Three Myths About Hell

Three Myths About Hell

Myth # 1: Jesus wasn't concerned with hell. Christ spoke a great deal more about judgment and hell than many might care to admit. Not only that, but He speaks of hell in a number of different ways to illustrate its endless, horrifying torment. For example, He uses a parable in Luke 16 to describe the place called "Hades" (Luke 16:23), which has a "great chasm" (Luke 16:26) fixed by God to prevent crossing from hell to Heaven. He speaks of "hell of fire"; the danger of the whole body being thrown into hell" (Matt.5:29); it is the unquenchable fire the unpenitants are thrown there; "where the worm does not die and the fire is unquenhced" (Mark 9:48).

Jesus, the Son of man, with His angels, will send all law-breakers into the firey furnace" where there will be "weeping and gnashing to teeth" (Matt. 13:41-42. Jesus called it a place of "outer darkness" (Matt. 25:30). In the end, there is little doubt that our Lord did not shy away from discussing a place of endless torment, often using evocative language to make his point in order to warn sinners of the coming judgment.

Myth # 2: The Old Testament wasn't concerned with hell. Like most doctrines, the doctrine of hell is nut fully developed in the Old Testament, but there does not mean it is not present. For example, in Isaiah, the godless should tremble since they are threatened with "the consuming fire" and the "everlasting burnings" (Isaiah 33:14). Isaiah frequently speaks of God's wrath (Isaiah 10:16-18; 29:5-6; 30:27; Isaiah 33:14). This culminates in the final chapter where he speaks of the Lord coming in fire "to render in fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire". For by fire will the Lord enter into judgment, and by His sword, with all flesh; and those slain by the Lord shall be many" (Isaiah 66:15-16). Finally, at the very end, the righteous "shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against God. For their worm shall never die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh" (66:24); see Christ's use of these words in Mark 9:49).

Myth # 3: Hell is not an endless place of judgment. The New Testament is clear that hell is a place of "everlasting punishment" (Matt. 25:46); it is an "everlasting fire"; that it can never be quenched; where their worm never dies" (Mark 9:49). Sodom and Gomorrah were punished for their sins by "undergoing a punishment of eternal fire" (Jude 7). False teachers have a place reserved in hell where the "gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever" (Jude 13). In Revelation 14:11 the suffering of the wicked is described: "And the smoke of their torment goes on forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night..." As William Shedd says, "Had Christ intended to teach that future punishment is remedial and temporary, he would have compared it to a dying worm, and not to an undying worm; to a fire that is quenched, and not to an unquenchable fire." If hell is not endless, the New testament writers "were morally bound to have avoided conveying the impression they actually have conveyed by the kind of figures they have selected. In the New Testament, the same word used to describe "everlasting life" is also used to describe "everlasting punishment." Thus in Revelation 22:14-15 we see that the existence of the righteous in Heaven is coterminous with the existence of the wicked "outside" Heaven (that is, in hell.

~Mark Jones~

(Two More Myths tomorrow)