The Great Misunderstanding About the Devil and Hell

I regularly have people come to me for a talk who are afraid of the devil torturing them in hell. They are so afraid of this torturing devil that they sometimes cannot sleep, have nightmares, and more. There is only one problem….

The hard truth: God is the judge

The Bible teaches that hell, or the ‘lake of fire,’ is not the kingdom of the devil. On the contrary, it is the place of the devil’s own final punishment. The devil is the most prominent prisoner who is in hell; the devil is therefore not the executioner, but someone who is eternally tortured.

Important to know: the Bible distinguishes between Hades/Sheol (the temporary realm of the dead) and the eternal hell. Hades is the place of the dead before the final judgment, as in Luke 16:19-31 (the rich man and Lazarus) or Psalm 16:10. This blog focuses on the final hell, the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14-15), which swallows up Hades as the definitive, irreversible punishment after the judgment.

But then who does deliver the judgment there? God. God is a righteous God, who judges fairly, but also justly. And that is a good thing, because let’s be honest: people like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, and Idi Amin, who together have an estimated 60 to 79 million deaths on their conscience, surely deserve eternal punishment?

But.. and then comes the catch…. God only allows people who are perfect, who have no sin… so everyone who has sinned…. goes to hell. Because if God were to let people in with sins, then heaven would suddenly no longer be perfect… Oops. So everyone who has sinned also goes to that hell. Unless… (and we will get back to that in a moment, because there is an unless!)

Let’s first look at that righteous final judgment, then we’ll come back to the “unless.” That righteous final judgment is gruesome when you read it in the Bible. God is the judge who pronounces the sentence, and His judgment is perfected to the last detail (because God is perfect) for everyone who ends up there. Wow!

The punishment of the devil

In Matthew 25:41 it is written:

“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;”

The punishment for those who do not repent

In Revelation 21:8 we read:

“But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

The Bible describes hell as a place of total darkness, fire, and unimaginable torment. It is a place of “wailing” and “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” as stated in Matthew 13:42:

“and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

This judgment is also eternal and there is no escape from it. There is no way back or way out once the judge has pronounced his sentence. This is the second death, a permanent and final separation from God. It is a punishment that does not stop.

Does that make you afraid already? Good. Because then you also understand that it is MEGA important what that “unless” is that I keep talking about. If there is no hell, and no righteous and eternal judgment in hell, then that “unless” is not necessary either. And with that, we arrive at the “unless” and actually that is what it’s all about:

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The way of escape: Jesus as our advocate

The Bible teaches us that every human being is sinful and therefore no one is naturally righteous before God. Through our sins, we are all guilty and deserve this judgment. Wow…..

The judgment that awaits every human….unless…

In Hebrews 9:27 it is written:

“And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,”

But it is not hopeless, because here comes the “unless”. The only way to escape this judgment is through the grace of God. God, who is the righteous judge, has Himself provided a way out in Jesus. He is the only one who can save us.

Jesus is the only advocate. The “unless….”

1 Timothy 2:5 explains:

“For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,”

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

“that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;” (Romans 10:9)

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Hell is therefore not a kingdom of the devil with a pitchfork, but the place where God righteously judges him and everyone who rejects God. And exactly that is good news, because the final end of the devil in hell is also the end of the devil’s power on earth.

And when you understand that… then this is the most important thing:

Only by accepting Jesus as our advocate can we escape this gruesome final judgment and find the grace of God.

Do it.

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In short:

Hell is not the devil’s dwelling place.
In the Bible, hell (often referred to as Gehenna or the lake of fire) is primarily described as a place of punishment, not as a kingdom ruled by the devil.

The devil is (for now) active on earth.
In passages such as 1 Peter 5:8 and Job 1, the devil is described as “roaming” the earth. Revelation 12 also states that he has been cast out of heaven and exercises his influence among humanity.

Hell is intended as his final destination.
Matthew 25:41 says that the eternal fire is “prepared for the devil and his angels.” In other words, he will ultimately end up there, but it is not a place where he belongs or rules.

Revelation 20 describes that the devil is first bound and only later definitively thrown into the lake of fire as a judgment.