Is it Scriptural to Believe in Hell?

Whatever particular image the term "Hell" brings to your mind, we can say to most people, it generally yields a concept of a place where punishment for sin is meted out, often under torturous circumstances.

Early church fathers and medieval theologians alike both circulated the notion of a scorching, ever-burning furnace, where evildoers are cast and abandoned to an undying existence of torment and anguish. Modern day religious leaders of Christendom have moved away somewhat from the fire and brimstone mentality, and have promulgated various perceptions of hell being only a state of separation from God, or the idea that while hell still may be a literal place, it is not the sweltering underworld governed by pitchfork-yielding fiends as is popularly displayed.

What is your view of hell? Does life, in some form, continue to an everlasting destiny of agony for unrepentant sinners? What does the Bible reveal about hell, and those who go there? More importantly, is the proposal of a torturous oven of outlaws consistent with the Bible's clear depiction of a God of love?

For centuries, a fiery hell has been envisioned as the certain destiny for the wicked. But Christianity doesn't hold the monopoly on this teaching. The threat of painful retribution in some type of afterlife can be found in Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and Taoist teachings, among others.

Pope John Paul, in a 1999 address at Vatican City, watered down the flames some when he said that "Rather than a place, hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God." Since then, Catholicism has made attempts to redefine hell yet again, and individual beliefs as to what hell really is have been lost somewhere in between.

Granted, the Bible does use imagery that can easily evoke a mental picture of flaming, eternal damnation, if taken literally. Who of us has not experienced the acute pain of suffering a burn? But the main function of fire, both in a literal sense, and as symbolized throughout the Bible, is to secure destruction, not agony. Our thinking process is such that we associate a burn with pain, and then by extension, associate fire with pain. We thus may be using our mind's eye to see Bible terms such as hell, Hades, Sheol, Gehenna, sulfur, fire and others as all relating to the same burning place of persecution.

However, a diligent student of the Bible, who has done their own thorough research, and not relied on the tradition of this teaching, will come to understand that there is a distinction in these terms. This discernment may help to avoid forming a scriptural assumption regarding something that is, in fact, not there.

Rather than discussing each Bible text that may be misconstrued to support the idea of hell as a literal place, let's examine one such text that is popularly used. Then we'll scripturally consider texts that overthrow the idea of hell as a literal place.

The book of Revelation (known as the most symbolic of all the books of the Bible) in the 20^th chapter, starting in verse 10, says that in "the lake of fire and sulphur... they will be tormented day and night forever and ever." A frightening thought. But consider the context. Verse 10 says that the Devil would be put there by God's hand as well. Verse 14 says that "death and Hades" (or literally, hell) would also be "hurled into the lake of fire."

The Devil is supposedly hell's caretaker; he is its owner we could say. So why would God enforce punishment on the Devil by relegating him to a place that the Devil has proprietorship over already? Even more significantly, how can death and Hades, who are not literal persons, be sent to hell? As you can easily conclude, they cannot experience conscious torment, nor literally be sent anywhere. Additionally, how can hell be put into hell? The lake of fire in the Bible simply means total extinction, oblivion. When one looks at it this way, the prophecy as found at Revelation chapter 20 becomes unambiguous.

Other popular "hell" scriptures, such as the ones found at Mark 9:47 and 48, Isaiah 66:24, Revelation 14:9-11, among others, can all be absolved of promoting a fiery, excruciating hell, if one makes an unbiased consideration of the context and etymology.

But the thinking on this matter is also heavily influenced by something else, hellfire's religious twin: the doctrine of the immortality of the human soul. Many faiths have mired these two concepts together. After all, if the immortal human soul leaves a body after death, it has to go somewhere. If not to heaven, then where?

We know of God's original warning given to Adam regarding the eating of the fruit from the "tree of the knowledge of good and bad." (Genesis 2:9) This tree represented the Creator's universal sovereignty, and His right to govern his creation in a just and loving way. When the first couple partook of this fruit, they rejected that reality, set off on a course of autonomy, and allowed their free will to be manipulated by the Devil to the point where they disobeyed God. The punishment?

Verse 17 of that same chapter tells us: "But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die." Chapter 3 of Genesis, verse 19, further confirms this consequence. After eating of the fruit, God says to Adam, "To dust you are, and to dust you will return." There was no suggestion, no implication that a part of Adam was undying and would survive this judgment.

This concept, that the human soul is immortal, has influenced theology for a long time, but is, simply stated, not biblical. The Bible does not teach the natural immortality of the soul. Scriptures such as those found at Ezekial 18:4 and 20 show that the soul dies. How can a soul be immortal if the Bible indicates it "dies?"

The answer is that in the Bible, the soul simply represents life. Other scriptures speak of the "soul" doing such normal things as working, craving food, being kidnapped, experiencing sleeplessness, and so forth. (Leviticus 23:30, Deuteronomy 12:20, 24:7, Psalm 119:28) The Bible says that Adam, when created, "came to be a living soul". (Genesis 2:7) He did not receive a soul; he did not have a soul, he was a soul. Even animals are considered to be souls. (Genesis 1:20,21) Does some tangible part of an animal live on after death? Hardly.

Consider even how Adam came to have life. Genesis 2:7 shows that God formed Adam out of the existing elements, and then blew into him the "breath of life." Although breathing sustained his lungs, this "breath of life" that God gave Adam was much more than simple lung resuscitation. It meant that God gifted Adam with the spark of life, the "force of life", or "spirit", which is active in all earthly creatures. (Genesis 6:17, 7:22, James 2:26)

Think of it as the electrical current that activates an appliance. Your computer that you're reading this on perhaps. The current itself does not take on the features of the machine it runs, nor does it survive in another form once turned off. On its own, it has no personality and no thinking ability.

What happens to that life force, or spirit, when a person dies? Psalm 146:4 clearly tells us. "His (man's) spirit goes out, he goes back to the ground; in that day his thoughts do perish." Back to the ground, just as God told Adam. Adam, as a soul, died, and his spirit, or life force, left him, as God said it would. No part of Adam floated off to another realm. Nor does anyone else's.

Scripturally, death is simply the state of non-existence. Since the dead have no conscious afterlife, hell cannot be a place of torment where the wicked are made to suffer. It may surprise you to learn that even Christ was spoken of as being in hell! Says Acts 2:31: "Neither was Jesus forsaken in Hades (hell), nor did his flesh see corruption."

Undoubtedly, God did not send Jesus, whom he dearly loved, a perfect man who committed no sin, to hell. Rather, this scripture shows that God did not simply leave the deceased Jesus in death, but, as foretold, resurrected him on the third day.

Consider also the case of Job, a righteous man, whom Satan had targeted in an attempt to fracture Job's integrity to God. Among other things, God allowed Satan to take away Job's livestock, his house, and his family. Job himself was struck with a terrible disease. His means of living and his loved ones were ripped from him. He was left naked and miserable, without dignity. Of course, he held his integrity, and refused to curse God, despite the betrayal of his closest friends and even his wife. But Job, wishing to escape the tortuous existence that his life had been reduced to, prayed that God would conceal him in Sheol (hell). (Job 14:13) How unreasonable to think that Job desired to go to a place of eternal torment, just to end his temporary earthly torment! No, Job knew that hell was simply the grave, and he wanted his suffering to end in death.

Finally, let us consider the qualities of God himself. Is God's intrinsic character consistent with the idea of hell? Not at all! The idea that a beloved creation of God would have to undergo physical and mental torture through time unending is profoundly disturbing, and paints God as cruel, to say the least. God is the very epitome of love. Love in its most excellent, purest form. (1 John 4:8)

What would we think of a fellow human who satisfied a thirst for revenge in such barbaric fashion? Can we paint God with those same harsh brush strokes? Indeed, how can we draw close to a God who tells us to love our enemies, if he desires and allows his own enemies to be tortured for eternity? (James 4:8) As Christians, we do not worship a deity of such heinous vindictiveness; this idea of hell is not compatible with the nature of God, and in light of what we know God to be, makes no moral sense.

But are we then inconsolably left without a hope for the future? Never!

Both Revelation 20:13 and John 5:28, 29, among other verses, speak of the brilliant promise of a resurrection. Millions who have died, the remembrance of whom exist in God's perfect and magnificent memory, will be restored to life here on a paradise earth. This is what Job knew to be true. (Job 14:14,15) This is what Lazarus experienced, as well as many others, through the power vested into Christ by his Father. (John 11)

God's original purpose of an earth filled with those who love him and one another, liberated from sickness and death, still stands as the hope for millions. (Revelation 21:3,4) Freed from the horrific anxiety of everlasting punishment, loosed from the ill-defined notion that some fragment of a person hovers away to unseen realms, the truth of the Bible shines apparent.

Indeed, the "truth will set you free." (John 8:32). We pray for the blessings of God's Kingdom, and his will for mankind, including the hope of a resurrection, "to come" here upon earth. (Matthew 6:10) We look forward to the time when the "meek... will posses the earth", and when the righteous "will reside forever upon it." (Psalm 37:11, 29) Clearly, the earth is to be restored to its rightful paradisiacal destiny, with the righteous and the resurrected enjoying it to the full. God did not create the earth as some sort of temporary proving ground, with all of mankind floating away to heaven or hell.

The unadulterated truth as set forth in the Bible gives us our hope. Jehovah's Witnesses invite you to study the Bible with them, so that you too can share in beautiful promises such as these.