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The Eternity of Hell Torments | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed Thinking. This is the deep dive where we
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take rigorous, often demanding historical material and we try
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to analyze its structure to give you the most critical insights.
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Yeah, our goal is really to cut through some of the noise and
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give you a clear, systematic grasp of arguments that shaped
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American theological thought. Today we are undertaking a deep
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dive into one of the most sobering and I think, logically
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challenging documents of the Great Awakening.
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It's Jonathan Edwards, 1739 sermon The Eternity of Hell
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Torment. And this isn't just a
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theological reading. You have to see it as a
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confrontation with a meticulously constructed system
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of legal and moral logic. Right, we're going to be
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dissecting his arguments as he presents them in his text, and
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it all hinges on his analysis of Matthew 25.46.
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That's the passage. These shall go away into
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everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.
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We really want to understand the precision Edwards demanded when
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he was defining concepts like divine justice or the nature of
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sin, or even the meaning of eternity itself.
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So our mission today is to trace the complete architecture of his
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defense of eternal conscious punishment, and this requires us
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to set aside how we might feel about the concept for a moment.
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Yeah, you really have to. And instead focus on how
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Edwards, with all that 18th century logical rigor, argues
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that this outcome is not just possible, but actually necessary
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based on God's nature. So to begin, what are the basic
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claims he's setting out to establish?
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And maybe more to the point, what specific alternatives was
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he trying to, you know, eliminate from the discourse of
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his time? What's striking to me right away
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is how he doesn't just, you know, state his position.
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He immediately puts up these clear boundaries for the entire
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discussion. Yes, his core doctrine is stated
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with, well, absolute clarity. The misery of the wicked in hell
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will be absolutely eternal, and he immediately grounds this in
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Matthew 25.46 by looking very closely at its context.
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And he brings up this really vital detail about the
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chronology of the judgment. This is the great and general
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day of judgment, which he says happens at the end of all
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temporary things. That's right, Edwards uses these
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temporal markers to define what eternity even is.
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He looks at the traditional reading of Scripture which
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suggests that mountains, the Earth, the sun, the moon, stars,
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all these things we might call everlasting in our current age,
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they will all cease or be changed.
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The heavens themselves will wax old like a garment.
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Right. So his logic is, if the
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punishment begins after the longest possible temporal
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duration, the age of the world has finished, then whatever
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follows can't just be a very long time.
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It has to be without limit. The end of all finite measures
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marks the start of an infinite one.
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Precisely. And once he's established that
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chronological hook, he then has to defend the doctrine against
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the two major theological alternatives that were popular
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back then. He identifies 2 opponents he has
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to systematically dismantle. The first one he goes after
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focuses on the nature of the punishment itself.
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It suggests it's less about suffering and more about just
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not existing. That is the doctrine of eternal
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annihilation. This view argues that when the
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Bible talks about eternal death or destruction, it means God
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just completely obliterates a person's being.
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They cease to exist. Which would remove the element
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of sensible misery altogether. Completely and the second view.
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It accepts the horror of suffering but tries to put a cap
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on the duration. So a temporary long punishment.
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Yes, they believe the punishment is extreme, sensible misery,
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maybe for millions in billions of years, but eventually justice
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is satisfied and the suffering stops.
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They just reject absolute eternity.
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So Edwards realizes he has to prove two big things.
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First, that the punishment is conscious, sensible misery,
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which is against the annihilationists, and 2nd, that
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this misery is absolutely without end, which is against
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those who want to limit the duration.
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And he built his whole system, his four pillars, to do just
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that. And those 4 pillars are really
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his structural genius. One.
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Eternity is not contrary to divine perfections, meaning
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justice and mercy 2. Eternal death is abiding,
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sensible misery, so not annihilation 3.
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This misery will be absolutely without end, and four good ends
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are obtained by this punishment. That first pillar is where all
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the philosophical and legal heavy lifting really begins.
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Yeah, we have to immediately confront that central moral
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question that everybody asks about this doctrine.
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Yes. How can a finite sin committed
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in just a few fleeting years warrant an infinite punishment?
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This is the critical point, and Edwards just flat out rejects
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the premise that sin is finite. He argues for what he calls
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infinite evil. He completely changes the frame
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of reference. He does.
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He shifts the focus away from the time the sin was committed
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and puts it squarely on the object against whom the sin was
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committed. Defended party is God, and God
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by definition is infinitely glorious, infinitely holy, and
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infinitely worthy of all possible love of honor and
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obedience. So since God's worldliness is
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infinite, our obligation to Him is also infinitely great.
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Any command from a being of infinite majesty carries with an
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infinite obligation to obey. Therefore, sin, which is the
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violation of that supreme obligation.
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Must be a violation of infinite obligation, which makes the sin
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itself an act of infinite evil. And if the evil is infinite,
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then the consequence is just logical and infinite.
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Evil deserves an infinite punishment.
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The punishment then becomes perfectly proportionable to the
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sin. Right.
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It's an act of rigorous, necessary justice, not some kind
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of arbitrary cruelty. Edwards basically says that if
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you reject this chain of logic, you have to ultimately deny that
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God is infinitely glorious. That's a That's a devastating
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piece of reasoning. Yeah, it removes the time limit
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entirely. A sin that takes 2 minutes is
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still an infinite offense, because the one offended is
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infinite. Exactly.
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The time spent rebelling doesn't matter.
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The object of the rebellion is everything, and once he's
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established the justice of it, he has to immediately deal with
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the other big objection concerning Divine Mercy.
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Right. If God is infinitely merciful,
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how could he bear to inflict pain without end?
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Edwards really tackles those sentimental views of mercy head
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on. He defines mercy not as a
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weakness or some kind of irresistible emotional pressure
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that forces God to forgive. He calls that an unworthy and
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absurd notion. He argues that if God's mercy
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was some kind of compulsive passion that stopped justice
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from being executed, it would suggest a defect or a great
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weakness in the Supreme Judge. Yeah, it would mean God is
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governed by feeling instead of righteous decree.
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Edwards reminds us that throughout Scripture, God's
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mercy is shown as free and sovereign.
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God delivers who He wills to deliver.
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His mercy is an attribute of His sovereignty.
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It's not a necessary response to our need.
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That just overrides justice. Right.
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And besides, Edwards points out that if all misery contradicted
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God's nature, then all suffering, even right here in
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this life, would be impossible. And yet we see immense
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calamities, suffering and the consequences of sin in the world
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every single day. So that observable reality
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refutes the idea that just the existence of misery is
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incompatible with God's nature. He then argues that our
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objection to eternal punishment doesn't come from pure logic,
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but from human depravity, specifically a want of sense of
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the infinite evil and the utter odiousness of sin.
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We have a hard time seeing the depth of evil in our own
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actions, so we naturally just conclude the punishment must be
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too severe. To illustrate this, Edwards uses
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a really potent analogy. He says.
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When we read a history book and we see some horrid instance of
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human cruelty, like a tyrant sadistically torturing an
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innocent person and just sporting with your misery, we
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have an immediate, powerful sense of the evil of that
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action. It shocks us.
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We're appalled by the persecutor's heart.
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And when we perceive that kind of evil, we feel instinctively
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that a terrible punishment for that person is just and fitting.
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We don't struggle with the idea of a severe temporal punishment
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in that context. Edwards says the reason we
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accept that is that we can see the proportion between the human
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evil and the suitable human punishment.
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His claim is, if we could see the infinite evil of our
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rebellion against God as clearly as we see the terror of eternal
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misery, if sin looked as hateful to us as hell looks dreadful,
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all our objections would just vanish.
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The problem isn't with God's math, it's with our blinded
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conscience. Right.
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And this logical foundation let's Edwards pivot from a
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negative defense that infinite punishment is not unsuitable to
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a positive assertion that divine perfections actually require
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infinite punishment for the unrepentant.
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That's a huge shift in rhetorical force, he goes from
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saying. God can do it justly to saying
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God must do it to maintain his own perfect character unless a
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perfect substitute. Is found exactly, he says.
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What is suitable and proper is required of God, because God's
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excellence demands that He act in the most perfect way in all
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instances. And how does he establish that
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necessity? Through a four step chain of
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necessity. First, he says it's suitable
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that God should infinitely hate sin.
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Because sin is an infinite evil, it's objectively detestable.
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Second, if infinite hatred is suitable, then the expression of
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that hydrid is also suitable. God's internal feeling has to be
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matched by external action, because God acts consistently
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with His nature. Third, he notes that hatred
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naturally tends to procure the evil of its object, not its
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good, and this tendency is proportional to the hatred.
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So great hatred tends to great evil for the object.
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Infinite hatred tends to the infinite evil of its object.
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So the conclusion is unavoidable in his system.
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God's perfections require the execution of an infinite or
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eternal punishment on sin that isn't atoned for.
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It's a closed system. God is infinite, sin against Him
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is infinite, the required punishment is infinite.
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And having established that the next logical step for Him is to
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defend the sensory reality of the suffering, we move to the
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second pillar, defining punishment as abiding, sensible
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misery, not annihilation. Right.
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He has to prove that eternal death doesn't mean you just stop
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being, but that it's a state of extreme conscious suffering.
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And his first proof is rooted in the very meaning of the word
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punishment. Annihilation, he argues, is no
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stay of suffering at all. The annihilated person feels no
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pain, no joy. They don't experience loss.
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They suffer no more in eternity than they did before they
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existed. So if the threat were just non
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existence, it loses its moral weight, it stops being a penalty
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and just becomes a withdrawal of life.
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Exactly. His second proof deals with
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divine vindication and the necessity of the wicked
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sensibility. Edwards insists that God's
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justice must be known and acknowledged by the condemned.
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God's majesty has to be vindicated to those who despised
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Him. If the wicked were just
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annihilated, they would never know that justice was inflicted.
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They'd never know that God fulfilled the very threat they
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scorned. Edward cites these powerful
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scriptural declarations that demand conscious recognition.
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Job 21, for example. God will repay the wicked to his
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face, and his eyes shall see his destruction.
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Or that vivid line in Ezekiel. You shall know that I, the Lord,
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have poured out my fury upon you.
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The condition of knowing and seeing requires active existence
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and sensation. Yes, and his third argument uses
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the evidence for degrees of torment, which is a feature
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clearly taught in the New Testament.
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And this is a devastating point against annihilation, isn't it?
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It is. How can there possibly be
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degrees of nonexistence? Non existence is absolute.
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You're either gone or you're not.
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There's no such thing as being more or less annihilated.
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Yet Christ says it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah
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than for the cities that heard his message and didn't repent.
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And in Luke 12, it talks about servants who knew their master's
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will and were unprepared being beaten with many stripes, while
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those who didn't know were beaten with few stripes.
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These distinctions demand existence, consciousness, and
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different intensities of suffering.
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It's a system that's completely incompatible with just ceasing
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to be. His final proof here is just a
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barrage of specific scriptural language that only makes sense
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if the wicked are still there and still have their senses.
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Right. Think about the statement about
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Judas which Edwards often brought up.
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It had been good for that man if he had not been born.
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That statement only carries logical force if Judas's
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existence viewed as a whole, including his unending
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punishment, is worse than non existence if.
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His punishment was annihilation. The statement would be
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meaningless. Non existence is morally
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neutral. Then you have all the sensory
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descriptions. The wicked are said to weep,
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wail, and gnash their teeth. These are active verbs.
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They denote intense suffering, anguish, and regret experienced
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by sentient beings. That's not a description of
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Oblivion. And the metaphors are so
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physical and consuming, sinners dwell with everlasting burnings,
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they're cast into a lake of fire and brimstone.
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And Edwards just asks how can annihilation be called a burning
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or a dwelling? Both of those imply continued
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substance sensation and pain. He also points to Revelation 20,
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where it says the wicked have no rest day nor night, but to be
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tormented with fire and brimstone forever and ever.
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Annihilation, by contrast, is the very definition of rest, not
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of ceaseless activity and pain. Then there's the specific
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instance of the rich man in hell from the story Christ himself
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told. He lifted up his eyes, being in
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torment and talked with Abraham. So that proves conscious
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existence and sensation in the intermediate state, which is a
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precursor to the final judgement.
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And finally, he connects the punishment to the second death.
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If the first death, temporal death, is painful and involves
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separation, the second death must mean something vastly
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greater and more dreadful than mere annihilation, he says.
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Annihilation would be a weak, contemptible display of God's
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wrath. And the wicked suffer the same
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type of death as the devil. Right.
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And the devil trembles for fear of it, and begs Christ not to
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torment him before the time. If the devil's fate is eternal
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torment, and the wicked are cast into the same fire prepared for
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him, the nature of their punishment has to be conscious
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torment as well. OK, so Pillar 2 seems secure in
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his system. The punishment is sensible
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misery. Now we have to move to the third
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pillar which confronts that final challenge, proving the
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absolute duration, the fact that this conscious misery never
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ends. This is Edward's argument
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against those who accept conscious suffering but claim it
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will only last for a very long but finite period of time.
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And he goes right back to the timing of Matthew 25.46.
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The punishment is called everlasting after the temporal
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world has already ceased. He clarifies how the Bible uses
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temporal terms. Words like forever or
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everlasting are sometimes used conditionally to mean as long as
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the age lasts, but here the punishment begins after the
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longest temporal duration. The world's existence is over.
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So what remains after the end of time must by necessity be of
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absolute eternity, yes? He reinforces this with two
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Thessalonians which talks about the wicked, suffering,
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everlasting destruction when he shall come to be glorified in
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His Saints. The moment of Christ's final
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glorification is the transition into that unending state.
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But his most compelling linguistic argument, I think,
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focuses on the consistency of the language used in the New
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Testament. It's very powerful, He points to
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That specific Greek phrase is to saishuna, stuna, Shenzhen,
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forever and ever, or unto ages of ages.
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It's the absolute highest expression of duration available
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in the language. And Edwards notes this exact
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phrase is used to describe 3 distinct things, and you have to
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be consistent in how you interpret.
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It exactly. First, it's used for the
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duration of the dam's torment. The smoke of their torment
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ascendeth up forever and ever. 2nd It's used for the duration
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of the Saints reign, and they shall reign forever and ever.
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And 3rd, it's used for the absolute eternity of God
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himself, to him who sat on the throne, who liveth forever and
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ever. The argument is pretty airtight
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if you deny that this phrase means absolute proper eternity
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for the condemned. Then you have to logically deny
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it means absolute eternity for the Saints, blessedness, or even
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for the duration of God's own existence.
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The terms are identical. They can't mean a very long time
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in one place and without end in the others.
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He then shifts back to the justice argument using the
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concept of debt. The wicked won't be released
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until they paid the uttermost Farthing.
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Right. And since their sin is against
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an infinite God, their debt is infinite.
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How can a finite creature who will continue to sin in a state
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of eternal rebellion ever pay an infinite debt?
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They can't. The penalty must be endless
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because the debt is infinite and can never be fully paid by a
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finite debtor. The requirement for full payment
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necessitates an eternal duration.
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And his final argument here uses that absolute negation from the
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Gospels. It just leaves no room for a
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temporary duration. Mark 9.44 where their worm dieth
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not and the fire is not quenched.
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Edwards points out this is an absolute, unqualified negation.
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You can't interpret it to mean the fire is quenched after a
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long time or the worm dies eventually.
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If the fire is ever quenched or the worm dies at any point, the
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statement is proved false. The language demands it be
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ceaseless. So he is now firmly established
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the linguistic, chronological, and logical arguments for
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eternity, but he still has to confront that pervasive
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theological idea that God might threaten this as a rhetorical
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device but not actually fulfill it, the so-called threatening
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fallacy. Yes, this specific objection was
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gaining traction among more liberal theologians, sometimes
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attributed to figures like Archbishop Tillotson.
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They argued that absolute threats weren't binding on God
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in the same way the absolute promises are.
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Because no creature gains a right to demand that the threat
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be fulfilled. Exactly so.
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God is free to relent without violating his justice.
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But Edward sees this doctrine as dangerously inconsistent with
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the truth and integrity of God. He calls it something akin to
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blasphemy. What are his main counter
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arguments? First, he argues that divine
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truth requires that absolute threats be fulfilled.
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To absolutely declare that something shall be future which
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God knows will not be so, is profoundly inconsistent with His
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truth. He flips the source of the
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obligation. The certainty isn't because the
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creature has a claim, but because the omniscient God is
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obligated to conform his threatening to what he knows
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will be future. An absolute threat is a form of
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prediction, and to predict what you know won't happen
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contradicts divine truth. He points out that the language
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used for eternal punishment often appears not as a
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conditional warning, but as a direct predictive declaration.
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Like our text, these shall go away into everlasting
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punishment. His second attack is maybe even
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more devastating rhetorically. It is, he argues, that this view
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implies God was compelled to use a cheat or a fallacy to govern
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the world to make people believe something false in order to
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restrain their sin. Which is an unworthy view of
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infinite wisdom. It suggests God couldn't govern
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the world without resorting to misrepresentation.
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Worse than that, those who promote this doctrine are
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implying that they've detected him in it, which completely
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defeats the purpose of the threat.
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The moment you identify the threat as a bluff, it's
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restraining power is gone. Edwards insists that God's
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character requires that all his absolute declarations, whether
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promises, a blessing or threats of ruin, must stand as
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absolutely true. And he addresses those two
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common biblical counter examples his opponents used, Adam's death
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and the threat against Nineveh. Right.
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With Adam, the threat thou shalt surely die was fulfilled.
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It was fulfilled spiritually in the immediate loss of
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righteousness and temporally when Adam's body became mortal.
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And crucially, the whole penalty was fully fulfilled in Christ
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the surety. The words thou shalt surely die
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are perfectly consistent with the possibility of dying in a
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substitute. So the threat was satisfied.
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And with Nineveh? Edwards just differentiates
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between conditional and absolute threats.
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The threat against Nineveh was clearly a conditional warning.
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It was intended to provide a chance for repentance, which is
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consistent with God's stated way of dealing with temporal
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destruction like in Jeremiah 18. But the threats of eternal wrath
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are presented as positive and absolute, and the only escape is
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confined to this life, our state of probation.
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So those exceptions don't undermine the rule of God's
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truth. OK, so having established the
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justice, the nature, and the absolute duration of the
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punishment, we finally get to the last pillar, proving that
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this doctrine isn't arbitrary, but actually serves essential
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purposes consistent with God's goodness and above all, his
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glory. Edwards maintains that the
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greatest good is the glory of God, and the eternal punishment
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of the wicked serves multiple ends in magnifying that glory.
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The first end is vindication of injured majesty.
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Where sinners cast contempt upon God's infinite majesty, their
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eternal punishment vindicates it.
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It shows that offending the King of the universe is an infinitely
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dreadful thing. The second is the glorification
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of justice. The endless destruction of the
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ungodly allows God's vindictive justice to be made visible to
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all creation, appearing, as He says, strict, exact, awful and
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terrible, and therefore glorious.
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Now we get to the most challenging detail of his whole
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system, the 3rd and 4th ends, which deal directly with the
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perspective and the experience of the redeemed in heaven.
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Edward states that this doctrine indirectly glorifies God's grace
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and greatly exalts the happiness of the Saints.
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And this is achieved, he argues, because the Saints will behold
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the torments of the damned. I can follow the rigor of the
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logic up to this point, but this idea that suffering enhances
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joy, it's often the most difficult concept for modern
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listeners. Does he offer a deeper
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theological justification for this beyond just, you know,
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observing that the Saints are safe?
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He absolutely does, and he grounds it in Scripture.
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He references Isaiah 66, where the redeemed look upon the
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carcasses of the transgressors, and Revelation 14 where the
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damned or tormented in the presence of the holy angels and
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the Lamb. And he reasons that by
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extension, they are tormented in the presence of the glorified
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Saints who are now seated with Christ.
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Yes, and he details 2 specific purposes this serves for the
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Saints. First, a deeper sense of grace.
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But by seeing the great unending misery that they themselves were
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saved from, the Saints are forced to contemplate how God
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made a distinction between their state and the state of others
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who were by nature equally I'll deserving.
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That knowledge that they were rescued from a doom shared by
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their own nature excites what he calls a lively and admiring
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sense of the grace of God. The knowledge of the contrasting
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fate deepens their love and gratitude for God's sovereign
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choice. And 2nd.
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Increased happiness. He says the view of the opposite
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misery greatly increases the relish of their own joy.
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He argues that just as the contrast between light and dark
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makes the light more noticeable, the sight of others in such
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profound, endless misery heightens the appreciation of
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their own blessedness. They prize God's favor and love
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vastly more because they see the alternative.
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The full display of God's justice in hell increases their
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happiness and enjoying God's favor in heaven.
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Right within his framework, God's glory is a single, unified
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concept, and the display of vindictive justice is just as
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necessary for the perfection of that glory as the display of
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mercy. The system is complete, so
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Edwards task now isn't to explain it anymore, but to
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impress its practical, terrifying implications upon his
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listeners. And that brings us to the
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application where he addresses his audience directly with this
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immense, often frightening rhetorical force.
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If this logical system is true, what does it mean for you?
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He starts with the folly and madness of mankind.
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He highlights this overwhelming, almost unimaginable contrast in
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the choices people make. The comparison is staggering.
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He sees men exchanging infinite eternal torments for present
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momentary gratification, a small pleasure, a little wealth, some
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temporary honor. These things, he says, can last
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but for a moment and are followed by an unending duration
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of suffering. If hell is eternal, Edwards
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argues, the nothing in this world, not power, not riches,
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not sensory delights, is anything but a mere trifle and
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lighter than vanity in comparison.
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He describes the madness of people who hear these facts.
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They even pretend to believe them, but they live in this
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careless, constant neglect. They're focused on getting money
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and land or gratifying their senses instead of making even
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the smallest sustained effort to escape this infinite ruin.
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He paints that vivid image of men hanging over eternal
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burnings with no lease on life, never knowing when the slender
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thread will break, and yet they refuse to take considerable
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pains to escape. They will be diverted from
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amusing themselves with toys and vanities even for the sake of
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infinite game. He sees this negligence as a
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profound lack of reason. They admit that most people
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probably go to hell, yet they carelessly continue on the same
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path, just assuming they'll be the exception.
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And this leads right into the second application, a powerful
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exportation to flee and secure salvation.
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Now he first stresses the sheer incomprehensible scale of the
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suffering. Right, since the punishment is
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absolutely eternal, it is, by the logic he's already
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established, infinite. No temporary pain, no matter how
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great a year of torture. A century of disease is even
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comparable. He uses that mathematical
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analogy. The pain of this life is as much
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less and less considerable than eternal pain as a single grain
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of sand is less than the boundless space of the universe.
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Finite comparison just breaks down when it faces the infinite.
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He urges his audience to really dwell on the awful nature of
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eternity itself. Even if your mind can't fully
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grasp it, you can be made sensible that it is not
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something to be casually disregarded.
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He details the experience suffering, extreme racking
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torment and soul and body forever and every day and night,
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adding age to age, thousands of years to thousands of years,
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with no possibility of mitigation, no ease, no
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distraction from the constant pain.
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And then comes the ultimate horror that makes the suffering
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truly infinite, the knowledge of despair.
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Imagine enduring these excruciating torments and
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knowing with absolute certainty that you never, never shall be
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delivered. He really forces you to consider
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what it means to reach the end of a million ages and then
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another million, only to know that you are not one bit near to
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the end of your torments. You've worn out the age of the
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sun, moon and stars and your groans, and yet eternity just
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yawns ahead, untouched. And this despair is magnified
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because the cause of the suffering remains an infinite,
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holy, irreconcilable God who hates sin.
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The damned, he says, will have two infinites, perpetually
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amazing and swallowing them up. First, an infinite God, their
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perfect and everlasting enemy. Second, the infinite duration of
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their torment. The.
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Terrifying implication is that if you are truly rational, you
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have to immediately seek escape from the certainty.
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The conclusion, then, is the only possible path to safety.
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Flee and embrace Christ. Christ came precisely to save
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sinners from these specific eternal torments.
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Within Edward's system, Christ's work is necessary because only
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he could satisfy that infinite debt.
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Christ paid the whole debt. He exhausted the infinite
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requirement of justice by substituting temporal sufferings
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of infinite value, His death where the damned never could.
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The damned who suffer eternally never actually pay the whole
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debt. They only endure the punishment,
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but justice is satisfied in Christ and so the path to safety
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is clear. Believe in Him, come to Him,
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commit your soul to Him. In Him you're not only safe from
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eternal torments, but you inherit the opposing promise,
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inconceivable blessedness and glory of equal duration, what
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Matthew 25.46 calls life eternal.
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This deep dive into Edwards logic really shows that his
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theological system isn't built on arbitrary threats, but on an
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absolute rigorous view of divine justice and God's right to
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glorify himself in all his actions.
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Right. It shows why the concepts of
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infinite sin and Christ substitutionary atonement are
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logical necessities within this uncompromising framework.
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It demands that we confront the standard by which all things
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sin, justice, mercy, deliverance are measured God's infinite
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worthiness and glory. So here's a final thought for
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you to contemplate as you consider this complex argument
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and its implications. If, as Edwards argues, the
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necessary demonstration of God's vindictive justice and the
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resulting increased happiness of the Saints depend on the eternal
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existence and observation of opposed misery, what does that
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conceptual relationship tell you about the absolute standard by
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which all of creation, both salvation and condemnation, is
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ultimately judged? It forces us to wrestle with the
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conception of divine glory that encompasses both absolute mercy
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and uncompromising judicial severity.
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A profound challenge to contemplate, We hope this deep
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dive into Edward's meticulous logic has provided you with a
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clear, in depth understanding of the structure and claims he laid
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out almost 3 centuries ago. Until next time, keep thinking.