Quote:
| Originally Posted by Bobbye DOES HELL EXIST?
The Bible speaks more of Hell than of Heaven. Jesus said it and that settles it!
What think ye?
Bobbye |
"Hell" makes its first appearance in the bible in Dt 32.22. In Hebrew, it is sh'owl {sheh-ole'} or shol {sheh-ole'}
Like all Hebrew nouns it has a wide semantic range and the exact meaning is determined by the context.
Variously, it is used to refer to, sheol, the underworld, the grave, the pit, the underworld.
Sheol in the the OT is the designation for the abode of the dead,referred also as, "place of no return" (after the babylonians), The wicked are said to be sent there as a punishment after judgement, and the righteous are promised that they will not be abandoned to it.
What the OT does not say, apart from the 'underworld' hint, is precisely where or exactly what it is.
It is spoken of as a place of sorrow: (2 Samuel 22:6)
The sorrows of hell compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me;
It was spoken of as being in the opposite direction to heaven: (Job 11:8)
It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?
The 'wicked' will be sent there, as well as 'the nations' that forget God. (Psalms 9:17)
The wicked shall be turned into hell, [and] all the nations that forget God.
Hell is considered a place of temporary punishment or distress, for David exclaims: (Psalms 16:10)
For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; (Psalms 116:3-4)
The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the LORD; O LORD, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.
Jonah uses the idea of of hell as an analogy for his ordeal inide the belly of the great fish: (Jonah 2:2)
And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, [and] thou heardest my voice.
Jesus uses the word 'geennn' or 'gehenna,' which is the Valley of the Hinnom, a wide vale that runs down the western edge of the holy city and then sweeps around the south side, outside the city walls. It was an ideal simile fo an unpleasant place, because it was the city dump, and animal corpses, dung, and trash fires made the smell permanently offensive. (Matthew 5:22)
But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
In Matthew 16:18, Jesus uses a different term - Hades.
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Hades, or Pluto, was the god of the lower regions in Greek mythology, and was adopted by Jews as part of the Hellenization that swept the Near East after Alexander's conquest. It also referred to Orcus, the nether world, the realm of the dead, and eventually came to mean the grave, and death itself.
In 2 Peter 2:4, a different word is used to convey a similar meaning:
tartaroo {tar-tar-o'-o}, which, although a verb, meant 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 verb serving in its meanings: to thrust down to Tartarus, or to hold captive in Tartarus.
There is a developmentevident in the idea of what hell was, owing more to the Greek influence than to biblical doctrine, which is not very forthcoming about hell.
Jesus came into the world to ransom it. Through his atonement we were bought from death and hell. Death and hell were paid—paid in full—and Christ was the only one who could pay that debt.
What did Paul mean when he said we were
"bought with a price?" What does Jesus mean when he calls himself our "Redeemer?" If we were not bought, if we were not ransomed by Jesus Christ, then we would be still in our sins, still subject to death and hell.
Quite generally the idea has been taught that man is either to be saved in the kingdom of God or cast into hell. He is either in the presence of God, or else in the presence of the devil.
No other place is provided where a man could go who is unworthy of the presence of the Lord and yet not worthy of the condemnation with Lucifer.
Is such a thought consistent? With serious reflection, can we believe that our Almighty God who is all-wise and just, has arranged salvation and damnation on any such foundation as this?
In his Divine Comedy, Dante depicts the doctrine of damnation for unfortunate souls who died without a knowledge of Christ, as that doctrine was taught in the 13th century. According to the story, Dante is lost in the woods where he is met by the Roman poet, Virgil, who promises to show him the punishment of hell and purgatory, and later, he is to have a view of paradise.
He follows the Roman poet through hell and later into Limbo, which (according to the story) is the first circle of hell. Here are confined the souls of those who lived virtuous and honorable lives, but because they were not baptized, these souls merit punishment and are denied forever the blessings of salvation.
As Dante looks upon these miserable souls in the upper stratum of hell, and sees, as the story says, "Many and vast, Of men, women and infants," he marvels. His guide asks the question, "Inquirest thou not what spirits Are those which thou beholdest?"
Dante, showing a desire to know, the guide continues: "I would thou know, that these of sin Were blameless; and if aught they merited, It profits not, since baptism was not theirs, The portal of thy faith. If they before The Gospel lived, they served not God aright; And among them such am I. For these defects, And for no other evil, we are lost; Only so far afflicted that we live Desiring without hope."
In answer to the earnest inquiry of his mortal guest, who desires to know if any thus punished ever had the privilege of coming forth from this sad condition of torment, that is, escaping from Hell, the spirit-poet declares that the righteous, who had known God from our first parents down to the time of Christ, have been "to bliss exalted," but of these unfortunates who never heard of Christ, he says, "Be thou assured, no spirit of human kind was ever saved."
Dante was not the author of this unfortunate doctrine. What a shame it is that this same awful doctrine has come resounding down from that distant day, and has been made to repeat its terrible threat of torment in the ears of earnest souls who have sought the salvation of loved ones who have gone before.
I do not believe that hell is a place where the wicked are being burned forever, and from which there is no escape, and, taken all in all, I do not believe that the Bile teaches otherwise.
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