HELL

Always start at Contents page.

The main reason that I have written this doctrinal article is because so much nonsense is written and preached about the destiny of the unrighteous following the Last Judgment. Much of the confusion about this subject originates with the word, 'hell' itself. First of all it is not a Biblical word. It is a pagan word dating back to the pre-Christian religion of the Anglo-Saxons. I quote from Chambers Dictionary of Etymology: Possibly borrowed, in part, from Old Icelandic Hel goddess of death and the underworld, as a transfer of a pagan concept to Christian theology and its vocabulary. Unfortunately not only was the word borrowed from paganism but the belief associated with it that the wicked dead suffer untold torments in the underworld was also imported into Christianity.

In the AV of the Bible the term hell is used of Hades, Sheol and Gehenna. Hades and Sheol have nothing to do with the Last Judgment and the fate of the unrighteous. They refer to the state of the dead between death and resurrection. Gehenna does refer to the fate of the unrighteous following the Last Judgment. It certainly should not have been translated, 'hell,' in the AV and nor should that translation have been retained in the NIV. The pagan word hell with its connotations of an underworld of lost souls is very unsuitable. Gehenna was the Jerusalem rubbish dump. When Jesus said, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna." Mt10v28. He was saying be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body like so much rubbish. Gehenna would be better translated 'dump' or 'incinerator.' It amazes me that so many decent Christians believe so passionately in a place that nowhere appears in the Bible.

The best place to start is at the beginning! Adam was warned what the consequences of disobedience and rebellion would be. See references. God tells Adam that if he is disobedient he will die; his life will end. God did not warn Adam that if he was disobedient and did wrong he would suffer misery forever and ever. God is not going to say one thing and do another. It would be unjust to warn a motorist that if he breaks the speed limit he will be fined £40 and then when he offends put him in prison for life!

Paul reaffirms that death is the punishment for sin: Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned ... Rom5v12. God could have killed Adam and Eve as soon as they sinned and left them dead. He would have been perfectly justified in so doing. But God would not have been justified in condemning them to unending existence in unbearable agony. This is not what he said would happen. We all deserve to die - but no more. We do not deserve eternal life and nor do we deserve unending misery. Paul also writes in this chapter in Romans: Again the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Rom5v16and17. Adam and Eve did not die at once. They were left to reproduce and mankind multiplied. This was because God had a Plan of Salvation. A Saviour was coming through whom God would give eternal life to those that believed.

So secondly let us examine what it was Jesus came to save us from. See references. These verses indicate that Jesus came to give us eternal life and to save us from losing our lives. Jesus does not say that an unbeliever is at risk of retaining his life in never ending misery. The unbeliever is certain to lose his life. Those that perish lose their lives; to forfeit the soul is to lose your life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.

The final fate of the unrighteous is destruction. There are numerous references to the destruction of the ungodly. The seven references cover a wide range of authors and no reader who accepts the authority of the Bible should be in any doubt that God finally destroys those that reject his Son. Peter tells us that the ungodly will be destroyed just as the present heavens and earth will finally be destroyed. Jesus does not say that the narrow way leads to a life of eternal bliss and the broad road to a life of endless misery. The narrow way leads to life and the broad way leads to its opposite - destruction

So what is the response to these Scriptures of those who believe in the everlasting misery of the wicked? First they do not like to be reminded of them. Secondly they attempt to explain away the significance of the word, 'destruction,' by saying, "If you knew Greek, you would know it doesn't mean annihilation. It means to change." Well something that is destroyed is certainly changed! I am not a Greek scholar but it is perfectly possible for a layman to work out what the Bible means by the word, 'destruction,' by looking at the context. So we need to look at some more references

These references indicate the sort of change meant by the word, 'destruction.' It means change in the same way that death changes us, the storm changed the house built upon the sand, the flood changed the world of Noah, the fire and brimstone changed Sodom and Gomorrah and the lake of fire changes death and hades. Death puts an end to life, the flood put an end to the civilisation of which Noah was a part, the fire put an end to Sodom and Gomorrah and the lake of fire will put an end to death, Hades and the unsaved.

Jesus could not have put it any clearer - in Gehenna God destroys body and soul in the same way that death puts an end to life and destroys the body now. Death eventually destroys the body through the processes of disintegration and decay. It is no more.

There is no suggestion in the references quoted that destruction means to inflict never-ending misery and torment. It is hardly an appropriate word to describe such a condition.

Why did Jesus use Gehenna as a description of the ultimate punishment suffered by the ungodly following the Last Judgment? There are not a great many references to Gehenna. We will look at a selection of them.

Gehenna was Jerusalem's rubbish dump located in the notorious valley of Hinnom. It was probably chosen as the place to dump rubbish because of its association with Baal worship and human sacrifice. They built high places for Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to sacrifice their sons and daughters to Molech, Jer32v35. Gehenna was the place rubbish was put to destroy it. There the worm did not die; maggots were forever doing their work of destruction. The fires were not quenched; they burned continually to destroy the piles of discarded garbage. It was a place of destruction; not a place of misery and torment.

Does the warning that the unsaved will eventually be treated like so much rubbish occur elsewhere in the New Testament? It is time to look againt at the relevant passages.

All the passages indicate that God treats the unrighteous like so much rubbish. He wants rid of it. The unyielding tree, the inedible fish, the unproductive goats, the prunings from the vine, the arable weeds, the flawed pots and the servant who never served are all treated like rubbish and disposed of.

There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth as the evil doers and enemies of God realise what they have lost - eternal life. There will be weeping at the judgment and before the end. However no one weeps for long in a fiery furnace. The great thing about an incinerator is that it quickly destroys.

This is what God wants. He cannot bear sin. He could not tolerate the sin of Noah's age or the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah or the sin of the Canaanites. He put an end to it. It is inconceivable that a holy God would leave countless millions after the Day of Judgment sinning with unimaginable ferocity for ever and ever and ever. Those who argue that God has to inflict unending misery on the wicked because he hates sin do not know what they are talking about. Imagine the hatred for God that would resound through the ages if millions were somehow enduring agonies for ever more.

God is our creator. We are his creation. Any creator who is disappointed with his creation will destroy it. This is especially true of a potter. There are always some pots that turn out badly because of flaws in the clay. The potter destroys those flawed pots. God created us to enjoy and glorify him forever. At the end of the age there will be some who cannot do this - they are unredeemable. They will be destroyed because they cannot fulfil God's purpose. They just cease to be. The fire and darkness are symbols of annihilation and oblivian.

Finally we have to ask, is there nothing in the Bible to suggest the wicked will suffer never-ending misery following the Last Judgment.

First of all there are some verses in the Bible that sound very bad, especially in the AV. For example: Mk3v29. "But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation." What does eternal damnation mean? In the NIV the translation is, 'eternal sin.' What is an eternal sin? It cannot be a sin that goes on and on forever. This is actually a good point to examine the meaning of, 'eternal.' In the AV it is often translated, 'everlasting.' This is not the essential meaning of the word at all as can be deduced from the context in which it is used. The sin against the Holy Spirit is the ultimate sin, the sin for which there is no forgiveness. An accurate rendering of Mk3v29 would be: "But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of the ultimate sin."

Another favourite text of the traditionalists comes at the end of the Parable of the Sheep and Goats: Mt25v46. "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." Eternal life is not primarily everlasting life. A life of everlasting misery would not be eternal life. God is eternal and beyond time. He has no beginning or end. God is timeless. God is the ultimate. That is a much better meaning of eternal. So Mt25v46 could be rendered, "Then they will go away to the ultimate punishment, but the righteous to the ultimate life." Eternal life is the ultimate life for mankind. There is no possibility of a more superior life. There is no life beyond it. Eternal life is the life God has planned for those who love Him. We have dealt with the ultimate punishment - it is the end of life; the destruction of life; it is ceasing to be.

There are just two Scriptures that might support the view that the ultimate punishment is everlasting misery. The first is: Rev14v9to11. A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice, "If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name." This calls for patient endurance on the part of the saints who obey God's commandments and remain faithful to Jesus.

This is a lurid account of the punishment of apostates that bears some resemblance to the description of what Abraham saw when he looked down towards Sodom and Gomorrah after their total destruction: Gen19v28. He looked down towards Sodom and Gomorrah, towards all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.

I think the author of Revelation is using the strongest, most vivid and colourful, language possible to describe the ultimate fate of apostates. The language is highly figurative and should not be taken literally. It is hard to believe anyone could suffer burning sulphur for long. The fact is, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed utterly. The writer to the Hebrews deals with apostates and describes their punishment less graphically but more accurately than the author of Revelation: Heb10v39. But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

At the end of the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant in Mt18v21to35 we read these dreadful words: "Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow-servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." v32to35.

This really is the language you would expect if the wicked are to be condemned to everlasting misery and torment. If this type of imagery was common in the New Testament then clearly the fate of the unsaved would be unending pain and suffering. Jesus is familiar with the torture of the prison cell and could have used this to illustrate the ultimate punishment of the wicked. He didn't! Over and over again he likened the fate of the unsaveable to the destruction of rubbish.

You might ask: what does Jesus mean by the awful ending to the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant? The unforgiving servant got what he deserved. He was guilty of a very mean spirited act. He made light of grace; he actually abused his master's grace. So he suffered for a time in jail. He would not have suffered forever - eventually he would have died. The wicked servant sinned in time and he was punished in time. One of the strongest arguments against a punishment that never ends is that it is fundamentally unjust. Our sins are finite - they end with our death. It would be wholly disproportionate to make the wicked suffer infinitely for finite sins. The parable of the Unmerciful Servant teaches that we shall get the punishment that we deserve.

The punishment we deserve is the punishment that God told Adam he would receive if he sinned. We deserve the punishment Jesus came to save us from: But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. Heb2v9. All those who believe in Jesus recieve life but those who reject the Son will not see life - they will experience the Second Death.

I have just finished reading, 'Dr Zhivago,' which is the story of how war and revolution in twentieth century Russia affected the lives of Dr Zhivago, his family and his lovely mistress, Lara. Lara was a gorgeous woman: industrious, good, compassionate and so loving. Lara arrives back in Moscow just in time to attend the funeral of Dr Zhivago. She wasn't in Moscow long.

One day Lara went out and did not come back. She must have been arrested in the street, as so often happened in those days, and she died or vanished somewhere, forgotten as a nameless number on a list which later was mislaid, in one of the innumerable mixed or women's concentration camps in the North.

This is one of the most terrible passages I have ever read in a novel. The author of the book has no further knowledge of his heroine. He is her creator but he seems to lose interest in her. Lara is lost in the profoundest sense; she is lost to her creator.

Eventually those who reject Jesus are lost like that. God has no further knowledge of them; they disappear into the eternal night.

CONTENTS NEXT