Will unbelievers burn in hell forever?
The hardest thing that I’ve tried to come to terms with as a believer is the concept that unbelievers will burn in hell forever. Whenever I spoke with more experienced Christians about it they would give me the rational Biblical arguments for why people must go to hell. But the reasoning behind it wasn’t what I was struggling with. I could see the arguments on a logical level, but on a belief level, it just didn’t sink it in. I just couldn’t believe it. It just seemed incomprehensible.
Yet I believed in God. I believe every word of the Bible was God-breathed as Paul writes in Timothy 3 16-17. But it was hard to be fully at peace with the threat that if my family and friends didn’t become Christians they would burn forever.
I prayed a lot for God to help me understand. And I decided that as I read the Bible, I would look at the scripture about hell, and see if that helped me make sense of it.
And the funny thing is whenever I write or share about Christianity, I have never felt the urge to use the fear of hell as a way to encourage people to believe. I’ve mostly stayed away from the topic, because I’ve had thoughts about it that I didn’t want to share, because I wasn’t certain.
There were certain verses that jumped out at me, ‘And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.’- Matthew 10:28
Doesn’t this mean that the soul of a non-believer will not continue after being destroyed in hell? Then there is the idea that death entered the world after Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. If Jesus came to give us eternal life, then doesn’t that mean non-believers die?
There was a whisper in the back of my mind, and I’m not sure if it was a belief or a hope, but it was a secret thought that unbeliever’s souls will be destroyed. They will not suffer eternal torment.
I didn’t feel like I wanted to talk about it, because I didn’t know anyone who believed this. One teacher I followed who I trusted, who I agreed with on so many aspects of the faith, talked about the eternal suffering in hell. So I thought to myself, oh I can’t be right then.
Just this morning that scripture about destroying both the soul and body came to mind, and then I noticed a friend on fb sharing an article supporting the idea that the soul of unbelievers is not immortal.
It spoke to those quiet thoughts at the back of my mind, that I’d pushed away because no-one else I respected was talking about them.
I suddenly felt free and liberated from the weight of what will happen to the souls of loved ones after they die.
Don’t get me wrong. Clearly the Bible says that having the soul destroyed in hell is a horrific thing to happen that is worse than physical death. How awful would it be to get to the end of your life, and then realise on judgement day, that everything you had believed spiritually was a complete lie and that you’d missed out on eternal life with a wonderful creator?
However, being forced to come face to face with the spiritual truth that someone has ignored all their lives, followed by annihilation feels like a natural consequence, rather than the harsh punishment of eternal hellfire, which has always felt way beyond the nature of the crime to me. It is something that I can believe.
It’s a funny sheeplike thing but until someone else I trusted and respected could voice what I was thinking, I could barely admit it to myself. But now, I feel liberated like a huge weight has lifted off my shoulders.
God’s consequences are just, they are good.
This doesn’t mean that I’ll stop sharing the Gospel. After all, just as we don’t want our loved ones to undergo physical death, most certainly would I not want them to undergo a spiritual death.
However it does allow me to let go, to move on. In Matthew 10.14 when Jesus sends out the disciples two by two he says, “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet.”
If friends and family don’t want to hear our words of warning, we can shake the dust off and continue to pray for them.
One thing that occurred to me this morning is, how many people were put off the concept of religion because they just couldn’t believe or accept the idea of unbelievers burning in hell forever? I’m starting to wonder if this doctrine has been deliberately placed in the church in order to drive people away from Christ. One of Satan’s greatest tactics is infiltration and the Bible warns us about false teachings coming from within the church.
If you can’t comprehend that a loving God would send people to hell forever then you are going to reject that God. What a cunning tactic for Satan to use.
All this has been a lesson to me of the importance of reading the Bible for ourselves, and looking at the words on the page, (reading different trustworthy translations, going to the Hebrew and Greek for deeper understanding.) And if we do find something that runs contradictory to conventional Christian thinking we must acknowledge that.
We most definitely need teachers, people who have walked this walk longer than us, and have wisdom and knowledge to impart. However we must also put God’s word first and foremost. Even good, trustworthy teachers get it wrong sometimes. It’s only God that is perfect.
Don’t take my word for it. Read for yourself. Examine the arguments for and against. Pray for God to illuminate the truth to you.
Links
A Biblical Defense of Conditional Immortality
A Personal Testimony of a Christian Who Examined The Truth on Hell