Let’s Talk About Hell

By Gina Detwiler

I was brewing my second cup of coffee, wondering what I should blog about this week when a little voice in my head whispered:

“Let’s talk about hell.”

Does that ever happen to you?

The subject of hell has always troubled me. Like most people, I struggle with the notion that anyone would be subjected to eternal torment for unrepentant sin or rejecting God—eternity is a long time. On the flip side, heaven always sounded a little bit boring—floating on clouds? Playing harps? What, no Wordle? No golf? No…coffee?

Seriously though, I’ve only touched on “what happens after” a couple of times in my books. But in Forbidden, Grace and Jared end up in the “other” place and find themselves in a deep, dark space lined with humans covered in a gossamer-like film, as if they were cocooned. Grace says it looks like “cold storage,” but her angel Ariel likens it to metamorphosis, the process a caterpillar undergoes before turning into a butterfly. Think of it: a caterpillar “dies,” and a few days later, a butterfly is born. Same essential matter, wholly different life form. This, to me, is a beautiful metaphor for what happens when we die and are reborn as new beings in our resurrection bodies. Maybe we’ll even get wings! (JK—we won’t)

Then Ariel says something else—that there will come a day when…

“…all are raised. Those who choose God to eternal life, those who reject Him to die a second death.”

“You mean hell.”

“I mean death.”

This is based upon John’s vision in Revelation 20.

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:11-15

According to John, the Great White Throne Judgment for sin comes at the end of all time, not at the end of a person’s life. And the punishment is not eternal suffering but final death.

What is Hell?

The lake of fire is not the same as the traditional view of hell. In fact, the word “hell” is not even in the Bible. It comes from Norse mythology, Hel being the Norse goddess of the Underworld and the name of the Underworld itself. The word “hell” is an English translation of Hebrew and Greek words like Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, and Tartarus. In the Old Testament, Sheol, sometimes translated as “the grave” or “the pit,” was simply where everyone went when they died. It was not a place of punishment. There was no association with rejecting God. The dead are usually described as “sleeping”—not in torment.

But Jesus Talked about Hell, Right?

Jesus often used the word “Gehenna,”  a real place, the Valley of Hinnom outside of Jerusalem, where several evil Israelite kings sacrificed their own children to pagan gods. 

And if your right eye causes you to fall into sin, tear it out and throw it away. It’s better that you lose a part of your body than that your whole body be thrown into hell (Gehenna). And if your right hand causes you to fall into sin, chop it off and throw it away. It’s better that you lose a part of your body than that your whole body go into hell (Gehenna).” (Matthew 5:29-30)

Was Jesus being literal or figurative? I seriously doubt Jesus was advocating people chopping off their hands or gouging out their own eyes. Just as when he told people in John 6 to eat his flesh and drink his blood, Jesus routinely used figurative—albeit quite shockingly evocative—language to get his point across. 

Even the disciples were often confused. There’s a hilarious exchange in John 16 when Jesus is trying to explain what will happen to him in figurative language, and the disciples are like, “What’s he talking about? We don’t understand a word he’s saying.” So Jesus finally says point-blank, “I came from the Father, and now I’m going back to the Father,” and the disciples are like, “Finally! You aren’t using figures of speech!” 

One other interesting note about the Valley of Hinnom—King Josiah was so disgusted by the child sacrifice of his predecessors that he had the area desecrated with the bones of pagan priests. In Jesus’ day, it was reportedly a garbage dump where fires raged continually (hence the “eternal fires”). Jeremiah described it as a place where the corpses would be food for birds and wild animals. (Jer 7:32-33) So “Gehenna” was a metaphor for death, not everlasting suffering. 

The Lake of Fire

When Jesus spoke of judgment for sinners and those who had rejected Him, it was at his second coming, not immediately following a person’s death.

Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. ' John 5:28-29

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ' Matthew 25:31-34,41

Notice that the eternal fire was prepared for the devil and his angels. This is a reference to the lake of fire, not hell. The “goats” on the left are thrown into the fire and consumed. Game over.

Jesus says the same thing in Matthew 13 when the disciples ask him to explain the parable of the sower and the seeds:

'He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matthew 13:37-42

Again, this refers to the judgment at the end of the age—the final judgment. “Weeping and gnashing of teeth” might refer to suffering (though “gnashing of teeth” sound more like rage to me), but that doesn’t mean it goes on forever. 

Eternal life in Christ is always contrasted with death, not eternal suffering.

'For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.' Romans 6:23

'For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

The verse most often pointed to as proof text for the “eternal punishment” thesis is Matthew 25:46: “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” But like all other cases, “eternal punishment” doesn’t mean eternal suffering; it just means eternal death. Death is the eternal punishment.

What about the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus? 

Jesus taught in parables, which are made up stories. In Luke 16, He told the story of a rich man and a poor man who die. The rich man goes to “Hades,” where he is in torment, while angels carry the poor man to “Abraham’s bosom,” where he is comforted. The rich man can see Lazarus (from Hades?) and wants him to come down to hades and cool his tongue with water. (Read the rest in Luke 16:19-31)

This story is often used as proof that hell exists. Is it a real depiction of heaven and hell?  Can people in heaven and hell see and speak to each other? And what’s this Abraham’s bosom thing all about? 

The story is deliberately comical—Jesus was a master storyteller. His point was not to give a realistic depiction of heaven or hell but to show the Pharisees in the audience the error of their ways in loving money more than God. Jesus added a covert message at the end—that the Pharisees would never be persuaded to believe in Him even if He rose from the dead—which turned out to be true. 

The Abyss

If you’ve read Forlorn, you know that the fallen angels who disobeyed God in Genesis 6 are imprisoned in the Abyss, depicted in the Bible as a “bottomless pit” of fire and darkness. The Abyss has some similarities to the idea of hell but is reserved for angelic beings. Jude makes mention of this arrangement: 

And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.  (Jude 1:6). 

Peter calls it Tartarus, which in Greek mythology was a dungeon of torture and suffering for the Titans. 

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell (Tartarus), putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; 2 Peter 2:4

The day of judgment comes in Revelation 9: 

And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. Revelation 9:1-2

Demons, too, knew all about the Abyss:

Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Luke 8:30-31

The Abyss is referred to in Revelation as well.

'And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit (Abyss) will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, ' Revelation 11:7

'And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit (Abyss). He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit (Abyss), and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. ' Revelation 9:1-2

This place, while quite hellish, is clearly not what we think of as hell.

So, where did Hell come from?

Most of our ideas about hell come not from the Bible but from Dante’s Inferno or Milton’s Paradise Lost, which are filled with poetic images of rivers of fire, demons with pitchforks, desolation, darkness, and intense human suffering. Dante seems to have adopted the idea that Satan was the ruler of hell from Greek and Norse mythology—nothing could be further from the truth. If hell does exist in any form, Satan will be its victim, not its ruler.

And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Revelation 20:9-10

Notice that these three—the devil, the beast, and the false prophet, will be tormented day and night forever. But they will be the only ones.

So what do you think?

Ultimately I believe that God is perfectly righteous, and He would never punish anyone without a “fair trial.” Moreover, He wants all people to have eternal life, just as Peter told us.

'The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. 

So we should be focused more on what God put us here to do:

Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.  2 Peter 3:9-13