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What the Hell can be expected?

One’s concept of Hell usually comes from a variety of sources. Sadly, cartoon images can figure largely in how one thinks of Hell. If we attempt to build an understanding strictly from biblical sources, a very different picture can emerge. Generally there are two words translated hell in the bible. Sheol from the Old Testament and Hades from the Greek tend to describe a place where those souls who have died reside. The word geheena in the gospels is also translated hell. However, this is more a reference to a valley south of Jerusalem when infants had been sacrificed to the god Molech by incinerating them. It may also have been used as a garbage dump at the time of Jesus. It may have had a local meaning of a place of destruction.

From the end of Revelation we see that there will be a judgment called the great white throne judgment where those not written in the Lamb’s book of life are judged according to their works. These are then disposed of in the Lake of Fore which is called the “second death”. Many usually take this to be the place of eternal conscious torment for the unsaved. The idea of “eternal” comes from translators who used the English word to translate the Greek “aions” which simply meant “an age”. The idea of eternality may come from Neo Platonism through Augustine.

A description of what is called hell in Luke 16 describes a place (hades) with two parts. One part has Lazarus and Abraham at rest and another part has former rich man in torments. It is interesting that the rich man is experiencing torment before any judgment. The word translated torment is “basanos” in the Greek and was used to describe a touchstone used to determine the purity of gold and silver coins. it was also used to describe the torture used on Greek slaves in legal proceedings to verify the truth of their testimony (the idea of revealing truth seems to be at the core of the word). It may be possible that there is a sort of torment to bring out truth for those who have held the truth in unrighteousness. The object of this might be to bring those who resisted truth to the point of being able to bend the knee and confess that Jesus is Lord.

Eternal life is described as a gift from God for those who trust in Jesus. It would seem unlikely that this gift would be given to the unsaved so that they could suffer eternally. In addition, the unsaved are often described as perishing and being destroyed. We do not have specific and detailed information. However, what we do have is indications of torment and suffering that may even be before judgment.

The idea that people need to be threatened with hell so that they become Christians seems to be inconsistent with how evangelism was conducted in the New Testament. Even in the description of the rich man we find that his asking that Lazarus be allowed to return and warn his brothers that the request is denied since it would be ineffective because if his brothers were not interested in what Moses and the prophets had to say, they would not be moved even if one return from the dead.

Thew phrase “weeping and gnashing of teeth” seems to be used in the gospels with reference to Israel such that perhaps more than physical pain, the pain of regret for having squandered the opportunity they were given and knew about is in view. Jesus describes those who did not help his “brethren” in the tribulation would be cast into “eternal” fire. The word eternal in the KJV is better translated age-lasting”.While hades and the lake of fire are real and there are torments, we do not have a complete picture of who, how, what , when, where, and why. However, we do have enough information to be grateful that those who trust in the gospel of salvation in Christ are not subjected to these consequences.

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