Why Is Hell Permanent?
Understanding why judgment is final and redemption has an end.
The topic of hell can be deeply unsettling to discuss. Many non-believers see hell as a tool used to pressure people into Christianity through fear. Others struggle to understand how a loving God could send people to an eternal punishment for sins committed during a finite lifetime.
Even devoted followers of Jesus wrestle with this issue. Some avoid the topic altogether, while others question why God would not redeem those in hell after a period of time.
In many ways, these reactions are understandable. The idea of hell is terrifying. Scripture describes it as a place of eternal fire, weeping and gnashing of teeth, outer darkness, and eternal destruction. Hell is such a serious reality that Jesus spoke about it as much as, if not more than, heaven.
If Jesus went out of His way to warn us so frequently about it, then it is something we cannot afford to ignore. We should take it seriously and seek to understand it as best we can.
Having a grasp of what hell is and why those located there can no longer be redeemed can help us to reconcile its reality.
Hell is Quarantine
It is first important to understand the purpose of hell. Today, many view prison as a restorative place, where criminals learn their lessons and become reformed.
While that certainly can happen, prison’s primary purpose is not restoration but justified containment.
It exists not only to punish evildoers, but also to protect law-abiding citizens from them. If this were not the case, we could simply place criminals in open rehabilitation centers where they are free to do as they wish. But we do not, because society recognizes that evil must be restrained.
Likewise, hell can be understood as a place of final quarantine where God ultimately separates those who persist in evil, so that they can no longer corrupt His good creation.
“But nothing unclean will ever enter it (heaven), nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” - Revelation 21:27
God Will Not Force Us Into Heaven
It is also important to understand that God will never force us to love Him.
To steal a great analogy from Frank Turek, imagine a young woman being romantically pursued by a man she has no interest in. Eventually, tired of the persistence, she says, “Look! I like you, but only as a friend.”
… Ouch!
Now imagine the man responds, “Well, I love you so much that I’m going to force you to spend eternity with me.”
That would not be loving. That would be sinister.
In the same way, it would not be loving for God to force people to spend eternity with Him. Love does not coerce. It allows for a real response. And that necessarily means we are allowed to withhold it.
But when we reject God, we are not making a simple preference choice. We are rejecting the very source of goodness itself.
Our Choice is Permanent
As God is both loving and just, He cannot allow evil to persist forever. He must eventually punish and protect the innocent from it.
God also will not override our free will, as love must be given freely.
Thus, the choice we must all make in this life is to either spend eternity with God or without Him. But upon our death comes judgment for the ultimate choice we have freely made.
And God will honor that choice. To be willingly transformed and released from our sinful desires, or to remain in them and be separated from Him, kept from corrupting His creation for the rest of time.
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end “Thy will be done.”
– C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
But here lies the deeper question: why is that choice permanent?
Why can’t someone in hell realize they’ve chosen wrong? If God redeems us through Christ in this life, why can He not do so after death?
Scripture helps us reason toward an answer.
In Luke 16:19–31, Jesus tells the story of an unnamed rich man and a beggar named Lazarus. I recommend reading the full account, but for brevity:
Lazarus lived a difficult life, while the rich man ignored his plight. After their deaths, Lazarus goes to be in a place of comfort, and the rich man goes to a place of torment called Hades.
While in Hades, the rich man calls out to Abraham, father of the Jewish people, asking for mercy. He asks that Lazarus be sent to dip his finger in water so he can cool his tongue. It appears to be an almost humble request.
But notice something important: the rich man does not ask to leave Hades. He recognizes his torment, yet he does not ask to escape it. Instead, he asks that Lazarus serve him. He even eventually asks Abraham to warn his brothers so that they can avoid Hades, but the rich man never asks to be removed.
That is striking. It seems that someone enduring such torment would naturally want out, yet that request is never made.
2 Thessalonians 1:9 helps explain why:
They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.
If God is the very source of all goodness, and in His final judgment He removes His presence from those who freely reject Him, then what desire would remain in such a person to ever return to goodness?
If all light is removed, nothing remains to help us see.
So for those in hell, all goodness will have departed, and the only thing remaining is a vacuum in which the worst attributes and desires can grow.
Like a drug addict who recognizes the very source of their misery yet refuses to give it up, the one separated from God is given over to those same destructive desires, forever unable to escape them.
This is not some arbitrary punishment, but the natural outcome of separation from the very source of goodness itself.
As C.S. Lewis eloquently put it, “The doors of hell are locked on the inside.”
God Desires All to Be Saved
God desires for all of us to be saved and spend eternity with Him.
But as free creatures, He allows us to decide.
God will not force Himself on us, and He will honor our final choice.
But when that choice becomes permanent, He will no longer intervene to save us from ourselves. Given over to the full weight of our passions, we will reap the outcome of what we have chosen.
Some will go to eternal paradise where there is no more sickness or pain, and others to eternal quarantine where the self-inflicted torment of that choice endures forever.
That is an easy decision in my view.
And so I am all the more grateful for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, which makes that choice even possible despite our wrongdoing.
Note: The purpose of this article was to explain why hell is a permanent choice. Hell is more than simple quarantine, however. It is also a place of eternal justice.
A justice that is due to us all, because we’ve all done evil. But thankfully, there is a solution in Jesus.
To read more on the relationship between love, justice, and the forgiveness we are all offered in Christ, I recommend this short work below.
Did Jesus Need to Die for Our Forgiveness?
I saw a post-Easter video recently in which a young woman argued that Jesus Christ didn’t need to die to atone for our wrongdoing. She claimed that God could have simply forgiven us for the bad things we’ve done, pointing out that people forgive one another every day.
I think it was Thomas à Kempis who wrote something along the lines that, while it is hard to take up one’s cross daily, it would be far harder to hear, “Away from Me, I never knew you,” on Judgment Day. Enjoyed the article!
Hell is permanent because God is permanent. If God could die then the penalty for our offences against his holiness would die with him. But God is eternal. And Christ our Saviour is eternal.