WHAT DOES THE BIBLE TEACH ABOUT HELL?
What is the “proper” punishment for sin against Almighty God? It does not matter what we “feel” the punishment is or should be. All that matters is what God has said. Because you and I are sinners, we do not understand the depths of sin’s horrific nature. But a holy God can tell us exactly how bad sin is. As can the only perfect man who ever lived dying on Cross.
The Bible teaches that “hell”—whether that is the best word to use or not, people understand what you are talking about—is the punishment for sins. The wrath of God is found in the eternal nature of His divine punishment. More than anything else, hell is about separation from God for all eternity. And that is something that no one wants to experience whether they think they do or not.
No one understands everything the Bible teaches about hell. Exactly what it will be like is beyond the scope of our current human ability to understand. All sorts of theories and ideas and different interpretations abound in the religious world, but that just demonstrates that certain aspects of this topic are confusing and difficult. It does not do away with the doctrine itself. As with any other “controversial” Bible topic, the point is clearly seen by anyone willing to examine what the Bible teaches.
Whether or not the topic is difficult or comfortable to us is irrelevant. The Bible teaches hell as a fact, as a reality. Jesus said more about hell than anyone else in the Bible, and He did so in very vivid and descriptive terms. He said it is a place where there is “unquenchable fire” where “their worm does not die” (Mark 9:43-48). He also said that hell is a place of “outer darkness” where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12).
The reality behind the figures of speech has to be worse than the figures themselves used to describe it. There can be no disagreement or debate over the fact that Jesus described hell as reality and as something more terrible than we can imagine.
The just punishment of God is difficult for sinners to embrace. The wrath of God is not something that is popular to preach. “God is love” (1 John 4:7) people love to say, and that is true. But love is not God. God must define love. And He defines it as giving His Son to die for us to keep us from perishing in hell (John 3:16).
Those who have rebelled against God and rejected His free offer of salvation will wind up in hell, but that is not what God desires. There is nothing in the Bible to suggest that God created people to be lost. He created us for fellowship and desires that eternal fellowship so much that He gave His Son to die for us, proving His love (Romans 5:8). The love of God cannot be defined without the wrath of God, because the love of God is shown by the death of Christ. But why did Christ have to die for us? The short answer is to keep us out of hell.
God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:32). There will be no pleasure for God in the destiny of those who reject Jesus Christ. He delights in showing mercy (Micah 7:18-19). He is in the saving business. Jesus came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10). While that truth logically implies that everyone without Jesus is lost—on their way to hell—it also means that is not what God wants for you. God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save it (John 3:17). We were “condemned already” (v. 18) because of our sins and our rejection of Christ. But by His grace, we can be saved by trusting in Christ as our Lord and Savior (Ephesians 2:8–9).
To ignore or explain away what the Bible teaches about hell is to make a mockery of the Gospel. The Gospel teaches that Jesus died for us. Without the bad news of hell and condemnation, there would be no need for the good news of life and salvation. You cannot accept what the Bible teaches about heaven without also accepting what it teaches about hell. Understand everything about hell? No one does. Know that the Bible warns repeatedly about what being lost will be like and how we do not want to go to hell? Absolutely. That is the truth. Jesus came to rescue us from hell.
So the doctrine of hell highlights both the holiness and love of God. The cross of Jesus is where these two things meet, where His wrath and His mercy intersect for the salvation of sinners. We do not have to go to hell. We can trust in Jesus and be saved forever (Matthew 25:46).
Some scholars believe that hell is not the eternal, conscious “torture chamber,” as they call it, that theologians have often made it out to be. Maybe they are right, but that is not what is important. What is important is the reality that the perfect Son of God gave Himself to die for us, as a sacrifice for our sins, to save us from something that is so horrible that human words can not fully describe it. Whatever hell is, you do not want any part of it. And you don’t have to go there because Jesus died to save you. Trust in Christ and get your life right with God through Him.
Bryan Dewayne Dunaway
