Is hell literally a place of fire and brimstone?

This first picture describes how the godless will be tortured by the everlasting fire of judgment. Fire is a symbol of the wrath of God, who is called “a consuming fire” and the “everlasting burnings” (Deut. 4:24; Deut. 9:3; Isa. 33:14; Heb. 12:29). It is questionable, though, whether we should be thinking here of the personal attribute of God, rather than its outward expression that will strike the godless through all eternity. Indeed, are we able to imagine the “lake of fire”? This is also called “the lake of fire and brimstone”, which perhaps suggests that this picture is partially derived from the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah, when God rained down brimstone and fire out of the heavens (Gen. 19:24 ff.; cf. also the word “furnace” in verse 28).

Although it is right to say that Scripture uses figurative language to describe the reality of heaven and hell, this does not in any way alter the fact that we are dealing with the literal existence of real places and things. These pictures are borrowed from our earthly reality in order to give us some understanding of another, supernatural, reality. For example, the name Gehenna (hell) was derived from the valley of the son of Hinnom, (In Hebrew “Ge-Hinnom”), near Jerusalem, where children were burned as sacrifices to Molech and where, after Josiah's reforms, all sorts of rubbish was collected and burned (2 Kings 23:10; 2 Chr. 28:3; 2 Chr. 33:6; Jer. 32:35).

Rev. 21:8. — “But the fearful (or cowardly), and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” God here, as in the previous utterances, is the Speaker. As another has said, “We ought to notice how much of these eight verses is made up of direct utterances of our God.” In the previous declarations God as love speaks, but in the final statement of eternity He speaks as light. God never foregoes His character as Judge of evil. The lake of fire is an actual and eternal place of punishment. In what part of the universe it is situated we know not. The current denial of eternal punishment finds no support, but absolute condemnation in the solemn passage before us. The eighth verse is as distinctly eternal as the first or second. We can introduce no measurements nor limitations within these eight verses. In them is embraced God’s eternity and man’s eternity, whether in Heaven, earth, or the lake of fire. There are eight classes specified:

The last six verses of our chapter give us the results of God's last judgments; not the material side of them but the moral and spiritual. The fountain-head of all evil is first dealt with. In all the wide universe, that the Scriptures reveal to us, Satan was the original rebel. Into this world he introduced sin by way of deceit. His name, devil, means accuser, calumniator, and by his calumnies against God and His word he deceived Eve, as Genesis 3 bears witness. As a mighty spiritual being, possessing powers of intelligence vastly beyond anything human, he has no difficulty in deceiving fallen men. He is doing it today, and will do it to the end. But the limit determined by Omnipotence is now reached, and he is cast into that "everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels," of which the Lord spoke in Matthew 25:41. Here the fire is spoken of as a lake, which gives the idea of a place circumscribed and confined. Into it the beast and the false prophet were cast as the millennial age began, and now at the end of that age we read that there they still "are," and not that they were. The fire had not destroyed them.

We are well acquainted with fire and its effects in material objects; but, as far as we know, it has no effects on spiritual beings. We judge therefore the phrase to be symbolic, as so much else in this book, but it stands as the symbol of the hot displeasure, the scorching judgment of God, which even for the devil will mean that he "shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever."

Both these men are seized by the irresistible power of the Lord. No future day of judgment awaits them. Taken red-handed as leaders of the most violent, God-defying enterprise ever undertaken, they do not first pass into death — the dissolution of soul and body — but are flung direct into the burning lake. The language here, as throughout the book, is symbolic, no doubt, but it is terribly expressive of God's judgment in its searching power. The very word translated "brimstone," has in it the thought of "divine fire." In Old Testament history two men were taken to heaven without passing through death. Here two men pass alive into hot damnation.

And so when we come to look at the details. There is no doubt that annihilation has been helped in many minds by the tendency to take literally the expressions used in Scripture to image to us the awful realities of eternal punishment. A "lake burning with fire and brimstone," if taken literally, would suggest to many the idea of utter extermination of the bodies at least of those cast into it. But how should the devil, a spirit, be tormented there? And what was the "flame" which tormented the spirit of the rich man in hades? The truth is, these are figures, which Scripture itself explains, where over and over again God's wrath is compared to fire. Thus, in the Lord's solemn words in Mark 9:48, the worm that dieth not is the gnawing of awakened conscience: who will suppose a literal undying worm? And so the fire that is not quenched is as surely that wrath of God which "abideth on" the wicked.

Further, if the valley of Hinnom be taken (as must surely be done), as furnishing the images whereby the Gehenna of the future is pictured to us, — "worm" and "fire," which were literal in the first, are manifestly symbols as applied to the second, and scarcely their own symbols.

Again, if Satan be cast into the lake of fire to be tormented there, it would seem that the fire must be other than natural which should torment him. And the same must be said as to the rich man in hades.

Finally, taken as figures, these expressions have a significance and power which fail altogether when taken literally. The undying worm has indeed been commonly held to be the type of remorse of conscience, and this as bred of corruption it would very naturally represent. But then the fire unquenchable would almost of necessity be figurative also, and stand for the wrath of Him who is a "consuming fire." With this would agree the title given to Gehenna of "the second death," as being complete spiritual separation, finally by divine judgment, from God the source of life; and this again would give full and terrible typical significance to that millennial judgment with which Isaiah closes, where the subjects of the worm and fire are "carcases" — the dead. This explains also why the fire can torment a spirit, and why a corporeal being may exist in it unconsumed; or why the "destruction" brought about by it need be no material destruction. Everything, in short, in this way is consistent and harmonious, as much upon the literal hypothesis seems difficult and contradictory.

The objector may say if the eyes and tongue are symbolical, so must the torments and the flame be symbolical. We do not dogmatize on the point, but we would like to point out that the objection does not lessen the gravity of the situation one whit. For if physical torments are symbolical, we earnestly ask, Of what are they symbolical? There is no answer but one. Physical torments, if symbolical, must be symbolical of spiritual torments. Torments affecting the body, if symbolical, must be symbolical of torments affecting the soul. Be that as it may, we do not dogmatize; the contention that the language is symbolical does not in the very least lessen or affect in the very slightest degree the seriousness of the warning. For if the language be symbolic, the symbolism is chosen by none less a person than the Son of God, and He intended it to convey an adequate impression.

"Hell is undoubtedly a real place whose dreadfulness is only imperfectly indicated by the frightful figures which are employed by the Scriptures to describe it." — Dr. P. S. Henson. "But if the term is merely figurative then the reality must be as much greater, as substance is greater than shadow." — Dr. Hartman.

The “lake” burneth. Its fire is never exhausted. “Fire and brimstone” symbolise torment and agony of a fearful character (Isa. 30:33). The expression “the lake of fire” occurs five times in the Apocalypse. It is remarkable that when the devil and the awful sinners mentioned in our text are in question “fire and brimstone” are added. “Which is the second death.” The first death is the separation of soul and body, but not cessation of existence, nor unconsciousness, as many dream. Luke 16:19-31, which is not said to be a parable, and Revelation 6:9-11 shows consciousness and activity of spirit in the separate state. The lake of fire in its never-ending agony is the second death. There are three lists of sinners which it would be profitable to compare: 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Revelation 21:8, 22:15. In the third list the last five named answer to the last five in the passage we have been considering.

— “Cast into the lake of fire and brimstone.”‎ A lake supposes solid land on either side. “Fire and brimstone” are figures of inexpressible torment (see Rev.‎ ‎14:10; Isa. 30:33).‎