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.
Have not I sent thee?
62-0124 §24
And tonight we're safely, completely, resting in the atonement that our Lord made for us, knowing this, that when the judgment comes, that we'll float above the judgment. We'll be taken out of the world and will not have to stand the judgment, for our Lord promised us in St. John 5:24, "He that heareth my words, and believeth on him that sent me, hath eternal life, and shall not come into the judgment; but has passed from death unto life." Not a wandering soul when we die; we're in the presence of God. Not a-wander...
Questions and Answers, Part 2
64-0823E §117
The church, the lukewarm, the anything outside of the elected bride will go through the tribulation period. They will not raise in the first resurrection: "The rest of the dead live not for a thousand years," just the foreordained, predestinated, elected bride, God's own elections. "Who is it, Brother Branham?" I don't know? I can't tell you who it is, but I know it's going to be there, 'cause the Lord said they would. See? They are the ones that'll go up from the tribulation, but the rest of them will go through t...
A Greater than Solomon is here
61-0412 §63
But remember, there wasn't a drop of rain fell till Noah got in the ark. There was no fire fell at all till Sodom ... Lot come out of Sodom. Jesus said, "As it was in them days, so will it be in the coming of the Son of man." The church already is... It don't have to be judged; it's already been judged. For it judged Christ, and Christ stood its judgment. When we are in Him, we are free from judgment. If God judges you, then He's unjust. Christ took our judgment for us, and by one Spirit we are baptized into that b...
Three kinds of believers
63-1124E §46
Then secondly, there comes now, the unbeliever. Let's speak of the unbeliever next. What does the unbeliever do? We see the believer what? accepts the Word: every race, every generation, follow all the way from Noah all the way up. We could take six months of revival right on that right there, bringing up the characters--they believed. The believer don't question. The believer believes it, regardless of what it sounds like or what anybody else has got to say about it, how impossible it seems to be. The believer bel...
Revelation, Chapter 4c Throne of mercy and judgement
61-0108 §16
See how narrow it is? They don't have spiritual understanding, that's all. See. Blind, dead in sin and trespasses! Sin means "unbelief." Anything in unbelief is sin. If a fellow's got a title that long (a DD, double L, PhD, LLD) and says there's no such a thing as divine healing or the baptism of the Holy Ghost, the man's dead in sin. He might be able to explain all kinds of mysteries in the Bible, but his very life (his testimony) proves that he's dead. He's dead in sin and trespasses because he's a sinner. Sin is...