Hell ….as per todays definition… is burning forever …eternal torment…etc etc. This widely accepted definition is so prevalent that even the secular community has accepted and uses it.
Religion uses it to scare the hell out of people …and if I went by what religion teaches (specifically Catholicism) I would be going to hell so many times there wouldn’t be room enough for anybody else.
While there is nothing necessarily appealing about annulation in the end …. the picture that paints is not as scary and as motivating as burning forever….
The two great motivators in the world are fear and love. And while fear does motivate for a time you don’t win people by fear, you win them by love, and Truth is love.
Through religion, its deception and fear motivation we have adapted the meaning, which the Greeks have put upon this word “hell”, making it synonymous in definition with “
sheol”, “
hades”, “
gehenna”, “
katakaio”, and “
tartaros”… as being that of eternal torment. Those are the words used that have been translated into our one English word for hell; they are not the same.
The word “
hades” from the Greek, was used as a counterpart to the Hebrew word “
sheol” and is more accurately defined as a state rather than a place.
Gravedom is a word coined by E W Bullinger, and is a great word for hell; it is the state, reign or time of being in the grave. I am not talking about the grave itself which employs the Greek word (
qeber). I am speaking of the time when one takes his last breath, until the return of our savior Jesus Christ…..when he returns, first, for the Church of the Body, and later when He returns as King of Kings
We must disregard the meaning that is placed on the word hell today. The Bibles’ definition is…. “the state of being when one dies,” it’s a continuing state until the resurrection.” That’s it ….it is that simple, and that defined in the Bible.
Sheol (Hebrew) Old Testament and
Hades (Greek) New Testament are basically the two words, both meaning grave or gravedom.
Sheol is translated grave 31 times, hell 31 times, and pit 3 times.
Hades is translated hell 10, times and grave 1 time.
Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible (1962 vol. 1 p788) states
“The English word hell has taken on the mythological Greek meaning associated with the pagan idea of an underworld where the dead continue to live on in torment.”
The standard for truth in defining words has got to come from the Bible itself, not from the meaning(s) attached to it, which is where the confusion comes in.
Short version:
In Greek mythology Hades was the god of the underworld and his name came to represent this fictitious place that we understand as Hell. The Septuagint was a second century B.C. Greek translation of the Old Testament, and in it the word Hades was chosen as the counterpart to the Hebrew “Sheol”.
As is done with “Sheol”, many English versions of the Bible erroneously translate the Greek word “Hades” as hell rather than grave.
(As E. W. Bullinger states “The Old Testament is the fountain-head of the Hebrew language. It has no literature behind it. But the case is entirely different with the Greek language. The Hebrew word “Sheol” is divine in its origin and usage. The Greek “Hades” is human in its nature and come down laden with centuries of development, in which it has acquired new senses, meaning and usages.”
NOWHERE in the Old Testament is the abode of the dead regarded as a place of punishment or torment. The concept of an infernal “hell” developed in Israel only during the Hellenistic period.
As believers we must use the Bibles interpretation of itself, to define words within the Bible.
Clearly there is no justification to the eternal torment, which has been propounded throughout Christendom today. Whether we translate it or transliterate it, we must give it the meaning that God purposed; everything else outside the Word of God must be discarded.
John 3:16
16. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
The word “
perish” Gr: (
apollymi) means to utterly destroy; annihilate. That’s what happens to those who reject Jesus Christ and all those previous to the Grace administration who were evil and rejected God…..
It’s not eternal torment ….it’s total consuming….by fire
“
Gehenna” (geenna) A Greek word for the Hebrew “valley of Hinnom” which was a city dump outside of Jerusalem.
When Christ would address this, He was illustrating that garbage thrown into the gehenna would be burned up. No one listening to Jesus would believe that that the garbage would continue to exist in the fire ….without being consumed. This is the place of everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord spoken of in
2Th 1:9 ….It refers to the fire of judgment in which the wicked will one day be
consumed. It is called “the lake of fire” in the book of Revelation where fire will bring the ultimate annihilation of the devil and his hosts.
The last two words translated hell are
Katakaio and
Tartarous.
“Katakaio” is used in
Hebrews 13:11 regarding the sacrificial beasts that were burned outside the camp.
Heb 13:11 For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.
This same word is used in
Matthew 3:12
Mat 3:12 Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Neither Chaff nor beasts burn forever………… they burn up and are gone …
“Tartarous” is used once and translated hell in
II Peter 2:4 it refers to the place of imprisoned evil sprits ……not a place of torment for sinners.
II Pet 2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to
hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.
**I am told that there is a book (also YouTube vids) by Edward Fudge called “The fire that consumes” which covers this subject much better than I could.
