Burning in Hell Forever?

                                                                                                                 

                                                                                                                    

Will People Really Burn in Hell Forever? 

                The other day I was speaking to a woman who said that if we don’t accept Jesus Christ as our savior, that we will “burn in hell forever”. This idea has been taught in the church for centuries and is a prevalent belief by many, many Christians. If you give it some serious thought, this idea is quite horrific. Burning in hell FOREVER! For those of us who follow Christ, we will enjoy eternal life. But then at the same time, there are others suffering somewhere in eternal torment - a suffering that will NEVER END. Frankly, just imagining such a fate makes shivers run down my spine.

                When faced with this idea of eternal suffering, we must ask ourselves two important questions. 1) How could a God as good and full of mercy as our God, ever do this to people? 2) Is this idea taught in the Bible? To answer these questions we must always come back to God’s Word and find out what is says concerning what happens to us after we die. We can never rely upon man’s opinions or traditions on this important topic. (Now many people have had “visions” and dreams about “hell” and all of the torments that they saw there. It is not my intention at this time to discredit these sincere people, but we can NEVER hold our own opinions, dreams or visions above those of God’s matchless Word. The Word of God must be our ONLY source of faith and practice.)  

                Let us now look at some verses of scripture to tell us what happens to a person when they die.     

“Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goes forth, he returns to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.” (Psalm 146:3 and 4) 

                “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.” (Ecclesiastes 9:;10)

                “Leave me alone so I can smile again before I am gone and exist no more.” (Psalm 39:13)(New living Translation)

                “For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even their name is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 9:5 and 6)

                God’s Word is clear in regards to what happens when a person dies. They cease to exist; their thoughts perish; all knowledge, wisdom, envy, or hate, do not exist in death. Now you may ask, what about all of those scriptures about hell?

                “The sorrows of hell compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me.” (Psalm 18:50)               

“And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell:”  (Matthew 11:23)

                “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10;8)

In the Greek, the word for hell is the word hades (Sheol in Hebrew), and it refers to the grave. When all people die they will go to the grave, hades, or in our modern English, we can call it gravedom. Hades is not a place of torment or suffering. It is just a place where all dead people go after life. There is no longer any thought, feelings or emotions, or life. In fact the definition of death is the absence of life. This is as simple as it gets. When people die, if they have not accepted Christ as their savior, they will perish. Upon death, the physical body will go back to the dust of the earth and when a person breathes his last breath, he has no more soul life. (The idea that the soul is immortal is not taught in the Bible. This idea was introduced to us by the Greeks). When we die, we cease being a living soul.

                According to God and His Word, there are only two alternatives. A man or woman either accepts Jesus Christ and is given eternal life, or he will perish (cease to exist). “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) Nowhere in scripture does it speak about people going to hell to burn forever. Many have said that ‘hellfire’ is reserved for sinners, but this is man’s idea not God’s.

                “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23) As you can see, the wages of sin is death, not burning in hell forever.         


Lazarus and the Rich Man

So where did we get the idea that there is suffering and burning for sinners after they die? I believe some of it is because of the misunderstanding of one Jesus’s parables called “Lazarus and the Rich Man” (Luke 16:19-31). In this story Jesus uses many foreign ideas that are not mentioned anywhere else in scripture. Misinterpreting this story has been the main argument for the theory that if you do not live a good life, you will live forever in torment.  

                I will not attempt to quote the entire parable for it would make my sharing way too long. I would encourage you to read the passage on your own and then come back to this study. I will however cover the highlights.

- The main characters are a rich man, who is not named, and a beggar named Lazarus. Lazarus is full of sores and all he desires is to be fed from the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table. The rich man’s dogs lick the beggar’s sores.

-Lazarus finally dies and is carried by the angels to ‘Abraham’s bosom.’ The rich man dies also and is buried.

-While the rich man is being tormented in hell, he begs Abraham to let Lazarus come and dip his finger in the cool water and put it on his tongue so that he can have a little comfort in his torment.

-Abraham tells the rich man that he has had his time of living lavishly, while Lazarus had evil done to him. He also tells the rich man that there is a large gulf between them and Lazarus cannot cross over to him.

-The rich man then asks Abraham if he would send Lazarus to his father’s house so that his family might hear him and escape the future life in hell that he is experiencing. Abraham tells him (here is the point of this story) “that even if a man rose from the dead to tell them, they still wouldn’t believe”.

                Knowing what we learned earlier about what the Bible says about death, why would Jesus tell us a parable that contradicts so much of what is already written about death and where men and women go after they die? What was the point? Not rightly dividing this passage of scripture has caused centuries and centuries of error and wrong teaching.

                First of all, this parable introduces some new concepts that are not talked about in any other part of the Bible.

                - The idea that there is a place called ‘the Bosom of Abraham” is not written in the Bible.

                -The idea there is a huge gulf that separates the two places is not written in the Bible.  

                -The idea that the good people go to enjoy paradise while the evil people go to be tormented in “hell” where there is burning forever is also not taught in the Bible

So why would Jesus tell this story in the first place?

We have to first understand that this is a “parable” and not an actual true story that he was telling. A parable is a fictional story that is told to make a point. This is just one of several parables that he was telling at this time. Secondly we must go back earlier in the Gospel of Luke to discover to whom Jesus is speaking. In the discourse, Jesus is speaking to Pharisees. Why is this important? The Pharisees held certain beliefs in their religion that are important to this topic. According to the ancient historian Josephus, the Pharisees believed that there was a place of pleasure called the Bosom of Abraham for good people after they have died and there also was a place where evil people went to be to be tormented after they died. They also believed that there was a mighty gulf between these two places and that you could not pass from one place to the other. Does this sound familiar? (These ideas were also popular amongst the Greeks which heavily influenced the beliefs of the Pharisees).

So what was the point of Jesus telling this story? He was speaking to the Pharisees and telling them a parable from their point of view so that they could understand the moral of his parable. The point being, that they, the Pharisees, had the law of Moses to follow in order to be right with God, but they were not following the law. And they wouldn’t be compelled to follow it “even if someone rises from the dead” to tell them.   

The idea that, after someone dies, that they will either will go to heaven or hell is a concept not taught in the Bible. All men and women will one day die (if Christ does not come back first) and at that time, they will “go to the grave,” hades. It is not a place where people burn in hell fire but a place where there is no consciousness. The Word of God also states that great men such as Abraham and David went to “hell” after they died. Do you mean to tell me that these men would be suffering in ‘everlasting torment?” I don’t think so.

The Bible also refers to death as sleep, for when they awake, much time may have passed without their knowledge of how much time has passed. For the Christian, the moment of death is also the moment of Jesus Christ’s return. Even if centuries have passed, they would not know it for there is not consciousness in sleep. This has been an enormous comfort for those that know the truth.

Finally:

In the book of Revelation, God talks about a final judgement when all people who have ever lived will be resurrected and judged according to the deeds they have done in life. This last judgement is called the “White Throne Judgement”. The ones whose names are not found written in the lamb’s book of life will be thrown into the ”lake of fire” along with the devil, his devil spirits, and the Anti-Christ.

“And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done… Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.” (Revelation 20:12, 13 and 15) How long will they “burn” in the lake of fire? Until they are consumed. Until they perish. After this they will cease to exist. Revelation 21 then speaks of the New Jerusalem coming down to earth and the children of God living forever in this magnificent kingdom. Nowhere is there any talk of a place where the unbelievers are burning forever.