I have no doubt that we must make amends for our sins, either here in this world or in the next. But the only reference I can recall Jesus making to that is “everlasting fire.” This seems to me to mean until the end of time. If hell is eternal, then it is coexistent with God, something I find hard to fathom. I suspect hell will cease to be when the world ends.
Consider the solution of St Isaac the Syrian (7th cent.), who said that the torment of hell is in fact to be the recipient of divine love eternally when you have rejected it. He writes: "I maintain that those who are punished in Gehenna are scourged by the scourge of love. For what is so bitter and vehement as the punishment of love? I mean that those who have become conscious that they have sinned against love suffer greater torment from this than from any fear of punishment. For the sorrow caused in the heart by sin against love is sharper than any torment that can be. It would be improper for a man to think that sinners in Gehenna are deprived of the love of God. Love is the offspring of knowledge of the truth which, as is commonly confessed, is given to all. The power of love works in two ways: it torments those who have played the fool, even as happens here when a friend suffers from a friend; but it becomes a source of joy for those who have observed its duties. Thus I say that this is the torment of Gehenna: bitter regret. But love inebriates the souls of the sons of Heaven by its delectability."
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