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Some Questions About Hell

by James Barringer  
4/14/2010 / Christian Apologetics

Most people would consider the idea of heaven and hell to be central among Christian doctrines. Hell is usually described as being a place of eternal, conscious torment, but I want to question this idea. Before anyone goes protesting that I'm deviating from the Bible, I would like to point out that I'm going to be relying very heavily on the Bible during this essay, and if anyone suggests that the Bible's only teaching about hell is of a place of eternal conscious torment, it is actually that person who deviates from the Bible.

The title of this article promises some questions about hell - not necessarily answers, but merely questions, whose answers may or may not even be given to us in the Bible.

1. Why does the Bible describe hell in several different (and, seemingly, mutually-exclusive) ways? First, it is described (as is usually emphasized) as a place of torment. Luke 16, Jesus' story about Lazarus and the rich young man, is the quintessential example of this. However, Jesus also refers to hell as a place of destruction: "Fear the one who can destroy both the body and the soul in hell" (Matthew 10). Something that is destroyed, obviously, stops existing. As if we're not confused enough, 2 Peter 2 refers to hell not even as an eternal destination, but as a mere holding pen where fallen angels are held for the real judgment. So which is it - a holding pen, a place of eternal torment, or a place of destruction?

2. Is hell a literal, physical place - and if so, what kind of physical bodies will the people there have? See, before what we call "eternity" begins, God is going to destroy the heavens and earth (2 Thessalonians 4, 2 Peter 3). This will also involve the destruction of all human bodies. Christians have no problem here, because we believe that we will be given "resurrection bodies," glorified bodies, described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. But what kind of bodies will the people in hell have? God cannot give them glorified bodies because one of the hallmarks of the glorified body is that it is "incorruptible" (1 Corinthians 15). Will he re-create their fallen human bodies? Can he, in fact, create something that is imperfect and broken, something that by its very nature is not "good"? If hell is a literal, physical place, then we must ask what kind of physical bodies the people who inhabit it will have.

3. Why would God intentionally re-create the perfect new heaven and new earth with the taint of corruption? Simply by allowing hell - be it a lake of fire or otherwise - to exist in his new creation, God is allowing sin to persist. Sin, then, is eternal, lasting as long as the torment of sinners. There is nothing in the Bible which explicitly states that this should not be the case, but it seems mighty strange of God, who has labored so long and paid so high a price to defeat sin and death for all time, to go out of his way to create a place where they may eternally continue existing.

4. What, then, of "death"? Paul says that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), which we usually twist to mean "eternal death in hell." Yet if hell is a place of conscious torment, then a person would have to be alive (in order to be conscious) and dead at the same time. Is such a thing even possible? Have we constructed a definition of hell that is pure nonsense by requiring that the people in it be alive while simultaneously referring to it as eternal death? Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, "The last enemy to be destroyed is death." So if death is destroyed, how can it be eternal?

5. What do we make of Revelation 21-22, which refers to people who are not in "heaven" (the new Jerusalem) but not in hell either? Revelation 21 mentions the "lake of burning sulfur, which is the second death," the destination of certain sinners. Yet Revelation 22 says, "Outside the city" - which is to say, not in the lake of fire - are other sinners. How are we to interpret this? Are they in "hell," whatever that means, or are they on the new earth? In the space of two chapters, John says two totally opposite things about their eternal destination. He also says a third thing, that they are completely annihilated: Revelation 20 refers to the devil and his followers, when "fire came down from heaven and devoured them all," and the devil is the only one who is thrown into the lake of fire. The others are completely (one can only assume eternally) annihilated. So in three chapters, you see John teaching annihilationism, eternal conscious torment, and eternity outside the holy city but also outside the lake of fire. This is why I say the Bible can't seem to make up its mind about the place.


These questions do not mean that I reject the doctrine of hell, and especially not that I believe God grants mercy and salvation to everyone, including those who do not desire it. There is only one way to be saved and escape hell, whatever hell might be, and that is to have saving faith in Jesus Christ as the one who paid for our sins on the cross and was raised again on the third day. However, I think that the "orthodox" doctrine of hell has been extremely selective in picking and choosing the parts of the Bible that seem to refer to conscious torment while ignoring everything else that the Bible says about the place.

All of this is almost beside the point, as the one thing we can all agree about hell is that, given a choice in the matter, none of us should want to go there. It matters very little if it is a place of physical torment, or merely the aloneness of a disembodied soul with no connection to God or other souls, or final and ultimate annihilation. We know all we need to know: that the place is unpleasant - so much so that the Bible has not even been able to fully articulate how - but that it can be quite easily escaped through salvation in Christ.

I hope that these questions have prompted us to think deeper about the whole counsel of Scripture on this matter, and I would welcome the input of anyone who has answers or attempts at answers to any of the questions I've raised.

Jim Barringer is a 38-year-old writer, musician, and teacher. More of his work can be found at facebook.com/jmbarringer. This work may be reprinted for any purpose so long as this bio and statement of copyright is included.

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