- Apostles Creed -
believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Maker of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried;
He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost;
the holy catholic church;
the communion of saints;
the forgiveness of sins;
the resurrection of the body;
and the life everlasting.
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I agree with most of this, with minor discrepancies. However, where does this Jesus descending to Hell appear in the Bible, for I have never heard of such a thing! Is there any evidence for this, or is this simply a fault of the Apostle's Creed?
HOW CAN JESUS GO TO HELL:-
To be tormented as a wicked person after one dies the person must still exist, but in another from, is this the case?
FIRST
WHAT IS THE CONDITION OF THE DEAD?
Dead: no longer alive
.-Oxford Dic.
WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY?
ECCL. 9:5
For the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all (But the dead know nothing-TANAKH Jewish Bible), neither do they anymore have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten.
and
Eccl. 9:10
All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work (no action-TANAKH Jewish Bible) nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in She´ol, the place to which you are going.
LIFE IS BEING (existence) - DEATH IS NON-BEING (non existence)!
example: The first human Adam!
GEN. 2:17 states Gods punishment for Adams disobedient act of eating from a tree which God had said he was not to touch which was you will positively die.
Where did Adam go at death?
GEN. 3:19 In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.
NOTE: ADAM = For dust you are and to dust you will return.
ADAM DID NOT return to a spirit realm but back to where he came from, the dirt of the ground OR non-being (non-existence), thus as God said back to the ground from which you came.
SO DOES THE SOUL DEPART TO A NEITHER WORLD OR THE LIKE?
FURTHER LIGHT IS SHED ON THIS AT:
EZEK. 18:4
"Look! All the soulsto me they belong. As the soul of the father so likewise the soul of the sonto me they belong. The soul that is sinningit itself will die."
Ezek 18:20
"The soul that is sinningit itself will die.. ."
NO, THE SOUL, IT DIES, AS WITH ADAM and does not go somewhere elses to live after death!
SECOND
WHAT IS HELL?
A definition of hell reads: Hell -n. 1 place regarded in some religions as the abode of the dead, or of devils and condemned sinners. 2 place or state of misery or wickedness.
.-Oxford Dic.
IS THIS CORRECT ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE?
SHEOL
Regarding Sheol, in A Compendious Hebrew Lexicon, Samuel Pike stated that it is the common receptacle or region of the dead; so called from the insatiability of the grave, which is as it were always asking or craving more. (Cambridge, 1811, p. 148) This would indicate that Sheol is the place (not a condition) that asks for or demands all without distinction, as it receives the dead of mankind within it.Gen 37:35, ftn; Pr 30:15, 16."-It. Vol. 2 p.922
The C. OF E. made an intresting comment on hell, in The Mystery of Salvation The Story of Gods Gift, A Report by the Doctrine Commission of the Great Synod of the Church of England p.199
Hell is not eternal torment, but it is the final and irrevocable choosing of that which is opposed to God so completely and so absolute that the only end is total non-being.
Annihilation might be a truer picture of damnation that any of the traditional images of the hell of torment.
To go to Hell is to just go underground.
In old English the word hell simply meant to hide or to cover - helling potatoes meant putting them into pits, helling a house meant covering or thatching it, etc.; the word hell was therefore properly used as signifying the secret or hidden condition of death. It had no reference whatever to a place of torture until that meaning was attached to it by the theologians of the Dark Ages.-Restoration Light Bible Study Service, P.O. Box 16892, Philadelphia, PA 19142 USA
QUESTION
WHY IS THERE SO MUCH CONFUSION ABOUT HELL
VARIOUS IDEAS ABOUT HELL:-
"Hell In various religions, a place of posthumous punishment. In Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, hell is a transitory stage in the progress of the soul, but in Christianity and Islam it is eternal (purgatory is transitory). Judaism does not postulate such punishment. In the Bible, the word `hell' is used to translate Hebrew and Greek words all meaning `the place of departed spirits, the abode of the dead'. In medieval Christian theology, hell is the place where unrepentant sinners suffer the torments of the damned, but the 20th-century tendency has been to regard hell as a state of damnation (that is, everlasting banishment from the sight of God) rather than a place."-INFOPEDIA UK96, Hutchinson New Century Encylocpedia
History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell p.257
"It is sometimes supposed that Hell was a Christian invention, but this is a mistake. What Christianity did in this respect was only to systematise earlier popular beliefs.
What where these earlier popular beliefs that where used to produced Hell-Fire?
Egyptian
The Religion of Ancient Egypt by A.H.Sayce DD., LL.D. p.197
"It was not only the friends and followers of Ra [the Sun god] who thus accompanied him in his journey through the other world; his enemies were there also, and the horrible punishments they had to endure, as depicted on the walls of royal tombs, were worthy of the imagination of a Dante.
Fire-breathing serpents are prominent among them, lighting up the darkness for the friends of Ra, and burning his foes with their poisonous flames."
The Religion of Ancient Egypt by Professor A. H. Sayce pp.229-30*
Lecture X. The Place Of Egyptian Religion In The History Of Theology
"Many of the theories of Egyptian religion modified and transformed no doubt, and penetrated into the theology of Christian Europe, and formed, as it were, part of the woof in the web of modern religious thought. Christian theology was largely organised and nurtured in the schools of Alexandria, and Alexandria was not only the meeting place of East and West, it was also the place where the decrepit theology of Egypt was revived by contact with the speculative philosophy of Greece. The Egyptian, the Greek, and the Jew met there on equal terms, and the result was a theological system in which each had a share.
THUS THE IDEA OF A BURNING PLACE OF EVERLASTING TORMENT ("HELL") IN THE AFTER LIFE HAS IT ROOTS IN PAGANISM & NOT TO BE FOUND IN THE BIBLE!
THE BODY DESTROYED IN HELL
(See * for Greek words)
It is taught by various religions that hell is a place for the torment of a wicked persons immortal soul after their physical death, this is not a Bible teaching as noted below in the words of The Prophet Jesus at:-
Greek N.T.
καὶ μὴ φοβηθῆτε ἀπὸ τῶν ἀποκτενόντων τὸ σῶμα**, τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν μὴ δυναμένων ἀποκτεῖναι· φοβήθητε δὲ μᾶλλον τὸν δυνάμενον καὶ ψυχὴν καὶ σῶμα** ἀπολέσαι* ἐν γεέννῃ.
N.W.T. Matthew 10:28
And do not become fearful of those who kill the body** but cannot kill the soul; but rather be in fear of him that can destroy* both soul and body** in Gehen´na.
K.J.V. Matthew 10:28
And fear not them which kill the body**, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy* both soul and body** in hell.
*J. Strongs Greek Dictionary No. 622 ἀπόλλυμι apollumi ap-ol'-loo-mee From G575 and the base of G3639; to destroy fully (reflexively to perish, or lose), literally or figuratively: - destroy, die, lose, mar, perish.
**J. Strongs Greek Dictionary No. 4983 σῶμα sōma so'-mah From G4982; the body (as a sound whole), used in a very wide application, literally or figuratively: - bodily, body, slave.
In the above text from Matthew 10:28 we see:-
1) that BOTH THE SOUL AND BODY go to hell to be destroyed NOT to continue existing all be it in suffering and
2) that the body can also go to hell so as the physical body can also go to hell then hell must be a material place for the materal body to be destroyed (it stops living). This follows well with the idea that the faithful Jews viewed Sheol (rendered as hell in some Bibles) as a place for the end of life or the of the soul, so the better understanding of hell as the Jew Jesus said, it is where all life ends; The Grave!
