The Bible presents hell as the final destiny apart from God, and the one who speaks of it most is Jesus himself — as a warning, not a spectacle. Behind the English word hell stand different terms, Sheol, Hades and Gehenna, and Christians differ on whether the punishment is endless torment or final destruction. What no one disputes is what the text repeats: God does not want anyone to perish.
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Jesus uses Gehenna to put fear in its proper place: not in those who kill the body, but in God, who is “able to destroy both soul and body in hell”. Some read that destroy as eternal ruin; others, as the end of existence.
Read the chapter →And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
With deliberate exaggeration — cut off the hand, pluck out the eye — Jesus says nothing is worth the price of being lost. The picture “their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched” comes from the last line of Isaiah (66:24), about judgment on the rebellious.
Read the chapter →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: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
In the final judgment Jesus describes, the measure is how each person treated the least, and the everlasting fire was “prepared for the devil and his angels” — hell was not made with people in mind. The same Greek word describes both the punishment and the life as eternal, which makes this the central text for those who see the punishment as endless.
Read the chapter →And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
Here the word is Hades, which the KJV translates as hell: the place of the dead, which in this story is already one of torment for the rich man. The “great gulf fixed” that no one crosses says that the choices of this life are taken seriously after it.
Read the chapter →In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;
Paul describes the punishment as “everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord”. What makes hell terrible is not only pain; it is the absence of God, the source of all good.
Read the chapter →And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. 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.
At the end, even death and hell (Hades) are cast into the lake of fire, called “the second death”. Those who see the punishment as destruction lean on that phrase; those who see it as endless torment read it alongside Revelation 14:11.
Read the chapter →The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
The verse that sets the tone for all the rest: God is patient, “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance”. Jesus spoke of hell so that no one would have to go there.
Read the chapter →The major Christian traditions affirm the final judgment and the reality of hell. Most — Catholics, Orthodox and many evangelicals — understand it as conscious, endless torment, based on Matthew 25:46 and Revelation 14:11. Adventists and some evangelicals hold to conditional immortality, or annihilationism: the lost are destroyed for good, and what is eternal is the result, not the duration (Matthew 10:28; 2 Thessalonians 1:9; Revelation 20:14). A minority hopes that in the end everyone will be reconciled to God (Colossians 1:20), a reading most churches reject. Whether the fire is literal or an image is also debated, since Jesus speaks of both fire and darkness (Matthew 8:12). And purgatory, which the Catholic Church teaches, is not hell: it is the purification of those who die in God’s grace.
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