Did God create hell?

But there is a very solemn back-ground to the blessed entrance into the kingdom: "Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" (ver. 41). Observe, He does not say, Cursed of My Father, answering to "Blessed of My Father." God hates putting away. So when the awful moment comes for the curse to be pronounced on these wicked Gentiles, it is "Depart from Me, ye cursed." I believe it is the deepest sorrow to God, and throws all the onus of destruction on those whose own sin it was, who rejected His love and holiness and glory in rejecting His Son. "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." In the other case the kingdom was said to be "prepared for you:" not so when speaking about the curse. Hell was not prepared for poor guilty man. He deserves it; but it was prepared for the devil and his angels. Where the souls rejected the testimony, he does pronounce them cursed. He is the King, the judge. But whether it be the great white throne, or this earthly throne, it is "everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." There was no hope of deliverance for these fallen angels — no redemption for them. They wilfully and without a tempter departed from God. Man was tempted by an enemy; and God feels for guilty man, drawn away by a mightier, if not more guilty, rebel than himself. How solemn to think that it was prepared for others, and that men share it with these rebellious spirits? It was not in the heart of God to make a hell for miserable man: it was prepared for the devil and his angels. But there were those who preferred the devil to God; and to such He says, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." The same test is applied to them as to the godly before — the treatment of the King and of His messengers, or rather of Him in them.

Ans.—John 3:18-21 is the explanation. God has created no class of beings for the lake of fire. God is love, and everything He creates has perfect love for its destiny. When Satan rebelled against God, and other angels followed him, God prepared a place in which to shut them up, that they might not disturb forever His dominions. Either the God of love must remain sovereign, or His revolted creatures become that and drag all down into misery. Revolted men who choose Satan for their master, spite the proofs of God's love to them, spite the unspeakable pains He has been at to bring them back to Himself, spite of every means He has put out to win their hearts and lead them to repentance, must share Satan's final retribution.

To be with Him, to enjoy companionship with the Lord Jesus Christ, is what God calls us to; and here these men, in a very special way, were called to be with Him. Have you been called to be with Him, my reader? You are not called to be an apostle, but the eternity of a Christian is to be with Jesus. But for you, my unconverted friend, what is your eternity? To be with Jesus? Alas! you do not know him! To be in glory? You have no title to it! Your future is very different. I fear there will fall on your ears a sadly solemn word, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Perhaps you say, I do not believe God ever made hell for man. Nor do I. The Lord Jesus says it was "prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matt. 25:41). But some men are such fools they prefer the company of the devil and his angels to the company of Christ. See where you stand, my unconverted reader, and think of the contrast between your portion and that of the true follower of Jesus.

God has done a great thing that men might be saved from perishing. He could not have done a greater. He has given His only begotten Son. And after such a proof of His love, who would dare to question what Peter tells us in his second Epistle, chapter 3:9, that He is "not willing that any should perish." Yet our text and many another show plainly enough that men are in danger of perishing; and if this is so, it is surely an end to be escaped if that is possible, and since it is possible, no man ought to be indifferent about it.

But what is it to perish? I heard a preacher spell out the word like this P-E-R-I-S-H — to Pass Eternally Ruined Into a Sinner's Hell, What a terrible doom that must be! And almost too solemn a matter to be turned into an acrostic, Yet that is exactly what it is to perish. Let me hasten to say that hell was not prepared for man, the paradise of God in Eden was his prepared dwelling place; I am quoting the Lord's own words as to hell: He spoke of "everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels" (Matt. 25. 41). Then why should men be condemned to such a doom? Because they will follow the devil in his revolt against God. The turnover from God to the devil was deliberate on Adam's part, for he does not seem to have been deceived as Eve was, and by him sin entered into the world and death by sin, and death has passed upon all men for that all have sinned. There has been no difference in this, we have every one turned to his own way. The devil was the first to take that self-willed rebellious road, and Adam was the first man to follow the devil's lead, and, like sheep, we have all gone the same way; and the end of that road is hell.

But when He addresses those on His left, He says, "Depart from me ye cursed." He does not say, "cursed of My Father." And, further, He says, "into everlasting fire, prepared," not for you, but "for the devil and his angels." (Verse 41)

In a word, then, it is plain that God has "prepared" a kingdom of glory, and "vessels of mercy" to inherit that kingdom; but He has not prepared "everlasting fire" for men, but for the "devil and his angels" nor has He fitted the "vessels of wrath," but they have fitted themselves.

Irenaeus, Lib. iii. cap. xxiii. "Go, ye cursed, into eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, signifying that the eternal fire is not principally (in the first instance) prepared for man, but for him who seduced man and made him offend, and who, I say, is the prince (first origin) of the apostacy — for the prince of the world and his angels who have become apostate with him, which indeed (eternal fire) more also will justly get who, like them, without repentance and without return, persevere in works of evil."

The awful future of the ungodly could scarcely be expressed more clearly than in the Scripture before us: "These shall go away into everlasting (eternal) punishment." For both "punishment" and "life" the same word is used; the duration of the one is the duration of the other. Yet eternal fire was not prepared for men, but for the Devil and his angels, but those who while on earth prefer the voice of the Devil to the voice of God must share his doom for ever.

Ans.—2 Thess.2:11 explains it. So also Deut. 28:58-68. It is not an essential creation as in Gen.1, for out of Him who is Light and Love nothing evil can proceed. It is a summoning of the suitable evil powers in existence for judgment upon such as deserve a judgment at the hand of God.

The fifth verse takes up another side of the truth. Predestination is not quite the same thing as election, and here we have the Scripture account of it. We do well to stand clear of human exaggeration here. Election is to fitness for His presence in a nature like His own. Predestination is to a relationship, as like as possible to His Son's. But scripture carefully excludes any such human inference as God's predestination to hell fire. It is clearly revealed that such must be the unending end of the wicked. When the everlasting judgment comes, and they are judged, each according to their works, the book of life has none of their names written there, and they are cast into the lake of fire. But there is no predestinating decree of God in the case. Their own sins fitted those vessels of wrath to destruction.

It would, I am persuaded, be impossible for anyone possessing even in a feeble measure the knowledge of God, to think that anything could enter His creation unknown to Him, or that a thought could spring up in the mind of any intelligent being without His cognition. Every enlightened soul will gladly acknowledge, that from no quarter could the omniscient One be surprised by an enemy. Nothing could possibly be hid from Him, before whom hell is naked, and destruction without a covering. At the same time the faithful heart revolts with horror from the doctrine that would make the holy and righteous God the Author and Inventor of the evil which has ruined His fair creation. Evil could not enter the creation without His knowledge and permission, but He is not the author of it, the devil is that; he abode not in the truth. “He is a liar and the father of it.” And this is just what sin is; it is lawlessness, and lawlessness is departure from the truth, for the truth is the right relation of everything to God, and sin is falsehood and departure from this, and becomes manifested in the lawlessness of the rebel creature.