How long do sinners stay in hell? Do they stay there for all eternity?
The Bible teaches Hell is a real, literal destination, and included some personal reflections and elaborations on my take on what I think exactly happens there, here: In Matthew 25:46, what is the meaning of the ‘eternal punishment’?
The short answer is forever. The more elaborate answer is “until you die.”
Christians have struggled with understanding and explaining Hell for two thousand years. Hell was not an invention that was developed later on by church leaders to control people. Hell as an eternal destination is mentioned 50+ times in Scripture. It was also written about by early church fathers including Justin Marytr, AD 150–160. Many just accept the thousands of years of historical teachings of the church. However, since the Protestant reformation opened up the floodgates for Christians to read and interpret Scripture for themselves, others have come to alternative conclusions.
ETERNAL AND CONSCIOUS?
There are many passages that speak as though Hell is an eternal, conscious location of torment. A place of no-return, for punishment, where you’re consciously-aware that you’re now apart from God, forever. Verses like:
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
– Matthew 25:46“Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.”
– Daniel 12:2
The original words used here to describe length of time, aionion and owlam respectively, occur in the Bible some 71 times and 438 times, and in the NASB are translated as eternal 66 times and everlasting/forever 318 times. An important distinction to realize is that, in these verses, the adjective used for the good destination is the exact same adjective used for the bad destination.
OR CEASING TO EXIST?
However, there are also passages that speak as though Hell is a place to die, to be consumed, or where one ceases to exist. Verses like:
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
– Matthew 10:28“They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might”
– 2 Thessalonians 1:9“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
– Romans 6:23
MUST WE CHOOSE?
I do not understand why Christians have felt the need to rationalize this paradox by choosing only one of these two. It is CLEAR from Scripture that Hell is BOTH of these. It is clearly true that Hell is both an eternal destination of punishment, and also a place where you will die. Why would followers of Jesus Christ, who understand that our God is the ultimate God of paradoxes have a problem with this? Is it not a paradox how God is both One and tripartite? How Jesus is both God and man? How God’s wisdom is man’s foolishness? How the cross is a demonstration of both justice and mercy? To me, the obvious conclusion is that those who go to Hell, will go there for eternity, absolutely removed from everything that comes from God, for the destruction of everything that is “them”, and everything that is life, and remain there corroding away until the point where they will cease to exist.
