Seven Reasons Eternal Punishment Is Fair

Many assert that living for 80 or 90 years and occasionally sinning does not deserve eternal punishment in hell. They feel the crime doesn’t fit the punishment. However, the Bible give us seven reasons why it is deserved.

1. If we die in our sins, our spirit exists in death and separated from God. If we are dead to God before death, we remain dead after death.

2. Our sinful nature is not compatible with God’s holy nature. We have to be given a new nature, and time in hell could never earn it.

3. Time spent in hell to pay for our sins would represent works, and our works cannot save us. Time is the wrong premise.

4. Our time is not valuable enough to pay for sins. Only the shed blood of Jesus can pay for sins.

5. The time it takes to commit a crime does not equate to the time determined for the punishment.

6. We have to realize whom we have sinned against. Sinning against a Holy, Almighty, omnipotent, perfect, eternal God is deserving of eternal punishment.

7. Because God is 100% just, our sin must be punished and is deserving of eternal punishment. But because he is also 100% love, Jesus took the punishment for us on the cross.

Let’s look at Point one: Our sin is deserving of death. Right from the beginning, God told Adam not to sin or he would die physically and spiritually. We are all born in sin so death passed on to all men, since all men sin (Romans 5:12). Spiritual death means we are separated from God. Man’s spirit still lives forever, but only as a dead spirit apart from God.

We see by these next five verses that the soul still exists after death, even if a person rejects the Lord. Some insist that if a person reject Jesus, then their soul ceases to exist. Not true!

Revelation 20:12-15 tells us that those who go to hell the current hell, or hades, are all delivered up to God at the end, the Great White Throne Judgment, and they are judged according to their works, thoughts and motives, then cast into the lake of fire forever. They still exist since they were in hell, then are judged.

Psalms 26:9, David said, “Gather not my soul with sinners. He knew sinners are gathered in the pit.”

Psalms 28:1, “Do not be silent to me, Lest, if You are silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit.” In other words, he wouldn’t hear from God as those in hell don’t. That presupposes their existence in hell.

Isaiah 38:18, “They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.” To have no hope one would still have to exist.

Job 33:28, “He will deliver his soul from going into the pit.”

In Luke 16, The rich man in hell, the current hell, as Jesus described; “And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment in the flame.” He also was concerned about his five brothers coming there, so their existence continues after death, just as his.

Being separated from God means being separated from all good, because good comes only from God (James 1:17). Hell is a place absent from God’s goodness and attributes.

To try and imagine how a spirit can be dead but still exist. Think of this: The Titanic was a beautiful ship, vibrant with color and splendor. It consisted of all the finest materials, exotic woods, chandeliers, sculptured pieces of art, and glassware. But now, lying on the bed of the ocean floor, it is a colorless rust heap, gloomy, dark, decayed, and void of all beauty. It still exists, just as a man’s spirit would exist apart from God. Man’s spirit body would be lifeless, dead, dark, decaying, and as a mere shadowy image of what he was.

Or visualize a colorful photo of a person. It looks good, they look good, in color. The film’s negative has the form of the person, but is colorless, lifeless, and only an unclear image of the actual person. I’m just trying to get you to see how the spirit of man can still exist but be dead to God.

A person who doesn’t know the Lord has a dead spirit. If a person dies in their sins, then they are set and remain in their dead spirit apart from God. They exist as a living corpse so to speak.

When it came to the time that Jesus was going to die, He told the Pharisees He would then be going to heaven.

In John 8:21, “Then Jesus said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin. Where I go you cannot come.”

Jesus said it again in John 7:33-34. We see that if we die in our sins, we cannot go to heaven.

Then Jesus said in John 5:24, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.”

Putting our trust in Jesus Christ for our salvation is the only way to escape death and pass into life.

Point 2. We have to realize, our human sinful nature is not compatible with God’s Holy nature. His nature is Holy, and ours is corrupt.

Nahum 1:5 and Hebrews 12:29 says His nature is a consuming fire and we would all be consume at His presence in our sinful fallen nature. This may help you see this…

If I stuck my hand into the fire to retrieve something and the fire burned me, I wouldn’t say, “why did that fire burn me? That was mean of the fire!” No, I wouldn’t say that. The nature of the fire is to burn. My hand and the fire are not compatible. Neither is a Holy God and sinful man compatible.

We have to be given a new spirit, a new heart, and new nature, and He take away our stony heart as (Ezekiel 11:19; 18:31; 36:26), and only God can transform us if we have faith and believe that Jesus died on the cross in our place for our sins. We trust in His sacrifice on the cross and not our own good works (Titus 3:5). Besides, our good works are as filthy rags compared to God’s perfect standard (Isaiah 64:6).

Point 3. Time is the wrong premise – Time would represent works, as if we paid the price for our sins. However, the Bible says we are saved by grace, and not by works (Ephesians 2:8-9). Our works could never pay for sins or earn us freedom from spiritual death.

Point 4. Our time is not valuable enough. God doesn’t consider our time spent in hell as sufficient payment for the high cost of sin. Only the shed blood of Jesus is valuable enough to pay for our sin. (Hebrews 9:22)

Romans 5:9 “being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.” Only His blood can save us, and not time spent in hell.

Point 5. The time it takes to commit a crime does not equate to the punishment deserved. It might only take seconds to murder someone, but may deserve a life sentence, or death. According to God, even one sin is exceedingly sinful and deserves an eternity of punishment. That is how high His standard of good and perfection is!

Point 6. We also have to realize whom we have sinned against. God is of infinite position, and an infinite being.

Thomas Aquinas said in the book, Hell on Trial, pg. 108-109, “Now a sin that is against God is infinite; the higher the person against whom it is committed, the graver the sin—it is more criminal to strike a head of state than a private citizen—and God is of infinite greatness. Therefore an infinite punishment is deserved for a sin committed against Him.”

Dr. Christopher Morgan in the book, “Hell Under Fire” pg. 210, is quoting Jonathan Edwards as saying, “If an angry teenage boy punched his mother, he would deserve more punishment than if he punched his older brother.

The relationship and the offended party do matter. It is also important to remember that God is not only different from human beings in degree; he is also different in being. If in a robbery, the gunman shoots and kills the owner of the house, he should receive a greater punishment than if he killed the family cat.

Thus, because sin is against God, and God is infinitely worthy of obedience, sin merits an infinite punishment.”

Point 7. Because God is 100% just, our sin has to be punished. A good judge in our land would not be considered “good” if he let all the criminals go free.

Romans 6:23 says that our sin earns us death. But because God is also 100% love, He died for us and took the punishment.

God made us all eternal beings, as he intended for us to live with him in heaven forever. Hell was prepared for the Devil and his angels, and not for man, as Matthew 25:41 states. But if man rejects the only provision to escape hell, then there is no other place for his eternal soul to dwell. He cannot take us to heaven with our sinful fallen nature or we would corrupt heaven as we have the earth.

Revelation 21:27, “But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life” That is only way your going to get into heaven is if your name is in his book.

God had a plan before Creation to redeem man back to Himself, but it would require God himself dying in our place for the punishment of our sins. Jesus Christ is the only one who could do this. He lived a perfect life and never sinned even once, not even a sinful thought, or wrong motive, thereby being justified to pay for our sins.

Romans 5:8, “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.Time spent in hell is not meant to be redemptive. It’s deserved.

Jesus said in Matthew 25:46, “And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” The word, Everlasting and eternal are the same word, “Aionios.” Just as heaven is eternal, so is hell eternal. If a person rejects the only provision for their sin, which is Jesus Christ, then they have to take the punishment in hell forever.

We must all repent of our sins, and receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, as He is the only God, and He died for us and He rose from the dead to prove He was who He said He was, the Son of God. All of us have a choice, to receive His free gift of salvation, or reject it.