It is interesting to note that the people who minimise the horror and the torment of hell are the ones who take sin lightly as well.
The Scripture is quite clear that there are two aspects of hell. The first, as has been correctly stated, is the separation from the good things that God has for those who are in Christ. The second aspect is that those who are condemned to hell for eternity are subject to the terrible wrath of God. This shows how serious sin and rebellion are in God's sight.
We have to remember that sin was so damaging to the kingdom of God, that God's own Son sacrificed Himself for it. We cannot underestimate the great love that the Father had for the Son, and it must have been the heart-rending experience for the Father to have to subject His Son to wrath and anger as His Son took upon Himself the guilt and punishment for our sin. Sin brings punishment as well as exclusion. Jesus bore the full wrath and punishment from the Father for our sin. Anything less would have made His sacrifice something watered down and not really effective for providing a powerful substitute for our sin.
So, there might have been some serious wrath and punishment for those who rejected Him before Jesus died on the Cross, but just imagine (if we ever could) the fiery anger and wrath of God against those who reject and tread underfoot the sacrifice of His own dear and precious Son?
It is true that God is full of love and mercy, but He is a just Judge as well. If a murderer came into your home and murdered your family, especially if you had young children, and then came to court and the Judge let him off with a discharge without conviction, wouldn't you be very angry at that judge? Wouldn't you say that the justice has let you down big time? If you were any kind of person and parent, you certainly would! And you would not stop crying aloud against the justice system until something was done about it!
Do you think that those evil Nazi officers who murdered men, women and children in the Holocaust should share heaven with righteous, holy Christians? If you saw the photographs of the young children going to the gas chambers which I saw on Sky today, I am encouraged and comforted to see that those evil men are at this moment sitting in absolute fear awaiting the terrible Judgement of God. If God let those demonic inspired criminals off and allowed them in Heaven then I would have serious doubts about the Justice of God - unless any of them had accepted Christ as Saviour before they died, which I doubt from the historical accounts that I have seen.
Revelations 14:11 says that the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. In Luke 16:23 it says that the rich man in hell was tormented. Revelation 20:14 says that all those who were not found in the Book of Life were thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 21:8 also details those who are going to be thrown into the lake of fire. Matthew 25:41: "Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels".
So these Scriptures fully support that sinners outside of Christ will be thrown into a lake of fire and be tormented for the rest of eternity. Just imagine being burned alive and feeling the pain and torment of it without ceasing for 10,000 years and then at the end of it knowing that all that time is just a small blip, and that there is never-ending succession of 10.000 year periods for ever and ever and ever. It boggles the mind.
Mark 9:43-48: "And if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire, 44 [where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.] 45 "And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame, than having your two feet, to be cast into hell, 46 [where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.] 47 "And if your eye causes you to stumble, cast it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes, to be cast into hell, 48 where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched".
We have to accept what the Bible teaches about Hell, irrespective of how it horrifies us that a God of love would allow this. But when you think of how His Son had to suffer His wrath for us when He went to Hell in our place, then you can imagine the extent of His wrath and anger against those who reject His offer of salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus.
Hebrews 10:31 says that it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Although God is a God of mercy and grace now in this day of grace when sinners can come to Christ. When Jesus comes again to judge the living and the dead, there will be no more mercy, and we will see Him as the implacable and righteous Judge whose glory will strike terror into the hearts of all those who have rejected him.
Those who want to have airy fairy philosophical ideas of hell can have them, but as for me, I believe the Bible, and that is good enough for me.
