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HOW LONG SHALL HELL LAST?
The Duration of Punishment
WE are accustomed to speak broadly of salvation and condemnation in the hereafter as reward and punishment, respectively. The Scriptures justify this usage, and furthermore make plain the fact that reward or punishment will be a natural and inevitable heritage resulting from individual righteousness or sin.
The Eternal Judge of the quick and the dead is bound by His own inviolable laws—and no less so than by His Divine attributes of justice and mercy—to exalt every deserving soul, and to validate and enforce the loss and suffering consequent to wilful wickedness. Verily, the Lord God is no respecter of persons, condoning the unexpiated sins of favorites and inflicting punishment upon others for but equal guilt. Such an unbelievable condition would mean injustice and vindictiveness.
Everlasting blessedness is thoroughly consistent with justice. The souls that attain to salvation and eternal life "shall have glory added upon their heads forever and ever." (Pearl of Great Price, p. 66.) But the thought of never-ending punishment as the fate of all who die in their sins is repugnant; and rightly so.
As reward for righteous living is to be proportionate to deserts, so punishment for sin must be graded according to the offense. The purpose of punishment is disciplinary, reformatory, and in support of justice. God's mercy is as truly manifest in the expiatory suffering, which He allows, as in the endless joys of salvation, which He bestows.
As to the duration of punishment, we may take assurance that it shall be measured to the individual in just accordance with the sum of his iniquity. That every sentence for sin must be interminable is as directly opposed to a rational conception of justice as it is contradictory of the revealed Word of God.
It was mercifully foreordained that even the prisoners thronging the pit should in due time be visited (Isa. 24:21-22), and be offered means of amelioration (42:7). David sang right rapturously, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell." (Psa. 16:10.)
True, the Scriptures speak of endless punishment, and depict everlasting burnings, eternal damnation, and the sufferings incident to unquenchable fire, as features of the judgment reserved for the wicked. But none of these awful possibilities are anywhere in Scripture declared to be the unending fate of the individual sinner.