In our summer Questions of the Faith series, we have looked at what happens when we die, and examined what heaven is like.  Now we'll look at the other place.

Hell is a real place, mentioned 23 times in the New Testament, 15 times by Jesus himself.  Jesus calls it a place of "torment" (Luke 16:23).  Hell is real, despite its unpopularity today.  Barna Research found that between 1991 and 2007 belief in Satan as a living entity dropped from 35% to 24%. A large and growing percentage of Christians appear to have abandoned the teachings of their faith groups. Most Americans do not expect to experience hell first-hand: just one-half of 1% expect to go to hell upon their death.  But our ignorance and deceit do not change the fact that hell is real.

God's word often describes hell as "fire" (v. 24).  Jesus said, "The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 13:49-50).  Jude 7 calls hell "the punishment of eternal fire."  There God's enemies "will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb.  And the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever" (Revelation 14:10).  Hell is "the lake of fire" (Revelation 20:15).  

In another description, this one taken from the literal trash heap called Gehenna, Jesus said, "Their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:49; cf. Isaiah 66:24).  Physical fire only works on physical bodies. Matthew 25:41 teaches that the eternal fire was first created for spirit beings like the devil and his angels. 

Hell is also called "darkness": "Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 22:13; cf. Jude 6).  Most interpreters see the descriptions as intentionally symbolic, but descriptions of a literal place and reality.  Calvin, Luther, J. I. Packer, C. S. Lewis, and Billy Graham all interpreted the pictures seen above as symbolic of a literal reality.

Worst of all, hell is separation from God (Luke 16:26).  Remember Jesus' warning: "I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you.  Away from me, you evildoers'" (Matthew 7:23).  This separation is permanent (Luke 16:26), for it is the "second death" (Revelation 20:14).

Don’t miss the point—hell is terrible.  Jesus used the worst pictures he could find.  The point is, you do not want to go there, or let anyone you know go there.  To be absent from God, and from all that is good, for all eternity—that is hell.

Tomorrow: If hell is real, who goes there?