What is hell? Is it an actual place or a metaphor? Is it a place of punishment or is it better characterized as separation from God? Is hell reserved for those who rejected Jesus? What about those who never heard of Jesus? Will I end up there if I don’t believe it’s an actual, physical place of torture?
I’m tempted to stop there. I don’t have answers (although I have some opinions). Have at it. But I’ll add a little bit and you can tell me whether I should have stopped at the questions.
Some folks get really wound up by hell, saying it’s a real place of eternal punishment, filled with fire, pain, wailing, and gnashing of teeth (which I read somewhere signified anger and not pain). Hell is punishment for all our sins, punishment we deserve, punishment anyone who doesn't profess Jesus as their personal savior will get. And, they say, the problem with the world is that people don’t believe in a real hell (I think that’s also in C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters).
Other people say hell is a state of being and not a place. Hell reflects our separation from God, the absence of love, and is more the consequences of our choices than a punishment God actively inflicts on us.
This post was triggered by three posts on the Jesus Creed blog about a recent book by Edward Fudge, called Hell: A Final Word, (here, here, and here). I needed more words, so I read the responses to questions about hell in Banned Questions about the Bible (p. 16-18 and 90-93). Then I looked at scripture passages and notes on hell in my study Bible, consulted The Oxford Companion on the Bible, and did a Google search on “What does the Bible say about hell?”, which provides a clear answer if you only look at one link.
What does the Bible say about hell? Possibly not as much as some traditions have developed. In fact, the concept of hell (which is the English translation of several Hebrew and Greek words used in the Bible) evolves in the Bible. The Hebrew word “Sheol” in our Old Testament refers to “the grave” or “the resting place for souls.” Jewish thinking on the concept of separate places for the righteous and the sinners developed during and after their exile in Babylon, influenced by the Zoroastrians in Persia. This can be found in parts of the Apocrypha which aren't included in most Protestant Bibles. In the New Testament, the Greek word “Hades” means “the realm of the dead,” while the word “Gehenna” is reserved for a place of pain or punishment (Matt 5:22, 10:28; James 3:6). Revelation brings more imagery of a fiery hell as punishment (Rev 20:11-15; 21:5-8). But a lot more of the imagery comes from Dante’s Inferno than the Bible.
There’s an interesting history behind the word “Gehenna” that Jesus uses in the Gospels. Originally, it was the Hebrew name for a valley south of Jerusalem called “the valley of Hinnom,” which may have been a burning refuse dump in Jesus’ time. That would have provided a vivid image for those who lived then. But that valley also had a long history of being used by Judeans who strayed from God to sacrifice children by fire to another god (2 Chronicles 28:1-4 and 33:1-6; Jeremiah 7:30-34). The valley represented a horrible fate brought on by people who had become separated from God.
Here I agree with those commenters in Banned Questions… who said that whether hell is an actual place or a metaphor for separation from God, it’s a good place to avoid.
Does God use hell as a place of punishment or is it a natural consequence we experience when we choose not to follow God? How we answer that question may say more about us and our theology than it does about God. I have trouble reconciling hell as a place of eternal torment and punishment with what I understand about God as love and about the grace we see through Jesus. It’s easier for me to see hell as the consequence that comes when we choose to separate ourselves from God. But I could be wrong (and there were a whole lot of opinions to that effect expressed on web sites I visited in my Google search).
When I read that God is love (1 John 4:7-12) or that God sent Jesus to save the world, not condemn it, I’m more inclined to agree with this part of Jim Robinson’s response in “Banned Questions…”:
“I prefer to err on the side of grace rather than rules, laws, and prerequisites. I find in scripture a movement away from law and towards grace.” [p. 17]
Your turn: What do you believe about hell? Is it a real place or is it a metaphor for being separated from God? What do you think it means to be separated from God? How do you resolve the concept of hell with grace? Do you agree with Jim Robinson that our current concept of hell is a misrepresentation of scripture?
So far, this post has inspired underwhelming interest. But in case you're interested, here's an interesting link that argues that hell isn't something God chooses for us but something we choose on our own:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2013/01/30/from-the-inside/
Here's a brief excerpt:
"...to say God chooses to send us to Hell is to suggest that there’s something God did not accomplish in Jesus, something God did not defeat on the Cross. And that’s the glaring theological problem with the three traditional views of Hell. The premise, the assumption, behind each of them is that Hell must be something God chooses for us.
"But, in scripture, especially in Jesus’ teachings, Hell is something we choose for ourselves. And that’s scarier than pitchforks and gnashing teeth.
"It’s not that God needs to be reconciled to us. He does that on the Cross.
Hell is our refusal to be reconciled to God. "Hell is something we choose."
He goes on to say that maybe the question isn't whether God forgives each of us, no matter our sins, but whether we choose to let go and choose heaven:
"Within each of us there is something: anger, resentment, contempt, greed, self-love, self-loathing that if we don’t put it out, if we don’t ask God to extinguish it, it can consume us.
In this life.
And into the next."
He finishes with this quote:
"Hell is prison where the doors are locked from the inside."
Busy week here, but…I read somewhere that most theologians today take a universalist view, that Christ’s sacrifice was for everyone, not just Christians. I can’t think of a place in the Bible where it says that the cross is for Christians only.
ReplyDeleteThe best definition of Hell I’ve found is that it’s someone’s willful denial of God. The Biblical basis for that can be found in Luke 16 in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich guy is burning in Hades and seeing this beggar Lazarus, demands a drink from him (the rich guy obviously still doesn’t get it). Then the rich guy sees Abraham and begs him to warn his brothers about hell so they don’t join him there. Significantly, the rich guy doesn’t express any regret for his behavior or beg to get out of Hell (!). Completely unrepentant, he never acknowledges God in any way. I think that there’s a good case to be made that modern atheists are in Hell today. William Lane Craig says that life without God is absurd. I think he’s right; and an absurd life is also pretty much devoid of meaning. It leads to a dark view of the world and some level of depression. Even if you had fame and/or fortune, just think what a daily struggle that would be, or at the very least how much worse it would make your struggles.
I ran across this piece on Preaching Hell in a Tolerant Age by Tim Keller. Check it out: http://www3.dbu.edu/jeanhumphreys/DeathDying/preachinghell.htm
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