Hell Fire-Is it Real?

According to University of Virginia sociologist James Hunter, "Many evangelicals have a difficult time conceiving of people, especially virtuous non believers, going to hell." These churchgoers recognize, he says, that to consign non-Christians to hell "is to say that friends of theirs who are not born again will also go to hell, and socially that's a difficult position to maintain."

Author Hunter's quotes were not in an obscure journal of religion, but in a feature. article on the subject of heaven and hell in Newsweek. Hell, in other words, is in the news.

Topic That Won't Go Away
For centuries much of Christianity thought of hell as a blazing inferno doomed sinners under going never-ending torture in its interminable flames. Some segments of Christianity still believe it. Wherever hell is supposed to be, its inhabitants, they insist, are condemned to an exquisite variety of punishments to fit whatever the condemned individuals are guilty of.

Who are these unfortunates forever at the mercies of the devil and his demons? They include, of course, those who relish the fulfilment of their lusts in this life. But to the Christian world this has often included all those who do not, in the course of this life, become Christians, however that is defined. And it is precisely this point that has caused theologians and non theologians to rethink the concept of hell. The Christian world has been forced to accept that in other non-Christian cultures and religions various individuals lead lives more virtuous, do more good, than numbers of churchgoing Christians.

Would God condemn these non-Christians to eternal torment, while swinging open the doors of paradise to any and all who have simply uttered the magic words "I accept Christ"?

The article pointed out that for a significant portion of Christianity hell has become unfashionable. Of Americans polled for the magazine, 58 percent believe there is a hell of some kind. Only 6 percent, however, think they themselves have a good or excellent chance of eventually finding themselves there. Exactly who then do they think would exit this life at the door to hell? Other people of course. But have you ever heard of a funeral or memorial service where the deceased, no matter how bad a life he or she led, is consigned to hell?

What usually happens when there is a major tragedy in which scores of lives are lost is that some dignitary will offer an encouragement such as: "We can be sure that the souls of those who have been killed in this tragedy are safe in God's care." But isn't it likely that among all those victims there was at least one scoundrel, one person for whom the traditional hell could be the only appropriate destination? Not according to the increasingly popular, broad-minded view. Hell has, as Newsweek concluded, "for all its old intents and purposes, disappeared from modern consciousness."

Good riddance. It was a defective concept. After all, how could a God of mercy and compassion condone the everlasting torture of hapless souls too weak to control their lusts? Even if some reprobate individuals deserve the worst fate possible for having imposed horrible, but temporary suffering on their victims, what purpose is served in having the reprobates writhe in agony forever? And if one believes that salvation is available only to those who become Christians, the majority of humans who ever lived - no matter how well meaning they were and how much good they accomplished in this life - would be likewise doomed to burn forever. Was it their fault if they had never even heard of Jesus? Was it their fault if they found a divided, confusing and unbelievable Christianity?

Think of it this way. If the traditional view were true, then at the close of God's plan of salvation a minority would enjoy eternal bliss, while countless throngs of "lost souls" - the wicked and the unbelievers - would be packed into the infernal regions of hell.

Hell and the Bible
But doesn't the Bible talk about hell fire? Didn't Jesus warn about it? Yes indeed. But not in the way most think! Was Jesus referring to the common concept of an ever-burning inferno filled with the souls of sinners writhing in torment? No.

Hell is an old English word. Bible translators more than 350 years ago used this single word to refer to three entirely different ideas found in the Bible. But the confused ideas about hell depend for their existence on another widely held belief that human beings have "immortal souls." Once a person understands what the Bible teaches about the human "soul," the subject of hell is easily comprehended. Nowhere in the Bible is the expression "immortal soul" mentioned. The word immortal only appears once in the entire Authorized Version (I Tim. 1:17). There it says God is immortal.

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, specifically pointed out that God "only hath immortality" (I Tim. 6:16). We humans are told to seek immortality (Rom. 2:7). That would make sense only if we do not now have it. While the Bible does not speak of an immortal soul, it certainly does speak of a human soul. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezek. 18:4). That's in the Bible? Indeed it is! The human soul is mortal. It doesn't live forever in hell. Or elsewhere.

The only hope any of us mortals have of living forever is to receive from God the gift of eternal life, for "the wages of sin is death [not eternal life in some place of punishment!]but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 6:23). This will happen in the future, "in the resurrection at the last day" (John 11:24), when those comparatively few whom God is now calling to eternal life may "put on immortality"
(I Cor. 15:53). Until that momentous event at the birth of a wholly new kind of civilization - that's the gospel or good news that Jesus brought - the dead are just that: dead. "The living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing" (Eccl. 9:5). They "sleep in the dust of the earth" (Dan. 12:2).

What the Bible teaches about hell harmonizes with what it teaches about human mortality. When the word hell appears in the English translation of the Scriptures it usually means the grave or the world of the dead. God's servant David knew that when he died he was going to hell. But he also knew he would be resurrected. That's why he wrote that God would not "leave my soul in hell" (Ps. 16:10). His "going to hell" actually foreshadowed the fact that Jesus Christ himself, while he was dead, was in hell. Because he was resurrected, "his soul was not left in hell" (Acts 2:27, 31). Of course. Everyone now deceased is in the same hell, the grave, the world of the dead, waiting to be resurrected.

In one passage in the Bible hell is used to refer to a place of imprisonment (II Pet. 2:4). But it is a place of imprisonment for Satan and his demons - not for human beings. It is a place of darkness, as this verse says, so no bright flames of fire there!

More Than One Hell?
There are a dozen or so times where the translators of the Bible use the word hell to refer to a place where there will indeed be flames. Jesus warned of the very real danger of being "cast into hell fire" (Matt. 18:9). It is a fire that does not now exist. It shall exist when those humans throughout history who have knowingly rejected the truth of God and his salvation will be resurrected to mortal life from their graves. They shall "awake ... to shame and everlasting contempt" (Dan. 12:2).

This group will be those relatively few who have wilfully decided not to live God's way - the only way that brings happiness. They want nothing to do with the kingdom or government of God and the new kind of civilization it will bring to this earth. In that case there is no reason for them to continue living in ways that will only produce misery for themselves and others. God will end their misery by casting them into an awesome lake of fire (Rev. 20:13-15).

How hot will it be? The hell fire of the Bible is immeasurably hotter than the hell fire of popular myth. Those mortals thrown into it are not going to burn forever. But they will be punished. They will be burned up. They shall become "ashes" (Mal. 4:3)

The Bible teaches that the penalty for deliberate and wilful evildoing is eternal punishment, death for all eternity-not eternal punishing!

For Further Study - Do you have an Immortal Soul?