The doctrine of hell is so frightening that numerous heretical sects end up denying the reality of an eternal hell. The Unitarian-Universalists, the Seventh-day Adventists, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Christadelphians, the Christian Scientists, the Religious Scientists, the New Agers, and the Mormons—all have rejected or modified the doctrine of hell so radically that it is no longer a serious threat. In recent decades, this decay has even invaded mainstream Evangelicalism, and a number of major Evangelical figures have advocated the view that there is no eternal hell—the wicked will simply be annihilated.
But the eternal nature of hell is stressed in the New Testament. For example, in Mark 9:46-47 Jesus warns us, “It is better for thee with one eye to enter into the kingdom of God, than having two eyes to be cast into the hell of fire: Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished.” And in Revelation 14:11, we read: “And the smoke of their torments shall ascend up for ever and ever: neither have they rest day nor night, who have adored the beast, and his image, and whoever receiveth the character of his name.”
Hell is not just a theoretical possibility. Jesus warns us that real people go there. He says, “Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!” (Matt. 7:13-14).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, ‘eternal fire.’ The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs” (CCC 1035).
In his 1994 book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope John Paul II wrote that too often “preachers, catechists, teachers … no longer have the courage to preach the threat of hell” (p. 183).
Concerning the reality of hell, the pope says, “In point of fact, the ancient councils rejected the theory … according to which the world would be regenerated after destruction, and every creature would be saved; a theory which abolished hell … [T]he words of Christ are unequivocal. In Matthew’s Gospel he speaks clearly of those who will go to eternal punishment (cf. Matt. 25:46). [But] who will these be? The Church has never made any pronouncement in this regard” (pp. 185-6).
Thus the issue that some will go to hell is decided, but the issue of who in particular will go to hell is undecided.
The early Church Fathers were also absolutely firm on the reality of an eternal hell, as the following quotes show.
“Corrupters of families will not inherit the
kingdom of God. And if they who do these things according
to the flesh suffer death, how much more if a man corrupt
by evil teaching the faith of God for the sake of which
Jesus Christ was crucified? A man become so foul will
depart into unquenchable fire: and so will anyone who
listens to him.”
—
Letter to the Ephesians 16:1-2, A.D. 110
“If we do the will of Christ, we shall obtain rest;
but if not, if we neglect his commandments, nothing will
rescue us from eternal punishment.”
—Second
Clement 5:5, A.D. 150
“But when they see how those who have sinned and
who have denied Jesus by their words or by their deeds
are punished with terrible torture in unquenchable fire,
the righteous, who have done good, and who have endured
tortures and have hated the luxuries of life, will give
glory to their God saying, ‘There shall be hope for
him that has served God with all his
heart!’”
—ibid., 17:7
“No more is it possible for the evildoer, the
avaricious, and the treacherous to hide from God than it
is for the virtuous. Every man will receive the eternal
punishment or reward which his actions deserve. Indeed,
if all men recognized this, no one would choose evil even
for a short time, knowing that he would incur the eternal
sentence of fire. On the contrary, he would take every
means to control himself and to adorn himself in virtue,
so that he might obtain the good gifts of God and escape
the punishments.”
—First
Apology 12, A.D. 151
“We have been taught that only they may aim at
immortality who have lived a holy and virtuous life near
to God. We believe that they who live wickedly and do not
repent will be punished in everlasting fire.”
—ibid., 21
“[Jesus] shall come from the heavens in glory with
his angelic host, when he shall raise the bodies of all
the men who ever lived. Then he will clothe the worthy in
immortality; but the wicked, clothed in eternal
sensibility, he will commit to the eternal fire, along
with the evil demons.”
—ibid., 52
“Fixing their minds on the grace of Christ, [the
martyrs] despised worldly tortures and purchased eternal
life with but a single hour. To them, the fire of their
cruel torturers was cold. They kept before their eyes
their escape from the eternal and unquenchable
fire.”
—Martyrdom
of Polycarp 2:3, A.D. 155
“When you know what is the true life, that of
heaven; when you despise the merely apparent death, which
is temporal; when you fear the death which is real, and
which is reserved for those who will be condemned to the
everlasting fire, the fire which will punish even to the
end those who are delivered to it, then you will condemn
the deceit and error of the world.”
—Letter
to Diognetus 10:7, A.D. 160
“[W]e [Christians] are persuaded that when we are
removed from this present life we shall live another
life, better than the present one … Then we shall
abide near God and with God, changeless and free from
suffering in the soul … or if we fall with the
rest [of mankind], a worse one and in fire; for God has
not made us as sheep or beasts of burden, a mere
incidental work, that we should perish and be
annihilated.”
—Plea
for the Christians 31, A.D. 177
“Give studious attention to the prophetic writings
[the Bible] and they will lead you on a clearer path to
escape the eternal punishments and to obtain the eternal
good things of God … [God] will examine everything
and will judge justly, granting recompense to each
according to merit. To those who seek immortality by the
patient exercise of good works, he will give everlasting
life, joy, peace, rest, and all good things … For
the unbelievers and for the contemptuous, and for those
who do not submit to the truth but assent to iniquity,
when they have been involved in adulteries, and
fornications, and homosexualities, and avarice, and in
lawless idolatries, there will be wrath and indignation,
tribulation and anguish; and in the end, such men as
these will be detained in everlasting fire.”
—To
Autolycus 1:14, A.D. 181
“[God will] send the spiritual forces of
wickedness, and the angels who transgressed and became
apostates, and the impious, unjust, lawless, and
b.asphemous among men into everlasting fire.”
—Against
Heresies 1:10:1, A.D. 189
“The penalty increases for those who do not believe
the Word of God and despise his coming… . [I]t is
not merely temporal, but eternal. To whomsoever the Lord
shall say, ‘Depart from me, accursed ones, into the
everlasting fire,’ they will be damned
forever.”
—ibid., 4:28:2
“After the present age is ended he will judge his
worshipers for a reward of eternal life and the godless
for a fire equally perpetual and unending.”
—Apology
18:3, A.D. 197
“Then will the entire race of men be restored to
receive its just deserts according to what it has merited
in this period of good and evil, and thereafter to have
these paid out in an immeasurable and unending eternity.
Then there will be neither death again nor resurrection
again, but we shall be always the same as we are now,
without changing. The worshipers of God shall always be
with God, clothed in the proper substance of eternity.
But the godless and those who have not turned wholly to
God will be punished in fire equally unending, and they
shall have from the very nature of this fire, divine as
it were, a supply of incorruptibility.”
—ibid., 44:12-13
“Standing before [Christ’s] judgment, all of
them, men, angels, and demons, crying out in one voice,
shall say: ‘Just is your judgment!’ And the
righteousness of that cry will be apparent in the
recompense made to each. To those who have done well,
everlasting enjoyment shall be given; while to the lovers
of evil shall be given eternal punishment. The
unquenchable and unending fire awaits these latter, and a
certain fiery worm which does not die and which does not
waste the body but continually bursts forth from the body
with unceasing pain. No sleep will give them rest; no
night will soothe them; no death will deliver them from
punishment; no appeal of interceding friends will profit
them.”
—Against
the Greeks 3, A.D. 212
“I am not ignorant of the fact that many, in the
consciousness of what they deserve, would rather hope
than actually believe that there is nothing for them
after death. They would prefer to be annihilated rather
than be restored for punishment… . Nor is there
either measure nor end to these torments. That clever
fire burns the limbs and restores them, wears them away
and yet sustains them, just as fiery thunderbolts strike
bodies but do not consume them.”
—Octavius
34:12-5:3, A.D. 226
“An ever-burning Gehenna and the punishment of
being devoured by living flames will consume the
condemned; nor will there be any way in which the
tormented can ever have respite or be at an end. Souls
along with their bodies will be preserved for suffering
in unlimited agonies… . The grief at punishment
will then be without the fruit of repentance; weeping
will be useless, and prayer ineffectual. Too late will
they believe in eternal punishment, who would not believe
in eternal life.”
—To
Demetrian 24, A.D. 252
“[T]he sacred writings inform us in what manner the
wicked are to undergo punishment. For because they have
committed sins in their bodies, they will again be
clothed with flesh, that they may make atonement in their
bodies; and yet it will not be that flesh with which God
clothed man, like this our earthly body, but
indestructible, and abiding forever, that it may be able
to hold out against tortures and everlasting fire, the
nature of which is different from this fire of ours,
which we use for the necessary purposes of life, and
which is extinguished unless it be sustained by the fuel
of some material. But that divine fire always lives by
itself, and flourishes without any nourishment… .
The same divine fire, therefore, with one and the same
force and power, will both burn the wicked and will form
them again, and will replace as much as it shall consume
of their bodies, and will supply itself with eternal
nourishment… . Thus, without any wasting of
bodies, which regain their substance, it will only burn
and affect them with a sense of pain. But when [God]
shall have judged the righteous, he will also try them
with fire.”
—Divine
Institutes 7:21, A.D. 307
“We shall be raised therefore, all with our bodies
eternal, but not all with bodies alike: for if a man is
righteous, he will receive a heavenly body, that he may
be able worthily to hold converse with angels; but if a
man is a sinner, he shall receive an eternal body, fitted
to endure the penalties of sins, that he may burn
eternally in fire, nor ever be consumed. And righteously
will God assign this portion to either company; for we do
nothing without the body. We b.aspheme with the mouth,
and with the mouth we pray. With the body we commit
fornication, and with the body we keep chastity. With the
hand we rob, and by the hand we bestow alms; and the rest
in like manner. Since then the body has been our minister
in all things, it shall also share with us in the future
the fruits of the past.”
—Catechetical
Lectures 18:19, A.D. 350
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