DOES HELL EXIST?

The Bible speaks more of Hell than of Heaven. Jesus said it and that settles it!

What think ye?
Bobbye

phildebenham

Personally I do not think God has designed denominational Christianity either, but, on the other hand, I do not see how it can be avoided. Chuck Smith started Calvary Chapel in the 60's partly to avoid the restrictions and problems of denominationalism, but now Calvary Chapel is a denomination in itself. The same could be said about Kenn Gullicksen and the Vineyard. I don't think that denominationalsim is a huge problem. The problems with Christianity, in any form, is the individuals that call themselves Christian. That is the problem you have noticed that there really aren't too many "Bereans" in todays churches. People want to be told what to believe and how to act, not by God, but by men. They want to believe that they are following God so they take what "Christian" books, their pastors, their teachers, etc. say as the word of God. They make little or no attempt to listen to God, or to speak to Him. They give Him an hour or two a week and think they are ok. They are not ok. God wants more than Sundays and Wednesday nights! He wants to be Lord of all of our lives, not just parts of it.

That is where the problems lie, Morganite, not in denominations or even cults, but in individuals who want their ears tickled. That's why "Christians" will pay to hear some famous ear ticklers speak and won't spend an hour in prayer of worship apart from their schedualed meetings.

May you truly know Him,

Phil

Morganite

"Hell" was not used to mean the hot place until 1590-1600. The Hebrew word, sheol has no such meaning. It means only the abode of the dead or of departed spirits.

Hades, in Greek, or Sheol in Hebrew, signify a world of spirits. Hades, Sheol, paradise, spirits in prison, are all one: it is a world of spirits.

Before the resurrection of Christ, the wicked were shut up in darkness and were not visited. In this awful state they suffered the torment of their consciences not knowing what their fate would be. It is the gloomy abode of departed spirits; it is the place the wicked go to await the day of their eventual resurrection. the connotation surrounding its usage is one of evil, sorrow, and anguish. In some instances the Authorized Version of the Bible translates sheol as grave (Gen. 44:29, 31; Job 7:9; Ps. 30:3), or pit. (Num. 16:30, 33; Job 17:16.)

In Greek the word for hell is hades. It is a place of outer darkness where the spirits of the wicked go at death to await the day of their eventual resurrection. Sorrow, anguish, and "the fiery indignation of the wrath of God" attend those cast down to this fate. (Luke 16:23.)

Outside Jerusalem, to the south and west, lies the Valley of Hinnom or Gehenna. In the days of Isaiah and Jeremiah, infants were sacrificed to Molech at a Topheth or high place built in this valley, causing it to take on a sinister significance and be called "the valley of slaughter." (2 Kings 23:5, 10; 2 Chron. 28:3; 33:6; Isa. 30:33; Jer. 7:31-34; 19:6, 11-15.)

Thereafter Gehenna was further desecrated as a garbage and rubbish heap and as a place where bodies of criminals were thrown out; to help prevent pestilence, overburning fires were kept smoldering in this infested refuse.

Under these conditions, it was natural for the prophetic mind to use the term gehenna to signify the burnings, torment, anguish, and unspeakable horrors of hell. Jesus Christ himself made frequent use of gehenna to signify hell and its attendant horrors. (Matt. 5:22; 29:30; Mark 9:43-47; Luke 12:5; Jas. 3:6.)

His statement, "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:48), becomes even more expressive when viewed in the light of the numerous crawling things and perpetual burnings of that Gehenna of which his hearers had personal knowledge.

Hell will have an end. Viewing future events, John saw that "death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works." (Rev. 20:13.)

David received the promise: "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell." (Ps 16:10; Acts 2:27.)

Christ descended into hell to preach the gospel or good news to the spirits languishing there that he might draw them to himself and save them.

1 Peter 3:18 - 20

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.


Peter knew what Jesus was doing and had already affirmed that:

1 Peter 4:6

For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

Mediaeval theologians made somehting of Hell that the bIble never intended, except for the final destination for Satan and his angels.



MORGANITE

SSchultz0956

i would have to say i completely agree with Morganite. Hell is a world of spirits where they await ressurection. That's not to say however they will all enter heaven after their ressurection. This spirit world is also considered to some to be a place of "two." There is a paradise, and prison. One for the righteous, and one for the "departed sprits" or those who suffered from spiritual death, or in other words, through sin, distanced themselves from God. Christ did preach, as Morgantie stated, to those in prison. I must ask morganite, what religion are you if you don't mind answering. Though i understand if you prefer not to.

STONY

IF HELL DID NOT EXIST, THEN WHY BOTHER MENTIONING IT AT ALL?
Romans 8:28
[ More Than Conquerors ] And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

MAYBE THE PROPHESY IS THE CHOICE AND THAT IS THE PURPOSE.

Morganite

It is a simile. The Bible uses many genres of literature and literary devices.

The 'hell' in AV translated from Deut 32:22 is sh'owl or shol a Hebrew noun that has a wide range of possible meanings, including:

sheol
underworld
grave
hell
pit (prison)
the underworld
the OT designation for the abode of the dead with no reference to good or evil
place of no return
without praise of God
wicked sent there for punishment
righteous not abandoned to it
of the place of exile (figurative)
of extreme degradation in sin.

Trying to make it mean only one of these possibilities run counter to the spirit of Biblical writings and the meanings assigned to its original words.

Isaiah uses sheol as he uses maveth (death or th eplace of the dead wihtout refrence to goodness or evil of the dead) to restate the idea he first uses, and not as a separate place.

Isaiah 28:18
18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.

Note that 'disanulled and 'shall not stand' mean the same thing. The restatemenbt of the same thought in different words is a Hebrew literary genre that is found all though the Old Testament. It is not saying two different things, but saying the same thing, expressing the same thought, in two different ways, but conveying only one idea.


In the New Testament, the trsndlations that are preserved in English as Hell are even more interesting.

Hell in Revelation, is hades, which is Greek with several possible menaings, including:

The personal name of Hades or Pluto, who is, according to the pagans the god of the lower regions, or

Orcus, the nether world, the realm of the dead, with no reference to their moral or spiritual condition.

In later use of this word it was used to signify the grave or death, with no reference to the condition of its inhabitants.



In 2 Peter 2.:4 'hell' is translated from 'tartaroo' which is a Greek verb having the folowing poissible meanings:

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 is drawn from the Babylonian version of the underworld where unjust souls transformed into birds are kept in a dark and miserable place forever.

It also can mean, to thrust a sould down to Tartarus, or to hold a soul captive in Tartarus.


Mark 9:47 refers to 'hell fire.' This is the English interpretation by the AV translators of the Greek 'geenna' Anglicised as 'gheh'-en-nah,' with whose possible meanings include:

the place of the future punishment called "Gehenna" or

"Gehenna of fire".

This was originally the valley of Hinnom, south of Jerusalem, where the dung and other filth, and dead animals of the city were cast out and burned, so became a symbol of the wicked and their future destruction, which was called to Gehenna of the Jews

Does the Bible insist that hell is a place of evrlasting torment, or does it speak of the redemption and freeing of the unfortunate souls consigned to it?

In the earliest versions of what eventually became the medieval Easter drama, the Harrowing of Hell, Satan and Death appear as rulers of different spheres. In the dialogue between them Death begs Satan to retain Christ in his realm, which is the earth, so that he might not descend and cause havoc in the underworld.

This idea also appears in the very old pseudo-gospel of Nicodemus, wherein Satan, boasting that he has overcome Christ on earth, asks Death to make sure that the Lord's mission is likewise frustrated in his kingdom below.

The parallel between the Lord's earthly and post resurrection missions is preserved even to the extent of having his coming in the spirit world heralded by John the Baptist.

Origen says John "died before him, so that he might descend to the lower regions and announce [preach] his coming." And again: "For everywhere the witness and forerunner of Jesus is John, being born before and dying shortly before the Son of God, so that not only to those of his generation but likewise to those who lived before Christ should liberation from death be preached, and that he might everywhere prepare a people trained to receive the Lord."

"John the Baptist died first," wrote Hippolytus, "being dispatched by Herod, that he might prepare those in hades for the gospel; he became the forerunner there, announcing even as he did on this earth, that the Savior was about to come to ransom the spirits of the saints from the hand of death."

Even in the medieval Easter drama, the "Harrowing of Hell," the arrival of Christ in hell is heralded by John the Baptist.

The question must be asked, what is the purpose of Christ's descent into hell? The preaching of the Lord and the apostles while in the world was to prepare their hearers for baptism. What purpose did his preaching to the souls in prison serve?

It is not surprising then to read in the Pastor of Hermas, one of the most trustworthy guides to the established beliefs of the early church, that not only Christ and John but also "these Apostles, and the teachers who had proclaimed the name of the Son of God, after they had fallen asleep in the power and faith of the Son of God preached likewise to the dead; and they gave them the seal of the preaching.

They accordingly went down with them into the water and came out again. But although they went down while they were alive and came up alive, those who had fallen asleep before them (prokekoimemenoi) went down dead, but came out again living; for it was through these that they were made alive, and learned the name of the Son of God."

The Latin version reads: "These Apostles and teachers who had preached the name of the Son of God, when they died in possession of his faith and power, preached to those who had died before, and themselves gave them this seal. Hence they went down into the water with them; but they who had died before went down dead, of course, but ascended living, since it was through them that they received life and knew the Son of God."

Needless to say, this text has caused a great deal of embarrassment to interpreters, ancient and modern. The source of the trouble is obvious: there are two classes of living persons referred to, those who enjoy eternal life, and those who have not yet died on this earth.


The Biblical words translated into English as 'hell', the concepts behind them and their derivations, and the ancient beliefs of the early church, now uncovered, must make us question our long standing view of where and what hell is, who will enter it, and how long they will stay there, The traditional one-dimensional view of hell is shown to be flawed, and needs to be re-examined.




MORGANITE

STONY

Setting New Parameters Does In No Way Nullify The Fact That Hell Still Exists, And I Think That Was The Original Question. I Look At It In These Terms, I Know How Hard Life Is When I Can Call On God Every Day. I Cannot Imagine What Existence Would Be If You Could Never Again Call On God. See My Point Here?

Starman

Truth doesn't contradict itself. If it did, then it wouldn't be real truth but only a subjective truth. The Bible doesn't teach subjective truth. If each person believed what he thought was right, there would be confusion. In fact, there wouldn't even be a need for a Bible since each one could simply make up his own rules as he went along which would lead to confusion and lack of unity.

1 Corinthians 14:33
For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

Romans 14:4-6 (in Context) Romans 14 (Whole Chapter) Romans 15:6
That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

KJV

Frank4YAHWEH

I also prefer the spelling Y-a-h-w-e-h as transliterated into the English language and pronounced [Yah' weh] over the supposed transliteration Jehovah.

I believe the name Jehovah to be an "impossible", "erroneous", "a hybrid name" and "a blunder" just to quote a few scholars.

I also believe that it is erroneous to refer to the letters of the so called "tetragrammaton" (Gr. meaning 'four lettered word or name') as consonants. According to the Jewish historian Flavious Josepheus, they are vowels. They are also refered to as consonant-vowels or semi-vowels by a number of scholars of the Hebrew language.

For proof of this, please see my web pages on these subjects.

Consonants Or Vowels
http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/YAHWEHF...sOrVowels.html

The Name Yahweh
http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/YAHWEHFrank/Yahweh.html

As to the original topic of this thread, please see my web page:

Oh Hell!
http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/YAHWEHFrank/OhHell.html

Starman

That's because you are a Godly person who values a close relationship with God. In contrast, most people enjoy their distance from God by living ungodly lives and generally feel quite content in being a law unto themselves. They feel that the requirements of God are an imposition on their free will--as a burden which they need to cast off just as Adam and Eve did. These become unhappy and agitated if they are told to get near God via prayer and good conduct. So the distance from God per se is not necessarily something which humans avoid at all costs. As a matter of fact, the majority seek it in one way or another via doing as they please and when they please.



At least I don't think he does! LOL

Morganite

"One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism" not, "Any Lord you want, any faith you like, and any baptism that suits you"

That is Christianity. Anything other is something other.




MRGANITE