Do unbelievers immediately go to hell when they die?

Our Lord Himself shows that the wicked not only wait for their resurrection to judgement, but are at once after death "tormented in this flame" (Luke 16:22-25). Doubtless their lot will be still more awful when the resurrection of the unjust arrives, and eternal judgement has consigned them, soul and body, to perdition. This is no question of argument, but of divine revelation.

The unbelieving and unsaved sinner passes at death from his present condition of spiritual death (Eph. 2:1), and alienation from God because of sin (Eph. 4:18), to Hades, there to consciously suffer torment while the body is in the grave, and surviving brothers living in sin on earth, where the Bible is known (Luke 16:23-31), reserved under punishment to the day of judgment (2 Pet. 2:9, R.V.), when “death shall deliver up their bodies, and “Hades” their souls, to be re-united, and the man re-constituted for judgment (Rev. 20:13), followed by the final doom, the second death, the damnation of the entire person in Gehenna (Mark 9:43-49; Rev. 20:15; 21:8).

For man, there is no extinction of either spirit, soul, or body. The first death, if we may so term it in distinction from the "second death," is the separation of spirit and soul from their bodily tenement, the latter finding its receptacle here, whether in earth or sea, whilst the former depart, if of believers, to be with Christ in paradise, as was the dying but believing robber (Luke 23:43); whilst the spirit and soul of the unbeliever await in hides, the place of their torment meanwhile (Luke 16:23, 1 Peter 3:19), the "resurrection of judgment" (John 5:29). Then the sinner, no longer in his disembodied condition, but again in his composite state (of spirit, soul and body), is cast into the lake of fire, where he has his everlasting association (and punishment) with the devil and his angels for whom (not, for man) this everlasting fire was prepared (Matt. 25:41).

Bible teaching is plain on this point. The spirit of the believer—a person is always identified with his spirit—goes at once to be for ever with the Lord. “Absent from the body … present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8), is the statement of Scripture. The spirit of the unbeliever is in Hades, in torment awaiting the resurrection of the body and the judgment at the great white throne, and the doom of the lake of fire for eternity (see Luke 16:19-23, and Rev. 20:11-15). Terrible prospect for every unsaved man and woman.

From this we must distinguish indeed the judgment of the great white throne, when every thing is made fully manifest, and the unsaved "dead are judged according to their works" (Rev. 20:12). This is at a time when death is ended and over, although ended for these only by a "resurrection of judgment" (John 5:29, Gk.). But in the meanwhile, the Lord's picture of the rich man, not in "hell" yet, as our ordinary version gives it, but in hades, with brethren yet alive upon the earth, assures us of torment already endured there in the flame of God's wrath (Luke 16). To this distinction we shall have yet to return: it is sufficient to draw attention to it here.

And what about hades for the unbeliever? Luke 16 tells us that it is a condition of torment, the lost soul conscious of his approaching inevitable and inexorable doom. We are not told where these lost souls are, there is no need to satisfy curiosity on this point. No good would accrue to any from this knowledge, but we know the resurrection day will end the conditions of hades and death for each unbeliever, and then the lake of fire must be his eternal doom. Oh! may God stir us all up to more zeal in the gospel, to more fervent prayer, to more earnest diligence in seeking the salvation of the lost, for “behold, now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2).

We come now to our second question: "What is the judgement of God?" Here we must distinguish between what is called the intermediate state, and the eternal state. Hades describes the one, and Gehenna — the lake of fire — the other. The bottomless pit has nothing to do with men; it is a place of punishment for rebellious angels only. We have a solemn view of the intermediate state granted to us in Luke 16:19-31, in the story of the rich man and Lazarus. I will briefly indicate some of its features. First, there is consciousness there. Memory was lively with the rich man, and he was capable of describing his painful sensations. Second, there is suffering there. If it be asked, how can spirits suffer? I need only draw attention to the fact that Satan is said to be "tormented day and night for ever and ever" (Rev. 20:10), and he is a spirit, most assuredly. Spirits therefore are capable of suffering. Third, conditions are fixed there. Notice Abraham's words: "Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they that would pass hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us that would come from thence." No hint was dropped, either by Abraham or the rich man, that ultimately the sufferer would obtain deliverance, nor even that he would at some future epoch escape from his woe by the extinction of his being. In this connection, how deeply solemn are the words in John 3:36: "He that believes not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." Fourth, prayers cannot be answered there. The rich man gave utterance to two simple requests, one for himself, and one for his living brethren, only to get the refusal of both. When he might have prayed to God, he had no desire to do so; in Hades it was too late for God to hearken to his supplications.

In Revelation 6:9-11; 13:15; 14:13 and 15:2-4, we see the spirits and souls of the two halves of the Tribulation in heaven, but not as yet resurrected. However, as seen from Revelation 6:10, they (their spirits and souls) are fully conscious and free to ask questions of their Lord. There is no such thing as soul-sleep. For the believers of all times, to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8). For the unbeliever, it is to be in torment (Luke 16:23) in God's prison, awaiting final judgment (1 Peter 3:19) and then hell, the Lake of Fire (Rev. 20:11-15).

But as death, a condition, demands a place for the body, the grave generally speaking; so hades, a condition, demands a place—for the believer “with Christ in paradise,” for the unbeliever a place of torment as set forth in Luke 16:19-31.

Hades is not Gehenna. The latter is the lake of fire, to which the lost are despatched after the judgment of the Great White Throne (the mass being preceded by the Beast and the False Prophet, and Satan); Hades is the term divinely employed to designate the intermediate unclothed state.

Luke 16:19-31 then gives us "a picture of a lost soul in Hades awaiting its final sentence on the judgment day."