Rev Gav

What on earth is hell?

Reflect

When someone says the word ‘hell’ what immediately springs to mind? If, like me, you have been inculturated by the Western notion of hell, then you will be imagining a dark, underground cavern, complete with red lava flows, fires, and people being eternally tormented by a red horned devil holding a pitchfork. Am I wrong?

Back in the 14th Century, an Italian poet, philosopher, and writer called Dante Alighieri wrote a huge long narrative poem called The Divine Comedy, and it paints a medieval-inspired picture of the afterlife. The poem is divided intox three parts and traces Dante’s journey through Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, or hell, purgatory, and paradise.

Now, the influence of this work on society and the Catholic church — the bedrock of the western church — cannot be understated, and it is still considered to be one of the greatest works of western literature. And you guessed it, it describes hell in terms of rivers of boiling blood and fire, sinners being placed head-downwards in round, tube-like holes in the rock with flames burning the soles of their feet, the heat of the fire proportional to their guilt, and the clawed and winged devil, Lucifer, at the centre of it all.

Yep, Dante painted a picture of hell all right, but that is exactly what it is, a picture, and an imaginary scene based on a medieval world-view. Yet, so pervasive was this image that it permeated the church, right up to modern day, and that includes me and you when we immediately think of ‘hell’. Thanks a bunch Dante!

But what if I were to tell you that the word ‘hell’ does not exist in the Bible? I can hear you remonstrating, reaching for your Bible, opening it up and pointing to the word ‘hell’ in bold print! Okay, so what if I were to tell you that all your Bibles are wrong, and that the word ‘hell’ does not exist in the original Greek or Hebrew biblical texts? Shocking huh?

Hell is simply the English word for the place beyond the grave (whatever that is) but in Hebrew and Greek there are two words and they have very different meanings.

The first word is Hades (Sheol in Hebrew) and it appears ten times in the New Testament and it means the resting place of the dead where — get this — everyone goes. The second word is Gehenna and it appears twelve times in the New Testament, and of those twelve times, eleven of them were used by Jesus, and, wait for it… Gehenna was a real place. What? Yes! When Jesus spoke about hell, he was referencing a place that existed that you could go and visit (if you wanted to).

Gehenna in Hebrew is ‘Ge Hinnom’ meaning the Valley of Hinnom. The first thing to note is that Gehenna was outside the city of Jerusalem, and if Jerusalem became thought of as the place where God resided and was called the Holy City, then, well, anything outside of the city was where God was not, and somewhere thought of as ‘unholy’. Gehenna was also the place where the ancient Israelite kings engaged in child sacrifice to other gods, and later on it became the city garbage dump, where corpses of criminals were cremated, and the fires were kept burning to dispose of all the trash.

So, we have two places referred to as ‘hell’ in our English Bibles and neither of them are a spiritual place where souls are tortured in the afterlife, and this makes sense, because there is no mention of such a place in the creation accounts, and of course, there is no place that could exist where God is not present. As the Psalmist writes (Psalm 139),

“Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.”

In other words, even if I die and go to the resting place of the dead, God is there!

Now, Jesus was obviously using the physical place Gehenna as a metaphor. For example, Jesus said,

“But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment, and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council, and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the fire of Gehenna.” (Matthew 5.22)

Jesus clearly did not mean that the listener would literally end up on the burning garbage dump outside the city walls, but Gehenna was being used as a metaphor for God’s judgment — purification and punishment. In other words if you are angry you will be judged by people, if you insult someone you will have to face a court of law, and if you condemn someone (by labelling them), then you will have to face God.

So does hell exist as a spiritual place where someone may end up? In a word, no. Will there be consequences for those who condemn others and will they have to face God’s judgment? Hell yes! (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

So, I suppose the logical question is, “Okay then, where do those people go who have been judged by God and found to be guilty?” Well, that’s none of our (insert expletive) business, however, we believe and trust in Jesus Christ do we not? Are we not all guilty? Do we not all deserve punishment? Is not Jesus the merciful redeemer and judge of all?

Through Christ, none of us are destined for Hades but for resurrection to new life. And of Gehenna? Well, as a metaphor for God’s judgment — the garbage dump — it is not a place you want to spend your summer vacation but a place from which you want to stay very far away.

God is both perfectly merciful and perfectly just, but mercy always triumphs judgment. The cross of Christ — the cross of God — represents both God’s mercy and judgment on humanity, and everyone will have to pass through the cross, and to those who still wonder about their eternal fate, I ask the question, “Would you cast your own child into an eternal, tortuous, fiery pit of doom?” Of course, the answer is, “No!” Well, then, “Are you more or less loving than God?”

Amen.