QUESTION 14: "Why
was hell created and who is it created for? What is the purpose of hell?"
ANSWER: The three short questions on hell mentioned above,
are no doubt questions that have been asked time and again. Such questions
speak of eternity. Because hell is the total opposite of heaven. It is not a
very popular subject to speak about with non-Christians when sharing the gospel
with them. Usually people get angry when hell is brought up in the gospel
message. Because hell stirs up such negative emotions, many Churches have
focused more on the topic of heaven than hell. Some have even subtracted hell
from the equation altogether in order to make the message of the gospel more
tasteful to those that the message is being shared with. However, dismissing
hell from the gospel does not in any way make it less true. The fact is, Jesus
spoke more about hell than He did about heaven. Now having said that, let's
look at each of the three above questions and see what God's Word says about
the subject.
WHY WAS HELL CREATED AND WHO IS IT
CREATED FOR?
To begin with, the Bible does not
directly tell us why hell was created, but it does tell us that hell exists to
punish the wicked. Matt. 25:41; 2 Peter 2:4 ;
Jude 6 . If hell is nothing more
than the grave (as we are told by groups such as the Seventh Day Adventists ), and
we are told it was created for the devil and his angels (see Matt. 25: 41), how
do we reconcile the fact that when everyone dies they go to the grave? For
example, God sent a lying spirit? (1 Kings 22: 22-23 and 2 Chron. 18:21-22 )
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF HELL?
To put it simply, the purpose of
hell was originally created for the devil and his fallen angels, but it is also
to punish the wicked and to glorify God.
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