Eternal Punishment
I believe there is a great misunderstanding of what "hell" really is and it is largely based upon how we view "eternal punishment." As we said in the previous article, we have always been taught that "hell" is a place where there is nothing but fire and the devil and his demons live there and anxiously wait for people to die and come there so they can be tortured for eternity for the sins they committed during their short life on the earth. This is a Dante's Inferno picture of "hell." It has been preached for a long time and most folks have this picture in mind when they hear the word "hell."
Questions
Is this a true picture?
Is it soundly based on the Bible?
If the devil and his demons have always lived in a burning, firey "hell," why does it say in Revelations that they will be cast into the lake of fire?
If they have already been in a fire all this time, why would that be a threat to them?
The lake of fire is not hell and hell is not the lake of fire.
So what is "hell?"
If people go to hell when they die, it must be something different to what we imagine. In the scriptures, even David said, "thou will not leave my soul in hell." (This was actually prophetic of Jesus.) The Hebrew word translated "hell" is "sheol" and should have been translated "grave." It means: "thou will not leave my soul in the grave." This indicates resurrection is to take place, and it did, not only of Jesus, three days after he was crucified, but also many saints of old were raised and coming out of their tombs after His resurrection they appeared to many in the city of Jerusalem.
Wicked Dead
Isaiah, speaking of the wicked dead, said: "The dead will not live, the departed spirits will not rise; therefore Thou has punished and destroyed them, and Thou has wiped out all rememberance of them." Isaiah 26:14.
Righteous Dead
But speaking of the righteous dead, Isaiah said: "Your dead will live; their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy, for your dew is as the dew of the dawn, and the earth will give birth to the departed spirits. So come, my people, enter into your rooms, and close your doors behind you; hide for a little while, until indignation runs its course. 21. For behold, the Lord is about to come out from His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; and the earth will reveal her bloodshed, and no longer cover her slain." Isaiah 26:19.
Burning Hell?
Did either one of these groups go to a burning "hell?" No, they died and went to their grave. That's what the Hebrew word "Sheol," translated "hell" in the King James Bible means. But it is only translated "hell" about half of the time. The other half of the times it is used, it is translated "grave." So which is it? Notice that the wicked dead above just didn't exist any longer, but the ones labeled "Your dead" were to be resurrected and live again. "The earth will give birth to the departed spirits."
In Old Testament days, when someone died, he was put in a grave or tomb and he slept until the Lord raised him up. This was true only for the righteous dead, according the the above scripture.
Not valid for today!
The Old Testament law of an eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth (Mt. 5:38), is not valid for today. We are not judged for what we call "sins," but for "sin." The very fact of not accepting Jesus Christ as our savior is "sin." In fact, it is the sin that insures destruction. You see, when we do accept Jesus as the propitiation for our sin, it is His righteousness that saves us. When we trust in Him and following His precepts, His righteousness is imputed to us. Our self-righteousness is as filthy rags. It can never save us. Salvation by works is impossible.
As far as "sins" are concerned, the Bible says "if we judge ourselves we will not be judged" (This indicates a righteous, accurate judgment, not just an arbitrary decision). That means, when we die and face the Lord, if we judged ourselves rightly and repented of our sins, then there remains no judgment. Our sins are covered by the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
None Righteous
It is obvious that under the law no one could live a righteous life without sin. That is, no one except Jesus. He fulfilled all righteousness thereby redeeming us from the curse, but to do this, He had to die. "The wages of sin is death." He took our penalty to free us from the wages of sin. To receive His free gift, we have to believe on Him. That word believe means a lot more than we think. Strong's Concordance says it means:
"pisteuo," "persuasion, i.e, credence; mor. conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher), espec. reliance upon Christ for salvation; abstr. constancy in such profession; by extension, the system of religious (Gospel) truth itself:"
Belief and faith come from the same Greek word, "pistis". It means total reliance upon Jesus for our eternal salvation, adherence to, constancy in our profession of faith. You can see that It means much more than the English word "believe," which Webster defines as "to be reasonably sure that something is true."
When we believe, in the true sense of the word, we are freed from the sentence that was placed upon us by the sin of Adam. We do not have to fear eternal punishment or being cast into outer darkness away from God.
So just what does the Bible say "eternal punishment" is like?
If eternal punishment for not accepting Jesus Christ was: "to live forever in a burning hell," then Jesus, in order to atone for our sins would have had to burn in hell forever, in our place.
If our punishment was to be death, He would have had to die for us. The Bible says: "The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23. It doesn't say that the wages of sin is eternal life in a burning fire. Death is merely "cessation of life."
Is Jesus burning in hell? Of course not! Did He effectively make atonement for our sins? Of course He did! The requirement to satisfy our sentence was death and He paid it all.
Did Jesus Go to Hell?
Some believe that, when Jesus was crucified, He went to hell (a burning fire where they suppose that Satan lives) and brought out the captives from there. This is faulty doctrine. This assumes that the people who died before Christ were all in a burning hell. (You cannot find this in the Bible.) Then after He was crucified, they say, He went to hell to rescue them.
Why would they be in hell if they were to be freed from it? The Bible teaches that those Old Testament people died and "slept with their fathers." This is another way of saying they were placed in the tomb or grave and were "asleep" until the Messiah would come to free them from death (not from a burning hell). If they were wicked, they remained dead. (According to Isaiah 26:14.)
Sheol is the grave, so is hades!
As I said earlier, the word "sheol" in the Old Testament is merely the grave and it is translated that way half of the time, even in the KJV. The word "hell" comes from the old English word "helan," which means to cover something over. That's where we get our word "shell." So the people who died before Christ came (as the Messiah) were in their graves, not in a burning hell. We have to base our doctrines on the Bible, not cleverly devised tales.
By His death, Jesus paid our debt and we were freed from the sentence of the second death. Of course we will all have to die the natural death (it is appointed unto man once to die...Hebrews 9:27-28) but we will not have to taste the second death of eternal separation from God. Neither will Christians sleep in the grave. Those who accepted Jesus as their savior go immediately to be with Him when they die, and are given glorified (heavenly) bodies. They no longer have need of their fleshly bodies and never will. The old body returns to the dust from where it came.
In the New Testament, we find, the words "hades," "tartaroo," and "gehenna," all translated "hell." The three words have different meanings. "Hades" is the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew "sheol." It means, the grave.
Gehenna refers to the Valley of Hinnom, which was a refuse dump outside Jerusalem where people not worthy of a decent burial were thrown to burn up. Tartaroo is from the same root as "hades," and is only used once as a deep recess or pit.
Of these three, only gehenna relates to fire. It is a type of the lake of fire. Jerusalem was destroyed by fire and the world of the Jews of that time burned up and they were destroyed in it. Many jumped from the walls into the burning fire. The Scriptures said: "Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, (written before A. D. 70) by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition (destruction) of ungodly men."
Fear
However you relate to the above, fear of "hell" should not be your reason for accepting Jesus as your saviour. Desire to love and serve Him is a much greater reason. I am not sure that those who are "scared" into accepting Him really do. Maybe they are persuaded by their pastor that they are "saved." Salvation is more than "fire insurance."
