If God is everywhere, is God present in hell too?
Scripture answers this question in two directions at once: God fills every place, including the world of the dead, yet Scripture also describes final judgment as banishment from His presence. Holding both together is the key to a right answer.
God fills every place
The Bible does not treat God's presence as limited to holy places or to heaven. One writer gathers the passages together and includes the realm of the dead among them:
James McBroomIn omnipresence there is the presence of God in every place. If it is heaven, He is there; it is His home. And earth: "Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD" (Jer. 23:24). "Sheol is naked before Him" (Job 26:6; Psalm 139:8). God is everywhere: He fills all places at all times. He fills space, earth, sea, and land. He fills our homes; with Him there can be no in and out, no above and beneath. "The eyes of the LORD... range through the whole earth." "The whole earth is full of His glory" (Zech. 4:10; Isaiah 6:3).
Older translations render "Sheol" in Job 26:6 as "hell," which is why that verse is so often quoted in this discussion.
What "everywhere" actually means
Omnipresence is not God spread thinly through the universe like a gas. One writer is careful to keep God distinct from the creation He fills:
J. N. DarbyAs to omnipresence, God has no more to do with space than with time. He has created all things in a way we can grasp. In this creation nothing escapes Him. He is, morally speaking, omnipresent. He is not of it, or in it, but pervades it. He is "through all"! He upholds everything, as He creates everything.
The word in Psalm 139 is Sheol, not the lake of fire
Psalm 139:8 is the verse everyone reaches for, and it deserves a careful reading. Sheol (hades) is the unseen world of the dead — not the final place of judgment that the New Testament calls Gehenna:
Numerical Bible NotesIn the first, Spirit and presence are, I suppose, essentially the same, while heaven and hell — Sheol or hades, not Gehenna — are far apart: it is simply omnipresence that is in question. In the next, it is relation to the Omnipresent, and that in dependence... In the third, exposure is what he cannot escape: darkness and light are relative only to man; for God there is no difference.
So the psalm proves God reaches the world of the dead. Strictly speaking, it is not a statement about the final hell.
No place of the lost lies outside God's rule
Even so, the wider testimony of Scripture is that no region of the universe runs itself. Commenting on Job's description of God's reach into the depths, one writer puts it bluntly:
Samuel RidoutIt is folly to think of the home of the lost as independent of God. Whether it is "the spirits [now] in prison" (1 Peter 3:19), or the bottomless pit, or the lake of fire, God, not Satan, reigns. His will at last must be obeyed. "If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there" (Ps. 139:8).
Yet hell is described as banishment from His presence
Alongside this, Paul writes of a punishment that is defined by exclusion. What makes it terrible is not fire alone but the loss of everything God is:
Leslie M. GrantBut more awful is the fact of banishment "away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might." One who has known Christ can imagine no greater misery than to be without Him for eternity. Here is the Fountain of all truth and goodness, righteousness, grace, kindness, compassion, love, and peace. Without Him none of this is known or can be known.
Commentators differ in how strongly they press the word "absent." Some state it in the sharpest terms:
Frederick W. GrantThey can think of doing without God in a world from which, though hidden, He is not withdrawn. Once He is withdrawn, they will find too late what they have chosen; for as heaven is God's dwelling place, hell is the place from which He is forever absent: if God is light, hell is the place of utter and unimagined darkness.
The two lines of teaching are not in conflict once you see that "presence" is being used in different senses — God's reach and rule, and God's favour and light.
The point of the question is not geography
Psalm 139 was never written to settle a map. It was written by a man who wanted to get away and found he could not:
J. N. Darby"Where shall I go from your Spirit?" What do souls want to go for? Here is a soul before God and afraid of Him. It is a terrible thing, and terrible because it is true. How am I to get out of the sight of God?... What would heaven be to someone in that state? "You are there."
Summary
- Everywhere. God "fills all places at all times" — heaven, earth, sea, land, and the unseen world of the dead are all open before Him.
- Not contained. He "is not of it, or in it, but pervades it" — omnipresence means God upholds creation without being a part of it.
- Sheol, precisely. The word in Psalm 139:8 is Sheol or hades, "not Gehenna"; the verse proves God's reach, and is not a description of the final hell.
- Ruled, not abandoned. Whether prison, pit, or lake of fire, "God, not Satan, reigns" — no place of the lost is independent of Him.
- Absent in blessing. Final judgment is "banishment from the presence of the Lord": present in power, withdrawn in light, goodness, grace, and love.