Ever seen people picketing on the street corner holding a sign with something about hell written on it?
I remember a time a few years ago in Colorado Springs when I saw a "Christian" who was picketing, holding a sign that said, Burn in Hell
Sinners as he yelled venomous messages of hatred to passersby on the
street, justifying it by saying that the prophets of old spoke of
destruction and ruin and so should we.
"Aren't we to call people to repentance?" he shot back at me when I had asked him why he was doing this and if he thought it was effective.
"Hell is about repentance!" he said confidently.
This is why the world knows more about what Christianity is against than what it is for.
Ever done a study on the word "hell" in the Scriptures? The past few weeks I've been doing a word study on it.
I'm not sure why I have never done a word study on hell before. Maybe its because I've always believed in the fact that there is a hell - ultimately believing that it is eternal separation from the presence of God Almighty. But I've also been embarrassed by the ways that Christians have abused, misinterpreted and misrepresented hell.
As I was doing this study I had the image of this picketer in my mind's eye.
What I found during this study surprised me.
Here's what I found...
Euphemism for Hell: Sometimes when Jesus taught he used a euphemism for hell, which he
described as a place where there is "weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Jesus used that euphemism six times in Matthew (8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13;
24:51 and 25:30) and one time in Luke (13:28). Each of those times were
when he was telling stories - and almost entirely when speaking to his
disciples.
One of the biblical words for hell is gahenna, which refers to the
Hinnom Valley just outside of the city walls in Jerusalem. When I
studied for a semester in Israel I spent many an afternoon running
around barefoot in the lush grass playing Ultimate Frisbee with other
students.It's a beautiful park today, but thousands of years ago it was an awful place. Absolutely awful.
The Hinnom Valley was said to be a place where trash and refuse was
taken outside of the city and where there were fires burning at all
times. It was also at this place where pagans went and sacrificed their
infant children in this valley to the gods, specfically the god Molech
as an act of worship - a detestable place! Shouts and screams and
shrieks would come from this valley, as one would only imagine in
seeing and hearing infants sacrificed and thrown into fire by their own
parents!Historians recorded that wild animals would wander around eating the remains. It was said that these wild animals would gnash their teeth together as they would wander around looking for food.
A place of fire...where there is weeping...and gnashing of teeth. The Valley of (ben) Hinnom. Check out these references to the Hinnom Valley in the Old Testament. When Jesus used the phrase "weeping and gnashing of teeth" it would have drudged up horrific images in the minds of those Jewish listeners who knew exactly what he was referring to... Jesus intended to make a graphic, detestable point that turned the stomachs of those who were in earshot.
Other words for hell: In addition to the Hinnom Valley or gahenna, there are other words that have been used for hell. One is the Old Testament word sheol (translated in the Revised Version as "lowest pit," "pit" or "grave" and found many times in Genesis, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Deuteronomy and the Psalms). Another word used for hell has been hades.
Explicit mention of hell in the New Testament: Explicitly, hell is mentioned only fourteen times in the Bible [twelve times by Jesus in the gospels - Matthew (7), Mark (3), Luke (2) - and once in both James and 2 Peter].
Here is the context around each of those fourteen references of hell:
-Mt 10:28: Jesus is teaching the disciples
-Mt 18:9: he teaches the disciples again
-Mt 23:15, 33: the famous "Woe Chapter" - Jesus rips the Pharisees a new one.
-Mk 9:43, 45, 47: Jesus speaks again to his disciples by way of intruction
-Luke 12: he's speaking to the disciples and a religious crowd
-Luke 16: uses narrative to address the Pharisees' complaint
-James 3:6 speaks of hell by talking about the destructive nature of the tongue
-In 2 Peter 2:4 Peter addresses false teachers in this section.
Reflections on the explicit mention of hell: Here are some conclusions that can be drawn from the passages I just listed.
-when Jesus spoke about hell he used it mostly to teach and instruct (nine times he used it to teach as a rabbi to his disciples) not to rebuke or call people to repentance.
-he uses it in story format when talking to the religious experts
-He was most emotional around the religious. The only time he talks about hell when ripping on people was with the most religious people in the land - the Pharisees.
And finally - catch this - Jesus never mentions hell to those who are irreligious.
Not once. Yeah, seriously. Look it up.
Not to the women caught in adultery, nor the woman at the well. Not the lepers. Not to Zacchaeus nor the other oppressive tax collectors eating at his house. Not to the man who cut himself, lived in a cave and was demon-possessed. Jesus spoke about hell only around those who are religious; those who thought they had their act together, who were striving to have all of their religious ducks in a row, who dotted their spiritual i's, who carefully minded their moral p's and q's.
Which has some seriously implications for those of us who are attempting to follow in the ways - and The Way - of Jesus and raises many questions regarding how we speak of hell to those who are far from God.
Makes me want to say to the picketing guy on the street who thinks he is doing something that honors God: put your sign away.
All this makes me believe that we might need to rethink our approach to hell.
Do I believe there is a hell?
Of course.
Do I think we need to be soft on repentance or we need to shy away from it because its politically incorrect?
No, but I do think that we need to understand our context and communicate the message of Jesus that gives a clear and accurate portrayal of who he was - with compassion and truthfulness.
But do I believe that as Christians that we need to rethink our approach to this topic?
Hell yes.
I played ultimate Frisbee in the same place when i was in Israel in '93.
My room was the one on the roof overlooking Hinnom Valley.
Posted by: brent | January 12, 2009 at 03:10 PM
J. R.
What do you think the implications are though? Obviously Jesus did talk about it and uses it to describe a horrid state. Or, it is responsible for a horrid state on earth. Both are probably present.
Based on the evidence you collected, it was like he was using it to motivate his disciples to help keep people out of it/away from it/free from it. Whether they were disciples or not disciples.
Part of that could be helping people understand what hell is. I think Jesus assumes that the woman at the well and the demon-possessed cutter guy already knew what hell was all about. He showed them life and they wanted that more than the death they were experiencing.
The more difficult scenario is the secular person who doesn't really know life or death. Pointing them to Jesus might not seem so desperate a task.
Jason
Posted by: jason smith | January 12, 2009 at 03:47 PM
"Hell Yes" - nice!
Posted by: Dan Harney | January 12, 2009 at 03:47 PM
I appreciate your sensitivity on this issue. I tend to lump hell in with the Canaanite genocide, the killing of Job's family, and the killing of innocent people for King David's sin. For me, these fit into the category, "things which I don't like that are really difficult to swallow, but which point to some greater plan which I'm too limited to grasp." Thanks again.
Posted by: Shad | January 12, 2009 at 04:02 PM
Thanks for this J.R.. Really well thought out. It reminds me of the C.S. Lewis assertion that everyone we meet is an eternal being that will either spend eternity in Heaven or in Hell. I think the concept/reality of hell is most useful to me as a believer in that I am motivated to keep people out of there! But I don't think I would never approach a non-Christian from a starting point that included talk of their damnation.
Posted by: Toben Heim | January 12, 2009 at 04:03 PM
Hey Brent, I never played Frisbee in the Hinnom Valley, but I also had the room on the roof back in '82-'83.
J.R., This past year I taught a little Greek mytholgy. In their view of life/death, everyone went to the underworld where Hades was in charge. "Sooner or later, all mortals came to Hades." The dead even had to pay a fare to cross the river Styx. Hades lived in a dark and gloomy place, once inside his realm, mortals whirled forever like dry leaves in a cold autumn wind. Cerberus, the threeheaded watchdog stood to guard the gate. With that in mind, how fantastic must it have been for the Greeks to hear that Jesus had conquered death, "made a way of escape" and lead the way heavenward!
Ray Briggs
Posted by: Ray Briggs | January 12, 2009 at 08:11 PM
Brent - didn't know that you went to the Institute of Holy Land Studies / Jerusalem University College, too! I lived in the "Tomb Room" by the outdoor terrace.
Ray - fantastic Greek imagery. Wow...yes, the mental image of Jesus defeating death has to be overwhelmingly powerful.
great comments...
Posted by: J.R. Briggs | January 12, 2009 at 08:17 PM
Thanks for this word study! One question that your observation led me to ask was, "Would you say that Jesus' conversations with the irreligious were more focused on the here and now (faith, healing, sin, brokenness, love) versus the things to come (heaven, hell, judgment) ?"
Posted by: Paul Sheneman | January 12, 2009 at 08:55 PM
J.R.
You did a very good job at conquering such a tough topic. My mother seems to never like it when I discuss Hell around her, but it seems that you're clear when it comes to the approach of Christianity and Hell. Because I see that that is only what non-believers see about Christinaity: Accept Jesus or burn in Hell for all eternity. I feel that the hope of Jesus should come first. Good job once again. God bless!
John A. Leman
Posted by: John A. Leman | January 12, 2009 at 08:55 PM
Right now, "hell" is just a "hole" in the ground where bodies go to rot until the resurrection. The "Lake of Fire" which resembles Gehennah does not even exist yet so "souls of the pagans don't go there to be burned eternally" until the end times. How long does it take for a body to be cremated? That is the length of time a non-repentant human has in the lake of fire. Where does it mention in the bible that "souls" of the the dead will be in torment in "hell" for eternity?
Posted by: Mike M | January 17, 2009 at 02:54 AM
If I may offer a couple more points and a suggestion:
sheol is contextually translated as deepest pit or some other dark thing, but it is actually more accurately translated as "grave" or "place of the dead". It is even the word used by the Psalmist when he says, "if I go down into the grave (sheol) You (God) are still there." (Bad paraphrase.) To project this sinister meaning (ie hell) onto it is inaccurate. Likewise, hades was a dark place, but there was no sense of judgement or even suffering associated with it. It was just where your spent spirit went when you died. Interestingly, when the Septuagint was written, the word sheol was always translated as hades, so the two can be seen as analogous.
My suggestion is that your next word study be done on the words aion and aionian. These words are translated as age, eternal, world and other wildly different things. When applied to the idea of gehenna, they are almost translated as eternal or forever. However, in the time they were written they almost certainly meant age or age-long. There are dozens of places in both the NT and the Greek Septuagint where aion or aionian clearly cannot mean eternal or forever, but must denote a limited period of time. Contemporaries of the NT writers used different words to indicate eternal or everlasting: aidion, aidios or adialeipton. We have writings from Jewish authorities threatening eternal punishment to evil doers from the time of Jesus and they always use one of the above words and never the aion words that Jesus uses.
Obviously, there's much more to it than this, but I figured I'd at least give you a heads up for another interesting word study concerning hell while you're at it.
God bless!
Posted by: Rebeccat | January 17, 2009 at 04:44 PM
I struggle with whether the 'gehenna' passages and the 'hades' passages should be connected, as the KJV did, with the same English translation. There seems to be a lot of scholarship that couples 'hades' to the OT 'sheol', the place of the dead, and not some ultimate place of eternal punishment.
Posted by: Jayflm | January 17, 2009 at 05:33 PM
JR, good thoughts here. I really appreciate your pointing out the approach to the "sinners" in comparison to the "righteous" in society. It's the love of God that gives sinners hope and draws them to the Lord. I know before I met the Lord I was not too interested in coming for help to One who was going to send me to hell.
Rebecca, You have some good comments here. You say "When applied to the idea of gehenna, they are almost translated as eternal or forever. However, in the time they were written they almost certainly meant age or age-long." The word in Mt. 25:41 is aionian. Do you think Jesus meant the 'age-long fire' or the 'fire of the age' rather than the "eternal fire" (ESV)? This semantic approach seems needlessly confusing, especially when the same terms are used in v. 46. Do you think the problem is in the English options? Am I misunderstanding what your point is?
Posted by: Dan | January 18, 2009 at 03:58 PM
Love the ending man, "Hell yes." I find it very interesting how simple Jesus intended the gospel to be - and how unfortunately complicated we try to make it.
I also love the point that Jesus never mentioned hell to those who were irreligious. That point is essential in understanding our approaches, methods, etc.
Thanks JR!
Posted by: Kyle Landis | January 20, 2009 at 05:11 PM
JR,
Fun getting caught up on your blog. Nice post on hell, but I am mainly writing to say I too am an alum of the tomb room ('95).
dlandt
Posted by: David Landt | February 04, 2009 at 05:37 PM