There is a very real phenomenon in churches today: the disappearance of hell. In the older days, preachers such as Jonathan Edwards spoke often of hell. A preacher who spoke of hell today would be considered unbalanced by many of his hearers, even in supposedly Bible-believing churches. It is no longer open deniers of the Bible who reject the doctrine of hell, but supposedly evangelical scholars as well. Some onlookers undoubtedly consider this development a sign of maturity on the part of professing believers.

The problem with such a revision of the doctrine of hell is the standing testimony of the Holy Scriptures. In Matthew 10:28 for example, the text in which Jesus said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” In keeping with the words of Jesus, the apostle Paul also taught about hell in his second letter to the Thessalonians. The context of his remarks was the suffering of the believers under persecution from the world. They were to be comforted by knowing that God would exact vengeance on their oppressors” “God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you,” Paul said, by “inflicting vengeance” through “the punishment of eternal destruction” (vv. 6-9). Out of this pastoral concern for the perseverance of believers under persecution, the apostle provides some of the most potent teaching about hell that is found in all of Scripture.

The first thing for us to know about hell, Paul explains, is that it is God’s just punishment on His enemies. Earlier, the apostle mentioned God’s vengeance on “those who afflict you” (v. 6), speaking of his readers’ persecutors. Now he broadens the scope, with God inflicting “vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (v. 8). Here, Paul is setting forth the two sides of damning unbelief: rejecting the knowledge of God and refusing the gospel message of salvation.

We know from Romans chapter 1 that there is no one who truly does not know God. “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived,” Paul explains, “ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Rom. 1:20). It is the designed purpose of nature to bear testimony to God, so that, “what can be known about God is plain to them” (Rom 1:19). How then, can people “not know God?” The answer is that unbelievers will fully reject the knowledge of God that they have. “By their unrighteousness,” Paul declares, they “suppress the truth” (Rom. 1:18). Moreover, “although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him,” but instead “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images” (Rom. 1:22-23). For this grave sin of idolatry God will punish those who have lived as practical atheists, whatever actual creed they might have professed.

Matters become worse when the unbeliever hears but rejects the gospel. God sent His own Son to bring salvation to rebel humanity. Those who despise the death of Jesus for sins, refusing to repent and believe, have grievously offended God and merited His just condemnation. Paul’s description of unbelief as “not obey[ing] the gospel” reminds us that the message of Jesus is not merely a warmhearted invitation to sinners but also a sovereign summons to repent and believe.

The judgment of those who reject God and His gospel will involve God’s full and just punishment that these sins deserve. The Bible makes it clear that God’s judgment will condemn sinners not only for unbelief but also “according to what they had done” (Rev. 20:12). God will punish every last sin committed against His law. Still, Paul describes condemned sinners as “those who do not obey the gospel” (v. 8), since it was by refusing the gospel that they forfeited the only way of forgiveness for their sins. John 3:36 thus warns that “whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

In Paul’s teaching about God’s wrath in Romans 1, the apostle emphasized the way that sin is punished in this life, as God gives “them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done” (Rom. 1:28; see also 1:24-26). Second Thessalonians differs by focusing on the judgment that God will inflict when Christ returns. Thus, 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9 provides some of the Bible’s clearest teaching on the punishment of hell. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word sheol, translated in Greek by the word hades, describes the place of the dead generally, regardless of their status before God. In the New Testament, however, hades, translated in English as hell, is used exclusively of the place of final judgment for unforgiven sinners.

We may summarize the Bible’s teaching on the punishment of hell with three adjectives, the first of which is that it is an eternal punishment. Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians 1:9, “They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction.” The point is that sinners who rejected God and His gospel in this life will face in the afterlife an unending punishment for their transgressions. Not only does Paul teach that hell is eternal, but second, he describes it in terms of conscious punishment. When he says that the condemned are cast “away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (v. 9), this implies a conscious experience of alienation. And when he warns that they will “suffer punishment,” he uses an active verb (tino) that means that they will actively render payment for their sins.

Third, we may summarize the Bible’s teaching of hell by noting that in addition to eternal and conscious suffering, it involves the bodily punishment of those condemned by God. The Bible reveals that in the coming of Christ, all the dead – godly and ungodly – are resurrected so that souls are rejoined forever to their bodies to stand before the Lord (Rev. 20:12). Jesus will say to those who rejected God and despised His offer of mercy in the gospel: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41). By speaking of the fires of hell, the Bible plainly indicates bodily punishment for the ungodly. In fact, the clearest testimony to bodily torment in hell comes from Jesus Himself who warned that in hell “their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48).

There is no sin in admitting to difficulty in accepting the Bible’s teaching on hell. Surely, a fully biblical position on hell will impact our hearts as well as our minds. In believing the biblical doctrine of hell, we should experience the tears shed by Jeremiah when he preached judgment on Israel and the broken heart of Jesus as He called out, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” and lamented the unbelief of the Jewish people (Matt. 23:37).

As we seek to apply the implications of the biblical doctrine of hell, first we must realize how vital it is that we teach this doctrine without compromise. We may imagine that we are improving or updating the Bible by smoothing over matters to which our generation objects. In reality, however, we are denigrating God’s Word and corrupting all the doctrines that are inseparably related. By softening the idea of hell’s sufferings, we minimize the sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ on the cross, where God’s Son voluntarily embraced the eternal experience of separation from the Father as He suffered for us in His Spirit.

Instead of toning down the Scriptures when it comes to difficult matters, we need to elevate the capacity of our faith to accept whatever God has revealed. Doing this will require us to bow before God and submit our minds to His Word. If we recoil against God’s eternal punishment of sin, then we must not have embraced the Bible’s emphasis on the heinous offense of sin and the infinite holiness of the God who responds with such terrible justice. Furthermore, we have surely failed to grasp that the supreme purpose of all things is to glorify the sublime perfection of all of God’s attributes, including both His glorious love in the gospel and His glorious wrath in the punishments of hell. It is instructive to us to read how heaven rejoices over the glory of God in the judgment of hell. Gazing out from heaven onto hell, the angels cry, “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever” (Rev. 19:3).

Here on earth, however, where Jesus wept for sin, the truth about hell calls us to a passionate witness to the gospel of salvation from sin. How can we read of the terrors of hell, into which will go all “who do not know God” and “do not obey the gospel” (v. 8), and fail to do everything possible for them to know and believe the grace of God in Christ? How can we fail to pray for greater zeal in evangelism and for God’s power to open the unbelieving hearts to which we speak? If the Scriptures teach and the church confesses the reality of hell, then for God’s sake we must tell people. And in speaking about hell, we must never fail to declare the way of forgiveness at the cross of Christ, where God sent His own Son to pay with His blood the debt of sin, “that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

2 Thessalonians 1:8-9 Study Questions:

In Scripture, there are many moments of judgment, which are at the same time moments of deliverance for those who have clung to the God of justice and mercy, and have refused to be sucked into the prevailing culture of lies and wickedness. What are ways the culture today tells lies about what is evil?

How can we cling in strength and courage to the God of justice in face of this?