Once an unrepentant person dies, he is given no further opportunity for repentance. His fate in sealed. The Bible says, “It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27).
Hell is eternal, and those who are confined there have no hope of escape. Speaking of the future condemnation of the unrighteous, Jesus said, “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matt. 25:46, emphasis added). The punishment of the unrighteous in hell is just as much eternal as is eternal life for the righteous.
Similarly, Paul wrote:
For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you…when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power (2 Thes. 1:6-9, emphasis added).
Hell is a place of indescribable agony because it will be a never-ending punishment. Confined there forever, the unrighteous will bear their eternal guilt and suffer the wrath of God in an unquenchable fire.
Jesus described hell as a place of “outer darkness,” where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” and a place “where their worm does not die, and their fire is not quenched” (Matt. 22:13; Mark 9:48). Oh, how we need to warn people of that place and tell them of the salvation provided only in Christ!
One particular denomination teaches the concept of purgatory, a place where believers will suffer for a time to be purged of their sins and thus be made worthy for heaven. This idea, however, is nowhere taught in the Bible.
