Chapter 3
Hell And The
Lake of Fire
The doctrine of hell being a "lake of fire" did not exist in the writings of the early church fathers. For 3 1/2 centuries there was little discussion about it since these early believers never considered such a thing. It wasn't until the time of St. Augustine and his writings and teachings that anyone seriously considered such a heinous concept.
The most widely used scripture to support the doctrine of an eternal bar-be-cue pit is found in the book of The Revelation of Jesus Christ. The lake of fire is mentioned four times in the Revelation and each time someone or some thing is thrown into the lake. Rev. 19:20 The Beast and the False Prophet; Rev. 20:10 The Devil; Rev. 20:14 Death and Hell; Rev. 20:15 Whoever was not written in the Book of Life. Most of us know that those whose names were not in the Book of Life comprise about 95% of humanity from Adam until now. If these statements are to be taken literally, it strikes me immediately that God's plan of "salvation" certainly wasn't very successful. You would think that a sovereign, omnipotent God could come up with something more workable and producing greater results. Even though Satan, "the Devil," is defeated and is himself cast into the lake of fire, he loses the war but certainly won the battle.
Another glaring problem I have with this lake of fire being thought of as literal, is the fact that the Revelation was written entirely using Prophetic Symbols from the ancient texts. It can only be understood from a very long and involved study of the ancient prophets and the symbology they employed. Since Jesus Christ is the author of the Revelation, it is not far-fetched or incredible to think that He would be extremely well qualified to use such terms and symbols since He was their author and originator. The symbols used would naturally be consistent with the Old Testament prophets.
What I've been confronted with over and over when reading a particular writer's "interpretation" of the symbols in the Revelation is the insistence that most everything written there is symbolic, that is, until he gets to the lake of fire, and then he interprets it as a literal lake of fire and a place of torture. Such a conclusion actually boggles the mind and is indeed incredibly difficult to accept. It is inconsistent and illogical to come to such a conclusion.
For example, the seven golden candlesticks and one in the midst of them like unto the son of man is symbolic. The beasts around the throne of God are symbolic. The lamb with seven horns and seven eyes is symbolic. The four horsemen bringing plagues are symbolic. The locusts with faces of men, hair like women and teeth like lions are symbolic. The beast out of the bottomless pit is symbolic. The woman clothed with the sun is symbolic. The great dragon that tries to devour the woman's seed is symbolic. The beast out of the sea having seven heads and ten horns is symbolic. The great harlot riding on the scarlet beast is symbolic. The one riding forth on a white horse to conquer His enemies is symbolic. The New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven is symbolic. And then I'm told that the description of the lake of fire is LITERAL! This is sheer nonsense.
In the days of Jeremiah, the pagan nations that surrounded Israel had a religious practice which God had condemned and forbade His people from ever practicing. A huge metallic statue of Molech was built and its arms were outstretched and between those arms was a place to build an immense fire. A grill was placed above the coals stretching from arm to arm. The pagans would bring their firstborn children as a sacrifice to this god and those children would be offered as a burnt offering. It has even been said that many trumpets would be blown at the time of the sacrifice to drown out the screams of the children. Of this practice God said through Ezekiel,
You
slaughtered my children and offered them up to idols by causing them to pass
through the fire. Eze. 16:21.
But another Scriptural reference to this practice is even more enlightening. In Jeremiah He says,
They built the high places of Baal that are in the
valley of Ben-hinnom to cause their sons and their
daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I
had not commanded them NOR HAD IT ENTERED
MY MIND that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin. Jer. 32:35
God was appalled at the thought of burning infants alive. He says that the horror of such an abomination had not even entered His mind. But we are led to believe that God is going to torment people with fire for all eternity. In addition, they don't even have the relief of dying to escape their torture. I don't know about you, but my mind cannot even comprehend such horror and it is blasphemy to attribute such an act to God.
A beautiful and loving woman preacher, Ernestine Young, who has a church ministry in Boise, Idaho once stated, and I will paraphrase her,
If the Scripture says that God's mercy endureth forever and His wrath is but for a moment, then
how could a loving God burn people for all eternity and only give them a chance
to repent for the short period of their life, a moment compared to
eternity. That's turning the Scriptures
upside down.
She was referring specifically to Psalm 136 wherein every verse ends with the phrase, ".... for his mercy endureth forever." And in Isaiah it is stated,
In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith
the LORD thy Redeemer. Isa. 54:8
Once again I would like to point out that people who conjure up these false doctrines and "theologies" do so by using isolated verses of Scripture, ignoring other Scriptures that contradict them. They also ignore the nature of God. GOD IS LOVE! He is merciful, kind, longsuffering, gracious, redeeming and desires that none should perish. If God wants all to be "saved," do you not think that He could accomplish that instead of this lie that is taught in the Judeo-Christian churches? Is God unable to bring about His will upon the earth if His will is that all should be returned to Him?
Jesus often used symbology in many of His teachings along with parables and other means of instruction. He used symbology when speaking of "hell" and used the city dump outside of Jerusalem as His example. This dump was used to burn up all the garbage from the city and its fire burned 24/7. Even criminals’ dead bodies would be cast into this fire and their bodies would be consumed. Jesus also used the example of a harvest wherein tares had grown up with the wheat and He pointed out that in the end of the age, when the harvest came, the tares would be gathered up and burned. Both of these illustrations are used as further "proof" that the wicked will be burned with fire, but the first problem is that, unlike the lake of fire, this is a consuming fire. Already there's a problem with the parallel because the “hellfire” doctrine suggests one never dies but is tortured for eternity.
The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is also used to support the lake of fire doctrine however this parable is actually about Israel and Judah as are most of the other parables which Jesus told. The best example of this is the parable of the Prodigal Son.
Christians who cannot see that every story, every account, the law, the history and all else in Scripture has a spiritual meaning and if they cannot discern this deeper meaning, then they are just reading the stories in Scripture as stories. Even the law has many deep spiritual lessons and content. An excellent example of this is found in a particular statute in Exodus.
[33]And if a man shall open a pit, or if a man shall
dig a pit, and not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall therein; [34] the owner
of the pit shall make it good, and give money unto the owner of them; and the
dead beast shall be his. Ex. 21:33, 34
In one of his teachings, Dr. Stephen Jones pointed out the following; he asked,
Did God dig a pit in the Garden of Eden? Did he leave it uncovered? Did man fall into the pit and lose his life
in the process? Then by God’s own law,
He became responsible to redeem or pay the price for the mishap. God also gained ownership of those who had
fallen.
God knew that if man fell he could never redeem himself and so God made Himself responsible for man’s fall so He could redeem us. How beautiful it is to see the spiritual meaning of an otherwise inconsequential statute in the law. I would pray to God that Christians would start looking for the spiritual meaning of Scripture and not be caught up in the carnal.
God’s fire is mentioned throughout Scripture and He Himself is described as a “consuming fire.” (Heb. 12:29) He appeared in a pillar of fire to the Israelites in the wilderness and unto Moses in a burning bush. God’s judgment is most often described as a fire and that is what the lake of fire is all about. It is a picture of God’s judgment wherein He will burn away the sin, the disobedience, the pride, the rebelliousness and every other carnal part of our nature until we have been purified and made as gold. In prophetic terms, a sea or lake usually is referring to a multitude of people and the lake of fire is no exception. The huge mass of humanity that has rejected God’s teaching will be purged with the purifying fire of God. That’s the meaning of the lake of fire and not some horrifying, torturous bar-be-cue pit. All of God’s judgments are for correction, spiritual growth and our learning. I’ve been through the fire many times and I’m sure most reading this would also agree that they have felt the heavy hand of our heavenly father as He refines each of us.
And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire…. (Ex. 24:17)
It’s also amazing that God did not mention such a horrific punishment as the lake of fire for over four thousand years and even then at the very close of His word. Was David warned of this eternal destiny if he did not repent? Was anyone ever warned of such a fate? Why would God not reveal something of such a nightmarish outcome for over forty centuries? Because it never entered into the mind of God to do such a thing! It entered into the mind of St. Augustine and has been used ever since to scare the hell out of people so they will be submissive to their religious leaders. How can this concept be used to draw someone to our Lord through love? The entire concept is tantamount to holding a gun to someone’s head and threatening to blow his head off again and again and again unless he love us. It is absurd and disgusting to make our God appear so little, petty and hateful.
If Scripture teaches that the wages of sin is death from Genesis to Jude, then God changed the rules and threw us a curve ball in the Revelation by making the wages of sin eternal torment and torture. That being the case, then Jesus did not pay for our sins by dying on the cross. He would have to pay the full price and be tormented and tortured for all eternity. God is just and does not bend the law for His own pleasure. If unrepentant sinners are to spend eternity in a sea of humanity being burned and tortured then that is the payment which must be given to atone for them. Can you not see how one false doctrine leads to another and then to another to try to cover the inconsistencies?
The other doctrine which Judeo-Christian churches use as a synonym for the lake of fire is their doctrine of hell. This also becomes instantly suspect since the Revelation says that hell and the grave will be cast into the lake of fire. (Rev. 20:14) They can hardly be synonymous if hell is cast into the lake of fire. Notice that in the verse just referenced that death is also thrown into the lake of fire at the same time as hell. There’s a clue hidden there to the meaning of hell.
Before going into references in Scripture that use the term, hell, I must first point out a few lessons from history. There was a period of approximately 400 years between the Old and New Testaments during which God remained silent and gave man a chance to speak. It was during this time that the world’s greatest philosophers emerged and the golden age of Greece was perhaps the pinnacle of such thinking and teaching. Although the writings of Aristotle, Plato and Socrates are the classics of philosophical thinking, in all of their writings they could not discern the meaning of life. Their conclusions included gods and goddesses, mythology, legends and all types of interaction between the gods and man. It was also during this time that the underworld was created with all of its demons, devils, creatures and stories which many came to believe as truth. These facts of history are important to understand because the thinking of these philosophers permeated the civilized world and were deeply ingrained in the minds of everyone when Jesus came on the scene. That’s why there is so much reference to these things in the New Testament and about which nothing is said in the Old Testament. Most Christians are surprised when I tell them that the word, demon, is never found in the Bible although its Greek counterpart, daimonion, is translated as, devils. But the fact that no demons or other underworld beings are ever mentioned in the Old Testament should grab our attention. There is a greater chance that the demons and devils that suddenly appear in the New Testament and without precedent are more likely to be mental illnesses, deranged minds and other maladies. Along with these philosophies came the teachings of the underworld or what Judeo-Christians would refer to as hell. But Scripture says nothing of such an underworld.
Before discussing the doctrine of hell I would like to point out that the use of the words eternal and eternity by the translators of the ancient texts does not have the meaning of everlasting in the Hebrew and Greek languages. In the Hebrew text, the word used is olam and in the Greek it is aionios. Both words refer to an age. When they were referring to what we have defined as eternal, they would use a phrase rather than one word. Every time you read the words eternal or eternity in your Bible you should replace it with the word, age, or ages. This bears significantly on the concept of “eternal” punishment and “eternal” life. It would be more proper to say, age-abiding punishment or age-abiding life and not eternal. The word, eternity, appears only once in the entire Bible and the word used implies perpetuity.
The Hebrew word for hell is sheol and is used only 31 times in the entire Old Testament. The word cannot be translated as a reference to the underworld and it literally means the grave or the pit, which would be synonyms. Here again we see no reference to an eternal bar-be-cue pit or place of torture.
The New Testament uses primarily two words for hell, hades and gehenna. Peter uses the word, tartaroo, in his second Epistle and Thayer’s Greek definitions shows again how the influence of Greek legends about the underworld were fixed in the minds of almost everyone:
This word occurs only one time in the New Testament, 2 Peter 2:4, and is translated as “hell”
in the NASB. According to Thayer’s Greek Definitions, tartaroo
is “the name of the subterranean region, doleful and dark, regarded by the
ancient Greeks as the abode of the wicked dead, where they suffer punishment
for their evil deeds; it answers to Gehenna of the
Jews.” The usage of a Greek term would
be consistent with the epistle’s likely destination, a church mixed with Jews
and Gentiles
From: http://www.basictheology.com/definitions/Tartaroo/
The grave, hell and the pit are used as synonyms throughout the Old Testament and the idea of a subterranean abode came about after the Old Testament period and subsequent to its writing. The legends, myths and superstitions that arose in the Hellenized world were non-existent in Old Testament times and these concepts are what led to much of the misunderstandings that remain with us to this day.
There are many who do not believe in the eternal bar-be-cue pit but instead believe that God will destroy or annihilate all those who were unrepentant at the final judgment. Again, I find such a concept absurd because God would not raise up millions from the grave only to kill them again. What would be the purpose of such an act? Would it not be more merciful just to allow them all to remain in the grave and resurrect only the repentant? However, we know that this is not the case because we’re told that the just and the unjust will stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
God does not have a place where he sends unrepentant sinners and there tortures them for all eternity any more than there is a place called “heaven” where the saints will spend eternity. The various uses of the word, heaven, in Scripture are just as misunderstood as the term, hell. There are only three ways to understand the meaning of heaven when used in Scripture and it is only understood in the context in which it is used. Paul gives us a hint when he said,
I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago,
(whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body I cannot tell:
God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the THIRD HEAVEN. 2 Cor. 12:2.
Reading the different usages of this word we can see that the first heaven is our atmosphere above the earth. The second heaven is the fullness of the sky with its host. The third heaven is the abode of God which is actually not a “place” at all. The place where the saints will spend eternity is right here on earth.
A discussion of heaven may be a strange subject to interject in a chapter about the lake of fire, but I mention it only to illustrate how Scripture has been twisted and distorted to an extreme. The truth can nevertheless be found through study, faith and reliance upon the promises of God to not lead us astray. It’s men who lead us astray and until Christians turn away from the teachings of men and go directly to our Lord, Jesus Christ, and depend upon Him to instruct us, we will continue to believe in legends and traditions. It cannot be emphasized enough that religion has been used as an instrument of evil. Heaven will be discussed in the next chapter.
In an article written by Ken
Eckert on his website, www.savior-of-all.com, he has pointed out that there is
a lie that permeates churches and was started by them and then he goes on to
say,
As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these
things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are
unlearned and unstable wrest, as
they do also the other Scriptures, UNTO
THEIR OWN DESTRUCTION. 2 Pet. 3:16
Suggested reading, video and audio:
Dr. James Bruggeman’s Website:
Order his extensive and exhaustive study called, “It’s Hell or Nothing!” 10 Lectures