I was recently asked about my thoughts on Hell specifically on how Hell relates to God’s wrath within the Bible. While this is a difficult question and one that deserves far more than the brief treatment I intend to provide, I do think that I can at least provide a basic outline to help people as they think about the issue. Yet, if you want more on the topic I will provide a few resources at the end of this that have helped me think a little more clearly on the topic.1
To begin with what is Hell?
Hell as Martin Luther, C.S. Lewis, and others have said is separation from God, this is a key comment note that in this theology Hell isn’t a place of punishment. Hell is frequently described as a place of judgment or torment, but it is never described as a place of punishment in the New Testament (NT). The concept of Hell as a place of punishment has a long history of development in the Western Church that includes Jerome’s translation of the Bible into Latin and is heavily indebted to Dante’s Inferno2 but it is not a concept NT authors develop. Instead, in the NT we are given a variety of images and metaphors but never a true picture, sometimes Hell is described as a place of fire (Matt. 5:22, 18:9) sometimes it is not (Lk. 16:19-31). The Bible, including Jesus, never provides us with a detailed realistic picture of any part of life after death instead it speaks in metaphor, like how Hell (the place of eternal damnation) is often called Gehenna a valley outside Jerusalem used for pagan sacrifice. The problem is we often miss small details like Jesus using Gehenna (a real place for his followers) as a depiction of eternal separation from God and so we mistakenly think that he is speaking very literally when he is trying to provide a metaphor his audience can understand. So beyond saying it is separation from God and agonizing because the people there are fully separated from the source of light, life, and love we can’t say much about what Hell is and is not.3
Second how is God’s wrath shown in the Bible?
It is vital when we speak of God’s wrath that we begin with Exodus 34:6-8 because these verses depict God providing a self-description of God’s character. These verses demonstrate who God is from God’s mouth, and they are the most often quoted passage within the Old Testament (OT).
6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed,
“The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
7 keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,[b]
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents
upon the children
and the children’s children
to the third and the fourth generation.”
There are a number of things we can assert from the sections I have highlighted, first is that God is “slow to anger (or wrath)”. Not only is God slow to anger, anger is a parenthetical idea, it is surrounded by “merciful and gracious (compassionate)” and “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness”. This means that in God’s own self-description mercy, compassion and faithful love mitigate God’s anger, and while God’s anger may be present at times (see Deut. 1:34) it is brief and always replaced by mercy, compassion, and love. This concept is confirmed by Psalm 30:5
For his anger is but for a moment;
his favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may linger for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.
So if God’s anger is fleeting why do so many make so much of God’s wrath?
The reason so many are attracted to the the idea of God’s wrath is because of the prophets, like Isaiah who speak of the Day of the LORD as a day of wrath (Is. 13). For the people of OT Israel the “Day of the LORD” was generally understood as a great day when God would intervene directly on behalf of Israel and deliver the people from their enemies. The prophets though saw that Israel was complicit in the same kinds of injustice, corruption, sin, etc. that their neighbors were, and so they warned that what Israel believed would be a day of rejoicing would be a day of wrath. Note a couple of necessary interpretative issues here, first the prophets are describing Israel’s experience with the Day of the LORD not always inherently what God is experiencing. Meaning simply because Israel is experiencing wrath does not mean God is demonstrating wrath. Second, the prophets spoke/wrote in poetry and so we should always be a little cautious of reading these ideas too literally, poetic language says more than a literal meaning. The NT authors pick up on this idea and modify it slightly to suggest that say that there will come a final day for this earth where God’s wrath will be poured out on injustice, sin, corruption etc. (see Rom. 1:18). Yes this day will impact people (Jn. 3:36, Rom. 5:9) but it is not directed against people it is directed against the elements of sin and death in this world; the wrath God demonstrates is not directed against “sinners” but against “sin” we see this in how Paul builds every use of wrath in Romans off of what he says in 1:18 where it is directed against sin and not people. In fact, the one time Paul does mention wrath against people he rejects the idea, Romans 3:5-6:
5 But if our injustice serves to confirm the justice of God, what should we say? That God is unjust to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) 6 By no means! For then how could God judge the world?
Further, in the few places where Jesus speaks of wrath it is always when he is condemning the actions of the religious leaders. In other words, Jesus uses God’s wrath exactly how the OT prophets used the idea, as a warning to God’s people who think they are safe from judgment but whose commitment to perpetuating injustice places them in danger. Jesus is using the term wrath so the religious leaders of his day will conjure to mind pictures of Isaiah and the other prophets and listen to his warnings.
What does this mean?
I have addressed the issues that Hell is never mentioned as a place of punishment, only a place of Judgment, God’s wrath is not a defining characteristic of God God is and is only temporary, and that the Day of God’s Wrath is a shorthand poetic way of discussing God’s judgment on sin (rather than people). So what I think we must conclude is that Hell is not a place of God’s wrath, contrary to what Jonathan Edwards preached.4 Hell cannot result from God’s wrath for the simply reason that Hell– as popularly understood– is meant to be eternal and the Bible clearly says God’s wrath is not eternal. If Hell is eternal and based on God’s wrath then the Bible is wrong in how it describes God’s wrath.
Hell can be a place of God’s justice and judgment but we do not have to understand that justice and judgment are tied to wrath. Justice can come from a variety of motives and when we speak of these traits we need to ascribe them to the correct motives. If we attribute the wrong motives to God we misunderstand God’s character, and since we are trying to imitate God’s character if we misunderstand God’s character then we will never align our character to God’s. When Jesus speaks of the heart of his message he roots it in love of God and love of Neighbor (Mk. 12:30-31), he does this because he understands that the root of God’s character is love not wrath. If we are to fully understand God then we must begin with the idea that God is loving, even in judgment, rather than God judges from wrath. Hell is a place reserved for those who commit to lives of injustice, greed, and sin these ways of life which are the antithesis of love. It is a place where the unloving are separated from the source of love, it cannot be anything other and thus it must be God’s justice and not wrath which is responsible for such judgment.
- C.S. Lewis The Great Divorce, Matthew J. Lynch Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God, Stanley Gundrey Four Views on Hell,
↩︎ - I think this is why so many Christian thinkers put Dante on “must read” lists for Christians, because after you read it you can distinguish when your concept of Hell comes from the Bible or Dante. ↩︎
- The depictions of Gehenna and the lake of Fire in Revelation 20:10-15 have led many to say the fire might be eternal but that does not mean it is a place of eternal torment, instead Hell is a place of annihilation. ↩︎
- Jonathan Edwards’ sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God has often been considered a landmark sermon and praised for helping to spark what has been termed “The First Great Awakening”. And this fear based revivalist preaching has been popular in American history up to the present. However, many theologians, Biblical scholars, and even historians criticize the sermon as poor theology constructed out of a poor understanding of Scripture which has done more harm than good to the American Church. ↩︎
Squinting in the Light 
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