Again we examine the cup of Babylon, and the thirteenth draught drawn from it is the doctrine of "Eternal Torment in Hell." Here is what the Roman Catholic Church teaches about hell: "Hell may be defined as the place and state in which the devils and such human beings as die in enmity with God suffer eternal torments."[1]
After his fall Satan made every effort possible to inculcate in man belief in the doctrine of natural immortality. Having succeeded in persuading men to accept this false doctrine, he then led them to the conclusion that after death sinners are consigned to and confined in a place of eternal misery called "hell." The devil has worked through this doctrine to misrepresent God, and thus he has led multitudes to regard Him as a cruel, avenging, despotic tyrant instead of a kind, merciful, and loving Father. This teaching pictures God as an inflexible tyrant seeking revenge on those who disobey Him, and consigning them to an eternal inferno to suffer unutterable anguish throughout the endless ages of eternity. The propagation of such a teaching, which is designed by the enemy to lead many away from God and to give rise to atheism, has caused multitudes to be lost.
Our whole being should recoil at the thought of an infinite God assigning one of His creatures, one who has lived such a brief period of time on this earth, to a lake of fire to burn, scorch, and sizzle throughout eternity. The stories told by the popular theologians, in which they depict the existing anguish of miserable souls in hell, awaken both wrath and pity in the heart of the most adamant wrath against a God who would be responsible for such a horrible mode of perpetual torture. And pity for the unfortunate victims of such cruel bondage and suffering.
Where in the word of God can such a teaching be found? Not within the covers of the Holy Bible. It was instituted by Satan, and has been propagated by pagan and papal Rome, and the refrain has been picked up by Protestant ministers, until it is sounded all over Christendom and accepted by millions of credulous people. Can anyone picture a loving God taking delight in the smoke of an endless inferno and having an everlasting reminder of sin to blight His fair universe? Never!
The words of Ezekiel emphatically set forth God's attitude toward the violation of His holy law, and His displeasure over the death of the wicked: "Say unto them, As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn you, turn you from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?" (Ezekiel 33:11) Instead of desiring to confine a person in endless misery, the Holy Bible pictures our God as one who is full of love, abounding in goodness and mercy. Would the redeemed enjoy the bliss of heaven knowing that one of their loved ones was in a place of ceaseless torment? The doctrine of an everlasting hell, and its accompanying theories, are the component parts of that intoxicating cup from which the religious world has drunk.
The word "hell," translated from the Hebrew word sheol, occurs sixty-five times in the Old Testament and means "grave" or "pit." One authority says: "This [hell] is the word generally used by our translators to render the Hebrew sheol. It would perhaps have been better to retain the Hebrew word sheol, or else render it always by 'the grave' or 'the pit."[2]
Let us consider the three Greek words hades, gehenna, and tartaroo, which are translated as "hell" in the Authorized Version of the New Testament. The Greek word hades is translated " hell " ten times, and "grave" once, in the New Testament. The term means "the unseen" and is properly translated "grave," where the deceased are laid away and put out of sight. Instead of the grave, or "hell," being a place of punishment for the wicked, it is one of rest.
"Whatsoever thy hand finds to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goes." (Ecclesiastes 9:10)
Hell has been pictured by the theologians as a yawning abyss of flaming fire, where Satan with his pitchfork is supposed to keep vigil over his tormented prisoners. God's word, on the other hand, gives an entirely different picture of hell from that which is depicted by the papists. It says: "There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master." (Job 3:17-19)
If dead sinners were suffering in a lake of fire, there certainly would be no "rest" there for the "weary." Note that, too, "the servant is free from his master." If the devil were given authority over the wicked dead, freedom would never be granted to any of his subjects, for he is the author of slavery.
The Book of Acts states that Christ's soul was not left in "hell" (hades) long enough for His flesh to see corruption. In the Psalms it was written of Him: "For Thou wilt not leave My soul in hell; neither wilt Thou suffer Your Holy One to see corruption." (Psalm 16:8-10) And commenting on this, Peter said: "He seeing this before spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that His soul was not left in hell, neither His flesh did see corruption." (Acts 2:27-31)
Can anyone imagine Christ being consigned to a place of burning while He was dead? Certainly God knows where man goes at death. "For that which befalls the sons of men befalls beasts; even one thing befalls them: as the one dies, so dies the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again." (Ecclesiastes 3:19,20)
Thus the Written Word gives no support to the belief in, and doctrine of, a present place of punishment where the unsaved dead Are confined and tortured. The hades, or "hell," to which the Sacred Scriptures refer is the grave where dead saints and dead sinners are resting until the resurrection day, when the just will be raised to eternal life, and the sinners will come forth to eternal death. (John 5:28,29) The doctrine of an everlasting hell of torment in flames is repugnant to all human feeling, and must be much more so to the God of infinite love and mercy.
The Greek word gehenna refers to a place of burning, and is used twelve times in the New Testament. (Matthew 5:22,29,30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15,33; Mark 9:43,45,47; Luke 12:5; James 3:6) The term itself is a proper noun which means "Valley of Hinnom." In these passages where the term is found, it is clearly seen that there is a place where the ungodly shall be punished for their sins, but nowhere does the texts indicate that such punishment will be protracted by endless confinement in a lake of fire that can never burn out. The Gehenna, to which Jesus referred as an illustration of the place where the wicked shall be punished, was the valley of Hinnom lying on the south side of Jerusalem. There human sacrifices were offered to the god Moloch in ancient times, (2 Chronicles 33:6) but in the days of Christ, it was used as a place where the refuse of the city was burned up. The fires of Hinnom continued to burn as long as any particle of refuse remained.
We can understand what the destruction of the wicked will be like, for it is described by Christ by the use of the illustration comparing their end to burning in Gehenna just outside the city of ancient Jerusalem. It will be outside of the city of the New Jerusalem that the violators of God's law will receive their wages. "And [the devil] shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them." (Revelation 20:8,9) Just as the, fires of Gehenna anciently became extinguished after fulfilling their purpose in consuming every piece of refuse, so the Gehenna of the last days will be quenched when the complete annihilation of the wicked shall have taken place. The same language used in reference to the unquenchable fire which is to destroy the wicked, is used also in speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem in days of old. "But if you will not harken unto Me to hallow the Sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. Then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched." (Jeremiah 17:27)
God visited the ancient city of Jerusalem with unquenchable fire at the hands of the armies of Babylon. (2 Kings 25:9,10; 2 Chronicles 36:19; Isaiah 64:11) No one could stay the hand of the destroyer until the utter destruction of that city was accomplished. Thus it will be when the Lord shall mete out final punishment to the unsaved by means of unquenchable fire, which will be everlasting in its effect. The word of God declares that Sodom and Gomorrah were visited with "eternal fire," but these cities are not burning today. Jude speaks of " Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." (Jude 7; 2 Peter 2:6)
These words "everlasting," "eternal," "unquenchable," when used by God in referring to the reward of the wicked mean that the punishment will be eternal in its effect, and nowhere do they convey the idea that there will not be a finality to their suffering. It is eternal punishment and not endless punishing that will be the fate of the wicked. "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." (Matthew 25:46) It is to "everlasting destruction," and not to everlasting life in a place of misery, that the word of God teaches that the wicked are destined to go. They "shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power." (2 Thessalonians 1:9) Man does not innately possess eternal life; it is a gift from God. (John 3:16; Romans 6:23) Can anyone imagine a God of love giving the gift of eternal life to any of His creatures for the purpose of punishing them with indescribable suffering throughout eternity in an inferno? It is death, and not life, that is to be the portion of the transgressors of the divine law. The death resulting from sin will be the "second death." "And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell ["grave," margin] delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death." (Revelation 20:13,14) "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whore mongers, and sorcerers, and idolators, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death." (Revelation 21:8) "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23) Therefore death will be the fate of the impenitent.
Even the soul itself will perish, for it is written: "The soul that sins, it shall die." (Ezekiel 18:4,20)
The wicked are likened in Holy Writ to stubble, which is something easily consumed and reduced to ashes. "For, behold, the day comes, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that comes shall bum them up, says the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. ... And you shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, says the Lord of hosts." (Malachi 4:1,3)
These texts clearly state that there is nothing asbestos like about the sinner to prevent his complete destruction in the final punishment. The place where the wicked and Satan will be destroyed is this earth. The Lord, in speaking to Satan, said: "Therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee." (Ezekiel 28:18) God will have a clean universe, because both sin and sinner will be destroyed. "For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shall diligently consider his place, and it shall not be. ... But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away." (Psalm 37:9,10,20)
The Greek verb tartaroo means to cast into the lower regions, into which the devil was cast after his rebellion in heaven. He has been cast out into this earth, where he dwells in an atmosphere of spiritual darkness, being shut out from the light of God. The apostle John says that "the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceives the whole world: he was cast into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." (Revelation 12:9) This planet is the place where Satan is confined since his expulsion from heaven. "God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell [tartaroo], and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment." (2 Peter 2:4)
"Reserved unto judgment." How can one accuse God of punishing sinners before He judges them? "The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished." (2 Peter 2:9) The apostle Peter also declares that "the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. ... But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." (2 Peter 3:7,10)
In summing up the evidence from the Scriptures of truth on this important subject, it is clear that (A) there is no such place as a Gehenna existing now. (B) That the deceased sinner is sleeping in the grave awaiting the resurrection day, at which time he will receive the "wages of sin" which is eternal death. (C) That the punishment for sin will be administered by means of devouring fire. (D) That as the result of this burning the wicked will be reduced to ashes. (E) That it will be on this earth that the final destruction of both Satan and unrepentant sinners will take place. (F) That when the earth shall have been purged by fire, there will be a new earth.
The doctrine of a present-burning hell where the wicked are plunged at death, there to bum through the rounds of eternity, has given men a distorted and incorrect conception of the character of our blessed Lord and His Christ. How the heart of Satan has pulsated with joy on hearing both priests and ministers of the church vividly portraying to their congregations the imagined condition of the writhing victims in that flaming abyss!
After listening to such a terrible description of the fate of sinners, who would-not arrive at the conclusion that the Creator of the universe is anything but the pitying friend of sinners? Trembling faith would not dare reach up to heaven and claim pardon of such a stern and inexorable God. In all such base and fabricated teaching, the father of lies delights.
While we have a God who hates sin, yet He loves the sinner beyond anything that the human mind can comprehend. He will leave nothing undone to save those who in humility and faith will come to Him for pardon and grace. An unregenerated person may listen to the preaching of hell fire until doom's day, but all the roaring flames of Dante's Inferno will never lead that individual to Jesus Christ. It is love, and not fear, that converts a soul. One glimpse into that benignant face of the loving Savior hanging upon the cross, dying such an ignominious death for poor fallen humanity, can melt the hard heart and cause doubt and fear to be dispelled. A repelling hatred for sin and all that it entails will enter the human breast when the love of God is comprehended. The only remedy for the fear-tormented minds that have imbibed the fictitious and speculative doctrine of a present-burning hell is to study the Holy Scriptures and bask in the presence of Christ's divine love. Those who have experienced this can attest to the truthfulness of the statement written by the beloved apostle: "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear: because fear hath torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love. We love Him, because He first loved us." (1 John 4:18,19)
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