There is not one single soul in hellfire today. The Bible says that God reserves, or holds back, the wicked until the day of judgment to be punished.

The lost will be cast into hellfire at the great judgment at the end of the world — not when they die. God would not punish a person in fire until his or her case was tried and decided in court at the end of the world. Does it make sense that God would burn a murderer who died 5,000 years ago 5,000 years longer than a murderer who dies today and deserves the same punishment for the same sin? (See Genesis 18:25.)

The Bible is specific. Both the unsaved and the saved who have died are in their graves sleeping until the resurrection day. (See Study Guide 10 for more on what really happens at death.)

The wages of (or the result of) sin is death, not everlasting life in hellfire. The wicked perish, or receive death. The righteous receive everlasting life.

The wicked die the second death in hellfire. If they lived forever being tortured in hell, they would be immortal. But this is impossible, because the Bible says God alone has immortality (1 Timothy 6:16). When Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden, an angel was posted to guard the tree of life so that sinners would not eat of it and live forever (Genesis 3:22–24). The teaching that sinners are immortal in hell originated with Satan and is completely untrue.

The Bible says that God will kindle hellfire. After the holy city comes down out of heaven (Revelation 21:2), the wicked will attempt to capture it. At that time, God will rain down fire from heaven upon the earth, and it will devour the wicked. This fire is Bible hellfire.

Hellfire will be just as big as this earth because it will be the earth on fire. This fire will be so hot as to melt the earth and burn up all the works that are in it. The atmospheric heavens will explode and pass away with a great noise.

The Bible does not tell us how long the wicked will be punished before receiving death in the fire. God does, however, specifically state that all will be punished according to their deeds. This means some will receive longer punishment than others, based upon their works.

Yes. The Bible specifically teaches that hellfire will go out — that there will not be left a coal to be warmed by, nor a fire to sit before. The Bible also says that in God’s new kingdom all former things will have passed away. Hell, being one of the former things, is included, so we have God’s promise that it will be abolished. If God tortured His enemies in a fiery horror chamber throughout eternity, He would be more vicious and heartless than men have ever been in the worst of war atrocities. An eternal hell of torment would be hell for God also, who loves even the vilest sinner.

Notice the verse does not say the wicked will burn like asbestos, as many today believe, but rather like stubble, which will be burned up. The little word up denotes completion. Nothing but ashes will be left when the fire goes out. In Psalm 37:10,20 the Bible says the wicked will go up in smoke and be completely destroyed.

Yes. Real, living people enter hell in bodily form and are destroyed both soul and body. The fire from God out of heaven will fall upon real people and blot them out of existence.

Absolutely not! The devil will be cast into the fire, and it will turn him into ashes.

No. The word hell is used 54 times in the Bible (KJV), and in only 12 cases does it refer to a place of burning. It is translated from several different words: in the Old Testament, 31 times from “Sheol,” meaning “the grave”; in the New Testament, 10 times from “Hades” (“the grave”), 12 times from “Gehenna” (“the place of burning”), and once from “Tartarus” (“a place of darkness”). Gehenna is the Valley of Hinnom, south and west of Jerusalem, where refuse and dead animals were dumped and fire burned constantly. The Bible uses Gehenna as a symbol of the fire that will destroy the lost at the end of time. The fire of Gehenna was not unending — otherwise it would still be burning near Jerusalem today. Neither will the fire of hell be unending.

God’s purpose is that hell will destroy the devil, all sin, and the unsaved to make the world safe for eternity. Any vestige of sin left on this planet would be a deadly virus forever threatening the universe. It is God’s plan to blot out sin from existence for all time! An eternal hell of torment would perpetuate sin and make its eradication impossible. Such a theory is slander against the holy name of a loving God and originated not from the Bible, but from misguided people. And while a fear of hell might get our attention, we are not saved by fear but by God’s grace.

Yes — the work of God has always been to save rather than to destroy. Destroying the wicked in hellfire is so foreign to God’s nature that the Bible calls it His unusual act. God’s great heart will ache at the destruction of the wicked. Oh, how diligently He works to save every soul! But if one spurns His love and clings to sin, God will have no choice but to destroy the unrepentant sinner when He rids the universe of the horrible, malignant growth called sin in the fires of the last day.

After hellfire goes out, God will create a new earth and restore it to His people with all the beauties and glories of Eden before sin entered. Pain, death, tragedy, woe, tears, sickness, disappointment, sorrow, and all sin will be banished forever. God promises that sin will never rise again. The real tragedy of hell is in missing heaven. A person who chooses not to enter this magnificent kingdom has made the saddest choice of a lifetime.