While relating his own personal journey in understanding the nature of hell, Fudge leads the reader through the whole Bible to see what we have missed, then through church history to

understand the origin of the other two views.

Here are the basics: Life is short. Death is sure. Judgment is certain. Hell is real. And when John 3:16 says the options are eternal life or perish, we can take that at face value.

At the end of the world, the good and bad alike are raised to face judgment. The righteous enjoy eternal life with God; the lost are sentenced to hell. But the God who gave his Son to die

for sinners does not keep them alive forever to torment them without end. Instead, those in hell suffer such precise pains as divine justice may require, in a process that ends in extinction. This is the second death, the wages of sin. Eternal punishment is eternal destruction.