Is the Fire by Which the Wicked Will Be Punished a Burning Fire?
Question:
Is the fire by which the wicked will be punished a burning fire, or is it the painful torment of conscience because they did not receive bliss and did not enjoy Christ as the righteous do?
Answer:
Since both the body and the spirit participate in a person’s deeds, the whole person—body and spirit—is rewarded or punished for them. The one who goes to bliss enjoys it in both body and spirit. And the one who goes to the lake burning with fire and brimstone suffers in both body and spirit.
The torment of conscience is a torment of the spirit only, without the body sharing in it. This would mean that the body was not punished, even though in most cases it was the greater participant in sin.
For example, would the adulterer who defiled his body with the pleasure of sin not have his body punished? And would the reckless person who neglected fasting and indulged in food, drink, wine, and stimulants also have his body remain unpunished? And the one who struck, killed, cursed, and walked in various bodily lusts—would his body also remain far from torment?!
What then is the punishment of the body? Is it the torment of fire, weeping, and gnashing of teeth?
The Scripture mentioned the punishment of fire: the unquenchable fire, the eternal fire, the lake burning with fire and brimstone… So what is this fire?
The first truth you should know is that the body will suffer by fire. The second truth is that this fire does not annihilate the body, but the body remains despite being burned by it. It suffers from it, but it is not consumed.
Therefore, the sinful body must suffer, and the punishment cannot be limited only to the spirit through the torment of conscience, the pain of separation from Christ, deprivation from the Kingdom, separation from the assembly of the holy angels, or the sufferings of the soul in despising itself, imagining its falls, and remembering the ugliness of the sin it committed.
No, for all these are torments of the spirit only, and the body must share in the punishment. For we are not spirits only, and our bodies shall rise on the Day of Judgment to receive their recompense.
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – in El-Keraza Magazine – Year Five (Issue Eleven) 14-12-1974
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