It’s good to see Tim and Shana Sullivan with us today and their families. Shana is the daughter of Paul and Karen Kuhn. I think it was like, oh, it must be, what, a dozen years ago or so that I had the privilege of officiating and preaching at their wedding. And it’s been great to keep up with them. Glad to see you guys here with us today.
Take your Bibles, if you will, and turn to Revelation chapter 16. I do intend soon to get back to finishing up our study through the book of Daniel, our regular series in the morning services. But I want to finish up a series that we have been in in the evening service, where we have been in this section of study on the afterlife, this section on hell that we have been looking at. And today, last time you might remember, we looked at hell as endless punishment, that the scripture’s teaching on that was very plain and very clear. But today I want to probe a little bit deeper on that and finish up that part of the series.
And the title of the message is A Rationale for Endless Punishment. That’s kind of a fancy way of saying, why must punishment go on forever and ever? That is sometimes a challenge that is brought up against Christianity; it’s something that’s thought to be somehow unfair. And we have already seen now that the scripture’s teaching on the subject is plain, but now we want to probe deeper and see why is that the case? I can’t imagine a more horribly sobering subject than what we have this morning.
Revelation chapter 16, and I’ll read verses 1 to 7:
Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, “Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.” So the first angel went out and poured out his bowl on the earth, and harmful and painful sores came on all the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshipped its image. The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became like the blood of a corpse, and every living thing died that was in the sea. The third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water, and they became blood. And I heard the angel in charge of the waters say, “Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments. For they have shed the blood of the saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve.” And I heard the altar saying, “Yes, Lord God the Almighty, true and just are your judgments.”
Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, as we turn to look at this most sobering subject, we pray that you would give us through it a greater appreciation of the greatness of our God, the infinite glory of our God, the perfect justice of our God; give us through it as well a sense of the great value of the Lord Jesus Christ, who took our sin to be his. Any here today, Lord, who do not know Christ, Lord, open hearts, and draw them to yourself, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The Idea Of Justice
Every political body—every city, state, nation—every political body has what’s called a penal code. That is a list of what constitutes a crime, what punishment is just for each particular crime, and what range of options the judge in administering justice may have in assigning judgment or punishment for the particular crime. There are courses in penology and criminal justice. Most of us regular people don’t tend often to think about these kinds of things. They’re just laws that are there, and we assume that they are right, at least largely so, and we trust that the judges will carry out the justice that is spelled out in that penal code fairly and justly.
But the very notion of crime and punishment in recent generations has been a topic of some discussion and some debate even for the last couple of generations. Questions have been raised like: just what is the guiding consideration in assigning punishment for crime? And for that matter, more particularly, should we think at all in terms of punishment? Is that barbaric? Is that really an enlightened category to think in terms of punishment and revenge? Or should we just think in terms of rehabilitation or perhaps deterrent?
And so two basically dominating theories of crime and punishment have arisen and sort of debated with one another in all of that. The one is the humanitarian theory of criminal justice. And that argues that to punish a man because he deserves it—and to punish a person because he deserves it and as much as he deserves it—why, that’s just barbarous, it’s immoral, it’s not enlightened, it’s just mere revenge. The only legitimate motive in assigning punishment, the humanitarian theory argues, is to rehabilitate the criminal. Remedial punishment of some kind is to be assigned, or perhaps we might have considerations also of deterrent. But the idea of retribution, the contemporary theory argues, the idea of retribution is just immoral.
Well, the traditional view of crime and punishment responds to that, that if we were to take that position, that would be a complete abandonment of the very idea of justice and what is right and what is wrong and what is deserved against what is wrong in retribution. The idea of retribution is necessary, the traditional theory will argue; it is necessary to the very idea of justice. Crimes against society are of such a nature that they demand somehow that that wrong be righted, that the offense deserves punishment, that somehow the criminal owes a debt to society that he must repay.
And the traditional theory will argue that it is not wrong, of course, to consider matters of deterrent. It’s not wrong to consider matters of rehabilitation, but it’s not enough. Neither of those two ideas, rehabilitation or deterrent, neither of those ideas have anything to do with the idea of justice. And so to consider those ideas only would be a vacating of justice. The question is, what does the criminal deserve? It’s a question of justice. Or to put it this way: given the crime, how can the balance of justice be restored?
The demands of justice are the primary consideration. The question is not, “How can I improve the man’s behavior?” or “How can I improve the man’s character?” The question is not, “How can I deter others?”—although we may take into consideration all of that. The question is, what does he deserve? How can justice now be satisfied? How can justice be served? How can we rectify this wrong that has been committed?
And so traditionally we have always thought in terms of looking back at what has been done, determining what the debt to society is, and assigning punishment accordingly. And so the one to assign the sentence is a judge—someone who studied in jurisprudence, somebody who knows the penal code, somebody who has thought through. We assume we trust deeply in this matter of justice and right and wrong and what is deserved. We don’t hand the sentencing over to a psychologist who can tell us how we might rehabilitate the man. We don’t hand the sentencing over to a statistician who can tell us how we might deter other people from committing these crimes. We hand it to a judge in the interest of justice to assign what punishment is fitting for the crime that was committed.
Well, that idea of justice is a heavy concern in the Bible as well. Now you’ve heard me before talk about the various aspects of divine righteousness. And I’ll mention two of them here: that God is a righteous God. What that means, first off, is that God acts always in keeping with himself. There is not some external rule to which God conforms, but he conforms always to himself. He’s not whimsical. You can always trust God to be faithful in acting according to what he does. And he then becomes the standard of all that is right and wrong. He’s the creator.
And so there is that first major category of God’s righteousness that we call God’s rectoral righteousness. Rectoral righteousness speaks of God as the governor, the ruler, and he determines what is right and wrong, and he determines what constitutes a crime and what is right in terms of our behavior. And God expects of all of his rational creatures that they keep righteousness and behave in a righteous way, in a way that conforms to him. And so we read, for example, in the Proverbs famously, “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight.” Every time God sees a business transaction that is fair and right and by the numbers, God delights in that. Anytime he sees a business transaction that’s shady, that’s taking advantage of someone, it’s an abomination to God. Not because it’s a violation of some abstract standard, but because it’s not in keeping with who he is. He’s a God of truth. And he expects truth and justice of all of his creatures as well. God’s rectoral righteousness. God is the ruler, the governor of all that is, demanding righteousness of all of his creatures.
Another aspect of God’s righteousness is his retributive righteousness. That is, the same God who is righteous and the same God who demands righteousness of all of his creatures demands also that all unrighteousness be punished. You see, it would be unrighteous for God not to require righteousness of his people. It would be unrighteous—it would not be in keeping with God’s righteous character—not to demand righteousness of his creatures. So also, when his creatures rebel against him, it would not be in keeping with his righteousness to let it go. His righteousness, his justice, demands punishment of all unrighteousness. And so it’s a function of God’s justice, a function of God’s righteousness and his glory, to requite every wrong. It’s a matter of justice that no one escape judgment.
The Bible makes much of that, that no one can escape judgment, that the judge will speak to everyone. It would be wrong, in short, to let a Hitler go free. And so in God’s estimation, it’d be wrong for any offense against God to go unanswered. Justice demands satisfaction. And so we read, for example, in Acts chapter 17, verse 31, that God has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness, that that standard will be held up and all men and women will be judged accordingly.
And so prominent in the Bible, we find a vocabulary that surrounds this idea of punishment for sin. We have the idea of justice and not just judgment, but righteous judgment—a determining by God of what is deserved for punishment for those who have violated his law. And we have related vocabulary like retribution, punishment, vengeance, judgment, justice, condemnation, wrath. All of that speaks of sin as a legal violation, a violation of God’s law, an offense to God, and there must then be punishment in the interest of justice. There must be a punishment assigned.
Also in keeping with all of this is the idea that we’ve seen in our Sunday evening series of the degrees of punishment in hell. That God keeps the books. There’s that book symbolism that recurs through the Bible of God keeping the books of every last sin that is committed. And not only every last sin in a general sense, but every thought, every motive, every deed, every word that is spoken. All of it keeping careful records so that in the end God will assign exactly the punishment that is fitting to each person. This is one way the Bible emphasizes this idea of justice in punishment generally and justice in terms of hell specifically. Only by punishing the sinner according to what he deserves will justice be restored. And in fact, in hell, the impenitent sinner will know exactly—he is receiving exactly the punishment that is owed him and that he has deserved.
And so we find this broadly in the scriptures of hell as a function of divine righteousness. It’s a function of, it’s a vindication of God’s righteousness. That God is the ruler, God is the governor, he is the one who by our sin we have offended and that must be answered, and it must be requited and justice must be set in order. It’d be wrong to let any sin go unpunished. Justice demands satisfaction. And it’s because of all of that that we find in passages like this in Revelation, that because punishment of the wicked is a vindication of God’s righteousness—in a way that may seem odd to you at first—but because punishment of the wicked is a vindication of God’s righteousness, it is also for the righteous an occasion of praise to God. God’s punishment of the wicked: an occasion for praise to God.
That’s what we see here in Revelation chapter 16, describing here the end-time judgments. We find these bowls. We’ve had the seals of judgments. We’ve had the trumpet judgments. And now we come to the bowl judgments. And the figure is, the symbolism is of these angels coming and pouring out on the earth judgment from a bowl. And the bowl judgments coming, and it lists for us the first, second, third angel, and so on. And then in verse 5, we read:
And I heard the angel in charge of the waters say, “Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments. They have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve.” And I heard the altar saying, “Yes, Lord God the Almighty, true and just are your judgments.”
Turn over a page to Revelation chapter 19. We find it here in an even more explicit way, beginning with verse one:
After this, I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven crying out, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just, for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.” Once more they cried out, “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.”
Notice here he’s speaking of judgment. He’s speaking of the saints gathered with the angels in praising God for his judgment. It is a judgment that is true, a judgment that is just, he says, and so they cry out hallelujah, specifically because God has avenged on the great prostitute the blood of his servants. And they praise, saying hallelujah, that this is a judgment that will go on forever and ever. The smoke from her goes up forever and ever. That is, his execution of judgment is the triumph of his just rule, and the saints recognize that, that God is at last vindicated, and that unrighteousness will not prevail forever as it so much seems to in our day today, but at last it will be answered in judgment. No challenge against God’s rule will ever finally prevail, and now God comes in assigning judgment against the wicked. And as they go down in the smoldering symbolism of this passage, in the smoldering ashes of Babylon, the saints, not crying, not weeping, but shouting praise to God that his justice has at last been vindicated.
This is a huge concern in the Bible that no opposition to God can at last be allowed to stand, that his honor, his justice is at stake, and only in the punishment of the wicked will the balance of justice be restored and things set right. And all of that then is the broader backdrop of the Bible’s teaching on hell. Specifically, hell is a place of the punishment of sinners where the balance of justice will be restored—a place where justice is being served.
The Sinner’s Sinning Never Stops
Now as I’ve said, our specific question today then is: why is hell never ending? Why then is hell to be forever? Just how—to put it this way—just how is unending punishment a matter of divine justice? Of course, the criticism often is: it seems to be unjust. It’s too much. Why then is hell never-ending?
Now I think broadly there are two answers to this question. The first one is, I think, pretty simple, pretty easy, and that is that hell must go on forever because the sinner’s sinning never stops. But the sinner’s sinning continues. In all of the passages on hell that we have looked at through this series on Sunday evening, there’s never a hint anywhere that the lost in hell finally repent. Never a hint that the sinners in hell are now saying, “Oh, I wish I hadn’t done that. God, I love you. I’m trusting in Jesus.”
What we have are some indications, in fact, that they continue in their sinning. We saw that in Luke chapter 16 with the rich man and Lazarus, with Lazarus in hell. There’s nothing there of, “I’m sorry for what I did for Lazarus,” but there’s continued that reflection of that kind of idea that he stands superior over Lazarus and has certain rights. And the idea then is that if they continue in their guilt and their sin, the guilt continues and the punishment continues.
There is a hint of that here in Revelation chapter 16. If you go back a page, Revelation chapter 16 verse 21, that I think informs this for us a bit. Here we have the curse of God in the seventh bowl being poured out in judgment upon sinners. And notice what it says in verse 21:
And great hailstones, about a hundred pounds each, fell from heaven on people, and they cursed God for the plague of the hail because the plague was so severe.
So here we have sinners finally receiving in themselves the judgment and the wrath of God against their sin. And what is their response? It is to curse God for what has happened. “We don’t deserve this. We have more rights than this. This is excessive.”
In fact, we find some hint of this idea of the continuing sin of sinners in hell in that expression that Jesus uses so often in his description of hell: that there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. That expression, gnashing of teeth, in every context that we can find, is not a gnashing of teeth in weeping and in sorrow, but it’s a gnashing of teeth in bitterness and rage and anger. We find it, for example, in the Book of Acts, that they ground their teeth at Stephen when they held him up to be executed. In Job, you remember how Job struggled against what seemed to him to be God’s unfairness in his treatment of him and all of his suffering. And Job uses the expression that God has gnashed his teeth at me. We find it in the Psalms several times. The psalmist speaks of his enemies that they have hated me without a cause and so on, and he says they gnash at me with their teeth—Psalm 35, Psalm 37, and Psalm 112. Several places in the Psalms that gnashing of the teeth is an expression of their anger, their rage, and their bitterness. We find it in Lamentations; we find it elsewhere.
And even in the use of Jesus’ use of it in Matthew chapter eight, I think there are hints in the context there of the very same. That they had rights and in their punishment of hell they are chafing with anger against God as though he has been unjust in punishing them. And so the murderous anger of Jesus’ enemies continues forever, and their guilt continues forever, their sinning continues forever, and so their punishment continues forever.
Well, I think that’s enough. Hell isn’t never-ending because sin is never-ending. And there can be no vacating of justice. I think that’s enough.
The Severity Of Sin Against God
But the biblical reasoning does go deeper than that. And I think we can start to approach it with this question: just how serious is sin? Now think on that. Just how serious is sin? And of course the answer is it’s incalculably serious. And all through the scriptures, it’s treated as something that is not worth anything. You’d be better off cutting off your arm, gouging out your eye, rather than sin and be judged. Sin is incalculably serious.
Well, the next question then is, what is it that makes sin such a serious offense? And of course the answer is the one who is sinned against. Crime is measured against the majesty of the one who is offended. We recognize that in our own penal codes. We recognize the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony. You could threaten me, for example, and we would consider that an offense. But if you threaten the president, that’d be a greater offense. The law recognizes that.
And the point here is that not only is all sin against God, but there is a very important sense in which all sin is only against God. Isn’t that what David said in his confession in Psalm 51? “Against you and you only have I sinned.” Now in point of fact, there are plenty of people he had sinned against. He had sinned against Bathsheba. He certainly sinned against Uriah. He had sinned against the generals in the army. He had sinned against his army itself in setting them up, going up against the walls so that Uriah would be killed. It’s hard to find anybody he hadn’t sinned against. But in a very important sense, David recognized, “Against you and you only have I sinned,” because this offense ultimately is against the God who gave the law in the first place. In my behavior, I have offended God himself.
And so we drive the question a little bit further. How do you measure the severity of sin against God? I think no one in the history of the church has thought this through more deeply and at more length than the 18th century American theologian, Jonathan Edwards. You’ve heard, of course, of his sermons, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. That’s just one of his many sermons and writings that he leaves for us on the doctrine of hell. He reasoned through this, and in particular, he reasoned through the doctrine of hell and the need for hell and the justice of hell and the endless punishment of hell in light of God himself.
And he wants us to think in terms not only of God’s majesty, but God’s infinite majesty. And he wants us to think not only in terms of God’s holiness, but God’s infinite holiness that cannot be measured. And not only of God’s justice, but his infinite justice that cannot be measured. He wants us to think of God’s goodness that cannot be measured, his infinite goodness, his infinite glory, and all of the infinite perfections of God, and he wants us to see God as the supreme object of our worship, the supreme object of our adoration, the supreme object of our obedience, the object of all moral obligation. God—the infinitely holy, infinitely just, infinitely good God—think about your sin in relation to him.
And then the question comes: what degree or amount of suffering would make amends for your sins against this God? At what point could you say, “Oh, that’s enough. You’ve suffered enough. The balance of justice is restored.” The fact is that sin is an infinite evil and the punishment for sin must be commensurate. And I want you to understand exactly here what we are saying. The point here is not that human sin is so great that it takes countless ages of punishment finally for justice to be restored. That’s not what we’re saying. We’re saying that sin is so great that God’s justice can never actually be satisfied in the punishment of a finite creature.
There’ll never come a moment when it can be said, “That’s enough, the balance of justice is restored.” Even in endless punishment, the sinner will never suffer beyond what he deserves. If you go to hell, you will never reach the point where you have even begun to pay back the debt that you owe or even a portion of the debt that you owe for sinning against this God. And the fact is, justice will never actually be completely satisfied, even in your eternal damnation. There is a sense in which, even in endless punishment, justice never prevails, but it continues to be poured out.
And you see how this turns the question the other direction. The question is not, “Is endless punishment too much?” The question now becomes, “Is it enough?” Some object to endless punishment—the teaching of what’s known (and we’ve talked about this in our evening series) as annihilationism—that there comes a point when the soul is extinguished, annihilated. And the argument goes that the soul is not intrinsically immortal. And so at some point it must be annihilated. The biblical answer, of course, is: yeah, that’s right. The soul is not intrinsically immortal, but you see, that’s just the point. Eternal punishment is due to the fact of God’s actively maintaining that soul in its existence for the purpose of its punishment and the vindication of his justice. If the soul were ever to cease to exist, justice would be vacated. And God can’t have that.
Others have objected to endless punishment on the ground that it’s not in keeping with God’s ultimate triumph. How can it be said that God is triumphant if sinners still exist? And of course, it misses the point that God will be glorified in his justice as well as in his mercy. The everlasting punishment of the wicked is not opposed to God’s triumph. It is an outworking of his triumph—an outworking of his triumph in justice.
Let me read you a paragraph from one of Jonathan Edwards’ sermons here addressing sinners who are still unrepentant:
God will before all these get himself honor in your destruction. You shall be tormented in the presence of them all. And then all will see that God is a great God indeed, and all will see how dreadful a thing it is to sin against such a God and to reject such a Savior and love and reject such love and grace as you have rejected and despised. And all will be filled with awe at the great sight. All the saints and angels will look on you and adore that majesty, that mighty power, that holiness and justice of God, which shall appear in your ineffable destruction and misery.
And that from a sermon entitled, The Future Punishment of the Wicked, Unavoidable and Intolerable. You think my sermon titles are difficult! “The Future Punishment of the Wicked, Unavoidable and Intolerable.” The intolerable part we might get immediately. Unavoidable as well—unavoidable because it is a necessary function of divine justice to punish the sinner.
Edwards has another of his other sermons on hell. I want you to hear this title: Wicked Men Useful in Their Destruction Only. Isn’t that a sobering thing? “Wicked men, useful in their destruction only.” It raises the question of what possible use is a wicked man? From God’s perspective, of what use is a sinner? Answer: they’re useful in their destruction—the triumph of his justice, the triumph and vindication of his just rule.
And that explains for us how, as we have in Revelation 16 and Revelation 19, explains for us how the final and endless punishment of the wicked can be an occasion of praise to God by the saints and the angels. God has set out to demonstrate to the angels and to demonstrate to all of mankind both the greatness of his love and the greatness of his wrath. And our rejoicing over the wicked as we have it portrayed in Revelation 16 and 19—our rejoicing over the final judgment of the wicked is not some ill disposition on our part, it’s not some kind of sinful gloating, but finally at last, we will see as God sees, and we will feel as God feels, and we’ll so associate and identify with God in his judgment that this will, in our estimation, be an occasion of praise.
Endless punishment then is grounded in the infinite glory and the majesty of God. Endless punishment is not grounded ultimately in the nature of the human soul—that it’s inherently immortal. Endless punishment is not grounded finally in anything about hell being necessarily endless. And although we ground our doctrine ultimately in the teaching of the scriptures, which are clear on it, ultimately the grounding of eternal punishment goes back further than that. It is in the nature of God himself. Endless punishment is grounded ultimately in the infinite glory and majesty of God and the corresponding demands of justice.
Do you see what this says to you if you are not yet in Christ? There is no escaping divine judgment. God is so plain on that. There is no escaping divine justice. His justice will not allow that. It is very important to God that justice be served. And God is patient with you now. He’s offered terms of peace. He says, “Come,” and he will have you repent of your sin, lay down your arms before Jesus and trust in him and be saved. But if you die in your sin, you will receive divine wrath and punishment. And not only will it be forever, it will be forever without any hope ever of any kind of relief, but endless punishment. And not only will it be without relief ever, but you will suffer knowing—forever knowing—that you are getting just what you deserve.
We’ve seen in this series that Jesus—it is Jesus who speaks more of the awfulness of hell than anyone else in the Bible. It is as though Jesus reserved this topic for himself and says, “It’s going to be too difficult for people to take. Let me do this one.” And there can be no doubt that our Lord in all of his awful warnings about hell—with the graphic depictions of it that he gives that we’ve seen—there can be no doubt that all of that is given to us as a warning, seeking in earnest for people to turn from their sin and turn to Him and be saved. The alternative is unthinkable. And to use Edward’s term, it is intolerable.
But can you see how all of this also demonstrates for us the great depth and value of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for us. Justice can never be satisfied fully in your punishment, but it was fully satisfied in a punishment on Jesus. Jesus, the Son of God, the Lord of glory, the Lord from heaven, endured in place of his people—in His infinite person and His infinite purity—endured the infinite wrath of God against His people so that they would be saved. And our whole hope and our only plea is that Jesus is accepted. Jesus has satisfied the wrath of God. Jesus has satisfied justice. He took the blame. He bore the wrath. And we are accepted because of Him. And forever the person and work of the Lord Jesus will be the object of our adoration and praise. What an awful judgment he endured for us and what a great salvation he accomplished for us.
Let’s bow together in prayer. Our Father, what a sobering, what an awful subject this is. O Lord, give us grace to run to Jesus. Help us, Lord, to see him in the great glory and the great value that he is to us. For your people here today who know him, we pray that you’ll give us through this a deeper appreciation for our Lord Jesus and a greater affection for what he bore in our place. Lord, for any who do not know him, make your word living and quick to them and open their eyes to see that they must have Jesus. We pray in his name. Amen.