Voice in the Wilderness Ministries

How can Hell be forever?

“The primary reason hell must be eternal is that what matters most to man is his present condition. For example, suppose you live in a frigid area of the world. Suppose you had heat for the last ten years. But suppose this year catastrophe has struck your area and left you without any heat at all in the dead of winter. You are freezing and shivering. Will the fact that you had heat for the last ten years make you happy while you are freezing this winter? No. It won’t help you at all. What matters most is that you don’t have heat this winter. It’s true to say that what matters most to you is your present condition. Likewise, supposed that you lived without heat for the last ten years but you finally got it this year. Will the fact that you lived without heat for the last ten years make you unhappy while you sit comfortable and warm now? No. What matters now is your present condition. The same truth applies to all of the passing desires of worldly people. It must be pointed out that none of these temporal pleasures bring true and lasting happiness. Man was created for God and can only be fulfilled in Him. But the point holds true when we consider these issues as well. For instance, those who glory in their great fame, or great wealth, or great success, or great beauty, are not troubled by the fact that they did not possess this 10 or 20 years ago. What matters most to them is that they are great, or famous, or successful or wealthy, or beautiful, now. What matters most to the unspiritual man is his present condition. Therefore if the pains of hell did end at some point then at that very point the condition of the person would be free from punishment. He would suffer no pain at all since the present condition is all that matters. The end result for that man would be that he would not be punished at all. Thus when it is considered deeply, it is true to say that a punishment that is not eternal is in the end actually, no real punishment at all. For if it ends at any point, then, the final condition of man which is all that will matter to him then is that he is free of punishment.” “Those who die in their sin, who refused to accept the free gift of forgiveness for the sins they committed against an infinitely Holy God must be punished in a real and vindictive way. As Duet. 32:35 says, “Revenge is Mine and I will repay them in due time.” Such a punishment can only be real if the end result equals punishment, not a state of no punishment. The only way that the vindictive punishment can have an end result which equals punishment rather than no punishment, is by an ongoing present condition of unhappiness. That is why hell must be and is eternal.”

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