Question: Do our sins determine the level of Hell, pain, and suffering that we will endure? Can we be released from Hell once we have paid for our sins?
Does Our Sin Determine the Level of Suffering We Experience in Hell?
This is a popular belief held by many people in varying religions. We watch movies that make statements about the “worst of the worst” going to the darkest place in hell, but is that a real picture of what hell is like?
With this view hell would seem to hold a little less fear. If I haven’t been that bad a person, hell shouldn’t be that bad a place for me. However, scripture does not say anything to that effect. Hell is indeed the same terrible and horrendous experience for everyone who goes there.
What we need to understand is that hell wasn’t meant for humans in the first place. God had created it for the devil and those other eternal beings that turned against Him.
Matt 25:41 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
You have probably heard the statement, “Why would a loving God send anyone to hell?” Here is your answer. God never intended for any of us to experience the horrors of hell. God created a perfect world with perfect beings that had perfect unity with God. Sin entered in and destroyed that environment and that relationship.
That is the entire reason for Jesus Christ being sent in the first place. Jesus’ sacrifice not only gives restoration to the original relationship that we were all supposed to have with God, it also saves us from having to pay for our own sins in hell.
Sin is the sickness that seals everyone’s fate to go to hell. Jesus never states that there is a hell that is deeper and darker than other portions of it. Think about it this way, Satan, who used to be an angelic being at God’s side, with all of his strength and power, will not be using a pitchfork to poke and prod people in hell. He will be in such utter anguish that messing with anyone else there would be the last thing on his mind.
Is Hell is Eternal?
*Matt 25:46 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
It is incredibly important that we understand the unchanging and utter completeness of Hell. In our society we relish the idea of being free to get what we want now and we can push judgment off to a later time. That mindset has also bled into beliefs about hell.
It amazes me to see how many people make ungrounded and unbiblical assumptions about the punishment for sin in hell. A lot of religions make it almost impossible to go to hell.
For example the Catholic view of hell is similar to what scripture states with the exception that they believe in purgatory. If you had at least been religious during your life you will enter a final cleansing time of punishment instead of hell itself.
Purgatory (In Latin means "to make clean, to purify”) is a place or condition of temporary punishment for those who, departing this life in God's grace, are, not entirely free from sin, or have not fully paid the punishment due to their transgressions. (www.newadvent.org/cathen/12575a.htm)
There is temporary punishment for those under God’s grace? Does that sound Biblical to you? “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” – Romans 8:1
Let’s take a quick look at what Mormon’s believe about hell. “Currently hell in spirit prison is a holding tank for the souls of the wicked. Here they remain until the end of the millennium when they will be resurrected and judged. Those with crimes not including murder or apostasy will be allowed entrance into the telestial (A specific level of heaven) kingdom, which is the lowest of the kingdoms of glory. Those who failed to prove themselves worthy of a telestial reward will return again to outer darkness, this time for eternity.” (www.mrm.org/heaven-and-hell)
Why would they call it “outer darkness”? “The confusion lies in how the LDS (Mormon) Church defines hell. Widtsoe qualified his remark by saying, "The gospel of Jesus Christ has no hell in the old proverbial sense." Smith clarified his comment by adding, "We do not believe that hell is a place where the wicked are being burned forever." (www.mrm.org/heaven-and-hell)
Mormon’s and Catholic’s both claim to believe in the truth of scripture. Most of them would actually claim to be Christians. This shows the great danger of not knowing the Bible and what it clearly states:
Rev 20:15 “And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
Matt 18:9 “And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.”
The idea that a person would escape hell based on the good or bad things they have done in life is completely unscriptural. The only way to escape the eternal judgment of hell is to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and savior. Being put through suffering does not “cleanse” that person in any way. Jesus is the only way to freedom and life.
The Bible teaches of 2 places, heaven and hell. Even the idea of a “holding cell” for those waiting to be judged is not anywhere in scripture.
When you die you are ushered immediately into either eternal life in heaven, or eternal death in hell. Acts 7:55 says that when Stephen was being stoned (The first Christian martyr) he saw Jesus at the right hand of God while looking up to heaven. 2 Corinthians 5:8 says that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, not in some spiritual no man’s land awaiting judgment.
Can I be Released from Hell after I Have Paid for My Sin?
A person who “Pays” for the sin done in their life, undergoes the eternal punishment for it. The second death is in fact your punishment for having rejected Christ and there is no end to your payment. Romans 6:23 clearly states that the wages of sin (The reward for sin) is death. Thinking that you will be released after the punishment is kind of like being led to your execution because of your crimes, but being assured that after your punishment you will be free to go. You will be dead. There is no more “free to go” after being executed.
There is an added issue to this idea of being freed once you have “paid” for your sin. Let’s pretend for a second that you could actually be freed from your sentence of 1,000 years in hell for such and such a crime. The issue is that the righteous that are taken to heaven are made to be like Christ. Sin is no longer an issue for them. People in hell are not removed from their sinful nature. People in hell are quite capable of continued sin. They would never be set free simply based on the fact that they will continue to sin in hell!
Escaping hell is impossible as Jesus stated through a parable in Luke 16:19-31; “And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.”
2 The 1:9 “They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,”
Rev 14:11 “And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night,”
The Bottom Line
There are many books that talk of hell’s torments, there are people who have had nightmares of what hell will be like, there are even artistic renderings of what it would look like. But no matter how vivid these things make it out to be, nothing man could ever dream up could scratch the surface of how incredibly horrific hell will be.
You need to make sure that you do not put off a decision to follow Christ. We are not guaranteed anything in this life. You do not know when your life will be taken from you. As we have seen you will immediately be taken to one of two places. Spend time now making sure that you will be with God and not separated from Him for all of eternity.
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