I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. This platform needs an “AMEN” button.
Thanx for the remembrance, @Johann
KP
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People who are spending the rest of their lives in prison probably aren’t pleased with their situations.
BobEstey, no doubt. But let’s not confuse regret with repentance, and let’s not confuse prison with perdition.
Yes, people in prison may not be pleased with their situation. But that displeasure doesn’t equal godly sorrow. Paul makes the distinction in 2 Corinthians 7:10—godly sorrow leads to repentance, worldly sorrow leads to death. A man can hate his chains without ever hating his sin. And a soul can despise consequences while still loving rebellion.
Hell isn’t a place where people finally come to their senses. It’s a place where they are handed over to what they chose—eternity without God. Jesus didn’t say the rich man in Luke 16 was reformed in torment. He was still demanding comfort, still ordering Lazarus around, still unrepentant.
Prison may sober you up. Hell locks you down. There’s no parole, no second trial, no reform program. Just judgment.
So no, being unhappy in punishment doesn’t prove hell is just a state of mind. It proves that rebellion has a cost, and that cost is eternal if Christ isn’t your ransom.
Sincere Seeker. Scripturally savage. Here for the Truth.
Sincereseeker, u right on pointing this out, u clearly gave the ans, it amazing
Peace
Sam
Hell is eternal. Not temporary, not probationary, not purgative. Eternal.
Jesus says in Matthew 25:46, “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Same word. Same duration. If heaven is forever, then so is hell. You can’t have it both ways unless you think Christ handed out theological riddles instead of truth.
Revelation 14:11 says the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night. That’s not poetic. That’s prophetic. No rest means no relief. No relief means no end.
The idea of temporary hell is a human invention designed to make judgment more palatable. But God is not adjusting His justice to fit our comfort. The cross is proof that the punishment for sin is serious. Jesus didn’t suffer a temporary wrath so we could escape a temporary hell. He drank the full cup.
The fire is not quenched. The worm does not die. The sentence does not expire. Hell is eternal because God’s holiness is eternal, and sin against an infinite God carries an infinite consequence.
You want to avoid hell? Flee to Christ. You want to soften it? You’re not dealing with the Bible. You’re dealing with your own discomfort.
Sincere Seeker. Scripturally savage. Here for the Truth.
Let’s talk about whats the difference between Hades, Gehenna, Sheol and Hell
Sheol and Hades
In Orthodox theology, Sheol and Hades are indeed synonymous, designating the intermediate state where the souls of the departed await the general resurrection (Rev 20:13). Sheol appears in the OT as the shadowy abode of the dead, righteous and wicked alike, where personal existence persists but in a diminished, veiled state. it is a place of silence, not annihilation, reflecting the immortality of the soul as a divine gift. The Septuagint translates Sheol as Hades, and the NT adopts this term, stripping away pagan mythological connotations to ephasize biblical reality.
Orthodox theology rejects any notion of Sheol/Hades as a place of active purification akin to purgatory. Instead, it is a state of anticipation, where souls experience a foretaste of their eternal destiny based on their earthly orientation toward or away from God. The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus illustrates this:
Lazarus rests in “Abraham’s bosom” (a provisonal paradise, not theosis) while the Rich man endures tormet yet both are in hades, not the final Gehanna. This differentiation within Hades, comfort for the righteous and distress for the unrepentant, reflects God’s justice without implying a purgatorial process. The righteous “sleep in the Lord” (1 Thess 4:13-14), their souls upheld by divine remembrance, while the wicked face a self-inflicted alienation.
Christ’s descent into Hades is central to the Orthodox soteriology. Through His death and Resurrection, the God-Man invades Hades, shattering its gates and proclaiming salvation to the spirits held captive. This harrowing of Hades, celebrated in the Paschal icon of the Anastasis, transforms Hades for those who die in Christ. Post-Ascension, the souls of the faithful are said to be “with Christ” (Phil 1:23), in a state of repose, yet not the fullness of bodily resurrection. Hades remains the intermediate realm for all souls until the Parousia, but for Christians, it is illumined by the hope of resurrection, not a place of purgatorial cleansing.
Gehenna
Gehenna, distinct from Hades, is the eschatological reality of eternal judgement, the “lake of fire” reserved for the devil, his angels, and those who freely reject God’s love. Derived from the Valley of Hinnom, a site of idolatrous abominations, Gehenna, in Christ’s teaching, signifies the final state of the damned, where both “SOUL AND BODY” are subject to unquenchable fire. Orthodox theology emphasises that this torment begins post-resurrection, after the general judgement, when the psychosomatic unity of the person is restored. Unlike Hades, which is temporary and concerns only the soul, Gehenna is eternal and involves the whole person, body and soul, reunited in the resurrection.
The fire of Gehenna is not a material blaze but the uncreated divine presence (Heb 12:29), experienced as torment by those who have hardened their hearts against God’s love. This is a profound mystery: the same divine energy that deifies the saints consumes the impenitent, not as punishment imposed arbitrarily but as the natural consequence of their self-chosen alienation. Orthodoxy rejects a juridical view of divine wrath; Gehenna is the tragic fruition of free will’s refusal of repentance. The resurrected body, now incorruptible, participates in this state, amplifying the reality of eternal communion or eternal loss. The “worm that does not die” (Mk 9:48, Isa 66:24) signifies the soul’s unrelenting remorse, a self-inflicted wound rather than an external penalty.
Importantly, Hades itself is cast into the lake of fire, signalling its abolition at the end of age. Post-Ascension, the damned do not enter Gehenna immediately after death; their souls abide in Hades’s torment until resurrection, when body and soul face the final judgment.
The English term “Hell”, often muddies the waters, as older translations like KJV use it for both Hades and Gehenna. In Orthodox theology, Hell means Gehenna, the eternal separation from God, the “outer darkness” (Mt 22:13) and “second death” (Rev 21:8). It is not a place but a mode of existence, where the unrepentant encounter God’s glory as unbearable light. This state is final, no possibility of post-judgement repentance, contra speculative universalist hopes condemned at Fifth Ecumenical Council regarding Origen’s apokatastasis.
Also note, Orthodox avoids sensationalist imagery.
Has anyone read Dante’s Inferno, about Nine circles of Hell, what do you think about it @KPUFF and @SincereSeeker
@Johann
Unlike Roman Catholicism, which posits a temporal state of purgation for the elect to satisfy divine justice, Orthodoxy holds that purification occurs in this life through repentance, the sacraments (eg. Eucharist, Confession) and participation in divine grace (Heb 12:14). The intermediate state in Hades is not purgatorial, it is a waiting period where souls experience a foretaste of their judgement, not a process of cleansing.
Funny enough, I actually asked my parish priest about this when I was 15. I can’t believe I forgot it until recently. 
Ahh, nostalgia
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Just for fun, I was researching, here is what I found:
In Dante’s Inferno, we see 9 levels
Level 1: Limbo (Virtuous pagans, unbaptised)
People: Noble Pre-Christian figures like Homer, and unbaptised infants
Punishment: No physical torment, but eternal longing, they live in desire without hope of seeing God.
Reason: They led virtuous life but lacked baptism and Christian faith
Circle 2 - Lust
People: Those overcome by lust (Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Francesca de Rimini)
Punishment: Blown violently about by an unceasing windstorm.
Reason: Their passions controlled them in life.
Circle 3- gluttony
People: The gluttonous, who indulged in food, drink and excess
Punishment: Lie in vile, freezing slush, battered by endless cold, filthy rain and hail. Cerberus (the three-headed dog) mauls them.
Reason: They consumed life’s pleasures mindlessly. now they are consumed by discomfort and filth.
Circle 4 - Greed (Avarice and Prodigality):
People: Hoarders and wasters
Punishment: They push great weights against each other in endless conflict.
Reason: Their fixation on material gain or wastefulness leads to futility.
Circle 5- Wrath and Sullenness
People:
Wrathful: fight each other on the surface of River styx
Sullen: sunk beneath the Styx, choking on black mud.
Reason: Their anger and bitterness poisoned their souls, now they remain trapped in it forever.
Circle 6- Heresy
People: Heretics
Punishment: Entombed in fiery graves, with lids to be shut at the last judgement.
Reason: They denied the eternal truth, so they are trapped in eternal fire.
Circle 7- Violence (Has three rings)
- Violence against others (murders and tyrants): Immersed in a river of boiling blood, shot at by centaurs if they try to escape.
- Violence against self (suicides): turned into gnarled thorny trees, torn by Harpies, they will never regain human form.
- Violence against God, nature, art (blasphemers, sodomites, usurers): Reside on a burning desert with fire raining down from the sky.
Circle 8- Fraud
We see 10 ditches, each punishing a form of deceit.
- Panderers and Seducers, whipped by demons
- Flatterers, sunk in excrement
- Simoniacs, stuck headfirst in holes, feet on fire
- Diviners/astrologers, head twisted backwards, forced to walk looking behind.
- Corrupt politicians, immersed in boiling pitch, guarded by devils
- Hypocrites, walk in gilded leaden cloaks.
- Thieves, pursued and bitten by serpents, undergo painful transformations
- Fradulent counsellors, engulfed in flames
- Sowers of discord, cut open by a demon with a sword, wounds heal and are reopened endlessly.
- Flasifiers (alchemists, counterfeiters, perjurers), plagued with disease, filth and madness.
Circle 9- Treachery
Setting: A frozen lake, with sinners encased at various depths
People:
- Caina (traitors to family): Up to their necks in ice
- Antenora (traitors to country): deeper in ice
- Ptolomea (traitors to guests): Lie flat on ice, tears freeze in their eyes.
- Judecca (traitors to benefactors, ultimate treachery): Completely encased in ice, twisted and immobilised.
At the centre, Satan himself, a giant three faced, trapped waist deep in ice. He chews eternally on Judas Iscariot, Brutus and Cassius (betrayers of Christ and Caesar)
While not biblical, Dante’s vision offers a haunting portrayal of sin’s consequences. The sheer horror of it is almost unimaginable.
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@Samuel_23, appreciate the breakdown. You’re bringing that high-church energy with a lot of clarity and a handful of incense. Let’s walk through it with the Word in one hand and some holy fire in the other.
You’re absolutely right that the terms Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, and Hell have distinctions. And I respect that you’re not collapsing them all into one foggy concept like most modern pulpits do. But let’s not let Orthodox poeticism blur what Scripture reveals with blazing clarity. Because while nuance is helpful, it doesn’t cancel finality. And the finality is this: Gehenna is not symbolic discomfort. It’s eternal wrath. And Hades isn’t a neutral holding pen… it’s already a place of torment for the wicked. Jesus said so Himself.
Luke 16 isn’t a parable with training wheels. It’s a window. The rich man isn’t in a theological metaphor. He’s in flame. He’s conscious. He’s begging for relief. And what’s Abraham’s answer? A chasm that cannot be crossed. Not a waitlist. Not a soul spa. Finality. Already.
You say Hades offers a foretaste. Fine. But if that foretaste is torment, then judgment is not suspended … it’s begun. Hebrews 9:27 says it plainly. It is appointed once to die, and then judgment. No reset. No revisions. Just verdict.
Now about this idea that the “fire” of Gehenna is the uncreated divine energy experienced differently based on the heart … here’s where the oxygen runs out. That’s not what Jesus said. He didn’t say the fire was a mystical experience. He called it unquenchable. He described it as a furnace. A lake. A real place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Are we really going to argue that “weeping and gnashing” is how people respond to divine energy they just misinterpreted?
Scripture does not support the idea that the wicked will spend eternity being gently scorched by their own emotional remorse. It says they are punished. That’s 2 Thessalonians 1:9. Eternal destruction. Away from the presence of the Lord. Not near it, feeling awkward. Away.
And as for Orthodoxy rejecting the juridical view of divine wrath, let me ask: have you read Revelation? Jesus doesn’t show up in a candlelit icon. He comes with eyes like fire and a sword coming out of His mouth. He’s not whispering enlightenment. He’s judging the nations. God’s wrath isn’t metaphorical. It’s righteous, just, and terrifying.
Hell is not just “a mode of existence.” That’s modern theology trying to escape the scandal of eternal punishment. Jesus didn’t die a brutal, bloody death to save you from a philosophical state of being. He died to save you from the real, conscious, eternal punishment of hell.
And I get it. It’s tempting to soften it all with mystery. But the mystery God chose to leave unexplained, we leave alone. The warnings He spoke in fire and finality, we dare not reinterpret.
Hell is eternal. Gehenna is final. Hades is real. And if your soul is not in Christ, then neither icons nor nostalgia will save you.
So yes, read Dante if you want a poetic journey. But read Revelation if you want the truth. And tremble. Then repent. Because this isn’t mythology. It’s prophecy.
Sincere Seeker. Scripturally savage. Here for the Truth.
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Oh no brother, you got me wrong @SincereSeeker
This correct @Samuel_23 ?
Now, regarding Eastern Orthodoxy and divine wrath, here is where you must separate categories. Orthodoxy does not deny God’s wrath, but it frames it differently from the classic Western juridical lens. In much Orthodox teaching, “wrath” is not primarily God’s retributive justice in a courtroom sense, but the experience of God’s holiness and love by those who reject Him. They often describe wrath as the burning fire of God’s unchanging love, which is life and joy for the righteous but torment for the unrighteous. The juridical courtroom imagery (God as judge rendering a sentence of wrath) is less emphasized, while the therapeutic and relational imagery (sin as sickness, salvation as healing, wrath as the soul’s experience of God when opposed to Him) is central.
J.
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The rich man’s agony in flame is no mere metaphor; it is the conscious, visceral torment, his tongue parched in the very Hades that claims all souls post-mortem. Abraham’s words seal it: a great chasm fixed, no crossing, no relief. This is no neutral limbo, but a foretaste of the final verdict, where the unrepentant soul, stripped of bodily buffers, confronts the self it has forged in rebellion.
Orthodoxy never denied this.
Yet herein is the main point, this torment in Hades is **the judgement begun, as you invoke Hebrews 9:27, “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” No reset, indeed, the particular judgement at death fixes the soul’s orientation, rendering Hades a provisional prison (2 Peter 2:9) that mirrors the soul’s eternal trajectory. For the wicked, it is already “flame” because sin’s wages accrue immediately: the soul, loving darkness, experiences even God’s sustaining presence as alienation. But note the mercy woven in: the righteous Lazarus is comforted in Hades (v. 25), not yet in the fullness of the Kingdom, teaching us that the intermediate state is real consequence, not suspended animation.
Christ’s harrowing descent bridges this for the faithful, pulling them into His light, but the chasm remains for those who chose the far country.
Divine wrath
Yes, Christ, eyes as flame, sword from His mouth, treading the winepress of God’s wrath. No candlelit icon, indeed, He is the terrifying Judge, separating the sheep from goats, with unsparing equity. Orthodoxy recoils not from this wrath, but from reducing it to a cosmic courtroom transaction as if God were a vindictive magisterate tallying infractions. Wrath is God’s holy pathos, His visceral reaction to sin’s defilement of creation, righteous, just and yes, terrifying, because it is the Love scorned turning to purify what it cannot embrace. The nations tremble, the kings wail, for this is no metaphor but prophecy’s forge, hammering souls into their final form.
Yet, even here the Scandal continues, Jesus’ cross absorbs this wrath (Rom 3:25, 1 John 2:2), not to evade a philosophical state but to ransom us from the real abyss, he Himself invaded. Hell is no mere “mode of existence” in the evasive modern sense, it is concrete perdition, a place (Rev 20:10), of unending separation, where the damned cry “hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne” (Rev 6:16). Orthodoxy dares not reinterpret this; we tremble before it in our services. But we behold the Lamb slain, whose blood cries not for vengeance but for victory, inviting all to the Wedding Feast before the doors shut.
The Fire of Gehenna
The only part I see you challenge is the notion of Gehenna’s fire as the uncreated divine energy (Heb 12:29), insisting it is no gentle scorching by emotional remorse but a furnace of weeping, gnashing, and unquenchable punishment. Brother, I stand with you. Jesus speaks of real destruction for soul and body, a lake of fire, where the resurrected form, glorified or grotesque, endures the second death. Weeping and gnashing of teeth is not an awkward misreading of divine light; it is the raw anguish of creatures made for communion now hurled into self-willed isolation, their wills ossified in rejection.
The Orthodox insight is that this fire is God’s own holiness, experienced as bliss or torment by the heart’s posture (refer to the burning bush unconsumed, Ex 3:2), does not soften this reality but intensifies it. it is not “mystical experience” in a vague sense, but the ontological clash: sin cannot coexist with divine purity without being consumed (Isa 33:14, “Who among us can dwell with the devouring fire?”). The wicked do not “misinterpret” God; they flee Him, yet cannot escape His omnipresence, so His nearness becomes their undoing. This is why 2 Thess 1:9 lands like thunder, hear, “eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord”, away, not in spatial distance (for where is “away” from the One who fills all, Eph 1:23), but in existential exile, the soul’s voluntary kenosis meeting the Fullness it desires. Punished? Yes, externally, by the very justice that offered union. Not remorse alone, but the undying worm of unrepented will, devouring from within as the outer flame devours without.
One potential clarification: your summary risks being misread (though you likely don’t intend this) as implying that wrath is merely subjective, a matter of “feeling” God’s love wrongly. Orthodoxy insists the torment is objective—real, eternal, and bodily post-resurrection (Mt. 10:28; Rev. 20:15)—not just emotional discomfort. The “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mt. 13:42) is a concrete state, not a psychological metaphor, though it stems from the soul’s rejection of grace.
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Then can you please clarify this for me @Samuel_23
Your claim that the Cross is just only because it heals and reveals love misunderstands the Bible’s persistent forensic language, Paul’s own courtroom argument, and the sacrificial vocabulary of the Old Testament, for Scripture does not merely speak of God making things right by therapeutic transformation, it repeatedly speaks of guilt, penalty, payment, and declaration, and Paul chooses his words with that courtroom grammar, as when he says that we are justified, the verb is δικαιόω (to declare righteous), not merely made healthy, and Romans 3:24–26 explicitly sets forth God’s act to justify (δικαιοῦν) the one who has faith through the blood of Christ, and Paul even calls Christ a ἱλαστήριον (hilastērion) in 3:25, a technical term that points to propitiation or the means by which divine wrath and penalty are dealt with, so any theology that collapses justice into only therapeutic healing has to explain away Paul’s deliberate use of juridical vocabulary.
The Old Testament sacrificial system and the prophetic atonement texts situate atonement within a legal framework of guilt and cleansing, Hebrew uses verbs such as כָּפַר (kāphar) to make atonement or cover sin, and נָשָׂא (nāśāʾ) to bear or lift, and Isaiah 53 speaks of the Servant who נָשָׂא (bears) our infirmities and whose כָּפַר (atonement) effects our vindication, therefore the
New Testament authors are not inventing a forensic reading out of thin air but are inheriting a sacrificial legal idiom that treats sin as offense with consequences, and the Levitical texts themselves require guilt offerings and restitution, for example Leviticus 5 and 6 where the offender must make payment and receive forgiveness through prescribed compensatory acts, so to deny any penal, juridical structure in the atonement is to detach the New Testament from its sacrificial, covenantal roots in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Paul’s argument in Romans is unmistakably forensic and judicial, he sets up humanity as under law and liable to condemnation, Romans 3:19 says the law bears witness so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable, the Greek τεκμηριόω (to prove, to convict) and ἐνέγκλημα imagery show a courtroom pressure, and Romans 6:23 states the logical wages or μισθός (wages) of sin is death, which functions as a penalty, therefore the cross must satisfy that penal reality if the gospel is to resolve the legal problem of condemnation rather than merely offer moral transformation.
Romans 3:26 cannot be read out of its immediate forensic context, Paul speaks there of God being δικαῖος (righteous) and δικαιοκρίτης (one who declares or demonstrates justice) and at the same time the justifier, the Greek shows both sides of the courtroom coin, and to insist that δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosynē) means only covenantal faithfulness in Paul’s mouth is to ignore the way Paul uses δικαιόω in Galatians 2:16 and Romans 4 where justification is the declarative act of God who reckons righteousness to one who believes, Paul’s logic seeks to remove guilt and pronounce acquittal, which is forensic, even while it connects to God’s covenant faithfulness.
The New Testament balances forensic and therapeutic language because the cross does both, but the forensic is not optional or secondary, it is necessary, 2 Corinthians 5:21 places the exchange squarely in forensic terms when Paul says that God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God, the Greek verb μετατίθημι or the concept of exchange is juridical in force, Galatians 3:13 speaks of Christ redeeming us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us according to Scripture, that is penal substitution language, and if one removes this objective substitution one loses Paul’s explanation for how God can be both just and the justifier.
Scripture also speaks of divine wrath and the necessity of satisfying holiness, Romans 1:18 uses ὀργή (orgē, wrath) revealed from heaven against ungodliness, and Romans 2:5 speaks of storing up wrath for the day of wrath, such language describes a judicial outworking of God’s holiness against sin, and the cross is presented as the means by which that righteous wrath is addressed, therefore the atonement must be understood as satisfying God’s justice in some objective sense if the New Testament warnings about judgment and wrath are to have their full force.
The therapeutic or healing metaphor favored by some strands of Orthodoxy is biblically true in part because the cross heals the sinner and restores communion, Isaiah 53 and 1 Peter 2:24 use the verbs נָשָׂא and ἀνήνεγκεν to say Christ bore our sins and by his wounds we are healed, however healing imagery does not negate penal imagery, rather it completes it, for the gospel’s power to heal sinners presupposes that the barrier of guilt and penalty has been removed by a righteous settlement, the New Testament presents the work of Christ as both propitiation and reconciliation, both removal of penalty and renewal of life.
N.T. Wright’s emphasis on covenantal, apocalyptic faithfulness rightly recovers neglected dimensions and rightly insists that God’s faithfulness to his promises undergirds justification, yet his critique does not eliminate Paul’s forensic moves, for Paul himself appeals to Abraham’s reckoning in Genesis and then uses the same dikaiō verb to speak of God’s judicial declaration, Romans 4 demonstrates Paul’s reading of Genesis as forensic reckoning, and if one reads Paul’s courtroom rhetoric away in favor of only covenantal fidelity, one must then account for why Paul repeatedly employs legal metaphors, judicial verbs, and sacrificial vocabulary that point toward a real, objective dealing with sin.
J.
I dont know brother @Johann
Give me some time to ask others
Honestly, I had very little idea about this topic. Even writing the initial post took me a while; I had to watch a few videos just to piece it together.
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Answer is in Scripture brother, not patristic sources.
- Old Testament background
The Hebrew Sheol (שְׁאוֹל) is the place of the dead, both righteous and unrighteous (Gen 37:35, Job 14:13, Ps 16:10). It is shadowy, not yet the full doctrine of hell.
Fire and worm imagery comes from Isaiah 66:24, where the corpses of rebels are consumed by “their worm” (תּוֹלָעָה tōlāʿāh) and “their fire” (אֵשׁ ʾēsh) unquenched. This becomes foundational for Jesus’ teaching.
- Jesus’ vocabulary
Gehenna (γέεννα), from the Valley of Hinnom (גֵּי בֶן־הִנֹּם gê ben-Hinnōm), originally a place of abominable child sacrifice (Jer 7:31). Jesus uses it to describe final judgment: “fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna” (Matt 10:28).
Hades (ᾅδης) translates Sheol in the LXX, sometimes used neutrally as the grave, but also as the place of torment for the unrighteous (Luke 16:23).
Tartarus (ταρταρόω) occurs once, 2 Pet 2:4, for the prison of rebellious angels.
- Apostolic Fathers
1 Clement 17 cites Isaiah’s worm and fire, directly linking Jewish prophetic imagery to Christian warning.
Didache 16: “the way of death” culminates in final judgment, assuming the Gehenna imagery of Christ.
- Ignatius of Antioch (c. 110)
Letter to the Ephesians 16: warns against false teachers who will go into “the unquenchable fire” (to pyr to asbestos). This reflects Jesus’ own words in Mark 9:43, “to the unquenchable fire” (eis to pyr to asbestos). Ignatius is clearly applying Gehenna imagery as eternal.
- Polycarp of Smyrna (c. 150)
Letter to the Philippians 2: speaks of “the eternal fire” (to pyr to aiōnion), echoing Matthew 25:41, “Depart into the eternal fire” (eis to pyr to aiōnion). Polycarp affirms Jesus’ Gehenna warning as eternal punishment.
- Justin Martyr (c. 150)
Dialogue with Trypho 5: “Souls of the wicked shall be punished in eternal fire” (en pyri aiōniō). Justin is explicit: hell is eternal, rooted in Gehenna texts. He also uses Hades for the intermediate state, distinguishing it from the final fire.
- Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 180)
Against Heresies 5.27: speaks of the wicked cast into “eternal fire” (pyr aiōnion), citing Matthew 25. He sometimes hints that immortality is conditional, but he never denies eternal fire. He inherits both Gehenna and Isaiah’s imagery.
- Tertullian (c. 200)
On the Resurrection of the Flesh 17: describes hell as “the fire eternal, not for consuming but for tormenting.” He uses inferi (Latin for Hades/Sheol) for the intermediate state, and gehenna for final punishment. He draws directly on Luke 16:23, where the rich man is in torment “in Hades” (en Hadei).
- Origen (c. 250)
On First Principles 1.6: interprets fire as purifying, not strictly punitive. He spiritualizes Gehenna as the fire of God’s holiness burning away sin. He still affirms the Greek terms but re-frames their meaning. This became controversial.
- Cyprian of Carthage (c. 250)
Epistle 55: speaks of “eternal fire” (ignis aeternus in Latin, translating pyr aiōnion) as the destiny of persecutors. Cyprian reads Jesus’ Gehenna sayings literally, not therapeutically.
- Lactantius (c. 300)
Divine Institutes 7.21: describes the wicked punished in “perpetual fire” (perpetuo igne), conscious torment, not annihilation. He aligns with Matthew 25:46 (“eternal punishment” kolasin aiōnion).
Summary of ECF usage of biblical terms
Sheol/Hades: accepted as the holding place of the dead, often neutral, but used for the wicked’s torment (Luke 16).
Gehenna: consistently interpreted by the Fathers as final judgment, eternal fire. Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin, Tertullian, Cyprian, Lactantius all use it in this way.
Tartarus: acknowledged in passing (2 Pet 2:4) but mostly reserved for angelic punishment.
Fire/worm imagery from Isaiah 66:24 is foundational, constantly cited.
So before Augustine, the overwhelming majority of Fathers taught eternal conscious punishment in Gehenna as the fate of the wicked, consistent with Jesus’ words. The one strong deviation is Origen, who allegorized the fire and leaned toward universal restoration, a view later condemned.
God bless.
J.
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Thanks for sharing this, brother 
Yes, I was looking into this as well, and you’re right — before Augustine, the majority of the Fathers taught eternal punishment in Gehenna, consistent with Christ’s own words. I agree with you on that. And true, Origen’s universalist leanings were later condemned at the Fifth Ecumenical Council.
What I was wondering, brother, is this: could the “fire” be understood as God’s uncreated energies? The same divine energy that deifies the saints — could it also be experienced as torment by the wicked, those who chose darkness? @Johann And if so, what is the nature of that torment itself — where does it ultimately come from in the first place?
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Friends and frenemies;
I am ready to be corrected, but this is how I have thought of eternal punishment, and the local called Hell.
The Earth is The Lord’s and all its fullness. His creation was deemed “good” by His own proclamation. Our God has always maintained His “presence” in His creation, in one form or another, and has always fulfilled the occupation of caretaker (vinedresser), sustainer of His good creation. His claim to loving rain on the just and the unjust (Matt 5:44-45) demonstrates His caretaking role, and an expression of His loving provision for all mankind.
The extension of this idea brings me to believe anything mankind experiences that is universally “good”, i.e., sacrificial love, truth, nobility, justice, purity, beauty, charity, virtue, or anything praiseworthy (Phil. 4:8), remains possible only because God is present and sustaining our world. Goodness is an emanation of God – it is literally THE fruit of The Holy Spirit (love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Gal. 5:22-23) – the manifest (obvious) expression of His presence. When God withdraws, all of this “goodness” goes with Him, and what is left behind is all that stood in opposition to these good expressions (i.e., adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like Gal 5:19-21). This is the lot of those who practice such things, they will not inherit the kingdom of God.
God demonstrated His sustaining love toward us (mankind), in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8). That is, God The Father temporarily, and sacrificially withdrew from His own Son, that in Jesus, all the experience of being apart from God would be realized on His human flesh. The first-day-of-the-week resurrection was also a reunion (see Jn 20:17), an “ascension to reunification with The Father. Now, all who are IN Christ Jesus are in union with The Father forever. All that is left behind is, even now, beginning to feel the experience of an inevitable total separation, the complete experience of aloneness will befall them. We call that Hell fire.
In short, the punishment of Hell is the chosen experience of being separated from God, and once fully realized, is void of any expression of God’s goodness in their environment. It is torment.
KP
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yes @Kpuff, I see what you are saying, I have heard it, like, I’m sorry if I’m wrong but this is what I understand that
God is the source of all goodness
Hell= separation from God’s sustaining presence
torment = absence of God
But what my Priest taught is:
God never withdraws his presence (Ps. 139:7–8: “If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there”)
Hell is not the absence of God but rather the experience of God’s uncreated energies as torment by those who reject Him. The same divine light is joy to the saints and fire to the damned (Heb. 12:29)
But anyways, I don’t know much about this, so I am willing to learn from others about this, currently I asked Johann but anyone can respond and help me.
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Lexical and grammatical force first, the New Testament words for punishment and fire carry penal meaning that cannot be blithely spiritualized away, Matthew 25 uses εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ αἰώνιον (into the eternal fire) and pairs it with τὴν κόλασιν τὴν αἰώνιον (the eternal punishment), κόλασις (punishment, penalty) in Greek literature is a juridical term for penal suffering not merely remedial correction, Mark 9 warns of τὸ πῦρ τὸ ἄσβεστον (the unquenchable fire) in the context of being cast out, Luke 16 places the rich man in conscious torment in ᾅδης (Hades), Revelation 20 and 14 describe a lake of fire and the smoke of their torment rising forever, if “fire” here simply names God’s uncreated ἐνέργειαι (energeiai, operations) experienced differently, then we must have a grammatical and contextual reason to strip κόλασις and ἄσβεστον of their obvious penal force, show where in first century usage κόλασις routinely means therapeutic illumination rather than penalty.
Narrative context decides meaning, Matthew 25 is a judgment scene with a king pronouncing sentence and sending the condemned away to punishment, the courtroom verbs, the separating of sheep from goats, the handing over of those who did not care for Christ’s brethren, the phrase εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ αἰώνιον functions as a judicial sentence, the Gospels do not present Gehenna images as mystical participation in divine energies experienced variably, they present them as warnings of final retribution, you cannot read the pronouncing voice and the judicial framework out of the text and still claim the same textual force supports an energies only reading.
Paul and Hebrews make the juridical problem explicit and provide the remedy in cultic forensic terms, Paul frames humanity as under indictment, he speaks of δικαίωσις and δικαιόω (to declare or vindicate), he calls Christ the ἱλαστήριον (Romans 3:25, the place or means of propitiation), and Hebrews 9:22 insists that without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness, the Septuagint and Hebrew sacrificial language use כָּפַר (kāphar, to atone, to cover) and נָשָׂא (nāsāʾ, to bear), Paul’s language of exchange in 2 Corinthians 5:21 and Galatians 3:13 reads as penal substitutionary logic, if the cross is only God’s energies illuminating sinners then Paul’s sustained courtroom grammar and Hebrews’ cultic requirement become rhetorical window dressing rather than the explanation for how God can be both just and the justifier.
Old Testament sacrificial and covenantal matrix ties penalty and healing together, Leviticus prescribes guilt offerings and restitution in concrete legal terms, Isaiah 53 uses נָשָׂא (he bore) and כָּפַר (to make atonement) language about the Servant who bears our iniquities and secures vindication, the prophetic corpus and the sacrificial system treat sin as a debt and a juridical rupture that requires settlement, the New Testament inherits this grammar and recasts the cross as both sacrifice and courtroom satisfaction, to relocate the meaning of Gehenna into Palamite ontology severs the apostolic letters from their Hebraic scaffold unless you can show where Scripture itself reinterprets cultic juridical categories as purely ontological energies.
Revelation and the apocalypse sharpen the punitive, Revelation speaks of the lake of fire into which the beast, the false prophet, death and Hades are thrown, Revelation says the smoke of their torment goes up into the ages of the ages, the apocalyptic vision is juridical with books and verdicts and final sentences, such imagery coheres with Gospel and Pauline warnings about δικαιοσύνη and ὀργή (wrath), if the “fire” is only uncreated energies then the juridical apparatus of books, verdicts, wages, and sentences becomes mere metaphor, and that reduces the theological urgency of propitiation and repentance that runs throughout the New Testament.
The Fathers before the Palamite synthesis read Gehenna as punitive in the main, Ignatius calls false teachers destined for the unquenchable fire, Polycarp speaks of the eternal fire, Justin Martyr insists on eternal punishment in fire, Tertullian and Cyprian depict conscious and everlasting torment, Origen stands as the major early exception with remedial speculation later judged problematic,
Gregory Palamas writes in the fourteenth century with an ontology of essence and uncreated energies to safeguard theosis, Palamas is a legitimate and important voice in Eastern tradition but he is a late development and his metaphysical categories are not identical with the plain apostolic and early patristic reading of Gehenna, you cite patristic authority for an energies equals Gehenna thesis I ask you to show me pre Palamite Fathers who explicitly equate Gehenna with the uncreated operations of God.**
[Out of characters.]
J.
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