Is the Unbeliever Not Being Judged Twice - First in Burning Hell and Then Second at the Lake of Fire?
No. It’s not two judgments. The unbeliever is condemned already, held in a place of torment now, and then brought up for one final judgment at the Great White Throne and cast into the lake of fire—the second death.
The Bible says, “He that believeth not is condemned already” (John 3:18). After death there is a holding place of torment—“in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments” (Luke 16:23–24)—and Scripture speaks of “spirits in prison” (1 Peter 3:19). But the formal judgment is future: “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). At the Great White Throne, “the dead…were judged… and death and hell delivered up the dead… and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death” (Revelation 20:11–15).
Now notice the simple truth: prison is not the court. A man may be held in jail awaiting trial—that’s not a second judgment. So the torment in hell is the holding of the already-condemned; the Great White Throne is the court where the sentence is set and executed; the lake of fire is the final end, the second death. The wicked are burned up, not given eternal life in flames (Malachi 4:1,3; Ezekiel 18:4).
So it’s not double judgment. It’s one condemnation carried from prison to court to execution: hell now as a holding place, the White Throne as judgment, and the lake of fire as the final, second death.
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Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 4:E-75
We all know that the second death is the lake of fire. Revelation 20:14, "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death." Of course that means all those who were therein, were cast into the lake of fire. Now then, I want to bring out something here for you. It no doubt will cause people to comment on my strange doctrine. But I stand here on the authority of the Word of God and deny that the unbeliever goes to an eternal hell and burns there eternally. In the first place, hell, or the...
Questions and Answers on Hebrews, part 1
57-0925 §97
...eve it'll be a million times worse than that. I believe you couldn't describe it by fire, by a literal fire. The only reason it's put "by fire," that fire is the most consuming thing that we have. It absolutely consumes and destroys everything, fire does. Well, then, it'll be in there, but you'll have a soul that'll have to be punished through some kind... Now, you have to watch the word fire, because the Holy Ghost is used: "the Holy Ghost and fire"; because Holy Ghost fire burns sin out, see, and makes clean. But...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 7:E-88
Now let us be very clear here. These are not nations being judged and going into the millennium because they have harbored and helped the Jews. That is very clear because of the conclusion of these verses. "And these (the wicked) shall go away into everlasting punishment (lake of fire), but the righteous into everlasting life." There is no record of TWO judgments set where the wicked are cast into the lake of fire. Only the beast and false prophet are judged at the end of the great tribulation. No, this is the Whit...
Questions and Answers on Hebrews, part 1
57-0925 §93
Here's a good one, just like... Would you suffer me just one more minute or two, to answer this? It can answer itself. QUESTION: When you say "the wicked shall not burn eternally, [Well, I got Jehovah Witness on the run, haven't I?] When you say the wicked will not burn eternally, do you mean in hell or in the lake of fire? I know it says in Revelations (that's the 20th chapter) that hell will be cast into the lake of fire. If they do not burn eternally, then what becomes of them? Just as I have just got through sa...
Souls that are in prison now
63-1110M §60
But after the days of His preaching, His ministry continued on because the last group He preached to was the souls that were in hell, that could not be forgiven. I clearly read that from the Bible here from II Peter. He went and preached to souls that were in prison, (which is hell) locked up until the day of the judgment, because, you see, the judgment isn't now, and there's no burning hell now. Somebody tell you that a guy is in burning hell now---that's wrong. A Judge of this earth is just enough to never condem...