Sunday School - Back To Basic Part 9

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Sunday School Back To Basics Part 9 Date: 11/27/2022 Teacher: Pastor Brian Garcia

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The Roman Catholic Controversy Part 10

The Roman Catholic Controversy Part 10

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Christianity, there are really three major views. There's the traditional view of hell, which is the one that we hold on to and confess.
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Then there is what's called annihilationism. Annihilationism basically teaches that the soul perishes and that there is a lake of fire likely at the end, but it's where souls go to perish, not where they will be consciously tormented for eternity.
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And then there is what's called the soul sleep version of hell, which is to say that when you die, you are unconscious until the resurrection.
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These are all discussions about the state of death and the state of the afterlife, and they all have kind of some bearing on the conversation today.
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But we take a historical, biblical view of hell, and we do believe that it is a literal, when
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I say literal place, I mean it in the sense that it is real. It is not a picture, an allegory of something unpleasant.
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It is the place of unpleasantness. It is not, you know, it is a real place. So I want us to base our conversation on the word of God.
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So I wanted to start with Matthew chapter 10, if you can turn there. Now, there are three things that Jesus talked most about when he was on the earth.
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Do you know what those three things were? You're close.
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You got the two of them, but the first one is the kingdom of God. The thing that he spoke most about was the kingdom of God, then it was money, and then it was hell.
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So in some regard, Jesus spoke more about hell than he did about heaven, which is really interesting.
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In Matthew chapter 10, notice what Jesus said. He says, in verse 28, he says, and do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.
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Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
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Now, that text is interesting because it teaches us a couple of things. One, Jesus does not equate physical life with the soul.
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So some people would say that the body, the life that is possessed within the body, is the soul.
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But Jesus says the body can die, but does that mean the soul dies?
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Not necessarily. Now, the word soul is used a couple different ways in Scripture. It can refer to one's life force.
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It can refer also to just a person, a personal being. We use that analogy all the time when we say, oh, those poor souls, right?
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We're talking about individuals. We're talking about people. And so the Scripture says that Jesus says, do not fear those who can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.
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So death of the body does not necessarily mean the cessation or the death of the soul. That's a pretty interesting point.
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But then he goes on, rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
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Now, the word destroy here can mean ruin. So it doesn't mean annihilation. So some of the annihilationists would say, well, you see, look, the soul eventually is going to be destroyed, which means it's going to cease to exist.
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But the word destroy doesn't necessarily mean annihilation. But instead, the
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Greek word here means ruin. It means to bring to ruin. And obviously, that's what the biblical hell is.
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It's a place of eternal ruin. And then he uses a Greek term. Who is reading from the
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ESV? Most of us are reading from the ESV. Is there a footnote in the bottom of that verse?
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If so, what does that footnote say? Verse 28. For verse 28, yeah. For that last word that's used for hell.
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Some of the ESVs have it. Gehenna. The Greek word there is
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Gehenna. Now, that's going to be an important word that we're going to go into a little bit later.
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But here's what Jesus teaches about hell. I want you now to turn to Matthew 25. In verse 46, we're going to be reading more of these verses later on in Matthew 25.
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But for the purpose of this section, I'm just going to read this one verse, which is the last verse of chapter 25, verse 46.
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And these will go away into what? Eternal punishment.
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But the righteous into eternal life. And so I want you to write this in the first part.
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Hell is the place of eternal and conscious torment of sinners.
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Now, how do we know that it's going to be a conscious existence? I want you to turn to the last book of the
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Bible. And you have a moment. Revelation chapter 14. This is in the context of the worship of the beast.
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And it says in Revelation chapter 14, verse 9, And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice,
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If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, pour full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the
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Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night.
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These worshipers of the beast and its image and whoever receives the mark of its name. Does that sound eternal?
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Does it sound conscious? Absolutely. These people have no rest. Rest is a concept that only applies to those who are conscious, who have a conscious existence.
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And so this is a verse that we're going to examine a little bit more later on as well. But we can see from the scriptures provided already that hell is a place of eternal and conscious punishment for sinners.
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Any questions so far? Next part. I want you to turn to Mark chapter 9.
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We'll spend some time in that text. Mark chapter 9, starting in verse 42.
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And I put 42 to 28, which is incorrect. It's to 48. Yeah, 942 to 48, not 24 or 28.
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And it says, Whoever causes one of these little ones to believe in me, who believes in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.
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I think Pastor Conley touched on this a little bit maybe a couple of Sundays ago in the catechism teaching that there are severities of punishment in hell.
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So it's not just, you know, everyone gets, you know, Hitler doesn't get the same treatment as a nice old lady across the street who never accepted
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Jesus in her heart, right? There's going to be different levels of severity, of punishment, because it is a place of justice and God's wrath is poured out justly on the sinners.
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And this is a perfect example of that. You know, Jesus is saying, if you call someone a sin, especially he's talking in the context of like little ones, of young people, you know.
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He says, if you cause them to sin, it would be better for you to put a millstone around your neck and it'd be thrown into the sea.
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He says in verse 43, and if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off, it is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.
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Okay? Now there's another footnote. Most of your Bibles will have another footnote here in this section as well.
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And the footnote will read Gehenna. So when Jesus talks about hell, he usually talks about it in the context of using this
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Greek term Gehenna. And so I actually want you to write that in there. Jesus used the
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Greek term Gehenna to describe hell. Gehenna.
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G -E -H -E -N -N -A
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G -E -H -E -N -N -A Gehenna. And that's going to be an important Greek term that we'll unpack in a bit.
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He goes on to say, so remember that Gehenna is the unquenchable fire. And the scripture goes on to say in Mark chapter 9 verse 45, and if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off, it is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet and to be thrown into hell.
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Again, that's the Greek term Gehenna. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out, it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than two eyes to be thrown into hell.
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That's Gehenna. Where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.
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Now that's a really interesting text. And Jesus is making some allusions there that you're probably not connecting.
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And one of the allusions that he's making is that he's using first and foremost the Greek term Gehenna, which was actually, does anyone know what the
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Greek word Gehenna means? Okay, well go with it.
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Go with that. Isn't Gehenna the sacrificial animal? That's right.
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That's right. So Gehenna was a location. Gehenna is a
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Greek word that's actually a Hebrew location outside Jerusalem called the
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Valley of Hinnom. And the Valley of Hinnom was just outside the city walls and it was a big, giant garbage dump.
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And it's the place where animals, carcasses were left and it was kind of always burning.
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This is how they disposed of the waste. And people who were unfit for burial, people who were thieves or robbers or bad people, their bodies wouldn't even be buried properly.
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They'd just be tossed into the Valley of Hinnom and their body would be perpetually burning.
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And so when Jesus uses the picture of Gehenna and then he doubles down that imagery by using in verse 48 the term their worms does not die.
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So he's using this physical place to describe a spiritual place and a spiritual reality. He says you know the
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Valley of Hinnom. You know what that place is, that garbage dump. But the place I'm talking about is eternal and it's the place where the worms do not die.
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The worms that you're going to see in the Valley of Hinnom, they're going to die. They're going to eat. They're going to decompose. The body's there. But the place that I'm talking about is eternal and it is real and it's the place where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.
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I'm pretty sure it was kept burning. It was kept burning. And so the imagery here just fits really well.
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So Jesus is using that imagery, that location to invoke a response in the people.
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Now let's be honest. The Old Testament doesn't talk a lot about hell. The Old Testament is very ambiguous when it comes to the afterlife because it doesn't really talk about heaven a lot either.
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The hope in the Old Testament was pretty ambiguous. But the data that we do have from the
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Old Testament is sufficient to confirm the teaching of Jesus, obviously.
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But also something significant happens in what's called the Intermediate Testamental Period. So the period between the last book of the
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Bible and the Gospels is about 200 -400 years of silence. But it really wasn't that silent because you had a lot of things going on in history and you have the rise and fall of the
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Greeks and the rise of the Romans, the Hellenization of the world, and the Jews became occupied again.
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But I say this because the Intertestamental Period, there was a lot of discussion about hell and there's a lot of literature that was written in that period that talked about hell.
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First, like in Enoch, those are Intertestamental Period literature. It talks a lot about hell. Jesus then uses some of those imageries that are used in the
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Intertestamental Period to describe hell even more. And so it's a very interesting development in how we see the doctrine of hell develop between the
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Testaments of the Old and New Testaments and how Jesus views hell, obviously, as well. So just for those who are catching up, the first one, the first bullet point, hell is a place of eternal and conscious, conscious torment of sinners.
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So hell is a place of eternal and conscious torment of sinners. Second line is Jesus used the
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Greek term Gehenna, that's G -E -H -E -N -N -A,
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Gehenna, to describe hell as the place where the fire, I want you to put that in there, the fire is never put out.
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And Jesus is also quoting from the Scriptures. And so when I tell you that the
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Old Testament doesn't talk a lot about hell, it does talk about hell enough to give us a foundation, a basis in the
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New Testament. And I'll read it to you in Isaiah 66. Isaiah 66, verse 24 says, the last words of the book of Isaiah, and they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me and their worms shall not die and their fire shall not be quenched for they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.
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So notice how the prophet Isaiah describes the state of the wicked at the final state.
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They're gonna serve as an example of those who've rebelled against Yahweh and their worms will not die, the fire shall not be quenched.
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This is an eternal state, an eternal remembrance for those who have rebelled against Yahweh.
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And Jesus uses that imagery richly in Mark chapter nine, but using the
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Greek term Gehenna. Now here's where I'm gonna make, I'm gonna share with you my perspective on something.
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I think maybe Conley and Pastor might have a little bit of a different view in terms of hell.
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And I would say in the Bible, there's three words, three
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Greek words, which are used to describe the place of the dead. Gehenna, Hades, and Tartarus.
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Tartarus. And I would say that these three places are all different places.
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That's my understanding of the scriptures. Others would say, no, they're all the same place.
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It's just a description of different words to emphasize maybe different aspects of the state of the dead.
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Particularly the wicked. But in the Old Testament, one of the reasons why hell's kind of ambiguous in the
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Old Testament is because the word that's used in the Old Testament for the dead, just kind of blanket for good and bad, is a place called
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Sheol. ESV usually leaves it untranslated, so you'll read Sheol. But Sheol is the place where everyone went to.
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So for instance, Jonah, in chapter three of Jonah, Jonah's in Sheol for three days, in the belly of the fish.
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Job prays to be concealed in Sheol. Everyone who died,
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Ecclesiastes 9 says, everyone dies and they go to Sheol. So Sheol was kind of like just the blanket term for what's referred to as the underworld or the netherworld.
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It's the place of the dead. And the Greek word equivalent to Sheol is the
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Greek word hades or hades. And we know that because in Acts chapter two, when
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Peter is preaching, he's quoting from Psalm 16 where the word Sheol is used, and he uses the
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Greek word hades to describe it. So hades and Sheol are the same place.
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And in Acts chapter two, actually, it says David was in Sheol. David descended into Sheol, but then he contrasts that with Jesus, that Jesus went to Sheol, but he did not stay, he did not see corruption, but instead he was raised from the dead.
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It'd be very strange if David and Jesus were in hell, which is where the confusion in the creeds come in, where it says that Jesus descended into hell.
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Have you ever heard that from the Apostles' Creed, right? That Jesus descended into hell? Well, you know the Greek word there is hades.
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Now, I would contend that one of the reasons why there's so much confusion on this topic is because starting really with the King James version of the
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Bible, at least in the modern English, they've conflated hell with these other
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Greek words. So when hades became hell, according to the King James translators, that kind of made it seem like Jesus went to hell, or David was in hell, whereas I would say that hell is, it was the common place where everyone went when they died.
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Everyone went to Sheol or hades. Now, Sheol and hades was a conscious place of existence.
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Jesus actually tells us a little bit about hades in Luke chapter 16, the story of the rich man
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Lazarus. Remember the story that there was a beggar and a rich man, both die, and it says that they wake up in hades.
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That's what Jesus says. He doesn't use the Greek word gehenna, he uses the Greek word hades. And so when he uses the
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Greek word hades, he says both were in hades, and then he says one was in torment, the other was in where?
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Where was the other one? Abraham's bosom.
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Now Abraham's bosom was in the same plane of existence as those who were in torment.
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But Jesus says there's a great chasm between the two. So think of it, the way I've always imagined it, is think of like the
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Grand Canyon. I've never been to the Grand Canyon. Anyone ever been to the Grand Canyon? Yeah. You're lucky,
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I want to go. But I've never been, but I've seen pictures, so you can pretty much see, on a good day at least, when there's not too much haze, on the other side, right?
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But there's no way you can get there, can you? There's no way you can jump, there's no way you can get over to that side.
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There's a great chasm between the two. And I would say that Sheol, or Hades, was the commonplace of the dead, where everyone went, and there were two compartments essentially.
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There's Abraham's bosom, and then there was the place of torment, which is where the rich man opens his eyes, and that's where he's in torment.
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And he begs Abraham to send a messenger to his father's house. Everyone following along so far?
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Any thoughts or questions? You had your hand up? You need two more? And I'd say this is, yeah, go for it.
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Yes. Yes. Yeah.
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Correct. Good morning. Hey, could you go to my office and grab a printed sheet? I'm just printing another one.
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I'm going to print two, so if you can bring that to me as well. That's a good question.
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I'm going to answer that one a little bit later, because I think there is an answer to that. But I don't think Hades is that place.
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So what I'm trying to say to you is, in my opinion, I don't think that Hades is the eternal place of torment.
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Okay? I believe that's Gehenna, and I think they're different. They're distinct. Actually, I'm going to make a pretty solid case for it.
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Thank you. I think I'm going to make a pretty solid case if we're looking at some scriptures in regard to what the Bible teaches about, eschatologically, what it teaches about hell.
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Obviously, hell is the judgment of the last day. If the wicked just die and go to hell right now, then what's the eschatological expectation that we're waiting for?
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Where God's going to judge the righteous and the unrighteous and give them eternal destinies. If they're already at their eternal destiny, there's no eschatological expectation that we're waiting for.
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So you have to do something with the eschatological expectation that the New Testament gives us about the final judgment and the eternal state.
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And so I would say that, again, Gehenna is hell proper, if you'd want to put it that way.
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Gehenna is hell proper, while Hades, Sheol, same place, just two different languages,
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Hebrew and Greek, is the intermediate state or the state where the dead went.
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Now, I would make an argument that Jesus, upon his resurrection and ascension, brought with him the
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Old Testament saints that were in Sheol. And we see allusions to this. Ephesians chapter four says that when he descended into the lower regions, what does that mean?
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But that he ultimately ascended far above every rule, power, and authority. And that when he ascended above all rule and authority, he brought with him gifts to men.
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And this is an allusion to the gifts to the churches, but also to the Old Testament from Psalm 68, when he brings a procession with him as the victorious king leading his victorious procession.
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And so he brings with him the Old Testament saints. We see this also, an allusion to this, in Hebrews chapter 12, when he talks about heavily
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Mount Zion, all the innumerable saints and festival gathering. But he also alludes to it in that chapter by saying that the
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Old Testament saints and the New Testament saints were to be glorified and redeemed at the same time, right?
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So that they were looking for a better country, according to Hebrews chapter 11. The Old Testament saints, they were looking forward to a better city, but they never achieved it, it says.
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They didn't yet achieve it because they were not supposed to get there apart from the New Testament saints. And so it was when
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Christ, through his death, burial, and resurrection, he brought with him the Old Testament saints. Now when the believer dies, as we learned last week when we were talking about heaven, where does the believer go when he dies?
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Where does he go? Easy question, come on. He goes to heaven.
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He goes to the presence of the Lord. That wasn't always the case. That wasn't always the case.
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Jesus, through his redemptive work, he opens the way to heaven. He's the only way to heaven. Now, if there was a way that you can get to heaven before Jesus in the
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Old Testament, that's kind of concerning, but yeah. Now that's an interesting discussion because we really don't know what that whole thing is about.
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Enoch, it says in Genesis 5, that Enoch, it doesn't give us a lot about Enoch.
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It gives us like two verses. Enoch was an upright man who walked with God. And it says, and then he was not, for God took him.
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Okay, that's what it says. For then he was not, for God took him. What does that mean? No idea, no idea.
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It doesn't mean that he was raptured physically. That'd be kind of contradictory to what other scriptures say.
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First Corinthians 15, 50, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Jesus says, no one descended into heaven, but he who descended from heaven, the son of man.
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I would say that that means that God likely took him in that he took his life and preserved him from unsavory death in the hands of his enemies.
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I think that's a more likely scenario with Enoch. And I think with Elijah, when Elijah was taken in the whirlwind, it doesn't tell us exactly where he went and what the whole story is there too.
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I would assume that that means that the Lord also took his life to preserve him from an untimely death in the hands of his enemies.
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Well, right. I don't believe that the dead are unconscious. I don't believe that the dead don't exist.
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The dead are very much conscious prior to the resurrection of Jesus Christ in Abraham's bosom.
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I mean, that's what Luke 16 tells us, right? Abraham's there. The Old Testament saints are there.
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And so they are obviously conscious and existing in some plane.
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Yeah, real quick. Go ahead, Sue. Yeah. And his body was taken and it was a contention between Satan and Michael the
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Archangel, according to Jude. Right? But his body was here. It didn't like...
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So even though in the Mount of Transfiguration you see Moses and Elijah, they weren't yet resurrected.
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So we're not seeing them in a resurrected state. Right? I don't think so.
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I don't think so. I think that would be really... Hebrews 11 and 12 say that the
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Old Testament saints were not going to be glorified apart from us. Talking about specifically Moses and Abraham, that they were looking toward a better country but they had not yet received it.
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Talking about heavenly Jerusalem. And so that's the clear context of Hebrews 11 and 12.
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So it would be very problematic if you have them somehow being glorified. Now, I think that when a saint dies,
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Old and New Testament, they are glorified to some degree. Right? But it's not the resurrection.
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It's not the eternal glorified state. Does that kind of help? So I would say with Enoch and Elijah, I don't think that they're alive somewhere.
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And it's a very popular theory to think they are because maybe they're the two witnesses in the Book of Revelation that are going to come in the last days and they're going to be kind of reincarnated or something.
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I don't think that that's what Revelation is teaching nor do I think that that's the case with the physical life or bodies of Enoch and Elijah.
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So I would say for the believer, Sheol is no more. We don't go into an intermediate state.
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We go straight to be with the Lord in heaven. I would say though that an unbeliever, they still go to Hades.
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That would be my perspective. And I'll try to make a case for that. And again, this is actually an area where we can disagree because it is kind of a cumbersome topic and it is a topic that, you know,
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I'm on the other side of many good Puritans on this and many good Puritans have had a different perspective than I do.
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But this is actually a perspective that is, it is the mainstream opinion of modern reformed scholars.
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But if you go back to earlier folks, they had a different perspective.
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But this is the main perspective nowadays from the scholastic perspective.
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Yes, because the Catholic view of purgatory in their discussion of an intermediate state, it was just too ethereal, too pagan for them.
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And I think in a lot of things, the Puritans in rightly lashing against Roman Catholic dogma,
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I think oftentimes maybe went a little bit too far in their rebuke of Rome and they smoothed over some theological issues that they perceived in Rome and just kind of made it more neat and easier.
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So for them, it was very easy to say, no, hell is Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, Tardis.
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It's all the same place. And part of it too was because of the early tradition from the earliest translators of the
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Bible, the Geneva Bible, the King James Bible, all these early Bible translations all used hell as a translation for those
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Greek and Hebrew terms. And so it was very easy for them to just come to that conclusion naturally just by reading the scriptures in the modern
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English. Yes, yes.
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So just turn to Hebrews 11. I keep alluding to Hebrews 11. Just turn to Hebrews 11.
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And let's go to verse 10, talking about the hope that the righteous
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Abraham and the patriarchs had. It says in Hebrews 11, 10, for he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is
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God. Okay, so that's the first key we got there. So though they were inheritors of the land and they were looking forward to the inheritance of the land, what they were actually looking forward to was a city that was designed by God.
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And then it says in verse 13, these all died in faith, not having received the things promised.
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Okay, what was the things promised? The things promised was the unseen city. That's the New Jerusalem in chapter 12, okay?
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Chapter 12 is where the climax of it is. It's talking about the city. In chapter 12, it says in verse 22, but you have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living
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God, to heavenly Jerusalem, to the innumerable angels and festival gathering. So it says the Old Testament saints, they didn't get it, okay?
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So they died in faith, not receiving the promise, okay? Does that make sense? So they didn't receive the promise of heaven because they weren't there yet.
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It says, having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth, for people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.
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If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.
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But as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one. So clearly we're talking about heaven here.
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Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared for them a city, okay?
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And so that's the, that's a really important key here.
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They did not receive the promise. Now, fast forward to verse 39 and 40. And this is where I think my point is even made more clearly and stronger.
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All these though, referring to the Old Testament saints, the great cloud of witnesses, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised.
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Since God has provided something better for us, that apart from us, New Testament saints, they should not be made perfect, okay?
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So they didn't attain the better country, they didn't attain perfection, because that was going to be in conjunction with the glorification of God's people in the church, okay?
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So it's only when Christ in his resurrection, ascension, when he opens the way to heaven, and that's where the better country comes in.
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That's why he opens it in chapter 12. Again, it says in verse 22, but you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living
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God, to heavenly Jerusalem, to the innumerable angel and fester gathering, to the assembly of the firstborn, that's the church, who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.
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Well, who are the spirits of the righteous made perfect? It was chapter 11, all the Old Testament saints. All the
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Old Testament saints are the spirits of the righteous made perfect. When does this happen? It happens in the inauguration of Christ's kingdom, in his death, burial, and resurrection.
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He opens the way to heaven. So to me, I find it a little bit problematic if there was a way to heaven prior to Jesus.
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Because Jesus is the way to truth and life. He's the only way to heaven. And of course, one could apply kind of a retroactive salvation, which would be right in looking at how
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Romans talks about justification, how Abraham was justified by faith. And ultimately, the way the
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Old Testament saints were saved, or the same way New Testament saints were saved, it was through the blood of Jesus.
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But God is able to retroactively apply the work of Christ to the Old Testament saints. But I don't think that that means that they were in heaven.
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I think the Old Testament saints were in Sheol. I think Sheol is distinct. It is the intermediate state.
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And I think that it is still the place of the wicked today. Because there's an eschatological expectation of a final judgment and a final place of torment, which would not really make a lot of sense if they're already there.
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Any questions so far? One question. Yeah. So, even though in the
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Old Testament time he and Sheol, both their conditions weren't quite the same.
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Yeah, so I would say one was paradise, one was Abraham's bosom, one was a place of torment.
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So I would put it this way. It's like the county jail versus the penitentiary. Right? You don't want to be in either.
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But one is clearly worse. And I would say Sheol, Hades, as the intermediate state. For unbelievers, it's like the county jail.
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It's the place where you're waiting your trial. And Gehenna would be the penitentiary, be the place where your eternal destiny is served out.
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Great picture. Yeah. Any other thoughts or questions before we move on? A lot of stuff.
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I told you it was going to be an exciting one. So we are in, just to recap again, the first one is hell is the place of eternal, unconscious torment.
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And Jesus used the Greek term Gehenna to describe hell as the place where the fire is put out.
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Now, I did a survey of this, and pretty consistently, when
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Jesus talks about hell, he uses the Greek term Gehenna consistently. The only place that is maybe a contention would be
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Luke 16. I already have a good answer for that. Luke 16, again, is Lazarus and the rich man.
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And I would say because Hades is a place of torment for the unbelievers, but it's not the final place of torment.
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Right? Yes? That's right.
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We're going to get there. Yes. That's the Greek word Hades that is tossed into, and that's another reason why
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I don't think Hades and hell are the same place. Because Revelation 20, verse 14, says that hell, or Hades, will be tossed into the lake of fire.
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So, when Jesus talks, notice the language. You've got to do a survey. If you have the software
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Logos, just put in Gehenna. And it's going to give you all the times which the Greek word
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Gehenna is used in the New Testament. And you look at the description of those verses, and they fit perfectly with what
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Revelation talks about as the lake of fire. Okay? But anytime you look up, if you do a similar survey with Sheol or Hades, you don't get the same results.
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It seems like this place is not exactly the same. It shares characteristics and traits, for sure.
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And I think that's why many of the Puritans felt like it was the same place, because they do seem to share some characteristics.
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But I'd say the closer we look at it and we examine it, the more clearly the distinctions are actually made in Scripture.
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So, again, I would say hell is the Greek term Gehenna to describe hell as the place where the fire is never put out.
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Now, let's go to Matthew chapter 25. Let's spend a little bit of time there. Matthew 25.
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Let's look at what it says, verse 31 to 33. When the
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Son of Man... This is an eschatological statement, and Jesus is giving us insight as to what the final judgment will look like.
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And He says, When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His glorious throne.
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Before Him will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate people from one another, as a shepherd separates his sheep from the goats.
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And He will place the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. So, Jesus comes back.
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This is the great white judgment seat. This is the great judgment of the nations.
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All people are going to be judged when He returns. And there's going to be two categories of people. It's going to be a binary choice.
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You're either going to be a sheep, or you're going to be a goat. Which one do you want to be? Sheep. You want to be a sheep.
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Goats are bad. So, you don't want to be a goat on that day.
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Why not? Because look what it says in verse 41. Then He will say to those on His left,
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Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.
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For I was hungry, and you gave Me no food. I was thirsty, and you gave Me no drink. I was a stranger, and you did not welcome Me. Naked, and you did not clothe
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Me. Sick and in prison, you did not visit Me. Then they will answer, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to you?
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Then He will answer them, saying, Truly I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.
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And these will go away into eternal punishment. But the righteous into eternal life.
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So do you see what's happening here is that the Lord is giving us insight as to the final judgment.
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And eschatologically there is an expectation. All the creeds speak of this expectation that we are awaiting the final judgment of the resurrection of the quick and the dead.
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This is the eschatological expectation. And where do they go? They go into the eternal fire, eternal punishment.
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That would be strange if they were already there. Because according to Scripture, this happens in verse 31.
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When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His glorious throne. That is when the final judgment is done.
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That is when the final judgment is, you know, divvied out essentially. And so I don't think that placing hell before the second coming is actually biblical.
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I think that's problematic. Now hell was made for who? Who was hell made for?
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Satan. That's right, put that in there. Hell was made for the devil and his angels.
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But it also serves as the place where God's justice and wrath are poured out not just on Satan, not just on his demons, but also on sinners.
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The Bible says in 2 Thessalonians, this is also a very good reason why
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I'm all Millennial. As we just read, the
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Scripture teaches that Christ comes and when He comes, He judges.
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Eternal destinies are determined at His coming. There's no intermediate thousand year period where, you know, there's this ambiguous reign and it's pretty clear cut.
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Christ comes and eternal destinies are determined there at His coming.
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And this is further backed up by 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, verse 7 to 10, which says,
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And to grant relief to those who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels.
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Same event. Jesus says the Son of Man is going to come back with His mighty angels. Paul says, eschatologically expecting the return of Jesus Christ with His mighty angels.
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And they, so He's coming in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know
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God and those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the
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Lord and from the glory of His might when He comes on that day to be glorified in His saints and marveled at among all those who have believed because our testimony to you was believed.
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And so Paul, in his eschatology, very clean cut as well. Jesus comes in flaming vengeance with His mighty angels and at that moment, eternal destinies are reconciled or given.
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So at that moment, the wicked go into eternal punishment. No thousand year intermediate stage here.
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Also, must mean that eschatologically, hell is not until the second coming.
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So what I'm saying might sound like heresy, but I promise you, it's borne out here in scripture.
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When an unbeliever dies, he does not immediately go to hell, instead he goes to Hades. Which is close enough to hell,
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I mean, it's not a pleasant place, you don't want to go there. But they don't go into hell, which is
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Gehenna, the eternal place of torment. The eternal torment is given at the resurrection, at the return of Christ.
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That's when that eternal destiny is given. Are you following me? Yeah. Yes, so the
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Bible describes the torment of hell as Jesus uses the analogy, it's a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.
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So think of gnashing teeth, it's like, you know, just misery. And the Bible uses certain imageries that almost seem contradictory.
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Jesus says it's a place of outer darkness, but it's also a place of fire. So how can you have fire in darkness?
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It almost seems, you know, contradictory. But what we know, ultimately,
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Revelation 14, why don't you turn there. Revelation 14, we read this a little bit earlier as well, but many of you weren't here yet.
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Revelation 14, starting in verse 9. Revelation 14, 9 says,
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Another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hands, he will also drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and the presence of the
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Lamb. So that's how the Bible describes a torment in hell. It is the place where God's wrath is poured out full strength.
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Now what's interesting is that Jesus, before he went to the cross, what did he pray in the garden? What did he pray?
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Take this cup away from me. Father, if it be thy will, remove this cup from me, but let not my will be done but yours.
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What cup? What was in the cup? God's wrath. God's wrath was in the, that was what's in the cup.
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And it was poured out on Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ bore God's wrath in his flesh.
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And he did so for the redemption of his elect. Sorry if this takes you back too far, but the rich man.
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At the Grand Canyon. So they're in the same place. So at Christ's coming, when he meets out
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God's retribution or his justice, does the rich man suffer something different? Because he's in hell.
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He's being tormented by the flame. Yeah. So is it the same torment?
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It's a different type. I would say it's a different type of torment in Hades, right? So it is, I would again liken it to the county jail versus the state penitentiary.
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And what really, what distinguishes the two places is the nature of the place and the nature of the people there.
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Those who are in Hades are their souls, their spirits. They're not resurrected. Hades or hell,
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Gehenna, will be the place of resurrected torment. Because everyone is raised from the dead, Bible says. Everyone will be resurrected.
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Every single human who's ever lived will be resurrected. Some onto eternal life, some to eternal contempt,
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Daniel says. Right? And so the nature of it is what's different. Gehenna, Lake of Fire, is the place for resurrected, eternal, conscious punishment.
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And I don't think that Hades serves that function. Right, my question is, is the punishment different?
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He's in the Lake of Fire in Hades. Well, it doesn't say Lake of Fire in Hades. It just says he, yeah. But he's tormented in this way.
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That's right, that's right. And the Bible uses that imagery often. So we don't know if it is analogous or if it's an allegory, an image.
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The Bible also says, you know, 1 Corinthians, I think, chapter 2, talks about Christians, or chapter 3, talks about Christians undergoing fire, but as a test of purity to refine us so that we become, you know, like those who bear precious stones, find gold, silver.
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And so the, so that, so the fire may or may not be literal, but we know that it's at least pointing us towards a condition, a state, that we don't want to be in.
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Right, because again, how do you have outer darkness and fire in the same place? So these are likely images of the type of torment, the type of consuming, because fire is all -consuming, torment and existence that hell would be.
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You know, I'm always likening it to this. It's like, you know, will hell be a literal lake of fire?
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Will there be literal, you know, fire and brimstone and all that stuff? I don't know.
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But I like to think of it this way. What would hell look like for the alcoholic? For me, you know,
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I was an addiction counselor for many years, and what hell would look like is for them to be surrounded with beer and alcohol, and then when they go to drink it, it turns to sand, you know?
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It is almost like a giving over to your desire, where God gives you over fully to your desires, and they cannot satisfy you, they cannot quench you.
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It is just all -consuming. And you are in, and you are in the epitome of the life without God.
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And to me, that's hell. To me, that's what hell looks like. And I think that the imagery of fire and smoke and brimstone,
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I think those are all allegories to bring us to this imagery of a place of desperation without God.
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And so, any other thoughts or questions on that? Kind of interesting, huh? Yeah, I mean,
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I feel more convinced that it looks like a literal fire. Yeah. Of course, you've got to recognize how dark this fire is.
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Yeah. It's crazy. Because I always look at all the past journeys of the Lord in the Old Testament, and like,
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He ran out of fire bricks upon Sodom and Gomorrah. That wasn't how the Lord wrote it. Like, He really read it. Yeah, you're right. And it says in Jude, if you want to turn to it real quick, this is from Revelation already.
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In Jude, chapter 1, verse 7 says, Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example of, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
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Okay? And so He uses the fire and brimstone from Sodom and Gomorrah as an imagery, as an example of those who are going to serve under eternal punishment.
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But even there, is it literal eternal fire? Because are the fires of Sodom and Gomorrah still burning today?
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No, they're not. So again, I could see both ways. I'm not particular on one way or the other.
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So, but it is interesting. And the scripture seems to give flexibility for both sides of that discussion.
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Last part to wrap this all up. I want you to turn to Matthew chapter 13.
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And this will hopefully present my case the most clearly for what
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I'm trying to say. Start, so this is the parable of the weeds and Jesus explains the parable of the weeds and this is how
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He explains it. Starting in verse 37. He answered,
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The one who sows the good seed is the son of man. The field is the world and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom.
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The weeds are the sons of the evil ones. So those are Christians and non -Christians. And the enemy who sowed them is the devil.
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The harvest is the end of the age and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age.
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The son of man will send his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all lawbreakers and throw them into the fiery furnace.
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That's Gehenna, that's hell. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father.
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He who has ears let him hear. So the gathering and separating happens at the end of the age.
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In other words, hell is the judgment of the last day. I want you to write that in there. Hell is the judgment of the last day.
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In John chapter 5, I'll read it for you guys so you're not having to flip through all these and the references are there so you can read it in your free time.
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In John chapter 5, verse 28, Jesus says this, Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out.
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Those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
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When does this happen? When does this resurrection occur? It happens at the last hour.
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At the last hour, or when he returns. It's the last day, it's the last hour.
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And it kind of culminates, this is what I do want you to turn to in the last book of the Bible, Revelation chapter 20. It culminates in chapter 20, starting in verse 11.
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Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it, this is Christ, from his presence, earth and sky fled away and no place was found for them.
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And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne and books were opened. But another book was opened, which is the book of life.
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And the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it.
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Death and Hades, that's hell, King James Version translates that as hell. And it's not actually hell,
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I think that hell, remember I made my case, Hades and hell are not the same place. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done.
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So what happens is that the holding place of the dead, Hades, is emptied at that last day.
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And what happens, then, verse 14, death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.
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This is the second death, the lake of fire. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
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So hell, Hades, is gonna be tossed into the lake of fire. Lake of fire is
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Gehenna. That is the eternal place of torment. It's the eschatological final judgment of the wicked.
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And so that's what I would contend, that Hades is not hell proper, but rather Gehenna is hell proper, and that ultimately death and Hades do give up the dead.
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Hades will be emptied and there will either be eternal paradise, eternal bliss, eternal life, or eternal condemnation in Gehenna.
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Now, why does this matter? It matters because hell demonstrates the love, mercy, but almost most importantly, the holiness of God.
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God is holy, and He is so holy that sin must be accounted for.
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Now, it's often, there was a few years back, R .C. Sproul was doing a question and answer, and one of the questions that was given to R .C.
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Sproul was, why would a temporary condition like sin, why would
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God, you know, something that is done temporally by humans, be punished eternally by God?
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I felt like that was a pretty fair question. And, you know what R .C.
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Sproul's response was to that? Literally took the microphone, and the guy was dying, he had a tube up his nose, and he says, what's wrong with you?
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He said, what's wrong with you? The point he was making is, you do not understand the holiness of God.
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Because if you knew how holy God was, you would know how ridiculous that question is.
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That you would spit, and you would sin before the God of the universe, who made all things, and think that His holiness is something so trivial, that it doesn't require anything but eternal torment.
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You know? And so, and I think that makes a great point. God's holiness is so otherworldly, that we, we can't, you know, we can't atone for our own sins.
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This is why the blood of Jesus, the atonement that came through Jesus Christ, is so important, so precious, and it's the best news that could ever be shared.
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And it's why we as Christians must bear this good news to others. Because people are hell -bound, and we have in our possession the only cure for this sickness.
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And it's, and it's the blood of Jesus. And so, any last thoughts or questions on the topic of hell?
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Yes? I was going to say, many of us have had this.
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Yeah. So it really gave me...
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That's right. Amen. It was stupid. Amen. A lot of us lived on that. That's right.
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Amen. Yeah, just like there's going to be, I believe, 1 Corinthians chapter 3 teaches that there's going to be different levels, not levels, but different degrees of glory.
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1 Corinthians 15 also says, Paul talks about there's a glory, the glory of the sun is one, the glory of the star, the glory of the moon, those are all distinct glories.
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So will it be at the resurrection. Everyone's going to receive a resurrected body, but the glory that is received is very conditional upon our work as Christians.
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And so, we're not saved by works, but our works will help determine the crown and degree of glory that we receive in heaven.
01:00:04
And I think the same is true for unbelievers. Not everyone receives the same torment in hell, as Hitler, for instance.
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Any other thoughts or questions? Did I maybe get you to think a little bit about the distinction between Hades, Gehenna, and make it at least some of a compelling case?
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What do you think, Pastor? No, I thought it was good. We did one Sunday school, and it was just on Sheol.
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Yeah. That's right. That's right.
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That's right. Yeah. Interesting stuff. Yeah. Sheol? Sheol and Hades, both the same place.
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Sheol is Hebrew. Hades is Greek. And I would say this is the common grave of mankind.
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Everyone in the Old Testament world went there. Jonah was in Sheol in Jonah chapter 3.
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Job prayed to be concealed in Sheol. David was in Sheol according to Acts chapter 2 and Psalm 16.
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And that's why it says when David died, it says he was buried with his fathers. He was in Sheol.
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It's basically the ground. And Pastor's right. It is used in various capacities.
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It could mean literally the ground. It could mean the netherworld or the place of the dead, like the conscious place of the dead.
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It could mean a place of torment. But one thing that seems clear in the
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Old Testament is that Sheol was universal. Everyone went there. And so Jesus, in Luke 16, talking about Sheol but using the
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Greek word Hades to describe it, he gives us more insight by saying there was two compartments.
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There's a place of torment and there's Abraham's bosom. That was paradise. And both were Sheol. Both were
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Hades. So that's, I think, the way of looking at it. Yeah, one last question.
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Go for it. Yeah, see, that's heresy.
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And the reason and some of the confusion around that is because of the misunderstanding of the language.
01:02:37
If Hades is indeed hell, Gehenna, if they're the same place, I could see why people would come to that conclusion, especially if they understand
01:02:45
Hades as hell and they read the Apostles' Creed, which says he descended into hell or Hades, I could see why people would have that thought.
01:02:53
But Hades is the common grave of mankind. It's not the place of eternal torment. So I would say my understanding helped alleviate the heresy, the problem of that heresy.
01:03:06
So, yeah. All right, well, let me pray for us. And if you guys want to keep talking and chatting, I'll do that with you. Father, thank you that you've given us your word, which is true.
01:03:14
Thank you, Lord, that you have given us insight into the place of eternal torment, Lord. We pray, God, that we wouldn't just, that we would not fear him who can destroy the body, but to fear him who can destroy both body and soul and Gehenna.
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So, Lord, help us, Lord, to have a proper fear of you, a proper love for you, and that we would love your word and grow in holiness so that we may avoid such a place.
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But also, Lord, enjoy the presence and the majesty of your glory and your splendor.