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Matthew 10:28
“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.”
All who die in faith before the return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead go to be with our Savior in heaven, where they experience joy in His presence (2 Cor. 5:1–10). This is not the fullness of bliss, for in the intermediate state of heaven we lack our physical bodies and are incomplete. We will enjoy the fullness of blessing only in the resurrection and the new heaven and earth (Rev. 21:1–22:5). Still, as Dr. R.C. Sproul writes, “the options for the believer are good, better, and best.” It is good to enjoy reconciliation to God in the present life, better to be free from pain in heaven, and best to enjoy our glorified resurrected embodiment in a new creation, the state for which God designed us.
Conversely, Dr. Sproul continues, the options “for the unbeliever . . . are bad, worse, and unspeakably horrible.” Non-Christians do not enjoy peace with God and forgiveness in this present life. If they die in sin, they pass into the intermediate state of hell, where they are punished. After the resurrection, God casts them body and soul into the lake of fire to suffer His wrath forever (Rev. 20:11–15).
Hell is the intermediate state for all those who die without trusting in Christ. We find reference to it throughout Scripture in passages such as Matthew 10:28. To be fair, this passage may also be describing the final hell, the lake of fire, since Jesus makes reference to bodily suffering. Yet the lake of fire is not the first time that an unbeliever suffers judgment. After all, “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27). The lake of fire is an intensification of the judgment that begins in the intermediate state of hell.
Some professing Christians deny that those who die without faith in Christ endure eternal conscious suffering in hell. Instead, they are annihilated, meaning that their very existence ends. This contradicts important biblical passages on punishment in the afterlife such as Revelation 20:7–15 and on the intermediate state such as the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31). Proponents of annihilationism argue that eternal conscious punishment is incompatible with divine love and justice, for a finite sin does not deserve an infinite punishment. This overlooks the reality that our sin is ultimately against an infinitely just and holy God. Only an infinite punishment is commensurate with sin that remains uncovered by the blood of Christ.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Louis Berkhof and many others have also noted that many sinners long to cease existing; therefore, God’s annihilating them would be received by them not as a punishment but as a blessing. Yet hell as a place of eternal conscious punishment is necessary to preserve the justice of the Lord. We teach the reality of hell not because we want people to go there but because we want to magnify God’s justice.
For further study
- Isaiah 66:24
- Mark 9:42–50
The bible in a year
- Hosea 12–14
- Revelation 3
- Joel 1–Amos 3
- Revelation 4–5