The Truth About Hell

The Word Hell

Hell is a word that is found 54 times in the King James Version of the Bible. Many churches believe that hell is a place of torturous suffering in literal, unquenchable fire where the unsaved and wicked go after they die, remaining there forever, with no hope of release. Others believe that hell is a place where the unsaved and wicked go after death and will experience eternal separation from God.

Most believe that saved Christians go directly to heaven at their death. Others believe all will be saved, if not now, then in the future Kingdom of God, whose King will be the Lord Jesus Christ.

Catholics added an interim place where most Catholics go to have their sins purged before they can reach heaven. This place, called Purgatory, is also a place of suffering, but only temporary. They believe sainted Catholics alone go directly to heaven when they die.

Non-Christian religions have their own teachings of what happens after death, such as being reincarnated into another form or being, and many other concepts too numerous to consider in this article.

Let us now consider what the Bible says on our subject. First, we need to understand what God said is the penalty for sin. In Gen. 2:16 we read, "And the LORD God commanded the man, 'You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.'"

God said clearly, the penalty for sin was death! If there was to be such a place of eternal suffering or separation, God would have clearly spoken it to Adam. It would be grossly unjust of God not to tell them about it at the time He gave them His warning. Since God is completely just and righteous, this point must be strongly considered for the proper understanding of our topic.

The penalty for sin is simply that life ceases, which is death. Adam and Eve, after they sinned, eventually died — they ceased to exist. This death penalty was then passed on to all their posterity, as Romans 5:12 clearly states: "...just as sin entered the world through one man (Adam), and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all have sinned."

Job had a true understanding of the brevity of life and what follows. In Job 14:1-2 he said, "Man, born of woman, is of few days and full of trouble. He springs up like a flower and withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure."

But Job also believed that there would be a resurrection of the dead in God's due time. Job 14:10-14 says, "But man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more. As water disappears from the sea or a riverbed becomes parched and dry, so man lies down and does not rise; till the heavens are no more, men will not awake or be roused from their sleep. If only you would hide me in the grave and conceal me till your anger has passed! If only you would set me a time and then remember me! If a man dies, will he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait for my renewal to come."

The Book of Ecclesiastes offers us more enlightenment about the condition of the dead. Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10: "For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten.... Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working, nor planning, nor knowledge, nor wisdom."

Clearly, we are told death is the cessation of life, and those who die rest in their graves until the resurrection.

Since the body ceases to live at death, is there such a thing as a separate immortal soul which lives on? This doctrine of the immortality of the soul is a prominent teaching of most Christian churches and many non-Christian religions. Yet this term is not found in the Scriptures.

In Matthew 10:28 Jesus says to His disciples, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell."

Note that Jesus states clearly that the soul can be destroyed by God, and since this is the case, it cannot be immortal. The body and the soul cease to exist or live at death when it enters the grave. Ezekiel 18:20 says clearly, "The soul who sins shall die."

Let us go to the first mention of the word soul in the Bible. In Genesis 2:7 we read, "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Since Adam became a living soul when God breathed into him the breath of life, it is logical to conclude that when that breath of life is withdrawn, the person becomes a dead soul.

Hell in the Old Testament

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and uses the word sheol. In the King James Version, sheol is translated grave 31 times, hell 31 times, and pit 3 times. Translations are often biased, depending on the translators. In the American Standard Version of 1901, the Revised Standard Version, and the New Revised Standard, translators recognized this pitfall and left the word sheol untranslated 63 times. The New King James Bible left it untranslated 18 times.

Since this problem exists in most translations, we must be cautious in considering the context to get the proper understanding. Where it would not make sense for translators to render the word sheol as hell, they interpreted it as grave or pit. Please read: 1 Samuel 2:6; Job 14:13; Hosea 13:14; Psalm 49:14-15; Psalm 30:3.

Let us now look at some texts translating sheol as hell. Psalm 18:4-5: "The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me" (KJV). David — who the Scriptures say was "a man after God's own heart" (Acts 13:22) — had no fear of going to a fiery hell, because he knew that when he died he would be in the grave until the resurrection.

Later in life, he stated in Psalm 88:3, "For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draws nigh unto the grave" (KJV). This confirms that the true translation of Psalm 18:4-5 above should be grave. The NAS, NIV, and others also render sheol as grave and not hell.

Let us look at one more text, found in Ezekiel 31:15-17: "Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day when he went down to the grave I caused a mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods thereof, and the great waters were stayed: and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him. I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth. They also went down into hell with him unto them that be slain with the sword; and they that were his arm, that dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen" (KJV).

Both times where the word hell and the one rendered grave are used, they come from the Hebrew word sheol. This text, speaking of those who had died, in an unbiased translation would have rendered all three words as grave.

The "hell-fire" doctrine, so often attributed to God, where unsaved souls shall experience excruciating pain and suffering forever, is an abomination in the sight of God. Jeremiah 32:35 states: "And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin" (KJV).

If God condemned this type of torturous sacrifice — which was but temporary torture — and said such a thing never even entered His mind, how can any believe that He invented a place called hell where unsaved souls would be tortured forever with no hope for it to end?

Hell in the New Testament

The New Testament was written in Greek and uses the word hades. In the American Standard Version of 1901, the Revised Standard, and the New Revised Standard, hades is left untranslated 10 times; in the New King James Version, 11 times; and in the New International, 5 times. Again, since this problem exists in most translations, we must carefully consider the context to get the proper understanding.

Acts 2:27 quotes from Psalm 16:10. Acts 2:27 says, "Because you will not leave my soul in hell, neither will you suffer your Holy One to see corruption" (KJV). If hell was a place that one was condemned to forever, why would David say that God will not leave his soul in hell? It was because David knew of the resurrection of the dead and thus knew God would not leave his soul in the grave forever because of God's promise of a Savior.

Jesus, speaking in Rev. 1:18, says, "I am He that lives and was dead and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death" (KJV). Jesus truly died and was in the tomb (grave) for three days, then God raised Him up to life (Acts 2:32). This agrees with the texts in the previous paragraph: "...neither wilt you suffer your Holy One (Jesus) to see corruption (decay)."

Romans 14:9 says, "For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life, so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living" (NIV). Jesus will be Lord over the resurrected dead in his coming Kingdom, for all that are in their graves shall hear His voice and come forth (John 5:28-29).

The Meaning of Gehenna

What about the word Gehenna, also translated as hell? Gehenna, according to the reputable McClintock and Strong Cyclopedia, was a place in the Valley of Hinnom which is a little south of Jerusalem. "It became the common lay-stall of the city, where the dead bodies of criminals, and the carcasses of animals, and every other kind of filth was cast. From the depth and narrowness of the gorge, and perhaps its ever-burning fires, as well as it being the receptacle of all sorts of putrefying matter and all that defiled the Holy City, it became in later times the image of the place of everlasting punishment."

It is important to note that nothing alive was cast into this gorge — only dead bodies of criminals and animals. Nothing suffered in it. Whatever was cast into it was totally destroyed in the ever-burning fires. Jesus, when referring to Gehenna, used it as a symbol of total destruction, of that which passed into oblivion to be seen no more. Men later put their own interpretation on Gehenna and then associated it with their hell-fire teachings.

Matthew 5:29 uses the Greek word Gehenna, but the KJV and many others render it hell: "And if your right eye offend you, pluck it out, and cast it from you: for it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish and not that your whole body be cast into hell (Gehenna)" (KJV).

Jesus uses the word perish, which means to stop existing. So Jesus is saying that it is better for one offending body member to perish than for the eventuality of the whole body perishing. There are those in Churchianity who claim that the body goes to the grave while the soul goes to hell. From reading texts such as the one just quoted, we can see how eternal torment is not taught in any form. Jesus used the word Gehenna to symbolize total destruction, knowing that anything in it was always destroyed.

We read in Genesis 3:19 that a person's body returns to dust at death. In Matt. 5:29 quoted above, Jesus used members of the body to symbolize those things which are very precious to us. As disciples of Jesus, should some material possessions stand in our way of gaining eternal life, it would be better to give them up rather than lose life.

Mark 9:43-48 repeats Matt. 5:29-30, but there it is also stated that worms are found in hell (Gehenna). Mark was referring to Isaiah 66:24, where the Prophet had referred to the dead bodies in the Valley of Hinnom. As long as it contained something combustible, the fire kept burning, and as long as the fires left something there for the worms to eat, they did not die out. However, if you go there today, you will not see either fire or worms! In Job 17, worms are associated with the corruption of the grave, and Job 24:19 states that the grave will consume the sinners. Gehenna infers destruction and death for all wicked.

In Luke 12:4-5, our Lord tells us, "I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell (Gehenna); fear him" (NIV).

Jesus was saying we should never fear man who can only kill the body, but we are to fear God, who is able to cast us into Gehenna — total destruction, annihilation. When a man is killed by another man, his eternal existence is not jeopardized. However, the wicked, whom God considers incorrigible, will be everlastingly destroyed. That is what is meant when they are cast into Gehenna. God considers these unfit for eternal life.

We have only listed some of the Scriptures where Gehenna is rendered as hell in the KJV. In all others, the meaning of Gehenna remains the same. It is a symbol of total destruction and not eternal torture.

Another Greek word, which appears only in 2 Peter 2:4, is translated "cast them down to hell" in the KJV. It is the verb tartaroo, from the Greek mythological Tartaros, and describes the incarceration of disobedient angels who are kept there as they await their judgment. There again, the word hell was a poor translation of the Greek word.

— CBF