Jesus' Teaching on Hell

Samuel G. Dawson

Most of what we believe about hell comes from Catholicism and ignorance of the Old Testament, not the Bible. This study will cause you to re-examine current teaching on hell and urge you to further study on what happens to the wicked after death.

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All scripture quotations are taken from The American Standard Version New Testament, © 1901, 1929 Thomas Nelson and Sons. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Adapted from the cassette album The Teaching of Jesus: Exposing Many of Our False Concepts by Samuel G. Dawson © 1990 by Samuel G. Dawson and Patsy Rae Dawson. Used by permission of publisher.

Copyright © 1996 by Samuel G. Dawson and Patsy Rae Dawson

ISBN 0-938855-81-6

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Jesus' Teaching on Hell

Samuel G. Dawson

"Don't you know that hell is just something the Catholic Church invented
to scare people into obedience?"

I was properly righteously indignant when, a number of years ago, a caller uttered these words on a call-in radio show I was conducting. Perturbed by his haphazard use of Scripture, I pointed out to him and the audience, that hell couldn't possibly be something invented by Catholic theologians because Jesus talked about it. I forcefully read some of the passages where Jesus did, and concluded that hell couldn't possibly be the invention of an apostate church.

That's true—hell is not the invention of Roman Catholicism, but just perhaps our concepts of hell are! Catholics didn't invent the concept of hell, but you may be surprised to learn that most, if not all, of our popular concepts of hell can be found in the writings of Roman Catholic writers like the Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), author of Dante's Inferno, and the English poet John Milton (1608-1674), author of Paradise Lost. None of our concepts of hell can be found in the teaching of Jesus Christ! You know how indignant we get at the mention of purgatory—we know that's not in the Bible. You may also find out that our popular concepts of hell came from the same place that purgatory did—Roman Catholicism. The purpose of this study is to briefly analyze Jesus' teaching on hell, to see whether these popular concepts are grounded therein.

A Plea for Open-Mindedness as We Begin

If we strive for open-mindedness and truly want to know what the Bible teaches, the following quotation will help us in our search:

We do not start our Christian lives by working out our faith for ourselves; it is mediated to us by Christian tradition, in the form of sermons, books and established patterns of church life and fellowship. We read our Bibles in the light of what we have learned from these sources; we approach Scripture with minds already formed by the mass of accepted opinions and viewpoints with which we have come into contact, in both the Church and the world. . . . It is easy to be unaware that it has happened; it is hard even to begin to realize how profoundly tradition in this sense has moulded us. But we are forbidden to become enslaved to human tradition, either secular or Christian, whether it be "catholic" tradition, or "critical" tradition, or "ecumenical" tradition. We may never assume the complete rightness of our own established ways of thought and practice and excuse ourselves the duty of testing and reforming them by Scriptures. (J. I. Packer, "Fundamentalism" and the Word of God [Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1958], pp. 69-70.)

Of course, Packer just reminds us of Biblical injunctions to test everything proposed for our belief. For example, in II Cor. 13.5, Paul told the Corinthians:

Try your own selves, whether ye are in the faith; prove your own selves.

Likewise, in Eph. 5.8-10, Paul commanded the Ephesian Christians to be involved in such testing:

. . . for ye were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord, walk as children of light . . . walk as children of light . . . proving what is well-pleasing unto the Lord.

In New Testament times, one was only a disciple of Christ when he was willing to examine himself, his beliefs, and everything proposed for his belief as a child of light. Nothing less is required now.  

Hell vs. Sheol and Hades

We first begin by eliminating the problem the King James Version of the Bible introduced to this study by indiscriminately translating three different words in the Bible as hell: sheol, hades, and gehenna.

Sheol Used of Unseen

In the Old Testament, the word for which hell is given in the King James Version is sheol, a word whose root meaning is "unseen." The King James Version translates sheol as "hell" 31 times, "the grave" 31 times (since someone in the grave is unseen), and "the pit" three times.

Yet in the Old Testament sheol was not exclusively a place of punishment, for faithful Jacob was there (Gen. 37.35, 42.38, 44.29, 31). Righteous Job also longed for it in Job 14.13. David spoke of going to sheol in Ps. 49.15 and Jesus went there, Ps. 16.10, Acts 2.24-31. In all these cases, these men were "unseen" because they were dead.

Sheol Used of National Judgments

Many times the Bible uses the word sheol of national judgments, i.e., the vanishing of a nation. In Isa. 14.13, 15, Isaiah said Babylon would go to sheol, and she vanished. In Ezek. 26.19-21, Tyre so vanished in sheol. Likewise, in the New Testament, in Mt. 11.23, 12.41, Lk. 10.15, and 11.29-32, Jesus said that Capernaum would so disappear. These nations and cities didn't go to a particular location, but they were going to disappear, and so they did. They were destroyed. Thus, sheol is used commonly of national judgments in both the Old and New Testaments.

Hades Used of Anything Unseen

The New Testament equivalent of sheol is hades, which occurs only eleven times. Like its synonym sheol, the King James Version translates the word "hell." However, the correct translation is hades, or the unseen. The Bible doesn't use hades exclusively for a place of punishment. Luke 16 pictures righteous Lazarus there. Acts 2.27, 31 says Jesus went there. In I Cor. 15.15, Paul used the same word when he said, "Death, where is thy sting?" In Rev. 1.18, Jesus said he had the controlling keys of death and hades, the unseen, and in Rev. 6.8, death and hades followed the pale horse. Finally, in Rev. 20.13, 14, death and hades gave up the dead that were in them, and were then cast into the lake of fire. These verses illustrate that hades refers to anything that is unseen.

Hades Used of National Judgment

Like its companion word in the Old Testament, hades was also plainly used of national judgments in the New Testament. In Mt. 11.23 and Lk. 10.15, Jesus said Capernaum would go down into hades, i.e., it was going to vanish. In Mt. 12.41 and Lk. 11.29-32, Jesus said his generation of Jews was going to fall.

About hades in Greek mythology, Edward Fudge said:

In Greek mythology Hades was the god of the underworld, then the name of the nether world itself. Charon ferried the souls of the dead across the rivers Styx or Acheron into this abode, where the watchdog Cerberus guarded the gate so none might escape. The pagan myth contained all the elements for medieval eschatology: there was the pleasant Elyusium, the gloomy and miserable Tartarus, and even the Plains of Asphodel, where ghosts could wander who were suited for neither of the above . . . The word hades came into biblical usage when the Septuagint translators chose it to represent the Hebrew sheol, an Old Testament concept vastly different from the pagan Greek notions just outlined. Sheol, too, received all the dead . . . but the Old Testament has no specific division there involving either punishment or reward. (Edward William Fudge, The Fire That Consumes [Houston: Providential Press, 1982], p. 205.)

We need to make sure that our ideas concerning hades come from the Bible and not Greek mythology. We have no problem using sheol the way the Old Testament used it, or hades, as the New Testament used it. Both refer to the dead who are unseen, and to national judgments.

The First Biblical Use of "Hell"

Although hades and sheol are not translated accuratedly with the word "hell," one Greek word, gehenna, is properly translated "hell." Notice the first occurrence of this word in the Bible in Mt. 5.21-22. In the sermon on the mount, Jesus said:

Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; and whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the hell of fire.

When Jesus used the term "hell of fire" in these verses, he used the Greek word gehenna for the first time in inspired writing. The word had never occurred in the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint. When we read the word hell, all kinds of sermon outlines, illustrations, and ideas come to our minds. To most of us, hell is the abode of condemned souls and the devil; it's the place of eternal punishment for the wicked after death, presided over by Satan. It is a place of fire and brimstone, where the damned undergo physical torment eternally. However, none of these ideas came to the minds of Jesus' listeners, for they had never heard the word before in inspired speech.

As Jesus did not define the word "hell," we want to begin with this first occurrence of "hell" and, then study all of its occurrences in the New Testament. In this way, we can determine the totality of the Bible's teaching on hell.

The Message of John the Baptist and Jesus

To understand Jesus' first use of "hell" in the sermon on the mount, we must first put his ministry, and that of his contemporary, John the Baptist, in their proper contexts. To do so, we begin with a prophecy of both John and Jesus found in the closing pages of the Old Testament. In Mal. 3.1-5, we read a prophecy, quoted in Mt. 11.10 by Jesus, and applied to John the Baptist:

Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years. And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts.

The first messenger in this prophecy is John the Baptist; "the Lord" is the Messiah. The Christ would use fire to refine and purify the nation of Israel from their corrupt character.

In Mal. 4.1-6, the Old Testament closed with this prophecy of John the Baptist:

For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts. Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

John fulfilled these verses in Lk. 1.17, where the angel Gabriel prophesied to Zacharias, the father of John, that John would go forth in the spirit and power of Elijah. Again, in Mt. 11.14, Jesus said about John:

And if ye are willing to receive it, this is Elijah, that is to come.

Likewise, in Mt. 17.9-12, Jesus told his apostles coming down from the mount of transfiguration:

And as they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen from the dead. And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elijah must first come? And he answered and said, Elijah indeed cometh, and shall restore all things: but I say unto you, that Elijah is come already, and they knew him not, but did unto him whatsoever they would. Even so shall the Son of man also suffer of them. Then understood the disciples that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.

John the Baptist came in the spirit and power of Elijah, for both were austere reformers at times when the nation of Israel was degenerate and corrupt. When John came in fulfillment of these passages, his preaching announced fiery judgement on Israel, as Malachi had prophesied of him. In Mt. 3.7-10, John said:

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said unto them, Ye offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance: and think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And even now the axe lieth at the root of the trees: every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit if hewn down, and cast into the fire.

Notice that John announced an imminent (the axe lieth at the root of the tree) fiery judgment on Israel if she didn't repent. This was the same fiery judgment of which Malachi had spoken, and said that John would announce. With this idea of imminent fiery judgment in the context, John continued in Mt. 3.11-12:

I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire: whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing-floor; and he will gather his wheat into the garner, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire.

Remember this "unquenchable fire." It will figure in our study throughout. It is the fire spoken of by Malachi, John, and Jesus.

Old Testament Background of Gehenna

Gehenna, the word for hell in the New Testament, is rooted in an Old Testament location. It is generally regarded as derived from a valley nearby Jerusalem that originally belonged to Hinnom. Scholars say the word is a transliteration of the Valley of the Sons of Hinnom, a valley that had a long history in the Old Testament, all of it bad.

We first find Hinnom in Josh. 1.8 and 18.16, where it is mentioned in Joshua's layout of the lands of Judah and Benjamin. In II Kings 23.10, we find that righteous King Josiah "defiled Topheth in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech." Josiah, in his purification of the land of Judah, violated the idolatrous worship to the idol Molech by tearing down the shrines. Topheth (also spelled Tophet) was a word meaning literally, "a place of burning." In II Chron. 28.3, idolatrous King Ahaz burnt incense and his children in the fire there, as did idolatrous King Manasseh in II Chron. 33.6. In Neh. 11.30, we find some settling in Topheth after the restoration of the Jewish captives from Babylon. In Jer. 19.2, 6, Jeremiah prophesied calamity coming upon the idolatrous Jews there, calling it the valley of slaughter, because God was going to slaughter the Jews there, using Nebuchadnzzar, King of Babylon. In Jer. 7.32, Jeremiah prophesied destruction coming upon the idolatrous Jews of his day with these words:

Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter; for they shall burn in Tophet, till there be no peace.

Notice the mention of Topheth, "the place of burning" again. Isaiah also spoke of Topheth this way in Isa. 30.33, when he warned the pro-Egypt party among the Jews (i.e., those trusting in Egypt for their salvation from Babylon rather than God) of a fiery judgment coming on them. In Jer. 19.11-14, Jeremiah gave this pronouncement of judgment by Babylon on Jerusalem at the valley of Hinnom:

And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods.

From these passages we can see that, to the Jews, the valley of Hinnom, or Topheth, from which the New Testament concept of gehenna arose, came to mean a place of burning, a valley of slaughter, and a place of calamitous fiery judgment. Thus, Thayer in his Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, said, concerning gehenna:

Gehenna, the name of a valley on the S. and E. of Jerusalem . . . which was so called from the cries of the little children who were thrown into the fiery arms of Moloch, i.e., of an idol having the form of a bull. The Jews so abhorred the place after these horrible sacrifices had been abolished by king Josiah (2 Kings xxiii.10), that they cast into it not only all manner of refuse, but even the dead bodies of animals and of unburied criminals who had been executed. And since fires were always needed to consume the dead bodies, that the air might not become tainted by the putrefaction, it came to pass that the place was called gehenna.

Fudge said concerning the history of the valley of Hinnom:

The valley bore this name at least as early as the writing of Joshua (Josh. 15:8; 18:16), though nothing is known of its origin. It was the site of child-sacrifices to Moloch in the days of Ahaz and Manasseh (apparently in 2 Kings 16:3; 21:6). This earned it the name "Topheth," a place to be spit on or abhorred. This "Topheth" may have become a gigantic pyre for burning corpses in the days of Hezekiah after God slew 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in a night and saved Jerusalem (Isa. 30:31-33; 37:26). Jeremiah predicted that it would be filled to overflowing with Israelite corpses when God judged them for their sins (Jer., 7:31-33; 19:2-13). Josephus indicates that the same valley was heaped with dead bodies of the Jews following the Roman siege of Jerusalem about A.D. 69-70 . . . Josiah desecrated the repugnant valley as part of his godly reform (2 Kings 23:10). Long before the time of Jesus, the Valley of Hinnom had become crusted over with connotations of whatever is "condemned, useless, corrupt, and forever discarded." (Edward William Fudge, The Fire That Consumes [Houston: Providential Press, 1982], p. 160.)

We need to keep this place in mind as we read Jesus' teaching using a word referring back to this location in the Old Testament.

The Twelve Gehenna Passages in Chronological Order

Mt. 5.21-22

In Mt. 5.21-22, Jesus used gehenna for the first time in inspired speech:

Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment, and whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the hell of fire.

As we mentioned earlier in this study, when Jesus used the term "hell of fire" in these verses, he used the Greek word gehenna for the first time in inspired writing. The word had never occurred in the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint. When we read the word hell, all kinds of sermon outlines, illustrations, and ideas come to the fore of our minds. None of these came to the minds of Jesus' listeners, for the word had never occurred to them in inspired speech before. It is very significant that the word did not occur even once in the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament quoted by Jesus and his apostles.

I suggest that to the Jews in Jesus' audience, Jesus' words meant what the valley of Hinnom or Topheth represented in their Old Testament background: gehenna meant a burning; it recalled a valley of slaughter of the Jews for rebellion against God; it was a calamitous fiery judgment. Jesus was warning them that if they did not repent, they were going headlong into the imminent fiery judgement announced by Malachi and John the Baptist. It was the first announcement of fiery judgment by the Messiah as Malachi had prophesied in Mal. 4.1-6.

Let's notice the other gehenna passages to ascertain more about Jesus' idea of gehenna. As we do so, let's analyze each passage thus: Does the passage teach things we don't believe about an unending fiery hell, but which fit national judgment? If the passage does not say what gehenna is, does it fit a national judgment? In this first passage, Jesus didn't say what gehenna is, but his teaching was at least consistent with the national judgment announced by Malachi and John the Baptist. The closest fire in the context is Mt. 3.10-12, where John announced imminent fiery judgment on the nation of Israel.

Mt. 5.29-30

The next passage is Mt. 5.29-30, where Jesus used gehenna twice when he said:

And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body go into hell. And if thy right hand causeth thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body go into hell.

Jesus didn't define hell here. However, in our traditional idea of hell, unending fire after the end of time, we normally don't think of anyone having their physical limbs at that time. This is not an argument, but just the realization that we don't think in terms of some people being in heaven with missing eyes and limbs, and some in hell with all of theirs. However, these words do fit a national judgment. It would be better to go into the kingdom of the Messiah missing some members, than to go into an imminent national judgment of unquenchable fire with all their members. This was equivalent to John's demand that his Jewish audience bring forth fruits worthy of repentance or receive imminent unquenchable fire. The whole body of a Jew could be cast into the fiery judgment of which John spoke.

Mt. 10.28

The fourth time Jesus used gehenna was when he said:

And be not afraid of them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Again, Jesus did not define hell, but he did speak of it consistently with imminent national judgment on Israel. The whole body of a Jew would be cast into the imminent fiery national judgment of which John spoke.

Lk. 12.4-5

This is the fifth time Jesus used hell, when he said:

And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, who after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell: yea, I say unto you, Fear him.

Although Jesus didn't define hell here either, he taught the same thing John taught in Mt. 3.10-12, that only a divine being has the power to cast someone into unquenchable fire. A human can kill you. A divine being can imminently bring an unstoppable national judgment in which a divinely ordained religion would be brought to an end. Notice also in verse 49 that Jesus said:

I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what do I desire, if it is already kindled?

The fiery judgment of which Jesus spoke was not far off in time and place, but imminent and earthly. In verse 56, Jesus noted that the judgment of which he spoke was imminent, for he said:

Ye hypocrites, ye know how to interpret the face of the earth and the heaven; but how is it that ye know not how to interpret this time?

The word for earth in both these verses is gen, the standard word for land or ground, not necessarily the planet, which we might think. Thayer defined the word as:

1. arable land, 2. the ground, the earth as a standing place, 3. land, as opposed to sea or water, 4. the earth as a whole, the world. (p. 114)

This is the word used in Mt. 2.6 (the land of Judea), Mt. 2.20 (the land of Israel), Mt. 10.15 (the land of Sodom and Gomorrah), Mt. 11.24 (the land of Sodom), Mt. 14.34 (the land of Gennesaret), Jn. 3.22 (the land of Judea), Acts 7.3 (into the land which I shall show thee), Acts 7.6 (seed should sojourn in a strange land), Acts 7.11 (a dearth over all the land of Egypt), etc. Thus, Jesus again spoke of imminent fiery destruction on the land of Israel, just as Malachi and John the Baptist said he would announce.

Mt. 18.9, Mk. 9.43-45

These verses contain the sixth, seventh, eight, and ninth times Jesus used the word hell. These are verses like Mt. 5.29-30, which speak of it being better to enter life or the kingdom without some members of one's body rather than going into hell with a whole body. However, we pay special attention to Mark's account, because in it, Jesus finally defined hell:

And if thy hand cause thee to stumble, cut it off: it is good for thee to enter into life maimed, rather than having thy two hands to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire [emphasis mine—SGD].

Notice that Jesus specifically said what hell is—it's unquenchable fire. John the Baptist said he would baptize with unquenchable fire, not necessarily fire that would burn unendingly, but which would not be quenched. Unquenchable fire is unstoppable! It's fiery destruction brought about by a divine being. In Ezk. 20.47-48, God promised such a national judgment on Judah:

Hear the word of the Lord: Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am about to kindle a fire in you, and it shall consume every green tree in you, as well as every dry tree; the blazing flame will not be quenched, and the whole surface from south to north will be burned by it. And all flesh will see that I, the Lord, have kindled it; it shall not be quenched.

Of course, Babylon fulfilled these words in the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. The fire was not quenched, but Jerusalem didn't burn unendingly from 586 B.C. on.

Likewise, in Amos 5.6, God had promised a similar judgment on the northern kingdom at the hands of the Assyrians, fulfilled in 722 B.C.:

Seek the Lord that you may live, lest He break forth like a fire, O house of Joseph, and it consume with none to quench it for Bethel.

The unquenchable fire which consumed Israel was unstoppable, but no one believes it's still burning unendingly. Thus, when Jesus spoke of unquenchable fire in Mk. 9.43, he used language that his Jewish listeners would associate with the national judgments God had brought on nations in the Old Testament.

In fact, they had never heard such language used any other way! Of course, we have, but not from the teaching of the Bible.

Mt. 23.15

In the tenth time Jesus used hell, he said:

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is become so, ye make him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves.

By now Jesus had defined hell—it's unquenchable fire. He told these Jews that they were headed for it, and the people they taught were as well. It is the same national judgment he's been speaking of thus far.

Mt. 23.33

Just eighteen verses later Jesus used hell for the eleventh time. Continuing in the same address, he said:

Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell?

Just three verses later, Jesus said, in Mt. 23.36:

Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

About these same things, Jesus said in Mt. 24.34:

Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all these things be accomplished

Thus Jesus gave the time element when this fiery destruction on the earth would be carried out: in that generation, i.e., in the time of his dealing with the then present generation of Jews. We can now define hell in the exact words of Jesus: Unquenchable fire (Mk. 9.43) upon his generation (Mt. 23.36) in his generation (Mt. 24.34). We cannot make it more precise! If hell is what Jesus said it was, hell is not a place, but an event—the unstoppable fiery destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

Jas. 3.6

There remains but one more occurrence of hell in the Bible. It's the only time the word occurs outside the gospels, where James, writing to Jews shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem, said:

And the tongue is a fire: the world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the wheel of nature, and is set on fire by hell.

While this is the only passage speaking of hell outside the gospels, it is consistent with how Jesus defined hell. James condemned misuse of the tongue, specifically in terms Jesus used the first time he used the word in Mt. 5.22, where he spoke of cursing one's brethren putting one in danger of the hell of fire. In Jas. 3.9, James said:

Therewith bless we the Lord and Father; and therewith curse we men, who are made after the likeness of God: out of the same mouth cometh forth blessing and cursing.

Thus, the last time hell occurred in the Bible, it taught the same thing it taught in the first. The Jew of Jesus' day who abused his brother with his tongue was in danger of imminent, fiery, national destruction. He was headed for unquenchable fire on his generation, in his generation.

We see the same imminence of this judgment against Jesus' generation of Jews later in James. For example, in Jas. 5.5, James mentioned a day of slaughter coming. In Jas. 5.7, he mentioned the coming of the Lord. In Jas. 5.8, he said the coming of the Lord was "at hand." In Jas. 5.9, he said "the judge standeth before the door."

Summary of the Twelve Gehenna Passages

From these twelve gehenna passages, we learn that hell was an imminent fiery judgment coming on the Jews in the generation in which Jesus was crucified. It was unquenchable fire on that generation in that generation.It was a national judgment against the Jews. None of these hell passages say that anyone of our day can go to hell. None of them associate hell with Satan. None of them say that Satan's domain is hell. Contrast Jesus' use of hell with traditional preaching on the subject. For example, we quote a Rev. J. Furniss, who said:

See on the middle of that red-hot floor stands a girl: she looks about sixteen years old. Her feet are bare. Listen; she speaks. "I have been standing on this red-hot floor for years! Look at my burnt and bleeding feet! Let me go off this burning floor for one moment!" The fifth dungeon is the red-hot oven. The little child is in the red-hot oven. Hear how it screams to come out; see how it turns and twists itself about in the fire. It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its little feet on the floor. God was very good to this little child. Very likely God saw it would get worse and worse, and would never repent, and so it would have to be punished more severely in hell. So God in His mercy called it out of the world in early childhood. (J. Furniss, The Sight of Hell, London and Dublin: Duffy, quoted by Edward William Fudge, The Fire That Consumes [Houston: Providential Press, 1982], p. 416.)

Charles H. Spurgeon, renowned Baptist preacher, said:

When thou diest thy soul will be tormented alone—that will be a hell for it—but at the day of judgment thy body will join thy soul, and then thou wilt have twin hells, body and soul shall be together, each brimfull of pain, thy soul sweating in its inmost pore drops of blood and thy body from head to foot suffused with agony; conscience, judgement, memory, all tortured. . . . Thine heart beating high with fever, thy pulse rattling at an enormous rate in agony, thy limbs cracking like the martyrs in the fire and yet unburnt, thyself put in a vessel of hot oil, pained yet coming out undestroyed, all thy veins becoming a road for the hot feet of pain to travel on, every nerve a string on which the devil shall ever play his diabolical tune. . . . Fictions, sir! Again I say they are no fictions, but solid, stern truth. If God be true, and this Bible be true, what I have said is the truth, and you will find it one day to be so. (Charles H. Spurgeon, Sermon No. 66, New Park Street Pulpit, 2:105, quoted by Edward William Fudge, The Fire That Consumes [Houston: Providential Press, 1982], p. 417.)

Only conceive that poor wretch in the flames, who is saying, "O for one drop of water to cool my parched tongue!" See how his tongue hangs from between his blistered lips! How it excoriates and burns the roof of his mouth as if it were a firebrand! Behold him crying for a drop of water. I will not picture the scene. Suffice it for me to close up by saying, that the hell of hells will be to thee, poor sinner, the thought that it is to be for ever. Thou wilt look up there on the throne of God—and on it shall be written, "for ever!" When the damned jingle the burning irons of their torments, they shall say, "For ever!" When they howl, echo cries, "For ever!" "For ever" is written on their racks, "For ever" on their chains; "For ever" burneth in the fire, "For ever" ever reigns." (From a sermon preached in 1855, quoted by Edward William Fudge, The Fire That Consumes [Houston: Providential Press], 1982, p. 417.)

Jonathan Edwards, famous Calvinist preacher of an earlier century, said:

So it will be with the soul in Hell; it will have no strength or power to deliver itself; and its torment and horror will be so great, so mighty, so vastly disproportioned to its strength, that having no strength in the least to support itself, although it be infinitely contrary to the nature and inclination of the soul utterly to sink; yet it will sink, it will utterly and totally sink, without the least degree of remaining comfort, or strength, or courage, or hope. And though it will never be annihilated, its being and perception will never be abolished: yet such will be the infinite depth of gloominess that it will sink into, that it will be in a state of death, eternal death. . . .

To help your conception, imagine yourself to be cast into a fiery oven, all of a glowing heat, or into the midst of a glowing brick-kiln, or of a great furnace, where your pain would be as much greater than that occasioned by accidentally touching a coal of fire, as the heat is greater. Imagine also that you body were to lie there for a quarter of an hour, full of fire, as full within and without as a bright coal of fire, all the while full of quick sense; what horror would you feel at the entrance of such a furnace! And how long would that quarter of an hour seem to you! . . . And how much greater would be the effect, if you knew you must endure it for a whole year, and how vastly greater still, if you knew you must endure it for a thousand years! O then, how would your heart sink, if you thought, if you knew, that you must bear it forever and ever! . . . That after millions of millions of ages, your torment would be no nearer to an end, than ever it was; and that you never, never should be delivered! But your torment in Hell will be immeasurably greater than this illustration represents. How then will the heart of a poor creature sink under it! How utterly inexpressible and inconceivable must the sinking of the soul be in such a case. (Jonathan Edwards, quoted by Edward William Fudge, The Fire That Consumes [Houston: Providential Press, 1982], p. 417.)

Do you think all that preaching came from the twelve gehenna passages we've just analyzed? Do you think any of it did? We can find none of this language of red-hot floors, dungeons, red-hot ovens, vessels of hot oil, being able to see the throne of God, brick-kilns, torture racks, chains, or great furnaces anywhere in these twelve passages that deal with the subject of gehenna in the Bible. However, they are easily found in Milton's Paradise Lost and Dante's Inferno.

The reader may wonder, "Well, if Jesus didn't teach the wicked presently living finally go to hell, then what did he teach about the final destiny of the wicked?" First, we don't have to know the answer to that question to know that traditional teaching on hell is Biblically bankrupt. Secondly, Jesus didn't teach anything about the final destiny of the wicked. If we're tempted to use the account of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16), let's recall that in this account, Lazarus, the rich man, and Abraham were all in hades (they couldn't be seen), and the passage doesn't address what happens after the end of time at all. Whatever the passage teaches, it doesn't deal with the final destiny of the wicked.

Other Terminology Commonly Thought to Refer to 
Eternal Fiery Hell

Now we want to notice other expressions of fiery judgment which we traditionally use to describe hell. These include fire burning to sheol, the worm dying not, unquenchable fire, fire that is not quenched, everlasting fire, weeping and gnashing of teeth, gnashing of teeth, fire and brimstone, rising smoke, no rest day or night, being cast into fire, and melting.

Fire Consuming a Nation

In Isa. 33.10-1, Isaiah said about Assyria:

Now I will arise, says the Lord, now I will be exalted, now I will be lifted up. You have conceived chaff, you will give birth to stubble; my breath will consume you like a fire, and the peoples will be burned to lime, like cut thorns which are burned in the fire . . . Who among us can live with the consuming fire? Who among us can live with continual burning?

A careful study of the Old Testament prophets shows these expressions of the Assyrians being consumed by fire, and burned to lime are expressions of national judgment upon that nation. These expressions are similar to Jesus' statement in Lk. 12.49 that he came to send fire on the land of Israel. This is also the Old Testament basis for Jesus' statement to the Jews in Jn. 15.6:

If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

Isaiah's language was also similar to that in Dan. 7.9-12, where Daniel foretold the judgment of the beast about to overcome the saints of the Most High:

I kept looking until thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days took His seat; His vesture was like white snow and the hair of His head like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames, Its wheels were a burning fire. A river of fire was flowing and coming out from before Him; Thousands upon thousands were attending Him, and myriads upon myriads were standing before Him; The court sat, and the books were opened. Then I kept looking because of the sound of the boasting words which the horn was speaking: I kept looking until the beast was slain, and its body was destroyed and given to the burning fire.

This scene portrayed the national destruction of the pagan power attempting to destroy the saints of the Most High. This is the same scene described in Rev. 20.11-15:

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; and books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it; and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. And if any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.

Both of these scenes depict national judgements against a nation persecuting God's saints, both have judgment scenes, both have people judged out of things written in the books, and both have those not pleasing God in the judgment being cast into a river or lake of fire. This national judgment goes with John's expressions of imminence in Rev. 1.3 ("the time is at hand"), Rev. 22.6 ("things which must shortly come to pass"), and Rev. 22.10 ("Seal not up the words of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand"). Those who take the early date of Revelation (A.D. 67) believe these words refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, while those who take the later date for Revelation (A.D. 90-96) believe these words refer to the destruction of the Roman empire. Whether they refer to Jerusalem or the Roman empire, they refer to a national judgment.

Fire Burning to Sheol, Consuming the Earth and Mountains

This language is generally associated with a fiery judgment at the end of time, and hell. However, in Dt. 32.22, Moses said the same about the punishment God would bring on Israel for her idolatry:

For a fire is kindled in My anger, and burns to the lowest part of Sheol, and consumes the earth with its yield, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.

This language described national judgment that caused a nation to vanish.

Worm Dieth Not, Fire Not Quenched

While this language is generally applied to hell, it's not so used in any of the gehenna passages in the Bible. In Isa. 66.24, we read of God's destruction of Jerusalem in the generation when Jesus was crucified:

Then they shall go forth and look on the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me. For their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched; and they shall be an abhorrence to all mankind.

This passage contains nothing about conscious suffering, much less enduring to the end of time. Yet this is the same kind of language we saw in Mk. 9.47-48, the passage where Jesus defined hell as "unquenchable fire." There Jesus said:

It is good for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

When Jesus spoke these words, the Bible had never used such language of anything but a national judgment.

Unquenchable Fire

Likewise, when John the Baptist and Jesus spoke of unquenchable fire, the Jews had never heard such language used of anything but a national judgment. For example, in Ezk. 20.47-48, God promised national judgment on Israel:

Hear the word of the Lord: Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am about to kindle a fire in you, and it shall consume every green tree in you, as well as every dry tree; the blazing flame will not be quenched, and the whole surface from south to north will be burned by it. And all flesh will see that I, the Lord, have kindled it; it shall not be quenched.

In Amos 5.5-6, we have the same language used of national judgment on Israel again. God had promised a similar judgment on the northern kingdom at the hands of the Assyrians, fulfilled in 722 B.C.:

Seek the Lord that you may live, lest He break forth like a fire, O house of Joseph, and it consume with none to quench it for Bethel.

In Isa. 66.15-16, 24, Isaiah spoke of New Jerusalem's enemies being burned with unquenchable fire, as he spoke of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70:

For behold, the Lord will come in fire, and His chariots like the whirlwind, to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire. For the Lord will execute judgment by fire, and by His sword on all flesh. And those slain by the Lord will be many. . . . Then they shall go forth and look on the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me. For their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched; and they shall be an abhorrence to all mankind.

In Jer. 21.10-12, we read of Babylon's burning Jerusalem with unquenchable fire, a national judgment fulfilled in 586 B.C.:

For I have set My face against this city for harm and not for good, declares the Lord. It will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it with fire. Then say to the household of the king of Judah, Hear the word of the Lord, O house of David, thus says the Lord: Administer justice every morning; and deliver the person who has been robbed from the power of the oppressor. That My wrath may not go forth like fire and burn with none to extinguish it, because of the evil of their deeds.

Again, at the time John the Baptist and Jesus used this language in the gospels, the Bible had only used it of national judgments.

Fire That Is Not Quenched

The same thing is true of this expression. In Jer. 4.4, Jeremiah used it of the destruction of Jerusalem. In Jer. 21.12, he used it to describe the destruction of the house of David. In Amos 5.5, 6, Amos used it of the destruction of Jerusalem. In II Kings 22.17, it's used of the destruction of Judah. In Isa. 34.10, Isaiah used it of the destruction of Edom, and in Isa. 66.24, he used it of the destruction of the enemies of the Messiah's people. See also Jer. 7.20, 17.27, where Jeremiah used it of the destruction of Judah, and Ezk. 20.47-48, where Ezekiel spoke of God's destruction of Jerusalem.

Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth

These words are so often thought of as applying to people suffering unending conscious torment in hell, that it will surprise many to find that the Old Testament used this language exclusively of national judgments.

In Isa. 22.12, speaking of the time Jerusalem would be destroyed by Babylon, Isaiah said:

Therefore in that day the Lord God of hosts, called you to weeping, to wailing, to shaving the head, and to wearing sackcloth.

See also Isa. 16.9, Jer. 9.1, and 48.32. The entire book of Lamentations contains such language as Jeremiah lamented the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon. In the New Testament, Jas. 5.1 uses the same kind of language to describe the weeping of the rich for fear of God's imminent judgment on Jerusalem:

Come now, ye rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten.

This judgment was also imminent in Jas. 5.5-9, where the day of slaughter was spoken of as at hand, as the judge was standing before the door. John used this same language in Rev. 18.9, of the pagan kings lamenting the destruction of spiritual Babylon:

And the kings of the earth, who committed fornication and lived wantonly with her, shall weep and wail over her, when they look upon the smoke of her burning, standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! for in one hour is thy judgment. And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her . . .

On the gnashing of teeth in particular, an adversary about to kill his victim did this in Job 16.9, Ps. 35.16, Ps. 37.12, Lam. 2.16, and Acts 7.54. Ths Psalmist used it of gnashing of teeth by the victim in Ps. 112.10, where the psalmist said:

The wicked man will see and be vexed, he will gnash his teeth and waste away: the longing of the wicked will come to nothing.

Thus, when Jesus and John the Baptist issued their warnings of the impending destruction of Jerusalem, they used language which the Old Testament had only used of national destruction.

Fire and Brimstone

In Isa. 34.9, Isaiah used this language of national judgment on Edom:

And its streams shall be turned into pitch, and its loose earth into brimstone, and its land shall become burning pitch.

In Isa. 30.33, Isaiah used it of such a judgment on Assyria:

For Topheth [the place of human sacrifice to Molech, an Assyrian god—SGD] has long been ready, indeed, it has been prepared for the king. He has made it deep and large, a pyre of fire with plenty of wood; the breath of the Lord, like a torrent of brimstone, sets it afire.

Psalm 11.6 spoke of fire and brimstone on the wicked, Ezk. 38.22 used this language to speak of national judgment on Gog, a pagan nation opposed to God's people in the restoration after Babylonian captivity. In Rev. 14.9-11, John used fire and brimstone of national judgment on the empire attempting to eradicate the Messiah's people. Scripture uses this language only of national judgment.

Rising Smoke

Isaiah used this language of national judgment against Edom in Isa. 34.10.

No Rest Day or Night

Isaiah used this language of national judgment on Edom in Isa. 34.10.

Cast Into Fire

In Ezk. 5.4-5, we see this language used to describe Israel being cast into the fire, in her destruction by Babylon:

And take again some of them and throw them into the fire, and burn them in the fire, from it a fire will spread to all the house of Israel . . . Thus says the Lord God, This is Jerusalem; I have set her at the center of the nations, with lands around her.

Thus, this expression is used consistently of national destruction.

Unfruitful Branches to Be Burned Up

In Ezek. 19.10-14, Ezekiel used this language of the national destruction of Israel.

Melt

In Mic. 1.2-7, God said he would melt Israel and Judah. In Ps. 75.3, the Psalmist used this language of the destruction of God's enemies in the Old Testament. Peter may well have used this language of the destruction of Jerusalem in II Pet. 3.10-12. Like all the other expressions, melt portrays national destruction.

This section shows that none of the language we usually associate with hell is so associated in the Bible, and most of that language was used of strictly national judgments.

This study shows that when John the Baptist and Jesus used these terms in the gospels, they used language familiar to the Jews whom they taught. The Jews had heard this language no other way than in scenes of national judgment. While it is easy for us to read these passages in the New Testament from the point of view of enduring conscious punishment, we should read them as the Jews who heard them first. They had heard them in no other way than national judgment. For a more comprehensive study of Jesus' teaching concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, see the author's book Denominational Doctrines: Explained, Examined, and Exposed. For an overall review of the gospels as the teaching of a faithful Jewish teacher, admonishing Jews to faithfully obey the Law of Moses, examine the author's cassette album, The Teaching of Jesus.

Rather than our present day beliefs about hell coming from the Bible, it may just be that the caller to the radio program was right. Our beliefs come from Roman Catholic theologians. While the author does not cover the final destiny of the wicked in this study, he hopes others will see the need to do further study on that subject.

This booklet is available at the website: http://gospelthemes.com where copies can be made to distribute freely as long as the booklet is kept intact along with all of its headers and footers and the copyright and publisher information and addresses. Or you can order hard copies of this booklet from Gospel Themes Press, 2028 South Austin, Suite 906 Amarillo, TX 79109-1960  USA.

This booklet is adapted from the cassette album The Teaching of Jesus: Exposing Many of Our False Concepts by Samuel G. Dawson. The cassette album contains four sermons on Matthew 24 and 25 which contain related material about judgment language. In addition, Denominational Doctrines: Explained, Examined, Exposed by Samuel G. Dawson contains a chapter on Matthew 24 and 25. Do you want to study more about our misconceptions about the teaching of Jesus and judgment language? Place an order.

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