Final Thoughts on Hell

It isn’t that I don’t think that the sinner won’t have to answer to God.  I believe that those who have done evil will rise to face judgment (John 5:29) in terms of condemnation.   Further, it may well be that the unrighteous dead now suffer conscious torment, ala Luke 16, and may face more of such beyond the Final Judgment.   The scriptures allow room for this sort of thinking.  And I certainly believe what the writer of Hebrews said, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God”  (Hebrews 10:31).    What I don’t believe in is “destruction” that never actually destroys, punishment that is never satisfied, and death that never truly dies. 

Some might counter that this is merely accomodating the spirit of the age, going soft on Hell.  They might say that, without the threat of endless torment, people will simply grow harder towards God.   They might say that the battle for  minds is difficult enough without discarding a major weapon.   I counter by asking, “What if the ‘weapon’ isn’t a true weapon, but a fabrication?’  I would also ask whether one can think of a fate worse than to be finally and forever discarded?   You want my definition of Hell?   It’s the place where wasted humanity lies in a smoking heap of blackened desires — the supreme tragedy. Does not this…this imbecility of ultimate non-being spur us toward greater gospel effort? 

I find that, for me, it does.