The Hell There Is!
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 9:47–48 Jesus warns us, "[I]t is better
for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to
be thrown into hell, where the worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched."
And in Revelation 14:11, we read: "And the smoke of their torment goes
up for ever 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."
Hell is not just a theoretical possibility. Jesus
warns us that real people go there. He says, "Enter by the narrow gate;
for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and
those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard,
that leads to life, and those who find it are few" (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.
Ignatius of Antioch
"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]).
Second Clement
"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).
Justin Martyr
"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).
The Martyrdom of Polycarp
"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]).
Mathetes
"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]).
Athenagoras
"[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]).
Theophilus of Antioch
"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]).
Irenaeus
"[God will] send the spiritual forces of wickedness,
and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, and the impious,
unjust, lawless, and blasphemous 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).
Tertullian
"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).
Hippolytus
"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]).
Minucius Felix
"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]).
Cyprian of Carthage
"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]).
Lactantius
"[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]).
Cyril of Jerusalem
"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 blaspheme 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]).
NIHIL OBSTAT:
I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR:
In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004
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