1. Start with Jesus: Significant Sermonic & Parabolic Images A. Conclusion of Sermon on the Mount Wide Gate & Narrow Gate Good Tree & Bad Tree True Disciple & The Poser House on Rock and House on Sand

B. Parable of the Sheep and the Goats

Matthew 25:31-33 “But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left…”

Matthew 25:46 “And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life.”

C. Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus

Luke 16:26 “…there is a great chasm separating us. No one can cross over to you from here, and no one can cross over to us from there.”

1. Start with Jesus: Specific Images Jesus Used Gehenna Outer Darkness Hades

3. Hell in the Letters of Paul, Peter, & Jude

2 Thessalonians 1:6-9 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.

4. Hell in Revelation

5. Degrees of Responsibility for Sin/ Degrees of Eternal Punishment

“Men are not equally guilty before God.” --W.T. Conner, Christian Doctrine

Luke 12:47-48 “And a servant who knows what the master wants, but isn’t prepared and doesn’t carry out those instructions, will be severely punished. But someone who does not know, and then does something wrong, will be punished only lightly. When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required.”

“There is nothing in either reason or the Scriptures to justify the idea that all the impenitent will be punished to the same extent in the next life.” ---W.T. Conner

The principle here seems to be, the greater our knowledge, the greater is our responsibility, and the greater will be our punishment if we fail in our responsibility. It may well be that the different degrees of hell are not so much a matter of objective circumstances as of subjective awareness of the pain of separation from God…

…To some extent, the different degrees of punishment reflect the fact that hell is God’s leaving sinful people with the particular character that they fashioned for themselves in this life. The misery they will experience from having to live with their wicked self eternally will be proportionate to their degree of awareness of precisely what they were doing when they chose evil. --Millard Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine