Today’s Question: I was listening to someone on social media and he said that the Bible does not teach that there is a real hell. Is that true?

Bible Answer: No, he is wrong. The Bible teaches that hell is real. In modern culture, the topic of hell has largely been relegated to a punchline, a myth, or a relic of ancient religious scare tactics. Even within the contemporary Church, there is a subtle, growing temptation to downplay, allegorize, or entirely ignore the doctrine of eternal judgment. It feels too harsh for modern sensibilities.

Yet, if we claim to follow Christ, we cannot cut out the parts of the redemptive story that make us uncomfortable. To build a mature, biblical faith, we must look squarely at what Scripture actually reveals. When we examine the text, a sobering truth emerges: Jesus Christ spoke more about hell than any person in the Bible.

Why Does Hell Even Exist?

To understand the reality of hell, we have to look back at its original purpose. In Matthew 25:41, Jesus describes the final judgment, where He will separate humanity as a shepherd separates sheep from goats. To those on His left, He will deliver a staggering sentence:

“Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

Notice the phrasing carefully. God did not originally construct hell as a destination for human beings. In His justice, hell was custom-built as a secure prison prepared specifically for Satan and his rebellious angels.

Why, then, do human beings end up there? It comes down to the nature of our creation. When God breathed life into humanity, He created us as eternal creatures with immortal souls. Physical death is not the end of human consciousness; it is merely the separation of the soul from the body. Your soul cannot die in the sense of being wiped out or flicker into non-existence.

Because the human soul is immortal, it must exist somewhere for eternity. 

If a person chooses to reject the lordship of God and instead aligns with the rebellion of Satan, God honors that free choice. Because an eternal soul cannot be annihilated, God must provide a permanent, physical place for damned eternal souls to reside, completely cut off from His goodness and presence.

What Jesus Taught: Literal Reality and Eternal Duration

Jesus never treated hell as a metaphor. He addressed it as a literal, terrifying reality of final judgment. To fully understand His warnings, we have to look at the specific original Greek words He used, which carry distinct theological weights.

1. Gehenna (γέεννα) – The Final, Eternal Hell

Out of the 12 times Gehenna appears in the New Testament, Jesus uses it 11 times. The word is a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew Ge-Hinnom (the Valley of Hinnom), a physical ravine located just south of Jerusalem.

In the Old Testament, this valley was notorious because apostate kings used it to perform child sacrifices to the pagan god Molech. By the time of Christ, the valley had become Jerusalem’s public garbage dump. It was a smoldering, repulsive abyss where trash, sulfur, and the carcasses of executed criminals were burned continuously.

Jesus used this graphic, local imagery to illustrate the final, eternal place of fiery judgment. When He warned of the “unquenchable fire” where “their worm does not die” (Mark 9:43-48), He was explicitly warning about the spiritual reality of Gehenna. 

2. Hades (ᾅδης) – The Temporary Realm of the Dead

Jesus also utilized the word Hades, which refers to the intermediate state or temporary underworld of departed souls. In Luke 16:23, Jesus describes the Rich Man experiencing conscious torment in Hades immediately following physical death. Unlike Gehenna, Hades is not permanent. Revelation 20:14 reveals that at the end of the age, Hades will be emptied of its dead and entirely swallowed up by the Lake of Fire (Gehenna).

Across all these teachings, Jesus consistently emphasized two attributes of hell:

• Eternal Duration: Jesus directly paired the timeline of heaven with the timeline of hell, using the exact same Greek word (aiōnios) for both. In Matthew 25:46, He states, “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” If heaven is forever, hell is forever.
• Agony and Remorse: He described it as a place of “outer darkness” (absolute separation from God’s light) and a realm of “weeping and gnashing of teeth”—the ultimate expression of emotional agony and eternal regret (Matthew 8:12, 13:42).

Because the stakes are so high, Jesus commanded a righteous fear of this reality: “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell [Gehenna]” (Matthew 10:28).

What the Apostles Taught: A Foundational Doctrine

Following Christ’s resurrection, the Apostles expanded on these warnings in their letters. They did not treat eternal judgment as an optional theological opinion or a secondary issue. They framed it as a foundational, non-negotiable tenet of the Christian faith.

In Hebrews 6:1-2, the writer explicitly lists the bedrock doctrines that form the baseline of Christian belief: “Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.”

Scripture categorizes “eternal judgment” right alongside repentance, saving faith, and the resurrection of the dead. It is structurally defined as part of the foundation. You cannot build Christian maturity if you reject the baseline foundation. To deny eternal judgment is to alter the very structural integrity of the Gospel.

The Apostle Paul reinforced this, warning that those who reject the Gospel will face “the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord” (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9). Likewise, Peter and Jude pointed to history—specifically the physical destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—as a permanent reminder that unrighteous individuals and rebellious angels are reserved for everlasting darkness, chains, and judgment (2 Peter 2:4, Jude 7 & 13).

A Wake-Up Call for the Modern Church

While Scripture is our sole infallible foundation for truth, history and modern testimonies occasionally provide sobering illustrations that align with these biblical warnings.

In April 1933, a 15-year-old bedridden Texan boy named Kenneth E. Hagin clinically flatlined due to an incurable heart and blood condition. He later testified that his soul leapt out of his body, descending feet-first into a pitch-black, cavernous abyss. He described the darkness as physically dense, accompanied by suffocating heat. At the bottom, he witnessed rolling, violent flames and felt himself being claimed by a demonic presence, only for a powerful voice from heaven to shake the realm, releasing him and pulling his spirit back into his body. Hagin died three times that night before desperately repenting and surrendering his life to Christ.

Decades later in 1985, Howard Storm, a fiercely atheistic university professor, suffered a ruptured duodenum while in France. After flatlining in the hospital, he experienced finding himself conscious outside his body, only to be lured by seemingly kind entities into an oncoming fog. The further they went, the darker it became, until the entities turned malevolent—viciously mocking and tearing at his spirit. 

In the depth of absolute despair, a voice in his mind prompted him to pray. Though an atheist, he began desperately crying out the name of Jesus. A light brighter than the sun shattered the darkness, rescuing him from the abyss. Storm underwent a radical conversion, left his career, and spent the rest of his life as a pastor.

Whether we look at the precise theology of the Greek text, the structural foundations of the Epistles, or the terrifying accounts of those who have stared into the abyss, the conclusion is identical: Hell is an undeniable, literal reality.

The Ultimate Victory: How Jesus Defeated Hell

If the sermon of Scripture ended there, we would be a people left in absolute terror. The weight of hell is devastatingly heavy, but it serves as the necessary, pitch-black backdrop that allows the diamond of the Gospel to shine with blinding brilliance.

We are eternal creatures. Our sins deserved eternal separation. But Jesus stepped into our place.

On the cross, Jesus absorbed the entire weight of the wrath of God that was rightfully meant for us. He experienced the ultimate definition of hell—complete, agonizing separation from the Father—causing Him to cry out in the dark, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). When He shouted, “It is finished!”, the debt of humanity’s sin was paid in full. The judgment our immortal souls deserved was entirely sustained by Him.

But the story didn’t end at the cross. The historic Apostle’s Creed, echoing biblical principles, declares that after His burial, Christ “descended into hell” (the Greek Hades or realm of the dead). Jesus went down into the underworld, and He both suffered and eventually defeated hell for us.

As 1 Peter 3:18-19 and Ephesians 4:9 indicate, Christ descended into the lower regions not as a victim, but as a conquering King. He marched straight into enemy territory to proclaim His ultimate triumph over the powers of darkness. On the third day, He burst out of the grave, shattering the power of death and freeing the human soul from the chains of the enemy.

In Revelation 1:18, the risen Christ declares: “I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”

Because Jesus broke the gates of Hades and walked out with the keys, your immortal soul does not have to go to the prison built for the devil and his angels. The judgment has been satisfied, the victory has been won, and the gates of heaven are thrown wide open. The reality of hell demands a response—and the only biblical response is to surrender completely to the King who conquered it.