Nathan J. Anderson – Author/Speaker/Pastor

Here’s what we’ve covered so far:

• final judgment occurs at the end of time at the Great White Throne of Christ, which I believe means no one has been judged yet.
• Satan is the god of this world, meaning he rules over (with some stipulations) people who are trapped in sin
• God holds the power of death, not Satan.
• Satan and his angels are not going to torment anyone in Hell, instead, they will be tormented in Hell.

So if if Satan and his angels are not going to torment anyone in hell, who or what will?

To answer this question, we’re going to start with the Old Testament. There are numerous passages we could read, here are a few. Read the passages below and see what they say about God:

Isaiah 30:27

27 See, the Name of the LORD comes from afar,
with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke;
his lips are full of wrath,
and his tongue is a consuming fire.

Jeremiah 30:23-24

23 See, the storm of the LORD
will burst out in wrath,
a driving wind swirling down
on the heads of the wicked.
24 The fierce anger of the LORD will not turn back
until he fully accomplishes
the purposes of his heart.

Micah 5:10 & 15, talking about what the LORD will do when his ruler (Christ) comes from Bethlehem.

10 “In that day,” declares the LORD,
15 I will take vengeance in anger and wrath
on the nations that have not obeyed me.”

Zephaniah 3:8

8″Therefore wait for me,” declares the LORD,
“for the day when I rise up to seize the prey.
For my decision is to gather nations,
to assemble kingdoms,
to pour out upon them my indignation,
all my burning anger;
for in the fire of my jealousy
all the earth shall be consumed.

Joel 2:1-2 & 30

Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
for the day of the LORD is coming; it is near,
2 a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness!

30″And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. 31 The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.

According to the Old Testament, a day is coming when the LORD will pour out his wrath on the wicked. Some of this already occurred in Jerusalem as the wicked Israelites were taken away by Babylon and Assyria, but another day is yet to come. It will be a dark day of trembling as the disobedient from all nations are gathered together and the wrath of God will flow.

Some would say that these passages fit the God of the Old Testament, because he’s the “angry God,” but the God of the New Testament is a God of love. The problem with this thought is that the God of the OT and the God of the NT are the same God. There are plenty of examples of God’s love in the OT, but are there examples of God’s wrath in the NT?

Matthew 3:7

But when he (Jesus) saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

John 3:36

“He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”

Romans 2:5

But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,

Colossians 3:5-6

5Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.  6For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience.

Revelation 6:15-17

15Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; 16and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; 17for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”

There are plenty of examples of God’s impending wrath toward evil in the NT as well, culminating in Revelation. This is where the OT and NT predictions of wrath come together, for this ‘great day of their wrath’ in Rev. 6:17 is the Day of the LORD talked about in the OT.

At the end of time, the wrath of God will fall upon the wicked and none of them will be able to stand against him. They will be thrown into the lake of fire, that is, Hell.  For believers though, there is a different story. God has already poured out his wrath on our sin…at the cross. Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10) because our sin was laid on him. We are no longer subject to God’s wrath because it has already been poured on on Christ. But that is not the case for those who refused rescue.

So let’s go back to the original question: If Satan and his angels are not going to torment anyone in Hell, who or what will? The only answer I can see from Scripture is that God will be the source of torment in Hell.

Someday, the wrath of God will be poured out against evil, and evil will be scorched from the earth. First against Satan and his horde, and then, after being judged by Jesus, against anyone who has rejected the lifeline God gave us in Jesus. This is not because God is vindictive or petty, but because God’s wrath is the only way paradise is possible. Without getting rid of sin, we are destined forever to live in a world full of evil and disease. God would prefer that NO ONE ended up as the objects of his wrath, but because people love sin, paradise is not possible without wrath. God will not wait forever to be united with his bride. We’ll talk more about this in another post.

As an aside, when Christians are under fire, it is not uncommon for someone say something like “All the powers of hell came against us,” however, that is not speaking correctly. The power behind hell is God.

So if God pours out wrath on the wicked at the end of time, and if Satan is not tormenting anyone in hell, what about all the people suffering in Hell right now?

We’ll explore that in the next post. We will finally jump into Hades, specifically the story Jesus told in Luke about the rich man and Lazarus.