The Eternality Of Hell

The Rev. Canon Mark E. Rudolph

Her smoke rises up forever and ever. (Revelation 19:3)

Abstract
“Is the punishment of the wicked eternal?” This is a common ques-
tion. Furthermore, the answers to questions about hell’s eternality1 contain
weighty implications about the nature of God. Largely leaning on Charles
Hodges’s Systematic Theology, together with the use of some computer-based
language tools, this paper demonstrates that the place or condition of eternal
punishment is a biblical fact.

Contents
1 Background Information 1
1.1 The Boundaries of Our Wisdom and Ability to Understand God . 1
1.2 What Is Hell? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2.1 Sheol and Hades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.2 Gehenna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Five Views of Gehenna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2 Deriving the Answer 5

2.1 Brief Word Study in Revelation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1.1 Gahenna, the Lake of Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1.2 How Long Is Forever? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2 Answers to Two Common and Challenging Objections . . . . . . 7
2.2.1 The Justice of God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2.2 The Goodness of God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

1 Background Information
1.1 The Boundaries of Our Wisdom and Ability to Understand
God
“It is obvious that this is a question which can be decided only by
divine revelation. No one can reasonably presume to decide how long
1 Or “eternalness”; the words are interchangeable.

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 the wicked are to suffer for their sins upon any general principles of
right and wrong. The conditions of the problem are not within our
grasp. What the infinitely wise and good God may see fit to do with
his creatures; or what the exigencies of a government embracing
the whole universe and continuing throughout eternal ages, may
demand, it is not for such worms of the dust as we are, to determine.
If we believe the Bible to be the Word of God, all we have to do is to
ascertain what it teaches on this subject, and humbly submit.”2

1.2 What Is Hell?

There are three words in view in this paper: the Old Testament Hebrew sheol
and the New Testament Greek hades and gehenna. We need to clear up what
each word means. However, the imprecision of English translations — or perhaps
a lack of agreement about how best to translate certain words — can create
problems.
The first problem is that various versions use different English words to
translate the Hebrew and Greek words. The following table compares various
translations of sheol (in Genesis 37:35), gehenna (in Matthew 5:22), and hades
(in Matthew 11:23).
Version Sheol Gehenna Hades
American Standard sheol hell hades
English Standard sheol hell hades
Geneva Bible grave hell hell
King James grave hell hell
Living Bible I will die hell hell
New American Standard sheol hell hades
New International grave hell hades
Revised Standard sheol hell hades

Even more confusingly, sometimes a particular version itself does not translate
the words the same way each time. Allow one example. Given that hades is used
10 times in the Greek New Testament:
• the English Standard Version uses hades 9 times and hell 1 time,
• the New American Standard uses hades all 10 times and the King James
Version uses hell all 10 times, and,
• the New International Version uses hades 8 times and “the realm of the
dead” 2 times.
We would find similar differences if we compared translations for sheol and
gehenna.
2 Hodge, Charles. Systematic Theology. Book III, Part IV, Chapter IV (“The Concomitants Of The

Second Advent”), §6 (“Future Punishment”), Subsection 5 (“The Duration of Future Punishment”).

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 Contrary to the lack of clarity in English, both the Old and New Testament
languages make quite a clear distinction between:
• the generic state, condition, or place of death using the words sheol and
hades, and,
• the specific place, state, or condition of punishment using the word
gehenna.

1.2.1 Sheol and Hades

Sheol: Here are some examples of the use of the word sheol.
• It’s the place to which Jacob expects to go in the case that Benjamin is
killed (Genesis 42:38).
• It can be where the wicked go (Numbers 16:30–33, Psalm 9:17).
• It is considered the lowest place of creation (Job 11:8, Psalm 139:8).
• It is the undifferentiated place of death, that is, no distinction is made
between the fate of the wicked and righteous (Psalm 6:5, 16:10).
• It is used as an equivalent word for death in Hosea 13:14, cited in 1
Corinthians 15:55.3

Hades: Hades is consistently used as the Greek translation of the Hebrew word
sheol in the Septuagint4 — for example, Acts 2:27, quoting from Psalm 16:10.5
For other uses of the word hades, see the following.
• Of a city being cast down, rather than exalted (Matthew 11:23)
• Of those powers that oppose the church (Matthew 16.18)
• The place where both the wealthy man and poor Lazarus reside, though
separated by a wide gulf (Luke 16:23)
• Apparently equated poetically with death (Revelation 1:18, analogous to 1
Corinthians 15:55? See also Revelation 6:8.)
• See especially Revelation 20:13–14, in which death and hades are thrown
into the lake of fire, demonstrating that hades cannot be a final judgment,
since it is itself somehow judged.
Some of the above uses are equivocal, though always referring to death. However,
it is impossible to find an equivocal use for the word gehenna.
3 “ODeath, where are your thorns? O Sheol, where is your sting?” (Hosea 13:14)
“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55)
4 The Septuagint (LXX) is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. See
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint.
5 “For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol . . . ” (Psalm 16:10)

“For you will not abandon my soul to Hades . . . ” (Acts 2:27)

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1.2.2 Gehenna

The following is a complete list of all the uses of this Greek word in the New
Testament. I have divided them by the conditions to which the text refers.

• A place of fire: Matthew 5:22, 29–30; 18:9; James 3:6

• A place of unquenchable fire: Mark 9:43–47

• A place where both body and soul are ruined: Matthew 10:28 (see also
Luke 12:5)

• A place to which the hypocritical Pharisees are consigned: Matthew 23:15,

33

Thayer’s Greek-English lexicon gives some useful details about the word gehenna.

• The word is derived from the Chaldean/Aramaic (a language related to

Hebrew) word gĕhinām, meaning “lamentation”.

• The word is carried over into Hebrew (gê hinnom) referring to the Valley
of Hinnom.6

• It is in the Valley of Hinnom that people worshipped Moloch, an idol in the

form of a bull and heated to very high temperatures with internal fires, by
throwing their children into the fire as a sacrifice.7

• “Gehenna, the name of a valley . . . was so called from the cries of the
little children who were thrown into the fiery arms of Moloch. The Jews
so abhorred the place after these horrible sacrifices had been abolished by
king Josiah (2 Kings 23:10), that they cast into it not only all manner of
refuse, but even the dead bodies of animals and of unburied criminals who
had been executed. And since fires were always needed to consume the
dead bodies, that the air might not become tainted by the putrefaction, it
came to pass that the place was called . . . ‘gehenna of fire’].”8

Whereas the words sheol and hades can be understood equivocally, gehenna
unequivocally refers to the place, state, or condition of those who have died
without Christ’s atonement. It is, in a sense, the terrible garbage pit, the landfill
that is the final repository for all that is unholy, filthy, and horrible.
Henceforth in this paper, I will be using gehenna when referring to that state
or place.
6 SeeNehemiah 11:30, for example.
7 See2 Chronicles 28:3 and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch.
8 Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, entry #1067, γέεννα. See the phrase

“gehenna of fire” in Matthew 5:22.

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1.3 Five Views of Gehenna
Hodge enumerates five views of gehenna.9

Restorationism: Since Jesus died for all, all will be saved. Gehenna therefore
serves as a kind of reformatory, a place of reformation.

Hypotheticalism: The punishment of the wicked will continue forever, for those
who continue to rebel forever. However, since humans are capable of
reformation, then perhaps even the most obstreperous of sinners could
reform. That is, hypothetically, some, many, or even all of the wicked could
be saved after death.10

Relativism: In this case, the “punishment” of the wicked is that one’s relative
station in eternity is dependent on one’s goodness. Heaven and gehenna
are conditions of eternity, with the condition of the wicked being relatively
inferior to those who are righteous. This is akin to the Mormon/Latter Day
Saints view of the terrestrial, celestial, and telestial kingdoms.11

Annihilationism: “Life promised to the righteous is immortality . . . the death

threatened against the wicked is the extinction of life, or, the cessation
of conscious existence. The soul will die in the future world, just as the
body dies here. It ceases to act; it ceases to feel; it ceases to be. This
death of the soul is called eternal, because life is never to be restored.”
Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses are two sects that adhere
to annihilationism. Also, among evangelicals, John Stott notably argued
that annihilationism could legitimately be held as an alternative to the more
traditional interpretation of the relevant texts, as did Philip Edgecumbe
Hughes.12

Orthodoxy: “The common doctrine is, that the conscious existence of the soul
after the death of the body is unending; that there is no repentance or ref-
ormation in the future world; that those who depart this life unreconciled
to God, remain forever in this state of alienation, and therefore are forever
sinful and miserable. This is the doctrine of the whole Christian Church, of
the Greeks, of the Latins, and of all the great historical Protestant bodies.”

2 Deriving the Answer

It will be helpful for the reader to remember that the text which was partially
responsible for starting this discussion is Revelation 19:3, “her smoke rises up
forever and ever”, in reference to the destruction of the prostitute and her city,
9 Hodge, ibid.
10 “Hypotheticalism”is my term and not a classical theological term of art.
11 See www.lds.org/topics/kingdoms-of-glory?lang=eng.
12 See www.the-highway.com/annihilationism_Packer.html.

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Babylon, in chapter 18. I suggested that some say that this is poetic hyperbole —
an overstatement, as it were — because with the coming of the new heaven
and the new earth, “former things [will] have passed away”,13 including the
destroyed Babylon.
The question was then asked, “if ‘forever and ever’ is hyperbole in 19:3, what
about those who ‘will be tormented day and night forever and ever’ ”?14 Hoist
with my own petard!15
Here’s what I’ve covered so far, and why.

1. I’ve shown that we are talking about a specific concept, gehenna, because
it’s important to discern if the Bible really talks about a place of punishment
that is distinctly for those who reject the mercy of the Father in the work
of the Son.

2. I’ve listed varying views about gehenna, including the most widely accepted
orthodox view that gehenna is the place of eternal punishment for the
unrepentant unbeliever.

3. Now I must demonstrate that gehenna really is eternal.

2.1 Brief Word Study in Revelation

2.1.1 Gahenna, the Lake of Fire

Because we are studying Revelation, I decided to try to derive the “proof” for the
eternality of gehenna solely from Revelation. Unfortunately, the word gehenna
never appears in Revelation.
However, there is a place that matches gehenna’s characteristics, the “lake
of fire”. This “lake of fire” is the final repository of the beast, the false prophet,
the devil, death, hades, anyone whose name is not written in the book of life,
together with “the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, . . . murderers, the
sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars.” “The portion” of all of these
enemies of God and his people “will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur,
which is the second death”, where their torment continues “day and night forever
and ever”.
In short, the “lake of fire” is what the Bible elsewhere calls gehenna.16

13 Revelation 21:3.
14 Revelation 20:10.
15 To be “hoist with (or ‘by’) one’s own petard” is to have one’s own plans or efforts backfire on

one. A petard is “a small bomb made of a metal or wooden box filled with powder, used to blast
down a door or to make a hole in a wall”. Amusingly, “petard” is from the French péter, meaning “to
break wind”. The lesson here is that one should not talk about a commentator’s speculations too
glibly, lest another’s speculations raise questions one is not prepared to handle!
16 Revelation 19:20, 20:10, and most importantly, 20:14–15 and 21:8. If you need to refresh your

memory about gehenna, turn back to the discussion of this word on page 4.

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2.1.2 How Long Is Forever?

The question is now this: what does “day and night forever and ever”17 mean?
Fortunately, understanding the phrase “forever (and ever)” is a much easier task
that understanding the differences between sheol/hades and gehenna.
At the heart of the phrase “forever (and ever)” is the Greek aiōn, meaning “an
age, eternity, perpetuity, world (as the container of all things), without beginning
or end”. It’s the origin of the English “eon”. The following list comprises all the
uses of the word in all its forms (all nouns but one adjective) in the Revelation,
divided by application, referring to aspects of the character and nature of the:

• Aspects of the character and nature (dominion, power, glory, praise, life,
etc.) of the

– Son: 1:6, 18
– Father: 4:9, 10; 7:12; 15:7
– Father and the Son: 5:13; 10:6; 11:15
– Children of God: 22:5

• The final estate of the devil and his servants: 14:11, 19:3; 20:10

Hades, used only four times in Revelation, is always used in the phrase “death
and hades”, appearing to make them synonyms.18 It is starkly clear that the
exact same terms are used concerning matters:

• which we hope and believe are eternal (God’s nature and character, the
final estate of the believer), and,

• those things that may be repugnant to believe are eternal (the final estate
of the devil and his servants).

But whatever our minds may hesitate to believe, or hearts may shrink from
believing, the language of the Revelation demands a clear conclusion: gehenna
is exactly as durable and timeless — eternal! — as God’s own being and the final
estate of his children.

2.2 Answers to Two Common and Challenging Objections

In response to the most common and — quite honestly — most challenging objec-
tions to the eternality of gehenna, I am citing from Hodge’s Systematic Theology.
I recognize that the citations are extensive, but I could not accurately summarize
Hodge’s weighty responses in fewer words. They are worth your reading.
17 Revelation 20:10.
18 Revelation 1:18; 6:8; 20:13–14.

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2.2.1 The Justice of God

The first challenge is to argue from the justice of God: “how can a truly just God
inflict an infinite penalty on such creatures as humans?”

“It is urged that it cannot be consistent with the justice of God to

inflict a really infinite penalty on such a creature as man. It is very
obvious to remark on this subject: —
1. That we are incompetent judges of the penalty which sin
deserves. We have no adequate apprehension of its inherent guilt,
of the dignity of the person against whom it is committed, or of the
extent of the evil which it is suited to produce. The proper end of
punishment is retribution and prevention. What is necessary for that
end, God only knows; and, therefore, the penalty which He imposes
on sin is the only just measure of its ill desert.
2. If it be inconsistent with the justice of God that men should
perish for their sins, then redemption is not a matter of grace, or
undeserved mercy. Deliverance from an unjust penalty, is a matter of
justice. Nothing, however, is plainer from the teaching of Scripture,
and nothing is more universally and joyfully acknowledged by all
Christians, than that the whole plan of redemption, the mission, the
incarnation, and the sufferings and death of the Son of God for the
salvation of sinners, is a wonderful exhibition of the love of God
which passes knowledge. But if justice demand that all men should
be saved, then salvation is a matter of justice; and then all the songs
of gratitude and praise from the redeemed, whether in heaven or on
earth, must at once cease.
3. It is often said that sin is an infinite evil because committed
against a person of infinite dignity, and therefore deserves an infinite
penalty. To this it is answered, that as sin is an act or state of a finite
subject, it must of necessity be itself finite. Men are apt to involve
themselves in contradictions when they attempt to reason about the
infinite. The word is so vague and so comprehensive, and our ideas
of what it is intended to express are so inadequate, that we are soon
lost when we seek to make it a guide in forming our judgments. If
the evil of a single sin, and that the smallest, lasts forever, it is in one
sense an infinite evil, although in comparison with other sins, or with
the whole mass of sin ever committed, it may appear a mere trifle.
The guilt of sin is infinite in the sense that we can set no limits to its
turpitude or to the evil which it is adapted to produce.
4. Relief on this subject is sought from the consideration that as
the lost continue to sin forever they may justly be punished forever.
To this, however, it is answered that the retributions of eternity are
threatened for the sins done in the body. This is true; nevertheless; it
is also true, first, that sin in its nature is alienation and separation
from God; and as God is the source of all holiness and happiness,

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 separation from Him is of necessity the forfeiture of all good; sec-
ondly, that this separation is from its nature final and consequently
involves endless sinfulness and misery. It is thus final, unless on the
assumption of the undeserved and supernatural intervention of God
as in the case of the redemption of man; and thirdly, it is also true that
from the nature of the case “the carnal mind is death.” Degradation
and misery are inseparably connected with sin. As long as rational
creatures are sinful, they must be degraded and miserable. There is
no law of nature more immutable than this. If men do not expect God
to reverse the laws of nature to secure their exemption from wanton
transgression of those laws, why should they expect Him to reverse
the still more immutable laws of our moral constitution and of his
moral government? The doom of the fallen angels teaches us that
one act of rebellion against God is fatal, whether we say that all they
have suffered since, and all they are to suffer forever, is the penalty
of that one act, or the inevitable consequence of the condition into
which that one act brought them, makes no difference.”19

2.2.2 The Goodness of God

The second argument is from the goodness of God, “how could we call any God
‘good’ who inflicts an infinite penalty on his creatures?” Hodge replies.

“A still more formidable objection is drawn from the goodness of

God. It is said to be inconsistent with his benevolence that He should
allow any of his creatures to be forever miserable. The answer to this
is: —
1. That it is just as impossible that God should do a little wrong
as a great one. If He has permitted such a vast amount of sin and
misery to exist in the world, from the fall of Adam to the present
time, how can we say that it is inconsistent with his goodness, to
allow them to continue to exist? How do we know that the reasons,
so to speak, which constrained God to allow his children to be sinful
and miserable for thousands of years, may not constrain Him to
permit some of them to remain miserable forever? If the highest
glory of God and the good of the universe have been promoted by
the past sinfulness and misery of men, why may not those objects be
promoted by what is declared to be future?
2. We have reason to believe, as urged in the first volume of
this work, and as often urged elsewhere, that the number of the
finally lost in comparison with the whole number of the saved will
be very inconsiderable. Our blessed Lord, when surrounded by the
innumerable company of the redeemed, will be hailed as the . . . the
Savior of Men, as the Lamb that bore the sins of the world.
19 Hodge, ibid.

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 3. It should constrain us to humility, and to silence on this subject,
that the most solemn and explicit declarations of the everlasting
misery of the wicked recorded in the Scriptures, fell from the lips of
Him, who, though equal with God, was found in fashion as a man,
and humbled Himself unto death, even the death of the cross, for us
men and for our salvation.”20

F INIS .

20 Hodge, ibid.

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