HELL IS SEPARATION FROM GOD
Hell is separation from God.
Hell is your default destination
From a Christian worldview, most people do not realize that their default eternal spiritual setting is to be separated from God in hell after they die. If you think about it, it makes sense. We are all spiritually broken, flawed, and imperfect. But God is holy, pure, and perfect. So there needs to be a place to which God can banish spiritually broken, flawed, and imperfect people from God and God’s people. In other words, without hell, you could not have heaven. But God will not force people to have a relationship with God and God’s people for eternity in heaven. But you must choose to accept God to have an eternal relationship with God.
Hell is a place where spiritually imperfect people are separated from God and God’s people.
In the Bible, Jesus taught more about hell than anyone else (Matthew 10:28, 14:40; Mark 9:43-44). Hell is a real place. Jesus referred to hell as a place with unending raging fires and where the worm does not die. Jesus also said that those who reject God “will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12 NIV). Jesus also described hell as a “blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:42 NIV). The apostle Paul described hell as, “He (God) will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed” (2 Thessalonians 1:8-10 NIV). Therefore, hell is separation from God for those that do not believe, trust, and follow God. Alcorn, Heaven: Biblical Answers to Common Questions booklet (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2004), 42; Kenneth D. Boa and Robert Bowman Jr., Sense and Nonsense about Heaven and Hell (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), chapter 3; Lee Strobel, The Case for Heaven: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for Life After Death (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021), chapters 7 and 8.
People who do not repent of their sin and accept God are spiritually imperfect and will go to hell.
People who have not repented of their sins and received God’s gift of spiritual redemption in Jesus Christ will inhabit hell (Revelation 20:12-15). After Jesus returns to earth, there will be a resurrection of Christians for eternal life in heaven and resurrection of unbelievers for eternal existence in hell (John 5:28-29). God will judge the non-Christians (everyone whose name is not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life) according to what they did in their lives (works), which have been recorded in the books of heaven (Revelation 20:12-15). Because their life works include sin, people on their own merit and without Jesus, cannot be in the presence of a holy and just God and have a relationship with God. Instead, God will banish them to a place of everlasting destruction (Matthew 13:40-42; 2 Thessalonians 1:8-10). Jesus will tell those who did not believe in and receive him, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41 NIV). Hell will be a place of absolute misery (Matthew 13:42, 13:50, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30; Luke 13:28). Alcorn, Heaven (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2004), 24-29.; Hank Hanegraaff, After Life: What You Need to Know About Heaven, the Hereafter & Near-Death Experiences (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing, 2013), 49-68.