Hell is one of those topics that almost nobody comes to neutrally.

For some people, it is a source of fear. It is like, "I am scared of looking at this. I am scared of the implications it might have for those I care about."

For others, it is a point of anger. "The idea of God punishing people makes me angry. I do not want to think about God in that way. That is not okay."

For others, the issue feels much more settled. "We know what hell looks like. The Bible is very clear, and if we want to mess around with that, then you are messing with the Bible."

And others will simply say, "I do not really think hell exists."

So there are understandably strong feelings and strong positions around this topic. I do not think we can tidy hell up in a nice neat bow. If anything, looking carefully at the Bible might make it more complicated than we first thought.

But my hope is that we can sand enough of the rough edges that it becomes something we can grapple with honestly.

That means asking why this topic is so difficult, looking at the different ways the Bible talks about hell, and then looking at the main Christian perspectives on hell. Not so we can win an argument, but so we can understand what the Bible is actually asking us to hold together.

The Bible Is Not A Textbook

Before we delve into hell itself, we need to take a moment to look at how we deal with these kinds of topics, because part of the difficulty is the kind of book the Bible is.

The Bible is not a textbook.

In a normal textbook, you can go to the contents and think, "Ah, page 137, hell." You turn to that page and it says, "This is what hell is: bum, bum, bum, bum, bum."

The Bible does not do that.

The Bible is a collection of 66 books, written by many different authors over about a thousand years, in three different languages, from different cultures. Each author is writing to a particular audience for a particular purpose.

Sometimes, they unpack a theological topic in real depth. Paul's letters are like that. They pick a theological topic and go, "bam, bam, bam, bam." So there are some topics we have really good understanding on.

But there are other topics, like hell, where people in the Bible just kind of mention them. They make a throwaway comment, or give a little side bit. And because they are different people from different times, they use different language and different imagery.

So for us, it is like a jigsaw puzzle where we do not have the front of the box.

There is a little mention over here, a little mention over there, a little mention here, and we are trying to bring them together and work out how they fit. And it is one of those awkward jigsaw puzzles where multiple pieces can fit in the same spot at the same time.

That is why this is such a difficult topic to wrestle with. There is not a single clear picture handed to us.

You may have grown up with a picture and been told, "This is the front of the box." And that is okay. But the Bible itself does not give us that. We have kind of come up with that ourselves.

That is why there are so many different opinions on hell. There is such a range of language in the Bible, and we have to fit it together.

Not only that, our understanding of hell has to fit with our understanding of other theological topics. How we view God has to fit, in some way, with our view of hell. How we view sin has to fit. How we view what Jesus did on the cross has to fit.

Rarely do we have time to sit and bring all of our theology together. It is easy to say, "I believe this on this topic, and I believe this on that topic." But if we bring the two together, we might find ourselves thinking, "Oh, those two do not fit."

So if we are going to do this topic justice, we need to find a way for hell to fit within our understanding of theology as a whole. We cannot just pick up one verse, make it carry the whole doctrine, and pretend the other pieces are not there.

What Question Is Hell Answering?

Before we ask what the Bible says about hell, we need to ask what question hell is answering. Because hell is not just an isolated topic floating around on its own. It sits inside the much bigger story of what God is doing with creation.

Hell is there to answer something. So what is the question?

2 Corinthians 5:18-19 says:

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

God's mission, and Jesus' mission, is to reconcile all of creation back to himself.

Earth and humanity are fractured. That reconciliation was achieved and done at the cross, and it will be fulfilled when Jesus returns. All creation will be brought back into line with him. All brokenness, all weakness, all sadness, will be done away with.

So the question becomes:

What happens to the parts of creation that refuse to be reconciled to God?

That is the question hell is trying to answer.

Some people say, "I do not believe in hell." But if we are going to be Bible-believing Christians, we have to acknowledge that, in some shape or form, hell exists. The question is not really whether the Bible talks about hell. It does. The question is: what is hell?

The Puzzle Pieces

Puzzle Piece One: Fire

The first puzzle piece is fire. This is probably the language and imagery we are most used to when we think about hell.

Mark 9:43 says:

If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.

2 Peter 3:7 speaks of the present heavens and earth being reserved for fire, kept until the day of judgement and destruction of the godless.

Revelation 20:10 speaks of the devil being thrown into the lake of fire.

So there is clearly something about hell that relates to fire. We have to bring fire imagery into our understanding of hell somehow.

But what is the point of fire?

Is fire there to burn and hurt? Is it there to consume, so that if you put a log in the fire, eventually the log is no longer there? Or is fire there to purify?

The answer is yes.

All of those ways of using fire appear in the Bible.

In Luke's picture of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man ends up in a place of burning fire and says, "I am in agony in these flames." In that picture, the fire hurts.

Hebrews 10:27 speaks of "a fury of fire that will consume." There, fire consumes.

Malachi 3:2 says that the Lord is like "a refiner's fire." There, fire purifies.

And 1 Corinthians 3:15 says that someone "will be saved, but only as through fire." There, someone is saved through fire.

So when we work out what to do with hell, we have to incorporate fire. It might be literal. It might be metaphorical. It might be fire that burns, fire that consumes, or fire that refines. The Bible gives us fire language, but it does not let us be lazy with that language.

That is the first puzzle piece.

Puzzle Piece Two: Eternal Language

The second puzzle piece is eternal language. The Bible talks about hell as something eternal.

Matthew 25:41 speaks of "the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels."

Matthew 25:46 says:

These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

Revelation 14:11 says:

The smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever.

So there is a sense from the Bible that hell is eternal. It is forever.

But even here there is debate.

Does eternal always mean forever? Some people argue that the Hebrew and Greek words behind eternal can be translated as "an age." So it may be an age of fire, or an age of punishment.

Jude 7 talks about Sodom and Gomorrah undergoing "a punishment of eternal fire." But Sodom and Gomorrah is not still burning. In that context, eternal seems to be used in a more substantive way. It was a total fire. It was a decisive fire.

There is also the question of which bit is eternal.

Is it that people suffer in hell forever, or that the consequence is eternal? If someone ceases to exist, that ceasing to exist is eternal.

We have to wrestle with that. There is something eternal in the Bible's language about hell. The question is how that fits with the other pieces.

Puzzle Piece Three: Death And Destruction

The third puzzle piece is death and destruction language.

Matthew 10:28 says:

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

That gives a sense of ceasing to exist. It is destroyed. It is no longer there.

2 Thessalonians 1:9 speaks of "the punishment of eternal destruction." Philippians 3:18-19 says that the end of the enemies of the cross is destruction. Romans 6:23 says, "The wages of sin is death." Not punishment, but death.

Revelation 2:11 speaks of "the second death."

So we have fire language, eternal language, and death and destruction language.

How do we weave all of these together?

Maybe the fire language is more literal and the death and destruction language is metaphorical. That is possible. Or maybe it is the other way round. But the point is that if we are going to be honest, we have to find a way to bring all the puzzle pieces together.

Too often, we get the picture we like, collect the pieces that fit that picture, and sweep the rest under the carpet.

We need to resist doing that.

Puzzle Piece Four: Separation And Exclusion

The fourth puzzle piece is separation and exclusion language.

There is a real sense in the Bible that hell is being separated, being left out in the dark.

In Luke 13:24-29, Jesus says:

Strive to enter through the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able.

The door is shut. People stand outside and knock. The answer comes back:

I do not know where you come from. Go away from me, all you evildoers.

There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when people see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the prophets in the kingdom of God, and themselves thrown out.

There are people left out of the kingdom of God.

Matthew 25 gives the parable of the ten bridesmaids. Five have spare oil for their lamps. Five do not. The bridegroom takes ages to arrive. When he comes, the prepared ones go into the wedding banquet, and the door is shut.

The others come later and say, "Lord, lord, open to us." But he says, "Truly I tell you, I do not know you."

Matthew 25:30 speaks of the "outer darkness," where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

2 Thessalonians 1:9 speaks of people being separated from the presence of the Lord.

1 Corinthians 6:9 asks:

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?

So we have fire language. We have eternal language. We have death and destruction language. We have separation language.

The question is: what do we do with all of that?

Puzzle Piece Five: All Shall Be Saved

The fifth puzzle piece is not explicitly hell language, but it matters because our theology of one topic has to fit with our theology of other topics.

Time and time again, there is language in the Bible that God's desire is that all shall be saved.

1 Timothy 2:3-4 says that God "desires everyone to be saved." Not some. Everyone.

John 12:32 says:

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

Romans 5:18 says:

Therefore, just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.

The first man is Adam. The one man whose act of righteousness leads to life for all is Jesus.

Colossians 1:19-20 says that through Christ, God was pleased "to reconcile to himself all things."

Philippians 2:10-11 says that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

So those are some of the puzzle pieces. Not all of them. We could go on for ages. But they give us a sense of the problem we are trying to solve.

And again, we do not know what the front of the box looks like.

Three Biblical Perspectives

There are three main biblical perspectives on hell. I am calling them biblical because each of them can be got to from the Bible. They are different ways of taking the puzzle pieces and putting them together.

Each of these positions is held by Bible-believing, Spirit-filled, God-fearing Christians.

My hope is to do all of them justice. In fact, my hope is that from this article alone, you will not be able to guess which one I subscribe to.

Eternal Conscious Torment

The first view is the one most people are familiar with. The technical term is eternal conscious torment.

Hell is the place people go where they suffer for the rest of eternity.

People who hold this view draw on verses about eternal punishment, about the worm that never dies, and about the smoke of torment going up forever and ever.

Within this view, there is a range of interpretation. The fire might be literal. It might be metaphorical.

For some people, the reason for the torment is not that God is actively tormenting people. It is that God is the source of all things that are good. If you remove God from the equation, all that is left is pain and suffering. So the torment is the result of choosing not to follow Jesus, rather than a thing God is doing to them.

The theology this view often connects with is the idea that sin is a debt.

Every time you sin, it is like breaking the law. There is a fine that comes with that. If God is a God of justice, he has to see that process all the way through. He cannot simply say, "It is fine, I will just write off your debt." That would not be just.

In the same way, if someone on earth did something really awful, was found guilty, and the court just said, "It is all right, we will let you off," we would say, "No, that person needs to be held to account."

Eternal conscious torment is trying to hold on to the seriousness of sin. Sin is real. We need to take it seriously. Hell is the consequence of sin.

The reality is that all of us have sinned. Jesus came to pay that price. For those who put their faith in Jesus, the price is still paid, but it is paid by Jesus. If you choose not to accept Jesus, then you pay that yourself. And the payment is hell.

That is eternal conscious torment.

Conditional Immortality

The next view is conditional immortality, sometimes known as annihilationism.

This is the idea that hell is the place you go to cease to exist.

Hell is eternal, but only in the sense that you are forever no longer existing. There might be a short period of suffering and punishment, but ultimately you are not suffering forever. You cease to exist.

People who hold this view draw on language like:

The wages of sin is death.

Fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.

This is the second death, the lake of fire.

The theology they connect with is that God is the source of our being. God is literally the one who holds the atoms together. If hell is a place removed from God's presence, then nothing can exist there. If you take someone completely out of the presence of God, there is nothing to hold them together.

So the choice of whether to follow Jesus is the choice of whether to opt out of life. If God is the source of life, to opt out of God is to opt out of life.

This view draws on the fire language as fire that consumes.

Universal Reconciliation

The final biblical perspective is universal reconciliation.

In this understanding, hell is temporary. It is a period of time, a little bit like how Catholics might view purgatory, where people are purified, purged by fire, and ultimately all creation is reconciled to Jesus.

People who hold this view draw heavily on language about God reconciling all things to himself, God being all in all, and someone being saved, but only as through fire.

The theology they are tapping into is that God's judgement is restorative. It restores people. It does not just punish them and leave them broken. The whole point of God's judgement is to restore.

They would argue that if hell lasts forever, and people are burning in hell forever, then surely, in some way, evil still exists. It is just over there. We are over here, so we are okay, but evil still exists. That is not ultimate victory.

And if the mission of God is ultimate reconciliation, to bring everyone back to him, then what do you do with those who refuse to be reconciled?

This view says: they get reconciled anyway.

For them, the idea of a God who does not have a 100 percent success rate just does not make sense.

What Are You Afraid Of Losing?

Those are the three main interpretations, very briefly sketched.

In one sense, the question is: which one do you find most convincing, based on your theology and on all the puzzle pieces?

But there is another question, and I think this one matters more than we often realise:

What do you lose if you move away from your current position?

Often, that is what holds us in place. It is not just evidence. It is fear.

If your position is eternal conscious torment, and you start reading and think, "Actually, the other two views might be convincing," what holds you there might not be, "This is definitely the most convincing." It might be, "I cannot let go of the seriousness of sin. If I say it is all fine, then none of it matters."

If that is the case, be honest with yourself. Ask God, "Is that the right way to be doing theology, or is it holding me back from something you are trying to reveal?"

In the same way, you might already be in the universal reconciliation camp without having done much study. Then you study and find the other views compelling, but you do not want to let go of the mercy and love of God. You do not want to let go of a God who wants all to be saved.

So as we wrestle with this, we need to be honest.

Which view do I currently align with, and why?

Is it because it is what I was always told?

Is it because I am scared that if I move away from it, I will lose something?

Or is it because, after weighing it all up, I genuinely find it most convincing?

Do Not Miss The Mission

After all of that, the question is: what do we do with this information?

Once we have had the theological class on hell, what do we actually do?

The risk is that we get so caught up trying to solve the puzzle that we miss the mission.

If we go back to 2 Corinthians 5, Paul says that God has given us the ministry of reconciliation. We are ambassadors for Christ. So we entreat people on behalf of Christ:

Be reconciled to God.

Whatever hell looks like, hell is real and needs to be taken seriously.

But our mission is the reconciliation bit.

We are called to be reconciled to Jesus, and to bring creation back into reconciliation. That is where the doctrine has to land. Not in speculation for its own sake, but in mission.

If you are in the universal reconciliation camp, you might think, "Why bother? It is all going to be reconciled anyway."

I would push back on that for a few reasons.

First, we do not know. You would really hate to say, "It is all right, it will be reconciled in the end," and then be wrong, and realise you could have saved people and did not. I would not hang my hat on that.

Second, people are suffering now. People are living broken lives now. Why would we not want to see them saved from the brokenness and hurt they are currently experiencing?

Third, even if someone is saved through fire, that probably is not going to be pleasant. We do not know what it looks like, but hypothetically, it could be that the parts of someone they refuse to let be reconciled to Jesus get burnt away. They come to heaven pure, but not whole, and then have to grow those parts back. By bringing them into line this side of hell and heaven, you are saving them a lot of pain.

That is hypothetical, and it is only one of the three options.

The main point is this: we are called to a ministry of reconciliation. That is why this doctrine has to land in practical questions, not just in abstract debate.

The Questions For Us

So, bringing this practically to land, in this ministry of reconciliation, it starts with us.

How am I potentially resisting being reconciled with Jesus?

That might be because, up until this point, you have not considered yourself a Christian. Or it might be that you have considered yourself a Christian, but there is a part of yourself you have kept back for you.

The call is constantly for all of ourselves to be reconciled to Jesus.

And that is not a thing we do. It is a thing we open ourselves up for Jesus to do. It is not in our strength. It is not in our ability. You cannot earn reconciliation. You open yourself up to Jesus, and he reconciles you to himself.

The second question is:

Where am I being called to become an ambassador for reconciliation this week?

That could look like sharing your faith. It could look like telling people about Jesus, explicitly saying, "Please, be reconciled to God."

Or it could look like participating in the ministry of reconciliation in other ways. Choosing not to fight, but to heal. Seeing chaos and wading in with the peace of Jesus. Bringing reconciliation, peace, and wholeness into the world around you.

We believe in evangelism. We believe in witness. But not to limit those things. It is so much more than that.

Are you bringing reconciliation, peace, and wholeness into the lives of the world around you?

That, I think, is where this whole conversation has to end.

It is useful to reflect on hell. It is useful to work out our theology of hell. It is worth doing the hard work of taking the Bible seriously, especially when the Bible does not hand us the front of the jigsaw box.

But let's not get so caught up in solving the puzzle that we miss the mission.

The mission is reconciliation.