What is Hell?
Have you ever asked that question, and then studied to see what Scripture says?
If you are like us, you have just assumed that what you’ve been taught growing up is true, that hell is a place you go after the judgment if you don’t trust God. You would be thrown into the lake of fire, and tormented there forever and ever.
Interestingly, this “traditional view” wasn’t main-stream until Augustine. In his book, The City of God (circa 410 AD), Augustine became the first Christian theologian to write a biblical defense of the view that the lost will suffer forever in hell, and he offered responses to a number of objections. Those objections were from earlier church fathers who didn’t believe in an eternal punishment in hell.
Wait, what?
Yes, the traditional view of hell was mainly through Augustine, who was the bishop of Hippo in North Africa in the 4th and 5th centuries. His writings became the doctrine that lasted through the centuries mainly because the Catholic Church endorsed and taught his view for a millennium.
There are other understandings of Hell that we will explore in Part 2 of this study. First, here in Part 1, we need to establish a scriptural foundation of what exactly Hell is. There are several words in scripture that have been translated “hell”, but are all of these appropriate?
Truly, there is far less evidence to look at than one might expect to find considering it’s once prominence in church preaching. While “fire and brimstone” preaching is not as in vogue as it once was, we can know one thing about it that should be stated up front:
You do not want to go there.
Regardless of what conclusions are made by the end of this study, that one fact should remain in mind. Hell is worse than you can imagine. This place of punishment away from God should not be taken lightly, and people should fear experiencing it.
Let's proceed under the assumption that Hell is the final place of judgment for those who reject God.
Sheol and Hades
To start, let’s look at two words that are sometimes translated “Hell”: Sheol and Hades.
Sheol and Hades are essentially the same thing. After someone died in the Old Testament, they went to Sheol.
Sheol <07585> - underworld, grave, hell, pit; often described a place without God, where wicked are sent for punishment, a place of exile.
1 Samuel 2:6
The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to Sheol and raises up.
Job 7:9
When a cloud vanishes, it is gone, So he who goes down to Sheol does not come up.
Psalm 6:5
For there is no mention of You in death; In Sheol who will give You thanks?
Psalm 9:17
The wicked will return to Sheol, Even all the nations who forget God.
There are many, many other instances of Sheol used throughout scripture.
Hades is the Greek understanding of Sheol. We see this clearly when we look at the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translations of the Hebrew scriptures from the 3rd century BC. In each of the cases above, the Israelites that created the LXX used Hades in place of Sheol. This demonstrates their understanding that they are the same place by two different names.
With the understanding that they are the same thing, we will use Hades to refer to both moving forward.
Where we see a difference in how to understand Hades isn’t based on linguistics, but rather it is relative to the ascension of Christ after His death. Prior to His ascension, the righteous and unrighteous alike went to Hades (see Gen.37:35; 42:38; 44:29; 44:31; 1 Sam.2:6; Job 17:12-16; Ps.16:9-11). This is also evident in the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16.
In this story, Lazarus and the rich man both die, and they both go to Hades. Lazarus is with Abraham and the other saints on one side of Hades while the rich man suffers on the other. Whether this is a parable, or an actual narrative of what happened, the point remains that Jesus taught that both the righteous and unrighteous went to Hades after death prior to His ascension.
We learn from Paul in Ephesians 4:8-9 that “When He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives…”, and that Christ “had descended into the lower parts of the earth” where Hades was understood to be. The point in this passage is that Christ led the dead saints out of Hades, and left the living saints with gifts from His Spirit.
We also learn from Paul in 2 Corinthians 5 that being “absent from the body” means we will “be at home with the Lord”. We know Christ does not dwell in Hades, so Paul is stating that saints who die after His ascension will go up to be with Him. Only the unrighteous remain in Hades, and they will stay there until the judgment.
Revelation 20:13-15
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
Those in Hades will be released at some future point to be judged by Christ because He has “the keys of death and of Hades” (Rev 1:18). More importantly, for the sake of this study, we learn that Hades is thrown into the lake of fire, which is another way of saying Hell.
Sheol/Hades is a place of holding for the dead. Originally it held the righteous and unrighteous, but now it only keeps the unrighteous. Most importantly, Sheol/Hades is not Hell.
Hell is something else.
Tartarus
Another word that, according to some translations, means “Hell” is tartarus, or tartaroo in Greek.
Tartaroo <5020> - name of subterranean region regarded as abode of the wicked dead, place of dark holding.
This word is only used once in the Bible, and that is in:
2 Peter 2:4
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell (tartaroo) and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment
The angels who violated the order of God prior to the flood in Genesis are now bound and held in this place of darkness. Pertinent to this study is the fact that Tartarus was considered by the Greeks to be the deepest part of Hades.
As with the unrighteous throughout history who are being held in Hades until judgment, the angels who have been bound are also being held in the lowest, worst part of Hades as well. Since we already know Hades cannot be Hell, neither can Tartarus.
Hell is something else.
Gehenna
In Scipture, there is one word that is always translated “hell”, and that is Gehenna, but how many people know that Gehenna was actually a historic place in the time of Jesus?
Jump on over to wiki, and you can read that Gehenna is “from the Hebrew Gehinnom (Rabbinical: גהנום/גהנם), is a small valley in Jerusalem”. It is “a place outside ancient Jerusalem known in the Hebrew Bible as the Valley of the Son of Hinnom.” It was a bad place, where “some of the kings of Judah sacrificed their children by fire. Thereafter it was deemed to be cursed (Jer. 7:31, 19:2-6).”
Gehenna is used only 12 times, and 11 of these are by our Lord in the Gospels. The only other time it is used is in the book of James, and that use doesn’t give us much insight. Most of the traditional view of hell comes from our Lord’s description of this very real place.
Matt 10:28
Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in [Gehenna].
Mark 9:47-48
“If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast into [Gehenna], where THEIR WORM DOES NOT DIE, AND THE FIRE IS NOT QUENCHED.
James 3:6
And the tongue is a fire! The tongue represents the world of wrongdoing among the parts of our bodies. It pollutes the entire body and sets fire to the course of human existence – and is set on fire by [Gehenna].
It appears that Christ is using Gehenna as a relatable analogy to what the final judgment will be like, and He never compares Gehenna to Hades or Tartarus, which further reinforces the fact that the final judgment in Hell is different than the old/current afterlife of the unrighteous.
Gehenna is a place where the “worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched”, and as such it leads us appropriately into the last imagery we are given of final judgment.
The Lake of Fire or Eternal Fire
Revelation 19:20
And the beast was seized, and with him the false prophet who performed the signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image; these two were thrown alive into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone.
Revelation 20:10
And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
Revelation 20:14-15
Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
Matthew 25:41
Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels
As we saw earlier, the Lake of Fire is distinct from Sheol/Hades. The Lake of Fire, instead, is the substance of the shadow that Christ used, namely Gehenna. Gehenna was a physical place that was “cursed”, where child sacrifices were made to foreign gods (Jer. 7:31,32 19:2,6 32:35), and where they burned trash, and the dead bodies of the wicked, etc. and the Lake of Fire is a place of death for both body and spirit (ref. Matt 10:28).
The Lake of Fire is the true, final judgment for those who reject God.
What is Hell?
It is a place of eternal fire.
It is the place of condemnation for those who have blasphemed the Lord by rejecting His grace and mercy.
Currently, nothing is there. People who die now are waiting in Hades, or, if they are brothers and sisters in Christ, they are with the Lord. On that final day of judgment, Christ will look at the works of each, and judge “every one of them according to their deeds”. It is only at that point that people will be thrown in Hell.
What awaits them there? We will take a look at that in Part 2.