The Misconceptions About Hell

HELL

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The place and state of punishment and destruction, by eternal fire in the second death, of those who reject God and the offer of salvation in Jesus Christ. The Hebrew sheÕoÆl and the Greek hadeµs, both translated “hell,” refer to the unseen world, or world of the dead. The Greek geenna denotes the “hell” of fiery punishment. The Greek verb tartarooµ, “to cast [down] to hell,” occurs but once (2 Peter 2:4). Inasmuch as in the Bible the English word “hell” is used to connote a place of punishment for the impenitent, as well as the realm of the dead (geenna as well as sheÕoÆl and hadeµs), confusion often results. Recognizing the difference in meaning, the Revised Standard Version and other modern translations prefer to transliterate the Hebrew sheÕoÆl into English as Sheol and the Greek hadeµs as Hades. Of the 11 times hadeµs occurs in the New Testament, in nine instances the RSV retains the Greek transliteration. In one of the other instances (Matt. 16:18), the RSV translates the words of Christ rendered in the KJV as “the gates of hell,” as “the powers of death,” and in the other (1 Cor. 15:55) it renders hadeµs, “death.” In the four occurrences of hadeµs in Revelation, the term is in each instance connected with the word for death in the twin expression “death and Hades” (RSV). The word hadeµs appears on many ancient tombstones in Asia Minor with reference to the grave of the person there buried.

The Gr. term denoting a place of punishment, geenna, is used 12 times in the NT. It is derived from the Heb. GeÆ Hinnom, or “Valley of Hinnom,” the deep valley immediately to the south of Jerusalem. From OT references (Joshua 15:8; 2 Kings 23:10; Jer. 7:31) and from the description of its position in 1 Enoch 26:1–5, it has been identified with the present WaÆdé÷ er-RabaÆbeh. Jeremiah (2:23; 7:31, 32) indicates that the valley was the site where the barbaric heathen rite of burning children to Molech was conducted. Wicked King Ahaz seems to have instituted this devilish practice (2 Chron. 28:3; cf. Prophets and Kings 57). Manasseh, a grandson of Ahaz, restored this rite (2 Chron. 33:1, 6; cf. Jer. 32:35). Years later good King Josiah formally desecrated the high places in the Valley of Hinnom (2 Kings 23:10), thus bringing the practice to a halt. Jeremiah announced that because of this wicked practice the valley was to be called “valley of slaughter,” because there the enemies of the Jews would kill the fleeing inhabitants of Jerusalem and leave their bodies unburied (Jer. 7:32; 19:6, 7).

In the postexilic period, with the development of a definite doctrine of eschatology, the idea of a fiery hell as the place of punishment for sinners became a part of popular Jewish belief. GeÆ Hinnom was regarded first as the entrance to hell, and then as a term for hell itself. See also 1 Enoch 67:6; 90:26; 98:3. The tradition that makes the Valley of Gehenna a place of burning rubbish, and thus a type of the fires of the last day, appears to have originated with Rabbi Kimchi, a Jewish scholar of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Ancient Jewish literature knows nothing of the idea. The earlier rabbis cite Isa. 31:9 for the concept of Gehenna’s being a type of the fires of the last day.

Three times in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus referred to geena (Matt. 5:22, 29, 30). He also spoke of Him who is “able to destroy both soul and body in hell [geena ]” (Matt. 10:28), and warned the Pharisees of “the damnation of hell [geena ]” (Matt. 23:33). He said that it is better to be maimed and gain eternal life than to be cast whole into geena (Mark 9:43, 45, 47). Luke 12:5 clearly indicates that the geenna experience lies beyond death.

As to the nature and effect of hellfire, Bible teaching is clear. In Matt. 3:12 sinners are compared to chaff that is burned with “unquenchable fire” (cf. Mark 9:43–48; Luke 3:9). In Matt. 25:41 the wicked are represented as being consigned to “everlasting [aioµnios] fire.” And in Matt. 5:22 Jesus referred to the final judgment on the wicked as “hellfire.” All three passages refer to the fires of the last day that will devour the wicked and all their works. This fire will purge the earth (2 Peter 3:10–12; Luke 3:17). It will be ignited after all the finally impenitent who come up in the second resurrection (Rev. 20:5) are marshaled under Satan around the New Jerusalem (v. 9). (In other words, it is not burning now.) The devil, his evil confederates, and all who have been deceived by them are cast into this lake of fire (vs. 10, 14, 15).

Seventh-day Adventists have generally avoided the use of the word “annihilation” because of the connotation some have given it, such as that the wicked forever cease to exist at the first death. The SDA view is that “the unrighteous dead will . . . be resurrected, and with Satan and his angels will . . . [be consumed by] fire from God” (Church Manual [1990], p. 31).  This is the second death, from which there will be no resurrection. The word aioµnios, usually translated “everlasting” or “eternal,” and once “forever,” means literally, “lasting for an age,” in the sense of being continuous and not subject to capricious change. The English words “everlasting” and “eternal,” on the other hand, imply duration unlimited. The duration signified by aioµnios  must be determined by the nature of the person or thing it describes. In the NT aioµnios  is used to describe both the fate of the wicked and the reward of the righteous. Following the above principle, we find that the reward of the righteous is life to which there is no end, whereas the reward or judgment of the wicked is death to which there is no end (cf. Rom. 6:23). In John 3:16 “everlasting life” stands in contrast to “perish.”

The word “unquenchable” may be similarly understood. Jeremiah predicted that God would kindle a fire in Jerusalem that would “not be quenched” (Jer. 17:27). This prediction was fulfilled when the city was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar (2 Chron. 36:19–21). Obviously that fire is not burning today. It was unquenchable in the sense that the Jews were unable to put it out; it burned until it destroyed their city and went out.

This has been the Seventh-day Adventist position from the first. James White, one of the founders, wrote in 1850: “To those on his left hand the King will say, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’ This ‘everlasting fire’ is that which ‘comes down from God out of heaven,’ and DEVOURS them. It will ‘BURN THEM UP, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.’ This everlasting fire, which will not be quenched until the whole host of Gog and Magog are devoured, which was prepared for the devil and his angels, will burn up, not only the ‘root,’ the devil, but the branch, or branches, his children, not a scrap left, thank heaven! Then God will have a clean universe and there will be no more tempting devil to annoy the saints, or holy beings of other worlds” (Advent Review 1:50, September 1850).

Uriah Smith, for many years editor of the official church organ, the Review and Herald, wrote a series of articles in 1859 under the title “Mortal or Immortal, Which?” He made a thorough investigation of texts bearing on the subject, and in his concluding article stated that the doctrine of eternal punishment in hell, unless proof is found in Scripture, should be rejected “as most dangerous and destructive error.”

Seventh-day Adventists have also pointed to the inconsistency of the doctrine of eternal torment with the character of God as revealed in the Bible.

“How repugnant to every emotion of love and mercy, and even to our sense of justice, is the doctrine that the wicked dead are tormented with fire and brimstone in an eternally burning hell; that for the sins of a brief earthly life they are to suffer torture as long as God shall live. . . .

“Where, in the pages of God’s Word, is such teaching to be found? Will the redeemed in heaven be lost to all emotions of pity and compassion, and even to feelings of common humanity? Are these to be exchanged for the indifference of the stoic, or the cruelty of the savage? . . .

“What would be gained to God should we admit that He delights in witnessing unceasing tortures; that He is regaled with the groans and shrieks and imprecations of the suffering creatures whom He holds in the flames of hell? Can these horrid sounds be music in the ear of infinite Love? . . .

“It is beyond the power of the human mind to estimate the evil which has been wrought by the heresy of eternal torment. The religion of the Bible, full of love and goodness, and abounding in compassion, is darkened by superstition and clothed with terror. When we consider in what false colors Satan has painted the character of God, can we wonder that our merciful Creator is feared, dreaded, and even hated? The appalling views of God which have spread over the world from the teachings of the pulpit have made thousands, yes, millions of skeptics and infidels” (GC 535, 536).

As to Jesus’ story of the rich man and Lazarus, which is often presented as proof that the soul goes to its reward at death, SDAs believe that it was a parable and that Jesus was using an argument ad hominem based on the Pharisees’ erroneous concept of the condition of men and women in death.

This concept is reflected in Josephus’ discourse concerning Hades, in which he sets forth Hades as a place wherein the souls of all—both righteous and unrighteous—are confined until a proper season, which God has determined, when all will be resurrected from the dead. He pictures it as a subterranean region shrouded in darkness. In this region, he says, a place has been set apart as a lake of unquenchable fire, where the wicked will eventually be cast. At the gate of this region, presumably, stands an archangel, with a group of guards. Passing through the gate, the just are conducted to the right by their respective angels, to a place of light. Here in bliss and rejoicing, basking in the smiles of their forebears, they rest, awaiting the resurrection and eternal new life in heaven. This imaginary place is called “the bosom of Abraham.”

 
Josephus goes on to explain that as the unjust reach the gate, the angels drag them to the left into the neighborhood of hell itself. There they hear the noise of hell and feel its hot vapor, while awaiting in fearful expectation the horrors of the lake of fire. They may also look in the opposite direction and see the righteous enjoying the bliss of Abraham’s bosom. Between the two groups, however, there is a deep chasm which cannot be crossed by either the just or the unjust (“An Extract out of Josephus’s Discourse to the Greeks Concerning Hades,” in his Works, Whiston translation, Philadelphia [1853], pp. 524–526).