Jonathan Edwards' Teaching on the Presence and Wrath of God in Hell

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Revelation 14:10, "They will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb."

Among the most dreadful truths of eternity is this: the damned in Hell will never escape the presence of God! Jonathan Edwards, that searching physician of souls, understood the solemn significance of this truth. In his sermon, "The Portion of the Wicked," he declared: "The saints are in God's glorious presence, and the wicked in Hell are in His dreadful presence."

Pause, O soul, and consider those words! The same God whose presence constitutes the everlasting blessedness of Heaven, will be the everlasting dread of Hell. The redeemed will behold His glory with unspeakable delight; while the damned will know His presence as the presence of their holy and righteous Judge. Edwards understood that Hell is not a region where God is absent, nor a place where sinners are abandoned to suffer independently of their Creator. It is a place where . . .
  His righteous judgment is executed,
  His holiness is vindicated,
  and His wrath is experienced by those who die in their sins.

Edwards declares that the departed soul of the wicked will be made immediately sensible that it stands before an infinitely holy God as its own final Judge. Here is a truth that should make every careless professor tremble! In this world, men may hear sermons about God's wrath and remain unmoved. They may laugh at the thought of judgment, and continue in their sins as though the Almighty were altogether such a one as themselves. But in eternity, all such delusions will be stripped away. The sinner will know the majesty of the God whom he despised, the purity of the Law he transgressed, and the dreadful reality of the wrath he refused to believe. Truly, they will not believe it, until they feel it!

Edwards further explains that God is not merely a distant observer of the misery of the damned. He is everywhere present by His knowledge and essence. He sustains the existence of the wicked in Hell. He sees their anguish, determines the measure of their punishment, and executes His righteous wrath upon them. In Edwards' solemn words, God "is a consuming fire to them; His anger is that fire in which they are tormented."

How terrible is this thought! The damned cannot flee from the God whose commandments they despised. They cannot hide from the eye that sees their guilt. They cannot escape the hand that sustains their existence. They cannot persuade their Judge that their sins were insignificant, or their rebellion excusable, or His warnings unworthy of belief. The very God whose patience they presumed upon, will be their Judge throughout eternity!

The sinner's eternal ruin is not caused by any injustice in God. The Judge of all the earth will do right. His wrath is the holy and righteous opposition of the infinitely pure God to all evil. The condemned will have no grounds upon which to accuse Him of injustice, no righteousness of their own in which to boast, and no Savior to whom they can flee after the day of mercy has passed.

Edwards would not have us contemplate Hell merely to satisfy curiosity, but to awaken lost sinners to the reality of eternity, and magnify the sovereign grace of God in salvation.

Remember then, the solemn distinction: the saints will dwell forever in God's glorious presence; while the wicked will remain forever under His wrathful presence. They will experience how infinitely God hates sin, how dreadful His wrath is, and how fearful it is to fall into the hands of the living God! Hebrews 10:31
(the above has been edited and expanded)