Hell Fire
Who among us
shall dwell with everlasting burnings? Isaiah 33:14Hell FireWho among us
shall dwell with everlasting burnings? Isaiah 33:14
As we read the Bible one will notice that in its' entirety the Bible is Christo-centric. We read about the power in Jesus Christ and how He controls "the keys of hell," (Rev. 1:18). It is necessary to search the scriptures, to understand what Jesus revealed to us on this matter. Many Christians, who are sedulous searchers in the scriptures, often times come across truths that conflict with their creed. One such Christian was Martin Luther who had an acute intellect, although he was not exempt from being deceived. One day, Luther was ascending on his knees on what was known as Pilate's staircase in Rome. While on the way up, God revealed to him that "The just shall live by faith." Shortly after this intervention, the reformation took place. If Martin Luther had rejected that light, which was given to him God would have held him accountable for it. I would like to pose this question to the reader. If Gods' word went contrary to what you believe and have been taught, what would you say or do? I pray that you stand by your convictions, just as Martin Luther did! In these proceeding pages we will be discussing the topic, "The sizzling fires of hell" which is taught as doctrine throughout most of Christendom. This doctrinal believe has brought fascination along with terror for believers and unbelievers alike!
The way most ministers preach about hell turns away many souls from Christ! God is pictured as a tyrant who is ready to plunge into hell those who go contrary to his will. Contrary to this, the bible teaches us that "God is love" and He is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (I John 4:8; II Peter 3:9). I am buy no means teaching the doctrine of Universalism, [that all the wicked will be reformed from hell and taken to heaven] but stating the fact that God's wrath, is revealed in the context of his longsuffering, love, mercy and justice. If the orthodox teaching of hell conflicts with these four attributes of God, I can assure you that it is wrong. Let us consider the claims of this teaching.
The Resurrection our only Hope of Eternal Life
The Christian hope circles around the resurrection of Christ, Paul bears witness to this, when he said ". . . If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins." I Corinthians 15:17. Isaiah and Job express their hope of a future resurrection, in these words:
"For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me. But ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me? Be ye afraid of the sword: for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword, that ye may know there is a judgment." Job 19:25-29.
"Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." Isaiah 26:19.
There is a judgement that proceeds the reward of the righteous and the wicked to determine the candidates for heaven or hell. Paul and Peter in their epistles spoke of this judgement:
"For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." II Corinthians 5:10.
"For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?" I Peter 4:17.
After this judgement, there are two general resurrections, these are the resurrection of the saints which "have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and those that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." John 5:29. The righteous will receive their rewards at Christ Second Coming:
"For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." I Thessalonians 4:15-17.
"And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." Matthew 24:31.
The second resurrection takes place after the saints, "lived and reigned with Christ a thousand Years [after the Millennium, the resurrection of the wicked takes place]. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished." Revelation 20:4-5. According to the theologians who preach and write about life after death, they say that the righteous immediately after death are dispatched to heaven and the wicked to hell. Russell & Colin Standish who co-authored the book, The Mystery of Death pose this unanswerable question to the theologians and they that follow in their mold. He states: "If mankind is dispatched to heaven or to hell at death, then each individual must be judged either before or at the moment of death. Yet Scripture testifies to no such judgement. This is powerful evidence against the popular concept of the fate of the dead. Rather the Bible testifies to a future "day" of judgement when all will be judged. Further, God's rewards are not meted out at death, but following His Second Coming. Ibid. 113. These and other unanswerable reasoning will be stated in this tract to show the weakness and lack of biblical support, which will lead one to see the true nature of this error.
A view of Hell, through the death of Jesus
To get a simple yet a heart felt understanding of what constitutes the horrors of "hell," we need to look at the cross of Jesus here is where we will find the answer. Edward William Fudge, a biblical scholar, lawyer and church elder, quotes Alan Richardson as saying "that the cross of Christ 'is the visible, historical manifestation of the orge tou theou [wrath of God]: it is the supreme revelation of the wrath of God against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men (Rom.1: 18; cf. 2 Cor.Mark 15:34)." The Fire That Consumes, p.136. The bible explicitly states, that "the wages of sin is death" and that Christ tasted "death for every man" (Romans 6:23; Hebrews 2:9). What was it in this death that led Christ to say "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done?" Luke 22:42. It was the guilt of humanity, which he bore and yet experiencing it on the sinners' behalf, the torment of being eternally forsaken by God. This frightening ordeal is what led him to exclaim "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" This is the second death that Christ tasted for "every man"! The purpose of the "fire and brimstone" (Rev. 21:8) is to destroy the wicked, the bible describes this destruction in ways to show its completeness:
"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." Malachi 4:1
"For the LORD loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved for ever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off." Psalms 37:28.
"Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world." Matthew 13:30,40.
If the wrath of God consists of being tormented and burned for eternity, then we would have to have a fire proof body. Where is the written authority to show that Christ experienced this kind of torment, since Christ tasted "death for everyman?" If you have an answer to this question, I am interested to hear what it is! According to Mark 1:24, even the devils know that their fate is meted out in destruction:
"Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God."
From the mouth of devils, they confess their destruction; even Satan the chief instigator will partake in their fate:
" Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee." Ezekiel 28:18.
If this is the case, why would God leave humanity [the wicked] in "Hell" to be tormented by fire for eternity, while Satan and his angels get off easy by escaping "eternal fire" because the bible states they will be utterly destroyed? This is one of the many reasons why the orthodox teaching does not make sense! It would only make sense if they would take heed to what David said while under inspiration: "The LORD preserveth all them that love him: but all the wicked will he destroy." Psalms 145:20.
Traditionalists Proof Texts Examined
Almost every religion has their "proof texts" to substantiate what they believe, but not all are capable of rightly dividing the word of truth. The wonderful thing about the truth is that when it is placed besides errors it exposes the errors and Satan's deceptions are clearly seen. I have confidence that when we examine the substance of proof, in support of this fallacious belief, the truth will outshine the error, the bible warns us: "Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar." Proverbs 30:6. Let us proceed and examine the following passages:
What did Christ mean by "everlasting punishment"? This punishment is everlasting because the sinner would be destroyed forever without any hope of being resurrected. The Apostle Paul calls this "everlasting destruction" (II Thessalonians 1:9)! In verse seven of the book of Jude, Sodom and Gomorrah are portrayed as an example "of eternal fire." Is Sodom and Gomorrah still burning? No! According to II Peter 2:6, it was turned into "ashes," this is another perfect "example unto those that after should live ungodly."
It is agreed by various scholars that Christ repeats some of the clauses of Isaiah 66:24, to draw a description of the fate of those who choose not to sever from them the sins that the Holy Spirit convicts them of. Isaiah gives a graphic description of what will be the lot of the wicked, he states as follows:
"And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh."
Jasmison, Fausset and Brown in their commentary of the bible correlate this verse with what was said in Mark 9:44,46,48, stating that the "image of hell, from bodies left unburied in the valley of Hinnom (whence comes Gehenna, of hell, south of Jerusalem), where a perpetual fire was kept to consume the refuse thrown there (ch. xxx. 33). Vol. 2, p. 767. Although these commentators hold to the Orthodox possession of life after death, their description of "hell" in Mark 9:44,46,48 is correct, so we will take the description and not the interpretation to conclude what was said in Mark. What makes most scholars and Christian's trip and fall into interpreting Christ words "the fire is not quenched" as to mean the wicked will burn for eternity? We would do well to consider Isaiah inspired counsel of interpretation: "For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little (Isa. 28:10), and pray that the Holy Spirit may help us to "rightly divide the word of truth" (II Timothy 2:15). The Jews in the time of the prophet Jeremiah was doing commerce on the Sabbath day which was not lawful to do, God sent Jeremiah to warn them of their destruction:
"But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched." Jeremiah 17:27.
The fulfillment of this prophecy took place in II Chronicles 36:19-21, when the Babylonians burnt and destroyed the city. The fires were not quenched until everything was consumed! This is what Christ meant when he said; "the fire is not quenched," because in the future the wicked will be "consumed out of the earth" (Palms 104:35). Commenting of Christ referral to Isaiah 66:24, Henry Feyerabend asked and answered this interesting question:
"What is the work of the worm? It is to hasten the disappearance of that which has ceased to live. It replaces the gravedigger; the cremation follows which burns up the bones gnawed by the worm. The Hebrews had an extraordinary concern over the body, possibly because of their hope in the resurrection. To abandon a body of a detested enemy to worms and the birds of prey, or to burn his bones seemed to take away all chance of a resurrection. This was the ideal of perfect vengeance." Living Lies About Death And The Hereafter, p. 13. What more a better picture Christ could have painted to show what would come upon the wicked?
The words forever and ever are the cause of much misunderstanding among the proponents of the common belief. Not that God's word is hard to be understood, because the bible is written for the common people as well as the learned. Pride, prejudice and ignorance are some of the reasons why people stumble at his word. The problem stems from the starting point. If you begin with a false premise it will affect what follows. Let us forget for a moment what we think "forever and ever" means in our everyday language and seek to understand what the people who live in the time of the bible thought of it. I will seek to show some instances in the bible where the word "forever" is used and has nothing to do with eternity.
"But Hannah went not up; for she said unto her husband, I will not go up until the child be weaned, and then I will bring him, that he may appear before the LORD, and there abide for ever." I Samuel 1:22. Samuel died according to I Samuel 15:35!
"And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance for ever." Exodus 12:17.
"And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance for ever. Exodus 12:17.
"I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God." Jonah 2:6.
"Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever." Exodus 21:6.
"For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever." Philemon 15.
When the word "forever" is used for things pertaining to this world, it is limited. Robert Leo Odom commenting on Revelation 20:10 brings us to the climax of the true understanding of this scripture, as he states "Revelation 20:10 does not say that the wicked "shall be tormented for eternity, for ever and ever." If the word "eternal" had been used in that text there could be no question about the length of time And shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." Thus it is a matter of days and nights and not eternity. The suffering of some sinners in the lake of fire undoubtedly will be over a period of many days and nights, for every wicked person will be rewarded "according to his works." Matthew 16:27; Romans 2:6; Revelation 22:12; 20:12,13. Is Your Soul Immortal, p.77.
Conclusion
The Roman Catholics have their belief in purgatory and the Protestants "hell fire," both have their roots in paganism. One is not better than the other, they are all "doctrines of devils," (I Timothy 4:1) which Paul also called "another gospel" (Galatians 1:6). In this tract, I have not dealt with all the arguments of this subject, because if I did this tract would not be a tract but a book. I would like to invite you to comment on what you have just read. We are admonished to "take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine," (I Timothy 4:16) if we follow this inspired counsel we can say together with Peter "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables" (II Peter 1:16).