The subject of Hell is a subject that turns many people off to organized religion in today’s society. Consequently, the subject is too often ignored and/or glossed over by the preachers who do believe in Hell’s literal existence. It is such a horrible thought to think of anyone suffering for eternity in Hell, but the cold hard truth is that Hell is given more time in Scripture than heaven. Jesus speaks of it often, and He even gives detailed descriptions of its character and duration. Though not a popular topic, Hell is a fascinating one, and one that requires careful study. Respecting all that God’s Word reveals should be the task of all those who proclaim their love of God, and accepting Hell as part of God’s revelation is of utmost importance. There will be many people who spend eternity in Hell (Matthew 7), so a proper understanding of it can and should be a priority among Christians.

This paper will focus on three aspects of Hell: its description, its character, and its duration. All information comes straight from God’s revealed Word with careful attention to avoid opinion outside of the Bible. Regardless of one’s preconceived view of Hell, one should let Scripture teach him, and that is exactly what this essay seeks to do. Of course opinion always seeps in at times, but the purpose of this essay is to present the biblical doctrine of Hell.

Hell is described in at least five ways in the Bible. The first word used to describe Hell is the word "Sheol" in the Old Testament. Occurring 67 times in the NASB, the general idea is "the place of the dead." This term does not necessarily signify the grave but the place of those who have departed from this life. The word is used of both the righteous and the wicked, and it is in accordance with the general character of the Old Testament revelation, which is far less advanced in comparison to New Testament revelation with regard to both eternal punishment and life in heaven. The Hebrew Sheol is the equivalent for the Greek Hades (see below) and is likewise the subterranean abode of all the dead until the judgment. It was divided into two departments, paradise or Abraham's bosom for the good, and Gehenna or Hell for the bad.

A second description of Hell comes from the Greek word "Hades." This word means "unseen" and is translated in various ways in various translations (i.e., NASB and NIV translate "death," although KJV renders "Hell" [Matt 11:23; 16:18; Luke 10:15; 16:23; Acts 2:27,31; Rev 1:18; 6:8; 20:13-14; Hades is behind KJV "grave" in 1 Cor 15:55, but the true reading is thanatos, "death"]). Like the OT "Sheol," it is broad and is significantly similar. It refers to the underworld, or region of the departed, the intermediate state between death and the resurrection. The ancient Greek view of Hades is that of a place for all the dead in the depth of the earth; dark, dreary, cheerless, shut up, inaccessible to prayers and sacrifices, ruled over by Pluto. This presiding god was the enemy of all life, heartless, inexorable, and hated accordingly by gods and men. There is a distinction between "Hades" and "Hell," but both are safely interpreted as places of misery, outside of the presence of God. Jesus, using His words carefully, even associated judgment and suffering with the condition of some of the inhabitants of "Hades" (Matt 11:23-24; Luke 16:23-27).

Merrill F. Unger quotes concerning Hades, "It seems as if in the progress of God's dispensations a separation had come to be made between elements that originally were mingled together, so that Hades was henceforth appropriated, both in the name and in the reality, to those who were reserved in darkness and misery to the great day; and other names, with other and brighter ideas, were employed to designate the intermediate resting place of the redeemed. These latter pass immediately upon death into the presence of their Lord (John 14:2-3; Phil 1:23). Such being the nature of the scriptural representation on the subject, one must condemn the fables that sprung up amid the Dark Ages about the limbus, or antechamber of Hell, and the purgatorial fires, in which it was supposed even redeemed souls had to complete their ripening for glory."

In Luke 16:19-31, the story of the rich man and Lazarus clearly shows a difference in Hades after the ascension of Christ. Prior to this event it appears that Hades had two chambers: one for the wicked dead and one for the righteous dead. "Paradise" and "Abraham's bosom" were both terms common to the Jews and were seemingly adopted by Christ in Luke 16:22 and 23:43 to designate the condition of the righteous in the intermediate state. The righteous dead were "comforted" (16:25) with Abraham. The thief who died on the cross with Jesus was told by Jesus that on that very day he would be with Him in "Paradise." As evident in Luke 16:26 there is a great divide or "chasm" that separates the wicked dead from the righteous because it is the rich man who longs to be where Lazarus is due to his misery and Lazarus’ great comfort in the bosom of Abraham. The rich man, while in Hades, represents those who have not yet been judged for their evil deeds and rejection of the God of Israel. In Revelation 20:13-14 it is clear that at the Great White Throne judgment Hades will surrender the wicked, and they will be cast into the Lake of Fire (discussed below).

With regard to those in Paradise, the righteous dead, the ascension of Jesus Christ has evidently worked a drastic change. The apostle Paul speaks of a great vision in 2 Corinthians 12:1-4 when he was "caught up to the third heaven . . . into Paradise" denoting the very real presence of God. "When Christ ‘ascended on high’ He ‘led captive a host of captives’ (Eph 4:8-10), and since it is immediately added that He ‘descended into the lower parts of the earth,’ evidently the paradise division of Hades, He set free the saved spirit denizens of the underworld. Thus during the present church age, the redeemed who die are ‘absent from the body . . . at home with the Lord.’ The wicked, by contrast, are in Hades. Both are awaiting resurrection: one the resurrection to life and the other the resurrection to condemnation."

A third description of Hell is the use of the word "Gehenna." The word occurs 12 times in the NT, and in every case it is properly translated "Hell," denoting the eternal state of the lost after resurrection. That is, the meaning of the English word is particularly the meaning of Gehenna (Matt 5:22,29-30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15,33; Mark 9:43,45,47; Luke 12:5; James 3:6). Also known as the "Valley of Hinnom" or the "Valley of the sons of Hinnom" (2 Kings 23:10; Jer 7:31; 19:2-6), it was a place where apostate Jews would celebrate and sacrifice to the pagan god Molech (1 Kings 11:7). Under King Josiah this valley became a place of abomination, where the dead bodies of those people whose families could not afford proper burial were thrown and burned (2 Kings 23:13-14). This place became the representative or image of the place of everlasting punishment, especially on account of its ever-burning fires; and to this fact the words of Christ refer when He mentions "the unquenchable fire." As a matter of fact, fires burned there almost constantly to keep the stench from becoming too strong. It was because of this that the place began to be used as a symbol of all that was evil and wretched. The name was appropriated to designate the abode of lost spirits, and it is in this way that Jesus used the term. Jesus uses this term in His greatest warnings of the consequences of sin and describes Gehenna as a place "where their worm never dies and their fire is never quenched."

There is a true and important distinction between Hades (the intermediate state) and Gehenna (eternal Hell), first to understand a great number of NT passages. Second, it is important because Christ’s teaching when utilizing this word deals with an eternal state of the wicked following His "Christ's descent into Hell" (Hades) in Ephesians 4:9-10 and that of the intermediate state. Simply put, Jesus uses this word as distinct from Hades and teaches that those in Hades before His death are now in Gehenna after his resurrection.

Scripture Synonyms. The Bible doctrine of Hell is by no means confined to the terms above mentioned and to the passages in which they appear. There are many phrases in which the overshadowing idea is presented with great distinctness, such as "unquenchable fire," "black darkness," "furnace of fire," "fire and brimstone," "the smoke of their torment," "the lake of fire which burns with brimstone," "where their worm does not die," "the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels." Van Oosterzee does well to remark: "There is no doubt that Holy Scripture requires us to believe in a properly so-called place of punishment, in whatever part of God's boundless creation it is to be sought. That the different images under which it is represented cannot possibly be taken literally will certainly need no demonstration; but it is perhaps not unnecessary to warn against the opinion that we have to do here with mere imagery. Who shall say that the reality will not infinitely surpass in awfulness the boldest pictures of it?"

(From The New Unger's Bible Dictionary. Originally published by Moody Press of Chicago, Illinois. Copyright (c) 1988.)

A fourth description of Hell is found in 2 Peter 2:4 with the use of the Greek word tartaroosas from tartaros ("Cast them down to Hell"). As Vincent has said, "It is strange to find Peter using this pagan term, which represents the Greek Hell, though treated here not as equivalent to ‘Gehenna,’ but as the place of detention until the judgment." This is a somewhat late word found only here in the Bible meaning the "dark and doleful abode of the wicked dead." Like "Gehenna" used by Jews, "tartaros" occurs in Enoch 20:2 as the place of punishment of the fallen angels, while Gehenna is for apostate Jews.

A fifth description of Hell is the Lake of Fire. It is used five times, all in Revelation. Found in Revelation chapters 19-21, it is the "lake that burns with fire and brimstone." The "lake of fire" can be called "the second death" only with reference to the lost among men, not with reference to death and Hades. That the "second death" ("lake of fire" or Gehenna) is not annihilation is shown clearly by Rev 19:20 and 20:10. After 1,000 years in the lake of fire the Beast and false prophet still exist there undestroyed. The phrase "forever and ever" ("to the ages of the ages"), describing the destiny of the lost in Heb 1:8, also applies to the duration of the throne of God as eternal in the sense of being unending. Thus is represented the punishment of the wicked.

Gehenna is identical in meaning with the "lake of fire" (Rev 19:20; 20:10,14-15), and the "second death" and "the lake of fire" are identical terms (20:14). These expressions which are clearly late words in the history of progressive revelation describe the eternal state of the wicked as being forever separated from God and consigned to the special abode of unrepentant angels and people in the eternal state. The term second is employed relating to the preceding physical death of the wicked in unbelief and rejection of God (John 8:21-24). The beast (Rev 19:20), false prophet (19:20; 20:10), the devil (20:10), and the rest of the wicked (20:15; 21:8), are thrown into the lake of fire when their days come to an end. Death and Hades are also cast there.

The Scriptural source for the conception of "the lake of fire" lies in Genesis 19:24 in the account of Sodom and Gomorrah, where already the fire and the brimstone occur together, while the locality of the catastrophe described is the neighborhood of the Dead Sea. The association of the Dead Sea with this fearful judgment of God, together with the desolate appearance of the place, rendered it a striking figure for the scene of eschatological retribution. The two other Old Testament passages which have "fire and brimstone" (Ps 11:6; Ezekiel 38:22) are dependent on the Genesis passage, with which they have the figure of "raining" in common. In Rev 21:8, "their part" seems to allude to Ps 11:6, "the portion of their cup."

A sixth description of Hell is the Bottomless Pit or the Abyss. It is used nine times, and it refers to the lower regions and the abode of demons where they can be loosed as opposed to Tartarus in 2 Peter where they are bound. Originally, this term represented a deep mass of waters, and was associated with the water which God created with the earth. Darkness is said to have been on the face of the deep or abyss (Genesis 1:2). Used in various ways throughout the Bible, it describes the prison of disobedient spirits, or the world of the dead (Luke 8:31; Romans 10:7). Terms like "the pit" and "bottomless pit" represent the abode of all the wicked dead.

The character of Hell is described in five different ways. First, it is called "outer darkness" on three separate occasions in the Bible. In each occurrence outer darkness is separation from God in the sense that those in outer darkness have no access to Him. Second, the "place of torment" is a word used in Luke 16:23, 28 describing Hades, the place of the wicked dead prior to judgment. The word "torment" means "pain, anguish" (Matt 4:24), particularly the pain inflicted by the ancients in order to induce people to make confession of their crimes. These "torments" or tortures were the keenest that they could inflict, such as the rack, or scourging, or burning; and the use of the word here denotes that the sufferings of the wicked can be represented only by the most extreme forms of human suffering. Third, Hell’s character is seen as punishment without end (eternal/everlasting) as in Matthew 25:46. Finally, Hell’s character is that of destruction, which is the loss of well-being, not of being itself as in 2 Thes. 1:9.

The duration of Hell has been well-debated by many evangelicals. Many suppose that God is too righteous to allow suffering for eternity, but no matter how difficult it is for the human mind to resolve, God is eternally just. The Bible clearly teaches that the duration of Hell has not end. Matthew 18:8; 25:46; and 2 Thes. 1:9 all teach that Hell is "everlasting." In Matthew 25:41-46

Eternal punishment and eternal life both employ the same adjective (Greek, aionios). Any attempt to reduce the punishment by restricting eternal reduces the bliss of the righteous by the same amount. While eternal may imply a qualitative as well as a quantitative concept, the aspect of unending duration cannot be dissociated from the word. It was the regular word for the concept of "eternal," as lexicons attest. Eternal punishment is mentioned in such passages as Matt 18:8; 2 Thess 1:9; Jude 13; et al. Thus at the beginning of the Millennium, a judgment is held, and the wicked are removed, so that only regenerated persons will enter the Millennial kingdom (cf. John 3:3).

The various Greek words used to describe Hell’s duration are as follows: aioµ�nios. An adjective meaning "eternal," and found in the LXX in Psalms 24; 77:5; Genesis 21:33, aioµ�nios in the NT is used 1. of God (Romans 16:26), 2. of divine possessions and gifts (2 Cor. 4:18; Heb. 9:14; 1 Pet. 5:10; 1 Tim. 6:16; 2 Th. 2:16, and 3. of the eternal kingdom (2 Pet. 1:11), inheritance (Heb. 9:15), body (2 Cor. 5:1), and even judgment (Heb. 6:2, though cf. Mt. 18:8; 2 Th. 1:9, where the sense is perhaps "unceasing"). For a more temporal use, see Romans 16:25; Philemon 15. A second Greek term used to describe Hell’s duration is aéŒdios as "everlasting" or "eternal." This was common in Aristotle and important to Philo (for God). Romans 1:20 recalls Philo (and Stoicism) when speaking of God’s "eternal" power. Jude 6 ("eternal chains") is the only other instance in the NT. Josephus has the same word for John’s imprisonment "for life" (The Jewish War 6.434). A third term used is aijwvn. This is used of a time to come which, if it has no end, is also known as eternity. Though the Greek words vary in their description of Hell’s duration, they are synonymous, each signifying time without end.

The doctrine of Hell is a difficult doctrine. Fortunately, the Bible, as has been seen, deals with it straight on. The road that leads there is broad, but praise be to God that He has set apart a people for Himself that He might save some. Hell is the place that all humans should be in view of our wretchedness. It is fair that we all go there, but God, by His mercy and grace, has forgiven us through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The regenerate, through a thankful heart over their salvation, must spend their lives doing everything God has equipped them to do evangelistically, to keep people out of this terrible and horrid place. What a God we serve!