2025-10-09T06:36:00Z
- The most graphic portrayal of hell is found in Revelation 14:9-11.
There we read: “And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, ‘If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.” (Revelation 14:9-11)
- Our view of hell depends on our view of an “immortal soul.”
Many, but not all, of those who affirm annihilationism are also conditionalists. That is to say, they deny that the soul is inherently or naturally immortal and affirm that it acquires immortality only when conferred by God (most often as a constituent element in the gift of salvation). Annihilationists who reject conditionalism simply assert that God, as a punitive act, deprives the unbeliever of immortality at some point subsequent to the final judgment. Most traditionalists affirm that whereas only God is inherently immortal, he irrevocably confers immortality on humans at creation.
- God’s holiness and righteousness matter—a lot.
Only sin that goes unpunished would indicate a failure of justice and a defeat of God’s purpose. The ongoing existence of hell and its occupants would just as readily reflect on the glory of God’s holiness and his righteous opposition to evil.
Perhaps the idea of endless punishing is less offensive when the idea of endless sinning is considered. In other words, if those in hell never cease to sin, why should they ever cease to suffer? In this regard many point to Revelation 22:11, where the angel says to John the Apostle, “Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.”
Says Carson: “If the holy and those who do right continue to be holy and to do right, in anticipation of the perfect holiness and rightness to be lived and practiced throughout all eternity, should we not also conclude that the vile continue in their vileness in anticipation of the vileness they will live and practice throughout all eternity” (533).
If one should reject this notion and argue that people pay fully for their sins in hell and at some point cease to sin, why can’t they then be brought into heaven (thereby turning hell into purgatory)? If their sins have not been fully paid for in hell, on what grounds does justice permit them to be annihilated
- Eternal smoke and sulfur are actually described.
John goes on to describe the duration of this punishment in two statements in v. 11. First, the “smoke” of their torment, i.e., the smoke of the fire and sulfur (v. 10) “goes up forever and ever” (see Isa. 34:9-10 for the OT background). It is almost as if there is a smoldering testimony to the consequences of sin and the justice of God’s wrath. The duration of this phenomenon is said to be, literally, “unto the ages of the ages”.
This terminology occurs 13x in Revelation: 3x with reference to the duration of praise, glory, and dominion given to God (1:6; 5:13; 7:12); 5x with reference to the length of life of God or Christ (1:18; 4:9,10; 10:6; 15:7); once referring to the length of God’s reign in Christ (11:15); once referring to the length of the saints’ reign (22:5); once referring to the ascension of the smoke of destroyed Babylon (19:3); once referring to the duration of torment of the devil, beast, and false prophet (20:10); and, of course, once here in 14:11.
Second, “they have no rest, day or night” (the latter phrase being parallel to “forever and ever”). In Revelation 4:8 the same terminology occurs with regard to the duration of worship on the part of the four living creatures. That from which they have “no rest” is, presumably, the torment caused by the fire and brimstone.
- Hell isn’t about the magnitude of our sins. It’s about the magnitude of God.
As for the argument from justice, we humans are hardly the ones to assess the enormity of our sins. “Is the magnitude of our sin established by our own status, or by the degree of offense against the sovereign, transcendent God?” (Carson, 534). As John Piper has pointed out, “The essential thing is that degrees of blameworthiness come not from how long you offend dignity, but from how high the dignity is that you offend” (Let the Nations be Glad, 127). In other words, our sin is deserving of infinite punishment because of the infinite glory of the One against whom it is perpetrated.
Those are just a few opinions of what some feel he’ll may be like in some instances!!
Personally I would pray and ask God For forgiveness of each and every single sin I could remember and even not remember just to have a realization of knowing ya asked for it by the lord and have faith that your name is written in the book of life !! So ya wouldn’t have to be there!!!
To experience the torture and suffering of pain!!
