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Is our concept of hell a place
where people are burning, and consciously tormented in blazing flames
of fire for all eternity based on scripture or tradition? Is there a
conscious torment for humans in the scorching fire for millions,
billions, and trillions of quadrillions of centuries upon centuries,
and then be told this is just the beginning? The idea of hell, do we
have it all wrong? Let us go over some scriptural facts.
“Sheol”
equals “Grave”
Sometimes
“Sheol” is translated into the English as “Hell,” and the
popular perception is to think of a place where the wicked live in
fiery torment as soon as they die. However, in the Hebrew Testament
(Old Testament), the word “Sheol” means “death” or “grave”
(gravedom or place or abode of the dead).
There
are sixty-five passages where the word “Sheol” appears. If we
insert “gravedom” for “Sheol,” there would be more
consistency and less confusion.
Nowhere
in the Hebrew scriptures did any prophet ever think or imply that
Sheol was a place of endless fiery conscious torment for the wicked.
In
Sheol, there is no love, hate, envy, work, thought, knowledge and
wisdom (Ecc. 9:6; 9:10). There is no light (Job 10:21-22; 17:13; Ps.
88:6,12;143:3 ). There is no remembrance (Ps. 6:5; 88:12; Eccl 9:5).
There is no praise of God (Ps. 6:5; 30:9; 88:10 12; 15:17; Isa 38:18
), and where there is no sound (Ps.94:17; 115:17 ). There is no
activity at all. All are dead and buried.
With
all the variant translations of the word “Sheol,” it is no wonder
the average reader finds it difficult to grasp the basic meaning of
the word. For instance, the King James translators render Sheol
twenty-seven times as “Hell,” thirty-five times as the “grave,”
and three times as the “pit” (a hole in the ground).
If
Sheol were to signify a lake burning with fire and brimstone where
the wicked are supposedly writhing in endless conscious misery, then
why is Sheol rendered as “grave” and “pit” in more than half
the passages? The answer is because, in the Hebrew Testament, Sheol
meant “gravedom.” Whether righteous or wicked, it is the resting
place of all the dead, not a place of torment for the wicked.
Having
said all that, we must also remember that there is also a figurative
sense of the word Sheol. It represents “a state of degradation or
calamity, arising from any cause, whether misfortune, sin, or the
judgment of God.” As theologian Thomas B. Thayer has well stated:
This is an easy and natural
transition. The state or the place of the dead was regarded as solemn
and gloomy, and thence the word sheol, the name of this place, came
to be applied to any gloomy, or miserable state or condition. The
following passages are examples:
The sorrows of hell compassed
me about; the snares of death prevented me.
(Ps. 18:4-6) This was a past event, and therefore the hell must have
been this side of death.
Solomon, speaking of a child,
says, “Thou shalt
beat him, and deliver his soul from hell,”
that is, from the ruin and woe of disobedience. (Prov. 23:14)
The LORD says to Israel, in
reference to their idolatries, “Thou
didst debase thyself even unto hell.” (Isa.
57:9) This,
of course, signifies a state of utter moral degradation and
wickedness, since the Jewish nation as such certainly never went down
into hell of ceaseless woe.
“The pains of hell got a
hold on me: I found trouble and sorrow.” (Ps.
116:3) Yet David was a living man, all this while, here on the earth.
So he exclaims again, “Great
is Thy mercy towards me. Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest
hell.” (Ps. 86:13)
Now here the Psalmist
was in the lowest hell, and was delivered from it, while he was yet
in the body, BEFORE
death. Of course the hell here cannot be a place of endless
punishment AFTER death.
These passages sufficiently
illustrate the figurative usage of the word sheol, “hell.” They
show plainly that it was employed by the Jews as a symbol or figure
of extreme degradation or suffering, without a reference to the
cause. It is plain, then, by these citations, that the word sheol,
“hell,” makes nothing for the doctrine of future unending
punishment as a part of the Law penalties. It is never used by Moses
or the Prophets in the sense of a place of torment after death; and
in no way conflicts with the statement already proved, that the Law
of Moses deals wholly in temporal rewards and punishments.65
Hell
In The New Testament
There are three Greek words in
the New Testament translated as “hell.”
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Hades:
This word occurs 11 times and equals grave.
It is rendered 10 times as "hell,”
and once as “grave” (1 Cor. 15:55).
Like sheol, “hades” means the grave or gravedom.
We can compare the Hebrew
scriptures with the New Testament to confirm this. For instance, Ps.
16:10 states:
For you will not leave my soul in
sheol, nor will you allow your holy one to see corruption.
Peter quotes this Psalms in
reference to Christ after his resurrection in Acts 2:27. We see that
the Greek word “hades” (or hell) is substituted for the Hebrew
word “sheol.” He states:
For you will not abandon my soul
to Hades,
or let your Holy One see corruption.
Some translations have “hell”
instead of hades.
And because of the twisted view of the word hell as a place of
unending torment, they
have Jesus going to Hell to be tormented so he could take the
punishment in our place
so we do not have to experience eternal torment in flames of fire.
This is based on the assumption of an immortal soul, which the
scriptures do not teach.
When Jesus died there was no
activity during his time in the grave. He was dead and he was buried.
As author Anthony Buzzard has well stated:
The traditional notion of a
separate conscious soul/spirit surviving death has nowhere wreaked
more havoc on the Scriptural account than in the matter of the death
of Jesus. It is not unusual to encounter analyses of the Lord’s
death in which it is proposed that his body went to the grave, his
spirit to heaven, and his soul to hades. At this point, one is bound
to ask, “Where was Jesus?” The question, however, would not have
occurred to the Hebrew writers of the New Testament, for they did not
approach the subject with the Greek presuppositions about the nature
of man which have become so deeply ingrained in our theology. The
Biblical fact is that Jesus died. He, Jesus, was in hades, the grave;
we have already seen that “his soul” is the Hebraism for
“himself.” In Acts 2:27, Peter gives proof of the resurrection of
Jesus by saying that “his soul was not left in hades, nor will you
allow your Holy One to see corruption.” The ordinary Hebrew
parallelism confirms the equation of “his soul” with “Holy
One.” The message is simply that Jesus was not left dead in the
grave, as Peter goes on to explain. David, in the Psalms, foreseeing
the resurrection of the Messiah, stated that his soul (he himself)
was not abandoned to hades, the world of the dead, but was
resurrected to life. This account of the death and resurrection of
the indivisible personality of Jesus of Nazareth will help to clarify
the reference in 1 Peter 3:19 to his having gone to preach to the
spirits in prison. This preaching is said to have been accomplished
by Christ when he was “made alive in the Spirit.” This is clearly
language descriptive of the resurrection state (John 5:21): “The
Father raises the dead and makes them alive” Rom. 8:11: “He who
raised up the Christ will make your mortal bodies alive”; 1
Corinthians 15:22: “In Christ shall all be made alive”—
resurrected). Thus it was that when newly resurrected from the dead,
he announced this triumph to the spirits—here being most easily
understood as the fallen angels of 2 Peter 2:4.8 The term “soul”
used of the eight souls saved in the flood (1 Pet. 3:20) is a typical
use of “soul” to designate, by contrast with “spirit,” a
human person. The confusion of these terms is due, we suggest, to the
introduction of the foreign idea of man as surviving death as a
disembodied spirit. This concept, so repugnant to the Hebrew mind, as
Alan Richardson says, must be banished before we can approach the
Scriptures in sympathy with the Biblical anthropology.66
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The
second Greek word translated as Hell is “Tartaroo.”
It means a place of gloomy darkness.
It is used only once (2 Peter
2:4). This has nothing to do with human beings. Peter says that God
imprisoned the angels that sinned and that they were delivered to
“into the chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment” (1
Peter 3:19,20; 2 Peter 2:4). And Jude 1:6-7 tells us that this
imprisonment lasts until the judgment of the great day. It has
nothing to do with a place of endless punishment.
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Finally,
we have the word “Gehenna”
that is translated as
hell.
Contrary to all the incredible
legends given over the centuries, it does not speak of a place of
conscious eternal torment of the wicked. Gehenna is derived from the
“Valley of Hinnom” and is located in the land of Israel. In
Jeremiah’s day, the Valley of Hinnom was associated with the
worship of Moloch. Moloch worship integrated human sacrifice. Under
Ahaz (2 Chron. 28:3) and Manasseh (2 Chron. 33:6), children were
sacrificed by fire on the altars inside the Valley of Hinnom. (Jer.
32:35)
At the time of Jesus’ life
here on earth, the valley was used for burning the dead bodies of
criminals, animals, and for burning trash. When Jesus talked about
Gehenna to
his audience, they understood what he was saying. It was a “place
of burning,” which is what Gehenna means.
Gehenna appears in the New
Testament twelve times67
and not once does it refer to a never-ending conscious blazing fiery
torment of the wicked.
Gnashing
of Teeth?
“Weeping and gnashing of
teeth” has nothing to do with fire or being tormented in fire
forever. Gnashing of teeth has to do with intense
anger. Look at the
following passages for the biblical expression.
His anger
has torn and tormented me; He gnashes
at me with his teeth;
my enemy looks at me with daggers in his eyes. (Job 16:9)
The wicked plots against the
righteous and gnashes
at him with his teeth.
(Psalm 37:12)
All your enemies opened their
mouth wide against you; they hissed and gnashed
their teeth. (Lam.
2:16)
When they heard these things,
they became enraged
and began gnashing
their teeth at him.
(Acts 7:54)
There will be weeping
and the gnashing of teeth
when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the
kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. (Luke 13:28)
Psalms 112:10 sums up what will
happen to the wicked in the end:
The wicked man sees it and is
angry; he gnashes his teeth and
melts away; the desire of the wicked will
perish!
According to Luke (13:28), it
appears that there will be people who will weep out of sadness or
regret that they lost the chance for a life of immortality and will
soon be put to eternal death. On the other hand, it sounds like there
will be a group of people who will have such intense
anger that they will
be gnashing their teeth
at God before being destroyed as well. It has nothing to do with the
traditional view of tormented in flames forever.
The
Worm That Does Not Die?
We
know that worms are not immortal. So we can put that to rest
immediately. Isa. 66:24 states:
And they shall go out and look on
the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their
worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall
be an abhorrence to all flesh.
And in Mark 9:47-48 we read:
And if your eye causes you to
sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God
with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell (Gehenna),
where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.
Jesus refers to Isaiah 66:24
and using Gehenna (translated as hell) as a picture of what will
happen to the wicked in the future. Remember that Gehenna in Jesus’
time was the burning garbage dump outside the city of Jerusalem where
they placed dead bodies of criminals, animals, and trash. Jesus uses
“their worm that dies not” as a picture of Gehenna. The “worm”
and “fire” are not consuming supposedly disembodied spirits but
upon dead bodies. The worm and the fire are agencies working until
all is totally consumed and destroyed
The
Unquenchable Fire?
Unquenchable fire means an
overpowering fire that cannot be quenched. It simply means that when
it comes to God’s judgment, that the process of destruction is
unstoppable.
Some would say that it is a
fire that never stops burning but goes on for all eternity. However,
scripture shows this is not the case. In Jer. 17:27 we read that when
judgment came upon Israel that the gates and palaces of Jerusalem
will burn and that the fire will “not be quenched.” But we know
that fire is not burning today. Another example is found in Ezekiel
20:47 where it says that every green tree will burn and that the fire
will “not be quenched.” However, the fire has ceased.
When Jesus talks about the
judgment of the wicked in the end with unquenchable fire, it simply
means that there is nothing that can stop or interfere to prevent the
carrying out of God’s wrath upon the wicked until its completion of
total destruction. Jesus never speaks about eternally
burning, eternally
punishing, and
eternally destroying.
It is not an ongoing
process that never ends.
Everlasting
Fire and Eternal Fire?
When the bible talks about
eternal judgment, eternal punishment, eternal damnation, or eternal
destruction, it is the result,
not the process. Again, we can compare scripture by going to Jude
1:7. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by “eternal fire.” But
these cities are not burning in our time. The question then, how can
it be eternal? It is because the result
the fire produced is
eternal. These cities no longer exist, nor will they ever.
The bible talks about “eternal
redemption.” However, we know it does not mean that the process of
redeeming is an ongoing process but rather its result. It is the same
with the wicked. The eternal judgment of the wicked refers to the
result of their
judgment being eternal.
It is the literal destruction of the wicked. The ultimate penalty for
sin is death.
It is the eternal loss of immortality in God’s kingdom. It is not a
“punishing” that is eternal, but rather the “punishment” that
is eternal.
But
What About Rev. 20:10?
And
the devil who deceived them was cast into the Lake of Fire and
Brimstone, where the beast and the false prophets were, and they will
be tormented day and night forever and ever.
In my reading and understanding
of the scriptures, there will come a point when the devil will also
be consumed and destroyed in the end. We read this in the book of
Ezekiel 28:14-19. Though the King of Tyre is addressed (v. 11), God
is ultimately talking to Satan who was an anointed
Cherub (vs. 14-15-not
an angel). God tells the Devil:
…therefore will I bring forth a
fire from the midst of
thee, it shall devour
thee, and I will bring
thee to ashes
upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they
that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou
shalt be a terror, and never
shalt thou be any more.
(vs. 18,19)
I have to wonder. If Satan is a
spirit being, how can a spirit being be destroyed
by fire? How can he
die? I do not know. However, what scripture does tell me is that
Satan will be destroyed and be no more. Hebrews 2:14 states:
Forasmuch then as the children
are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part
of the same; that through death he might destroy
him that had the
power of death, that is, the
devil;
The passage says the devil will
be destroyed.
It shows the same will happen with the rebellious angels. There may
be some who believe that angels are immortal and cannot die taken
from Luke 20:36 because those in the resurrection are equal unto the
angels. However, we cannot let pre-determined belief get in our way.
The passage in Luke has to do with the angels of God in heaven,
those who do not rebel
against God. We understand this from the parallel passage in Matthew
22:30. The angels in heaven are certainly not rebellious angels. As
long as they are not rebellious, they will not die. However, God can
terminate the life of the rebellious angels, and even the “anointed
Cherub,” who rebelled, known as Satan.
In a parable, Jesus said about
the fate of the wicked:
Depart from me, you who are
cursed, into the eternal fire prepared
for the devil and his angels.
(Matt. 25:31)
Apparently,
something can happen to the devil and his angels in the fire. Also,
the word “eternal” in the Greek is “aeonian” and means
“age-lasting,” which is the same word Jude 1:6 uses concerning
Sodom and Gomorrah, where Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by
eternal fire, but we know that fire is not burning to this day.
So
the clear prophecy of the coming fate of Satan the devil is that he
will be consumed by fire, turned into ashes, and be no more.
Question:
What about the word “forever” as found in Rev. 20:10?
Answer: The word “forever” does not
always mean endless or eternal duration. Again, we can take an
example from scripture. In Deut. 15:17 and Exodus 21:6, certain
people were to be servants forever. We know this does not mean they
are still servants and will be for all eternity. These servants are
dead now. The word “forever” translated from the Greek is “aion.”
It does not always mean forever as we understand it in our English
language. The word “aion” is where we derive the word “eon.”
An eon is an unspecified, indefinite period of time, which eventually
has an end.
People who believe that a
person burns and is tormented without end in sight will bring up Rev.
14:11:
The smoke from their torture goes
up forever and ever.
There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its
image or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.
The passage does not prove
eternal torment
with no end in sight. In Isa. 34: 9-10, while Edom was burning day
and night, it also says that the smoke of the city would ascend up
forever and ever. But
to this day Edom is not burning day and night and the rising smoke
has ceased. Since Edom does not exist any longer, the language simply
tells us the burning of Edom was permanently
destroyed.
The bible is clear that the
wicked are cast into the fire and the fire will consume the wicked
until the fire has completely done its job and nothing is left but
ashes. Malachi 4:3 states:
You shall trample the wicked, for
they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day that I do
this, says the Lord of hosts.
When
the Pharisees approached John the baptist, he warned them that if
they did not repent:
Even now the ax is laid to the
root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit
is cut down and thrown
into the fire. (Matt.
3:10)
In
verse 12 we read:
His winnowing fork is in his
hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into
the barn, but the chaff he will
burn with unquenchable fire.
Jesus
relates the wicked people as tares or weeds. The weeds are gathered
and burned:
Gather the weeds first and bind
them in bundles to be
burned, but gather the
wheat into my barn.
In
Psalms 37:20 we read:
But the wicked will
perish; the enemies of
the LORD are like the glory of the pastures; they
vanish—like smoke
they vanish away.
The wicked are cast into the
fire. The process of their destruction will ultimately come to an
end, leading to their eternal or everlasting annihilation, which is
what is signified by the use of the figure of smoke arising “forever
and ever.” This interpretation of Rev. 14:9-11 is consistent with
the rest of scripture language that gives us a picture concerning the
final and ultimate end of the wicked.
Unfortunately, the lake of fire
is where the concept of an eternally burning hell comes from,
dismissing the fact that the lake of fire is described as the “second
death” as seen in Rev. 20:14; it is a death from which no one will
ever be resurrected again. It is obliteration, destruction,
annihilation, or extermination for all eternity. The “lake of fire”
stands for annihilation because Rev. 20:14 states that the lake of
fire is the “second death.” When humans die, that is the first
death and it is
temporary. All who are in the grave, whether they be righteous or
wicked, wait for the resurrection and will be judged. Jesus said:
Don't be surprised! The time will
come when all of the dead will hear the voice of the Son of Man, and
they will come out of their graves. Everyone who has done good things
will rise to life, but everyone who has done evil things will rise
and be condemned. (John 5:28-29)
There is coming a day when the
wicked will face the “second death,” not the “second life”
where they burn for billions of years, but never burning up, as
commonly taught today.
Scripturally, the words
“forever” or “everlasting” simply means the entire length of
duration of something. If we are talking about something that is
immortal then “forever” would mean eternity, but we are mortal or
temporary beings. Scriptures tell us that Jesus the Messiah has
“abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through
the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:10).
The biggest fear man has is to
die. No one wants to die. But scriptures tell us everyone is in
bondage to the “fear
of death,” whether
we admit it or not (Heb. 2:14-15). However, a Christian is not
without hope.
Our hope is because we believe the gospel of the kingdom Jesus
preached, and look forward to his coming again so that we may enter
the kingdom of this new earth, with a new body, to a life of
immortality, the same immortality Jesus received from His Father who
raised him from the dead. However, those who live wickedly will not
inherit a life of immortality, but rather will experience the “second
death,” which is permanent, when the wicked will be consumed by
fire and perish. The wicked will become ashes under the soles of the
feet of the righteous as we have just previously read. 68
So the subject of hell taught
by most of the Christian and non-Christian is not biblically sound.
Some try to win people to Christ with “scare tactics” by telling
the lost they will consciously burn and be tormented endlessly in a
raging fire. They deny the teaching that the wicked will be consumed
by fire and be no more,
which includes the devil himself!
God the Father is not some
sadistic being who takes pleasure in keeping people alive merely to
torment them for billions and billions and billions of years and then
told, “That is only the beginning!” This is not the God of the
bible. This doctrine is not only atrocious and unbiblical, it also
creates atheists, and is a stumbling block to acceptance of the true
gospel and of God.
Jesus came preaching the Good
News! He did not hang
over their heads the threat of hell with unending
torture. Contemporary
evangelism has reduced the gospel of the kingdom of God to a
belief in the death,
burial, and
resurrection
of Jesus, and if one does not repent of their sins, they will
consciously burn in sizzling fire for all eternity as the whole
gospel! Folks, this is not the whole gospel. Jesus preached the
gospel of the kingdom
of God for three years
before he mentioned anything about his death and resurrection. People
are missing the main gospel message of the
kingdom. This gospel
of the kingdom is the central message of Jesus and the apostles. The
kingdom of God refers to the apocalyptic kingdom to be inaugurated at
the second coming of Christ where the “meek
shall inherit the earth.”
Thanks to the labors of church
historians, we can be certain that Jesus not only proclaimed the
kingdom as the raison d’être of his mission (Luke 4:43), but the
kingdom he meant what any who belonged to his Jewish heritage meant,
namely, “the world empire of God,” the divine reign in place of every earthly
monarchy. This will be perfectly realized, fully established, here
upon earth 69
As Anthony Buzzard states:
Such a vision of divine world
empire had been indeed the vision of all the prophets of Israel.
Their message Jesus merely amplified and made the subject of his
urgent call to repentance in view of the great Event Coming.
So the way to enter this
kingdom, on this renewed earth, into a life of immortality, is to
repent and believe the gospel Jesus preached or perish. We can have a
life of immortality or experience the “second death” and cease to
exist.
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