“Hell is eternity in the presence of God without a Mediator”

Although we have already spoken about the horrors of hell, there is perhaps one more thing we need to say.  It is a surprising thing to note, because we so often speak of hell as a place where God is not.  Let me, however, say something provocative.  Hell is eternity in the presence of God without a mediator.  Heaven is eternity in the presence God, with a mediator.  Hell is eternity in the presence of God, being fully conscious of the just, holy, righteous, good, kind, and loving Father’s disapproval of your rebellion and wickedness.  Heaven, on the other hand, is dwelling in the conscious awareness of your holy and righteous Father, but doing so through a mediator who died in your place, the One who absorbed the fullness of the penalty of your sin.  Heaven is eternity in the presence of God with the One who totally eradicated sin from your life, the Lord Jesus Christ. (from Fear Not!, p. 94)

Here is another quote from R.C. Sproul on the same subject:

Jesus was forsaken by his Father on the cross.  Similarly, we sometimes hear it said that those in hell are forsaken by God in the sense that hell is the absence of God.  Scripture clearly teaches that God is omnipresent. David said, “If I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there” (Ps. 139:8b).  How, then, are we to understand hell and the presence of God?

It is common to say that hell is the absence of God.  Such statements are motivated in large part by the dread of even contemplating what hell is like. We try to soften that blow and find a euphemism to skirt around it.

We need to realize that those who are in hell desire nothing more than the absence of God.  They didn’t want to be in God’s presence during their earthly lives, and they certainly don’t want Him near when they’re in hell.  The worst thing about hell is the presence of God there.

When we use the imagery of the Old Testament in an attempt to understand the forsakeness of the lost, we are not speaking of the idea of the departure of God or the absence of God in the sense that He ceases to be omnipresent.  Rather, it’s a way of describing the withdrawal of God in terms of His redemptive blessing.  It is the absence of the light of His countenance.  It is the presence of the frown of his countenance.  It is the absence of the blessedness of His unveiled glory that is a delight to the souls of those who love Him, but it is the presence of the darkness of judgment.  Hell reflects the presence of God in His mode of judgment, in His exercise of wrath, and that’s what everyone would like to escape.

I think that’s why we get confused.  There is a withdrawal in terms of the blessing of the radical nearness of God.  His benefits can be removed far from us, and that’s what this language is calling attention to.  (from The Truth of the Cross, p. 157-158)

Wayne Grudem agrees, but provides an important balancing statement:

In fact, isn’t hell the opposite of God’s presence, or the absence of God? This difficulty can be resolved by realizing that God is present in different ways in different places, or that God acts differently in different places in his creation.  Sometimes God is present to punish (Amos 9:1-4) . . . Our difficulty in understanding how to express the way in which God is present in unbelievers, for example, leads us to realize that although the Bible can speak of God as being present everywhere, when the Bible says that God is “present” it usually means “present to bless.” That is, although there are few references to God’s presence to sustain or presence to punish, the vast majority of biblical references to God’s presence are simply more brief ways of stating that he is present to bless.  When we become more and more familiar with this Biblical pattern of speech, it becomes more and more difficult to speak of God’s presence in any other way.  And perhaps it is even misleading to do so unless a clear explanation of our meaning can be given. (from Systematic Theology, p. 175-177)

And I couldn’t agree more with Dr. Grudem!  I would be very cautious about using that quote from Ligon Duncan (“Hell is the presence of God without a mediator”) unless it was in a context where hell was being described in terms of God’s pronouncement “Depart from me” and as a place of judgment “where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  Reading it with the gravity of “depart from me,” the Duncan a quote is given a context to (hopefully) minimize misunderstanding.   But Grudem is right, if we’re going to make a statement like “Hell is the presence of God without a mediator,” we should be careful to explain in what sense it IS the presence of God, namely, that God is present to punish and not bless because there is no mediator.