What is it about hell that gets people all bent out of shape?

Lately Rob Bell (whose name rhymes with hell and is likely due to have a poorly written limerick about him) has stated over and over again that he believes in hell and yet his detractors continue to state otherwise and consign him there simply because of his recent book.

I find it an interesting phenomenon when a person can explicitly state something and others will simply pretend it was never said and go on whistling another tune as if life were somehow better blanketed in illusions.

Oxford defines hell as follows:

noun

(often Hell) a place regarded in various religions as a spiritual realm of evil and suffering, often traditionally depicted as a place of perpetual fire beneath the earth where the wicked are punished after death.

a situation, experience, or place of great suffering:I’ve been through hell; he made her life hell

exclamation

(also the hell)

used for emphasis or to express anger, contempt, or surprise:oh, hell — where will this all end? who the hell are you?

A broad definition but as a noun there are two attributes that stand out – pain and punishment. Hell is a place. Hell is pain. Hell is suffering. Hell is punishment.

The irony about the uproar over Rob Bell’s discussion of hell is that some people are willing to consign him there for their insistence that he does not believe in it. This of course leads to the thorny issue of does one need to believe in hell to be saved? To me that’s a little like telling your children that if they disobey they will be strapped and that even refusing to believe in the existence of the strap is disobedience that will get them strapped.

The word hell in the Bible is translated from the Greek word Gehenna which refers to the Valley of Hinnom outside of Jerusalem. This was the site where the faithless would sacrifice their children to pagan God’s like Moloch for instance. It symbolized great evil and distance from God. In Christ’s era the valley was used as a dump for Jerusalem where fires burned constantly to consume to refuse. Overall the place was where useless garbage was thrown. The unwanted and the undesirable things of the world would go there.

There are 13 references to hell in the Bible, all of them in the New Testament. In the Old Testament there are references to the Valley of Ben Hinnom but only as geographical and non-symbolic. When Satan is referenced in the Old Testament book of Job he is the Accuser and he is in Heaven.

The most enigmatic reference to hell comes in Matthew 10:28 where Jesus says:

“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

It is important to note the context of the verse. Jesus has surrounded this verse with verses focused specifically on his command for believers to NOT BE AFRAID. His theme and emphasis throughout these passages is on the fact that with God there is no fear. It is likely the One referred to hear is anyone demonic or otherwise who would tempt a person into unbelief and darkness. The soul is that which engages with and welcomes the spirit of God…with the soul destroyed by evil one loses connection with God and is useless and tossed to hell as trash is tossed to Gehenna.

Christ also asks the question of the Pharisees in Matthew 23:33:

“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?”

Which is to say “your actions have shown you to be garbage and useless, worthy of the trash heap…how will you escape this?” The answer of course is to turn toward God and avoid the condemnation of painful separation that awaits those who choose it.

It is important to not mix our metaphors when it comes to hell. We Christians do this all the time by blending hell, the lake of fire and hades into one place geographically located at the centre of the earth.

Gehenna, the Lake of Fire and Hades are all distinctly different allusions within the text of scripture. We know Hades is altogether different because in Revelation 20:14 it is thrown into the Lake of Fire and destroyed, there being no need for it anymore. In Revelation 20:15 all those whose names are not in the book of life are also thrown into the lake.

To better understand the context of who lands in the lake of fire we read Revelation 3:1-6 and find Christ speaking:

“To the angel of the church in Sardis write:

These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.

Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

There are some in Sardis who are living and walking according to Christ. One’s whose lives show who they follow. These ones, Christ says, will never end up in the fiery lake.

At any rate there are 13 references to hell and two to the lake of fire while there are 622 references to heaven and the heavens. With such a vast difference I often wonder at our desire to appeal to fear and hell as we witness Christ and not to heaven and God. It says something about ourselves when our emphasis is on darkness and death and hell and nothing about the person who may or may not mention it.

On a more random note about hell I think Dante got it wildly wrong in his Inferno. Of course the poem is highly allegorical and so one cannot blame him too much. I think his definition of the lowest (and therefore worst) circle of hell as being the location of betrayers clearly does not take into account the gospel portrayal of Peter.

Peter is the definition of betrayal. He betrayed Christ three times while he was on the road to the cross. He betrayed the one he very clearly identified as “the messiah, the son of the living God” and yet Christ forgave him.