A woman recently asked why God sends unbelievers to Hell only to resurrect them on Judgment Day and send them back to where they came. She said it would be like a judge sentencing someone to prison, conducting a trial to determine their guilt afterward, and then returning them to prison, and she needed help understanding why.
I began by explaining that Hell is not the permanent destination for unbelievers but a temporary holding place where they await God’s judgment at the end of all things. Afterward, the unredeemed will be cast into the Lake of Fire, which is their final, eternal destination. Using her prison analogy, I likened Hades to a county jail where inmates are held until trial, and the Lake of Fire to a state prison where the tried and convicted serve out their mandated sentence.
I further explained that unbelievers are not “tried and convicted” upon their death and sent to Hell only to be “retried and reconvicted” later. Instead, they are sent to Hades until the full measure of their earthly deeds comes to fruition. Afterward, they will be judged for their works and cast into the Lake of Fire at the Great White Throne Judgment because their names are not found in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
I also explained that God’s judgment occurs at the end of all things, rather than immediately after death, because dying does not necessarily halt the work that unbelievers have done on the earth, whether good or bad. For example, those who started cults like Mormonism or Jehovah’s Witnesses or perpetrated other lies like the Theory of Evolution continue to affect and impact millions of people even though they themselves have perished. Likewise, those who built children’s hospitals, funded orphanages, or contributed to worthy causes continue to have a positive influence on those helped by those organizations, despite their passing.
Therefore, unbelievers will be resurrected from Hades to stand before God at the Great White Throne Judgment to be judged for the things they did on the earth (i.e., “brought to court and tried”). They will be judged accordingly, as well as for their unbelief and rejecting Jesus (i.e., “convicted for their crimes and sentenced”). Afterward, they will be cast into the Lake of Fire to serve out their eternal punishment in varying degrees (i.e., “incarcerated in prison”).
Consider what Revelation 20:11-15 says, “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
I hope this brief explanation helps you instruct those who experience confusion about Hell, God’s Judgment, and the Lake of Fire.
