Is hell eternal? Does the Bible teach the eternality of hell? - GotQuestions.org Podcast Episode 27

The Problem of Hell in Popular Imagination

Welcome to the Got Questions podcast, your questions, biblical answers. Today on the show, I have Jeff and Kevin with me. Jeff is the administrator of BibleRef .com and Kevin is the managing editor for Got Questions, helps everything we say to actually sound good.

Hello.

So today we're going to be discussing a question I've noticed coming up a lot lately about hell, whether hell is eternal, how that's fair. And what's most interesting, we don't get that many questions about, does the Bible teach whether there's a hell or whether it's eternal?

Most of the questions we receive are, how is it fair? How is God punishing someone for eternity, a fair punishment for like a lifetime of sin? So we'll be discussing both those aspects, both what does the Bible actually teach and then how is God still just God in light of the existence of hell?

So that's sort of the introduction here, just gives you a background for why we're discussing this. So Jeff, I really like what you were sharing as we were talking beforehand. So what are some of the philosophical aspects of this question that you enjoy discussing, I guess?

I definitely understand why people struggle sometimes to justify what they're thinking about hell versus what they're seeing and hearing. And part of the problem is that a lot of people are getting their concepts of what hell is or isn't from things like art and pop culture and that sort of thing.

And that's a big problem because it's easy for us to see what a movie or a video or a book or a poem says about hell and then transpose that into our conception of God. And it's not that all of that stuff is completely wrong, but a lot of it is just complete fantasy.

A lot of what people think when you say hell, they think of demons with torture equipment and cities that are on fire and people being thrown into boiling oil and all these other things. And there's nothing in scripture, even remotely like that, that describes hell in that way.

There's a lot of very dire and serious descriptions of what hell is, but there isn't anything that's that direct or blatant or physical in that sense. So when people think of hell as sort of like the anti-heaven or the other team that that's where Satan and the demons and the bad people live, it's just the opposite of heaven.

None of that stuff is actually from scripture. So that's part of the problem that a lot of people have is they're trying to jive something that's not even in scripture with what is there. And then there's also questions that people have about how that fits in with God's nature and who he is and what he is.

Annihilationism, Universalism, and the Justice of Eternal Punishment

And you mentioned one of the problems that people sometimes have, which is the question of how could it be fair for God to punish somebody for an eternity when they only committed a lifetime's worth of sin?

That one is relatively easy to answer, and that's exactly what we see in the criminal justice system. It doesn't make sense to tie the length of a punishment to the length it took for a person to commit a crime.

Committing an act like murder can take moments, seconds. If you're using a gun, it can be a 10th of a second to squeeze your finger. However, the implications of that, because they're so serious, warrant something more severe.

So when we're talking about a perfect holy God who's our creator, there isn't anything that's philosophical or logical that's in contradiction or wrong in saying that he should be allowed to deliver results to us that last for an eternity.

And again, I understand where people can philosophically look at their concept of God and come up with some of the alternatives to an eternal hell. One of those is universalism, which is that everybody winds up in heaven.

The other is annihilationism, which says that people will go to hell, but only for some period of time, and then after that, they'll cease to exist. Now, speaking just personally, philosophically, I can understand how you could probably square annihilationism with God's nature and his character.

In other words, just from a, not looking at the Bible, just from what most people think about God, it's easy for me to understand how a person could land on annihilationism and say, I think God's just going to erase people from existence.

However, that's where you run into the brute fact of what scripture does or doesn't say. And for as much as you would like to, or maybe would not like to, come to certain different conclusions, the Bible says what it says.

So at least for me, even though I can see some of the appeal of other options, when I'm reading scripture, I really can't come to any other conclusion other than an eternal hell.

Right.

Scripture’s Plain Teaching on Everlasting Hell

Yeah, I think just a plain reading of scripture gives the reader an immediate impression that hell is an eternal place, a place of conscious torment that lasts for an eternity. Now, this is a hard doctrine, but it's not an obscure doctrine in scripture.

It's actually taught very plainly. I mean, over and over in the Bible, we see that the wicked dead, the unconverted sinner is in a place called hell or the lake of fire. And that place is described in scripture as eternal fire.

For example, in Matthew 25, verse 41, an unquenchable fire in Matthew chapter three, Daniel, the book of Daniel says it's a place of everlasting contempt and shame. So we have that word everlasting in there.

It's a place where the fire is not quenched in Mark chapter nine, as Jesus was teaching. It's a place of everlasting destruction in second Thessalonians one, verse nine, turning to the book of Revelation, we see that it's a place where the smoke of torment rises forever and ever.

And then Revelation 20, the lake of fire, a place where the wicked are, quote, tormented day and night forever and ever. Just seems to be pretty plain. Now, in describing the false teachers, the epistle of Jude says that they are wild waves of the sea and they are wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.

So again, all of these passages tie together with the common denominator that we're talking about forever. Sometimes it's actually put forever and ever. You just can't get around it, I don't think, in scripture.

A plain reading of scripture says that hell is a place of eternal torment.

What's most interesting about this is that I don't think any Christian should want anyone to go to hell. So in a sense, I guess if I personally had a vote, I would want annihilationism to be true rather than eternal hell.

But that's not what scripture teaches. And ultimately, I mean, our faith is built on scripture. So we can't get away, nor should we really want to get away from what scripture says. If scripture says that eternal hell is the just punishment for our sins, well, then it's a just punishment, so we shouldn't want anything else.

So it's a mixed thing in the idea of a loved one or even a horrible enemy being tormented forever. It's not anything we should rejoice over. At the same time, we shouldn't look for ways to get around what scripture says.

Annihilationism is attractive to many for this very reason. And like Jeff was saying, I've run across some arguments. And maybe I would even say that of all the doctrines I don't believe, and at one point I thought was totally heretical, while I still absolutely do not agree with annihilationism, I've at least read some arguments that, okay, I see how this makes sense.

I can see why you believe this, but ultimately I can't go there. So it's interesting to see. I do not consider annihilationism a heresy. I don't believe it's something that if you believe this, that means you don't truly know Christ.

I absolutely reject that. But in terms of reading scripture for what it actually says, it's very clear that the Bible teaches that hell is a place of eternal torment that everyone goes to apart from Christ.

And one of the only non-biblical arguments that I've heard that I think comes across pretty strongly against annihilationism is the idea of human beings as the image bearers of God. In other words, if God creates humanity in his image and we are his image bearers, that means he assigns us with a certain level of what we call intrinsic value.

In other words, we have value to God simply because we exist. And this is something we talk about as believers when we discuss things like life and pro-life and quality of life and those things. So on annihilationism, you have God deliberately destroying things that he has created to be his image bearers.

That not only doesn't reflect a high level of value for those creations, but it also in a sense sort of disrespects the idea of choice. I know we've discussed things like freewill predestination and how all of those things interact and come together.

And one thing that's interesting about that argument is that if God annihilates those who don't choose them, then a person could sort of argue that their choices didn't matter the way that they would have if they had eternity in front of them, the same way that believers do.

So there are a lot of philosophical things that are interesting about it, but ultimately scripture, of course, is the thing that comes down as the most important. That's the thing that really sets the boundaries.

Now, one of the interesting alternatives that I've heard to universalism and annihilationism, and this is another one of those in that category of, it's interesting and I get it, but I'm not saying I completely believe it, is looking at references in scripture to things like our God is a consuming fire and things like that, where they talk about, it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God.

One of the alternative interpretations of hell, and this is an interpretation of an eternal hell, is the idea that everybody is gonna wind up in some sense being in God's presence in heaven. Obviously those who've rejected Christ are not gonna be in his presence in the sense of communion and the new heavens and the new earth and so on and so forth.

But the suggestion is that everybody winds up returning to God in a sense when they die, but those people who have rejected him are now going to live in an eternity where they are separated from God in their communion, in their attitude, in their experience, in their relationship, and they're gonna have to live in that presence of the fiery judgment of God.

Again, there's 100 ,000 different problems and questions with the idea that you could go over, but I find that one to at least be an interesting way of looking at the concept of an eternal hell that's a little different from annihilationism and universalism.

The Greek Word Aionios and Eternal Punishment in Matthew 25:46

Yeah, so sort of a believer's experience, God for eternity in the sense of his love, his grace, his peace, bliss, and unbelievers, those who reject Christ, experience God without those things. All they're experiencing is the continual wrath, the judgment aspect of it.

And some of those questions, again, come down to how a person interprets different words and wording in scripture. You gotta kind of dig into the language aspect of it. From my perspective, I haven't gotten into that part of it nearly as deeply, but those word issues matter.

I mean, the actual Greek and Hebrew that you're looking at when it talks about the afterlife makes a difference in how we examine some of these ideas.

Yeah, in fact, there's looking at the Greek and the New Testament is kind of key to this whole argument of an eternal hell. The Bible uses a couple of different words for eternal or everlasting, but one of them really kind of ties together the concept of an eternal hell with other things that are eternal in scripture.

And this word is ionios, and it's used many times in scripture. It's used of the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, all appear in passages that are related to and that use this word ionios.

For example, in Romans 16, verse 26, Paul speaks of the eternal God. That word eternal is a translation of ionios. 2 Timothy 1, verse 9 speaks of the grace that was given to us in Christ Jesus in time eternal.

There's that word again, eternal. We were blessed in Christ. We were given grace in Christ in time eternal. So God the Son associated with eternality. And then Hebrews 9, verse 14 speaks of the eternal spirit, speaking of the Holy Spirit.

He is eternal in His nature as well. The blessings of believers are called eternal. Using the same Greek word ionios, 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 16, His grace gave us eternal encouragement and a good hope.

So our encouragement, our blessings in Christ are eternal. We have an eternal blessing because we're saved by His grace. Now this same Greek word ionios is also used to describe hell. This is also in 2 Thessalonians, but this is chapter 1, verse 9.

Those who reject the gospel, quote, will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord, end of quote. So we have an eternal God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, all eternal.

We have eternal blessings in Christ. And then same Greek word, we have an eternal punishment, eternal destruction and being shut out from God's presence. And so this just bolsters the Bible's teaching that hell is an eternal place.

Really the capstone for me and really the one passage where it is the most clear is in Jesus' teaching, Matthew chapter 25. Matthew 25, Jesus talks about the judgment of the sheep and the goats. So the goats are being sent away into judgment.

The sheep are being sent to life eternal. They're being blessed by God. So there's this judgment, the separation that's happening. So in Matthew 25, verse 46, Jesus says this, and these, the goats, will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

And so the punishment of the wicked in hell is just as eternal as the life that the righteous experience. So punishment and life are both described using the same Greek word in the same verse as Jesus just lays them both out together.

Says there is eternal life and there is eternal punishment, eternal suffering. And so if you believe in eternal life in heaven, you're also forced to accept, based on Matthew 25, 46, forced to accept the concept of an eternal hell because Jesus, he taught both in tandem.

They're both right there.

Matthew 25, 46 is key for me as well. I mean, you can't get any more clear than that using the exact same Greek word to describe the life we experience in heaven and the punishment that unbelievers will experience in hell.

So it seems super clear. I mean, I've discussed this with enough people of other viewpoints that I know they have an alternate explanation of that. But to me, you've gotta twist things pretty hard to make that verse say something other than what it clearly says.

Just like you, Kevin, to me, that's Matthew 25, 46 is key.

Why Christians Reject Annihilationism Despite Its Emotional Appeal

There's a lot of times where you will notice that most of the arguments that come against an eternal hell don't come from a scriptural standpoint. And the very few that do usually are in that mode where they say, well, this word means something different than you would think it would mean, or this phrase means something different than it seems to mean.

And I'm not completely dismissive of that idea. There are places in scripture where if you read a phrase or you read a word and you're not careful, you can misunderstand, you can take something out of context, you can be too simple, too direct.

But as Kevin was laying these out, it's a reminder that this is not something that scripture mentions once, twice, three times. This is a consistent, repeated, repetitive theme in the Bible to the point that it's very difficult to see how you can seriously go through scripture itself and not come to that conclusion.

In my experience, I've seen a lot of people who lean towards annihilationism. They lean towards it hard enough that that leads them to start to reject the inerrancy or the authority of the Bible. In other words, they're so committed to the idea that God would not put people in an eternal hell that one of the ways they explain all of those references in scripture is to say that this is something that's either inaccurate or hasn't been translated correctly or hasn't been brought down.

And it's emotional and gut level responses a lot of times that lead people to their views on that. And I don't lack sympathy for that. I think Shay, as you were saying, Christians should not want anyone to go to hell.

I really do think that a Christian who understands hell should hate it. We shouldn't like the idea of that. If you say, yes, I'm totally comfortable with the idea of somebody going to hell, well, then you have a problem because that is not a positive thing.

But the emotion that we feel doesn't trump reality. And one of the few comforts that we can take in that is knowing that a lot of these issues that we have over how we feel about hell, what we think about it and our understanding of it are partly based on our limited perspective and our selfish experience.

For example, if you talk to people about hell just in general, whether it's annihilation or anything else, when you talk to people who don't really go with the idea of believing in Christ and you talk about what sorts of people really deserve to go to hell and what people don't deserve to go to hell, everybody always conveniently draws the line so that they're in the heaven side of everything.

I don't really know a whole lot of people who would say, no, you have to be really bad to go to hell. And I'm going there, but it's only people like me and worse. It's always the Adolf Hitler's and Jeffrey Dahmer's and Charlie Manson's and people like that.

It's never ourselves. But I think when we get to heaven, we will have a better understanding. And I think that once we've been freed from a lot of the baggage that we're carrying around right now, it will be easier for us to clearly understand what hell is, what it means and how it operates.

For right now, the only thing, apparently, we really need to know about hell is it's bad and you don't wanna go there. A lot of those other details we just aren't provided with.

Heaven, Loved Ones, and Trusting God’s Judgment

So it's sort of like a side issue, but also a very important aspect of this is the question of how can heaven be perfect if all of my loved ones aren't there? And I think about this. I know I've had reasonably close family members who, as best as I can tell, did not know Christ before they passed away.

And the idea of them not being in heaven and being eternally separated from God, that hurts. It's not something I wanna think about. But I believe it's in Revelation 21 that God says that he will wipe away every tear from our eyes.

And I believe that in heaven, when we are glorified, knowing God as perfectly as it's possible for a finite human being to know him, I think we will come to the point that we will agree with his judgment on this as painful as it would be to know that not all of our loved ones and friends are with us in heaven, but to accept God's judgment to know.

It's terrible, but God is good. God is holy. God is right. God is just. And I'm gonna accept his decision that this was what had to happen based on the choices that person made in his or her life. So can we understand that this side of eternity, how we could accept God's judgment on sending someone that we love to an eternity separated from him?

I don't know that this side of eternity, we can fully grasp that, but I am fully believing that on the other side of eternity, in God's presence, there will be something we will be able to accept and it will not hinder our ability to fully enjoy the amazing heaven and eternity that God has prepared for us.

I think as a careful parallel, and just to preface this by saying, this isn't necessarily a parallel for hell itself, just a parallel for how we understand things. I've had conversations with my children about a lot of different topics.

And I recognize that there are some things in the world that my perspective allows me to understand better than their perspective would allow them to understand. And to a great extent, the details of some things that I warn my kids about, the details don't really matter.

I don't need to go into all of the medical details of what electrocution does to the human body when I'm warning my children about the consequences of messing around with electrical sockets. If my children, and they have at times asked me about things like strangers and kidnapping, and why would they want to take a child?

What are they going to do? Well, it's not really intelligent for me to explain to a four-year-old exactly why somebody might want to kidnap a four-year-old girl. The thing that's important is for them to understand how we stay away from that, how we avoid that.

And here's how mom and dad are providing you with safety and security. And here's the things that we can do. I think to some extent, we can see the same thing in scripture where ultimately the exact little tiny details of what hell is like, and exactly how God has come to set that up don't really matter.

What really matters is you don't want to be there and you have a way to avoid it. So I think that it's okay for us to look at some of these things about hell and say, I don't fully grasp all the details, but my grasping of the details is not inherent or intrinsic to my salvation.

I just need to understand the basics.

And Jeff, you hit the nail on the head there that in a sense, there's so many people arguing about hell versus annihilationism versus the other viewpoints. And whatever eternity separated from Christ is, it is a fate that you definitely want to avoid.

So it's one of those issues where, okay, I understand the interest and even the importance in discussing and debating this, but ultimately hell should be motivating us to share the gospel with as many people as possible, to, as you said, show them the way of escape.

It's okay, hell is terrible. You do not want to go there. Let me explain to you how Christ provided deliverance from that and how through faith in him, you can avoid spending eternity in hell, but also having a meaningless life in this world and how you can have your sins forgiven and so forth.

So yes, let's study scripture on this. Let's debate it, discuss it, but let's not allow it to distract us from ultimately what's far more important, and that is sharing the gospel, showing people how they can avoid hell rather than debating the exact nature of what it is and whether it'd be worse to spend eternity there or worse to just be completely snuffed out.

So that's kind of how I land on this.

That's where I'm, my landing point is basically the same. I have a sympathy for annihilationism. I appreciate the cleanliness that it seems to provide. I understand the grasp of it, and I also recognize my own human desire to say, I literally would not wish that on my worst enemy because, at least I would like to think so, I grasp the seriousness of an eternal hell.

But I think that when you put everything together, including scripture and including what we know about God and eternal hell, for me is the only option that I can give any support to.

And we can always come back to the fact that God does all things well. He is good, he's righteous, and he is good.

Amen.

The Gospel Call in Light of Hell

Hope this conversation has been helpful to you, just understanding what the Bible teaches about hell, about the eternal nature of the torment that occurs in hell, why you would want to avoid it, a little bit about some of the other side issues or other options.

And we may do, we've talked about having guests on who don't necessarily agree with us and not to do a debate, but to allow you to, in a sense, hear from someone with that perspective. And I think maybe annihilationism might be a good topic to discuss on a future episode.

So maybe keep your eyes open for that, maybe a few weeks from now, because I have a person in mind. So again, this is the Got Questions podcast. Our goal is to provide biblically-based answers to spiritually-related questions.

So hope we've done that for you today. Please tune in next time for our next topic. I've been with Jeff and Kevin. Got Questions, Bible-as-Answers.

We'll help you find them.