The most feared doctrine within Christianity is that of hell. It is a doctrine that poses many questions and criticisms from unbelievers. It is frequently ignored by seeker-sensitive, feel good preachers who don’t want to speak of anything negative. Not only that but it is eliminated completely by many cults that claim to be Bible based. In examining hell, we must recognize that Christ spoke more about this place of damnation than he did about heaven. In fact, Jesus refers to hell in the Bible more than the prophets and apostles do. My conclusion from this is that God has ordered things in such a way that if you are going to disregard this doctrine then you are disregarding the teachings of Jesus himself and denying His truth and authority. God used the ultimate authority of the Bible to send the message of this dreadful place. It is also fitting as we can learn best from Jesus how to speak of this sober reality with the blend of grace and truth that it requires (Jn. 1:14; Eph. 4:15).

The Purpose of Hell

Hell was not created for man but for the devil and his angels (Mt. 25:41). This probably coincides with the order of rebellion, since the fall of Lucifer and the others had taken place prior to the fall of man (Gen. 3:1). To understand why God created hell is to understand His holiness and justice. God cannot look on sin (Hab. 1:3) because He is so holy. Sin is rebellion against God alone (Ps. 51:4) and essentially is a way of man saying that His own desires and will is more important than God’s. Sin is so evil in the sight of a holy righteous God that it is deserving of this punishment. Part of the difficulty that humans have with this is that we see ourselves as clean (Pro. 16:2) and don’t understand that this is our hearts deceiving us (Jer. 17:9). We tend to compare ourselves with others when, what we need to understand is, that in the light of the holiness of God, even our righteousnesses are as filthy rags (Isa. 64:6). Therefore, in his justice, God created this place for the payment of sins against Him (Rom. 6:23). It is the justice of God that requires it, yet it is the love and mercy of God that provided a way of escape. God takes no pleasure is seeing people die in their sins (Eze. 33:11; 2 Pet. 3:9).

The Description of Hell

We get vivid, specific descriptions of hell in the Bible. We see that hell is a place of constant torment (Lk. 16:23-28; Rev. 14:10-11; Rev. 20:10), a place of fire (Mk. 9:43-49; Jam. 3:6; Rev. 21:8) and a place of remorse and regret (Lk. 16:25-28). It is a place of unfulfilled prayer and desires (Lk. 16:24-27), a place of thirst (Lk. 16:24), a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 8:12; 13:50) and a place of darkness (Matt. 22:13). It is a place of separation from God (2 Thes. 1:9) where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched (Mar. 9:44,46,48). More than anything is the understanding that hell is the divine wrath of God (Rev. 14:10) for all of eternity (Dan. 12:2; Matt. 25:46; Rev. 14:11).

The Occupancy of Hell

Scripture shows that there are only two eternal destinations, God’s kingdom (heaven) and hell. God makes it very clear that all sinners that die in their sin will not enter into the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9-10). Instead, they will have their part in the lake of fire (Rev. 21:8). Again we see that the wicked (Ps. 9:17) will face everlasting damnation. It comes down to those who have or have not received the forgiveness of sin through Jesus Christ (Jn.3:36). All those who have rejected Christ will have to pay for their own sin. They will not have their name in the Lamb’s book of life and will be forever condemned (Rev. 20:15) to this judgement. The other occupants of hell are those to whom hell was created for, Satan and his angels (Matt. 25:41; 2 Pet. 2:4), as well as the beast and the false prophet (Rev. 20:10).

The Location of Hell

Currently we can see that hell resides in the center of the earth. It is referred to as being down (Isa. 14:9; Eze. 32:27, Num. 16:30-33), that it could be dug into (Amos 9:2), and that it is in the heart of the earth (Matt. 12:40; Ps. 16:10) where Christ Himself went before His resurrection. Hell is a place that is limitless in space and enlarges when need be (Isa. 5:14; Prov. 27:20). Ultimately, death and hell will be cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14).

The doctrine of hell should be one of the most motivating factors in reaching this lost world for Jesus Christ. Primarily, it should be for the glory of God and out of obedience and gratefulness that we win souls but the sobering reality of eternal fire and torment in hell is another good reason to pull some out of the fire (Jude 1:23).