What kind of bodies will people have in hell?

C.C. — There are questions we cannot very clearly answer. Scripture does not throw much light on the resurrection-bodies of the wicked. Yet we know they will all be raised. In 1 Corinthians 15 Christ is said to be the first-fruits of them that slept. This is not said of the wicked, of course, but of the righteous. Yet He will also raise the wicked. Their’s will be a resurrection to judgment. But will their bodies when raised be fashioned like ours? Surely they will not be in His image.

The dead small and great stand before the throne (v. 12). They formerly were physically dead and remain spiritually dead. Their physical resurrection is not mentioned here, but verse 5 has already referred to that and John 5:29 speaks of “the resurrection of judgment” which obviously refers to this final, individual judgment of the Great White Throne. In what character of body the unsaved are raised we are not told, but since it is the things done in the body that must be brought to account (2 Cor. 5:10), then it is in their literal body that people will receive their judgment.

We must ever bear in mind that we cannot apply the conditions that obtain in this life in connection with mortal bodies to the bodies of unbelievers which will be raised for judgment. To do so is to betray our ignorance.

We must ever bear in mind that we cannot apply the conditions that obtain in this life in connection with mortal bodies to the bodies of unbelievers which will be raised for judgment. To do so is to betray our ignorance.

A. A solemn warning that, though the deniers of the resurrection were all wrong, one may have a risen body, but be destitute of Christ, as all in fact will be who are not born of God. All must be clothed, all must rise; but then will be manifest that not to have Christ is to be found naked. The risen body of the wicked will not cover but reveal the unspeakable loss.

The body of the believer is sown in dishonour, corruption, and weakness: so all see; what do we believe? It is raised in incorruption, glory, and power — not a mere ethereal or airy body, as Chrysostom and Origen respectively said, but a body instinct with spirit life, as once with animal life from the soul, yet not a spirit, but a spiritual body, not limited by earthly conditions, but capable either of passing through a closed door, or of being felt, able to take food, though needing none, if we may judge from Him who, risen as the great Head and pattern and power, declared that a spirit has not flesh and bones, as they saw He had.

“But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.” Then, when the thousand years of the glorious reign of Christ and the saints with Him have been completed, “The rest of the dead” are raised. This is a resurrection of the dead, but not from the dead; none now being left behind. This is the resurrection of judgment, the resurrection of the unjust. In this there are none “Blessed and holy,” none over whom the second death has no power. These are “Clothed,” and yet “Naked”—destitute of righteousness, and exposed to the judgment of God (2 Cor. 5:3), a resurrection inglorious and hopeless. The voice of the Son of God shall bring these forth, but the sound of it shall be in the ear of every one of them as the roaring of the lion, more terrible indeed than the thunder of the lion of the forest. And for the first time in their whole history those who hear shall obey. Their doom is certain, and long have they known it, for in hades their utterly lost condition had been a continual torment to their unhappy spirits.

‎“This is the second death,” that is, the lake of fire.‎ The bodies of the wicked will be constituted to last through eternal ages; they will never die, but eternally‎ exist in the second death. It is not extinction of existence, not annihilation, but it is torment during the lifetime of the Almighty and Eternal God. Nor will there be apportioned to each the same amount,‎ measure, and degree of punishment. The place is common to all, but “many stripes” and “few stripes” ‎(Luke 12:47-48) indicate the infliction of various degrees‎ of punishment.‎

C.C. — Might we say that they will bear eternally in their bodies the marks of sin? Their bodies will not be raised in glory. Will they not then be of necessity raised in shame? We are told to fear Him who hath power to cast body and soul into hell, into Gehenna. It is the lake of fire, and the body has its part in that awful judgment. It is everlasting destruction, but not annihilation. A tool is made for a certain purpose: it may be destroyed concerning that purpose — not annihilated. So with man. The lost will not fill the purpose for which they were created; in that sense, therefore, are destroyed.

He first of all professes his firm belief in the resurrection of the wicked, but holds that they are raised to die again. Here he is opposed to Scripture as we have seen. In Scripture resurrection is the final end of death, for "it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment." He, on the contrary, holds that the bodies of the wicked are raised, "still natural bodies as they were sown, resuming with their old life their old mortality, as such subject to pain, and as such sure to yield to that of which all pain is the symptom and precursor, physical death and dissolution." He rests this conclusion "mainly on the supposition that no change passes upon them at their resurrection... if no change passes upon them they must needs yield to the bitter pains which accompany the second death." He urges that the "Augustinian theorists" admit this, and so have to affirm immortality and incorruption of the wicked as raised. They therefore have to apply the language of 1 Cor. xv., where the corruptible puts on incorruption and the mortal immortality, to the resurrection of the ungodly; and when asked upon what grounds they do so, they answer that there cannot be a resurrection without a change. This he disproves by referring to Lazarus and others, and as to 1 Cor. xv. insists that it applies only to the resurrection of the just. He then turns aside for a short time to show that the resurrection of the just is the only one which is a fruit of redemption; and if Christ says, "I am the resurrection and the life," He thus proclaims Himself the source of the "resurrection of life" alone. Mr. Constable identifies then (as we have done) the resurrection from the dead with this, and further states that the quickening of the mortal body is exclusively confined in Scripture to the just, especially referring in proof to the "if" of Rom. viii. 11: "If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." Thus "the resurrection of the just is the fruit of redemption: the resurrection of the unjust has nothing to say to it... Christ came to give no fatal gift which should force everlasting existence upon myriads who asked not for it, and would shun it with all their hearts." Thus the resurrection of the wicked being no part of redemption, Paul could not, in 1 Cor. xv., include it at all. This he proceeds to prove at length, but, as we fully believe it, there is no need to follow him in his proof. He concludes that the change to incorruption in the case of the wicked is essential to the theory of everlasting misery; and, since there are no grounds for holding this change, the theory which requires it falls to the ground. Thus an immense argument is built up upon the two props of ignorance and supposition. Mr. Constable occupies a number of pages with what we have reduced to perhaps three times the number of lines, for reasons already stated, but we have given the substance. There are two or three considerations which hinder our acceptance of his argument. We grant fully that the resurrection of the just is distinct in character from the resurrection of the unjust; and that it is the former alone which is the fruit of Christ's redemptive work. We shall have more to say of this when we examine, as we hope to do, Mr. Birks' view. We fully believe also that the resurrection described in 1 Cor. xv, does not include in any way that of the wicked. "It is raised in power," "it is raised in glory," "it is raised a spiritual body," could not apply to any but "the just." Mr. Constable is wrong, however, upon one point: for the "change" the apostle speaks of is not said of the risen saints, but of those who are alive and remaining when Christ comes. "The dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we" - the living - "shall be changed. For this corruptible (applying to the dead) shall put on incorruption; and this mortal (referring to the living) shall put on immortality." Mortality cannot be affirmed of the dead, and here certainly, as in 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17, the two classes are recognized. The "change" applies to the living alone. We dissent from Mr. Constable's view of the matter, in the first place, because his argument proves too much. If the wicked are to be raised in a condition of mortality, it is course impossible that they could exist forever, that is, in the body. But it is equally impossible that they could exist for "the ages of ages," as to which certainly Scripture affirms their torment. He must reduce these indeed to a minimum in order to harmonize them with his theory. Nay, more, a resurrection which is a mere restoration to a present condition involves certain things of which we must all be fully aware.