Judgment (Particular & Final)Answered

Does Revelation teach that hell lasts forever for the angels, and what about for humans?

A viewer asks whether Revelation 20 (referred to as chapter 22) teaches that hell lasts forever for the angels, and what that means for humans.

Answer

I can only give you the data, because this is something the Church still has to delve into and I have no authority to decide it. Hell is forever in the sense that anyone sent there, angel or human, will never see God, ever; there is no possibility of going to heaven, and that is settled and terrible in itself. But Scripture and the Church also speak of punishment in hell, and here a question arises. Merely never seeing God again is one thing, but a punishment, a judicial penalty, normally carries the idea of being proportionate to the crime and therefore limited; even earthly sentences end. So if the severity of hell's punishment is given in degrees according to one's sins, the question is whether the length could likewise be proportioned, and once the punishment commensurate with the crime is complete, that would seem to imply annihilation rather than unending torment. This is an open door the Church needs either to close by setting boundaries or to elaborate, and I am only laying out the data, not rendering a judgment. And note, the passage is Revelation 20, not 22.

Dr. Robert Sungenis

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