Christians who read the same Bible give three answers to the question of hell. The first is that the lost suffer consciously without end. The second is that the final punishment is death and destruction. The third is that judgment finally gives way to the reconciliation of all people. Each answer rests on real passages, so the honest way to weigh them is to read those passages one at a time and test every view against all of them. That is the work of this study.
You can use it alone in two sittings or with a group over two meetings. Bring a Bible, paper and a pen. The guide draws on a Jude 3 Project conversation in which Lisa Fields spoke with Dr. Preston Sprinkle, vice president of Eternity Bible College and general editor of a multi-view book on hell. Sprinkle leans toward one of the views, and you will hear his reasons, but the study leaves the verdict to you. By his account, the majority of Christian theologians for at least the last 1,500 years have held the first view, and he insists that all three are argued from Scripture.
Begin with the picture you already carry
Before reading a verse, write two sentences. In the first, say what you think hell is. In the second, say where that idea came from: a sermon, a film, a parent, a verse you memorized. Lisa Fields admitted she had never set aside time to study hell, and she named a habit most readers share: “you go by what you’ve been taught and you kinda read that into the text.” Sprinkle said something similar about his own start. When he and Francis Chan wrote Erasing Hell, they leaned toward the traditional view, yet he says “the Bible didn’t seem nearly as clear on that as we had originally thought.”
Agree on the question before arguing the answer
The three views share more than their labels suggest. Speaking of the contributors to his book, Sprinkle put the common ground this way: “We all affirm the existence of hell. We affirm that there’s punishment in hell. We affirm hell’s a place to avoid.” The disagreement, he said, is narrower: “the nature of hell is what’s on the table for debate.” A reader who thinks the only choices are endless torment or no hell at all has not yet met the actual debate.
The word itself has a history. Sprinkle explains that the Greek word behind “hell” in the Gospels is gehenna, a name drawn from the Valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem. Jeremiah records the sin committed there: “And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart” (Jeremiah 7:31).
Read Jeremiah 7:30-34 slowly. Notice what the passage says about judgment and what it does not say about an afterlife. Sprinkle observes that the prophet does not spell out an afterlife picture. By his account, the valley’s name came to stand for God’s future judgment in Jewish thought after the Hebrew Bible was written, and Jesus uses the word in that sense. The word’s origin settles that hell means judgment. It leaves open what the judgment consists of.
Matthew 25:46 and the matching word
Start with the literary unit, Matthew 25:31-46. The Son of man sits on a throne and separates the nations as a shepherd separates sheep from goats. The scene ends with one sentence that sets the two destinies side by side: “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal” (Matthew 25:46).
The KJV says everlasting in one clause and eternal in the other. The Greek has the same adjective in both places, which is why many modern translations say “eternal” twice. Sprinkle states the traditional reasoning from that parallel plainly: “If the life is never ending, then the punishment also must be never ending.”
Now ask two questions of the text. Does “everlasting punishment” describe something the person experiences without end, or a sentence whose result can never be reversed? Then compare 2 Thessalonians 1:9, which Sprinkle lists among the traditional view’s texts: “Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.” Here the punishment is called destruction. Which view does that wording help, and which does it press?
Romans 6:23, Matthew 10:28 and John 3:16: the words for an ending
The second view, which Sprinkle calls annihilation, conditional immortality or terminal punishment, holds that the final punishment after judgment day is death. Sprinkle says more than 100 passages describe the fate of the unbeliever, and that they speak of death, destruction and the end of the wicked. Three carry much of his case.
Paul writes, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Sprinkle points to what is absent: “Paul doesn’t say the wages of sin is ongoing torment forever, but the free gift is eternal life. He says the wages of sin is death.”
Jesus warns, “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). And the most familiar verse in the Bible sets two outcomes against each other: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Of that verse Sprinkle says, “that word perish suggests to me that there’s some sort of finality to whatever punishment’s gonna happen.”
Here is an observation to test. John 3:16 and Matthew 25:46 have the same shape. Each pairs the fate of the lost with everlasting life. In Matthew the opposite of life is everlasting punishment. In John it is perishing. Write down how each view explains both pairings at once. Then ask whether “destroy” and “perish” describe an actual end, a figure of ruin, or a stage that judgment passes through.
Romans 5:18 and the reach of “all”
The third view, which Robin Perry calls ultimate reconciliation, holds that all people will finally be reconciled to God. Its defenders do not deny judgment. Sprinkle explains that they read the Bible through a pattern found especially in the Hebrew Bible: “you often see restoration on the other side of judgment.” The prophets called the exile to Babylon God’s judgment, and they promised a return.
The view has its texts. “Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life” (Romans 5:18). “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). Sprinkle grants their force: “if you’re on a desert island in Romans five 18 washed up on shore, we would all be universalist.”
He does not read them that way. He says “all doesn’t always mean all” in Scripture, and that it often means all kinds of people. In Romans, he argues, Paul keeps pressing the point that Jew and Gentile alike stand under sin and are saved the same way. Test that claim. Read Romans 3:23 and 3:29, then the whole unit of Romans 5:12-21. Mark every “all” and every “many.” In verse 17, notice who reigns in life: those who receive abundance of grace. Does that phrase limit the second “all” in verse 18, or does verse 18 widen verse 17? In 1 Corinthians 15:23, Paul says each comes in his own order and names those who are Christ’s at his coming. Does that qualify the “all” in verse 22?
Sprinkle adds a principle both sides can accept: “we need more evidence than just a verse here, verse there.” Because he finds the language of destruction persuasive, he places the burden on the other side: “I would need the universalists to show me why death doesn’t mean the cessation of life, why destruction doesn’t mean to destroy.” Turn that around before you accept it. Write one sentence naming what a universalist would need to show about the words for death, and one naming what Sprinkle’s view would need to show about “all” in Romans 5:18. Which burden looks heavier to you after reading the passages? He disagrees with Perry, yet he calls him a brother in Christ and says to readers who hold that view, “I don’t think you’re a heretic.”
Revelation 14 and 20: the hardest images
Sprinkle notes that the traditional view also draws on Revelation 14 and 20. Name the genre first. This is apocalyptic writing, full of beasts, marks and a lake of fire, and its images are symbolic. Symbolic does not mean empty. The reader has to ask what reality each image points to.
Begin with Revelation 14:9-11. Verse 10 says that the one who worships the beast and receives his mark will drink the wine of God’s wrath and be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. Verse 11 continues: “And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.” Observe who is tormented here: a specific group, those who worship the beast. Observe where it happens: before the angels and the Lamb. Then notice what lasts “for ever and ever” in verse 11. Is it the torment itself or the smoke that rises from it?
That phrase is where the views part. Defenders of conscious eternal punishment take “for ever and ever” and “no rest day nor night” as an unending experience. Some interpreters who hold the final-death view read the rising smoke as a lasting sign of a judgment that has been completed, drawing on prophetic images of ruined cities whose smoke goes up. Some who hold ultimate reconciliation argue that the phrase can mark a long age rather than endlessness, or they read these chapters in light of the renewal that follows in Revelation 21-22. Weigh each reading against the wording of verse 11, not against the view you want it to support.
Then read Revelation 20:10-14. “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Revelation 20:10). “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death” (Revelation 20:14). One chapter holds both “tormented day and night for ever and ever” and “the second death.” Note who is named in verse 10 and who is in view in verse 15. Any view has to account for both phrases.
A practice: the three-column test
Sprinkle’s main observation about the debate is that each position argues from the text. In his words, “they are drawing their view from scripture, which forces the reader to say, okay, I need to lay out these biblical arguments and see which one makes the most sense.” This exercise does that work.
- Divide a page into three columns: conscious eternal punishment, final death, and ultimate reconciliation.
- Down the left margin, list Matthew 25:46, 2 Thessalonians 1:9, Romans 6:23, Matthew 10:28, John 3:16, Romans 5:18, 1 Corinthians 15:22, Revelation 14:11 and Revelation 20:10-14.
- For each passage, write one sentence in each column explaining how that view reads it, the way a careful defender would put it.
- Circle the boxes where a view has to work hardest to explain the text.
- Choose the view you find least convincing and write a paragraph stating its strongest case. In a group, hand it to someone who holds that view and ask whether they would sign it.
Use the circles to see where each view carries strain, and whether you are explaining some passages and explaining others away.
Questions for discussion
- Look at your opening two sentences. Which parts of your picture of hell came from a passage you studied here, and which parts did you not find in any of these texts?
- Matthew 25:46 and John 3:16 both set the fate of the lost against everlasting life. Which pairing is harder to fit with your current view, and why?
- When you counted the uses of “all” in Romans 5:12-21, what did you notice that you had not seen before?
- In Revelation 14:11, does “for ever and ever” describe the torment or the smoke? How much of your answer comes from the verse and how much from your conclusion?
- Look at your columns. Which view’s circled boxes fall on the passages you consider most central? Does a view’s weak spot matter more on some texts than on others?
- Sprinkle treats Robin Perry as a brother in Christ while disagreeing with him. On this subject, what would it take for you to hold a firm view while treating someone with a different one the same way?
For anyone leading a group
People rarely come to this subject in the abstract. Lisa Fields described college friends from campus ministry who left the faith because “they couldn’t wrap their mind around a loving God sending people there.” Someone in your group may be near that edge, or may be grieving a person who died outside the faith. Do not ask anyone to announce where they land, and do not let discussion turn into a judgment on anyone’s loved one. Keep attention on the passages and let disagreement stand without a vote. If the study stirs up fear or grief in someone, encourage them to talk with a pastor or a trusted counselor, and follow up privately.
Carry this into the week
Sprinkle’s closing charge was to “try to study what the Bible says without reading our presuppositions into it.” He grounded it in trust: if God is good and Scripture is his life-giving word, then following the text is safe even when it unsettles you.
Return to your two opening sentences and rewrite them. You may say the same thing, something more tentative, or something new. Then answer one question in writing: which passage did you have to work hardest to explain, and what would it take for that passage to change your mind?