Yes, hell was created for the devil and his angels. In full knowledge of who God is, they rebelled and became enemies to Him and His will. They are eternal creations with a beginning, but no end, so God created a place for them outside His presence. Our souls are eternal too and there are now two places for our eternal souls to go - heaven or hell. How can the soul of man go to heaven when that soul has rejected His offer of grace? It can’t, so hell is the place for all who have rejected His offer of grace.
Some say that’s not fair to those who have never heard of Jesus. We don’t know and we can’t prove that there is anyone who has never heard of Jesus. We hear of Muslims seeing visions of Jesus and becoming Christians. We know God reaches the hearts of men and stands at the door and knocks. Everyone has an opportunity to know and receive God’s grace through Jesus. I believe that, and everyone will be held accountable for saying no.
Or some say that its not fair to those who live good lives. It may not seem fair but what is the answer to their sin. Everyone has sinned. Does the good outweigh the bad? If I steal from a neighbor and give that money to the poor, does that square things? The other argument is why don’t the unsaved just simply not exist anymore? Why the suffering and why eternal suffering. I think it’s because the soul is eternal. It was created eternal and God doesn’t rewrite His creation.
God pours out His love, His forgiveness, His compassion and mercy to any and all who will receive it. Receive it and be with Him for eternity. Reject it and you’ve chosen hell.
Hell is simply a place where God is not.
Hell is not an indication of unreasonablenes but an expression of judgement.
God would be perfectly just if he rather than send Jesus or any prophets, but had ended the universe.
Hell is an indication of his love an mercy.
First premise: Scripture affirms that God created all things without exception.
~Colossians 1:16
16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:[1]
The phrase “all things” (τὰ πάντα) is comprehensive. Paul immediately expands it with merisms: heaven and earth, visible and invisible. No ontological realm is excluded from created reality except God Himself.
~John 1:3
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.[2]
John reinforces the universality by negative qualification: “without him was not any thing made that was made.” If hell is a “thing made,” it cannot be self-existent.
Second premise: Hell is not eternal in the same sense God is eternal.
God alone possesses aseity and underived being (~Psalm 90:2). Hell is described as “prepared.”
~Matthew 25:41
41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:[3]
The participle “prepared” (ἡτοιμασμένον) is perfect passive, indicating an action completed with continuing result. It presupposes an agent. In the narrative, that agent is the King, the Son of Man, acting in divine authority. A prepared realm is not self-originating.
Third premise: God exercises sovereign authority over Sheol and final judgment.
~1 Samuel 2:6
6 The LORD killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.[4]
~Amos 9:2
2 Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them…[5]
Sheol is not an autonomous domain. It is under YHWH’s jurisdiction. Jurisdiction implies ownership within created order.
Fourth premise: Final judgment is an act of divine execution.
~Revelation 20:14–15
14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.[6]
The lake of fire functions as the final judicial reality instituted and administered by God. It is not portrayed as an eternal rival kingdom.
Deductive conclusion, as I see this…
All created realities are created by God.
Hell is not self-existent or co-eternal with God.
Hell is described as prepared and administered under divine authority.
Therefore, hell exists by divine creation and decree.
Exegetically, Scripture does not narrate a Genesis-style “Let there be hell.” Instead, it reveals a progressively disclosed judicial realm prepared within God’s moral government. The existence of hell is the necessary corollary of divine holiness in a universe where sin enters.
Theologically, this is inseparable from the cross and the resurrection. Judgment is real. At the cross, Christ bears judgment. In the resurrection, He conquers death. Hell’s existence establishes the seriousness of sin; the empty tomb establishes the triumph of redemption.
So, deductively and exegetically, hell exists because God sovereignly created and ordained the reality of final judgment within His moral order.
Augustine in The City of God (Books XXI–XXII). There Augustine argues that the punishment of the wicked is eternal and conscious, paralleling the eternal life of the righteous. His reasoning is largely exegetical and linguistic. He focuses heavily on ~Matthew 25:46:
46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.[7]
Augustine argues that the same adjective “everlasting” (aeternus in Latin; αἰώνιος in Greek) modifies both “punishment” and “life.” If eternal life is without end, he insists, then eternal punishment must also be without end. To deny the latter would undermine the former.
He explicitly rejects the idea, held by some early Christians such as Origen, that the punishments of hell are corrective and temporary. Augustine contends that Scripture presents final judgment as definitive, not remedial.
In Enchiridion (On Faith, Hope, and Love), chapters 112–113, he writes that the pains of the damned are eternal, though he does admit mystery regarding the precise nature of those pains. He is more cautious about the material mechanics than about the duration.
J.
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: - KJV ↩︎
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. - KJV ↩︎
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: - KJV ↩︎
The LORD killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up. - KJV ↩︎
Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them, though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down: - KJV ↩︎
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. - KJV ↩︎
And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. - KJV ↩︎
…out of characters.
We are living in the last days, and Scripture warns that spiritual discernment in our associations is not optional but necessary for perseverance in truth.
~2 Timothy 3:1–5
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.[1]
The imperative is explicit: “from such turn away.” Association is not morally neutral.
~1 Corinthians 15:33
33 Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.[2]
Paul frames this as a warning against deception. Influence works gradually, but it works.
~Proverbs 13:20
20 He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.[3]
Wisdom literature treats companionship as formative, not incidental.
~James 4:4
4 …know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.[4]
The language is covenantal and absolute.
In these last days, when perilous times and deceptive forms of godliness abound, Scripture commands us to exercise discernment in our friendships, for companionship shapes character, and alignment with the world places one at enmity with God.
J.
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. - KJV ↩︎
Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners. - KJV ↩︎
He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. - KJV ↩︎
…know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. - KJV ↩︎
I believe you’ll find hell is the consequences of our sin. For instance, if you rob a bank, you go to prison.
And you compare God’s law to man’s law as an example? Not even in the same class. “Your honor, I am guilty as charged. But I see the errors of my ways, and I repent… can I go free now?” Bah, not even a close comparison. God’s law is supreme, man’s is fickel at best.
As my old departed friend Gus would say: “Hell is what you buy with the wages of sin.”
I said nothing about God’s law or man’s law, though now that you mention it, God did tell us not to steal.
The closest passage that I can think of that would suggest this idea would be Matthew 25:41. So strictly speaking, does the fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels constitute being created? In some ways this might depend a great deal on how else we think about hell.
I’m disinclined to believe that God created hell. But I my thoughts on hell tend toward a view which views hell as a condition, a reality, a state, but not strictly speaking a “place”.
I am also disinclined to think of hell as the absence of God; while I get the rationale for that language, the counter to it is that the Psalmist says “Where can I go from You presence?” even saying “If I make my bed in She’ol, You are there”–and while She’ol is the generic term for the place of the dead, the larger point is that how can the Omnipresent God not be somewhere? Looking to the larger history of Christian thought, I also think about St. Isaac the Syrian, who when talking about hell doesn’t speak of a Divine Absence, but Divine Presence.
I tend toward views expressed by C.S. Lewis and N.T. Wright; where hell is best understood as antithesis of what Scripture speaks of when looking forward to the restoration of all things. If ultimately God is going to set all things to rights, and our hope in Christ is life abundant, everlasting, resurrection unto life, etc–then hell is the not that. Hell isn’t life after life after death, but in some sense death beyond death, what St. John in the Revelation describes as “the second death”. An existence so devoid of life as to be a death beyond death. In the works of Lewis, it’s the dull grey city that is “so very nearly nothing”, in the words of N.T. Wright hell is a total shrinking of being human. What, for example, does it look like when a human being, created in God’s Image, so ultimately rejects the One in whose image he was made that he ceases to be fully human? If, in Christ–in the resurrection–we are looking forward to the fullness of being human, the fullness of being in the image of God; then what does the “not that” look like? The antithesis of this? And to that end, I think Scripture uses a litany of language to describe something so horrible that to imagine hell as a literal place where people get lashed by devils (as is popular imagination) is actually not quite awful enough.
Hell is so wretched, in fact, that in some sense maybe it would be better if it was just a red hot place with pitch-fork wielding devil, in a state of torment forever. But, I suspect, it’s far worse than that. It’s what happens when we cease to reflect the image of the Creator God, and thus when all that’s left is sin, all that’s left is the dull, the empty, the meaninglessness. That’s hell.