Hell is probably the least-liked of all Christian doctrines, and many who profess to be Christians have denied its existence. Among these are the Jehovah's Witnesses, who believe that rather than suffer eternal punishment, the damned simply cease to exist. In addition, they also deny the immortality of the soul, another essential Christian doctrine. Do these beliefs stand up to Scriptural scrutiny, or are they mere traditions of men (Mark 7:8) that warrant Paul's anathema of other gospels (Galatians 1:8-9)?
I. The Reality of Hell
That hell is in fact a real place of real torment can be seen most clearly in Revelation 14:9-11:
"Then another angel, a third, followed them, crying with a loud voice, 'Those who worship the beast and its image, and receive a mark on their foreheads or on their hands, they will also drink the wine of God's wrath, poured unmixed into the cup of his anger, and they will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image and for anyone who receives the mark of its name.'"
The damned will be "tormented with fire and sulfur," and this torment will last "forever and ever." This is irrefutable evidence that hell does in fact exist, but it's not the only evidence. Jesus often says that the damned will end up in "the eternal fire " (Matthew 18:8, 25:41), a place where "there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 8:12, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30; Luke 13:28), "where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched (Mark 9:48, also see Isaiah 66:24).
But isn't God love (1 John 4:8)? How can He ever send anyone to hell and torment him forever? God gave us all free will, and with it comes the ability to reject God. If we refuse His love and are determined to separate ourselves from Him for all eternity, God will honor our wish and separate Himself from us. This is hell. The most intense suffering will come from our separation from God, not from literal fire (although there may be some other suffering in hell).
Before we move on to the immortality of the soul, one more objection must be answered. Job wished to be protected in hell (Job 14:13), and hell will give up its dead at the end of time (Revelation 20:13). If hell is where the damned are tormented for all eternity, how can this be? Jason Evert explains this in his book Answering Jehovah's Witnesses:
"Today the word hell is equated with the fiery place of the damned�In prior eras, hell merely indicated the place of the dead, which is the original meaning of the German word Hoelle, from which the English hell is derived�Hades and she'ol, like the original meaning of the word hell, simply meant 'the place of the dead.' That is why Job wished to be there and why the dead will be delivered from it."
II. The Immortality of the Soul
Just as the reality of hell can easily be proved using Scripture, so can the immortality of the soul. For one, the reality of hell attests to this. If the damned are tormented in hell, their souls must live on after their bodies die. In addition, Scripture often mentions the souls of the dead speaking and being spoken too. For example, Isaiah says that the souls in Sheol will talk to the king of Babylon after he dies (Isaiah 14:9-10, 16-17), and the soul of Samuel appeared to Saul and told of his impending doom (2 Samuel 28:8-19). Peter says that after Jesus died, He preached to the dead (1 Peter 3:19, 4:6), and the souls of the martyrs cry out for justice (Revelation 6:9-11). For these things to be possible, the souls of the dead must live on after their bodies have died. In addition to this, Paul says that death is being with Christ (2 Corinthians 5:8, Philippians 1:23), and a dead or unconscious soul cannot be with God.
There is, however, one verse that Jehovah's Witnesses like to use to try and "prove" that the human soul is not immortal: Ecclesiastes 9:5.
"The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no more reward, and even the memory of them is lost."
Witnesses say that this verse clearly teaches that the soul ceases to exist after death, but it teaches no such thing. Read in context (verses 1-12), it is clear that the author is using a hyperbole to describe how death appears to the living. In fact, this can be seen in verse 5 itself, which says, "even the memory of them is lost." We know that the dead are remembered, so we cannot take this passage hyper-literally.
