Ex. 21:6), when used to describe God it always means eternal, everlasting, forever, etc.  Olam is used in Ps. 90:2 to refer to the infinite duration of God, “even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.”  (See also Ex. 3:15, Gen 21:33, 1, Ps. 104:31, 117:2, 119:142, 89:53, 135:13, Ex. 15:18, Isaiah 51:6, 8, 40:8.)³²  Just as in Matthew 25:46, when the same word is used to describe the alternate destinies of the believer and unbeliever, it is grossly inconsistent to give them two separate meanings.  If olam refers to the eternality of God’s future being and glory, and olam describes the length of time we will spend with God after the resurrection, then the unbeliever will therefore also be resurrected to an eternal state of disgrace and contempt.

Matthew 12:32/Mark 3:29 Christ’s teaching on the unpardonable sin reveals to us that there will be no second chance for those who are consigned to eternal punishment.  The unpardonable sin is a final rejection of God’s offer of salvation.  God first reveals Himself to men generally, creation revealing the Father (Rom. 1:20).  The person and works of Christ provides not only a secondary revelation of God, but also an explicit offer of salvation.  We receive a final offer of salvation by the Father through the work of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 16:17), pricking at our conscience to show us our depravity.³³  A denial of total depravity seals one’s fate if it persists until death, for it involves the ultimate denial of a need for the Savior.  The original audience in Matt. 12:32, the Pharisees, had become so hard-hearted that they would not receive salvation through Christ.  This decision for them was sealed at their death; they would not be forgiven even “in the age to come” (Matthew 12:32), for it is an “eternal sin” (Mark 3:29).  This is consistent with Hebrews 9:27, “And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment.”

Matthew 18:6-9/Mark 9:42-48 The Israelites were clearly not a sea-going people, and to be “drowned in the depth of the sea” would be a terrible and fearful way to die.  Jesus was describing to them the horrors of God’s judgment using an analogy that hit some of their personal fears.  Following that analogy is Christ’s often misunderstood directions to dismember one’s body rather than enter hell.  This is merely a figurative method of directing them to flee sin in a drastic and dramatic way.³⁴  Christianity does not involve self-torture, mutilation, or asceticism.  Paul taught against this Gnostic heresy in Colossians 2:23, describing the “self-abasement and severe treatment of the body” as “self-made religion,” and “of no value against fleshly indulgence.”  Christ teaches us to turn from all earthly sin that would keep one from entering heaven and uses this figurative language to underscore the horrible torments of hell.  Further, Christ confirms to us in this passage that hell is “eternal,” and should be described as “fiery,” as opposed to the righteous entering “life.”

Matthew 25:31-46 This passage that concludes the Olivet Discourse has come to be one of the most important passages on hell in the Bible.  The king in this passage (Christ) separates the righteous and unrighteous Gentiles at the end of the seven-year tribulation.  At every point in this metaphor, the righteous and the unrighteous are diametrically opposed to one another.  According to their actions, the righteous fed and clothed the brethren of Christ and are placed on the right, while the unrighteous refused to give them a morsel to eat or a drop of water to quench their thirst and are placed on the left.  For their future abodes, the righteous entered the kingdom that had been prepared for them, and the unrighteous were forced to enter the eternal fire, which was never prepared for them.  And finally, according to their eternal destinies, the righteous would enjoy eternal life in the kingdom, while the unrighteous must endure eternal punishment.

The most important aspect of the passage is the apparent symmetry in v. 42 between “eternal punishment” and “eternal life” that necessitates the infinite duration of a sinner’s banishment to hell.  The church father Augustine comments:

Is it not folly to assume that eternal punishment signifies a fire lasting a long time, while believing that eternal life is life without end?  For Christ, in the very same passage, included both punishment and life in one and the same sentence when he said, “So those people will go into eternal punishment, while the righteous will go into eternal life” (Mt. 25:46).  If both are “eternal,” it follows necessarily that either both are to be taken as long-lasting but finite, or both as endless and perpetual.  The phrases “eternal punishment” and “eternal life” are parallel and it would be absurd to use them in one and the same sentence to mean: “Eternal life will be infinite, while eternal punishment will have an end.”  Hence, because the eternal life of the saints will be endless, the eternal punishment also, for those condemned to it, will assuredly have no end.³⁵