Make Peace With Jesus

In the last blog we looked at a few of the references to “weeping and gnashing of teeth” that those who are “cast into the outer darkness” would suffer.  We saw that the warning was not towards the godless, but those that follow God, His people; which are now in this age Christians.  We saw how it speaks of losing the light of God’s special revelation.  Since His revelation is progressive it means that those with the privilege of having the previous revelation could possibly miss out on the next move of God.  Therefore since we don’t have all truth (for we only know in part 1 Corinthians 13:9,10) we are susceptible to losing God’s calling if we are not open to how and where God is moving in history.

We will now look at other references to “weeping and gnashing of teeth” that concern “the furnace of fire.”

The Furnace of Fire; The Wheat and the Tares

The first instance of this phrase is once again found in a parable and is recorded in Matthew 13:24-30, 36-42.  The parable is one that everyone is familiar with, the wheat and tares.  In the parable a certain farmer sows some good seed, but during the night his enemy comes in and sows tares.  The farmer doesn’t realize this until they start to sprout, but by then its too late, if he pulls the tares out, it will damage the wheat.  So he waits until harvest time and then he harvests both the wheat and the tares but separates them.  He then bundles all the tares together and burns them.  Jesus gives the interpretation of the parable a few verses later saying,

“So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age.  The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

The first thing that we ought to notice is that this takes place at the end of the age.  Jesus was not giving an immediate warning towards the Jewish nation, but a company of people who will be there at the end.  This, we must assume, is a reference to the Church, who will be there when Christ Returns.  We can also see plainly from the text that Christ’s angels will gather “out of His kingdom” those who are then thrown into “the furnace of fire.”  Therefore they must be part of the Christian community, for they cannot be in His kingdom to be removed out unless this was so.   We see here a very similar warning to the one Christ gave to the Jewish kingdom when God was beginning something new.  Only this time it applies to that move of God that will take us into the Millennial Kingdom.  Which means that it applies specifically to those who are presently God’s people – Christians.

Secondly, we must notice the symbolism of the parable.  Thus it is interesting to note that the tares are indistinguishable from the wheat (at first).  It is only when the wheat reaches maturity that the difference between the two can be clearly seen.  Wheat becomes heavy and begins to sag under the weight of its fruit, while a tare does not (for it is fruitless).  It is almost as if the wheat shows humility in its maturity (its fruit bearing), whereas tares manifest neither humility nor fruit.  The wheat is edible in contrast to the tares, which are poisonous.  In fact this is why the tares are thrown into the fire, so that their poisonous seeds will not contaminate the following year’s crop.  The fire is part of the farming picture Christ is painting.

Whatever the tares are, they are part of the wheat company until the “end of the age.”  Thus they are part of the Church and indistinguishable from a true follower of Christ, at least until Christ’s angels separate them from the wheat at His Return; much like the sheep and the goats were separated.

Shortly after this, in the same chapter of Matthew, Christ gives a similar parable about a fisherman who caught good fish and bad fish (vs. 47-50).  It’s a very short parable, probably b/c of how similar it is to the wheat and the tares.  Jesus then gives the interpretation saying,

“So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

At first glance this may not seem quite as clear about involving followers of God.  But this is simply b/c it is such a short parable; there are not as many details as there are in the other parable.  However, there are still a few details that we can notice.

Firstly, the parable itself is almost a mirror image of the parable of the wheat and tares.  Both involve some form of labor that produces a harvest, and both involve good and bad portions of the harvest.  The imagery only differs in occupation.  Furthermore Christ’s interpretation is almost exactly the same as His interpretation of the wheat and the tares.

Secondly, Christ said that the angels will take the wicked out from “among” the righteous, implying that they were among them – that they were part of them.  This reminds the listener of what Christ said in the previous parable about gathering the wicked out of His kingdom.

Lastly and most importantly, the picture of fishing is probably the single biggest image of Christianity next to the cross – for the Church is called to be fishers of men!  Christ told Peter, who was a professional fisherman, that he would become a fisher of men (Matthew 4:18,19; Mark 1:16,17) and this has taken deep root in the Church.  For from its inception the Church has adopted the picture of a fish as its symbol.  Even today the fish is universally recognized as a symbol of the Church.  Thus the parable is prophetic of those who are “caught” by and part of the Church, but are yet somehow no good.

That is the last “furnace of fire” reference.  However there yet remain two more instances where Christ refers simply to “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth

One is found yet again in another parable (24:45-51).  This particular one concerns a Master who goes away for an undisclosed amount of time (symbolic of Christ’s disappearance into heaven until His Return).  He leaves a certain servant in charge of all His other servants.  Christ then describes 2 types of servant; the faithful obedient servant who will be rewarded on His Return; and the evil rebellious servant who will be judged when He returns.  Christ then declares the judgment of such an evil servant,

“…the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour which he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

The phrase “cut him in pieces” is a term of scourging, where one was whipped with a cat of nine tails, effectually ripping his back into shreds.  Thus his back was ‘cut into pieces.’  It does not refer to some sort of dismembering (as certain organizations so frequently do! ;))

I hardly need to point out how clear it is that this is referring to Christians, more specifically Christian leaders.  Christians are the only people considered “slaves” of God, and Christian leaders are the ones “put in charge of His household to give [the rest of the servants] their food in the proper season.”  Luke 12:42-48 records this same parable, but instead of saying that the wicked servant will be assigned a place with the “hypocrites,” it says he will be assigned a place with the “unbelievers.”  This is proof positive that Christ is speaking about believers.  The theme remains consistent, it is always God’s people who will suffer the fate of “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

The last instance of this terminology is found in Luke 13:22-30.  Here is the section in its entirety.

“Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.  Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open up to us!’ then He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets’; and He will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you are from; depart from me, all you evildoers.’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out.  And they will come from east and west and from north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God.”

We can see here that Luke’s record of Christ’s words include phrases that we saw earlier in one of Matthew’s referrals to  “the outer darkness.”  Once again it is easy to see how it is referring to God’s people, not unbelievers.  But to really drive the point home, let us take a look at Matthew’s account of this section.  It is found in 7:13-23

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it. Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits… A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.  Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.’”

You can see the similarities between the 2 Gospels.  Not only that, but you can see many of the themes that we noticed in earlier references to “the furnace of fire.”  On top of this we have many themes of authentic vs. counterfeit believers.  Almost nowhere in Scripture is it as clear as here that there will be “many” Christians who will miss out on the kingdom of heaven.  We know this is speaking of Christians b/c they call Him “Lord,” they prophecy in His name, they perform miracles in His name and even cast out demons all in His name.  It’s pretty hard to miss the significance of who Christ is addressing here.

It is not my intention to address the issue of exactly what the kingdom of heaven is…that would require a book all on its own.  Nor is it my intention to scare anyone.  But it would be wise for every Christian to be aware of these warnings and to seek God for themselves to discover His will and know what standard He requires of us.

That being said, I think that we have seen fairly clearly that every instance in Scripture that addresses “the outer darkness, furnace of fire and weeping and gnashing of teeth” – concerns certain disobedient followers of God.   It is crucial to understand this, not only b/c it applies to us, but so that we might better avoid misapplying these verses to unsaved people going to Hell.

To further establish this, let us look at one more instance where it is obvious that God’s people don’t make it into the Kingdom of Heaven.  It is found in Matthew 25:1-13.  It is the parable of the Ten Virgins.  I will not detail the parable, but I will point out two things.  First they missed out on partaking of the Kingdom and marriage feast (with Christ), which will be heartbreaking.  Second they were virgins engaged to the Bridegroom.  The Bridegroom is Christ, and Christians are supposed to be pure virgins b/c we are engaged to be married to Christ (see 2 Corinthians 11:2; Ephesians 5:22-25 and Revelation 21:2).  It is clear that this is a warning spoken to the Body of Christ, and not unbelievers.

Conclusion:

Seeing what we have seen thus far in the previous series on the words forever and eternal, as well as what we have seen in this series concerning the words we mistake for hell, as well as seeing how every other reference to some sort of hellish punishment actually applies to Christians, it becomes quite an obstacle to continue to believe in a doctrine of endless Hell reserved exclusively for non-Christians, as we have been traditionally taught.  There must be some sort of revision concerning our understanding of Hell.  And that will be the subject of the next series, where we address the themes of judgment found in the Scriptures.  But before we get there we have a couple more issues to tackle.  The next being anomalies in the New Testament concerning hell.

We have now looked at all 4 words generally associated with Hell; namely – Sheol, Hades, Tartarus and Gehenna.  There remains only one more picture used in the Bible that we mistakenly interpret as referring to “Hell.”  That picture is the “outer darkness” also referred to as “the furnace of fire” and it is declared that in that place there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  Let us take a look.

The Outer Darkness

The first instance occurs in Matthew 8:5-13 (it is interesting to note that Matthew contains 6 out of the 7 instances where we find one or another variation of this phrase).  The context surrounding this particular instance happens to be the story of the Centurion’s slave being healed.  If you recall, the Centurion understood authority and told Jesus that He did not need to actually come to his home in order to heal him; Jesus only needed to speak the word and it would happen.  Jesus was impressed to say the least and the rest of the story is as follows,

“He marveled and said to those who were following, ‘Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel.  I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”

The first thing to notice is that the thrust of the warning concerns being rejected for participation in the banquet of the heavenly kingdom.  It certainly includes the dire consequences of that rejection, but the focus is on what they are missing, which is why there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.  It is a picture of mourning and regret.  They are weeping for what they missed out on, not for what they are enduring.

The second thing to notice is that it concerns (at that time) God’s People!  It was not a warning to the godless populous.  Rather, it is a warning to His followers, who had utterly neglected something very important that God requires from His children.  I need not highlight how the Jews were rejected by God for their stubborn refusal to share their revelation of God with outsiders.  In fact they ended up crucifying their own Messiah out of their jealousy over Him welcoming outsiders.  Christ came to show that God’s heart is for all people, the Jews however wanted to keep God and His promises all for themselves and see the rest of the world shut out.

John Lightfoot in his Commentary on the New Testament From the Talmud and Hebraica, Volume 2, pg. 163 says the following concerning this verse and specifically the phrase “outer darkness,”

“For whatsoever ‘outer darkness’ signifies, whether the ‘darkness of the heathen’ (for to the Jews the heathen were ‘those that are without’) or the darkness beyond that…our Savior clearly intimates the Jews were thither to be banished.”

This is important b/c the sense in Scripture does not convey the idea of Hell, but rather the idea of being rejected and cut off from God, the true light (some might argue that being cut off from God implies hell, which I can certainly grant, but it’s far too speculative to be an actual proof text of hell).  Revelation was considered ‘light’ and the Jews prided themselves as being in the light, having received up to that point the greatest revelation of God.  They considered all others to be blind in comparison.  Blind b/c all that the heathen saw was darkness, they did not have the light of God’s revelation.  Which I might add was Israel’s very calling, to bring the light to the rest of the darkened world.

So to be cast into the outer darkness signified that the Jewish nation at that time was going to lose what little light they had.  They were going to be in the same boat as the rest of the lost and darkened world.  The Jews were very shortly going to reject their own Messiah and miss out on the next stage of the Kingdom of heaven (the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost and the subsequent fellowship of God in the Church Age).  And ultimately they will miss out on the fullness of the Kingdom when Christ Returns.

I believe that the outer darkness is not speaking about Hell, but being “outside” of the privilege of God’s illumination, or revelation.  And it is this warning that we ought to apply to ourselves as Christians.  We cannot treat these warnings as if they only apply to the lost and unsaved, for they are already in the outer darkness.  No, this warning, once given to the Jewish body, now applies to the Christian body at large.

Even children of God, His people, His body – the Church, believers, Christians, etc… will be held to a certain level of accountability.  What that entails exactly will not be addressed here, but it should be the concern of every serious follower of Christ.

It is not my intention to scare anyone, nor to cause those who might be weak in faith to become anxious with fear.  The issue that I really want the reader to come away with, in understanding what is really being addressed in these phrases – is that this warning is directed towards followers of God, not the unbelieving world, and as such holds a very real application for His people.  Because of this fact it therefore does not fit with our modern concept of Hell.  And as you will see, every single instance where Christ refers to “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “the outer darkness” or “the furnace of fire” – concerns what we would call “God’s” people – not heathens.

The King’s Wedding Feast

Lets look at the next instance of this phrase, which is found in Matthew 22:1-14.  It arrives in the midst of a particular parable that Jesus was giving to point out the fact that those who think they are part of God’s Kingdom will soon find that they were left out due to their inability to honor God by putting Him first.  It is the parable of the wedding feast, where those invited made excuses not to come, so the king, being offended and dishonored, decided to open the banquet to those who would do anything to come – the poor and homeless.   Since they were not people of privilege, they would see it as a great honor to be invited and would certainly not refuse.  The rest of the text is as follows,

“But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed in wedding clothes, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?’ And the man was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”

This again is not addressing heathens, but those who are called of God.  Jesus was saying that being called isn’t enough, b/c of those who are called, only a few will actually be chosen.  Not only were those originally invited excluded (which I believe refers to the “calling” on the Jewish nation, for they were certainly “called”), but even this unworthy fellow who was given such a privilege and even called a “friend” showed no respect to the King by his refusal to dress appropriately.  This is a highly effective example of dishonor.  Anyone in that culture upon hearing this parable would instantly recognize the offense.  For them, dishonoring your host, especially if he was royalty, was incomprehensible.   In that day you wore your best when invited for a feast, the fact that this man did not, especially for the King, showed his complete disrespect for all that the King stood for.

The parable is meant to show what disqualifies one from participation in the Kingdom and their sorrow over what they will lose, not what they will suffer.  And those of us who have been blessed to be part of the ingathering of the Gentiles must be aware that we too can lose our calling through dishonorable actions and attitudes.

The Talents and the King’s Servants

The next reference is found in Matthew 25:14-30 where Jesus is again giving a parable.  This parable concerns 3 servants of a certain man who gave each servant a certain amount of “talents.”  Luke records this same parable with different details in 19:11-27.  In Luke’s account the man is a nobleman, or royalty.  In other words he was a potential king.  He then goes on a long trip to a far away place to receive a kingdom (read Jesus and His going to heaven until His Return).  On His Return He examines His servants’ use of the talents.  2 were wise, 1 was foolish.  In the parable, the King then judges His foolish servant.  Here is the end of it as Matthew records it.

“Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents.’  For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

It is not difficult to notice that this parable concerns servants of a King, not enemies.  God’s children are the servants, not unbelievers, not the secular population, but Christians!  It once again is not a threat of judgment on the unsaved populace, but upon God’s own people who have been given certain talents to invest in a hostile environment until His Return.

In Luke’s account the conflict of the parable concerns the servants who, in dealing business in their King’s name, will invite trouble upon themselves.  Their environment is hostile b/c the parable makes it clear that the townsfolk did not want Him to reign over them.  The townspeople were hoping that the king would not win the petition to inherit the kingdom.  So during His absence there was a lot of tension between those who supported the possible future King and those who did not.  The potential King would have most assuredly taken His army with Him, which would have left the servants in a somewhat defenseless position.  The foolish servant was being selfishly wise by refraining from making his allegiance public.  He was trying to remain neutral in order to survive.  But this proved to be to his detriment.  That is why the king praises His servants for their faithfulness, not their success.  He was testing their allegiance to Him in the face of great hostility.

The application is obvious.  We are the servants who have been left on earth to occupy and invest with His down payment (the Spirit; see Ephesians 1:14; 2 Corinthians 1:22, 5:5).  The townspeople symbolize the unbelieving world; which do not want Christ to reign over them.  If we, His servants, choose to remain inconspicuous to the world, refusing to take a stand for our King and His agenda, then we will lose out on inheriting the world when He returns.

This interpretation is confirmed by the fact that the “King” (Jesus) puts the wise servants in charge of cities, for we will inherit the earth and rule with Him over it (see Matthew 5:5; 2 Timothy 2:12; Revelation 5:10, 20:6 and 1 Corinthians 6:2).  Furthermore there is a definite difference between the judgment upon the foolish servant and the judgment on the townspeople who didn’t want Him to reign over them.  The foolish servant gets the outer darkness, while the townsfolk get gathered together and slain in the King’s presence!

For those interested in a superb exposition on this parable, see Kenneth Bailey’s remarkable book Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, pgs 397-409.

While Matthew excludes the detail about the man being a king as well as the details about the townsfolk who don’t want Him to rule over them, Matthew’s record immediately follows this parable with statements from Jesus concerning His Return and His enthronement, which is a very clear picture of Kingship (vs. 31-46).  Christ then proceeds to declare that from His throne He will judge the sheep and the goats.  This is probably the most popular portion of the Bible mistakenly thought to prove an endless judgment (we will look at that in greater detail in the next series, which concerns judgment).

The only problem is that sheep and goats are both clean animals!  They are both types and shadows of Christ, and by extension His Body.  Nothing can be considered clean unless it has been cleansed by the blood of Christ.  The goats are also a part of God’s body, cleansed like the sheep, albeit more rough.  They did not understand His heart and mind towards the lost.

Conclusion:

So we see that the “outer darkness” rather than being a reference to Hell, is referring to losing the light of God’s special revelation (which is progressive).  It is not a reference to some dark aspect of Hell, for Hell is a place of fire not darkness (as we will see in the Lake of Fire in the next series).  And speaking of fire, we will turn our attention in the next blog to “the furnace of fire” statements.  We will see that they are identical in nature to the warnings of outer darkness.

Having seen how Gehenna really refers to a trash heap outside of Jerusalem, and secondly as a picture of national judgment, there remains a few comments I feel will further dismantle the idea of Gehenna as a picture of Hell.

Paul’s Writings Exclude Gehenna

First is the fact that Gehenna was a physical location, one known to all who lived near or traveled to the city.  It is for this reason that Gehenna is only mentioned by Christ and James.  For Christ ministered in the areas and cities surrounding Jerusalem.  His brother James was also the head of the Church at Jerusalem and thus his letter would have been well understood.  But Gehenna is not once mentioned by the Apostle Paul, for his letters were written to places like Corinth, Ephesus, Galatia and Rome.  Places that took months and even years to travel to during those times.  People living so far away would have no concept of Jerusalem’s city dump, and so Paul had no reason to employ its imagery.

This is important b/c it tells us that Gehenna was not some philosophical concept concerning the afterlife.  If it were, then it would have been well known by all and Paul might have referenced it.  But since he did not, it is further support that it was a locally known concept.

Rabbis and Gehenna

Secondly, the Rabbis whose teachings were preserved in the Talmud and Targum refer to Gehenna as a judgment of annihilation, not endless suffering.  The Talmud and Targum are a collection of Jewish teachings, or expositions on the Old Testament writings.

“all who go down into Gehenna rise up again, with the exception of those who do not rise, the adulterer, etc…”  (Baba Metzia f. 58, 2)

This is referring to those who will be resurrected from the dead, and those who will not – thus by implication – annihilation.  Some Rabbis even taught that those who suffered the fate of Gehenna would be redeemed!

“The wicked stay in Gehenna until the Resurrection, and then the Messiah passing through it redeems them.” (Emek Hammilech f. 138, 4)

It is easy to see how at that time they understood that those who were put to death and then cast into the burning city dump Gehenna were so punished b/c of their wickedness.  In fact, for the Jewish culture, burning a body was not only a dishonor, but they were afraid that such a body could not be put back together at the resurrection.  Which is why they reserved this punishment for only the worst of criminals.  Thus those who believed in annihilation believed such wicked people would never be resurrected; while a small fraction of Jewish Rabbis believed that even the wicked would be redeemed.  But it is important to note that none of them taught that Gehenna was a place of endless living torment.

I personally am not convinced that these references are vital in understanding the concept of Gehenna, for I believe that what we have previously seen from Scripture paints the clearest picture.  Therefore I will leave further Rabbi quotes for others.  Anyone wishing to investigate this specific area further can easily find the information for themselves.

Unquenchable Fire

And lastly, concerning the phrase that Christ employed when referencing Gehenna “where their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched.”   Some would point to the fact that it says their worm “will not die” and the fire “is not quenched” to prove that whatever Jesus was referring to must be unending.  But this is not the case.

For we saw earlier that the worms not dying is merely referring to the fact that they have the perfect environment to continue multiplying.  The fire not being quenched is also easily explained, for as long as Gehenna was a trash heap, the fire would continue to consume it.  As long as there is fuel a fire will continue to blaze, but once the fuel runs out, the fire will also.  Proverbs 26:20 says,

“For lack of fuel the fire is quenched,”

That word “quenched” is the same exact word used in Isaiah 66:24, which is the verse that Jesus is quoting when He was referring to the fire of Gehenna not being quenched.  The quenching thus is not referring to the unending state of the fuel, but to some outside force that stops the fire before it is finished consuming the fuel.  For instance, we see many times in Scripture where this word is used and it clearly refers to an outside force quenching, (all the following verses employ the same exact Hebrew word used in Isaiah 66:24 that Jesus quotes)…

“For love is as strong as death, jealousy is as severe as Sheol; its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD.  Many waters cannot quench love,” (song 8:6,7)

“Thus they shall both burn together, and there will be none to quench them.”  (Isa. 1:31)

The quenching is referring to the premature extinguishing of the fire before the fuel has been consumed.  So when Jesus uses it, He is saying that there is nothing that will help you in your judgment, your punishment will not be cut short, it will run its FULL course.  On top of this the word is used to describe things that though they were “unquenchable” did actually cease…and ironically enough, most of those instances refer to fire!

“Then I will kindle a fire in its gates and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem and not be quenched.”  (Jer. 17:27)

This fire obviously went out as soon as the fuel did, for Jerusalem today is certainly not still ablaze.

“The fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it. It shall not be quenched, but the priest shall burn wood on it every morning; and he shall lay out the burnt offering on it, and offer up in smoke the fat portions of the peace offerings on it.  Fire shall be kept burning continually on the altar; it is not to be quenched.”  (Leviticus 6:12,13)

Though God spoke that the fires were to be unquenchable, they still died out.  The Jews no longer have a temple with an altar where they keep a fire burning to sacrifice animals.  In fact Scripture itself records that fact,

“They have also shut the doors of the porch and quenched the lamps, and have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel.” (2 Chronicles 29:7)

This verse is referring to shutting down the temple.  Not only that but the lamps that were quenched were also required to burn “perpetually,” like the altar (see Exodus 30:8 and Leviticus 24:2).

On top of all this, the Greek word “unquenchable” that Jesus uses is the word asbestos.  Perhaps you have heard of asbestos, we gave that name to certain types of insulation in the 70s that were considered fire resistant.  Asbestos turned out to be extremely toxic to breathe and was thus banned.  Nevertheless we see why they named it asbestos, b/c fire was not able to consume it; it would “quench” the fire so to speak.

However, Greek literature does not support the assumption that it therefore means unending fire.  Homer, in his epic poem Illiad, uses asbestos to describe a fire that consumed the Grecian fleet in a few short hours (Book 16.123).  He also employs this word to describe Hector’s gleaming helmet, as well as other things like glory, laughter, and (most frequently) shouting (Book 1.599, 11.50, 16.267, etc…).

The Septuagint uses this word only once in Genesis 11:3 to translate the word “tar,” which was a form of lime that water would not disintegrate; a.k.a quench.

F.W. Farrar in his book Mercy and Judgment mentions that the Church Father Eusebius employs this word to describe a fire that several martyrs were burned at the stake with (Cronion, Julian, Epimachus and Alexander – pg. 406).  It would be absurd to claim not only that this fire is still burning, but that these martyred saints will be burning alive forever, simply b/c they suffered an ‘unquenchable fire.’

So we see that when the Scripture uses a Greek phrase like “their fire is not to be quenched,” it does not imply an endlessness and therefore it does not give Gehenna a meaning beyond its contextual intention.

This is further proof that our idea of Hell being frequently taught in Scripture is vastly skewed.  There remains only one more phrase in the New Testament that is mistaken as proof of the Hell doctrine.  That phrase is “the outer darkness,” also referred to as “the furnace of fire” where it is said that, “in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

That will be the focus of the next blog.

Having seen what we have about Gehenna and its local, historical and cultural context, we can confidently say that the majority of its references do not concern an endless hellfire.  There is however one occurrence of Gehenna in Scripture that can fairly easily be mistaken as a reference to endless hell.  However a closer look at the context in which it occurs, as well as other related aspects involved within that context, will show us that it is not describing hell.  Lets take a look.

It occurs in Matthew 10:28 where Christ said,

“Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”

Now I admit, this presents a very difficult hurdle to overcome when trying to present a unified concept that Gehenna does not refer to a judgment in the afterlife.  However there are certain problems that hinder this as being a true reference to hell.

The first problem is that it refers to “killing” the soul and “destroying” the soul.  It does not refer to some sort of perpetual, unending state of living torment.  When we read about “killing the body” and “destroying the body” there is no doubt what it is referring to – the body is no longer alive.  The body is empty, dead, lifeless.  There is no electrical impulses, no organ function, no brain activity; everything has ceased to function b/c there is no more life in the body.  At this point it is beginning its rapid transition into decomposition.

In contrast when we read about God “killing the soul” or “destroying the soul” we generally assume that it refers to a state of unending conscious torment in hell.  The problem is that these two concepts are diametrically opposed to each other.  The latter state, though it is in agony, necessarily requires the suffering soul to be alive in order to experience said torment.  Death on the other hand, is the absence of life.  I do not think that the death of the body and the death of the soul were meant to be different; I think they were speaking of the same thing, but applied to two different aspects of our being.

Now if this is true, then it is necessary to define the death of the soul…but how exactly do we do that?  There are many who believe that the soul is not immortal, and can point to how ancient Greek philosophy invented the idea that the soul continued to live on and on forever after death.  They then proceed to show how this concept came to be accepted by the Church.  I, however, do not entirely agree with that.  I must admit that I have not taken the time to truly study it out, so for now I must claim ignorance.

But for the issue at hand, I think it is safe to say that whatever the soul being killed and/or destroyed means it is not a reference to a state of living torment.  It is something final.  And therefore cannot be a confirmation of our modern idea of hell.  That being said, if you find the idea of the soul dying uncomfortable, just remember that like the body the soul can also be raised from the dead.  That aside, lets look at some other issues regarding this verse.

To begin, lets look at the rest of this chapter in Matthew to get the overall context.  It begins with Christ commissioning the 12 Disciples for a short term mission trip to preach the gospel (vs. 1-15).  He tells them to go only to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  (That word “lost” is important b/c it is the same word that is used in our verse in question; we will examine that in a moment.)

Christ then begins to describe the resistance that they will encounter in obeying His commission.  His description here seems to bear more upon their future endeavors than the one at hand, and is most likely even prophetic of all disciples from then until His Return who follow His call to preach the gospel to the lost of this world.  He mentions scourging, and rejection by synagogues, the legal system, and also the ruling class.  He then moves into betrayal by one’s own family, being hated, slandered, persecuted and even executed (vs. 16-25).

It is here that Christ mentions Gehenna.  Encouraging his disciples not to lose heart amidst such an uninviting path.  (vs. 26-31)

He then begins to reveal the hard part…that we must endure to the end if we wish to be saved.  That if we are ashamed of Christ and deny Him, then He will be ashamed of us and deny us.  That if we love anyone or anything more than Him, then we will not be worthy of Him.  That if we value any aspect of our comfort more than obeying Him, then we are not worthy of Him (vs. 32-37).  He then sums it all up saying,

“And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.  He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.” (vs. 38,39)

This is the context in which our difficult verse on Gehenna is sandwiched.  The first thing I wish to mention is that the words used here (“lost” and “lose”) are both the Greek word apollumi.  Apollumi comes from the root word meaning “destruction, death” and according to the Strong’s Concordance it means “to destroy, destroy utterly”  (Strong’s Greek #622).   The Louw and Nidia Greek Lexicon defines it as, “to destroy or to cause the destruction of persons, objects, or institutions — ‘to ruin, to destroy, destruction.’”

The majority of times that this word is used in the Bible it is translated as “destruction, perish or ruin.”  We will look at this word in much more detail in the next series on “judgment.”  But for now here is one example of its use; Luke 17:29 says,

“…but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed (apollumi) them all.”

It is obvious that destruction here means destruction.  Anyone could look up every usage of this word and see dozens of examples just as clear as this one in how the Greek word apollumi is used.  This is important b/c our verse on Gehenna uses this word apollumi,

“Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy (apollumi) both soul (psuche) and body in Gehenna.”

And yet Christ says just a few verses later that, “he who has lost (apollumi) his life (psuche) for My sake will find it.”  This is one of the very few phrases/teachings that is recorded by all 4 gospels, and is recorded twice by Matthew and Luke!  (see also Matthew 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24, 17:33 and John 12:25)

Matthew uses this phrase again later with just a little bit different wording,

“For whoever wishes to save his life (psuche) will lose (apollumi) it; but whoever loses (apollumi) his life (psuche) for My sake will find it.”

Mark and Luke also record it in this wording.  Not only that, but notice also that the word “life” used here is the Greek word Psuche, which is the same word our verse on Gehenna uses for “soul” (see above).  So according to Christ the prerequisite for saving one’s life/soul is destruction!  This seems confusing, I know, but there is a good reason for this which we unfortunately don’t have time to get into, it must wait for the next series.

Getting back to our topic…this I believe fully disarms this verse from being a solid reference to hell.  For the threat is that God will destroy (apollumi) the soul (psuche), but Christ said that this must happen anyways if we ever wish to save our soul (psuche)!  So this threat of Gehenna is not final, for though it is a judgment (and a terrible one at that) it is also the requirement for following and becoming worthy of Christ!  So rather than teaching the endless torments of hell, it exemplifies the opposite!  That such a judgment will result in one’s salvation and restoration unto Christ.

Conclusion:

I believe that what we have looked at proves that the majority of evidence in Scripture points away from the idea of Gehenna referring to hell.  And that Gehenna was referring to a city dump which was the symbol of a physical judgment of disgrace reserved for the worst of sins – heart idolatry and rebellion against God’s Words.  And occasionally used symbolically of the defiling of our life as a manifestation of what the true condition of our hearts are.

There remains only a few more thoughts related to Gehenna that I want to address.  And I will do so in the next blog.

In the last blog we saw how the Old Testament shows the progression of the Valley of Hinnom (Ge Hinnom – Gehenna) how it became a polluted city dump and eventually a symbol of national destruction; the effectual consequence of lawlessness and idolatry; particularly as it relates to a stubborn refusal to heed God’s words.

Dr. Stephen Jones, the greatest Biblical historian in the world puts it this way,

“After Jeremiah linked Gehenna to the destruction of Jerusalem through his prophecy of the broken jar, the term itself began to take on a prophetic meaning beyond the mere geographical location.  It became a symbol of divine judgment upon those who rejected the word of the Lord through the prophets (and Jesus Himself).” (The Judgments of the Divine Law, pg. 10.)

As we saw in the last blog, Jerusalem was destroyed and most of its inhabitants were slaughtered and cast unburied into Gehenna.  Those who heeded God’s warnings had their lives spared by being taken away to Babylon as captives (Jeremiah 21:8-10).  But though Jerusalem was destroyed, it was again rebuilt a hundred years later (see the books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Haggai).  Eventually (between the Old Testament and the New Testament) it again became defiled with idolatry, but this time it was not an outward worship of idols, it was an idolatry of the heart.  The nation was again in danger of judgment, and just as before with Jeremiah, the image that God gave to warn them was the image of Gehenna.

The prophet Jeremiah more than any other prophet spoke at length and in various ways concerning Jerusalem’s eventual destruction and overthrow.  And so we see that when Christ comes on the scene, preaching and teaching, He also begins to warn of an upcoming judgment on Jerusalem.  And like Jeremiah before Him, He employs the imagery and warning of Gehenna.  It is most likely this very aspect of His teaching and preaching that caused people to think He was the prophet Jeremiah come back from the dead!  (Matthew 16:13,14).

The real issue was not that Jesus was taking on the persona of Jeremiah, but that Jerusalem was again in trouble of an impending judgment for her heart idolatry and unwillingness to heed God’s Word.  So Christ’s message was similar to Jeremiah’s.

The Impending Destruction of Jerusalem

In Matthew 23:15, 27-38 Jesus addresses the leaders of the Jerusalem Temple saying,

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of Gehenna as yourselves…Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of Gehenna?  Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth… Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.  Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!”

Luke 19:41-44 records this same prophesy in different words,

“When [Jesus] approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, ‘If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.’”

Sure enough, because of their rejection of the Messiah and His Word, Jerusalem was destroyed 40 years later in 70 A.D.  The ancient Jewish historian Josephus records that over 600,000 Jews were slaughtered in that destruction!  (Wars of the Jews, book 5, chapter 13, section 7)  So it is no wonder that Jesus warns His hearers so emphatically concerning Gehenna!

The Jewish people were given 40 years to turn from their wicked ways; having had not only the apostles and prophets but the very Son of God calling for their repentance!  Jesus warned of this destruction many times and in various ways; and though He did not always use the word “Gehenna” when speaking about it, the people would have easily understood the implication.  Gehenna was the symbol of this destruction. (To see more instances where Christ preached about the destruction of Jerusalem see Matthew 21:33-46, 22:1-7, 24:1-28 Luke 19:11-27, 20:9-16, 21:5-38; Mark 12:1-12, 13:1-23, etc….)

We now have a solid background for understanding Jesus’ references to Gehenna.  It is within this context that His references in the Gospels are framed.  So lets look at them.

Gehenna

“If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame, than, having your two feet, to be cast into Gehenna, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.”  (Mark 9:45,46)

Here Jesus is clearly referring to Jerusalem’s city dump by not only naming it (Gehenna) but describing it (where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched).  Jesus is also quoting Isaiah’s reference to this place (66:24), connecting it to national destruction. Christ was not teaching people to cut off whatever appendage happens to be involved in sin nor was He teaching an endless fate of torment in Hell.  He is employing what is called a hyperbole to discourage the people of Judah from stumbling over His word, a.k.a refusing to heed God and obey Him.  Jesus knows that the majority of the nation will once again reject God’s message and refuse to believe He is the Messiah, and that will culminate with their destruction at the hands of the Romans and their being cast unburied into Gehenna the city dump.  Jesus employs this word 6 times using this same phrase; see Matthew 5:29,30, 18:9; and Mark 9:43-47.

A Higher Standard of Judgment

It was also common to dump the bodies of the worst criminals in Gehenna with all the other garbage.  It was a very nasty form of dishonor and it was a punishment reserved only for the bodies of the worst criminals.  Such a criminal knew that his name would not be preserved with honor for his posterity’s sake, which is what a grave would offer.  But rather, his name would be lost forever.  In a culture that considered the preservation and memory of their name to be of utmost importance, this would be devastating.  This is what Jesus is referring to in the following verse,

“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You Shall Not Commit Murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery Gehenna.”  (Matthew 5:22)

Here Jesus is using Gehenna as an example of the worst form of punishment in this life that His hearers would have known.  He is raising the standard for morality, saying that previously one would receive a death penalty for murder, but now such a person will receive not just a death penalty but the dishonor of being cast unburied into Gehenna for merely calling someone an idiot!  The reason is that in times past God addressed our outward actions, but now God is addressing the heart.  Calling people idiots is dishonoring, even as being cast unburied into Gehenna would be, and God will always judge you by your own standard of judgment (Matthew 7:2).

It would be absurd to believe that Jesus is teaching us that if we call someone a fool that we will be damned to endless hell.  Rather it was a figure of speech that emphasized the polluting aspect of slander.  Not to mention that such an attitude pollutes the heart.  And so Gehenna was a fitting punishment b/c it was also a public disgrace, your name and memory being defiled.

Therefore Jesus makes the remark,

“I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into Gehenna; yes, I tell you, fear Him!  (Luke 12:5)

Interestingly, the only other time that Gehenna is used outside of the Gospels is by the apostle James, the brother of Jesus.  James uses it to say much the same thing as Jesus said here.  Speaking of how we will be judged by what comes out of our mouth. James says,

“And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by Gehenna.”

Notice how his description fits perfectly with that of Gehenna as a defiled, polluted place that is also on fire?  He is basically saying that our tongue or mouth is akin to a garbage dump, full of rottenness and destruction.

That must be why Christ said,

“There is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man.” “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,” and “the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.”  Therefore, “every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.” (Mark 7:15; Matthew 12:34, 15:18, 12:36)

Christ and James both use Gehenna in this sense, as an image of our hearts, and the filth that comes out of it.  And if we are not careful, then our life will conform to our hearts.  We will be judged and defiled in life even as we are defiled in our hearts.  All b/c of the very filth that we defile others with.  Gehenna was in this way applied to the filth of the hearts of the people as a nation, and was also personalized to apply individually.

This leaves us with only 1 more reference to Gehenna to examine.  It is found in Matthew 10:28, but because of the nature of it’s context, we cannot finish it here.  So I will leave it for the next blog where we will examine it in more detail.

Out of all the words/concepts that most resemble the Church’s current view of hell – “Gehenna” is the one that seems to come closest.  Ironically, Gehenna happens to be the only one that has nothing to do with the afterlife!

Gehenna occurs 12 times in the New Testament in 5 different contexts.  The majority of Bible translations happen to translate it as “hell.”  This is quite unfortunate, as we will see, for it muddies the real issue that Christ was addressing.  There are however, some versions of the Bible that transliterate it.

The first thing that we should notice about Gehenna, is that though it is written in Greek it was not a Greek word.  We saw earlier how Sheol and Hades are transliterations (not translations) b/c English does not have a concept or word that can accurately translate them into our language.  This is what happened with Gehenna except from Hebrew to Greek.  Greek does not have a word or concept accurate enough to translate it, so they transliterated it.  This is important b/c it means that Christ was teaching something that can only be understood from the Hebrew language.  This means if we truly want to understand Gehenna, we must understand it from the Hebrew.

The Valley of Hinnom

Gehenna comes from the Old Testament Hebrew word Ge-Hinnom.  It literally means “the Valley of Hinnom.” It was a literal place, located at the base of the hill on which Jerusalem was built, just outside of the southern wall.  You can literally go to Gehenna (hell) today if you so desired! 😉

It is first mentioned in Joshua 15:8,

“Then the border went up the Valley of Ben-Hinnom to the slope of the Jebusite on the south – that is, Jerusalem.”

Fast forward a few centuries and you will begin to see Gehenna become a place of unparalleled horror!  The kings of Judah began to incite the citizens to idolatry, causing them to worship the god Molech.  Molech demanded the sacrifice of every first born child.  2 Chronicles 33:3 records how Manasseh (the son of Hezekiah) began this horrid practice,

“He (Manasseh) made his sons pass through the fire in the valley of Ben-hinnom…He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking Him to anger.”

The following is extremely graphic, but it is necessary to fully comprehend the concept of Gehenna.  The idol Molech was a Minotaur, it had the head of a bull and the body of a man.  This specific idol had its hands stretched out, palms up, in the gesture of receiving a gift.  The idol was hollow and made of brass.  The worshipers would then start a fierce fire on the inside of this idol, and when it was unimaginably hot, they would place their infant children in his outstretched arms!  Due to the sheer heat of this oven, the baby would immediately burst into flames.  The child would burn this way until it was nothing but ashes.

This practice was so awful, that the idolaters would have to drown out the screams of their children by beating a large drum.  It is from this drumming that the Valley of Hinnom received its nickname Topheth.  Topheth comes from the Hebrew root word Toph meaning Drum or Cymbal (Strong’s Hebrew Number 8596).  Jeremiah 7:31 shows the connection between Topheth and Ge-Hinnom…

“They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, and it did not come into My mind.”

Jeremiah again speaks against this in 32:35 saying,

“They built the high places of Baal that are in the valley of Ben-hinnom to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I had not commanded them nor had it entered My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.”

It’s not difficult to imagine how this provoked God to anger, anyone with a beating heart should see how terrible this was.  God forbade such a thing in His Law (Deuteronomy 18:10) and calls it an abomination.  (On a quick side note – if burning people alive in a fire is an abomination in God’s mind, how much more abominable is it to burn people alive forever in an unending fire!?  A fire where they are not even allowed to die!?)

Getting back to the issue at hand.  It certainly is hard for us today to even comprehend how anybody would be capable of practicing such things.  But in that time it was the cultural custom to pay tribute to the god of the land, and Israel was conquering a land that they were unfamiliar with, so the temptation for them was to seek the local god’s favor in order to be blessed in that land (see Deuteronomy 12:29-31).

But God forbade this, instead He promised to bless them if they forsook the local gods and served Him alone.

“Turn now every man from his evil way and amend your deeds, and do not go after other gods to worship them. Then you will dwell (be blessed) in the land which I have given to you and to your forefathers…” (Jeremiah 35:15)

But they refused to listen to God or follow His laws.  So after a few generations God put it on the heart of a certain noble king to try to reform them.  God caused the Valley of Hinnom to be defiled, or polluted, under the reform of Josiah, by burning all the idols and scattering the ashes around the valley.  The King Josiah then dumped all the filth (trash) of the city of Jerusalem into the valley.  2 Kings 23:10 records this…

“[Josiah] also polluted Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire for Molech.”

The City Dump

Josiah’s obedient act of polluting the Valley of Hinnom eventually became a custom for the people of Jerusalem.  And thus the Valley of Hinnom became the city dump.  It then became necessary to burn their garbage in order to break it down and keep it from overflowing.  This would also help to quench the smell of the rot.  You can imagine how with all the feasts observed each year, that when they would throw all the trash (including toilet waste) over the side of the wall into Gehenna that the garbage would pile higher and higher into a mountain of trash and the fire would never quite get to burn through to the bottom of the pile.

The fire only consuming the surface left everything underneath in a constant state of decay.  And as is common with rotting filth, it breeds worms and the worms would multiply like crazy in such a perfectly suited environment.  So the Valley of Hinnom was in a continuous state of burning and decomposition.  Thus this city dump, always afire, continued for centuries even into the time of Jesus.  This is the background for Christ’s references to Gehenna.  Lets look at Mark 9:45,46,

“If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame, than, having your two feet, to be cast into Gehenna, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.”

We will look at those verses in more detail later.  For now we just want to notice that Gehenna was well-known by the local inhabitants of Jerusalem as a place where garbage was thrown to rot and burn.

A Symbol of National Judgement

It also became a symbol and warning of nation wide judgment, for God always judges His people in a way that is reminiscent of their sin.  Ezekiel 11:21 says,

“But as for those whose hearts go after their detestable things and abominations, I will bring their conduct down on their heads,” declares the Lord God.”

It is interesting to note that the word “idol” in Hebrew means dung or poop!  So having idols in your heart meant that you had a heart full of garbage, and you would thus have a defiled, polluted heart.  And so it was fitting and ironic (God’s judgments are always ironic) that God would judge and destroy their idolatry in the valley of Hinnom with garbage, filth and human waste.

Although God’s judgment upon the vile practice of worshiping Molech was so thorough that He made sure they would never again use the Valley of Hinnom for anything other than pollution, it did not deter them from worshiping other gods/idols.  So God sent the prophets to them to call for repentance, but they did not heed His words, instead they persecuted and murdered His prophets.

“I have sent to you all My servants the prophets, sending them again and again, saying: ‘Turn now every man from his evil way and amend your deeds, and do not go after other gods to worship them. Then you will be blessed in the land which I have given to you and to your forefathers; but you have not inclined your ear or listened to Me.  (Jeremiah 35:15)

The Valley of Slaughter – The Destruction of Jerusalem

Jeremiah continues…

‘Therefore, behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when it will no longer be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of the Slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth because there is no other place.’ (7:32)

God used Gehenna as the token location to carry out this judgment upon the nation, for it was located at Jerusalem, the capitol of Judah.  Isaiah, also speaking of this coming slaughter/destruction, said,

“For Topheth has long been ready, indeed, it has been prepared for the king (of Judah). He (God) has made it deep and large, a pyre of fire with plenty of wood; the breath of the LORD, like a torrent of brimstone, sets it afire.”

Jeremiah expounds upon this coming doom in 19:2,11-15 saying,

“Go out to the valley of Ben-hinnom, which is by the entrance of the potsherd gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you…Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Just so will I break this people and this city, even as one breaks a potter’s vessel, which cannot again be repaired; and they will bury in Topheth because there is no other place for burial.  This is how I will treat this place and its inhabitants,’ declares the LORD, ‘so as to make this city like Topheth.  The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled like the place Topheth, because of all the houses on whose rooftops they burned sacrifices to all the heavenly host and poured out drink offerings to other gods.’  Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the LORD’S house and said to all the people: Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, I am about to bring on this city and all its towns the entire calamity that I have declared against it, because they have stiffened their necks so as not to heed My words.’”

And so we see towards the end of the reign of Judah as an independent nation that Babylon was raised up by God to bring judgment upon them.  Those who submitted to the judgment were carried away alive to Babylon.  But those who resisted, deceived in their idolatry that God was still on their side, were all slaughtered.  The number of dead was staggering, reaching into the hundreds of thousands!  And they were all thrown unburied into Topheth, the Valley of Hinnom – Gehenna!  Psalm 79:1-3 mentions this.

“O God, the nations have invaded Your inheritance; they have defiled Your holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.  They have given the dead bodies of Your servants for food to the birds of the heavens, the flesh of Your godly ones to the beasts of the earth.  They have poured out their blood like water round about Jerusalem; and there was no one to bury them.”

It became a massive open grave, letting them rot out in the open, which was and still is highly dishonoring.  The bodies were left to desecrate and defile Jerusalem and act as a warning against all future disobedience.  Isaiah speaks of this in 66:24 saying,

“Then they will go forth and look on the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me.  For their worm will not die and their fire will not be quenched; and they will be an abhorrence to all mankind.”

This as we saw above and will look at again, is the phrase Jesus quoted when referring to Gehenna.  The nation was destroyed and the few survivors were carried off into captivity.  The judgment was so complete that the Jewish people never again entertained idols.  But though they did not outwardly practice idolatry, they still worshiped the idols of their own hearts.  Which is what causes one to be spiritually deaf and incapable of hearing God’s Word (see Ezekiel 14).  And when you cannot hear God’s Word, you are in grave danger of not hearing God’s call to repentance…and repentance is the only way to avert judgment.  Any nation that refuses to repent when God sends His prophets will certainly suffer judgment.  And so we will see that centuries later Jesus warns against this same judgment if the people did not repent from their heart idolatry.

It is to this that we will turn in part 2.

We have thus far looked at Sheol and Hades in both Scriptural and cultural contexts.  Those two words are basically the same concept, in two different languages.  They convey the concept that men are held in a place or state of sleep where they await the day of judgment.  At which point they will be released from death and its confines to face recompense for the deeds done during their earthly life.

But there is still one more concept/word that is closely related to these two.  That word is Tartarus.  It is used only one time in the Bible.  In 2 Peter 2:4,5…

“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell (Gr. Tartarus) and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly…”

Tartarus is not used anywhere else in the Bible, this is the only Scriptural context that we have to discern its intended meaning.  The concept of Tartarus however, is found in detail outside of Scripture.  It comes from Greek Mythology, and as we will see, designates a very similar concept as it is employed here in 2 Peter.

So lets examine some Greek Mythology.  The ancient Greeks believed that the earth was hollow and that inside of this planet was another realm where other ‘beings’ were kept imprisoned.  The Bible employs a similar concept when it references the phrase “under the earth,” as used in Philippians 2:10 and Revelation 5:13.  This interior of the earth the Greeks named Tartarus.  Tartarus was a place of confinement for disobedient gods.  They believed that it was located below Hades and that it was reserved for only the worst and most wicked of beings.  According to Greek Mythology the gods lived in two places, the good or superior gods dwelt in heaven (where Mount Olympus was and Zeus ruled as king) while the inferior or rebellious gods (the Titans) were confined to the realm under the earth – Tartarus.   As Virgil says in his epic poem Aeneid.

“Tis here in different paths the way divides:-
The right to Pluto’s golden palace guides,
The left to that unhappy region tends,
Which to the depths of Tartarus descends –
The seat of night profound and punished fiends.

The gaping gulf low to the center lies,
And twice as deep as earth is from the skies,
The rivals of the gods, the Titan race,
Here, singed with lightening, roll within the unfathomed space.”

This mythology further held that while those who live on the outer crust of earth enjoy the cool breezes of the wind and the warm light of the sun, those banished to live under the earth, or inside of it, were confined to total darkness and still air (as is also referenced in the poem).  This is what Peter is speaking of when he says,

“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell (Tartarus) and committed them to pits of darkness…”

The “pits of darkness” refer to Tartarus; that place under the earth where no light can shine and warm and no breeze can refresh.

Fallen Angels

Tartarus then was reserved for rebellious gods, so it is easy to see how Peter applies this place to fallen angels, for we see that angels are referred to as “gods” many times in the Bible (see 1 Corinthians 8:5; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Job 1:6, 2:1 and 38:7).  However, the Bible doesn’t usually make a habit of incorporating Pagan Mythology into its system of Divine Revelation.  We cannot begin to assume that all Mythology is true, this instance is definitely out of the ordinary.

The question that we now need to answer is, ‘If Greek Mythology isn’t the standard for truth…where did Peter get the notion that sinful angels were cast into pits of darkness?’  The New Testament is almost 99% directly taken from and expounded upon Old Testament truths and the Hebrew cultural mindset.  And Peter definitely didn’t find that idea in the Old Testament.  However, there is mention of these angels and their banishment to a place of darkness in other Jewish writings.

This is found in a book called the Book of Enoch.  The book of Enoch is part of the Apocrypha; which is a collection of books that the Jews did not consider inspired by God and therefore were not canonized with the Old Testament. However, they did consider them historical and were very familiar with them.

The book of Enoch deals with some prophecies that were allegedly given by Enoch in his “walking with God” before he was “taken” up by God (Genesis 5:24; Hebrews 11:5).  In fact Jude, the last epistle before the book of Revelation, actually names Enoch and quotes one of these prophecies from the book of Enoch (Jude 14,15).

The Book of Enoch also records how angels (called watchers) sinned by rebelling against God’s command to not interfere with the humans.  They were called watchers b/c the angels were constantly watching humanity (for references to angels ‘watching’ see Genesis 6:2; 1 Corinthians 4:9, 11:10; 1 Timothy 3:16 and 1 Peter 1:12).

This makes sense because the context of the passage that we are looking at in 2 Peter directly connects those angels that sinned with the ancient world that Noah lived in.  Notice that Peter calls Noah a “preacher of righteousness.”  Noah was preaching against the angels’ mating with humans to produce monstrous hybrid beings.

This is found in Genesis 6 where the “sons of God” came down and married the “daughters of men” and proceeded to have children with them.  Those “sons of God” were most likely angels for this phrase is used several times in Scripture to describe angelic, spiritual or heavenly beings (see also Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7).

The children that were produced b/c of that sin were Giants called Nephilim and were considered an abomination to God.  God’s subsequent decision to destroy the earth with a flood was based upon this awful perversion of mankind’s genetics.  He wanted to remove their twisted dna from the earth.

These watchers in the Book of Enoch are the angels that sinned during the time of Noah.  These angels, in Peter’s eyes, are comparable to the gods who rebelled in Greek Mythology.  And thus, just as the disobedient gods were confined to a pit of darkness under the earth – Tartarus; so these disobedient angels were confined to the pits of darkness comparable to Tartarus.  Peter thus found no problem in using this term, for it already fit perfectly with his Jewish understanding of this issue.  It is as if he considered the Greek Mythology about rebellious gods as a sort of secularized version of the truth about the rebellious angels.

So to reiterate, Peter is referencing the Book of Enoch, concerning angels who were disobedient.  Tartarus, therefore, has to do with disobedient angelic, or spiritual beings – not human beings.  Even so, the language used in no way expresses endless duration.  It says that these angels were cast into Tartarus and committed to pits of darkness; which are “reserved for judgment.”  That word ‘reserved’ is a present participle; they are presently being kept under guard until the judgment day.

Jude also uses this exact imagery concerning this very same topic in verse 6 of his epistle;

“And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal (aiodios – endless) bonds under darkness until the judgment of the great day.”

It is the exact same imagery that Peter employs, disobedient angels who are confined in darkness until a day of judgment.

We have seen previously that the usual words that we translate as “eternal” do not mean endless, but age-long.  Furthermore we saw that there are words in the Greek language that do mean endless, which the Bible employs, but (almost) never in the context of hell or judgment.  This verse is the ONLY instance where a Greek word meaning endless is used in connection with judgment.  However, the context itself makes it quite clear that these “eternal” bonds are only to last “UNTIL” the judgment day.

Therefore we must understand that Tartarus is a place of darkness where gods (fallen angels) who were disobedient are kept under guard.  And secondly it is a place where they are confined until the judgment day.  It is not a place where the majority of mankind will go.

Mankind and the Black Darkness

Having said that, there appears to be a select few of the race of men whose wickedness qualifies them to be partakers of this confinement along with the fallen angels.  Both Peter and Jude speak of them, following their description of fallen angels.  They both also go into great detail at great length about such men!  You can read the whole description yourself if you wish, but we will refrain our quote to their immediate usage,

“…These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm, for whom the black darkness has been reserved.”  (2 Peter 2:17)

“…These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved for the age.”  (Jude 12,13)

The aspect, which interests us, is the fact that, like the “angels who left their proper abode” these men have also left their proper estate.  Angels know God, for they exist in His realm, yet they chose to rebel against His decrees.  These men likewise have come to the knowledge of God and then chose not to obey.  In fact Peter’s whole exposition on the fallen angels and Tartarus stems from his exposition on these ungodly men (see 2 Peter 2:1-3, and all the rest of this chapter).  Peter then ends his exposition saying…

“…For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them.” (2 Peter 2:20,21)

So we see that like the angels before them, these men forsook the way of truth that they knew to be right and good.  Not only this, but like the angels in the days of Noah, they seem to go out of their way to entangle others in their wickedness. They delight in causing others to fall to their level of depravity.  It is this aspect most of all, I believe, that earns them this special holding place – until the day of judgment.

May God have mercy on their souls.  For if there is one description that feels like the modern concept of hell, it is Tartarus.  But again, we must recognize that this confinement is not endless, but only until the day of judgment.  Thus Tartarus, though using elements that seem closely akin to our concept of Hell, is yet actually more like Sheol and Hades, a place of confinement where its inhabitants await the day of judgment at the Great White Throne.

This is now the 3rd concept in Scripture that has been unfortunately mistaken to be a reference to hell.  The next concept that we will be looking at is Gehenna.  Out of all the concepts that we mistake as Hell this one is the most prominent.  And yet Gehenna, more than any other concept, is the furthest from the idea of hell!  It also happens to be the easiest to prove as such!  In the next blog we will begin a serious look at Gehenna with its fascinating history in the Old Testament.

In the last blog we saw how Hades is synonymous with the concept of Sheol.  We saw that Christ has the keys of Hades, and the gates of Hades will not be able to resist the advance of Christ’s Church.  We also saw that eventually Hades will give up all of its inhabitants and finally be eradicated.  This ought to be more than enough to discredit it as a reference to hell, nevertheless, I like to be thorough.  Therefore, with that in mind let us look at the remaining times that Hades is found in the New Testament.  Remember, Hades occurs only 10 times in 6 different contexts.  We have already looked at 4 of the times that Hades is mentioned, involving 2 different contexts.  That leaves us with a count of 6 more times that it is mentioned in the New Testament, involving 4 more contexts.

Capernaum

It occurs once in Matthew (11:23) and once in Luke (10:15) in the context of Capernaum’s judgment.

“And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descendto Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day.”

In these instances Jesus is denouncing several cities for not repenting at His preaching and the miraculous signs confirming His message.  He names several Old Testament examples of cities that were judged due to their sin, and declares that they would have avoided their judgment of complete destruction if they had witnessed Jesus and His miracles – b/c they would have repented.

Now in these two cases, Hades is obviously referring to whole cities, not just people (although the sin of the city was perpetrated by its inhabitants).  And similar to certain Sheol references in the Old Testament, the judgment for sin was a shortened life, which is considered being brought down to Hades (or Sheol).  Not only that, but the Old Testament refers to entire cities going down to Sheol in judgment (Isaiah 5:14).  So Jesus, who taught in Aramaic and probably used the word Sheol when He taught this, is using well known Sheol related imagery.

Therefore in these two cases Hades is not a place of endless suffering, but a picture of citywide ruin/destruction.  And thus it does not accurately present the modern picture of hell.

Jesus’ Resurrection

The next instance I want to look at where Hades is mentioned is in Acts chapter 2 concerning Jesus’ resurrection from death (2:22-33).  It is used twice in this passage.  Peter having just been filled with the Spirit on the day of Pentecost is preaching to a crowd that was gathering.  He tells them that,

“Jesus the Nazarene…you nailed to a cross…but God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power. For David says of Him…‘You will not abandon My soul to Hades, nor allow your Holy One to undergo decay.’  He (David) looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that ‘He was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh suffer decay’…This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.”

The first thing that we need to notice is that these are quotes from the Septuagint, which means that the word Hades is used in place of Sheol in these verses.  Having seen previously that Sheol is a waiting place for the dead and that even the righteous end up there to wait in a sleep state until they are raised from the dead sometime in the future; it is not so shocking to see that even Christ went into Hades at His death.  And furthermore, we must notice that He was not abandoned to Hades, He was freed from it.  And His resurrection is a sign of ours! (Colossians 1:18)

So this presents two issues that are in noncompliance with our idea of hell.  1 – even Jesus went there and 2 – its possible to leave.  Therefore Hades in this instance also does not conform to the modern idea of hell.

Revelation

The next instance I want to look at is in the book of Revelation (6:8).  In this context John is watching Jesus break 7 seals on a certain scroll.  And each time a seal is broken some judgment is released into the earth.  When the 4th seal is broken John says,

“I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.”

In this case, Hades and Death are pictures of…well…death.  But here Hades is connected to physical death.  1/4th of the earth is slain by Death and Hades.  It therefore once again cannot be associated with the doctrine of endless hell.

The Rich Man and Lazarus

So far we have looked at 9 of the 10 times that Hades is used in the New Testament.  And of these 9, 6 present the idea that there is escape from Hades, and 3 are referring to physical, earthly destruction of some kind.  That leaves only 1 instance left to look at and it is probably the most well known.  It is found in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus recorded in Luke 16:19-31.  A parable I am sure we are all familiar with.  If you are not familiar with it, I would recommend you read it before proceeding any further.  In this 1 single instance Hades does (at first) seem to present a picture that is comparable to the modern idea of hell.  However, there are a few discrepancies that I want you to notice.

Firstly, it is a parable; and because it is a parable we should note that it possibly has a hidden message (Matthew 13:3,10-17; Mark 4:33,34).  It therefore is possibly used as a poetic analogy, rather than actual fact.  But for the sake of honesty I have to admit that it is just as viable a possibility that it uses real facts rather than presenting a poetic picture.

Secondly a good researcher can make a solid case that Jesus was using imagery drawn from false doctrines that the Pharisees held, in order to prove a point to them.  In other words, He uses their own false ideas to rebuke them – which is certainly a sign of genius. However, at this point in time I cannot prove that theory, but it also cannot be disproven.

However, if it IS indeed presenting an actual picture of the afterlife, there is the problem of being able to see, hear and empathize with those in Hades.  This could be quite a weight to bear for all eternity.  And, if you recall from my introduction to this series, this was the great burden that started me on my journey to discovering Universal Reconciliation.  To be eternally aware of the endless suffering of those we love, will be quite unbearable.

Thirdly, no matter what position you take concerning this parable, in the end it is a non issue, for 2 reasons: – 1) b/c as we saw in the last series aion and aionios do rarely, if ever, mean “endless” (not to mention that these words are not even used in this parable); and 2) b/c as we have also seen previously, Hades will give up its dead and be cast into the Lake of Fire.  Hades thus is not the final state of the lost.

Lastly, I firmly believe that the point is not to teach us about Hades, but that those who live in self absorbed luxury would not receive the truth of Jesus’ gospel message even if Someone (Jesus) were to rise from the dead.

It is a well-known fact that the Pharisees all lived in such luxury, in fact, the whole context in which Jesus delivers this parable is one addressing the Pharisee’s love of money.  Jesus had just previously spoken another parable on using money for the kingdom, instead of for selfish gain.  Jesus then sums it up saying, “You cannot serve both God and money.”  Following this statement Luke records that,

“The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and were scoffing [Jesus].”  (Luke 16:1-14)

And so Jesus proceeds into this parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man.  The context is impossible to get around, it is about how the love of money will ruin your ability to receive the truth of the Gospel.  I need not point out how there are many today in the position the Pharisees were in, who are guilty of putting the love of money before the love of the truth.

History confirms that the Pharisees remained opposed to Jesus’ message even after He rose from the dead.  They even knew about it and tried to cover it up!  (Matthew 28:11-15)  They truly cared more about their position and wealth than God’s will.  Their rejection of His message ultimately sealed their judgment and the result was that 40 years later Jerusalem was destroyed as Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom and Gomorrah were.  Which coincidentally connects this Hades reference to Jesus’ previous mention of it concerning Capernaum.

Conclusion

I might not have a full proof case to show that the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus does not portray Hades as an accurate representation of hell, but there is enough reasonable doubt to cast serious suspicion on it being an accurate description of the afterlife.  Not to mention that it is clear from Scripture that Hades will empty out its dead at some point in the future.

Therefore, having seen that Hades is synonymous with the Old Testament concept of Sheol; and having honestly approached the concept of Hades as a possible reference to the doctrine of hell, with only 1 instance out of 10 even slightly inferring a real connection; we ought to have no issue with disregarding this word/concept as Biblical support of such a doctrine.

That leaves us with only 4 more words/concepts left to truly teach the concept of hell; Tartarus, Gehenna, the Outer Darkness and the Furnace of Fire.  In the next blog we will focus on the word Tartarus and see just exactly what it is referring to.  For it is only used 1 time in the entire Bible, and that instance is an odd one to say the least.

So far we have looked at the word Sheol in the Hebrew language of the Old Testament as a word that might possibly teach/support the doctrine of Hell.  We saw very clearly how this cannot be the case.  It is definitely related to some kind of after life existence, but has far too many differences with our concept of hell to be considered an accurate representative.  Which as we saw was why our bibles do not use the word ‘hell’ to translate Sheol – it is too different.

The next word that is a contender for teaching the doctrine of hell in Scripture is the Greek word Hades which is found 10 times in the New Testament.

The term Hades finds its origin in Greek Mythology.  In this mythology, 3 siblings (Zeus, Poseidon and Hades) overthrew their tyrannical father and divided up the world amongst the three of them.  Zeus got to rule over the sky, Poseidon got to rule over the ocean and Hades got to rule over the underworld.  Hades literally means “unseen one” and as such the underworld was fit for him.  The underworld eventually came to be associated so much with Hades that it received his name.

Hades is very simply, the place of the dead.  It is where the dead go when their earthly life is over.  When the Bible uses the word Hades, it is not endorsing Greek Mythology as truth, rather it is borrowing a well known concept that fits with Biblical truth.  Hades, being very simply the place of the dead, was and is almost entirely synonymous with Sheol.

Hades and Sheol are synonymous

We saw in the last blog that Sheol was the place of the dead.  There is no activity nor consciousness there.  Rather its inhabitants are in a dream like state of sleep awaiting the resurrection.  Hades (aside from the resurrection aspect not being part of mythology) is basically the same concept as Sheol.

Not only is this easily recognized by a simple comparison, but we also have the support of the Septuagint.  (We looked at the Septuagint earlier in the last series on the words aion and aionios.  The Septuagint being the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament.) The Septuagint uses the word Hades to translate the word Sheol.   So if Hades was used to translate Sheol, then we can be fully assured that the two concepts are synonymous.  In fact, the New Testament quotes a verse from the Old Testament that used the word Sheol, and in the New Testament it uses the word Hades.  So we have direct Biblical support for connecting these two concepts.

Jesus Taught in Aramaic

Another interesting detail that is noteworthy is the fact that although the New Testament was written in Greek, Jesus most spoke and taught in Aramaic, which is a language very closely related to Hebrew – and out of the 10 times that Hades is mentioned in the New Testament, 6 of those times it is mentioned by Jesus in the Gospels.  B/c Jesus spoke in Aramaic He wouldn’t have used the word Hades, but rather Sheol.  The only problem with this is the fact that the inspired Word is given to us in Greek, so we are left with no choice but to address Hades.  However – it is helpful to understand the background of it in order to better understand the context and concept of what Jesus was teaching.  The fact that Hades and Sheol are so closely related would imply that Jesus was referring to the Old Testament concept of Sheol.  Therefore when the Gospel’s use the word Hades it is describing Sheol.

Hades is a Transliteration

On top of this is the fact that Hades (like Sheol) is a transliteration rather than a translation.  Just as we noticed about Sheol, Hades is a concept that we do not have a word for in English – thus our Bibles transliterate it, rather than translate it.  This means that ‘hell’ is not an accurate picture of Hades.

But even if all that we have just noticed about Hades didn’t exist, we would still be able to decipher its true character simply from how it is used in the New Testament.  Most people assume that Hades is referring to endless hell, but we ought not to presume truth, rather we ought to be like the Bereans and search it out.  If we do this with Hades we will hopefully see the truth more clearly.

So to begin, let us take a look at where and how the word Hades is used in the New Testament.

The Keys of Hades

The 1st thing that I want to bring to your attention is the instance in the book of Revelation when John sees Jesus in all His glory.  John is so overwhelmed that he falls down as a dead man.  Jesus then encourages John not to be afraid, telling him,

“I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades.” (Revelation 1:17,18)

The context is all about overcoming death.  Jesus is encouraging John (and us) that He can unlock “the gates of Hades” so that the dead who are confined there can escape!  Even as He did.  There is a way out and Jesus has the key to do so.  What these keys are exactly is a subject that we must skip for now.

The Gates of Hades Overrun

During His earthly life Jesus made another similar statement about the gates of Hades .  On a certain occasion Jesus began to ask His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  His disciples give different answers, “some say John the Baptist, and others Elijah, but still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”  Jesus then zeroes in on His disciples, “but who do you say that I am?”  And Peter answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Jesus then praises Peter saying,

“Blessed are you [Peter] b/c flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.  I also say to you that you are Peter and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.” (Matthew 16:13-18)

The “rock” that Jesus builds His church upon is the declaration of Peter that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  It is a solid foundation b/c it is not something a human can fathom, it is a revelation from God the Father who is in heaven.  It is upon this rock/revelation that the Church is built and it is upon this rock that the Church will conquer Hades.  The imagery here is often mistaken to be that Hades is attacking the Church, but that is incorrect, the force of the words in Greek here show that opposite is true; the Church is storming the gates of Hades!  And these gates will not be able to stand against her attack.  The Church is going to invade the realm of Hades and Hades’ defensive campaign will not succeed!

This certainly aligns with what it says about Christ that He

“…went and preached to the spirits held captive in prison,” (1 Peter 3:19)

And that

“He descended into the lower parts of the earth…and when He ascended on High He led forth in victory a host of captives.”  (Ephesians 4:8-10)

The keys that Jesus has in Revelation are the keys to this gate.  The Church has these keys because they are one with Christ and co-heirs with Him.  They are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, which includes His keys (Galatians 3:28; Romans 12:5, 8:17; Ephesians 1:3). This means that the Church can and will break through into Hades and rescue those who are trapped there!  Praise God!

What is even more fascinating to ponder is whether the keys of Hades at the beginning of Revelation might possibly be involved in the process by which Hades gives up her dead at the end of Revelation?

Hades is Emptied

This is the second thing that I want us to notice –  Hades will give up its dead.  At the Great White Throne Judgment at the end of the book of Revelation it states that,

“the sea gave up the dead which were in it and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them…then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.  This is the second death, the lake of fire.”  (Revelation 20:13,14).

Hades and Death will give up all the inhabitants that they held!  This will fulfill the Scripture that says,

“Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your victory?  O Death, where is your sting.”  (1 Corinthians 15:54,55)

This means that Hades cannot be a realistic description (picture, portrayal) of what we have come to understand as hell.  This should give us incentive to take another look at all the other instances that Hades is mentioned in the Bible, but this time with new eyes.  The focus of the next blog will be looking at the contexts and implications of each instance that the word Hades is found.

The last blog showed us that Sheol is a place where the dead abide.  Everyone who dies goes there and they abide there in a kind of sleep state, where all will await a resurrection or an awakening from the dead (Daniel 12:12).  Having seen that, it cannot possibly be the traditional hell that we have been taught.  But in order to fully sever any remaining notions that it might still be synonymous with hell we will now consider 2 very significant anomalies concerning the concept of Sheol.

The Righteous Are There

The first and perhaps most important anomaly is that not only are the wicked said to go to Sheol (Psalm 9:17), but the righteous as well (Psalm 89:48; Ecclesiastes 9:2,3,10).

For instance, Joseph was believed to be in Sheol.  This same Joseph was appointed by God to be sold as a slave in order to save many people alive when a famine came years later.  Because of Joseph’s humility and wisdom he was promoted to be the ruler of all of Egypt!  But during this time he was believed to be dead by his father Jacob, and thus Jacob assumed that he was in Sheol (Genesis 37:35).

In fact, Jacob himself was anticipating his departure into Sheol at his own death (Genesis 42:38, 44:29,31).  Jacob was the father of the 12 tribes of Israel, as the famous adage “The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” is so often used throughout Scripture to confirm God’s covenant with the sons of Israel.  Jacob himself originally being the one who was renamed Israel by God.  Yet somehow even Jacob knew that he would go to Sheol at his death!

In the same manner Job stated several times that he would end up in Sheol (14:13, 17:13,16).  And Job was certainly righteous for God Himself spoke of Job saying,

“The LORD said to Satan, ‘Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man fearing God and turning away from evil. And he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause.”

King David also used Sheol to signify the place he would end up (Psalm 30:3, 88:3, 89:48, 139:8).  David actually claimed to be in Sheol during his earthly life, from which God rescued him multiple times (Psalm 18:5, 49:15, 86:13, 116:3).  Now I am sure that David was speaking symbolically, being poetic about the gravity of his circumstances, but never the less, the fact that he applies Sheol so intimately to his own experience adds considerable weight to the fact that even the righteous are not exempt from Sheol.

Now, there are some who would claim that the Bible doesn’t actually explicitly state that David went to Sheol due to the fact that in Psalm 16:10 David himself declares that,

“[God] will not abandon [his] soul to Sheol; nor will [He] allow [His] Holy One to undergo decay.”

The problem is that Peter in the book of Acts, being just filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, interprets this psalm to be prophesying of Christ, and not of David himself.  Peter makes this undeniably clear saying,

“For David says of Him…‘you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow your Holy One to undergo decay’…Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.” (Acts 2:25-35)

So Peter, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit interpreted that David’s claim to not be abandoned to Sheol did not apply to himself, but to Christ.  The implication being that David’s body did decay and his soul is sleeping in Sheol, awaiting resurrection.

Not only that, but this verse is applied to Christ.  And it is not stating that Christ would NOT go to Sheol, but that He would not be abandoned there.  In other words Christ would go to Sheol when He died, but He would not be left there…He would be rescued from it.  As we all will one day.

Following David we have Hezekiah.  Scripture says of him in 2 Kings 18:1-6,

“[Hezekiah] did right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father David had done. He removed the high places and broke down the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the sons of Israel burned incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan. He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel; so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him. For he clung to the LORD; he did not depart from following Him, but kept His commandments, which the LORD had commanded Moses.”

Hezekiah was certainly righteous as we can see above, and b/c of that he was one of the most highly praised kings in Judah’s lineage.  Hezekiah however was stricken with a mortal illness from which we was not going to recover, but the Lord healed him and he composed a psalm about it that is recorded in the book of Isaiah, chapter 38:9-20.  In verses 9-11 it is expressly clear that he fully expected to arrive in Sheol when his earthly life ended.

“A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah after his illness and recovery: I said, ‘In the middle of my life I am to enter the gates of Sheol; I am to be deprived of the rest of my years.’  I said, ‘I will not see the LORD, the LORD in the land of the living; I will look on man no more among the inhabitants of the world.’”

Following Hezekiah we have the prophet Jonah, and although he may not have displayed a humble and godly attitude, he was never the less repentant and obedient in the end.  Jonah as we all know was swallowed by a whale and remained in its belly for 3 days and 3 nights.  It was during this time that Jonah considered himself to have been in Sheol saying,

“Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the stomach of the fish, and he said, ‘I called out of my distress to the LORD, and He answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; You heard my voice. For You had cast me into the deep, Into the heart of the seas, and the current engulfed me. All Your breakers and billows passed over me. So I said, ‘I have been expelled from Your sight. Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.’ Water encompassed me to the point of death. The great deep engulfed me, Weeds were wrapped around my head. I descended to the roots of the mountains.  The earth with its bars was around me forever, but You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God.’’

Lastly we have the prophet Samuel; the Bible declares that Samuel was a great prophet and servant of the Lord (1 Samuel 3:19), in fact he probably wrote the inspired book of Judges, so he is most assuredly one of God’s most anointed saints…and yet he too ended up in Sheol!  Although he is not directly recorded as being in Sheol, it is certainly implied as you will see in the following.

There is a curious instance in the Bible, after Samuel had died, where king Saul sought out a medium in order to try to contact Samuel.  When the witch at Endor succeeded in contacting Samuel it says,

“Then Samuel said to Saul, ‘Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?’”  (1 Samuel 28:15)

Now surely Heaven is considered to be “above” and anyone who does a word search on Sheol in the Bible will see how often Sheol is connected with being “below.”  Here are a few examples – Genesis 42:38; Numbers 16:33; 1 Kings 2:6 Job 7:9; Psalm 55:15; Isaiah 14:15; Ezekiel 32:27.  Thus in order for Samuel to be “brought up” he must have gone “down into Sheol,” even as Christ descended into the lowermost parts of the earth in order to ascend upon high (Ephesians 4:8-10).

All this is undeniable evidence that Scripture asserts that even the righteous are resting in Sheol.  It is therefore most certainly NOT synonymous with hell.  Related to this is that one can go to Sheol in peace and one can go to Sheol in sorrow, mouring, or even blood (Genesis 37:35, 42:38; 1 Kings 2:6,9).  It appears that depending upon your circumstances in life, you will go there having suffered for wickedness, or go there having been blessed in life due to godly character.

Those In Sheol Can Be Rescued From It

The second anomaly that certainly separates Sheol from our concept of hell is that people can and will be rescued from Sheol.  Such a thought is unheard of in our modern view of hell.

Sheol was and still is considered to be unrelenting, never being satiated with the dead, and that once you went there you could not escape (Job 7:9; Psalm 89:48; Proverbs 27:20, 30:16).  Nevertheless though one who goes there does not have the power to get themselves out the Lord certainly does have the power to rescue from Sheol.

Sheol is declared to be naked and open before God, it is not closed off to Him, He can reach even into Sheol (Job 26:6; Proverbs 15:11).  In fact Scripture states that,

“…even if I make my bed in Sheol, behold You are there.” (Psalm 139:8)

David further declares in 1 Samuel 2:6 that, “The Lord kills and makes alive, He brings down to Sheol and raises up.”  David even declared in faith that God would, “…redeem my soul from the power of Sheol.”

Thus David’s prophecy concerning Christ, “You will not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor allow Your Holy One to undergoe decay,” is also applicable to His Body and (dare I say it?) even to all men.

The logic is as follows, certainly we will all go to Sheol, and our bodies will decay, but this promise states that the soul will be rescued from Sheol and the body will be certainly be resurrected at some point, and Daniel declares that all those who sleep in the dust will awaken to a resurrection (Daniel 12:2).  The book of Revelation also confirms this at the Great White Throne Judgment, where Hades and Death give up all the dead who are in them, both good and bad (Revelation 20:11-15; Hades being the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Sheol as we will see in the next few blogs).

Christ and Paul both also declare that all men will be resurrected (John 5:28,29; Acts 24:15).  Though nobody in Sheol can escape from it, in the end God will deliver all from its grip.  Thus God declares in Hosea 13:14,

“Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol?  Shall I redeem them from death?  O Death, where are your thorns?  O Sheol, where is your sting?”

God will triumph over death, and Sheol will find itself emptied, as we shall see in the next blog as we take a look at the Greek word Hades; for Hades is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew concept of Sheol.