Hell and Everlasting Punishment
Part 5: Everlasting Punishment
"And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." (Matthew 25:46). William Elbert Munsey wrote of the everlasting punishment of the wicked:
"The eternal punishment of the wicked, the eternal happiness of the righteous, and the eternity of God, as far as Revelation is concerned, form the same building. The Univeralist has placed his shoulders against the basement pillars, and if he succeeds the whole structure falls; but he and his co-laborers may toil and sweat, and leave their bones to molder away in the cellars, but God lives on, the righteous shout on, and the damned groan on- throughout all eternity- O Eternity!
The meaning of such a word in its connection with the future punishment of the wicked is dreadful- O Eternity! Its signifigance is as high and wide and deep and grand as God is. He fills it, and it fills Him, and all the worlds, and all the men, and all the demons, and all the angels, but perform their parts in its awful shadow."
IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH: "Corrupters of families will not inherit the kingdom of God. And if they who do these things according to the flesh suffer death, how much more if a man corrupt by evil teaching the faith of God for the sake of which Jesus Christ was crucified? A man become so foul will depart into unquenchable fire: and so will anyone who listens to him" (Letter to the Ephesians 16:1–2 [A.D. 110]) -
CLEMENT: "If we do the will of Christ, we shall obtain rest; but if not, if we neglect his commandments, nothing will rescue us from eternal punishment" (Second Clement 5:5 [A.D. 150]).
JUSTIN MARTYR: "[Jesus] shall come from the heavens in glory with his angelic host, when he shall raise the bodies of all the men who ever lived. Then he will clothe the worthy in immortality; but the wicked, clothed in eternal sensibility, he will commit to the eternal fire, along with the evil demons" (First Apology 52 [A.D. 151]).
POLYCARP: "Fixing their minds on the grace of Christ, [the martyrs] despised worldly tortures and purchased eternal life with but a single hour. To them, the fire of their cruel torturers was cold. They kept before their eyes their escape from the eternal and unquenchable fire" (Martyrdom of Polycarp 2:3 [A.D. 155]).
IRENAEUS: "The penalty increases for those who do not believe the Word of God and despise his coming. . . . [I]t is not merely temporal, but eternal. To whomsoever the Lord shall say, ‘Depart from me, accursed ones, into the everlasting fire,’ they will be damned forever" (ibid., 4:28:2).
TERTULLIAN: "After the present age is ended he will judge his worshipers for a reward of eternal life and the godless for a fire equally perpetual and unending" (Apology 18:3 [A.D. 197]).
HIPPOLYTUS: "Standing before [Christ’s] judgment, all of them, men, angels, and demons, crying out in one voice, shall say: ‘Just is your judgment!’ And the righteousness of that cry will be apparent in the recompense made to each. To those who have done well, everlasting enjoyment shall be given; while to the lovers of evil shall be given eternal punishment. The unquenchable and unending fire awaits these latter, and a certain fiery worm which does not die and which does not waste the body but continually bursts forth from the body with unceasing pain. No sleep will give them rest; no night will soothe them; no death will deliver them from punishment; no appeal of interceding friends will profit them" (Against the Greeks 3 [A.D. 212]).
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