This is a summary of the biblical doctrine of hell. Some of the items below are vehemently opposed by many people, including those who call themselves Calvinists and Reformed Christians. They are so proud of their stance on divine sovereignty, but their doctrine is a severely weakened and compromised version of what the Bible teaches, and I have refuted them in various places.
- Hell is a place created for reprobate spirits, both angels and men.
- Hell is a place whose inhabitants are sovereignly and unconditionally chosen and created by God for damnation.[1]
- Hell is a place in which God exacts non-redemptive but vindictive punishments upon its inhabitants.
- Hell is a place in which God actively causes endless, conscious, and extreme torment for its inhabitants.
- Hell is a place in which God displays his justice, righteousness, wrath, and power, and through which he glorifies himself.
- Hell is a place that God has sovereignly created, and everything that God does is right and good by definition; therefore, it is right and good that God has created hell.[2]
- Hell is a place that God has sovereignly created, and through which he glorifies himself; therefore, it is sinful to disapprove of or be repulsed by its existence or purpose in any way.[3]
- Hell is a place that God has sovereignly created, and through which he glorifies himself; therefore, it is right and good to offer reverent and exuberant praise and thanksgiving to God for its creation, existence, and purpose.
- Hell is a place that God warns about in Scripture, and that Christ preached about in his ministry on earth; therefore, it is right and good for believers to preach about hell, and to preach about the only way to avoid it, which is faith in Jesus Christ, sovereignly granted by God to those whom he has chosen for salvation.
- Hell is a place that God has predestined for the reprobates; therefore, although it is right and good to preach the gospel to all men, so as to summon the elect and harden the reprobates, it is wrong and sinful to preach as if God sincerely desires the salvation of the reprobates or as if it is possible for the reprobates to receive faith and be saved.[4]
[1] Any condition that seems to correlate with God’s reprobation of an individual has been sovereignly decreed to be part of that individual by God in the first place. A person is chosen for hell not by (or on any condition determined by) his own “free” will (which does not exist), but by God’s sovereign will, which also sovereignly decrees and actively supplies all the conditions that God himself considers proper and necessary, such as sin and unbelief.
[2] We find an analogy in the existence or creation of evil. Although evil is evil (evil is not good), since evil exists only because God has actively and sovereignly decreed it (not passively or permissively), therefore it is good that there is evil. In other words, evil is evil (evil is not good), but God’s decree is good – that is, his decree that evil should exist by his active will and power. Evil is evil and not good, but God did nothing wrong in decreeing evil; he did a right and good thing in decreeing evil. Likewise, God did a right and good thing in creating hell and in sovereignly, actively, and unconditionally predetermining the damnation of the reprobates.
[3] It is right and proper to consider and discuss the topic with fear and trembling, knowing the severity and power of God, but it is wrong and sinful to consider and discuss the topic in a way that implies disapproval of or repulsion toward hell, as if to say that God did something wrong in creating it. To disapprove of or be repulsed by hell is not a sign of compassion, but a sign of rebellion that desires human welfare and comfort even apart from faith and holiness, and apart from dependence on the grace of God.
[4] This refers to the so-called “sincere offer” of the gospel.