Is the Lake of Fire Forever and Ever? Matthew 25:41-46

Open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 25 and we will wrap up the Olivet discourse this morning as we come to the last three or four verses. The last part of the Olivet discourse is where Jesus Christ is teaching about one of the last judgments that occur at the end of the Tribulation period. As I pointed out when we got into this section, which is focusing on the separation of the sheep and the goats, there are tremendous distinctions between this judgment and the great white throne judgment that occurs at the end of the 1000 year reign of Christ, known as the millennium or the messianic kingdom, and that this is a judgment that occurs at about the same time as the judgment spoken of in the three parables that precede this section. Those are indeed parables. This is not a parable but is describing a judgment that will occur when the Son of Man comes in verse 31, when He comes at the end of the Tribulation in all of His glory.

He is accompanied by the angels and also by all church age believers, for we are rapture to and resurrected at the end of the church age, before the seven-year Tribulation. And when He comes to the earth He will defeat the enemies of God, the Antichrist and the false prophet, and He will rescue the survivors of the Jews of Israel in Israel, and then He will begin to cleanse the earth, which means judgment and order to remove those human beings who have never trusted in Him for salvation—all of this to establish His kingdom upon the earth at 1000 year rule that will be sort of the antechamber to eternity.

And so there are the judgments on the surviving Jews and the judgments on the surviving Gentiles. The surviving Gentiles are gathered before Him, and He will separate them into two groups identified as the sheep who will be separated on his right, and the goats on his left. The sheep are believers, those who have trusted in Jesus as the messianic King, the Jewish Messiah, who died on the cross for the sins of the world. He came at the His first coming offering the kingdom, which is in the Jewish kingdom where the Son of Man, as he is introduced in verse 31, comes. This is a title which was first revealed in Daniel chapter 7, speaking of the King who will come and be given the kingdom by the Father. This title, Son of Man, specifically focuses on His Jewishness, His messianic nature.

When Jesus came the first time at the beginning that ministry was identified as the gospel of the kingdom because it was specifically related to, not just believing that sins would be paid for, but that the kingdom was about to come. That gospel of the kingdom comes back into force during the Tribulation and that is an integral part of the gospel that Jesus that anyone believes in, in the Tribulation period. It is not just some sort of nice little Savior, as depicted so often by different branches of Christianity, but it is a Jewish Savior who is a conquering King who will come to establish His kingdom.

Matthew 25:45 ^NASB “Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’" Here the emphasis is on something they did. But the reason they did it is because they had accepted the gospel of the kingdom. In the last couple weeks I have talked about the relationship of faith and works, and that this is not the lordship view that if a person is truly saved, they will produce certain kinds of works. That's not what is taught in this passage. It is because they understand the gospel of the kingdom that they are supportive of Jewish Christians who were coming under intense persecution during the Tribulation period.

And so as our Lord wrapped this up He moved from verse 40 where he says, "Inasmuch as you did this," talking there to the sheep, "to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me. Then he will say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from me, you cursed it into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels'."

Now this is, I think, the central verse on the eternal condemnation of unbelievers. And so the question we need to address this morning is one that is of current significance. It is the question: Is the lake of fire forever and ever, or is it just for a very long time? Many people have difficulty understanding and accepting the fact that God could send people to an eternal punishment. And so we must understand this and understand it within the framework of what is stated here, that it is similar to or consequent to, the punishment for the devil and his angels, and so it is applied to the wicked and the unsaved.

This is restated in verse 46 these, that is, these goats the unbelievers who survived the Tribulation will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

As we will see the in way that is translated there are two different English words, everlasting and eternal; yet, they both translate the same Greek word. That is just an aberration. In English we think that we can't repeat the same word again and again within the same paragraph, it's bad English style. But when the Holy Spirit does it in the Scripture we need to pay attention to it, and it should be translated that way so people can understand these comparisons.

I thought that just for information purposes I would put this up in terms of other translations. In the new American Standard Version of 1995, it translates verse 41, "Depart from the accursed ones, into the eternal fire which is been prepared for the devil and his angels." So there's a better translation there in the new American Standard. And then just for fun I put up the version I love to hate, The Message, which is really a paraphrase. It's not a translation but I wanted to show you how poorly these things are done. And yet, because they are so popular people don't learn much truth from them, and they actually obscure truth. There it says, "Then he will turn to the goats, the ones on his left, and say get out worthless goats. You're good for nothing but the fires of hell". There is no mention of the devil and his angels, which is a critical part of understanding the verse. Also as we will see the English term hell is a very ambiguous and confusing term, and one we should probably avoid—not because it is some sort of profanity but because it is used to translate a lot of different words in the from the Greek and Hebrew, and it's just confusing because it's not technically accurate.

So we want to summarize what the issues are in understanding the passage. Second, we need to answer the questions when, why, and for whom was the lake of fire created? Third, we need to address the issue of punishment for the unsaved through the Old Testament and New Testament. We will start in the Old Testament. Fourth, really we will do this as part of answering the third question, defining the key terms such as everlasting, is that everlasting meaning forever and ever and ever without end, or is it just a term for a long time?

What does Sheol describe? What does Hades describe? What does torments describe? What does Gehenna describe? What does the lake of fire describe? These are all distinct terms and not necessarily synonymous, although many people take them as synonyms.

And then last will address the question, why is this a problem for the love of God and the grace and the goodness of God?

So first of all, what are the issues here? The issue is basically, how do we come to understand the relationship between the grace of God, his love and his goodness, and his kindness, and his righteousness and justice? It is usually phrased this way: How can a good gracious and loving God consigned his creatures to un-ending fiery punishment?

To understand that we have to go back to the essence of God and our understanding that God is sovereign and He is righteous. Righteous means that he is the ultimate standard of what is right, what is correct, what is good in the universe. It's not my idea of what's right or what's good; it's not your idea of what's right or what's good. It is God's idea of what's right and what's good. He is just; that is the application of His righteous standard to His creatures. There's no one else in the universe other than His creatures, and so God must apply His righteous absolute standard to His creatures.

Now that is not in contrast to his love for God's love is perfectly compatible with his righteousness and justice. This is difficult for a lot of people. They segment these and for sort of teaching and understanding purposes we break down his attributes into these 10 categories, but the reality is, just as you may be someone who is honest and someone who's hard-working, someone who may be as a parent, a harsh disciplinarian, a disciplinarian or light disciplinarian, all of those make up who you are and they work and integrate together. You don't separate them out.

So all of these attributes of God work together and are integrally related. So He has a righteous love; He has a just love; He has a loving righteousness, and He's eternal. But then we when we look at His "O" characteristics—He's omniscient and omnipresent and omnipotent—we realize that His love functions on the basis of all knowledge; He knows everything. And His righteousness is related to His omniscience and He is able to execute His justice because He is omnipotent; He is all-powerful, He's able to do everything He intends to do. He is absolute truth, and he's immutable, he doesn't change. All of these interrelate, so we have to come to understand that, and that's where people have problems. It is usually when they say, how can a loving, gracious God do this? They have imported certain preconceived notions of their own about what love is and what grace is, rather than letting God speak to us and define those characteristics within the framework of His revelation.

Another question that comes up is a question about what about those who never heard? It doesn't seem fair to some people that there are many people on the planet who may have never heard the name Jesus Christ, never heard of the Bible, and never heard the gospel at all. How can God hold them accountable? I don't want to get off on to that too much, but we've studied this a lot in our studies on Romans 1:18-23, that in nonverbal revelation God has given a witness to every one of His existence in what He has created. Every atom every molecule, every part of His creation gives a nonverbal testimony of His invisible attributes, His power and His majesty, and Paul says there in Romans that that "they are without excuse".

When man faces the nonverbal testimony of God. He becomes aware that God exists. We call that God-consciousness, and at the time of God- consciousness could be as early as two or three years of age may be much later, depending on the culture in the context, then he has to decide whether he wants to know this God or not. That is called positive volition if he wants to know God, and if he does want to know God, if he chooses to know more about God, then God in His righteousness and justice must make that knowledge available to them, and will in some way, and they will come to know the truth.

There are remarkable stories in the history of missions of missionaries who have shown up somewhere, and someone there said after hearing the gospel, "I knew there was something like this. I've been praying that God would send me someone who would tell me about this, and tell us. We had these ancient stories among our people of something like this." These things have shown up in cultures all over the world down through the centuries. So that is evidence that God fulfills his obligation to give people the truth, to give them the gospel.

Those are the basic questions that people ask, that people are concerned about. Now when we look at the question, what are the issues? We have to remember that as we investigate anything in life, we, as Christians must start with the Bible. What does the Bible say? Not what does our experience say? Not what does other people's experience say? We always start with the Bible, and we have to develop our understanding about God, which is called theology from the Scripture, from what is called exegesis. Exegesis is doing the work of observing what the Scripture says, doing the necessary word studies and grammatical analysis in the original languages to make sure that we properly understand what God has said.

Often there are mistranslation's, ambiguous translations that have to be corrected, so we have to remember that we must begin with the Bible, with those specific statements and words and that exegesis precedes theology. We don't start with an abstract concept of what God's love or grace should mean—notice I use the words "should mean"— and then interpret the Bible in terms of our previous or prior understanding or our bias towards a certain understanding of love or grace.

Another question that comes up in relation to this is defining terms such as eternal. What does eternal mean? What is the meaning of fire when it describes it? Is it a physical fire, or is this something that is analogous to physical fire? And then we have to define the other terms such as Gehenna. Sheol, Hades, torments, lake of fire. So we ask also questions like, is the idea of a lake of fire, a metaphor or is it literal? And if it is literal, are there any metaphors within it, or analogies within it.

Another view that some Christians have put forth over the years, in the primarily the Roman Catholic Church, is the idea of purgatory, which comes from the root word meaning to purge. To purge means to remove something. The early church shifted away from a true grace understanding of the Scripture where you are saved by faith alone, by grace through faith alone, trusting in Christ for Savior, because He did all the work, He paid the penalty. The last thing Jesus said on the cross in Greek was to TETELESTAI. It meant, paid in full. It has already been completed. That is were itchy in the verbal form. It's a perfect tense indicated completed action before he died. Physically he had done everything it was a term that archaeologist discovered was written on bills that had been paid in the Greek culture. Paid in full; that meant we cannot do anything to add to it; He paid for all the sins.

Well the idea that developed late in the early church, around the third and fourth century, is that if we commit sins that we haven't confessed then we still have to pay for it. They forgot that Jesus paid it all. And so, if people died with unconfessed sin, or if they died before they were baptized, then they would have to do something to pay for those unconfessed sins through some sort of torments or punishment before they could get released from purgatory, and then go to heaven. And that would involve virtually every Christian. They would all have to spend some time in purgatory, and that became greatly abused by the late middle ages, so that in order to raise money primarily to build St. Peter's Cathedral in the Vatican the popes would send out people who would raise money by selling indulgences.

One of these men in Germany was called Johann Tetzel and he would sing a little chorus: "Whenever the penny in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory sings". That was the idea; you could purchase people's salvation through your financial gifts to the Roman Catholic Church. That is not what the Bible teaches. That was something that was developed much later and contradicts the whole biblical teaching on grace and the sufficiency of Christ's death on the cross.

We have to understand also the question of the purpose of the lake of fire. Two verses we need to keep in mind whenever we think about this are found close together in Hebrews; One and Hebrews 9:7, "It is appointed unto men to die once." You don't get recycled, you don't get to go through reincarnation; you don't get a second chance. "It is appointed for men to die [once], and after this the judgment." There's a finality that happens at physical death; it's over; game over. We accomplish what we accomplish when we are alive. There are no do-overs; there is no second chance. This is serious and significant. The writer of Hebrews says in chapter 10, verse 31: "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God". This is sobering truth for every believer.

Second, when, why, and for who was the lake of fire created? The lake of fire was not created for human beings. The lake of fire, according to this passage, was created for the devil and his angels. So let's look at what the verse says. Jesus addresses those on his left hand the goats the unbelievers who survived the Tribulation: "Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels". The word "cursed" goes back to Genesis chapter three. They spiritually dead, they are still under the curse of Adam, they have not been regenerate, they have not believed in Jesus, and they do not have new life. They are not justified by faith as Abraham in the Old Testament was justified by believing God. He believed God (Genesis 15:6) and it was counted or imputed to him as righteousness.

And then Jesus says, "Depart into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels". This Greek word "prepared" is in the perfect tense and indicates it is completed action. It's not something is going to be prepared in the future; it's not something that was created at that time. It is something that at some indeterminate time in the past had already been created. It wasn't created for human beings; it was created for the devil and his angels.

Now we need to review just a little bit about why the devil and the angels were sentenced to the lake of fire. This indicates because of the seriousness of this punishment that they had committed some incredibly significant crime against God, and that for that crime they had been judged and a penalty had been announced. That penalty was that they would spend eternity in this lake of fire, this eternal fire, and that they were not at that time in the lake of fire. That implies that for some reason the execution of that penalty had been postponed.

There is a certain amount of speculation about this because the Bible doesn't specifically say what the reason was for that, but there are hints throughout Scripture, suggestions from Job and other places that there was a an appeal. Barnhouse, who was a great Presbyterian preacher and dispensationalist pastor at Tenth Presbyterian Church in an in Philadelphia, wrote a classic book on spiritual warfare until of course, it was replaced by another one by a similar name. He wrote a book called The Invisible War, which is a classic great book, and he articulated this concept that there was some sort of trial in heaven, and that Satan appealed that verdict, and that human history is a demonstration of God's love, justice and righteousness.

I think part of it is that that Satan said, "How the world can a loving God send his creatures to a lake of fire for all eternity; it doesn't seem that the penalty fits the crime". And so what God is demonstrating in history is that the penalty does fit the crime, because if you look at human history now and you think about all the wars all the famines, all the diseases all of the horrible suffering, all of the poverty; all that has gone on that is so terrible in human history, it's all the result not of some terrible sin, not the result of somebody who was a racist, or somebody who would hold and own slaves, are somebody who was a drug addict, or somebody who was a gang member. Those are all the bad sins of our generation. It's not the result of somebody committed mass murder or genocide. It's the result of somebody who ate a piece of fruit, an innocuous act, an act that in and of itself doesn't seem bad, but because it was in disobedience to God it had eternal consequences.

That's the significance of sin. Sin isn't something that is just some little peccadillo, some little negative act; it is something that changed the very structure of God's creation so that all of his creation came under judgment and under a curse. And the reason people have problems understanding the seriousness of this punishment, and accepting the seriousness of this punishment, is because they don't understand the seriousness of sin. They don't understand the evil of sin and the corruption of sin. They have a low view of sin, and often they don't have a very high view of God in relation to that. That's part of the background here.

Now the devil became the devil through his sin, which is described in Isaiah 14:12-14, and also Ezekiel 28:12-16, and he's given this title of the devil which is the Greek word DIABOLOS, which simply means an enemy, an adversary. It is the counterpart or translation of the Hebrew word set satan, which also means adversary. His original name identified as such is in the Hebrew Hilal bin Sahar, which has to do with the bright and shining star, the son of the morning. It is not Lucifer. Lucifer is from a Latin word meaning light bearer, so that was a mistranslation of that word hilal and is referring to a bright star. This was, again, one of the many times in Scripture where we see some sort of a relationship between stars and the angels. He is also called a dragon in Revelation 12:9. "The great dragon was cast out. This happens halfway to the Tribulation. He is the serpent of old (that's Genesis 3), and called the devil and Satan. That is also restated in Revelation 22 when he is cast into the abyss for thousand years. He is identified as the devil and Satan.

So if we think about this, this eternal fire is not a physical fire. Remember, this was created before the physical material earth as we know it came to be, with the fire as we know it; this was created for the angels who are immaterial creatures; they're not physical. So this fire is analogous to what we think of as fire. It is a fire that would produce pain but a fire that would not consume the immaterial bodies of the angels. So it is something that goes on forever and ever.

The implication of these statements is that at some time in eternity past, Satan and his fallen angels, the demons, rebelled against God. God judged them and they were sentenced to the lake of fire, and that punishment was postponed. And during the interim God is demonstrating that He truly is righteous, just, and love.

In light of the unique penalty that was given to these immaterial creatures we can conclude that if human beings are sent there, in the process they must be given a similar kind of immaterial body that will not be consumed, and yet will still experience all of the horrors all the pain, all of the torment, and it is unending. The idea that it is unending is not just a New Testament teaching, it is also found in the Old Testament. For example, in Isaiah 66:24 where Isaiah says, "And they shall go forth", talking about those who have survived into the millennial kingdom, they will be able to witness those who have been sent to this lake of fire. "… and look upon the corpses of the men who have transgressed against me, for their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched. They shall see an abhorrence to all flesh."

Now what does it mean that their worm does not die? The Hebrew word there for worm is towla, which is the root tola, and it refers to a worm. If you crushed this kind of worm it would produce a purple dye, so it's also translated scarlet or crimson. But all three forms of the word mean worm, maggot, or larva. So what this is saying is, isn't this a lovely image when it says the maggots won't die? Now the maggot will die, and the maggots go away after they consume the flesh in the breakdown of the body after death. But if the body is never consumed, then the maggot never dies. It's a very graphic way of expressing the eternality of the punishment. The worm, the maggot does not die and the fire is not quenched.

So we looked at the issues. We've answered the question, when, why, and for whom the lake of fire was created. And third and fourth we will weave together talking about how the punishment of the unsaved is taught in the Old Testament, and then the New, and in doing so will look at these key terms, everlasting, Sheol, Hades, Torments, Gehenna, and the lake of fire.

In the Old Testament we have a verse, I've quoted it here in both the new King James version and the NASB, Deuteronomy 32:22, which reads: "For a fire is kindled in my anger, and shall burn to the lowest hell (that's New King James and also, King James), it shall consume the earth with her increase and set on fire the foundations of the mountains". I want you to note that fire is an integral part of this concept related to Sheol—fire and burning mentioned several times. In the same verse the New American Standard Version is a more accurate translation. You have the word Sheol put there instead of lowest hell. This is not talking about the lake of fire; this is talking about a different place identified as Sheol.

Part of the problem that we have in English translations and in the English language is this word hell. Hell is really an ambiguous term. It is technically not a biblical word at all. It has its origins from Norse or Germanic words that indicated the place, the underworld, the place where the dead went. It is used 54 times in the King James version and 32 times in the New King James version. It has been a very popular term to use down through history. In fact I looked at the etymology today and learned that the phrase "going to hell in a hand basket" is actually a very biblical concept. Going to hell in a hand basket actually followed a phrase (first was a documented about mid-1850s) that never really gained popularity in the 1830s, "going to heaven in a hand basket". Now what does it mean to go somewhere in a hand basket? It means that you don't have to put forth any effort; someone is carrying you there. It is to emphasize the ease at which you will get there.

Going to heaven in a hand basket is a gracious idea. We do nothing to get there. God carries us there on the basis of his love, our trust in Christ as Savior. Most people are going to go to hell in a hand basket, they don't have to put forth any effort either, because they are born spiritually dead and they're already headed there. I just thought that was a little extra insight.

Chambers dictionary of etymology endorses this idea. It was a pagan concept that was transferred and absorbed into Christianity. It gets confusing because the King James version used at 54 times, New King James got rid of a lot of 22 of those and only used it 32 times. But it's used consistently in the Old Testament to translate Sheol. In the New Testament it translates both the Greek word Hades as well as Gehenna in the King James version; in the New King James version it only translates Gehenna. Also, in both versions it translates Tartarus in second Peter 2:4. Tartarus is not the same as Gehenna, and neither are the same as Hades. This gets really confusing when that word hell is used to translate all those three different ideas, and so people naturally get confused theology.

When you look at the Old Testament the word of the word Sheol has different basic meanings. One is the grave, another is a figure related to the grave. What are you if you're in the grave? You are dead, so Sheol also can be a figure for being dead, and it also refers to the abode of the righteous and the future abode of the wicked.

In Genesis 42:38 Jacob says, "My son shall not go down with you for his brother is dead and he alone is left. If any calamity should before him along the way in which you go than you would bring my down my gray hair was sorrow to the grave." That is Sheol. That's what it refers to in many passages. It's just talking about the grave. In other passages it is talking about on something more than the grave. In a few places it identifies death. Isaiah 38:18, "For Sheol cannot thank You, Death cannot praise You …" See the parallelism there between Sheol and death, it is just another way of speaking of death.

It talks about the abode for the Old Testament believer after death in Genesis 37:35, "Then all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, 'Surely I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son'.” This is talking about Jacob. He says, I will go down to Sheol. It's a place or the destiny of the believer. That's a clear reference. Some other places where it's the future abode of the believer, i.e. the one who is justified or the righteous, would be Psalm 88:3 and Psalm 89:48. Isaiah 38:10 says, “In the middle of my life I am to enter the gates of Sheol; I am to be deprived of the rest of my years”—as a believer talking there.

But also it is identified as the future abode for the Old Testament unbeliever. Psalm 99:17, "The wicked will return to Sheol even all the nations [Gentiles] who forget God". Psalm 31:17, "Let me not be put to shame, O LORD, for I call upon You; Let the wicked be put to shame, let them be silent in Sheol."

You have this idea, not well developed, that both the righteous and the wicked go to Sheol. So there seem to be two different compartments in Shoel. Then there is also the idea expressed in the Old Testament that that penalty is forever, and we have to ask the question how long is forever in the Old Testament? In some passage is, it refers to it simply a very, very long time. It can simply refer to something that's just a long time ago, maybe within somebody's lifetime or their grandfathers lifetime. Strangely it is that way in Isaiah 58:12, "Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; You will raise up the age-old [from a long time] foundations …"

There are clearly many other passages where it refers to eternity. For example, in Micah 5:2 the prediction of the Messiah coming: that He is the one whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting. There it indicates eternity. Also in passages like Daniel 12:2 where it talks about judgment that will come, and that some will be raised to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. It is the same word in both places and it clearly indicates eternity. Whatever the length of everlasting life is, it must be the same as the length of everlasting contempt. This is the parallel that we find there.

There's another word that we have in the Bible, the word all, that doesn't always mean everyone without exception. There are places in the New Testament where it says all who lived in Judea went out to hear John the Baptist. Does that mean every single person who lived in Judea went to hear John the Baptist, or just that most of them did, or a lot of them did? Often the word all doesn't mean all. It just means a big number. The same is true for owlam in the Old Testament. Forever many times just means till the end of the age. Many other times it refers to eternity, but that's because the Hebrew is not always as technical as the Greek; the Greek is a little different.

The other word that used in the Old Testament is the introduction of the concept of the Valley Hinnom, or GE HINNOM, which becomes in Greek Gehenna. We've studied this in the past. This was where Judah sinned by committing infant sacrifice, human sacrifice. They burned their sons and daughters in the fires of Moloch. This was an abomination to God and they were judged for it, and in 586 BC when the Babylonians invaded they slaughtered so many Jews that they buried them in the Valley of Gehenna. This became a picture, a symbol in the Old Testament for divine judgment--in time, not eternal judgment.

Most the people you read will say the fires of Gehenna refers to the eternal fires of the lake of fire. But if you study it historically, the judgment of Gehenna was punishing Israel in time, not an eternal punishment. And it makes much more sense in the New Testament if when we read Gehenna we interpret those passages to refer to God's divine discipline on people in time, not in eternity. So that was our conclusion.

The conclusion was that the Valley of Hinnom was not used in the Old Testament as a reference to eternal condemnation in the lake of fire, but as a place of divine discipline on the nation of Israel for their spiritual failure. Gehenna thus became a symbol for spiritual failure, condemnation and shame and divine discipline in time, not in eternity. In Matthew where Matthew says if you call your brother a fool you're going to be guilty of hell makes people think well, if I hate my brother I can lose my salvation—which is what how Arminians take that. But if it is an idiom meaning you're guilty of divine discipline in time it makes a lot more sense.

Then we come to Luke 16. There we learn in the story of Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus was the Greek form of his Hebrew name Eliezer. This is Lazarus who was a homeless man begging outside this rich man's house. Lazarus dies and he goes to place identified in the story as Abraham's bosom where Old Testament believers went when they died. It was a compartment in Sheol or Hades. The rich man died and he went to Torments. This is the place of unbelievers from all dispensations, a place of fiery torments. Remember what the rich man said: "I am burning up from the fire please touch your finger in the water and touch it to my tongue because I'm in such great pain." So it also has that sense of constant burning, but his body is not consumed.

After Christ died on the cross, rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven, paradise was taken with Him after the resurrection to heaven and stayed. In second Corinthians 12:1-4 Paradise is identified as being in heaven and no longer in Sheol.

There is another place mentioned in second Peter 2:4, Tartarus, that is in a compartment of Hades where specific groups of fallen angels have been imprisoned until their judgment. This is what we see in that verse. "If God did not spare the angels who sinned [that refers to the Genesis 6 sons of God] but cast them down to hell"—literally, the Greek word there is TARTAROO, which indicates "cast to Tartarus" "… and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment." So they are in a holding cell. That's what we have here with Torments. It's a holding cell; it's not the lake of fire. So the same thing goes on with these angels. They are mentioned again in Jude 6: "angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode. He's kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day."

One person said, "How can it be dark if there's fire there?" That's a smart theologian. It's a different kind of fire. It is not the kind of fire that we experience in this life, and we are not going to have bodies like we have in this life. There's fire that you don't see. If you have a gas stove like I do and you turn it on it's a blue flame. If you get it really hot it will go invisible and you won't see the fire. So it is fire does not necessarily produce like it does if it burns yellow or orange. That's because it's got a lot more, or is a lot less oxygen; I don't remember.

Anyway, back to verse 41, Jesus says, "Depart for me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels". This is the word AIONIOS. It is not the word I am AIO [omega]N, a word that means eternal. It also can mean age, and it can indicate a long time but not eternal. But this word AIONIOS always, always without end, means infinite, indefinite, no ending, eternal, forever and ever. That is applied to the fire; it is everlasting. In Matthew 25, 46, these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. It's the same word; you can't split the meaning. AIONIOS always means eternal, forever and ever.

It is the same word that used again and again to describe our salvation. Whoever believes in Jesus should not perish, but have AIONIOS life, everlasting life. John 3:15; John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:36, "He who believes in the son has everlasting life". Again and again and again, that which is promised the believer is everlasting life. The same word is used to describe the punishment of the unbeliever as everlasting. If we look forward to life unending then the punishment must also be life on ending.

So the last question is, why is this a problem for the love of God and the grace and the goodness of God? Michael Greene who is a British theologian, has written in his book on evangelism, "What sort of God would He be who could rejoice eternally in heaven with the saved, while downstairs the cries of the lost make an agonizing cacophony?" What he's doing is he's reading his own ideas of love and joy and righteousness and justice into his understanding of God. He is not starting with the Scripture and working to his theology, he is starting with his theology and reading it back into Scripture.

What we see is that all of God's characteristics work together. For His love to be real love it has to be consistent with righteousness and justice. For His righteousness to be true, it has to be consistent with His love. This is serious. We live in an age when very few people preach the eternal condemnation in the lake of fire, but it is dire; it is real; and it affects many people whom we love.

John Walvoord, former president Dallas seminary, now with the Lord, wrote: "Eternal punishment is an unrelenting doctrine that faces every human being has the alternative to grace and salvation in Jesus Christ. As such, it is a spur that means it's a motivation to preaching the gospel, to witnessing for Christ, to praying for the unsaved, and to showing compassion on those who need to be snatched as brands for the burning."

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