In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; I go to prepare a place for you. John 14:2 NASB (emphasis added) (Jesus discussing the future home of all present and future believers.)
In Part 1 of What the Hell–The Hideous Doctrine, we pointed out that none of the 3 different Greek words (and one Hebrew word) which are translated “hell” in most modern versions of the Bible mean anything remotely similar to “a place for burning eternally in fiery, tortuous punishment”. In this post, we revisit the Hideous Doctrine to find out more about the justification by religious insiders of this false accusation and slander against our heavenly Father.
We noted in our first post that the organized Church has used the Hideous Doctrine to perpetuate a non-biblical definition of hell so as to create a fear-based need among religious outsiders to “get saved” (and avoid being burned forever). Whether the insiders are “well-meaning” or not in so doing is hardly the point; they have knowingly and deliberately created a Hobson’s Choice–turn or burn–using a methodology that Father has never commanded, has never spoken of, nor has it even entered his mind, as we shall see. (We are sorry for all of our insider friends who think that this practice is acceptable or pleasing to Father; we urge you to cease this practice and commence preaching that Jesus Christ has destroyed the works of the devil [which would include the “hell” of which you speak], has bound the strong man, and has set all of the oppressed free. You will never run out of good things to say about Father and our Lord Jesus!)
We gladly proclaim the good news to all religious outsiders, and to you, dear reader, that the widely accepted Hideous Doctrine is wrong. It’s not slightly wrong, it’s totally wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth! So if you have found yourself wondering how a supposedly merciful and loving God could create and utilize “hell” as is popularly claimed, congratulations!–you were correct, He didn’t.
Here is a hint, dear reader. Our Father is omni-present, all-knowing, and all powerful–why would He need to create such a place in the first instance?
So, who originally came up with the accusation that our heavenly Father would send the vast majority of mankind from all ages to such a place the likes of which are not described anywhere in the Bible? If you guessed the ancient pagans or others who didn’t know Father, you guessed correctly!
Our usual practice is to point to Him who is The Truth, and to encourage you to ask Him of the truth of any matter. In fact, we especially urge it in this case. However, because the concept of “the good go to heaven, the bad go to hell” (from which the turn-or-burn fear paradigm originated) is of ancient pagan origin and is so widely adopted by the organized Church, we will depart briefly from our practice of not debunking what is false.
To recap the translations from the original languages to “hell”, there is Gehenna, Jerusalem’s ancient city dump. Then there is Sheol/hades, the place of the unseen or some similar place under the earth. (Wikipedia notes that Hades was god of the underworld [complete with pitchfork/bident] in ancient Greek mythology and religion, and the place became synonymous with his name. The New Testament writers were undoubtedly generally referring to the place by comparison to Sheol.) Finally, there is Tartarus, a multi-level subterranean place of Greek mythology.
I. Let’s look first at the claim that Father punishes or torments eternally, forever, or however else one may state it. It should be noted in fairness, that there is no simple statement by Jesus or any of the New Testament writers that Father punishes forever. However, as we noted in the opening scripture, Jesus himself said if there were only a few dwelling places in Father’s house, (because the majority of mankind was going somewhere else), he would have told us. So where do the insiders get this idea?
A. First, they point to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Here is the passage from Luke 16:
19 “Now there was a rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, enjoying himself in splendor every day. 20 And a poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, 21 and longing to be fed from the scraps which fell from the rich man’s table; not only that, the dogs also were coming and licking his sores. 22 Now it happened that the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s arms; and the rich man also died and was buried. 23 And in Hades he raised his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his arms. 24 And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus, so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set, so that those who want to go over from here to you will not be able, nor will any people cross over from there to us.’ 27 And he said, ‘Then I request of you, father, that you send him to my father’s house— 28 for I have five brothers—in order that he may warn them, so that they will not come to this place of torment as well.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 But he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’” NASB (emphasis added)
Limiting our initial focus solely to the text (without reference to the setting, what precedes the passage, or what follows it), we see that the Lord plainly made a reference to Hades, that the “rich man” was in “torment”, and was in “agony in this flame.” But it is equally plain that there is no direct or implied reference to punishment, unless the rich man is being tormented just for being “rich” or receiving “good things” in his life and Lazarus is being rewarded for being poor; there is no direct or implied reference to eternal duration; and the conversation does not involve Father or Jesus, but is instead between Abraham and the rich man.
The Doctrine’s proponents point to this fact: the rich man does not “turn”, that is, repent–therefore, he deserves this agonizing treatment (notice, however, neither the Lord nor Abraham even hint that the failure to repent is a bad thing). Does it seem plausible to you, dear reader, that the story is adequate proof of the doctrine when the “turn” half of formula is missing? Nevertheless, the parable cannot fairly be said to be a statement that unless you do x, y or z, you will end up like the rich man, in Hades, in torment, and in agonizing flames. If that were the point of the story, would it not have been easy, even predictable, for the Lord to say so?
Looking beyond the text to the setting, we can see that the parable is a prophetic story directed to the Jewish priests and Pharisees (the rich man) to whom Jesus is speaking in the immediately preceding verses. The other tribes of Israel (Lazarus, the poor man) had been deported (outside the “gate”) and were unable to access the temple, the priests or the word of God (longing for the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table). Dr. Stephen Jones’ excellent teaching on this subject is well worth the time to read it. A full explanation is beyond the scope of this post; the point is, the passage does not substantiate the Hideous Doctrine.
B. Also, they rely upon the parable of the sheep and the goats. Here is the passage from Matthew 25:
31 “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38 And when did we see You as a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of Mine, you did it for Me.’
41 “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you accursed people, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; 43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ 44 Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or as a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for Me, either.’ 46 These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” NASB (emphasis added)
At least now we see some of the elements of the Hideous Doctrine: eternal fire and eternal punishment; but did you notice the offenses for which this “punishment” results? Not feeding the hungry with food or water, not inviting strangers in, not clothing the naked, and not visiting the sick or those in prison. These offenses do not seem worthy of being burned alive in torment forever! If you are wondering: where is the turning/repenting? where is joining the church? where is getting “saved” by faith? You are again correct–those elements of the Hideous Doctrine are not in the parable.
So you may also be beginning to wonder if this parable (being the last of a string of parables) is like our last example–taken out of the context originally intended to make a specific or prophetic point, and twisted beyond its plain words to mean something else. If so, we congratulate you for thinking critically.
The real point of the parable is beyond the scope of this post, but we feel it is fair to look at the words and phrases “eternal fire” and “eternal punishment”. Are they really accurate translations, or more to the point, were they translated in that manner to support the Hideous Doctrine?
“Eternal” in both cases is aionios, or aionian, meaning pertaining to a eon, or pertaining to an indefinite but long period of time with a finite ending. It cannot have the alternate meaning: having no beginning and no end, because clearly it has a beginning at some point in the future. In other words the Greek definition for perpetual duration won’t work because of the existence of a beginning point. Thus, we can confidently conclude the correct meaning in this case is an indefinite period with beginning and ending points; i.e., not eternal. We will return to this important point later.
“Fire” is pyr, or pur, from which we get our English words pure, purify and purification. This word for fire, as we shall see in an upcoming post, can be literal fire or figurative fire. For reasons we shall set forth from the Bible, the fire is figurative and not literal, redemptive/restoring and not destructive.
“Punishment” is kolasis, the first definition of which is “correction”. Don’t the “offenses” sound to you like an unspecified period of “correction” is needed rather than burning forever? We maintain that Father does not punish to destruction, but he corrects to accomplish proper behavior, in the precisely the same way as any loving earthly father does. We will have more to say about this in an upcoming post, but the point is: the parable of the sheep and the goats likewise fails to substantiate the Hideous Doctrine.
C. Lastly, they rely upon the day of the great judgment, called the “Great White Throne” judgment. Here is the passage from Revelation 20:
12 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 from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. 14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. NASB (emphasis added)
It is to be fairly noted that there is indeed a day of judgment. But notice the missing elements: no mention of punishment, no mention of destruction, no mention of torture and no mention of eternity. Also notice that, here, Hades is not translated “hell”. Otherwise, we would have “hell” being thrown into “hell”–and that simply won’t support the doctrine. Accordingly, the proponents of the Hideous Doctrine simply omit verse 14 as though it were not there. But there is a relatively simple explanation which requires some knowledge of Israel’s history.
Israel’s third king, Solomon (David’s son), built a magnificent temple for Father. In front of the priestly entrance into the holy place, Solomon built (in accordance with the pattern set down by Moses) a very large, bronze, cast metal laver that held an enormous amount of water and that was used by the priests for purification to “wash their hands and feet that they may not die.” As the water was stirred by partial immersion of the priests under the sun, the bronze laver had the appearance of fire and thus came to be called “the lake of fire”.
The bronze laver was built as a prophetic pattern after something in heaven before Father’s throne that represents purification not destruction. This same item is called “the sea of glass” earlier in the book of Revelation. The difference is that those whose names are “written in the book of life” stand upon the sea of glass (without disturbing the water which is perfectly still, like glass); i.e., they need no purification. Thus, the purpose of the “lake of fire” in Revelation is for purification for those whose names are not written in the book of life. None of the language of the text mentions destruction. Failure to understand the connection between Revelation’s “lake of fire” and Exodus’ “bronze laver” has led to this incorrect support for the Hideous Doctrine.
Dear reader, if your life is a train wreck, may we recommend Father’s correction and purification? We emphatically state, it is not to be feared! Simply stated, He repairs anything that is broken, and it all begins with a heart-felt call to the Savior. (Check the preceding link for His number.) Why wait? You have nothing to lose except the wreckage.
(For a wonderful analysis of the early Church’s adoption of the Hideous Doctrine see the excellent work of Dr. Stephen Jones here.)
Blessed are You, O Lord, for you have clearly shown us the Truth in the person of Yeshua/Jesus, our wonderful savior and lord, who is the exact representation of Your nature and who only said what he heard You saying and only did what he saw You doing.