“They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thessalonians 1:9 HCSB).
We’ll continue our look at this passage with some observations from the following commentator…
“For many people, the idea our finite, temporal choices here should merit an eternal punishment of infinite torment in Hell seems rather inequitable. The punishment doesn’t seem to fit the crime. In fact, the punishment seems extraordinarily excessive. Why would God torture eternally those who have sinned temporally? Why would God torture infinitely those who have only sinned finitely?
… Part of the problem is the way we are using language here. The Bible says those who are delivered into Hell will be tormented, and the degree to which they suffer is described in illustrative language. The torment is compared to an unquenchable fire. But the scripture never describes Hell as a place where God or His angels are actively torturing the souls of the rebellious.
It is accurate to describe Hell as a place of separation from God where souls will be in ongoing conscious torment, but Hell is never described as a place of active torture at the hands of God or His agents. Instead, Hell is always described as a state of torment coming as the result of a choice on the part of the person who finds himself there. There is a difference between torture and torment. I can be continually tormented over a decision I made in the past, without being actively tortured by anyone…
The torment experienced in Hell is eternal, and for some, this still seems inequitable compared to the finite and limited sins that we might commit here on earth. So let’s address the issue of the duration of the punishment. First, it’s important for us to remember the severity of a crime does not always have anything to do with the amount of time it takes to commit it.
If I embezzle five dollars a day from my boss over the course of five years, I might eventually get caught and pay the penalty… But if I become enraged at a coworker and in the blink of an eye I lose my temper and kill him, the crime is now murder… This crime took much less than five years to commit. It only took five seconds. Yet the penalty for this crime is far greater…
The penalties for these two crimes are very different, and they have nothing to do with the duration of the actual criminal act. Instead, the severity of the crime is the key to determining its punishment. It’s the same way with God. The duration of the crime has little to do with the duration of the penalty. It’s all about the severity of the crime.” (1)
(1) Excerpted from J. Warner Wallace, Can The Existence and Nature of Hell Be Defended? (Free Bible Insert), Retrieved 5 June 2020 from https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/can-the-existence-and-nature-of-hell-be-defended-free-bible-insert/