What About Hell? Fiction and Fact
By
Jon M. Sweeney
5 popular fictions:
1. The Bible is crystal clear on the subject of Hell. (It isn't. The Bible is vague at best.)
Not vague at all, it's spoken of as a condition of living in sin. A consequence of sin is death.
2. Jesus said that Hell is real. (He didn't, but he spoke several times about Gehenna, a violent, sad place just outside Jerusalem where child sacrifice once took place.)
Your right, He spoke of Gehenna:
In the OT the word for hell is 'ge-hinnom,' meaning "Valley of Hinnom." It was a place to the southwest of Jerusalem. This place was once "called 'Topheth' and derived from an Aramaic word meaning 'fireplace.' It was here that some pagan kings practiced human sacrifice by fire (
2 Chron. 28:3;
33:6;
Jer. 7:31;
32:35).
1 This is probably why in the NT the word came to be associated with destruction by fire. The word 'gehenna' is found in the NT 12 times and every instance is spoken of by
Jesus. In the NT, "gehenna" is used of a condition and never of a place.
3. Hell has nine descending circles. (That's all Dante, Hell's true architect.)
If you don't believe in Hell, how would you know of this and other than a fictional story where does this information come from?
4. The worse your sins in life, the worse your punishments for eternity. (Again, that's Dante, this time inspired by Aristotle and Cicero.)
It's a bit more than that.
Here's an example:
If I lie to my son, there isn't much he can do to me about it. If I tell the same lie to my wife, well in the dog house I could go. If I tell the same lie to a police officer, He could ticket, fine or even incarcerate me. If tell the same lie to the President of my company, He could fire me. And if I told that lie to the President of the United State I could get shot.
Of course this is depending on the lie...but a lie is a lie not matter how you look at it.
But the main point here. Even telling the same lie to different people, there is different punishment according to their hierarchy...son, nothing...wife..dog house...Police officer...jail....Boss..loss of job...etc.
So now you lied and when you lie you sin. And sin goes directly against God. Who happens to be eternal, and judges those that sin and punishes them to Hell, eternal.
5. Satan reigns in Hell, with pitchfork and tail. (In the Bible, Satan is mostly an impersonal force.)
Nope,He goes to and fro upon the face of the earth:
6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them. {Satan: Heb. the adversary} {among: Heb. in the midst of}
7 And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said , From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
LOL....no pitchfork and tail. He's a fallen angel.
The most important thing to know is that. Hell is a place where you will spend eternity if you live you life with sin and never repent and place your trust in Christ.
I've heard it told this away about Hell and God's presence.
Because God is everywhere at all times, his presence that is. Then His presence is also in Hell, not in torment of course because He can't be tormented.
I've come up with this thought:
In Hell, God's presence will be like unto a mirage of water for a man dying of thirst in the desert. Right there in front of those thirsty, tormented men and women who denied Him. Who now know Him to be real and remember all that He offered so as not to go to this place of fire and perpetual darkness. The joy of his presence is just beyond their finger tips and if they move to grab it....it stays always at that distance drawing them deeper into despair
5 little known facts:
1. Of all the world's scriptures, the Qur'an teaches most consistently the concept of a violent afterlife for unrepentant sinners.
yep, they believe in a hell.
2. Hell is far more real in Virgil's Aeneid than in the New Testament.
Your resource for fact is a fictional story?
3. The Old Testament speaks only of Sheol, not Hell, and Sheol is the dusty place in the earth where everybody goes after they die.
Here are the facts:
Gehenna
In the OT the word for hell is 'ge-hinnom,' meaning "Valley of Hinnom." It was a place to the southwest of Jerusalem. This place was once "called 'Topheth' and derived from an Aramaic word meaning 'fireplace.' It was here that some pagan kings practiced human sacrifice by fire (
2 Chron. 28:3;
33:6;
Jer. 7:31;
32:35).
1 This is probably why in the NT the word came to be associated with destruction by fire. The word 'gehenna' is found in the NT 12 times and every instance is spoken of by
Jesus. In the NT, "gehenna" is used of a condition and never of a place.
Hades
This word only occurs in the NT ten times and corresponds to the OT word "sheol." Jesus uses the word four times:
Matt. 11:23;
16:18;
Luke 10:15;
16:23. The other six occur in
Acts 2:27,
31;
Rev. 1:18;
6:8;
20:13,
14.
It was probably the "subterranean abode of all the dead until the judgment. It was divided into two departments, paradise or Abraham's bosom for the good, and Gehenna or hell for the bad."
2 In particular, in the account of Lazarus and the Rich man of (
Luke 16:19-31), it is the place of the conscious dead who are wicked.
Sheol
"The Hebrew word Sheol is probably derived from a root "to make hollow," and was seen as the common receptacle of the dead and in the great many places the word appears in the OT, it is referring to the grave.
3 It is a place and is mentioned in
Gen. 37:35;
Num. 16:30,
33;
Psalm 16:10, etc. Sheol has many meanings in
scripture: the grave, the underworld, the state of the dead. It was supposed to be below the surface of the earth (
Ezek. 31:15,
17;
Psalm 86:13).
4. St. Paul, who lived and wrote before the New Testament gospels were written, doesn't seem to have thought much about Hell at all.
5. The idea of Hell wouldn't have been possible without the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and that comes most from Socrates and Plato.
What does all this mean? Perhaps: For 2,000 years, Christian teaching on Hell has been built more on ancient myth and pagan philosophy than the Bible. So, Christians who still want to preach Hell, should at least know what they're talking about.
We know about Hell. We don't want you to go there.
" If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. And if they will perish let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertion and let not on go there unwarned and unsprayed for" spurgeon
"You will find all true theology summed up in these two short sentences:
Salvation is all of the Grace of God.
Damnation is all of the will of man." spurgeon
Hell is a real place. It is not mere unconsciousness. It is not temporal. It is eternal torment. Perhaps that is why Jesus spoke more of hell than heaven and spent so much time warning people not to go there. After all, if people just stopped existing, why warn them? If it was temporal, they'd get out in a while. But if it were eternal and conscious, then the warning is strong.
Jesus said, "And if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out, and throw it from you; for it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 "And if your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off, and throw it from you; for it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to go into hell." (
Matt. 5:29-30).
